OMNI
US DEMOCRACY NEWSLETTER
#3, January 12, 2015.
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace
and Justice.
(#1 April 21, 2013; #2 Oct. 28, 2013).
What’s at stake: When
you say “US Democracy” you mean?
Money/Corporations-White House-Congress-Mainstream
Media-Imperialism-Secrecy-Surveillance Complex? When Eisenhower warned us against a “military-industrial
[congressional] complex,” he foresaw for a moment the dark system of domination
of today, --Dick
US “democracy” abroad.
After discussing the invasion of Iraq:
“Elsewhere military regimes have been gently eased out of existence and
replaced with a new form of rule.
Capitalist democracy = privatization + ‘civil society’. This tried-and-tested formula has already
wrecked much of Latin America and the whole of Africa. The dictatorship of capital. . . “ Bush in
Babylon by Tariq Ali, p. 3.
My blog: War Department/Peace Department
My Newsletters:
Index:
See:
9-11, Bill of Rights, Bill of Rights
Day, Capitalism, Censorship, Citizens
United, Constitution, Constitution Day, Corporate Monopoly, Corporations, Democracy
Book Forum, Dictatorship, Dollarocracy, Empire, Fascism, Grassroots, Greed,
Money, National Security State, Patriot Act,
Plutocracy, Police State,
Secrecy, Security Mania, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Wars, etc.
Contents #3
USA Today: Plutocracy and Security
US Not a
Democracy but an Oligarchy: a Scientific Study
Money, the 1%
Money: Pay
to Play Video
Tim Wise, How America’s Elite…Jeopardize the Future
Koch Brothers’ Money
Josh Israel,
Koch Brothers’ $122 Million
Blumenthal,
Koch Brothers’ Empire
Just Give Me Security
Risen, Pay Any Price
Dick, Despite
Trillions for Security We Have Insecurity in the Capitol Mercy Me: The
Microscope on one Lilliputian Arkansas Comedy
Microscope on one Lilliputian Arkansas Comedy
Cole, US Corruption, a Comprehensive 10-Point List
Yearning and Struggling for Democracy
The People’s
Pledge
Kaye, Fight for
Four Freedoms
David Swanson, Daybreak
Oliver Stone, Untold History of the United States Film
and Book
Dave Johnson,
“We the People”? We the Rich? And
Government?
Moyers &
Co. 2013 - 2015 Exposing the Plutocracy
New
Organizations
Get Money Out
Represent Us
The some 50 items
in this newsletter provide a fairly comprehensive look at US democratic
failures and hopes, but see the newsletters on US imperialism and militarism a
deeper understanding of the problems of US “democracy.”.
USA
TODAY: COSTLY PLUTOCRACY AND INSECURITY
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US Is an Oligarchy Not a
Democracy, says Scientific Study"
.....
"Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But, ..." and then they go on to say, it's not true, and that, "America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened" by the findings in this, the first-ever comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows that there is instead "the nearly total failure of 'median voter' and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories [of America].
.....
The authors of this historically important study are Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, and their article is titled "Testing Theories of American Politics." The authors clarify that the data available are probably under-representing the actual extent of control of theU.S.
Economic Elite Domination theories do rather well in our analysis, even though our findings probably understate the political influence of elites. Our measure of the preferences of wealthy or elite Americans – though useful, and the best we could generate for a large set of policy cases – is probably less consistent with the relevant preferences than are our measures of the views of ordinary citizens or the alignments of engaged interest groups. Yet we found substantial estimated effects even when using this imperfect measure. The real-world impact of elites upon public policy may be still greater.
Nonetheless, this is the first-ever scientific study of the question of whether theU.S.
.....
"Despite the seemingly strong empirical support in previous studies for theories of majoritarian democracy, our analyses suggest that majorities of the American public actually have little influence over the policies our government adopts. Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association, and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But, ..." and then they go on to say, it's not true, and that, "America's claims to being a democratic society are seriously threatened" by the findings in this, the first-ever comprehensive scientific study of the subject, which shows that there is instead "the nearly total failure of 'median voter' and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories [of America].
.....
