Elections Only Matter Superficially

We vote once every 4 years then lose all credible power.  We, the people, then get the shaft.  

The selection process is a sham and rigged.  There is very little publicly open debate.  The so-called "news" is filtered propaganda.  The candidates spew filtered, modified, orchestrated messages designed to illicit a feeling.  "Change"... "Experience"... without any of the details.

You're right, we allow this to go on.  We allow a process that provides no information, no "content", no policies with details and comparisons of those policies.  No summaries of the information that compare the policy issues to the candidates with a way of tracking their performance and holding them accountable.

Then, when the selection process is over, and we have a "winner", the new President can use these buzz words to justify their broad positions on the issues.

In fact, the jargon is so broad that even if the legislation moves in a direction that harms the people - it's still "change".  It's still - "experience" only it's bad change for people.  Bad experience for people.  

This country is run by money and that is the change that needs to happen.  

We are a land of fools.  We have let the selected ones run the country with no oversight from the people.  We have let the so-called representatives get away the anything they want and still re-elect them. 

We have prioritized work, at the expense of family.  We have prioritized material gains, at the expense of quality of life.  We have prioritized "more" at the expense of our fellow members jobs by importing cheap goods and destroying our domestic industries.

If an important issue is to Impeach the President, or prosecute him criminally, then why would elect anyone that cannot utter those words?  

If an important issue is National Health Care - Non-profit - an equitable system where all pay in according to their means and all receive according to their needs - then why will we settle for a developing countries quality of care and the most expensive health care in the world and a virtual guarantee that the Health Insurance and Big Pharma Monsters will emerge with even more power?

Because, regardless of who is selected and "voted" into office, the people lose.

The information is being kept from the masses - and the systems in place virtually guarantee that will continue.

There is the ownership class, that owns everything including our government and our military.  And then, there are the people, un-armed and confused.

Donkeys and Elephants do fly - they tell an amazingly tall tail - and they continually get away with it - because the system as designed leaves all of powerless.

Unless, we take it back, but for now we're content to wait for "change" a meaningless, undefined, campaign slogan.  Yes, we can?  But what we can do is also undefined.  Clever, meaningless, marketing... 

by August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 508 comments) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 1:30:48 PM
 

Is World Can't Wait doing any Impeach Protesting, Anywhere?

If elections matter,

then how come Sen. Barack Obama, elected to serve the people and the Constitution, doesn't understand what "high crimes and misdemeanors" are, and won't do anything NOW

BECAUSE

Impeachment is started in the US House, it will be too late after Obama is sworn in.

If World Can't Wait

would start doing weekly Impeachment Protests

all over the Country and make the holding of

impeachment hearings prior to the election

it's priority

we would get hearings sooner.

United For Peace & Justice could be a great help as well.

UFPJ managed to field 1,400 anti-war protests on the anniversary of the Iraq War but doesn't do a thing for impeachment.

Waiting until the Democratic National Convention will be too late. As usual the Democrats will ignore whatever protesters will do.

The topic of impeachment will get lost in the multitude of topics on signs.

But if all the signs... were "IMPEACH Now!" signs..

the Media couldn't avoid the topic.

We now have a General accusing the White House of War Crimes and a report by the Senate accusing the White House of lying about WMD.

What more do Congressmen need to call for impeachment hearings?

Let us all realize that holding Impeachment Hearings before the election would threaten the status quo in Washington and put every Democratic Congressman on record and on notice that their future failure to stop unnecessary wars and to oppose rogue Presidents will end their careers.

Waiting until the DNC won't.

John H Kennedy, 43 yr Democratic voter, Obama delegate

Impeach Colorado Coalition http://ImpeachCO.com

..

by John H Kennedy (9 articles, 4 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 130 comments) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 3:17:09 PM
 

impeachment and exposure

John: Nice to hear from you! My point about Obama was that he has been and continues to be opposed to impeachment.

We don't even NEED impeachment hearings. Given what this regime has done, including Bush's admission in recent weeks that he has approved of torture, and his past admissions that he's been violating FISA, Obama and others should be calling for immediate resignation and prosecution.

It's true that impeachment proceedings have to start in the House, but the overall political atmosphere is really the issue here. Your idea of promoting impeachment, of course, especially as a form in which grassroots folks and others are putting this out there publicly, is a fine idea. 

