I am too depressed by this to write about it tonight. See Georgia10’s diary. I’ll figure out what I think we should do tonight. This is the biggest constitutional crisis of my lifetime. And we just got kicked in the stomach. This CANNOT stand.
About The Author
BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
79 Comments
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
As Georgia10 notes, the lawmakers who were complicit in this open themselves up to federal conspiracy charges when the truth finally comes to light. In fact, it may be the case that they were already vulnerable to conspiracy charges, and that’s why they capitulated to Bush even as his poll numbers outrace Wile E. Coyote to the bottom of the canyon.
heh,
…I’ll have my lawyer get right on that.
we lost.
SHIT!!!!!!!
what she said
ditto
If we had a ‘Fascism Clock’ like the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have their Doomsday Clock, it would have just jumped at least 2 minutes closer to midnight.
Which begs the question, why don’t we have a ‘Fascism Clock’?
why do I have this tune going through my head…. “after midnight, we gonna let it all hang down…….”
For the record: while living in Germany in the 1980s, I had a poster on my dorm room door in college–it depicted Ronald Reagan with a Hitler moustache and the following quote:
Today I propose that the reason we don’t have a fascisto-meter (doomsday clock) is that it is indeed “after midnight”–and the rest of the world has been trying to tell the American people ‘what time it is’ since at least since 1984.
Too little. Too late.
Aw shucks!
Make that four minutes. The final version of the Patriot Act was just passed by the House.
There’s no fascism clock for the samereason there’re no clocks in casinos. The powers that be don’t want us to have any idea how much time we’re devoting to diligently working and voting against our own interests.
Well, I meant why don’t we have one…I mean, it’s not like the Dept. of Defense is running the atomic doomsday clock 🙂
Oh fuck!
I’m thinkin’ that reality has finally overtaken my paranoia.
my same sentiment
what we need to do. As of yesterday I’m always game for pickin a fight with these totally despicable losers from hell.
I will think about this. I think I have to screw up my courage. I think we have just been called to take things to another level. And I was hoping things would not come to this. I was really hoping.
Think Doug made the decision for everyone.
You do what you’ve got to do!
What he said. King, I mean.
Just so!
BushCo has changed the parameters of government function in our democratic form.
Where once we had a society based on the ideas of Law and Order, BushCo now tells us we must choose between Law OR Order.
And wherever and whenever this “Law or Order” choice appears, full-grown Fascism is not far behind!
It’s time to shut down the whole system. A general strike – no school, no malls, nothing. Peaceful as anything. Everyone just stays home, causing an eerie calm on the streets. The only people out are ones throwing a bar-be-que for everyone else, having a party for beginning of the end.
BooMan, you have showed me once again that it was Providence, or something like that, that led me to this site, out of thousands. Your post linking Georgia10’s diary is pure emotion. Then you did what you promised–you found a way to respond.
It has been at least 20 years since I read all of King’s Letter from the Birmingham Jail, and I’m not sure I ever read it so carefully before. Reading it tonight felt like listening directly to God. (Spent quite a bit of time thinking about how to write that last sentence.)
Destiny is leading me towards active, open civil disobedience over the immigration laws, which are about to take a total descent into Hell. I needed this. Thanks very much!
“An unjust law is no law at all.”–St. Augustine, as quoted by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
have had rain in over 100 days here in Tucson, but I’m having a brainstorm. Will follow-up on it later tonight. Time to organize another cross-blog action plan, methinks.
This will not stand.
thoughts. It is time to wake up the sleeping giant of this country: the non-voters. It’s time to break the rubberstamp once and for all.
and who are the non-voters?
I’ve been pimping this idea forever, Manny: NON-VOTERS are the biggest constituency.
And who are they?
I sorely doubt that they are the “wonderbread mom and pop” rethuglicans.
No.
They are pissed off, disenfranchised, disgusted people on the LEFT–far left–even moderate left who are sick and tired of the same bullshit coming from both parties.
I hope to see you helping to mobilize and empower them to the potential they hold. It’s easy to bitch and complain to each other here on the blogs, let’s get to work and build those voter rolls. I’m off to teach a class and will be back later on tonight with some ideas, I hope to see you there offering suggestions.
