Take Heart and Have Courage

[davidswanson]

We've pushed long and hard to put accountability, impeachment, prosecution, and the restoration of congressional power on the American table, and they've all just landed with a thud and splatter of gravy and cranberry dressing. So, eat up, take heart, and prepare to work harder than we have over the past several frustrating years of path breaking and pressure building.

Impeachment, specifically of torture memo author turned lifetime federal judge Jay Bybee ( http://impeachbybee.org ), is now supported by all the organizations that have backed impeachment of his bosses, plus: the New York Times, Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution Jerrold Nadler, Common Cause, Think Progress, and the Courage Campaign. Local Democratic parties in California have passed resolutions and are urging the state party to do so this week requesting the impeachment of Bybee.

The appointment of a Special Prosecutor ( http://prosecutebushcheney.org ) is now supported by all the groups that have always been there, plus the ACLU, Moveon.org, blogs including FireDogLake, and at least half-heartedly Amnesty International. On Thursday at 2:30 p.m. in Rayburn 2359, Attorney General Eric Holder (with whom Rep. Jerrold Nadler is meeting on this topic today) will testify before a subcommittee. At that time, After Downing Street, Democrats.com, ACLU, and FireDogLake will deliver petitions to Holder asking for a special prosecutor. Sign here. And go here to contact members of the subcommittee to ask them to ask Holder why, if waterboarding is torture, and if the evidence (including open admission by the former vice president) is public, and if the Convention Against Torture requires that we enforce our laws, he isn't doing so. Congress members Conyers, Nadler, and Schakowsky have spoken out in support of a special prosecutor. Ask your representative and senators to do the same!

The AP is reporting that Obama is open to the possibility of partial enforcement of some laws and "bipartisan" Congressional investigations, and that law enforcement decisions are up to Attorney General Eric Holder.

Spain is keeping alive its attempt to indict six members of Bush's torture team including Jay Bybee. Please phone the Spanish Embassy and thank and encourage them.

The long suspected blackmailing of Democratic congress members to support crimes and abuses has begun to be reported as documented fact in at least the case of Rep. Jane Harman.

The release of memos and the anticipated release of reports and additional pieces of evidence, combined with the passage of time, exacerbated by the Obama administration's efforts to shelter its predecessors is helping to build what we have been laying the foundations for over the past few years.

There are a great many ways you can advance the cause of accountability, and they can all be found at http://prosecutebushcheney.org

So, take heart, brothers and sisters. I know you're beaten down. I know you're disillusioned and hopebroken. I know you've worked hard, sacrificed, and willed yourselves to believe in the possibility of progress time and time again. I am telling you that I know what you've done and thank you for it and would never discount or minimize it. But movements never succeed until the opposition beats them back behind the starting line and they rise again stronger, taking the attacks and rejections as the highest form of flattery, transforming frustration into dedication and determination.

Remember that a serious attempt at accountability is a tremendous deterrent to future crimes and abuses even if it fails. And remember that they will not tell us we are succeeding until we already have. This is the moment for action. This is the time to pressure your representatives, to work the media, to be the media, to organize your groups and friends and neighbors. This is the moment to punch a hole through the wall that has separated those of us who are subject to laws from those who have not been. This is the time, the darkest and yet most hopeful time, to do MORE than we do when things look easy. That is how we win and how all justice has always been won.

Onward!

[Dollface]

1. We would be foolish to underestimate Obama. You can't win at chess until you position your pieces.

I'm thinking he wants a popular mandate for the Justice Dept to move on this. Burn out the talking heads, allow Cheney to prattle on, let the tide build. (Anyway, I hope this is the case. So everybody keep on talking.)

[Two Americas]

4. that could be

If so, then our role - strongly speaking out and advocating what is right - is still an essential ingredient, and one that would be taken into account is any chess strategy.



...

[maryf]

14. And the pawn can do that as well as any other, especially with other pawns,

so all us pawns banding together can put the kings in check, speak out, no fear...

[readmoreoften]

7. After all the fantasies about the chess moves of the 2006 Democratic congress...

it's all beginning to look like obfuscation to me. It's not a game. Obama exhaustion comes on the heels of the defending the do-nothing Democratic congress of 2006. Rank and file Democrats spent hours dreaming about how their elected officials were "keeping their powder dry." That turned to "their hands are tied." I find the "dry powder" and "chess moves" arguments to be little more than wishful thinking. Obama has all the political clout he needs to clean house and prosecute the worst administration in American history. He took office with a huge amount of political capital, taking over the reigns from a president who did not have the support of 75% of Americans, and a VP and Congress with less than 9% support.