The authors of this historically important study are Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, and their article is titled "Testing Theories of American Politics." The authors clarify that the data available are probably under-representing the actual extent of control of the
Economic Elite Domination theories do rather well in our analysis, even though our findings probably understate the political influence of elites. Our measure of the preferences of wealthy or elite Americans – though useful, and the best we could generate for a large set of policy cases – is probably less consistent with the relevant preferences than are our measures of the views of ordinary citizens or the alignments of engaged interest groups. Yet we found substantial estimated effects even when using this imperfect measure. The real-world impact of elites upon public policy may be still greater.
Nonetheless, this is the first-ever scientific study of the question of whether the
MONEY
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How America's Elite
Demonize the Poor, Valorize the Rich and Jeopardize the Future by Tim Wise
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'Pay 2 Play' takes aim
at big money's effect in politics
A scene from the movie "Pay
2 Play." (Handout)
By MARTIN TSAI
Review: 'Pay 2 Play' is a well-researched documentary about the
effects of big money in politics
Citing
the Citizens United case, the Hobby Lobby case, the Koch brothers, Occupy Wall
Street, "stand your ground" and other trending topics of recent civil
discourse, the documentary "Pay 2 Play" lays out a compelling case against corporate
personhood and money as free speech.
Filmmaker
John Wellington Ennis uses as a case
study Ohio's 2005 "Coingate," with Tom Noe making financial
contributions to Republican candidates and receiving high-ranking government
posts and $50 million in state funds for his high-risk rare-coins investment
fund.
The
film also launches into Charles and David Koch's financial contributions to
1,053 winning candidates in the 2010 elections and the billionaire brothers'
bankrolling of the American Legislative Exchange Council, the think tank that
has masterminded thousands of pieces of legislation, among them anti-collective
bargaining laws, voter ID laws and stand-your-ground laws.
For
an advocacy agitprop, the film has researched, sourced and interviewed
exhaustively. The equal-opportunity Ennis expresses his distaste for both
Democratic and Republican parties: Noam Chomsky here dubs them two factions of
the Business Party. http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-pay-2-play-review-20140912-story.html
KOCH
BROTHERS
Koch Brothers’ Americans for
Prosperity Spent Record $122 Million in 2012
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 Josh Israel, News
Analysis, NationofChange, Nov. 17, 2013: Americans for Prosperity, the tax-exempt
conservative political organization created by oil billionaires David and
Charles Koch, spent one hundred and twenty two million dollars last year —
more than it spent in all previous years combined. While the group’s thirty
three point five million dollar campaign to defeat President Barack Obama
failed, AFP has successfully helped like-minded candidates at the state and
local level.
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TUE NOVEMBER 11, 2014
Pay Any
Price: Risen's new book a cringe-worthy must-read
By SCHAVIS
Dr. Robert Greer reviews
Pay Any Price: Greed, Power and Endless War by James Risen
"If you want to read a book that will make you cringe, or
even, perhaps, to make your hair stand on end, then Pay Any
Price: Greed, Power and Endless War by James Risen is a must
read.
"Risen's book has a simple premise: ever since 9/11 America
has fought a politically driven, endless
war on terrorism - a war that seems to seek out enemies everywhere and
never leads to a lasting peace. In Pay Any Price, Risen
explores the unbelievable cost of such a war, and defines how our government
has squandered tax dollars in the name of fighting terrorism, when in fact all
the government has really done since 9/11 (and that includes both Republican
and Democrat administrations) is siphon
trillions of dollars out of our pockets in order to prop up a homeland
security-industrial complex at home, pay off Middle Eastern thugs and
extremists who in fact hate us, feather their own nest, and risk the
security, health, safety and welfare of U.S. citizens."
In the radio book review above, Dr. Greer outlines from the book
misdeeds on the part of the last two presidents, the ongoing campaign to
discredit the author, and the suppression of troubling facts about U.S. policy.
Dr. Greer concludes: "If you are interested in the dark
places our republic might be headed, you must read Pay Any Price." http://kuvo.org/post/pay-any-price-risens-new-book-cringe-worthy-must-read
SECURITAS! FEAR AND CONFORMITY AT THE
CAPITOL , LITTLE ROCK, AR, or, MORE GUNS
LESS ITCH by Dick Bennett
Recently, I visited our County Court House
to vote and as always I wondered why we had to pass through a security
checkpoint administered by armed guards.
Where’s the threat?
