Moyers: "Democracy in America ... all bets are off"

all bets were off the day the supreme court handed down the decision of 12 december 2000...

The following is an excerpt from Bill Moyers' new book, "Moyers on Democracy" (Doubleday, 2008).

Democracy in America is a series of narrow escapes, and we may be running out of luck. The reigning presumption about the American experience, as the historian Lawrence Goodwyn has written, is grounded in the idea of progress, the conviction that the present is "better" than the past and the future will bring even more improvement. For all of its shortcomings, we keep telling ourselves, "The system works."

Now all bets are off. We have fallen under the spell of money, faction, and fear, and the great American experience in creating a different future together has been subjugated to individual cunning in the pursuit of wealth and power -and to the claims of empire, with its ravenous demands and stuporous distractions. A sense of political impotence pervades the country -- a mass resignation defined by Goodwyn as "believing the dogma of 'democracy' on a superficial public level but not believing it privately." We hold elections, knowing they are unlikely to bring the corporate state under popular control. There is considerable vigor at local levels, but it has not been translated into new vistas of social possibility or the political will to address our most intractable challenges. Hope no longer seems the operative dynamic of America, and without hope we lose the talent and drive to cooperate in the shaping of our destiny.

i repeatedly said that i have very, very few personal heroes... bill moyers is one of them...

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Just "close enough to steal" - truer words were never spoken

They just have to make it close enough to steal

headline on clammyc's diary, currently on the rec list over at daily kos... a point well worth considering and definitely evocative of the shameful supreme court decision of 12 december 2000...

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“Why won’t you submit to the personal unpleasantness of another presidential campaign so you can lead the fight to save the planet?”

the post title is a question posed by robert parry yesterday on his news site, consortium news, a question rendered even more poignant by this...

Former vice president Al Gore and a United Nations panel that monitors climate change were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize today for their work educating the world about global warming and advocating for political action to control it.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee characterized Gore as "the single individual who has done most" to convince world governments and leaders that climate change is real, is caused by human activity and poses a grave threat. Gore has focused on the issue through books, promotional events and his Academy Award-winning documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

parry continues...

Gore would seem to have both a practical incentive – and a moral imperative – to enter the Democratic presidential campaign. At minimum, he could force the global-warming issue to the forefront of the debate.

Plus, if he were to win the nomination, he could make Election 2008 a referendum on whether the United States will confront real dangers to the nation’s future – from global warming to the Bush-era assault on reason – or continue to fret about exaggerated threats from al-Qaeda and to accept the erosion of constitutional liberties.

On a moral level, a Gore candidacy would be putting his body where his mouth is. Metaphorically at least, he would be throwing himself in front of the bulldozers. He would be taking the personal risks that he wants the young people to take. He would be providing real leadership, not just words.

Al Gore may have plenty of excuses for not running for President again. But he must recognize that he has some very compelling reasons to do so.

i am not al gore's biggest fan... but, that said, on the overall scale of relativity, i am closer to being an al gore fan than i am to being a fan of any other potential presidential candidate... and, i do agree with parry, i believe gore should either put up or shut up... besides, he's got some redemption to do, both for himself and for his fellow citizens, for not more forcefully challenging the criminality that deprived us of a principled man instead of an outlaw for a president...

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Top ten reasons to vote for [insert name here]

the candidate supporters are coming out of the woodwork, and i'm starting to hesitate to even visit sites like kos for fear of running across things like this...



i have absolutely no axe to grind with john edwards... in fact, i think he has taken some remarkably courageous positions, certainly more than i've seen coming from any other candidate... but, as i've repeatedly and politely told the edwards campaign staff along with every the staff of every other candidate who've called to solicit my contribution, when john edwards - or any other candidate, for that matter - decides to summon the huevos to speak out on the critical constitutional crisis that was visited on the united states beginning with the 12 december 2000 scotus decision and continuing right up through today, i will not be throwing my support - or my money - behind ANYONE...

i have screamed my fool head off on this issue for more than two years, and i will continue to do so until my voice gives out or i lapse into senile dementia... the inauguration of a new president on 20 january 2009 will NOT mean the crisis is over... i don't want the mechanisms of unfettered power in the hands of ANY president, not john edwards, not hillary clinton, not barack obama, and if we don't act now to fix that constitition-negating problem, our country will continue to solidify into what is already a burgeoning fascist state...