Well, Manny, you won’t ever “see” me doing that because it’s not happening on the net–but don’t think for a moment that I’m not doing it–in my classroom, for example (that is, when they allow me to teach), at powwows, in conversations with individuals, on the street, in the department, at the park district, at the vet’s office, the dentist, the dry cleaners, you name it–all the time, non-stop–here in Madman’s diary is pretty good description of my ‘strategy’ and mission for engaging people in the democratic process and getting out the vote (as I have been practicing for a good 20, if not 30 years).
Just by virtue of the fact that very few people I know have much to do with the Net (except for looking stuff up, doing business, etc.) and/or with blogs, most of my ‘mobilization’ efforts take place ‘on the ground.’
I have a pretty good “pulse” on what a lot of disgruntled non-voters on the left are about, and believe me, the shit that passes for “action” etc. on these blogs is NOT going to excite them or inspire them and certainly not going to get them out VOTING.
Maybe it’s not a bad idea to call them the “after midnight” crowd–a whole constituency of people who are shaking their heads sayin, manoman it’s really so far past midnight on the Fascisto-Meter. Is it not so in the Latino community that there are lots of people who basically shake their heads and so “No point, man. It’s over. The rich white men won. The fascists won.” ?
I hear certainly hear it all the time in both Indian and Black communities (actually, a variation of this is very prevalent in academic circles as well)From canvassing and talking to people in the attempt to get word out about the election fraud / force a re-count, I know there is a whole huge group in this category. They have completely disassociated themselves with the political process and are just trying to make the best use of whatever time they have on the planet without regard for what goes on in the political sphere.
Many of them did get out to vote in the 2004 election. After the votes WERE NOT COUNTED, and the lame-ass-lying-in-the-lap-of-luxury Dems just caved like a coupla Twin Towers, and that was the absolute last straw. At this point, it’s going to take more than speeches on the senate floor to get these folks back to the box–and they will not be reached by the blogs.
Blog? Wtf? Blog? Huh?
(Or, for the academic and elite crowd, blog is just ‘not serious’ enough).
Bodies in the streets. 70 K minimum. I can think of nothing else that will get this particular non-voter group going.
IF you could manage to actually mobilize all the people posting on these blogs–i.e., get them out on the street where they can be seen as physical entitities (not as screennames and cyberfictions)–I think the rest would go along.
One more possibility I would see: getting a major Hollywood star to run and just make a fucking party out of the whole thing. It’s already a circus anyway–with bad actors (I’ll be back!), men who can’t sing, (let the eagle soar!), can’t ride a bike, can’t even hunt quail from the front seat of an SUV. Get someone who can speak eloquently, make good jokes (like the kind that make you LAUGH, not cry), sing, dance, play the g.d. saxophone and who are apparently getting enough blow jobs that they feel no need to blow up the fucking WORLD.
where would you put them? My impression is that 70K marching in DC or NYC would do nothing to mobilize anyone west of, I don’t know, Ohio. Or do you disagree?
it is definitely a problem with this form of protest in this country.
I often have to explain that to European friends…hey, you know, it’s not like you can hop in the car for a one-day trip from LA to DC.
But there ARE enough people out on these blogs with the means to take a day or two off, fly into a major city, and do a huge protest.
Let’s say then each one of them tries to find one more person who cannot afford to do it, but would do it if funds were made available. The blogs then generate funds to allow these others to also attend. And I’m not talking about Bus trips–you know, nobody wants to go on a fucking BUS trip. You need to fly people in, make it fun and make it easy. Relatively speaking.
IF there are 70K of us, say maybe 50 K who can honestly afford to fly to DC–maybe many of us can afford to pay one or even two other people’s way.
So maybe you set up a grid on a map of the US, with the goal of getting a certain number of people from each city/town, proportionate to respective populations:
For every town under 5K, 1 participant.
Over 20K, 2 participant
100 K, 5-10
200K, 10-20
etc.
(I don’t know how you’d realistically calculate that, but you get the drift, right?)
People from these towns then take the information back to their towns…etc. etc.