Then I was astonished to read in the
newspaper about Arkansas’ Secretary of State Mark Martin’s wish to tighten
security at the Capitol (Michael Wickline, “Tighter Security an Itch at State
Capitol,” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Nov.
22, 2014). At least maybe I would learn
the threat here.
Why tighter security at the Capitol? Had a threat, or even a hint of a threat,
been discovered? Well, we are not told,
and Martin’s aides, reluctant to disclose more, wish “to meet privately with
lawmakers,” since “’it involves Capitol security’” and “’sweeping
changes’”—that is, will be inconvenient and expensive. But the public did learn that some alert members
of the Legislative Council’s Executive Subcommittee had questioned whether
security was adequate. Why? Because “security was tightened at the
entrance to the Big Mac Building.” Why? No reason given, only that the Director of
the Bureau of Legislative Research, Marty Garrity had hired Securitas of Little
Rock to “secure the entrance” to the building.
Someone had sounded an alarm, and the security-obsessed had started
lining up to increase security more. Why? “Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a
panic's in thy breastie!” thank you Robert Burns. Or does some other motive line them up? A local siphoning of our dollars to prop up
the local homeland security complex?
Capitol police Chief Darrell Hedden
“outlined steps that could be taken to make the building more secure.” So he is safe. But the public, the People whose Capitol it
is? What does he recommend against the
amorphous threat for the People?
Increased police work, police officers to augment the present 22 (with
dispatchers)? No, rather, decreased public access to our
Capitol. It could be “closed on weekends and holidays and a
traffic tunnel beneath the steps and next to the east entrance could be closed to the public.” And “all events by outside parties should be
discontinued at Capitol Hill
[Apartments],” where lawmakers live during sessions and have receptions. However, now that he has established himself
as thoroughly on the side of security, wily Shut the Capitol Down Heddon reminds the security-challenged that
such changes will be expensive and once in place difficult to change—“’a major
and lasting financial commitment.’”
In
response, Secretary of State Martin’s spokesman Doug Matayo repeated their
desire to first speak privately with lawmakers, and with the
Governor-elect, Asa Hutchinson, a former
federal Homeland Security undersecretary (safe at last), before undertaking
even minor changes, such as a rope line at the elevator to ensure all visitors
had been screened for weapons (requested by President Pro-Tempore Jonathan
Dismang). He repeated because “very
sweeping changes” were being considered which would be inconvenient and
expensive (and who will be the contractors?), and they wanted everyone to be
agreeable to the changes. Particularly,
they wanted to “be good stewards of the tax dollars.” Finally, Mr. Wickline quotes Matayo as cognizant
of the need both for public access to the Capitol and for “safety and security”
for the people who work there. That’s
his “balancing act.”
Mr. Matayo seems a nimble Wile E. Coyote
in all this, until one thinks--about the influence of fear despite the absence
of threat (somebody else is increasing
security so we’d better do it), the secrecy (prefer “to meet privately with
lawmakers”), the cant (planning to spend the people’s treasury without cause
while claiming to be good stewards, and to restrict our access—our freedom, our
democracy—while trying to undermine our “rare” Capitol’s access), the
possibility of greed (Mr. Wickline asks no questions about the ownership and
clients of Securitas), and the power (controlling the People’s money and the People’s physical movement).
And until one remembers. This drama mimics anti-democratic national
politics. At the conclusion of Pay Any Price, 273 circumstantial pages
on the catastrophe against our democracy by the “War on Terror” (torture
legalized, 4th Amendment nullified) author James Risen writes: “The intense [bipartisan] campaign to ramp up
cybersecurity and pour money and resources into mysterious new programs, while
limiting online privacy, sounds eerily similar to the debate after 9/11 over
security versus civil liberty, in which security always won.”
But
perhaps it will not win in this wee case, if the People speak up for access to
its elected officials and for spending for citizens’ needs instead of
officials’ fear, conformity, and ambition (Securitas!). Thanks to reporter Wickline for providing
the resistant circumstantiality of Absurditas!
Top 10 Ways the US is the Most Corrupt Country in the World By
Juan Cole | Dec. 3, 2013 |. Informed Comment
Those
ratings that castigate Afghanistan and some other poor countries as hopelessly
“corrupt” always imply that the United States is not corrupt.
