RANT: Eighteen months until elections. Eighteen weeks until we nuke Iran?

[arendt]

Eighteen months until elections. Eighteen weeks until we nuke Iran

Most political observers miss the scale of the problem facing American democracy today. They think its simply a lack of political willpower on the part of the Democratic majority in Congress to hold the Executive accountable for a long string of usurpations, illegalities, and crimes.

But, those very usurpations, illegalities, and crimes have destroyed almost all of the ability of Congress to restrain the Executive. Today's headline is that, indeed, Executive agencies are obeying Bush's illegal signing statements and flat-out ignoring the laws passed by Congress. Last month's headline was that Bush had completely politicized the DOJ and the US attorneys, the enforcement arm of any law that Congress might pass. Last year's headline was that the Dem Congress caved on appointing theocrat judges Alito and Roberts to the Supreme Court, removing any semblance of impartiality from the body that might interpret the law. (Five arch-conservative, pro-corporate, Catholic fanatics laying down the GOP party line.)

So, Congress may have the theoretical power to pass laws; but the Executive will ignore them, the DOJ will refuse to enforce them, and the SCOTUS will eviscerate them. Bottom line: it is not that the Dems are paralyzed; its that they have had their arms and legs chopped off.

Beyond Congress being powerless, the Executive has grabbed more coercive power than ever before: they have the right to suspend habeus corpus indefinitely; to spy on citizens (and opposition politicians) for no cause without warrants; to declare martial law on a whim (NSD51); to send anyone they choose to Haliburton-built concentration camps inside the U.S; to torture anyone they please.

----

Oh, but you say I am an alarmist. If things are so dire, why doesn't Bush just declare himself dictator?

Well, maybe he is waiting until the chaos that will ensue from nuking Iran before he pushes the martial law button. Do you think he has merely been amusing himself by kicking sane top brass out of the military to make room for fundie whackjobs? He needs those whackjobs in place to follow his insane commands. He needs those whackjobs to use the three carrier groups and the nuclear bunker busters he has sent to the Persian Gulf.

The Iraq "surge" is simultaneously a holding action, a provocation against Iran, and a distraction from the buildup against Iran. The new appointments are a final purge of resistance within the military leadership. But if Bush moves too soon at home, the military may rebel. However, if he puts the Borg helmet on the military and embroils it in Iran, he can declare martial law and wrap up all his enemies, civilian and uniformed, in the same sweep.

He just says: we are in a nuclear war; I am the commander in chief; I declare martial law. If you disagree with me, you go to jail. Anyone powerful enough not to simply "be disappeared" will get nowhere with a compliant SCOTUS and DOJ. Game over.

Given the current "business as usual", "patient", spineless Democratic approach to imminent dictatorship, Bush can take his good sweet time to implement the scenario above. He has almost a year and a half. He sits inside a bubble and cannot be touched for the reasons cited above. He must laugh himself silly watching the scripted farce of the Democratic candidates doing a poor imitation of Groundhog Day a year and a half before the election.

----

Have I scared you? I sure hope so.

Now, there is ONE, and only one solution to this situation. IMPEACH THE MAN RIGHT NOW. Impeachment is an act of Congress alone. It requires no DOJ, no SCOTUS. The Congress is judge and jury. The Congress can demand evidence. If evidence is withheld, that will be taken into consideration by the court of the Senate. The Congress has its own policemen. It can send them to compel the testimony of witnesses.

The Dems have a majority in the House. That is all it takes to impeach. They have multiple credible charges: US Attorney firings, shredding of Presidential emails, signing statements, lying us into the Iraq War, breaking the military, outing Valerie Plame...and on and on. If Clinton could be impeached for a blow job, my God, we must impeach this dark blot on our nation, and Cheney and Gonzo, too.

A majority of the nation now favors impeachment. Bush's numbers keep sinking - the immigration debacle has even got the paleocons mad at him. Give people a target, an opportunity, and they will be in the streets. It will look like South America - banging on pots and pans, hanging him in effigy.

Once you get it into the Senate, you put the evidence out there. Then you make sure that the paleocons pressure the 17 most insecure GOP senators. You also tell slippery characters like Olympia Snowe that you can't pretend to be a moderate Republican and vote not to impeach. You can turn it into a media circus. You can blog it. You can go around the corporate media if you take the ultimate risk.

Yeah. This is desperate. But its the only shot we have got.

----

Having said all that, I am sure that I will be pilloried as "a Nader lover", "a Hillary basher", "a loonie leftie". Fine. I have listened to enough pointless, repetitive posts about "Poll X says my candidate is up 2% in State Y". That is all rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, folks.