And it’s probably not going to be done with just ONE big march. But if you could get ONE to happen, it might start to snowball immediately.
Check this out – http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=3178
seems to me you have to have ONE message and if you combine it with an anti war rally you muddy your message.
Probably. Sadly, there is so much crap doing on right now, it’s hard to decide what to protest. War? Illegal wiretapping? Cuts to social programs? I think a more important issue would be to get the bodies in the street and make a scene. A million marchers, repudiating this administrations biggest debacle, is a hell of an image.
IMO, there needs to be a focus, a rallying point of some kind. In lieu of Protesting perhaps it should be a call, Demand, if you will…Impeachment?
Covers all the bases, lies, corruption, cover-ups, outrages of all stripes and sizes, egregious misuse of power, ad infitum. Drags everything into the picture. A nationwide strike, the logistics for which I cannot fully comprehend, combined with massive rallies and other actions would get attention. Whether or not it would get any support from the ‘masses’ would largely determine it’s fate, and that of those who participate.
The situation has changed dramatically, and whatever the form opposition take, its is going to have to appeal to, at a minimum, the 49% who voted against duhBya in 04…it is truly daunting.
Random thoughts from a troubled mind. Perhaps I shall let it go for the night and start anew tomorrow.
Peace
And Medicare D(isaster)!
IMPEACH B*SHCO
Seems easy to me…if you want bodies in the streets, you just gotta put them in the streets that don’t expect the bodies.
Shut off freeway traffic in the middle of the country somewhere or something. A route vital to the nation’s retail supply chain.
I’m sure we could probably even get a few like-minded truckers to help bring traffic to a standstill for a day or two. Like they did when protesting diesel prices in Florida last year.
Think that would make the news?
that’s part of what I was thinking. Protests in DC get 1 minute of coverage on my local news. Maybe a picture on the front page of the paper — which has incredibly low circulation. So where would most people hear about it? Rush Limbaugh.
If you want to go to the streets you HAVE to be creative about it.
Agreed. We can’t have just another protest, because we’re sure as fuck not dealing with just another outrage.
It has to be big and completely un-ignorable.
Moccasin telegraph.
i.e. Word of mouth
3 people from Bumfuck KS, pop 3K, go to demo. Take lots of pictures. Tell everyone to watch TV, cause we might get on (doesn’t matter if there’s not a shot in hell, it’s about building ‘buzz’)….
When they come back, they go out and tell everyone about it, with pictures.
The bigger the town, the more people you need to do this, and the more likely it is that you’ll get some help from the media.
The key is to get as large a distribution of participants who can pass on first-hand reports w/ pictures–get the people GOING. Fired up. interested. just a little.
It won’t matter if it gets 3 full minutes of coverage here because 1,000 people went. The local angle is great, but if its a protest in DC it will be written off as a bunch of liberals protesting in DC just like they always do
It has to be different.
Shut off freeway traffic in the middle of the country somewhere or something. A route vital to the nation’s retail supply chain.
How about the 23/96 exits? That is a truck route. (And it is on the way to 12 Oaks too!)
I like the way you think 🙂
I think that would definitely wake more than a few people around here up, especially if it was done on a Saturday. Do you know how many people would be pissed off because they couldn’t make it to the mall? Bet that would get some media attention too.
You mean bring a little radical action back close to the home of the SDS?
Call it an anniversary or a memorial or something.
Detroit.
Bet you could rally some f’erners from up in Canada to help.
W/that as a venue, it would be easy to showcase wtf is wrong w/the country, hell, Detroit has been hit hard!
I don’t think a hollywood star is needed. For one thing, that will detract from the real message that is being conveyed, that is, that our rights are being chopped away. For another, we are always saying that the problem w/the political system is that real people are not being adequately represented. (Get a hollywood star out there and this will all become a celebrity show and the whole point of everything will be missed.) My personal opinion is that it is time to come out from all of the anonimity that we currently use. (We are writing on alternative media because we believe that what we are doing is right. We are also ahead of those in this country who depend on MSM for news.) We’re not doing anything wrong and our input here is nothing to hide.