While
it is true that you don’t typically have to bribe your postman to deliver the
mail in the US, in many key ways America’s political and financial practices
make it in absolute terms far more corrupt than the usual global South
suspects. After all, the US economy is worth over $16 trillion a year, so in
our corruption a lot more money changes hands.
1.
Instead of having short, publicly-funded political campaigns with limited
and/or free advertising (as a number of Western European countries do), the US
has long political campaigns in which candidates are dunned big bucks for
advertising. They are therefore forced to spend much of their time fundraising,
which is to say, seeking bribes. All American politicians are basically on the
take, though many are honorable people. They are forced into it by the system.
House Majority leader John Boehner has actually just handed out cash on the
floor of the House from the tobacco industry to other representatives.
When
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated in 2012, soon thereafter French
police actually went into his private residence searching for an alleged
$50,000 in illicit campaign contributions from the L’Oreale heiress. I thought
to myself, seriously? $50,000 in a presidential campaign? Our presidential
campaigns cost a billion dollars each! $50,000 is a rounding error, not a basis
for police action. Why, George W. Bush took millions from arms manufacturers
and then ginned up a war for them, and the police haven’t been anywhere near
his house.
American
politicians don’t represent “the people.” With a few honorable exceptions, they
represent the the 1%. American democracy is being corrupted out of existence.
2.
That politicians can be bribed to reduce regulation of industries like banking
(what is called “regulatory capture”) means that they will be so bribed.
Billions were spent and 3,000 lobbyists employed by bankers to remove
cumbersome rules in the zeroes. Thus, political corruption enabled financial
corruption (in some cases legalizing it!) Without regulations and government
auditing, the finance sector went wild and engaged in corrupt practices that
caused the 2008 crash. Too bad the poor Afghans can’t just legislate their
corruption out of existence by regularizing it, the way Wall street did.
3.
That the chief villains of the 2008 meltdown (from which 90% of Americans have
not recovered) have not been prosecuted is itself a form of corruption.
4.
The US military budget is bloated and enormous, bigger than the military
budgets of the next twelve major states. What isn’t usually realized is that
perhaps half of it is spent on outsourced services, not on the military. It is
corporate welfare on a cosmic scale. I’ve seen with my own eyes how officers in
the military get out and then form companies to sell things to their former
colleagues still on the inside.
5.
The US has a vast gulag of 2.2 million prisoners in jail and penitentiary.
There is an increasing tendency for prisons to be privatized, and this tendency
is corrupting the system. It is wrong for people to profit from putting and
keeping human beings behind bars. This troubling trend is made all the more
troubling by the move to give extra-long sentences for minor crimes, to deny
parole and to imprison people for life for e,g, three small thefts.
6.
The rich are well placed to bribe our politicians to reduce taxes on the rich.
This and other government policies has produced a situation where 400 American
billionaires are worth $2 trillion, as much as the bottom 150 million
Americans. That kind of wealth inequality hasn’t been seen in the US since the
age of the robber barons in the nineteenth century. Both eras are marked by
extreme corruption.
7.
The National Security Agency’s domestic spying is a form of corruption in
itself, and lends itself to corruption. With some 4 million government
employees and private contractors engaged in this surveillance, it is highly
unlikely that various forms of insider trading and other corrupt practices are
not being committed. If you knew who Warren Buffett and George Soros were
calling every day, that alone could make you a killing. The American political
class wouldn’t be defending this indefensible invasion of citizens’ privacy so
vigorously if someone somewhere weren’t making money on it.
8.
As for insider trading, it turns out Congress undid much of the law it hastily
passed forbidding members, rather belatedly, to engage in insider trading
(buying and selling stock based on their privileged knowledge of future
government policy). That this practice only became an issue recently is another
sign of how corrupt the system is.
9.
Asset forfeiture in the ‘drug war’ is corrupting police departments and the
judiciary.
10.
Money and corruption have seeped so far into our media system that people can
with a straight face assert that scientists aren’t sure human carbon emissions
are causing global warming. Fox Cable News is among the more corrupt
institutions in American society, purveying outright lies for the benefit of
the billionaire class. The US is so corrupt that it is resisting the obvious
urgency to slash carbon production. Even our relatively progressive president
talks about exploiting all sources of energy, as though hydrocarbons were just
as valuable as green energy and as though hydrocarbons weren’t poisoning the
earth.
