Immpeachment: Yea or Nay?

Is it worth it to fight losing battles? For example, was it worth it for PATCO to go on strike back in the 80's when Reagan fired them all, while he simultaneously was supporting Solidarity in Poland in its attempt to bring down that government? Is it worth it to hold anti-war marches when one "knows" that some few of the participants will engage in questionable behaviors and that the march will not end the war? Was it worth it for the Bolsheviks to seize power and set about constructing socialism in a country that was 80% peasant? (Some revisionists --see Adam's Fallacy by Duncan K. Foley, a recently published and mostly excellent book on political economy reviewed uninterestingly and off-point by Robert Solow in the 11/16 New York Review--think that the Bolsheviks should have allowed and encouraged capitalism to further and fully develop in Russia to "prepare" for a socialist revolution.) Is it worth it to attempt to launch an impeachment of Bush/Cheney when odds for success are miniscule and blowback might be detrimental?

Outgoing Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-GA) has introduced a bill of impeachment. Those familiar with metro Atlanta politics will know how she is every inch her father Billy's daughter, and his shoot from the hip style. David Corn of The Nation has an anti-impeachment article that considers such a move as disaster for progressives and Democrats. Corn says look what the Clinton impeachment did for the Republicans; this is a bad analogy as it gave us 12 more years of Republican rule and got Bush almost-elected and reelected! Corn thinks the reaction to a Democrat-led impeachment drive would undermine if not destroy this Congress's chances of passing laws favorable to families and workers. Of course, the Democrats aren't as "progressive" overall as Corn implies and they don't have a veto-proof majority or filibuster-ending Senate control. In other words, the more "progressive" the Democrats' agenda the less likely it is to come to fruition and impeachment itself is in the same category.

All of us must consider the probable outcomes of our actions: look before you leap. But the future is unknown and a well-run inquiry of impeachment may reveal much more than we currently know and improve the odds. Recall the 18 minute tape gap. And the biggest reason for pursuing the removal of the ruling junta is that Iraq is only the tip of the iceberg. Rumblings of war against Iran and Syria, the revival of the cold war against a now-capitalist Russia, nuclear proliferation with the enormity of the just passed approval of the Indian nuke deal, etc.

We need to fight not simply over yesterday's crimes but tomorrow's as well. All of our futures are at stake. Corn worries that impeachment will be polarizing and split the Democrats. Duh! I can only speak for myself but I don't care about party affiliation; I care about my and our lives and achieving a peaceful world with our government following sane and humane policies. If it turns out that two-thirds of Democrats are Bush-style warmongers and imperialists, well, that would be the reality and the real battle would be engaged. Let's move things along and find out.

Where Are We Going?

The Iraq Study Group was designed with two purposes in mind: first, to offer a cover for Bush heading into the election ("see, I'm trying"); second, to coopt Democratic opponents. For the first it failed big-time. Americans want out of Iraq. For the second it was successful in winning noted Democrats (Hilary et al.) to the fold, though this wasn't a difficult assignment. Almost without exception Congressional representatives are the mouthpieces of big business and the banks, not tribunes of the people, and the goal of hegemony over the earth's resources will end when the capitalists cry uncle (never) or the people force the issue. And while we are all fussing over the death and destruction in Iraq and threats against Iran, our rulers have their eye on their real enemy: Russia.

Lugar of Indiana is calling for NATO commitment to protect energy resources for member countries. For this read Russian control over natural gas etc. to Poland, Georgia or the Ukraine. (Would that he had called for action for witholding medical care from Americans!) Think that Putin had that former FSB spy Litvinenko killed? Think that all those news reports making those accusations are an accident? I certainly don't know who killed the guy but using Polonium seems a bit exotic unless one wanted to implicate a government which raises the suspicion of a frame-up. The whole story has a bit of a smell to it. Think news reports recapitulating the Ukrainian famine of 74 years ago is happenstance? The accusation is that Stalin starved 10 million people (out of less than a 25 million total population) in 1932-3. To quote a BBC report from 11/24/06: "It was one of the bleakest moments in Ukraine's history. The famine which happened between 1932 and 1933 killed up to 10 million people. It is widely believed to have been caused by the actions of the communist regime. The harvest was confiscated and people starved to death."