I mean, if the faces behind the writers are shown, it is possible that we may reach more people, instead of being thought of as “just bloggers”.
See what I mean?
I agree wholeheartedly with the anonymity bit and have long since shed my own anonymity.
But listen to what you’re saying about the Hollywood bit: it’s already a big fucking show, and–geez, when it comes to “real” people–I just find someone like George Clooney or even Oprah for god’s sake–more “real” that GWB*shCo.
I think it’s time we shatter the illusion that “anyone can be president” (or run for very high office) in this country.
Church mouses are not going to be getting in office anytime soon. It would be nice if they would and I hope someday they can,but…
The finance issues are there and they are real. The only people who really have the means to “break through” the system are independent billionaires, politicians/lobbyists, and movie stars.
I’m not saying a church mouse type of person. What I am saying is people who have really been hit hard by all the bullshit that this administration has been pulling.
Look at Cindy Sheehan for example.
What Tracy said.
It will stand if we do not have BODIES in the streets. The blogs are not going to change anything. We have reached the limit of our impact–didn’t the scAlito nomination make that clear? They’ve led us on, made us think we’re having an impact. Maybe we’ve even forced them to make take some minor “symbolic” action (I’m thinking of Boxer’s contest of the vote, there are many more examples).
I was thinking today about those images of Cindy Sheehan getting arrested. (Didn’t someone mention how utterly “unflattering” that looked?).
And thinking about the big Orange (how many subscribers do they have, 70 K or something), and 401K liberals in general.
… thinking about lying-in-the-lap-of-lame-ass-luxury Dems in their fine Armani suits ‘getting down’ on the Senate floor, bein’ “brave” (Not.) and I got to thinking….
Wonder what sHillary woulda looked like getting arrested on the Senate floor. or in front of the UN. Or the WH.
Highly unflattering, isn’t it, the way those cops tug and tear at your clothing and let your bra straps hang out and shit.
The outrage and the action NEEDS to get off the net and on to the streets. We keep complaining about the “rest” of the people and how they refuse to get on board.
My question is: what do you have to do to get 70-100,000 401 K liberal bloggers OFF of their fucking computers and onto the street, the street, where things might get dirty. Where you might get more than your feathers ruffled and in fact might end up in jail. Where your Armani suit might sustain more damage than can be taken care of at the dry cleaners….
Hmmm. What WOULD it take?
The trouble with hitting the streets is that it appears to justify the claims of the admin that the liberals are nutso threats. They’ve been flushing quail for the past few months and this is another strategic move.
You know, rumi. The answer to that question has to be:
TOO FUCKING BAD.
Period.
So we are nutsos.
So we are “out of touch.”
Can we please just have a body count on how many of us there are? 😉
Everybody out on the street. Now.
And when the 100 K nutso 401K liberals
(who, might I also point out, are in a much better position to risk getting stains on their Mark Shale suits, or the ‘lost’ wages’ from sitting in jail for a couple of hrs, they probably wouldn’t have to worry much about posting bail, and many of them are attorneys themselves….etc.: you know, most of my neighbors can barely afford the time they need to take off work to VOTE much less protest)
are joined
by the many, many millions more who have simply ‘given up’ (either for ideological or economic reasons, or for whatever reason)
Then let’s see how many million ‘liberal nutsos’ we actually have in the country.
For the last week I have been quietly thinking about what various social change movements did when the political process wouldn’t work for them. They did not just organize protests – they organized people to break unjust laws. And they did this knowing they would be arrested. I keep thinking maybe its time for that. So far the only unjust law I can think about breaking is payment of my fedral income taxes. I thought maybe I’d send the $ to local Katrina relief agencies. And the pledge would be that we don’t pay federal taxes until this administration is impeached. But maybe there is another unjust law that could be challenged.
Thinking like this scares the shit out of me – but there is another part of me that thinks its time.
I think I have to screw up my courage. I think we have just been called to take things to another level.
I just read what Booman linked to in this comment above. I wonder if you’re thinking the same thing I’ve been thinking about?? I’m not sure if I’ve got what it takes. But who knows what we could do if we all did it together.