We need to have a substantive debate about how to save America from Bush. We can no longer afford the luxury of the toxic, horse-race framed, "nuanced" talking points, "only rich guys can play" campaign farce that passes for media coverage of politics (and amounts to a significant fraction of what gets posted on DU).

I refuse to buy into the "Democratic leadership" telling me "impeachment is off the table". It is eighteen months until the election. When does someone other than the leadership get to make their arguments, if not just after the previous election? I started ranting against this "permanent campaign", this "money primary" the minute it was foisted upon us by the corporate media.

Telling me that I can't criticize and must obey the Democratic leadership, even as they make a disastrous mistake in leaving Bush in power, is the equivalent of Bush, the GOP leader, telling the country they couldn't criticize Bush's lying drumbeat to War in Iraq. Don't like the analogy? Too bad. This is still a democracy - just barely.

Wake up, people. Elections in 18 months are no help when Bush starts a nuclear war in 18 weeks.

Impeach now.

[Rick Myers]

1. Excellent rant, my friend

K and R

:kick:

[Mike Niendorff]

2. Taking your position on its own terms:

A failed impeachment is also a dangerous thing.


MDN

[arendt]

3. Like we have a choice? I believe it is the only un-sabotaged weapon left to us. n/t

[Mike Niendorff]

6. I'm not convinced we're that powerless

But, worst case: if Dems truly only have one shot left, then it's important for them to aim carefully.


MDN

[arendt]

8. We have a lot of shots (indictments). Only one has to hit to impeach.

The more charges they make, the more evidence they put in front of the people.

Of course, the media will do their best to cut away at critical moments and to
generally pour shit on the Dems.

So, we need to have a rapid reaction blogging crew ready to tell the media to do
their job or shut up.

----

But, tell me, if we are not powerless to stop Bush from nuking Iran, how are we
going to order him not to and make it stick?

arendt

[greendog]

4. k & r

[DemBones DemBones]

5. I wish more people were reading this instead of

trying to figure out what a Bloomberg run would mean, or doing polls.

The election is indeed 18 months away -- a year and a half! -- but the neocons are seriously pushing for Bush to bomb Iran NOW.
Cheney wants to bomb Iran.

The Democrats need to stand up NOW.

[arendt]

7. Yeah, I just got why no one is responding - there are ten Bloomberg threads n/t

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Why DU is so obsessed with Bloomberg tonight is what I'm wondering.

This thread of yours and KoKo1's thread about using Writs of Mandamus are so important.

I understand that people, myself included, like to goof around as well as be serious, but Iran is something we need to be thinking about and taking very seriously, particularly in GD-P.

Maybe people are ignoring the threatened attack on Iran because it's too scary. Neocons want to nuke Iran, after all. Nuke it.

But scary things don't go away when you ignore them.

[Senator]

9. 18 Hours? Or Minutes? Until the Next Act of Torture...

...in the name of the American People -- without their consent.

Only Impeachment ... confronts war criminals.

It IS our positive agenda.

It is our ONLY moral, patriotic option.

-----

[DemBones DemBones]

12. I'm afraid an attack on Iran could come sooner than 18 weeks, too.

18 days, 18 hours, who knows?

It all needs to stop.

[dionysus]

11. this is an example of how old-school DU was kids...

read it and kick it to the top.

[DemBones DemBones]

17. Yes, it is. New DU has no time for long posts, I guess, no matter how vital

the issue is.

[chknltl]

13. Here is an 9th recommendation my friend

Thank you for this most excellent viewpoint. I fear that instead of an incident in Iran we will see another one here first as a precursor. (It worked so well the last time.) This next incident will be blamed on Iran or Syria or Hamas or whoever we feel we need to invade next, (regardless of who sets it off). That will trigger a need for the draft and the martial law you refer to arendt. Well that is my version of their schemes. I agree: IMPEACHMENT is our last best hope. I chose my name in hopes that I am wrong.

Flamers and anti impeachers: Don't kill the messenger, instead explain your views to the embattled citizens of the Middle East, the very ones who feel that YOU are condoning bush's actions by NOT impeaching his ass. I am surprised we have not witnessed an attack already! The smoking gun may yet be that mushroom cloud over one of our cities! bushco has stirred up that hornets nest known as the Middle East and you allow him to continue as though we here are all safe from getting stung before the next election! YOU have earned the animosity of the citizens of the Middle East with your selfish arrogance! That arrogance very well may bring us all down. Credit where credit is due!
I can only sit back and HOPE that I am wrong...I don't share in your confidence.