Even
Qatar, its economy based on natural gas, freely admits the challenge of
human-induced climate change. American politicians like Jim Inhofe are openly
ridiculed when they travel to Europe for their know-nothingism on climate.
So
don’t tell the Philippines or the other victims of American corruption how
corrupt they are for taking a few petty bribes. Americans are not seen as
corrupt because we only deal in the big denominations. Steal $2 trillion and
you aren’t corrupt, you’re respectable.
THE
PEOPLE STRUGGLING FOR DEMOCRACY
There is also a handout on the page and a sign up form for
candidates committed to proposing the Pledge to their opponent(s). Thanks for
asking! Aquene
THE FIGHT FOR THE FOUR
FREEDOMS
What Made FDR and the Greatest Generation
Truly Great
by Harvey J. Kaye. Simon and Schuster, 2014. 344pp.
Subscribe
KIRKUS
REVIEW
A spirited
call to remember and act on the original progressive intent of Franklin
Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms.
The rallying cry
of the Greatest Generation—with its back to the Great Depression and its face
to the Axis threat in Europe—contained those “four freedoms” delineated by
President Roosevelt in his annual message to Congress on Jan. 6, 1941: freedom
of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in one’s own way; freedom from
want; and freedom from fear. As historian, author and journalist Kaye
(Democracy and Justice Studies/Univ. of Wisconsin-Green Bay; Thomas
Paine and the Promise of America, 2005, etc.) sets forth in this stirring
survey, those four basic ideals have been supplanted and even submerged over
the last 30 years by the erosion of democratic impulses through private greed
and massive economic inequality. Kaye walks readers through the Roosevelt era
to remind us of its greatest
achievement: the recovery from an unprecedented Great Depression through a
battery of mightily effective government agencies, public works and regulatory
acts. The programs aimed to empower laboring people, consumers, Southern
blacks, minorities and women, and while much of the New Deal was deemed
radical, Roosevelt claimed his programs were part of the “perpetual, peaceful
revolution—a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to
changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime of the
ditch.” Indeed, the Four Freedoms unfurled not long before the U.S. was plunged
headlong into war, thus becoming the sustaining ideals worth fighting for.
Moreover, FDR intimated that “the American experiment was unfinished,” and yet
subsequent presidents and administrations did not necessarily fulfill the
promise of the freedoms, as Cold War fears and business interests strengthened
the country’s conservative and reactionary elements.
A systematic,
heady dose of American history by a frustrated, even outraged progressive
thinker.
Reviewing
David Swanson's 'Daybreak'
By Stephen Lendman
9-9-9
By Stephen Lendman
9-9-9
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David
Swanson is co-founder of AfterDowningStreet.org and Washington Director of
Democrats.com. He's also a board member of Progressive Democrats of America,
the Backbone Campaign, and Voters for Peace as well as a member of the
legislative working group of United for Peace and Justice.
Subtitled
"Undoing the Imperial Presidency and Forming A More Perfect Union,
Daybreak" is Swanson's first book, a timely and impressive account of presidential extremism,
congressional complicity, the urgency for progressive change, and how to do
it.
Swanson
exposes what was wrong under George Bush and provides a compelling
prescription for real change.
In
his book "Cracks in the Constitution," Ferdinand Lundberg explained
that the supreme law of the land, the Constitution, never deterred presidents
or sitting governments from doing what they wished, then inventing
justifications for their actions. During eight years in office, George Bush
personified it and said so in his own words. In 2005, he told congressional
Republican leaders:
"I'm
the president and the commander-in chief. Do (things) my way. Stop throwing
the Constitution in my face. It's just a goddamned piece of paper." Both
parties acceded. The administration got away with murder. Separation of
powers were abandoned. Checks and balances barely exist. Lawlessness became
the new standard, and the republic took a giant step backward toward despotism
and dystopia under a culture of violence, police state laws, and a Wall
Street-run asset-stripping system - parasitically destroying America,
wrecking the economy for profit, and forcing the public into permanent debt
peonage.