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'GENTLEMEN, I PROPOSE THAT WE BUY THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA'

as readers of this blog know, i rarely promote movies or books, other than to excerpt from them in support of points i am trying to make... the book, unholy alliance, by david yallop, published in 1999, is an exception... i doubt seriously if i would have ever stumbled across this book had not a friend in texas gently placed it in my hands and insisted i read it... i started it on tuesday and finished it this morning...

yallop isn't faulkner... yallop certainly isn't joyce... he might approach the intensity of dean koontz... however, yallop gives us something considerably more gripping than any of those authors... with no subterfuge or manipulative detail left out, yallop accurately predicts, from a vantage point of over eight years ago, much of what has taken place in front of our very eyes since the scotus decision of 12 december 2000 installed george w. bush in the white house, and initiated the rolling coup that has held the united states in a choke-hold for the past six and one-half years...

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BooMan: "Impeach or Armageddon"

booman has a fairly comprehensive run-down on the run-up to what increasingly looks like war on iran, unless, of course, we bestir ourselves to toss the bastards out...

Considering how far Iran is away from actually having a nuclear bomb and how close we are to having a new administration, we cannot allow this attack on Iran to go on in the next 16 months. We can't hope that Condi Rice will resign, or that her resignation will prevent an attack. We have to impeach, convict, and remove this administration. Don't say it can't be done. It has to be done. Or it's Armageddon.

booman also has what i believe to be a pretty accurate perspective on darth and his evil...

[T]he word has definitely gotten out that Dick Cheney is frothing at the mouth to make more evil. There's not a constant amount of evil in the world, you know. It's not a zero-sum game. Cheney makes evil where evil did not previously exist. And his brush-clearing sidekick is too eager to go along.

george, darth and the other evil minions simply have to go... it's incomprehensible to me that their occupation of the white house continues, nearly seven years after the illegal 12 december 2000 scotus decision...

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It can't be said often enough or strongly enough

stephen crockett writing at consortium news...

The United States has been in a prolonged Constitutional crisis since the Supreme Court showed it had been corrupted by partisan politics when the Bush vs. Gore ruling was issued in December 2000.

and furthermore...

Because Bush is willing to misuse his Presidential powers and the Supreme Court has been packed with radical, partisan Republican appointees, only impeachment hearings will reveal to the public the abuses of the Bush White House. Only impeachment will bring these powerful criminals to justice and preserve the Constitutional rule of law.

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Kill Fidel

quentin tarantino needs to step up to this one...

Cuba's communist leader Fidel Castro accused US President George W. Bush of ordering him killed even before moving into the White House, in an article published in the newspaper Granma Tuesday.

"The issue of the accusation related to his plan to kill me comes from before he used fraud to steal the victory from another candidate," the convalescing Castro, 80, said of Bush.

ya know what...? i don't doubt it for a minute...

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Too bad impeachment is so inconvenient, Al, you coulda been a contender

You don't understand! I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am.

Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in
On The Waterfront

i'm crossing off Al Gore... evidently, impeachment would be too "inconvenient..."

i'm not necessarily looking for somebody to step forward and lead an impeachment effort, but i am damn sure looking for somebody to step forward and be willing to label the current situation in the united states for what it is, the most serious constitutional crisis in the nation's history...

Former US vice president Al Gore, a staunch critic of George W Bush, has said he doesn't agree with calls for impeaching the president due to lack of "time" and "consensus."

Many democrats feel that Bush should be impeached for allegedly misleading the country deliberately in the lead up to the war in Iraq.

"With a year and a half to go in his term and with no consensus in the nation as a whole to support such a proposition, any realistic analysis of that as a policy option would lead one to question the allocation of time and resources," Gore said during an interview with PBS.

Pressed on whether he believed that impeachment is a good use of time, Gore replied, "I don't think it is. I don't think it would be successful."

i don't really care whether or not he supports actual impeachment... what i do care a great deal about is that someone who purports to be a serious leader on the national level, whether or not he ends up running for president, can stand before the citizens of this country and call a spade a spade... al obviously isn't going to do that... furthermore, in the same interview, when he was given a SECOND opportunity to label what has taken place since the 12 december 2000 scotus decision, he said this...

On being asked whether he threw the towel in too soon in the 2000 presidential elections, where he narrowly lost to Bush, Gore said he had taken the fight as far as he could, and the only other option left was a "violent revolution".

"I took it all the way to a final Supreme Court decision. And in our system, there is no intermediate step between a final Supreme Court decision and violent revolution. So, at that point, having taken it as far as one could, then the question becomes, are we going to be a nation of laws and not people?" Gore replied.

"Do I support the rule of law, even though I disagree with the Supreme Court's decision? I did disagree with it, and I think that those of us who disagreed with it will have the better of the argument in history," he added.

let me ask you, al... if you were standing in shit up to your eyeballs, would you call it shit or would you call it "inconvenient...?"

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Dear Bill Richardson,

bill richardson has a new tv ad and he's soliciting comments here...



Dear Bill,

The ad is terrific. I really like it, but you're going to have to do more than clever, cute ads to get my vote.