(edited from 8th to 9th reccomendation)

[calimary]

18. And a 12th! I could not agree more with this. We have NO choice.

There is NO option. We simply HAVE TO IMPEACH. If we're to stop this dictator before he nukes Iran, declares that national emergency that he's now authorized himself to do, suspends the elections and imposes martial law, we HAVE TO.

It's the surest way to stop the war. Take the bang-bang toys, the car keys, and the credit cards, AWAY from the "commander-in-chief." At this point, he's really the only thing keeping it going.

Agreed, agreed, agreed.

There's no other way out, if we love our country, care about our future, respect the rule of law (look how the sickness has spread from his "this doesn't apply to me" signing statements to other officials who now feel that it's okay for them to refuse to obey the law!), and revere our Constitution. We simply MUST IMPEACH. AND, hopefully also, REMOVE. Hell, the very act of IMPEACHMENT itself has to be rehabilitated, having been perverted into a sad, sick joke by applying it to an illicit blow job.

I just hope we can force the Dems to do this. They're going to have to be FORCED into it.

[welshTerrier2]

14. scary stuff, eh?

all against the backdrop of "the silence of the Dems". scary times indeed.

perhaps the investigations Waxman and Conyers are holding will lead to impeachment. but the Dems seem unwilling or unable to put a name to the risks we face.

great rant, Arendt. can we all get back to candidate cheerleading now?

k&r ...

[cosmicdot]

15. knr

"That is all rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, folks."

[Zodiak]

16. We've all been victims of overly-optimistic thinking

We believed that if we just wrote to the media and politely pointed out that they were not reporting the news in a credible manner, then they would pay attention and change their ways under the threat of public dissatisfaction. Didn't happen.

Then we believed that if we gave the Democrats who voted for the war resolution a pass for doing so, then we woldhave a chabnce to take Congress in 2002. Didn't happen.

Then we believed that if we got behind a campaign that we could conduct the Iraq war better then Bush, then we would have an overwhelming victory and win the Presdency from Bush, thus saving America.

Then we we believed that the Democrats would clearly see that they were robbed in the 2004 election and get behind an effort to fix the voting machines and ensure transparent vote counting and quell nefarious attempts to suppress the vote. Didn't happen.

Then we believed that if we allowed votes on three freaking right-wing maniac judges that we could preserve our political capital for the real fight when bush nominated somsone for the SCOTUS. Didn't happen.

Then we believed that the Democrats would do something to stop the Iraq war if we would just give them a majority in Congress. The Republicans fell on their faces just before the election and the Democrats miraculously won. But stop the Iraq war or even look strong in opposing Bush? Didn't happen.

Secret trade deals happened. Funding the occupation again happened. Undercutting America's poor is happening. We got a two-year delayed minimum wage hike that is over $2.00/hr less in buying power than in 1968. 1968!!


I am tired of hearing all of the pretty words followed by excuse after excuse. The enablement has brought this country to its knees, and still the Democratic party leadership cannot figure out why th voters are mad at them. Even though I do not think that war with Iran is yet a foregone conclusion (but a very real possibility...nuclear less likely but also a possibility), I do think that the neocon presence in our government is going to have to be pulled from the levers of power kicking and screaming. Nothing less than full-blown opposition will suffice.

As far as the Bloomberg threads, there is a segment of DU that cannot see past personalities, and there are others who can walk and chew gum at the same time and like horseraces. The latter I don't mind, but the former are tiresome.

I haven't gotten into the campaign. Gore, then Kucinich, then Edwards for me. No one else is acceptable for handling the crisis we are in. None of them are war-time consiglieres (if you get my drift) and understand what wall the American people and the people of the world are up against.

I know....why don't we try something different? What haven't we tried? Oh yeah...listening for once to the left.

[arendt]

19. Nice post mortem on how the frog got slowly boiled

And thanks for supporting my distinction:

the party "leadership" do not dictate to the party; a real party leadership carries out the long-term will of its members.

Yeah, let's try governing again - you know, listening to the will of the people, and stuff.

arendt

[Zodiak]

21. Thanks

amazed you could read it with the typos. I am a notoriously bad typist.

[arendt]

20. Fear works. I need a tag line for this, like "the smoking gun could be mass arrests"...

if this scary scenario were played as often as they ran the Iraq WMD propaganda,
they'd be selling Cheney's diseased guts as fire-starter logs by next Tuesday.

arendt

[arendt]

24. How about: "We can't wait for the smoking gun to belong to the stormtrooper at your door." n/t

[onenote]

22. "Have I scared you"? No.