Of course the evidence never existed for this assertion, which arose initially with Adolf Hitler and continued with American expatriate criminals, provable liars and CIA assets. It was, and seemingly once again is, considered necessary to make Stalin into history's most evil monster and murderer, and derivatively all succeeding Russians. Books and articles going back decades (eg, Conquest's book) repeat undocumented and even proven-false assertions and use famine photos that weren't even taken in the 1930's but in 1922! Since the breakup of the USSR 15 years ago, a dissolution with a whimper, not a war, I wanted to find out just how "evil" that "empire" was, since it stole so quietly into the night. Yes, there was a famine and yes it was connected to collectivization but documented total deaths range from 1 to 2 million and the starvation wasn't caused by Stalin's confiscation and subsequent starvation of the masses but by the owners of animals and grain destroying their own holdings to keep the state from acquiring those supplies for distribution. Sort of an "if I can't have them, you can't either." Bad times indeed but less severe and more nuanced than western propaganda. Americans killed over 1 million Vietnamese in that war and since Gulf War I sanctions and the Bush occupation many more than 1 million Iraqis. But as an acquaintance of mine put it during tv news out of Iraq: "Those damn Iraqis!" Such is how our American minds work: we invade a country, topple the government, change their laws, kill them in large numbers, and yet we feel that somehow this is the Iraqis' fault! As a poet once wrote: If the world has a brain, where is it?

US capital and its government wants to control the world and its wealth and that mandates control over energy supplies: the base alignment in Afghanistan follows the proposed oil pipeline from central Asian (formerly republics of the USSR) sources to the Indian Ocean. Pipelines from the Caspian through Turkey bypassing Russia. Their problem is that Russia is the most populous European country with a large nuclear arsenal. Russia ain't Iraq. It's not paranoia to sense that the politicos and their controllers are setting the stage for a confrontation with Russia which could kill many, many millions of us. The United States is the world's rogue nation and it threatens the lives and livelihoods of us all.

Where Are We Going?

The Iraq Study Group was designed with two purposes in mind: first, to offer a cover for Bush heading into the election ("see, I'm trying"); second, to coopt Democratic opponents. For the first it failed big-time. Americans want out of Iraq. For the second it was successful in winning noted Democrats (Hilary et al.) to the fold, though this wasn't a difficult assignment. Almost without exception Congressional representatives are the mouthpieces of big business and the banks, not tribunes of the people, and the goal of hegemony over the earth's resources will end when the capitalists cry uncle (never) or the people force the issue. And while we are all fussing over the death and destruction in Iraq and threats against Iran, our rulers have their eye on their real enemy: Russia.

Lugar of Indiana is calling for NATO commitment to protect energy resources for member countries. For this read Russian control over natural gas etc. to Poland, Georgia or the Ukraine. (Would that he had called for action for witholding medical care from Americans!) Think that Putin had that former FSB spy Litvinenko killed? Think that all those news reports making those accusations are an accident? I certainly don't know who killed the guy but using Polonium seems a bit exotic unless one wanted to implicate a government which raises the suspicion of a frame-up. The whole story has a bit of a smell to it. Think news reports recapitulating the Ukrainian famine of 74 years ago is happenstance? The accusation is that Stalin starved 10 million people (out of less than a 25 million total population) in 1932-3. To quote a BBC report from 11/24/06: "It was one of the bleakest moments in Ukraine's history. The famine which happened between 1932 and 1933 killed up to 10 million people. It is widely believed to have been caused by the actions of the communist regime. The harvest was confiscated and people starved to death."

Of course the evidence never existed for this assertion, which arose initially with Adolf Hitler and continued with American expatriate criminals, provable liars and CIA assets. It was, and seemingly once again is, considered necessary to make Stalin into history's most evil monster and murderer, and derivatively all succeeding Russians. Books and articles going back decades (eg, Conquest's book) repeat undocumented and even proven-false assertions and use famine photos that weren't even taken in the 1930's but in 1922! Since the breakup of the USSR 15 years ago, a dissolution with a whimper, not a war, I wanted to find out just how "evil" that "empire" was, since it stole so quietly into the night. Yes, there was a famine and yes it was connected to collectivization but documented total deaths range from 1 to 2 million and the starvation wasn't caused by Stalin's confiscation and subsequent starvation of the masses but by the owners of animals and grain destroying their own holdings to keep the state from acquiring those supplies for distribution. Sort of an "if I can't have them, you can't either." Bad times indeed but less severe and more nuanced than western propaganda. Americans killed over 1 million Vietnamese in that war and since Gulf War I sanctions and the Bush occupation many more than 1 million Iraqis. But as an acquaintance of mine put it during tv news out of Iraq: "Those damn Iraqis!" Such is how our American minds work: we invade a country, topple the government, change their laws, kill them in large numbers, and yet we feel that somehow this is the Iraqis' fault! As a poet once wrote: If the world has a brain, where is it?