I lived in New Mexico when you were the Congressman for my district and I had the distinct impression at the time that you had a Big Plan for your Political Career, that you were always on the lookout for the Next Big Job that you could add to your resume, and that you wouldn't rest until you could have a shot at The Big Enchilada. That's not a bad thing, to be sure, but let me offer you some thoughts about what I would like from you.

We have a criminal cabal that is occupying the White House. They gained office on the strength of a silent coup d'etat authorized by the Supreme Court decision of 12 December 2000. They have been systematically trampling on the Constitution and the very foundation of the Republic ever since. I would like very much that whoever gets sworn into office on 20 January 2009 NOT do so with the signing statements, the Military Commissions Act, the Patriot Act, the wholesale violations of FISA and the 4th Amendment, the spurning of the Geneva Conventions by authorizing torture, the CIA black prison sites, extraordinary rendition, and the repudiation of anything resembling the balance of powers, still in place. These things have made the country that I thought I knew virtually unrecognizable.

How do you intend to speak out on these things in your campaign, Governor Richardson? If you would like to court my vote, you will have to do so and LOUDLY, VERY loudly. To date, I haven't heard more than a tiny peep.

Sincerely,

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It's taking a while, but a few more people are waking up

over at daily kos, maccabee has a burr under his saddle about the patriot act and the bush administration...

They want absolute power. This was a Junta, a Putsch, a coup. Call it what you will, but it is the creeping fascism that overtook Argentina, and poisoned Germany and Italy and Spain in the last century.

[...]

This administration has always been about the power to stop political opponents, not terrorists. It has always been about the power to force its extreme right wing morality on you, not terrorism.

[...]

The government wants the government to fail.

[...]

How long before we end up in a prison? Or can't get a boarding pass? Or not be allowed to vote? Or give a speech? Or post a highly charged diary?

this is good... the blood pressure level is appropriately high, the outrage intense, and the truth undeniable... one by one, folks are getting that we've been taken over, a quiet coup d'etat starting with the criminal scotus decision of 12 december 2000... the constitutional crisis has been gathering strength like some unholy tsunami since then, but we still are not banding together to protect ourselves and throw the bastards out... please, please, let more people start to wake up...

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The Christian right is not going to sink into oblivion (and neither is the Constitutional crisis)

max blumenthal points out the obvious...

Goodling may be out of a job, but thousands of capable Christian right cadres remain, waging the culture war from inside the White House, federal agencies and Republican congressional offices. Together they will continue to inflame conflicts that were previously unimaginable.

Anyone insisting in spite of continuously mounting evidence that the Christian right is going to simply shrink into oblivion because the Democrats control Congress, or because evangelical leaders are prone to scandal, should learn from Goodling's example and take the fifth.

let me hasten to add... anyone who thinks for one bloody second that the constitutional crisis that has been gripping the u.s. since the scotus decision of 12 december 2000 validated the quiet bushco coup d'etat is going to quietly disappear because the dems control congress or even when and if the dems win the presidency in 2008, has got another think coming...

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Kagro X yesterday

Will oversight and exposure of the Nixon/Bush doctrine be enough? Will Americans finally and miraculously simply awaken to the realities of constitutional transformation? Did the Clinton impeachment really make us so afraid of the process itself that it should be considered unavailable to us in combating the constitutional-level game undertaken by Republicans? Is this really something we can actually debate our way out of? Can we really afford to head into 2008 under the banner of "bipartisan cooperation?"

my thoughts...

personally, i don't give a rat's ass about what it takes to "make impeachment seems like a palatable solution," and, furthermore, i don't even care if impeachment is the vehicle... the constitutional crisis that has been intensifying since the scotus decision of 12 december 2000 is altering the very foundations of the united states and transforming my country into something unrecognizable... "bipartisanship" when dealing with criminals intent on turning the u.s. into a one-party, authoritarian state, with an all-powerful chief executive/commander-in-chief committed to a state of permanent war is simply not acceptable, and waiting until 20 january 2009 is simply too long...

i am convinced that one reason bush is so intent on keeping gonzales around is that gonzo serves as something of a firewall, shielding bush from exposure to the most egregious offenses - e.g. "constitutional hardball" - pushed in large part by the justice department... with gonzo gone, bush will be massively exposed to the very real possibility that the floodgates will open... with that in mind, i think the longer alberto stays on, the more likely that the pressure behind the dam will continue to build, and, when it finally gives way, katy bar the door...

my hope, call it my fantasy, is that there will be revelations so dramatic, so incriminating, so absolutely undeniable, that a bush/cheney resignation will be a given, or, if not, impeachment will be accomplished in short order... god, i hope so... we can't afford another DAY of this administration, much less waiting until january 2009...

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