Freedom Rider: 35 Crimes
by BAR editor and senior
columnist Margaret Kimberley
"The worst outrages of the Bush regime could have been
stopped with sustained opposition."
The world has been spared from some of the evil dreams of
the Bush emporium because help sometimes arrived from unexpected places. In
2007, career CIA agents blew the whistle on the bold faced lie that Iran
threatened Israel with nuclear weapons when it neither threatened Israel nor
had any nukes. The now famous National Intelligence Estimate report slowed down
what appeared to be an inevitable rush
to war. Bush may still attack Iran before leaving office, but the NIE did
the right kind of damage and made further bloodshed less likely.
Last week the conservative leaning Supreme Court dealt a
blow to the Bush war of terror inflicted on the men detained at Guantanamo. In
a 5 to 4 decision the court ruled that prisoners have the right to challenge
their detention by filing civil suits against the United States government.
While CIA agents and unreliable justices make the case against Bush law
breaking, most Democrats in Congress do nothing but enable the continuing
criminality.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich is the exception. He is once
again carrying the burden for the entire body by presenting articles of
impeachment. His previous resolution was directed at Vice President Cheney, but
now he is taking on the president directly, and on June 11, 2008 introduced 35
articles of impeachment, high crimes and misdemeanors, which should be
investigated by Congress.
"Most Democrats in Congress do nothing but enable the
Bush administration's continuing criminality."
Kucinich stood on the House floor for more than four hours
and delivered a laundry list of the crimes committed during the Bush
administration. These include waging a war of aggression, imprisoning children,
spying on American citizens, failing to respond to the hurricane Katrina
disaster, violating the Voting Rights Act, obstructing investigations of the
9/11 attacks, torture, rendition, and
failure to comply with subpoenas.
Kucinich is doing nothing more than obeying the oath he took
to uphold the constitution of the United States. Because of Democratic party
enabling, impeachment, and Kucinich himself, are seen as lost causes, laughing
stocks to be ignored. The corporate media once again ignored him, in large part
because his colleagues have publicly announced their refusal to enforce
national and international law. While Kucinich acts as a one person police
force, the House leadership has already negotiated their next capitulation.
Democrats in the House and Senate have agreed to give the
Bush administration everything it wants on warrantless surveillance, including
the granting of retroactive immunity to the telecoms that illegally spied on
Americans. John Conyers, Chairman of the Judiciary committee, ought to be
leading the charge for impeachment against this and other outrages. Yet so far
he has only been willing to say that would act on impeachment only if Bush
attacked Iran. Bush will have to commit a grand total of 36 crimes before the
timid Congressman will take a stand.
"Because of Democratic party enabling, impeachment, and
Kucinich himself, are seen as lost causes, laughing stocks to be ignored."
Democrats have steadfastly refused to do anything to stop
Bush and as a result his presidency is one of the most successful of any in
modern history. His approval ratings may be in the cellar but he has gotten
away with almost all of his terrible plans. The few instances when he was
turned back are significant and tell us what must be done to fight for
democracy. He faced serious opposition from politicians and the public when he
tried to undo the Social Security safety net. The NIE report stalled an attack
on Iran and may have prevented the deaths of thousands of people.
So it is all simple and tragic at the same time. The worst outrages of
the Bush regime could have been stopped with sustained opposition. Instead Bush
will leave office after having completed the destruction of what little was
left of democracy and his successors will know that they too can get away with
anything they want.
"John Conyers ought to be leading the charge for
impeachment."
Perhaps Kucinich is putting the next president on notice and
letting John McCain and Barack Obama know that there will be a price to pay for
law breaking. When asked if he would endorse Obama, Kucinich raised
issues that were swept under the rug during the campaign year:
". . . this election is an election that is
about hope, certainly, but it's about something else, too. It's about shifting
away from policies that have destroyed our economy. And I am looking forward to
having a conversation with my good friend Barack Obama about what he intends to
do about matters relating to NAFTA, about Social Security privatization, about
whether or not he's going to be leaving troops in Iraq. I mean, these are all
things that I want to know about, you know, before I give a personal
endorsement."
Obama, like most Democrats, says
that impeachment is off the table. "I think you
reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the
president's authority." Obama made that
statement one year ago, when all of the 35 crimes were well known. If he
doesn't think that imprisoning children is a "grave breech," Kucinich
may someday need to introduce articles
of impeachment against him too.
Margaret Kimberley's
Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York
City, and can be reached via e-Mail at
Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an
edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com.
More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive
page.
This week’s featured author is Amanda Lock Swarr. Swarr is Associate Professor of Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Washington.
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