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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Impunity is the inherent right of the political class, no matter their crimes.
Security, militarism and post-Constitutional "justice" for the rest of us.
Watching the Democratic Faithful do somersaults to justify this deeply entrenched tradition is sickening.
But at least we know what Obama's priority is: Doing whatever it takes, or doing nothing at all, to assure Republicans (including no small number of his Wall Street pals) do not view his actions as partisan. Hardly a surprise. Democrats have been in this mode since before Iran-Contra. The consequences grow worse every day it continues.
"Truth and Reconciliation" is a fig leaf for mitigating their own complicity in triggering and exacerbating the nightmare that has become our omnipresent, unaccountable, lawless, war-junkie government. Obama and the Democratic establishment he epitomizes know nothing of truth and justice except that they represent threats to the sorry status quo.
Oh well.
As long as their bread gets buttered. And it will.
Everyone else can starve to death on a steady diet of hope and pragmatism.
Democrats only persecute or prosecute other Democrats. It's about ideology not atrocity. Just ask Glenn Greenwald. Better a million people die than his holy liberal creed is besmirched by those of questionable fervor.
First documents would have to be compiled, witnesses procured, and then perhaps in the latter part of his first term as president it would be a possiblity. A second term would mean procecution would be probably almost certain.
One thing barrack would NEVER do is to prosecute Bush, Rove, Cheney or even Rumsfeld.
That goes against his innermost thought.
Obama is a Republican in disguise. Watch the signs:
1. Obama never attacks McCain. Recall his attacks against Hillary and now recall his attacks against McCain. 10:1
2. Obama supported telecom immunity even when a majority of people wanted telecoms to be prosecuted. He ignored the majority when he claims to represent them. Isn't that ironic?
3. Obama never supported impeachment. He always says a president can be impeached for high crimes, but refuses to rally congressmen to impeach Bush even though 67% of voters want it.
4. Obama refuses to support any investigation into war crimes in Iraq.
5. Obama has ruled out withdrawing troops from Iraq immediately even though that's what he promised when he took dollars from you.
6. Obama has refused to commit himself to capturing Bin laden, stating he will look into it. AFter all if Laden is captured then the war-on-terror loses its steam.
7. Obama has refused to investigate corporates like Halliburton for war profiteering.
8. Even in this article, he keeps saying "Things will be investigated and if violations of law did occur he will consider prosecuting." This is pretty vague when proofs have been produced many times. Much like how Reagan's advisors stated: "We neither confirm nor deny."
9. Obama's refusal to bring criminal charges against Countrywide for defrauding millions.
Obama is a charlatan who has tapped into citizens' innermost fears and wishes, promised to bring them to fruition, and milked them dry for campaining.
Now that the common man is tapped out, he has started borrowing from corporates which means he will bow down to their wishes rather than your wishes.
After all you donated $10. Corporations plunked down $100,000. Who will he listen to?
For republican party this is a delicious irony: Two republicans fighting for the throne.
Whoever wins this would not matter: The Republican party will continue, shovelling millions into corporate and richmen's coffers while you will continue to bleed to death.
Wake up and smell the reality guys: Obama does NOT represent the common man. Defeat him this November.
Impeachment was more than warranted. That didn’t happen. I could support a commission with sufficient power to get at the truth that would hold accountable any complicity and crimes by all parties. The commission must leave open the possibility of prosecution and conviction. The idea that granting immunity will bring out the truth is nonsense. Liars and criminals don’t speak the truth because of immunity. They will sing if they know they can mitigate their sentence. They have to know that they are in serious trouble.
My biggest problem is claiming too much house cleaning in the first four years would be divisive. While the commission is working, they don’t have to start by revealing their discussions and investigations. There is so much to investigate that Obama would have considerable time to get things done before it is time to hold public hearings. It is ludicrous to say we will take four years and get into a second term, if there is one, before we get serious. That’s political pabulum for we aren’t serious and we are just putting on a show.
If Obama wants to show the American people that he is an agent of change for the people, then he has to show it by standing up for the constitution and rule of law. How will members of his administration believe that he walks the talk, if he puts on a Kabuki drama on such fundamental principles?
After Sen Obama's reversal in voting for the new FISA, I expect no expenditure of any political capital by him, if president, on principles. He is a politician of the same cloth as Bill Clinton, a charmer of little substance, and a dedication only to powerful corporate interests; witness his recent equivocations on offshore drilling. Last but not least are his tergivisations on our invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, where we have invaded and occupied and attempted to install governments, all in violation of international law. No one can say when he would withdraw from Iraq, nor how long he contemplates military operations in Afghanistan. He will not rescind any of the usurpations of power by the Bush administration. He is a product and a tool of an imperial alliance between major US corporations and a subservient government that now has only democratic pretensions.
As a naturalized citizen and a refugee from the Siege at Stalingrad, I have a deeply personal feeling about this topic. One can only imagine the feelings and thoughts that filled the inmates’ minds in the death camps (Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, etc.) when their eyes first saw a liberating American G.I. coming toward them, arms extended, a sympathetic look on their face, and reassuring words, “ Its all right now, you’re safe now, we’re here to take you home…….we’re Americans.”
At the end of the War my father took advantage of the temporarily porous “Iron Curtain”, left Russia and settled in Austria. There, he immediately placed our names on a deportation list for emigration to America…..two World Wars were enough for him. Being granted refugee status meant we would be allowed to leave, but it also meant we wouldn’t be able to take anything with us..nothing, zero. If the requirement was that we had to go naked, on our hands and knees; we were going to America.
How vividly I remember, during the years waiting for our number to come up, our teacher saying to us, “children, we have a surprise for you. We’ll be going outside, up on the hill, into the big open meadow, where some friends of our want to say “ hello.” Our hearts a-flutter with anticipation, we marched out into the meadow and didn’t have to wait long for our surprise. First the sound of bombers (everyone there knew that sound all too well,) then the sight of a formation of planes coming toward us at a very low altitude, bombay doors open. We squinted nervously, trying to catch a glimpse of the insignias on the wings. Just about the time we were able to see the beautiful sight of American flag decals on the wings and body of the planes, hundreds of tiny parachutes, each carrying a payload of Hershey bars, were dispatched and came floating down above us. My love affair with America, at that moment, became irreversible.
From the thousands of anecdotal and subliminal pieces of information we had gotten about America, we knew our prayers would be answered there. Heaven would have to wait in line.
What I’m trying to say by this personal snippet is………America is different. The country that Washington, Jefferson, Adams, etc. gave us is different than any that came before, or since. The axioms laid down by our founders; equality for all, nation of laws, not men, one man one vote may be throw-a-way thoughts to many of us today, but not to me. We’ve seen the sickening degradation of our country when these ideals were jettisoned and prostituded during the past few decades of Republican control.
At Nuremberg, the charge was “crimes against humanity.” If a new Democratic Administration doesn’t bring to justice those who committed “crimes against the constitution,” then we will have voluntarily ended the Great Democratic Experiment………………….and a Hershey bar will never taste the same.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
