Having stated the problem, I wish I could suggest a solution. Remember the writer’s strike? Could we have mounted an effective we won’t go to the movies campaign? Yes and No. Yes we can do it, but No it didn’t happen. Why? People don’t like doing things alone and we don’t trust each other sufficiently to follow through with anything that originates on the Internet. If lots of us ordinary people could do something that’s legal and not especially demanding, the powers that be would take notice. Something verifiable. Say all of us agree not to mail anything on Thursday. Were it successful, it would give us a taste of people power, but how do we verify nothing got mailed? We are the solution, but we must act. BS won’t take us very far.

They still wrestle with it: the Falklands War (1982); Hong Kong returned to China (1987-97); the pound, not the euro; and the halting assimilation of people of color, who’ve become doctors, barristers and property developers, instead of the Paki bus driver, the newsagent/tobacconist and the rioter in Brixton and Notting Hill (where rioters could no longer afford to live).

The “winds of change” that forced those developments on a reluctant England were largely outside forces — war, economic competition, the yearning of many peoples to be free — coupled with physical and financial exhaustion. The debacle that is the CheneyBush administration we’ve done to ourselves. But it brings the same things: war, demands to be free of military occupation and economic subservience, and physical and financial exhaustion. It also brings with it the Surveillance State, which has acquired all of government’s “water rights”, and which may ultimately turn green civil pastures into desert.

Many of us haven’t yet or refuse to recognize how deeply scarred the CheneyBush administration will leave us. Just as threatening, many refuse to recognize how much its adherents will fight to maintain their ability simultaneously to suckle at the public teat while poisoning an exhausted mother government.

CheneyBush have corrupted government and the language of public discourse. They’ve dismantled much and bent the remainder to subsidizing war and corporate profits. (At least they’ve abandoned the fantasy of Reagan’s “trickle down” economics; they let nothing escape but heartache.) Unless we recognize that, unless we look at what’s been done in our name but not for our benefit, we won’t be able to sustain the will to recover from their misdeeds. “Letting bygones be bygones” would ensure our civil demise, not restore our spirit or our selves.

Representative Kucinich’s articles of impeachment may be tilting at windmills, but we remember Don Quixote four hundred years later because he tried. If impeachment is impracticable, then an organized, empowered and funded Truth and Reconciliation Commission – a better, refined 9/11 Commission for a post-Bush America – is not. We desperately need it.

Current Elected Office Contact Information
Contact Rep. Nancy Pelosi at sf.nancy@mail.house.gov
Website: http://www.house.gov/pelosi

Washington, D.C. Office:
235 Cannon House Office Building,
District of Columbia 20515-0508
Phone: (202) 225-4965
Fax: (202) 225-8259

San Francisco Office: (more district offices)
Burton Federal Building 450 Golden Gate Avenue
San Francisco, California 94102
Phone: (415) 556-4862
Fax: (415) 861-1670

First, the belief that we are powerless is the final nail in the coffin and its acceptance guarantees that we are lost. If you believe that then all these postings will serve no other purpose than to blow off steam.

Second, I agree that we all need to call our Congress people. I did that yesterday. But the question is what do we tell them? Do we simply say we want them to support impeachment? Do we rant and rail about the administration? Will we really go so far as to tell them we will hold them accountable if they do not? If we don’t say that, see “First” above. If we do say that what will we tell them “hold(ing) accountable” means? I submit that anything short of of informing them that we will NOT vote for them or the representative of their party (the now sainted Obama) if they do not, will be useless (refer to “First” again). The only power we the people have is our vote. The only thing pols need more than money is votes; indeed the main thing they need the money for is to buy advertising time (euphemistically called “campaign spots”) to sell themselves. The problem for “progressives” so far is that we have allowed the Dems to take us for granted. We complain, march, petition, cajole, reason, plead, etc., but in the end the Dems know we will vote for them (see #80) no matter what they do because they know that all they have to do is pull out their boogyman – the scarey Republican. (Why do you suppose they haven’t impeached him so far? – they need him, he serves the same purpose for them as bin Laden served for Bush). And this ploy works every time! Amazing! Site after site I have visited, the trend is so consistent that it approaches a law of nature. After all the marvelous legitimate complaints about the Dems pusillanimity, weakness, cowardice, betrayal, etc, the comment invariably is made “but we must support them because they are better than the Rep.” And then the discussion ceases and we revert to “First”. Clinton pushed NAFTA and we voted for him in ‘96. We marched in Seattle then voted for free trader Gore in ‘00. We marched all over the country then voted for pro war Kerry in ‘04. And now I suspect we are about to do it again – vote for a Dem who MANIFESTLY does not support the things we know we need; his healthcare plan is a disaster, even he admits it won’t cover everybody, his Iraq proposal leaves thousands of troops and contractors (?including Blackwater) in Irag, he will do no more than put lipstick on the pig of NAFTA/WTO (ask the Canadians who received assurances to that effect), etc. etc. And yet I predict that the majority of people who post here will vote for him, because “the Rep. is worse”. So, tell me, why would any Dem risk losing their “ace in the hole” (Bush in office) for the sake of a sllly little thing like “principle”, aka the Constitution, when they know they don’t have to to keep our vote.

And if we do threaten to vote elsewhere, will we follow through? So far, as noted above, we chicken out every time and they know it, yay, they are counting on it. Yes, folks, we must, as God awful as it sounds, make it clear to the Dems that we are prepared to accept another Rep. regime if they don’t straighten up and do what they must, because, by now, we have finally figured out that even if they are marginally better, they are not good enough. We have figured out by now that, as they are currently constituted, we will continue to go downhill under their governance, that we are drawing a line in the sand and if they want to be elected they must do better.

I must confess that I do not understand why so many people don’t seem to get this. We have lost over a decade in the futile “hope” the Dems will kick their money addiction. If we really do want the kind of change that amounts to more than 4 quarters for a dollar, we need to exhibit some “tough love”. Will this mean that we will be hurting more too? Yeah, but we can pay now or pay more later. I guarantee you that as soon as enough of us make it clear that we, in fact, WILL NOT support them without their commitment to a)impeachment, b)single payer, etc. etc. they will change. Indeed that is the ONLY effective mechanism for inducing them to do what is right (as in correct).

To support them in Nov. in the absence of such commitments on their part to me is like participating in the insanity of doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.