US capital and its government wants to control the world and its wealth and that mandates control over energy supplies: the base alignment in Afghanistan follows the proposed oil pipeline from central Asian (formerly republics of the USSR) sources to the Indian Ocean. Pipelines from the Caspian through Turkey bypassing Russia. Their problem is that Russia is the most populous European country with a large nuclear arsenal. Russia ain't Iraq. It's not paranoia to sense that the politicos and their controllers are setting the stage for a confrontation with Russia which could kill many, many millions of us. The United States is the world's rogue nation and it threatens the lives and livelihoods of us all.

Where Are We Going?

The Iraq Study Group was designed with two purposes in mind: first, to offer a cover for Bush heading into the election ("see, I'm trying"); second, to coopt Democratic opponents. For the first it failed big-time. Americans want out of Iraq. For the second it was successful in winning noted Democrats (Hilary et al.) to the fold, though this wasn't a difficult assignment. Almost without exception Congressional representatives are the mouthpieces of big business and the banks, not tribunes of the people, and the goal of hegemony over the earth's resources will end when the capitalists cry uncle (never) or the people force the issue. And while we are all fussing over the death and destruction in Iraq and threats against Iran, our rulers have their eye on their real enemy: Russia.

Lugar of Indiana is calling for NATO commitment to protect energy resources for member countries. For this read Russian control over natural gas etc. to Poland, Georgia or the Ukraine. (Would that he had called for action for witholding medical care from Americans!) Think that Putin had that former FSB spy Litvinenko killed? Think that all those news reports making those accusations are an accident? I certainly don't know who killed the guy but using Polonium seems a bit exotic unless one wanted to implicate a government which raises the suspicion of a frame-up. The whole story has a bit of a smell to it. Think news reports recapitulating the Ukrainian famine of 74 years ago is happenstance? The accusation is that Stalin starved 10 million people (out of less than a 25 million total population) in 1932-3. To quote a BBC report from 11/24/06: "It was one of the bleakest moments in Ukraine's history. The famine which happened between 1932 and 1933 killed up to 10 million people. It is widely believed to have been caused by the actions of the communist regime. The harvest was confiscated and people starved to death."

Of course the evidence never existed for this assertion, which arose initially with Adolf Hitler and continued with American expatriate criminals, provable liars and CIA assets. It was, and seemingly once again is, considered necessary to make Stalin into history's most evil monster and murderer, and derivatively all succeeding Russians. Books and articles going back decades (eg, Conquest's book) repeat undocumented and even proven-false assertions and use famine photos that weren't even taken in the 1930's but in 1922! Since the breakup of the USSR 15 years ago, a dissolution with a whimper, not a war, I wanted to find out just how "evil" that "empire" was, since it stole so quietly into the night. Yes, there was a famine and yes it was connected to collectivization but documented total deaths range from 1 to 2 million and the starvation wasn't caused by Stalin's confiscation and subsequent starvation of the masses but by the owners of animals and grain destroying their own holdings to keep the state from acquiring those supplies for distribution. Sort of an "if I can't have them, you can't either." Bad times indeed but less severe and more nuanced than western propaganda. Americans killed over 1 million Vietnamese in that war and since Gulf War I sanctions and the Bush occupation many more than 1 million Iraqis. But as an acquaintance of mine put it during tv news out of Iraq: "Those damn Iraqis!" Such is how our American minds work: we invade a country, topple the government, change their laws, kill them in large numbers, and yet we feel that somehow this is the Iraqis' fault! As a poet once wrote: If the world has a brain, where is it?

US capital and its government wants to control the world and its wealth and that mandates control over energy supplies: the base alignment in Afghanistan follows the proposed oil pipeline from central Asian (formerly republics of the USSR) sources to the Indian Ocean. Pipelines from the Caspian through Turkey bypassing Russia. Their problem is that Russia is the most populous European country with a large nuclear arsenal. Russia ain't Iraq. It's not paranoia to sense that the politicos and their controllers are setting the stage for a confrontation with Russia which could kill many, many millions of us. The United States is the world's rogue nation and it threatens the lives and livelihoods of us all.