Obama is clearly doing what he wants and intends to do. There is no mystery, no set up because there is no reason to be mysterious. Polls have shown that the majority of Americans favor prosecution. Don't be surprised when Obama shields the team. Perhaps a sacrificial lamb will be offered up to the liberals: some minor figure will pay the price, a colonel, etc. Obama is not a firebrand, he's a company man who wants to bring about a golden mean between fascism and old fashioned government program liberalism.

[bertman]

9. I agree with you, readmoreoften, but the power of a strong, organized, and determined

group of citizens could make the difference in giving President Obama the push he needs to take on this challenge. It's a given that it WILL NOT HAPPEN if we don't raise holy hell.

[readmoreoften]

17. That's why people need to keep laying on the pressure.

That's why criticism is essential--even if Obama is a saint sent from Heaven, if the RW is as strong as everyone claims then he'll need a base on which to blame his anti-fascist acts. If the RW is weak then he has no reason to play elaborate chess games.

[puebloknot]

10. And never the twain shall meet. Oil and water, or so I'd like to think.

My daughter had an assignment in art school to draw something composed of electronic and organic elements. She combined a hair dryer with a banana. It was an ugly thing. So would be a "golden mean between fascism and old fashioned government program libralism."

[scentopine]

22. On the spectrum between fascism and FDR liberalism,

Let's see where we are by examining a few significant benchmarks:

* Sam "Corporations Have Rights Above Citizens" Alito on Supreme Court

* Remember Cheney's secret meetings with oil execs just before the war?

* Amnesty for Wall Street - private companies own the treasury, Goldman et al, not the other way around

* Amnesty for Wire Tapping - AT&T et al providing the govt. your web posts just like this,

* Amnesty for Torture - contractors like CACI, Balckwater, Halliburton.

Guess how many convictions? Count them on one hand. Scooter Libby is more like half of a pinky.

So, we have some of the biggest challenges to public citizenship that our "free and democratic" country has ever faced.

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace: business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob. Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me and I welcome their hatred.” FDR 1936

Listen to this speech - it gives goosebumps.

http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3307

It is after the Morgan coup attempt - a real fascist attempt to take over US before WW2.

History can repeat itself, its up to us to prevent it.

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/generalsources.html.

[midnight]

2. Thank you David.

[mmonk]

3. Onward it is.

[elizfeelinggreat]

5. The Overton Window

"they will not tell us we are succeeding until we already have"

From radical to accepted. You're right, we must keep pushing.

And thanks for the link! I haven't visited After Downing Street in a long time (shame on me).

[davidswanson]

6. shame on you

update: add PFAW to groups for impeaching Bybee

[bertman]

8. Thanks, David. Isn't that the petition that many of us signed a few months back?

Recommend.

[puebloknot]

11. K&R Inspiring. Thanks. nt

[omega minimo]

12. Buh Bye Bybee

:hi: Buh Bye

[bleever]

13. K&R.

Onward.

[malaise]

15. Thanks

Hope you'll be on the Breakfast Club soon with these updates.

[azmouse]

16. kick

[Solly Mack]

18. K&R

[Fireweed247]

19. When will the anti-war movement start protesting again?

It is possible that Obama is waiting for US to demand and end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so that he can tell the Military Industrial Complex, 'hey, they people have spoken'. What happened to our protests to end these illegal immoral unending adventures in war crimes?

[Fireweed247]

20. here is a link to contact UFPJ if anyone else wants to request they fire up their mailing list

and organize another protest focused on ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
http://www.unitedforpeace.org/contactus.php

[PATRICK]

21. The times have changed

No we cannot go from 0-70 mph like the cons did to spread terror, war and universal criminal looting. Especially we can't up the slope those criminals have spread of slippery mud just for their CYA post crime careers. Yet things are changed. Calling for accountability has results because we have open(and electorally accountable) ears. The agenda we are now called to participate in is a shared, not hopelessly underground effort. This foothold is strongly and actively entrenched in a real government.

What continues is a corporate pravda blackout and opposition every inch of the way, entrenched GOP criminal interests, the survival of the phony GOP party, the mega oligarchs and Bush crony implants. It isn't pretty or fast. It isn't the 100% majority of anything including the Dems, including progressives themselves. There are no fully just or curative solutions to anything and we have yet to get to the point once the garbage is clear to realize imperfection starts all over again in the terrible physical crises or deceptively humdrum clash of legitimate special interests and choices.

Hope is turning out not to be painless nor past the resistance of a very powerful minority and a very misinformed majority but the baby steps are endlessly amazing.