There is a midterm election coming up in six months, where it's
conceivable that the flailing Republican majority will lose out to
Democrats that presumably are less tainted by war failures, greed and
corruption. But as the elections of 2000, 2002 and 2004 demonstrate fairly
conclusively, as shown by investigatory reporting and statistical
evidence, there was deliberate tampering with a fair and honest election
and likely manipulation of the vote numbers.
The party these voting irregularities favored has effective control of the
electoral voting system, computer e-voting machines and the
ballot-tabulation process, and it's been demonstrated time and time again
that the vote-tabulation computers themselves are easily hackable and
manipulatable, leaving no evidence of being tampered with. In short, the
entire electoral system cannot be trusted to yield accurate results;
relying on "good faith" of the corporations in charge of the electoral
system merely exacerbates the feeling in the citizenry that their votes
are not honestly registered and counted, so why bother?
There are protest movements, and lawsuits, in many states demanding
verified voting receipts and a return to hand-counted paper ballots, but
whether the corrupted and corruptible voting systems can be replaced in
time for the November 2006 election is up in the air. We must all work
like crazy to get those guarantees and reforms in place as soon as we can,
ideally for November's balloting but at least long before the 2008
presidential election.
6. American morality: Plants rot from the top down.When you get right down to it, it's amazing that more young people aren't
more cynical about the state of the world. Those who in previous times
might have been their role models are absent without leave; it seems as if
this is a dog-eats-dog world, one tainted by greed and power-hunger in
virtually every once-respected institution: religion, politics, sports,
communications, industry, etc.
From Bush on down to municipal government agencies, there has been a
conspicuous lack of accountability, honesty and interest in the public's
needs and desires. When something goes wrong, someone in charge invariably
comes out with the non-denial denial, accepting that "mistakes may have
been made" -- a twice-removed attempt to avoid responsibility for what
went wrong -- and a feeble vow never to do that (or at least not to get
caught doing it) again.
The President and Vice President and Secretary of Defense are involved in
telling obvious lies and engaging in obvious illegalities -- but too many
other adults don't seem particularly exercised about that. Hundreds of
thousands of U.S troops and uninvolved Iraqi civilians get killed or
maimed, but nobody is too worked up about all that carnage. Clerics
involve themselves in shady economic deals or squalid sex scandals, sports
stars buy a little extra zip via a needle, congressmen are bribed with
chump change from greedy businessmen, corporate honchos cut ethical
corners to conceal the actual bottom line, reporters plagiarize and fudge
the truth, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
The tree rots at the top, with a lying president and his corrupt
supporters draining the treasury for hyper-inflated government contracts.
No wonder those down below are cynical and tired and frustrated and angry.
7. Impeachment: what's needed in this Administration is a high-colonic,
thorough cleansing.
It's quite apparent that those hunkering down there in the Bush Bunker
will keep on their current course until some force stops them from
continuing their deadly reign of error. They will not change course unless
forced to, and they will not resign. There are only two ways to pry their
fingers off the reins of power: take away the House of Representatives (or
the Senate) from them in the November elections, thus putting up a major
roadblock to the fulfillment of their agenda, or initiate impeachment
proceedings against Bush and Cheney at the earliest possible opportunity.
If the House is retaken by the Democrats in November (assuming an honest
vote), for the first time in nearly six years true investigations can
begin that finally might begin to unravel the various crimes and coverups
that have brought us to our current precarious state: 9/11 pre-knowledge,
the lies and deceptions that took the U.S. into the Iraq War (and that now
threaten to involve America in a war of choice against Iran), the extent
of corruption and sleaze emanating from the White House and its Republican
allies in the Congress and lobbying community, a political climate that
encouraged White House officials to reveal the name of a key CIA officer
as a way of punishing her husband for pointing out the Iraq War lies, the
dereliction of duty at the top in the Hurricane Katrina scandal, the grab
for dictatorial power by a deliberate misreading of the Constitution, the
violation of privacy of all Americans with the illegal monitoring of their
emails and phone calls, the twisted philosophy that has turned America
into a country openly in support of torture, and on and on.
Impeachment hearings conceivably might be the next step following the
revelations of the various Congressional investigations of the Bush
Administration.
Rove and his minions in Congress (who were responsible for impeaching
President Clinton about a private matter) are trying to make the
possibility of impeachment hearings against Bush and Cheney seem beyond
the respectable pale. But recent polls indicate that at least half of
those surveyed think impeachment hearings might well be justified if, as
seems to be the case, Bush and Cheney based many of their policies on lies
-- and, in so doing, violated their oaths and the Constitution that they
had sworn to "defend and protect."
In short, the possibility of impeachment hearings should not be taken off
the table. Impeachment is a drastic step, but one certainly called for in
this instance, when a small group of extremist politicians, willing to do
whatever it takes to remain in power, have so distorted the American
governmental process.
What's Important is the willingness of the American citizenry to try to
correct a government from its wayward, reckless move into extremism and
misrule. Working together -- liberals, progressives, moderate and
traditional Republicans, Greens, Libertarians, et al. -- can reclaim our
country. But only if we put our differences aside for the duration of this
campaign. Let's get to work.
Copyright 2006, by Bernard Weiner
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