You are entitled to your opinion. I just don't happen to share it. Predictions of an imminent attack on Iran (nuclear or otherwise), some made with all but absolute certainty, have been thrown around on DU for months if not years. Do I think that some military strike against Iran is out of the question? Of course not; I do think its unlikely. Do I think that if the US struck Iran it would use nuclear weapons? No I don't.

I am not about to pillory you for your opinion. We just have different perceptions of what we think is likely to happen.

[arendt]

23. First, thanks for being low key. Could I ask what facts you use to come to your opinions?

Do you rely on Bush's sanity? His political acumen? His compassion?

Nuking Iraq plays to all his (30%) core constituencies: big oil (huge spike
in prices), the military/mercenary/prison industry (more war, more profits),
fundy lunatics slavering for Armageddon.

I will be the first to admit that, from a rational viewpoint, such an
attack is beyond insane. But, Bush's MO is to do things by gut feel and
by faith. And, to always push the envelope - to do more than anyone dares
to think he would.

Do I have to list all the irrational things he has gotten away with? A is for
supporting Alberto, B is for breaking the wiretap law...

To date, he has kept America in line with nothing more than bullshit verbiage
and media domination, even though his approval ratings in the toilet. Imagine
how much control he could exert with martial law, whackjob fundy troops and cops,
plus all the ambitious scum he could hire as "security" (think TSA guards on
a drunken tear.).

I will be the first to admit that my analysis is "worst case", but I have
gotten burned in the past by doing "average case" analysis.

Besides, as I said, fear works. I will not disagree if you say that I am
using exactly the same kind of fear mongering that Bush made to promote his wars.

I would say "its about bloody time someone did."

arendt

[arendt]

34. Gene Lyons: " 'Act of madness' gains allies in complacent media"

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/193516/

"...we’ve all seen this movie before—during the run-up to invading Iraq, with Cheney beating war drums, Rice prating about “mushroom clouds” over American cities and Secretary of State Colin Powell cast as the cautious voice of moderation. We all recall how that ended, with Powell’s lamentable speech to the U. N. touting Saddam Hussein’s apocryphal weapons of mass destruction.

This time, the Decider himself, George W. Bush, is described as having until “next spring... to decide whether to take military action.”

Meanwhile, with U. S. armies occupying Iraq and Afghanistan (Iran’s neighbors to the east and west ), two U. S. carrier groups deployed in the Persian Gulf, hostile Pakistan and Israel bristling with nuclear weapons and U. S. Sens. John Mc-Cain and Holy Joe Lieberman calling for pre-emptive bombing attacks against the Tehran regime, it’s supposed to be we Americans who go to bed at night fearing mighty Persia.

To date, Bush administration attempts to drum up a casus belli against Iran have fallen flat. No sooner do U. S. spokesmen claim that Iran is arming its hereditary enemy, the Taliban, than Afghan officials call it nonsense. Similar allegations have been dismissed by Iraq’s government. International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei describes attacking Iran as “an act of madness.”

Like you, Gene is complacent that the Congress will not let this madness happens.
Like you, Gene assumes "something will stop him", even as he cites instance after instance
of the admin and the media pouring gasoline on the kindling and trying to light it up.
These guys get an infinite number of shots on goal, and only the last one has to go in.

I wish I had your confidence that the Congress A) has power; and B) will use that power
to stop Bush. Events of the recent past (funding cave-in, non-impeachment of Gonzo, non-
punishment of Rice for ignoring subpoena...) give me zero confidence that the Dems have
the institutional capacity to stop Bush's creeping purge of the military and his total
privatization of the intelligence/special ops forces. With those forces unsupervised by
Congress and commanded by Bush loyalists, all Bush has to do is commit another of his
patented "acts of madness".

arendt

[ddbaj]

25. Uhh...

Lets assume all you say is true, how does impeachment stop it? Maybe you mean removal, but impeachment does absolutely nothing to stop the scenario you outline above. An impeached Bush would still retain the power of commander in chief, etc.

[sabbat hunter]

26. impeach and conviction

you must be able to impeach and convict him. you MIGHT get an impeachment from the house, but you will never get a conviction from the senate.

1)it has to be first proven that signing statements are illegal. every president has made use of the signing statements, just not to the extent that * has. you MUST prove that signing statements are unconstitutional or against the law.
2)lying us int the iraq war is not impeachable as he never lied about it under oath.
3) you would have to prove that bush himself was involved directly with the outing of valerie plame. and if you could, it would probably then be legal as the president has a right to make covert agents not covert
4) i would like to see a true scientific poll that shows that the majority of america favors impeachment of *. the only ones i have seen are unscientific ones.


i would only say 4 arch conservative neo-cons. his vote in 2000 notwithstanding, Kennedy is just as likely to vote against the alito/roberts/scalia/thomas wing as he is to vote with them.


not to mention the fact that that there is simply not the votes in the senate to convict.

