Citizens weigh in and Impeachment is foremost on their minds.

[pat_k]

Our so-called leaders may be irrationally terrorified of uttering the word "impeachment." Looks like ordinary citizens, more and more of them eash day, have no such qaulms.

Seattle PI "Vitual Editorial Board" -- "http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=298858">Iraq War: We're all ears. . ."

Unless Congress cuts off funding or impeaches Bush, the war will extend into 2009. . . .

There is much to support investigation into allegations which could lead to impeachment and criminal charges against both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.. . .

Isn't lying and making stupid decisions beyond all literate advice, ground for impeachment? Isn't taking us into a fake war for no reason grounds for impeachment? Can Congress be impeached? They sat on their hands and let him do all of this. If impeachment isn't the way to stop him, what is?. . .

. . .Impeachment, for lies and inflicting massive damage to our country as a whole, is the answer. It is the remedy prescribed by the Constitution.. . .

As for impeachment:

If Congress actually decides to go that route, the warrantless eavesdropping program and the "unconventional" interrogation techniques that he had part in would likely serve as grounds.. . .

. . .Nothing will be undertaken by the Democratic Congress that weakens their bid for the White House in 2008.

Therefore in the next 2 years,. . .What you will see is mainly fluff and stuff. . .

There will be lots of liberal "talk" . .

. . .If he chose to defy Congress by misusing the funds (and thereby jeopardizing the lives of our troops), then the law provides a simple and obvious remedy: Impeachment.". . .

. . .

There's some feedback from people who continue to be trapped behind a wall of rationalization for inaction, but they folks rationalizing inaction, but they do it with regret. They want impeachment too and will jump on the impeachment bus in a in a nanosecond when the Congressional "leadership" finally leads and takes up the fight.

[Independent_Liberal]

1. K&R!

Thank you Pat!

:)

[donkeyotay]

2. Impeachment isn't the smart option; it's the only option.

What else can the country do with a president who has walked all over the Constitution? The precedent cannot be left. Why GOP heads will explode when liberal geeks arrange for Kucinich to win the next election, and he mandates tofu as the national dish, has Rush arrested and sent to a SoCal health spa and spiritual retreat, and confiscates the war profits. It's in the Repo's best interests to reassert our basic freedom.

[pat_k]

3. That must be our drumbeat: Only Impeachment, Only Impeachment. . .

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Senator/11">Only Impeachment. Only Impeachment...

[calimary]

9. YES. And we have to POUND it home more and more and more,

because more and more people are becoming receptive. And if that group keeps expanding, there will be NO WAY ON EARTH that Congress can avoid or ignore it. It WILL be forced back onto the table, and onward. We need to keep stoking that fire. BIGTIME.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. Fuck impeachment!

Investigate, try, convict and hang the bastard. And the Cheny he rode in on.

[pat_k]

6. Rescuing the Constitution by removal is #1. Prosecution here and at the Hague. . .

. . .have completely separate, but nonetheless necessary, goals.

Our Constitution is being tortured in plain sight. Congress is sworn to protect and defend. Impeaching the torturers is the ONLY means by which they can rescue the Constitution and fulfill their oath.

Retribution/balancing the scales of justice is for the Courts, not Congress.

[calimary]

10. No, no, no. NO "fuck IMPEACHMENT." We DO need that also.

However, your "investigate, try, and convict" stuff is certainly an essential ingredient. I won't go so far as to call for violence against these bad guys physically. That'll get the FBI and Secret Service pounding on your door. I do NOT want physical harm to come to bush or cheney - at all. Far better that he be forced to see the longterm consequences of his actions, and to pay for them every day for the rest of his long life.

Visualize IMPEACHMENT!!! AND ORANGE JUMPSUITS!!!

[pat_k]

11. There's a reason that war criminals are subject the penalty of death

. . .Fear of death is powerful motive to steer clear of anything that could possibly be considered a breach of Geneva.

When your acts are called grave violations by other parties to the treaty you have a choice:

• Immediately stop and minimize the risk of prosecution for war crimes;
• Continue and be prepared to die for your actions.

Somehow, I don't think Bush, Cheney, and their co-conspirators prepared themselves to die for the power to torture. Ready or not, they must face the consequences of their actions. That is their fate.

The primary concern of Congress is the fate of the nation, not the fate of Bush and Cheney.

Criminals must be punished for their crimes, but when the crimes are against our constitutional democracy, the focus cannot shift to seeking retribution until the threat is eliminated through impeachment and removal (or resignation). The priorities are the same in most law enforcement endeavors. For example, the FIRST task in protecting the public from a drunk driver is to get the driver off the road. Only when the public is out of harms way can the focus shift to prosecuting and punishing the driver for endangering the public.

These men are drunk with power. Congress has a duty to take away their keys.

[pat_k]

5. Oops. Sorry about all the typos in the OP. . .

The intro should be decipherable. Here's an ungarbled version of the concluding paragraph.

There's some feedback from people who continue to be trapped behind a wall of rationalization for inaction. Some still believe "it will never happen" but they regret that "fact." Those folks want impeachment too and will jump on the impeachment bandwagon in a nanosecond when the Congressional "leadership" finally leads and takes up the fight.