World Can't Wait's strategy you can find at the worldcantwait.org website. It's based on looking at the key issues and key faultlines in the present political configuration and where breakthroughs are most likely to occur. 

The reason that Obama et al can get away with claiming, against all reason and morality, that impeachment (or resignations) are not warranted, is because there is not yet a mass movement of sufficient size and power to force the mass media and the public officials to hold the White House war criminals to account. Collusion and complicity are the words that come to mind here. 

The general political atmosphere is key. Obama, as a person in the public eye, as a US Senator, as the presumptive Democratic nominee, and as a citizen, has a moral and legal obligation to call for an immediate end to torture, war crimes, and plans for the commission of more war crimes. It isn't good enough for him to say that he will end some of these practices if and when he becomes president. Why isn't he calling for these horrid practices to end NOW? Why has he signed onto the Bush regime's completely fraudulent case for war on Iran?  

If you saw a sadistic murderer killing several people in plain sight in the streets and you were standing next to a cop who was also watching this cold-blooded murderer doing his dirty deeds, but the cop wasn't doing anything about it, what would you think? What if that murderer, with fresh blood dripping from his hands, looked at both of you in defiance and said: "What are you goin' to do about it, huh?"

If the cop not only didn't do anything, but turned to you and said, "If you help me become police chief, I will see that these horrors will not happen anymore."

What would you say to this cop? What would you think? If he further went on to tell you, "The actions of that person there [murdering the people] doesn't rise to the grave, grave degree required for me to pull out my gun, stop him and arrest him. But if you help me become police chief, I promise to make sure that killers like this on the loose won't plague the people anymore."

Wouldn't you, after hearing all of this, yell at the cop something like: "Are you crazy? Why would I help you become police chief when you can't even do your job as a beat cop? Why aren't you doing something about that murderer RIGHT NOW?!" 

by Dr. Dennis Loo (29 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 54 comments) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 11:20:53 PM
 

The People don't want Impeachment

Let me clarify, the people do not want Impeachment bad enough.  They want it but by into all the rhetoric for why it is too inconvenient not to delve into the issue.

Are Democrats also culpable?  You bet.  They should either come forward and admit what they have done and ask for forgiveness as they vote to move the impeachment process along, or they should be disgraced into resigning like the rest of them.

Impeachment, is far too kind for the Democrats responsible for destroying our country.  I'm sick of them saying they can't do anything.

Take the Tel Com bill that the House just passed.  It still grants back door immunity to the tel-com industry.

Corporations WIN AGAIN - and the people they spied get NOTHING.

THANK YOU DEMOCRATS!  Please do us all a favor, and stop helping.  The bill they propose, their touted bi-partisan compromise - leaves the people once again gutted and defenseless.

This is a government of by and for the Corporations - they write the laws - they research the loop holes - then our Congress People use their PR firms to spin the propaganda.

Ain't democracy grand.... it's just another name for Corporate Domination. 

by August Adams (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 508 comments) on Thursday, June 19, 2008 at 5:40:28 PM
 

If elephants and donkeys could fly,

I would suggest that it is time for them to migrate, fly south, something, anything. Just get them out of our government before they complete their destruction of America.

Impeachment is of vital importance, needed to restore our integrity and the rule of law, to re-emphasize the power of the Constitution, the protections of the Bill of Rights and to re-establish equality in the branches of our federal government.

There will be no healing, no restoration, no salvaging our country with out impeachment. The divisions now being created by a complicit Democratic party  will endure unabated, without impeachment. There will be no belief in the goodness, the commonweal, of government, without it.

People must believe in the nature and power of their governing bodies. Else why stand under them? Why operate within their purview? Why accept the laws and dictates emanating from a national legislative body, if we do not believe in that government?

The Democrats, in their drive to avoid divisiveness and win an election, are intensifying, deepening, the divide now in place as a result of their practices of caving in, rolling over, keeping their powder dry. Why should we believe in their solutions when their solutions have been greatly responsible for the mess we find ourselves in now? They will not stand up for us, so why in hells' name should we stand up for them?

We must have government we can believe in, live under, accept for ourselves and our future generations. So, if we are to remain a viable country, it is time for impeachment and time for elephants and donkeys to fly--away, far, far away. 

by Jack Harrington (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 517 comments) on Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 1:25:03 PM