[ddbaj]

28. If someone

ANYONE could give me a list of the 17 repubs that would under any circumstance vote to remove Bush, I would be pro-impeachment. Most of them are either in safe seats or not up for election any time soon, thus we have no real way of putting pressure on them.

That's assuming all dems + Joe Lieberman vote to remove, which is QUITE an assumption.

[arendt]

30. Don't try, no chance. Try, you may succeed.

How do you know what would happen if the House impeached (which I think we all agree is do-able with
some spine transplants)?

America is pretty fed up with the Bush Crime Family. They like to see blood.
How many of the marginal GOPers really want to go to the mat for Bush?

Also, the violation of the wiretap law is clearly illegal. You already have the testimony of James
Comey. That is article number one in my book. Next, you have the destruction of records by Rove.
Again, a matter of record, a massive violation of the Presidential Records Act and a clear threat
to getting any kind of accountability from any President ever again.

Given how brazen Bush has been and how cowardly the Dems have been, do you honestly think the
best thing we can do is sit on our butts while Bush does as he pleases for the next 18 months?
And don't tell me the Dems are hemming him in. It is all scripted bullshit. When push comes to
shove, the Dems cave.

That is why I will push anyone I can to impeach now. Before its too late.

And to my religious brethren: Impeach em all. Let God sort them out.

arendt

[sabbat hunter]

32. if rove destroyed

the email records then it is his crime not bush's. unless you can prove that he ordered rove to do it. that would be assuming * is smart enough to think of something like that.

[arendt]

33. Well, then, you would have eliminated Rove, which is as good as getting * n/t

[bpeale]

27. i have to tell you i've been scared for a couple of years now

anyone who cannot see the handwriting on the wall is playing the hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil game.

[rucky]

29. It's been "18 weeks" since January, 2006

I don't appreciate fearmongering from either side.

[arendt]

31. Sorry. Can't decode your shorthand. Please expand. n/t

[onenote]

35. I'm assuming the reference it to the fact that posters have been predicting an imminent attack

on iran for over a year. At some point reality does have to be weighed against the "sky is falling claims.' Maybe the sky will fall some day, but the situation today is no different than it was eighteen months, or twelve months, or six months ago when similar predictions of an imminent attack were being made. I can remember virtual guarantees of an attack by a date certain prior to the nov 06 elections.

If not then, why now?

[arendt]

36. Fair question, but please note: I was not one of those crying wolf then...

I am crying wolf now. Here's why:

1. The Dems have shown they really are too cowardly to interfere with any warlike activity Bush proposes.
They can't speechify or vote fast enough for more troops, more money for the military. One more roadblock
out of Bush's way.

2. Iraq is in total meltdown. The soldiers think the mission is bunk. Even the GOP want out of this war,
which they did not in 2006.

3. They have "normalized" the idea of nuking Iraq. They keep saying it and saying it, and instead of
outrage, they are met in the U.S. press, with compliance. (See the Gene Lyons article I posted).

4. They have now pushed carrier battle groups into the Persian Gulf, probably doing aggressive patroling
and radar probing of Iranian defenses. This is an exercise in juggling nitroglycerine. It is a way of
starting a war by accident, with deniability. The carrier groups, under the command of a gung ho admiral
weren't there in 2006.

5. Bush/Cheney are coming up on the end of their last stolen term of office. They are NOT leaving quietly.
They will push the button on Iran just in time to declare martial law and abort the 2008 election.

-----

Do any or all of these reasons make you think that the risk of this insanity is greater now than in 2006?

arendt

[Ghost Dog]

38. Affirmative. The same gestalt I also perceive.

Hit hard now. Also manipulate (squeeze balls) of mainstream media to this end.

Have no fear.

I am European. In (left of) middle. I wish your people great luck. You have many crimes to confess, but may still be able to fight the good fight (ie. not necessarily for personal, but for the greater, gain).

Somehow, I doubt it, though. Dumbed-down tv-addicted losers, already.

Sorry.

[rucky]

37. My apologies.

I was recalling a prediction from awhile ago, and a series of them since then. I was actually a year off:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8130.htm

[arendt]

39. Bloomberg, Bloomberg, Bloomberg...

now that I have your attention,

how does speculating about a non-candidate save our asses from the impending
attack on Iran?

arendt