[rinsd]

7. Yeah that settles it, an internet discussion board.

:eyes:

[puebloknot]

8. Painfully obvious. Impeachment must happen! K&R nt

[Hawkowl]

12. Inevitable

I think impeachment is almost inevitable. Shrub just doesn't have it in his psyche to even BELIEVE he has made mistakes, let alone ADMIT them. He has a simple philosophy: God tells him what to do, therefore everything he does is correct. He thinks he's the fucking pope or Louis the XIV (L'etat, C'est moi!). This megalomania only leads to greater and greater mistakes. I believe that in the next two years the American people are going to realize it's him or us.

[NotGivingUp]

13. it's uppermost in my mind. not hearing anything about it. extremely disappointing.

[pat_k]

14. The deafening silence on it within the beltway is outrageous.

One of the things that we were able to cut off pretty quickly is the 'impeach Bush' program
-Sen. Harry Reid (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1116/p11s01-usmb.htm">11/15/06)

. . .impeachment is off the table . . it's a pledge. Of course it is. It is a waste of time.
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/20/60minutes/main2111089_page3.shtml">10/22/06)

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less
than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction.
- John F. Kennedy

Any closed social system -- whether a department, an organization, a business sector, a political party, or a social world like the "beltway bubble"-- creates its own reality. Shared "insider" assumptions are rarely challenged or tested against reality. Unless challenged by outsiders, faulty assumptions beget faulty interpretations, which beget assumptions that diverge further and further from reality "outside."

The Democratic leadership's irrational fear of fighting for impeachment is rooted in a deeply ingrained, dysfunctional, and false system of beliefs -- beliefs that are rarely if ever challenged within the beltway bubble. We can inject sanity into their world, but to do it effectively, we need to understand what we're up against.

Step one is to realize that the insular beltway (un)reality has been adopted by many of the politically engaged "out here." Those folks are the easiest to reach. Challenging them is, and has been, job one.

As maddening as the Congressional leadership's self-imposed "impeachment is off limits" edict is, I remain confident that we can break it down. It's already breaking down among the strategerists "out here." Reality tends to smack a person in the face when they are called upon to defend the indefensible.

We're making progress. We need to keep hammering. Challenging the irrational resistance to impeachment on forums like DU is one way to do it.

Related Links:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/pat_k/8"> We're Doomed! Doomed I Tell You! (An Impeachment Intervention)

[NotGivingUp]

15. you're right. we have to keep hammering.

but it really doesn't make sense to me. logic tells me if things were as they should be, if we really have a democracy, if we really have a democratic party that truly represents the people, you would think it would be at the top of their list.

[pat_k]

16. What is obvious to outsiders is often unimaginable to insiders. . .

There are so many examples in business, politics, communities, even families -- seemingly rational people, completely blind to what is obvious to anyone looking in from the outside, doing precisely the opposite of what they need to do to avert disaster.

Such people -- people who are trapped and blinded by the irrational assumptions of their insular world -- CAN be saved from themselves.

In the Democratic Party, we see the same irrational or dysfunctional beliefs over and over again. Can't win, don't fight. . . The evil backlash beast will get us. . . We can't tell the truths we don't think people are prepared to hear. . . It's all a game. . . Principle and duty are nice and all, but hey, this is the "real world". . . it's about issues, issues, issues. . . suppress anger. . . don't overreach. . .

The repitition is maddening, but it makes our job easier. There is a only small set of core assumptions to challenge.

As I noted in the previous post, closed social systems create their own reality. The only way to keep the created reality you inhabit rooted in reality is to:

• bring in outsiders and take their challenges and observations VERY seriously;
• identify assumptions and challenge them;
• Get Out and spend a significant amount of time in other "worlds";

Congress and the insular social world that surrounds it are not designed to bring outsiders like us in. But people are finding effective ways to insert themselves. We are gaining ground.

We are forward looking creatures -- our survival demands it. It's easy to forget how far we've come, but we have a lot to be thankful for as we begin this new year.

Take a moment to recall how things were in November of 2003. A vast majority of those who saw the truth had been beaten down by horror after horror. Far too many felt silenced and withdrew. Stolen elections, massive tax kick backs to the American aristocracy, unprecedented secrecy unchallenged, dissenters purged from positions of leadership with impunity, Congress, fearing the "bad things" the opposition would say about them if they did not, passed the Iraq war resolution, Paul Wellstone killed, fascists unchecked as they took control of the 108th Congress, patrionics gone mad – it was just too much for many of us.

Then the tide began to turn. The shift for many began as Howard Dean's campaign took off and gave voice to the silenced. The theft of the 2004 election was a grievous blow, but the associations established during the campaign fought back, and Senator Barbara Boxer stood up on January 6th. It was a powerful example of people power (sure, MoveOn and others jumped on board at the end, but it was the efforts of amateurs -- people who became citizen lobbyists -- that took the lead in the January 6th fight.)

As the sense of futility and hopelessness that blocks action lifts, a virtuous cycle of action-hope-action takes off. As some point, a critical mass is reached; "everybody knows" Bush is nuts can quickly turn into "everybody knows" we must impeach Bush and Cheney.

Much to be thankful for. Reason to hope.