“Ah! I have lost my freedom, and hell is now beginning.”
Albert Camus
I’ve lurked on DU for more than a year now, my best source of real news. My concern about Agent Mike kept me from registering, and besides, there are plenty of people who make the same points I would.
That was until 2 days ago. Darn that minimum posts thing :eyes:
Originalpckelly wrote
this 2 days ago. I’ve been following the general trend regarding impeachment on DU since the Nov. 06 elections, and it started relatively 50/50 for/against judging from the posts, and has been leaning more and more toward impeachment since then, to the point that I would guess it’s roughly 80/20 in favor on DU currently. Not to say the other 20% wouldn’t like it to happen(although there are probably a few who would like the next President, assuming it’s a Dem, to assume the unitary exec position), but the argument continues to be “We don’t have the votes!”
Well, it struck me what is being said when we say “We don’t have the votes,” or “We need to win more seats” and “We need to win the Whitehouse,” is:
WE DON’T HAVE THE POWER.Does that scare anyone here? It freaks me out, personally. :scared:
Dictionary.com:
Slave
–noun
1. A person who is the property of and wholly subject to another; a bond servant.
2. A person entirely under the domination of some influence or person: a slave to a drug.
Think that word is a tad extreme? The current Administration
insists that the law does not apply to them, while they
insist that we have to be spied on, protest in approved zones or
shut up altogether, give up our property if they want it and support
more troops in Iraq. Did I mention we have a
state religion now?We all knew something was up when they submitted the
Military Commissions Act of 2006. I seem to recall them insisting that it did not apply to citizens, even as
they held Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant. Keith Olbermann gave a great rant on this for those of you who weren’t with us at the time,
here.The really good stories of becoming hellbound show it as a gradual process. In the same way, our freedom is taken away piece by piece.
Some would say 6½ years is hardly a “long road,” but I assert that the people in charge are simply letting us know that we will not be given the illusion of self-determination anymore. “Freedom is for us and our children, and screw you and your ‘god given rights,’” would probably be their official statement. Here’s the problem with that: I don’t recall agreeing to that.
The Constitution is a
contract. It had to be
agreed to, which is why the Bill of Rights exists.
WE ARE THE GOVERNMENT, NOT THEM. The government, our money, our laws and our policies
MUST TO BE AGREED TO. They’ve convinced us that we must, at the very least, silently support them, no matter what insanity they come up with.
What they don’t want us to know is that in reality,
THEY NEED US. The power is
OURS.The cries continue that we need more money and more Dems representing us. Ok, let’s try this:
Disband the
Fed, and let’s see how powerful they are without their
worthless pieces of paper. I’d like to see them keep paying Blackwater with their jewelry or anything else they’ve stolen from us of value.
Eliminate
Corporate Welfare, and either restore the rights of normal people to declare bankruptcy or take away the right for large companies to do so when they feel it’s time to close up shop and head to Belize. Kill corporate
“personhood” while you’re at it.
Break up the
media and other megacorporations using existing antitrust laws.
Get rid of the
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/news/2005/12/69893">Diebold machines and get rid of the “voting irregularities.”
These rather large problems add up to a rigged game that we are NOT going to win, no matter that we have 98% of the vote. Right now, 70% is already against the current administration, but somehow “We don’t have the votes.”
These issues, even though huge by themselves, are simply the smallest tip of an enormous black iceberg, some of which was admitted to in
“The Family Jewels.” Even with the small admissions and blatant lawbreaking, we haven’t heard even 1/1000th of has been done in the name of “Freedom and the American way.”
Why does this matter if “we don’t have the votes”? Because it represents a challenge to who we thought we were. In reality, we’ve been destroying other people’s democracies for a long time now, but it was neatly swept under the rug, usually by stating “It was only those (insert undesirable term) people.” The time for that is over- either we are monsters, or we are a beneficial force in the world. We can’t be the former while claiming the latter, anymore.
IMO, impeachment or a new constitutional convention is called for. Can we do it? Certainly. Will we “win”? Maybe. The alternative is to allow repugnant acts to be done in our names, with our labor and blood.
"Democracy and freedom do not guarantee the millennium. No, we do not choose political freedom because it promises us this or that. We choose it because it makes possible the only dignified form of human coexistence, the only form in which we can be fully responsible for ourselves. Whether we realize its possibilities depends on all kinds of things — and above all on ourselves."
Karl Popper in "On Freedom" (1958)