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Our Democratic leaders have done a number of strange things:
1. Wholeheartedly, enthusiastically, with both hands open, supported electronic voting, run on TRADE SECRET, PROPRIETARY programming code, owned and controlled by private corporations with very close ties to the Bush Junta and to far rightwing causes (Diebold/ES&S), and spread like a cancer across the country, during the 2002-2004 period, with $3.9 billion in boondoggle funding from the Anthrax Congress, engineered by major crooks Tom Delay and Bob Ney (abetted by crooks who haven't been caught yet, such as Bilderberg Democrat Christopher Dodd). Funny how the "Help America Vote For War Act" of 2002 coincides in time with...
2. Half of them voted to give George Bush discretion to wage war against Iraq, and have time and again voted to fund billions and billions and billions of dollars in no-bid, cost-plus, unaccountable contracts to Halliburton and other Bush-Cheney buds.
3. Failed to raise a hair of suspicion about the 2004 election, despite a COMPLETELY NON-TRANSPARENT VOTING SYSTEM, fast-tracked into place with filthy money and lavish lobbying, and evidence that Kerry won so big, he outran the machine programming, and the Bushites had to resort to blatant, visible violations of the Voting Rights Act, including massive suppression of poor, black and other Democratic votes in Ohio, in order to keep Bush-Cheney in office, and keep the military contract hogpen on track.
There are winds of change in the Democratic Party, for sure. But they are not yet the hurricane needed to blow all the war profiteers, war criminals, liars, thieves of democracy, global corporate predators and Saudi Arabians out of Washington DC. 25% of Congress, to this point--half the Democratic representatives--has been trying to represent the majority of the American people, 56% of whom opposed the Iraq War from the beginning (Feb. '03) and 70% of whom oppose it now. They have borne a heavy burden, and they are none too clean themselves, most of them. They've been voting for bloated military budgets for decades (standing temptation to fascists), and have winked and nodded at the imperial presidency since Reagan. I remember them winking and nodding at Reagan's war on Nicaragua, after they expressly forbade him to conduct that war. I also remember them supporting the Reagan-era tax code rewrite (end of the progressive tax, to favor the rich). But some of them have a conscience, and try to be good public servants--as I said, about 25%; bump that the 30-35% in the recent Diebold/ES&S-run midterms. The good guys (relatively speaking) now have committee chairs (not planned by Diebold/ES&S, I think--the people outran the machines, to some extent), and about 30-35% of the seats in the House, and less in the Senate (with Lieberman as a pivotal vote for war and against impeachment). We still do not have a representative Congress. We have a greatly hampered Congress--with most the of Iraq vet candidates (and Colleen Rowley) mysteriously missing. And we have a recent history of the most irresponsible, toadying, corrupt, illegitimate, and disgusting "pod people" Congress in American history--a Congress with a 15% approval rating! --lower than Dick Cheney's! That's a deep hole to climb out of.
And there are some other important factors--for instance, Bush-Cheney pervasive domestic spying. Who have they been spying on? You can be sure it's Democrats and any others who would oppose them. They have dirt; they blackmail. They are dangerous rats--their bite is deadly. And frankly I think they sent the Anthrax packets to the Democrats in the Anthrax Congress, and killed Paul Wellstone as an example to them all. Gangsters. Mafia writ large. Maybe Pelosi has made a deal with them. I don't know. SOMETHING's going on. Maybe some good guys in the military and intel community are watching over our government. (I don't doubt it, actually--but they, too, have a "military-industrial complex" agenda, and are not exactly democrats with a small d.) What I suspect is that Bush-Cheney CANNOT be impeached. That is, Congress no longer has that power. If exercised, they will defy it. (Cheney has said he will not answer subpoenas; Bush has written hundreds of "signing statements" saying that he is not bound by Congress.) So, what do you DO in that situation? You try to CONTAIN it. You make a deal on whatever you CAN make a deal on (minimum wage, bringing the military budget out of the dungeon and back into the light), and work toward gradual re-empowerment of Congress as an equal branch of government.
I'm not apologizing for Pelosi and Conyers--who have now stated, in black and white, that they will not fulfill their oaths of office, and have set aside their only tool for curtailing out an-of-control president (impeachment). But we have never HAD a president that is THIS out-of-control. All I'm saying is that I sympathize with them. And the one thing I'm sure of is that there is a massive amount of HAIR-RAISING nightmare reality beneath the surface, in Washington DC, that never makes it into the war profiteering corporate news monopoly press, and that we, the people, don't know and can only guess at.
Nor am I saying be patient with them. Don't be! I think we should petition them mercilessly with our views. Just don't be surprised when we don't get much in return. And try to have some understanding for the few good guys who are trying to represent the many (all of us). By this, I mean, understanding of OUR position. Don't give in to demoralization and disempowerment. Bolster the good guys up all we can, and work steadily and with great hearts toward restoration of the democracy that Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine tried to give us.
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