Swanson's
book is a call to arms for change, an alert about what's wrong with the
nation, the urgency to restore the rule of law, save the republic, and
necessity to get engaged enough to matter. After eight years under Bush -
Cheney and Obama's early months, the government is more than ever corrupted,
imperial, and extremist. Undoing the
damage will take years of committed effort, and Swanson explains how:
--
understand the imminent danger;
--
replace today's media system with a more democratic one;
--
develop new thoughts and actions;
--
engage to work for change;
--
cooperate with other nations, don't exploit them;
--
consider eight years of damage and serious problems built up over decades;
--
demand accountability for wrongdoing; and
--
"encourage the American people to take actions that are absolutely
necessary. Now."
Presidential
Power Grab and How to Repair It
George
Bush's "attorneys openly argued before a congressional committee that
the president (may) violate any law until the Supreme Court specifically
rules in favor of it." He used signing statements to rewrite them,
issued one-man rule Executive Orders, and unconstitutionally usurped
"unitary executive" powers that Chalmers Johnson called a
"bald-faced assertion of presidential supremacy....dressed up in
legalistic mumbo jumbo."
Congress
let him bypass the Constitution and do as he pleased. Police state laws were
enacted. Permanent wars are waged for world dominance. Torture became
official US policy. Government is more secretive and intrusive than ever.
Illegal spying is pervasive. Dissent is targeted. Social decay is deepening.
Democracy is eroding and dying. Incestuous ties between favored business
interests and government created a cesspool of corruption, and America is
plagued more than ever by the dynamic that doomed earlier empires - what
Chalmers Johnson calls "isolation, overstretch, the uniting of local and
global forces opposed to imperialism, and in the end bankruptcy." Under
Obama, little so far has changed as the
nation strays further toward tyranny and ruin. http://rense.com/general87/midl.htm
The Power of War
Article 51 of the UN
Charter
authorizes the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an
armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken
measures to maintain international peace and security." Preemptive
attacks are banned at all times with no exceptions.
The
Nuremberg Charter's Article VI explicitly prohibits the following:
--
crimes against peace;
--
planning and waging wars of aggression;
--
war crimes; and
--
crimes against humanity.
The
Nuremberg Tribunal also stated
that, "To initiate a war of aggression....is not only an international
crime; it is the supreme international crime (against peace) differing only
from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil
of the whole."
The
Constitution's Article I, Section 8 empowers Congress alone to declare war,
even though since 1941 it deferred unconstitutionally to the president.
If
America is under attack or faces an imminent threat, the November 1973 War Powers Resolution lets the president deploy US
forces for up to 60 days plus an additional 30 days for withdrawal, subject
to congressional authorization and without a declaration of war.
Post-9/11,
no threat existed, yet the Bush administration used deception to wage illegal
aggressive wars in defiance of the above constitutional and international law
standards. Republican and Democrat Congresses acceded, and so has Barack
Obama by continuing an open-ended Iraq occupation and stepped up belligerency
against Afghanistan and Pakistan, with perhaps other nations and regions to
follow.
If
it chooses, Congress can end wars by no longer funding them. Article I,
Section 7, Clause I says:
"All
bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives;
but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other Bills."
Either
House may originate an appropriations bill although the House claims sole
authority to do it. Either may amend bills of any kind, including revenue and
appropriation ones. Congress has the power of the purse, so it alone, if it
wishes, can fund or end wars. Under George Bush and Barack Obama, Democrats
and Republicans are united to continue them.
September 11 was the pretext for
launching a long-planned premeditated attack against Afghanistan - a
non-belligerent country posing no threat to America and one that sought
peaceful engagement. Non-existent weapons of mass destruction then became
justification for waging preemptive war against Iraq. Both conflicts are
blatantly illegal, yet continue without end.
On
January 17, 2003 (ahead of the Iraq war), Law Professor and international
human rights law expert Francis Boyle introduced six articles of impeachment against George W. Bush on
charges of "high crimes and misdemeanors," including:
--
trying to suspend Habeas Corpus;
--
backing the unconstitutional USA Patriot Act;
--
the mass-rounding up and incarcerating of foreigners;
--
conducting kangaroo tribunal proceedings;
--
violating and subverting the Posse Comitatus Act;
--
conducting lawless searches and seizures; and
--
violating the First Amendment, the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions, US
War Crimes Act, UN Convention Against Torture, and Universal Declaration of
Human Rights.