Yeah, I feel the same.
I hate to break it to you, but you Pennsylvanians are now going to be on the front line:
according to Jane:
Benjamin Franklin replied, [following the Constitutional Convention c.1787] when asked:“Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” replied; “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Sadly, it appears that we cannot.
Peace
I don’t mean to sound blase, but am surprised that you seem so surprised, Boo. Did you really think the GOP would allow this investigation? All they needed was some cover, which the WH supplied as usual: “national security”. Once again, this is ammo if the Dems use it right in the congressional election. I hope folks like Pennacchio don’t hold back during the primaries or the general.
One good thing about this: it totally fucks over any attempts by the Republicans to run against Bush in 2006. Oh, I have no doubt that they’ll try, but any competent opponent would be able to take this and disembowel them with it.
Shame the Democratic party establishment is categorically opposed to running competent candidates. I expect Santorum to be able to run circles around Casey with this tactic.
Ok so the spineless voted behind closed doors not to hold hearings as Sen Roberts crowed they ‘had reached an accommodation with the White House’ Indeed.
I suggest the Sen Intel Committee move into the Lincoln bedroom. The people who have the responsibility for oversight abdicated and joined in covering up the crime.
They have accommodated the criminal and set him free. Never mind that he has done irreparable harm. Where’s the outrage?
What has become of our country? Maybe it will take one resolution from a small town in Vermont to impeach Bush? Not practical we’re told.
But let’s keep the fight on. The next move is the Senate Judiciary Committee. Do you suppose anything will shame these guys and gals to do the right thing?
Glenn Greenwald has a lengthy analysis of the co-sponsored ‘Snowe & Hagel’ treason that happened today. Worth a read. It may ease the pain.
Could our government be any more broken? Need to scroll down
I say we need some guys and gals with spine- but that’s like looking for a grain of sand in a 10,000 acres stack of hay.
Hannity, O’Reilly, or one of the other Republican talking heads (hell, even Tweety) starts blathering about how Bush has restored “morality and decency” to the White House, we need to laugh in their freakin’ faces…oh, that’s right, blow jobs are evil and sinful, but spying on your own citizenry is just part of life in Bush’s Amerika, where you can be arrested for wearing the wrong T-shirt and threatened for speaking your mind on the public airwaves…
Boo man if you think this is depressing, you better get join the ranks of the rest of medicated America and get some mood elevators…quick.
Much worse things are being planned and have taken effect that isn’t being spoken about.
It’s time to admit that we are living in a developing facsists nation.
We should be talking about fascism, not democrats and republicans and elections and who might win.
This, it appears is a decades long plunge into the new techno fascist world where you being fascist is a way of staying safe.
In the future It’s a good idea to where your monitor anklette or have a monitor implant. Why shouldn’t everyone know where you are? Are you hiding something from someone, your employer, your wife? Your government?
If you have done nothing wrong there is no reason to be afraid. Your monitor is there to protect you.
How does a W with 34% approval rating get away with this #@$%$.
Because both parties agree with him.
This is what comes from having no ideological purity test. But hey, kos is all in favour of it!
Oh breathe…
just breathe….
I know how you’re feeling. It’s hard to see love die in any context, and this country is just NOT the one I grew up saluting the flag for.
We’re so near fascism it’s frightening. I don’t know why people are so cavalier about this. this is REALLY SERIOUS!!!
I’m as depressed and angry about this as anybody on this post. But we have to keep all this in perspective. The first perspective is that the people in charge are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. They fucked up Iraq, they fucked up the economy, Katrina, medicare, name it, and there is a FUBAR. So what makes you think they can operate an effective police state? This isn’t Germany, where they had an administration and a tradition that permitted a gangster to install a police state. This country is too big and too diverse to bring it off. And the objects of that state are too many. It’s not just the Jews — a couple of percent in Germany before the holocaust — but 30 percent plus of the population that they have to eliminate, which means friends and relatives of the other 70 percent. So despite all the brownshirting of us, I think on the whole we are safe, though I suspect that Noam Chomsky will be taking the bus from Boston to Berkely rather than the plane.
