[CitizensTruth] "What to Do with Bush & Cheney?"

[Jay Becker]

Forward widely!

http://www.counterpunch.org/loo10312008.html


October 31, 2008
The Electoral Remedy 
What to Do with Bush and Cheney? 
By DENNIS LOO 
It's been eight years - almost to the day – that Bush and
Cheney lost the election but seized the White House anyway. 


It’s
been four years – almost to the day – that Bush and Cheney lost
the election again, but took the White House anyway. 


Now we
are on the verge of yet another
election, the third in a row
dubbed by many “the most important in our lifetime.” Bush and Cheney
aren’t on the ballot, but those who would carry on their policies are.
And once again the Democratic Party, the loyal opposition, puts forth
their alternative.
What
has not been broached in this election contest? What has most
conspicuously been avoided?
* * *
In
spite of the multitudinous evidence of their abuse of office and their
horrid crimes strewn around us like rubble from an earthquake, the Bush
regime remains: rotting, festering, and infecting the people, the
country, and the planet, despoiling our past, our present, and setting
the precedent
for a future in which any president can override the law at will. 


For
a White House as unpopular as this to leave office Scott free can only
mean that the rest of this country's political leadership has actively
colluded with them.  


There
have been literally scores of events during the last eight years that
could have and should have precipitated a legitimacy crisis, beginning
with the stolen election of 2000. In every instance, the Democratic
Party and the mass media have refused to expose the illegitimacy of
Bush and Cheney's ascension to power and their continued rule, no
matter how egregious the revelation, no matter how fundamental the
trespass, no matter how widespread the people’s demand for
accountability and justice.

The
Democratic Party and the mass media have refused to indict, impeach,
prosecute, and convict this White House. They have, instead,
despicably, shielded the Bush regime from the righteous wrath of the
people and diverted our attention to the "electoral remedy," a remedy
that is no remedy at all for what this regime has done. 


In
the face of the Bush regime's disasters and deepening depravity, our
government has been increasingly vicious and ever more open in its use
of force against the people. In addition, in a classic
and necessary one-two punch, fraud has been
used more and more to keep the public in check and politically passive.

Without
force and fraud this shame could not continue.

The
co-conspirators with the Bush regime are the very same individuals who
have been telling us for years that we should trust them and leave
things in their hands and put our faith in elections. They have told us
that it is just "not worth it" or it's just "too divisive" or "it's off
the table" or it's "not warranted" or any number of other disingenuous
and atrocious excuses to account for why they won't impeach the
criminals in the White House. 


These
are the same "leaders" who have continued to fund the mass murder
politely referred to as the Iraq "War," the same colluders who have
awarded the White House felons and the major telecom companies with
immunity for their illegal spying upon all of us, the same moral
cowards who legalized torture and stripped us of habeas corpus rights,
the same "representatives of the people" who caved before Paulsen and
Bush's assertions that the sky was falling when it was their own "the
free market can do no wrong" policies that brought this disaster on in
the first place. Why even Alan Greenspan, that Fed Chairman Seer, is
now being forced to acknowledge the fundamental flaw in his free-market
ideology – the free market doesn’t work!

These
are the same people, parties, and institutions that now tell us that
the solution to this disaster that they are implicated in is to vote
for one of them to "fix" all of this – McCain or Obama. We're
supposed to be overjoyed that we have the right to choose from one or
the other, even though both of them have been part of the problem all
these years. They could have filibustered and they didn't. They could
have stood up in the face of tyranny and demanded it end NOW. They
could have said that torture's unthinkable and it must stop NOW. But
they didn’t, they haven’t and they won’t.

What
does that tell us?
 
Without
force and fraud this shame could not continue.

Whatever
you do, we've further been told, DON'T rock the boat in this election
and don't do anything outlandish like demonstrate in the streets
because that would harm Obama's chances! He won't listen to
us then! He'll get mad
at us! The fascists in and around the GOP will also get mad at us and
make things worse! It is better, we're told by these misleaders or
wavering allies, that the people participate in our rulers' rigged game
and “hope for the
best”
than rouse the people and mobilize the unorganized anger and
frustration and give it a powerful expression in an independent
people’s movement that resounds throughout every corner of the society. 


It
would be unseemly to step outside their rigged game, we’re told. It
wouldn't do for the American people to do anything impolite like call
out lies as lies, corruption as corruption, and crimes against humanity
as crimes against humanity.

If
you have been wondering why others around you aren't doing what they
should, then do what must be done: if you will stand up for such
outdated notions as facts, justice, truth, science, reason, equity, the
rule of law, the protection of those in need against the predations of
the rich and powerful, the equality of women and their right to a safe
and legal abortion, the division between church and state, and the
fundamental equality of all nations and peoples, then show it now.
Don’t be silent any longer!

Without
force and fraud this shame could not continue.

Wear an
orange ribbon
daily
and take a public stand against torture, unjust wars and the crimes of
the Bush regime and this government of colluders. Spread orange and
spread the resistance. Make copies of this essay and hand it out in
school, at bus stops, on the trains, in the streets, in the parks, in
the workplace. Hand out orange ribbons for others to wear. Get your
friends together and plan actions like holding signs that say things
like: No Torture! No Wars on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran! Stop
Thinking Like Americans and Start Thinking Like Human Beings! 


Get
your classmates together to demonstrate against the vultures calling
themselves military
recruiters. Shut them down! Get your co-workers and friends
together to call for war
criminal John Yoo to be fired from his UC Berkeley Law
Professorship. 


Rouse
the people, the slumbering giant, against these infamies! Join with
the World Can't Wait
in bringing into being the one thing that can really do something: an
autonomous, powerful, movement of the people, beholden to no one except
to the truth and to justice. 


A
legitimacy crisis must be brought into being. It is up to the people
now to make this happen. Our leading institutions have steadfastly
refused to do this. 
If
we fail in this task then any future president has a green light to do
whatever he or she pleases. Remaining mute in the face of tyranny
represents moral cowardice of the highest order. This is not something
that we can leave up to others to take of. Fighting against monstrous
injustices can’t be delegated to others regardless of who wins this
election. We must each of us take a stand. Nothing else will avail. 


Without
force and fraud this shame could not continue. 
Will we
continue to let them? 


Dennis Loo is an associate professor of
Sociology at Cal-Poly Pomona. He is the co-author of Impeach
the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney.  He can be
reached at http://dennisloo.blogspot.com.



 


    Declare It Now! Wear Orange!
Impeach Bush & Cheney for War Crimes
& Crimes against Humanity!



      
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