As
a result, "George Walker Bush has acted in a manner contrary to his
trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great
prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the
people of the United States." So far, Barack Obama shares equal guilt
under US and international law.
On
June 10, 2008, Congressman Dennis
Kucinich introduced 35 Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush,
citing among other charges:
--
"Creating a Secret Propaganda Campaign to Manufacture a False Case for
War Against Iraq;"
--
lying to Congress and the public about weapons of mass destruction and
calling Iraq a security threat;
--
violating the Constitution and UN Charter;
--
"Initiating a War Against Iraq for Control of That Nation's Natural
Resources;"
--
"illegally misspen(ding) funds to begin a war in secret prior to any
congressional authorization;"
--
authorizing torture and extraordinary renditions to secret "black
sites;"
--
threatening to attack Iran;
--
illegally spying on Americans; and
--
obstructing investigations about the 9/11 attacks.
No
action was taken, so George Bush, Dick Cheney and other high officials in
their administration faced no charges in office and still don't today.
The Power of Money
As
explained above, only Congress has "the power of the purse" to
spend or not spend as it chooses and also how much. Under constitutional and
statutory law, "it is illegal to use government funds for anything other
than what Congress appropriates them for." Yet lawless spending occurs regularly, including through
unaccountable black budgets, and Congress does nothing to stop it.
Through
a signing statement, George Bush empowered himself to transfer funds from
authorized programs to secret ones. It was one of Kucinich's impeachment
charges against him.
Then
in 2008, the Bush administration began looting
the federal Treasury to reward criminal bankers for their crimes and
accelerated the process of transferring public wealth to Wall Street. Obama
greatly stepped up the practice, and on July 20, 2009, AP reported that:
"The
federal government has devoted $4.7 trillion to help the financial sector
through its crisis, a watchdog report said Monday," referring to Neil
Barofsky, the Special Treasury Department's Inspector General in charge of
overseeing the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).
"Under
the worst of circumstances, the report said, the government's maximum
exposure could total nearly $24 trillion, or (an) $80,000 (liability) for
every American."
On
March 31, Bloomberg reported that the Treasury and Fed "spent, lent or
committed $12.8 trillion," an amount approaching America's 2008 $14
trillion GDP. Currently, the number at least matches and may exceed it.
At
the same time, the economic crisis
is worsening. Credit remains frozen. The worst housing and commercial real
estate slump since the Great Depression continues. Foreclosures threaten
millions. Job losses keep mounting. True unemployment, according to economist
John Williams (with all uncounted categories included), approaches 21% and is
rising. Savings have greatly eroded. Government debt levels are unparalleled
during peacetime. Major banks are effectively insolvent. Households are too
over-extended to spend or borrow more, and the administration offered little
relief to them or states unable to meet their budget commitments, so they
adjust by slashing essential social services, including health care,
education, and everything for the most needy.
Power of the
Judiciary
For
years and especially under George Bush, the federal judiciary has been
stacked with judges from or affiliated with the extremist Federalist Society. It advocates
rolling back civil liberties; ending New Deal social policies; opposing
reproductive choice, government regulations (except industry approved ones),
labor rights and environmental protections; and subverting justice in defense
of privilege.
Bush's
Justice Department was just as corrupted by putting politics ahead of the
rule of law, hiring and firing prosecutors and other employees based on their
loyalty to the Republican party, targeting the innocent opportunistically,
waging war on Islam and Latino immigrants, creating justifications for
administration crimes, then turning a blind eye to them.
For
eight years, waging illegal wars, committing crimes of war and against
humanity, violating constitutional and international laws, legalizing torture
as official US policy, sanctioning police state laws, spying illegally on
Americans, permitting government and corporate fraud, criminalizing dissent,
and creating "a justice system stripped of all justice," became
federal policy under George Bush and remains so under Obama.
Forming a More
Perfect Union
We
can
restore the Bill of Rights and add new ones, revoke illegal laws like the USA
Patriot Act, and enforce all constitutional, statutory, and international
ones. We can reinvent democracy and make it real. We can make social equity
and equal justice the law of the land. We can be good neighbors, not
intimidating ones.