They will, of course, be auditing our tax returns. So keep clean. Small offences may federally be big fines and sentences, to be careful. But (hope I’m hnot whistlingi n the dark) we are still too many to suppress.
The test case is murder. When some of our people are killed and they don’t track down the killers, you know the game is up. Get out while the getting is good. I think this is some way off.
Very unfortunately for many of us — myself included – there is no getting out. To where? With what money? To do what?
I can barely picture streams of threadbare refugees streaming over the clear northern border, welcomed therein with loving arms.
However, those able to seriously consider getting out will do so on a purely subjective basis, in terms of what they’re willing to stand, regardless of the actual dangers to their own freedom & well-being.
My basic sense, regarding the rest of your post, is that you’re most basically correct in your assumptions regarding administration abilities to cleanly manifest their goals. However: these ‘fuckups’ have so far caused unearthly suffering & destruction. Imo, we’ve as much to find worrying in their failures as in their successes — if the two can actually be seperated in any meaningful way.
So it’s for their continuing fuckups that we also must steel ourselves.
The only way to make impeachment happen is to
SURROUND and OCCUPY the Capital Bldg. for as long as it takes.
I think we’d need a million people outside to support the occupiers inside. Two million would be better.
DO WE HAVE THE NUMBERS?
Two million would mean 40,000 people from each state (average)!
I think most people will prefer, rightly or wrongly,
to HOPE for the Dems to win in Nov. and HOPE that the Dems develop some huevos.
How many people would pledge to
participate in such an occupation?
Not that it will make any difference, but I wanted all of you to know that at my precinct caucus tonight we passed a resolution stating that both Bush and Cheney should be impeached. It passed 39-1. These are my neighbors!!
If every precinct caucus did the same thing, surely someone will step up.
nyt freepfest
So how long do we wait? When do we say enough is enough? Are we all waiting for someone, anyone to lead us? I got news for all of us, George Clooney is NOT going to save us. I feel as if we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. 401k liberals? So not me. I live paycheck to paycheck. But hell, I am more than ready to charge a plane ticket and hotel to join a million others in circling the Capitol and demanding for the Impeachment of the Cabal of Fascists in the White House and Capitol building.
The clock is ticking and it’s waaaaaaaaaaaay past midnight. Let’s stop dicking around and get a swarm on DC going now. I mean let’s face it, we have waited too long as it is! I’m ready, are you?
Why so blue, Boo?
Just figuring this out now?
It’s been going on since the Warren Commission.
A day late and a dollar short, the American left.
Just as it’s always been.
AG
shut the fuck up, AG. Seriously.
Don’t be a prick, BooMan.
Seriously.
That was not an insult.
Merely the truth of the matter.
Nor was it said in an insulting manner.
Here are the facts.
46 years and counting since the coup d’etat.
12 years of Democratic presidents (I don’t count LBJ, who was a witting participant in said coup as far as I am concerned. Post-shooting? Maybe. But he went along with the plan.)…and a SERIOUS case can be made that only James Carter was REALLY a Democrat, Arkansas being so close to Texas and all…34 years of Texas-run, Texas dominated, oil business-owned Rats. (Where is Dealy Plaza, again?)
The absolute lack of oversight by a tame congress…a bought and sold congress…extends DIRECTLY from the Warren Commission days.
And only NOW do we hear the left moaning and wailing about the lack of congressional oversight?
Sounds like a day late and a dollar short to me…
So then you tell me to shut the fuck up?
That’s Cheney language, baby.
Mind your own behavioral strictures.
AG
go fuck yourself gilroy.
seriously. I’m not in the mood.
take your pompous, self-satisfied, bloviating self somewhere far away from me today.
you are benzene in the pond. every comment you’ve made today has been insulting. I wish the community would step and explain that to you, so I wouldn’t have to.
i’m not going to listen to your bullshit, as if I was unaware of the power structure of DC, as those the political junkies that make up this community are all a bunch of born yesterday knaves…
Your act is fucking stale Arthur, and you are not comporting with the rules.
Yoiur rules.
Your site.
So be it.
Best of luck in the future.
Because…you are going to need it.
AG