We
can protect against "arbitrary arrest, detention, exile, or enforced
disappearance, and from all forms of slavery and forced labor, with criminal
penalties for violators and compensation for victims." We can ban
torture, illegal surveillance, political witch-hunts, and corporate
personhood. We can protect, not wreck the environment, prohibit unsafe foods
and drugs, enforce collective bargaining and human and civil rights. We can
guarantee safety net protections for the needy, end homelessness and hunger,
elevate living standards, and make corporations and the rich pay their fair
share.
We
can take the power of money out of politics, convene a second constitutional
convention, redo the document Michael Parenti said protected "a rising
bourgeoisie('s freedom to) invest, speculate, trade, and accumulate" to
assure that people who own the country run it. We get it right this time, but
grassroots pressure is needed to do it. We can discover that organized people
can beat organized money with enough will.
We
no longer need tolerate extreme inequalities of wealth, lost civil liberties,
human rights abuses, destructive foreign wars, the American dream turned
nightmare, and politics more corrupted than ever regardless of the party in
power. Ideas for change abound. Free and open debate are needed to pick the
best, then organize for change and work to enact them for the fundamental
goal of equity and justice for all in a nation again to be proud of.
Citizen Power
People
are crying for change, but only grassroots activism can bring it. In his call
to arms, Swanson says:
"We
have reached a critical moment, at great expense, but with great possibility.
Things have gotten bad enough in the minds of enough Americans that there is
an opening for creating a mass movement for real change, and that movement is
already growing all around us." After eight years under Bush - Cheney
and a complicit Congress, "What is needed in US civil society is a
revolution," a non-violent one.
But
"Throughout history, the most powerful movements have (been met by) the
most powerful suppressive reactions....Our own power and potential for
greater power lies in the coalition we can build of activist groups focused
on domestic and international issues, in organizing and training, in funding,
in media of our own creation, in leaders, in sympathetic and organized
government employees, in protection we can offer to whistleblowers and
resisters, in our international allies, in local and state governments, and
possibly even in the Congress or the Supreme Court resisting the abuses of
the White House in the interests of a balance of powers."
Short
of effective real change, odds are "our future will take us from bad to
worse," and produce a government even more harmful to the public
interest. "The choice belongs (collectively) to all of us together"
to prevent it and work for the America we want. But wishing won't make it so.
Stephen Lendman is a Research
Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago
and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also
visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global
Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday - Friday at 10AM US
Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world
and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.
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OLIVER STONE’S FILM "Untold
History of the United States”
Dear Dick,
I am not sure if you have heard
of this "Untold History of the United States" film
series by Oliver Stone? It is apparently a very factual series of
documentaries from WWI to present in the tradition of Howard Zinn's
"People's History". I am going to buy a copy of the DVDs (there
is a book also). I am copying links to where they can be purchased at
Amazon below if you are interested too. I am also copying a link to a
trailer preview, and the educational Untoldhistory.com website, which has
lesson plans for teachers.
I have read wonderful things about this project:
“There is much here to reflect upon... At
stake is whether the United States will choose to be the policeman of a 'Pax
Americana,' which is a recipe for disaster, or partner with other nations on
the way to a safer, more just, and sustainable future.”I have read wonderful things about this project:
- Mikhail
Gorbachev
“Following in
the footsteps of William Appleman Williams, Walter LaFeber, and Howard Zinn,
the Stone-Kuznick team grapples with the unsavory legacy of American
militarism... Make room on your book shelf or Kindle.”
- Douglas
Brinkley, Historian
DVD Series: http://www.amazon.com/Untold-History-United-States-DVD/dp/B00FX0E5RQ/ref=tmm_aiv_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1398927292&sr=8-2
Book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Untold-History-United-States/dp/1451613520/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1398927292&sr=8-1
Imagine Democracy
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Dave Johnson, Op-Ed,
NationofChange, Nov. 17, 2013: “We the
People.” How many of us have really thought through the implications of these
three words? Can people today even imagine a government that is on the side
of We the People, instead of being rigged to benefit the already-wealthy and
crush the hopes and efforts of the rest of us? Corporate/conservative-funded
interests have pounded the public with unceasing propaganda promoting the
idea that government can’t do anything right, business always does everything
better and more “efficiently,” market solutions (one-dollar-one-vote) are
better than public (one-person-one-vote) solutions, and so on.
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