Some of the E-mails I get, you’d think I never, ever say anything positive. It ain’t so, I tell ya! For example: I once said some pretty nice things about cornbread and, among other reasons, I’m here now to say one or two nice things about Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards.
An article in the online edition of The Los Angeles Times for Nov. 14, 2007 hints that Edwards may be one of the few Democrats who actually understands what’s at stake in Election 2008. Speaking of those who oppose him in the upcoming Iowa Democratic caucus, Edwards reportedly accused Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of being “. . . entrenched in a system that is broken.
“We have very different views,” he told about 50 people at . . . a restaurant in Cedar Rapids. “Sen. Clinton believes the system is OK. . . . The corruption and all of it will be OK.”
Speaking of Sen. Barack Obama, the Times quotes Edwards again: “Obama, to his credit, believes you bring everyone together, you negotiate and you get things done. I don’t. I believe it’s a fight, an epic fight.”
Now I understand that politicians in a heated campaign will say just about anything that could conceivably help them win. So I have no way of knowing if Edwards actually meant what he reportedly said. But I do know that what he reportedly said is 100 percent correct.
That’s the last of the nice things I wanted to say about John Edwards. Now it’s time to exercise the rest of my (related) agenda.
Election 2008 is not about welfare for or empowerment of one or another of the Democrats’ cherished minorities. It’s not about single-payer healthcare. It’s not about gun control. It’s not about the war in Iraq or the energy crisis or any of that. It’s not even about bringing members of the Bush Crime Syndicate to justice. What’s fundamentally at stake in Election 2008 is nothing less than the primacy of the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law and, hinging upon those two questions, the survival of the United States of America as a republic and a democracy.
The man or woman who next wins the presidency will inherit an obscene, towering mess. To clean up that mess must be the new president’s top priority. In order to accomplish the task, he or she will have to be impeccably clean, unimpeachably honest, ferociously brave, highly intelligent, shrewdly insightful, and tougher than the proverbial nail. His or her cabinet officers will need similar qualities because, in order to clean up said mess, they will have to tear the U.S. government to pieces brick by board and, in doing so, reestablish the rule of law. The task will not be easy and it will not be quick.
Short term, reformers will ease their task somewhat by opening an honest, rigorous investigation of the Bush Crime Syndicate. Any such move will do much more than put a lot of Bush henchmen in prison: it will spark a panic among the thousands not yet charged — those previously unidentified Bush moles in Congress, in the judicial branch, in regulatory agencies, in state governments and elsewhere. Many of them will flee public service and scuttle like terrified cockroaches into any hole that promises refuge. While that panic lasts, the reformers’ cause will advance quickly.
In the midterm, the process of media reform will be more difficult and consume more time than the task of bringing Bush and his creatures to justice. News coverage of the Bush regime demonstrates repeatedly and conclusively that the corporate-capitalist model of media ownership does not serve democracy. Before democracy can be reestablished in America, big news corporations must be broken up and new models of news-media ownership must be created.
Said process will be more interesting still because ravages and repercussions of the Bush Crime Syndicate will leave large numbers of Americans unemployed and needy. Thus many Americans may for the first time in their lives have leisure in which to discover an interest in things like politics and press ownership and the interplay between the two. Will the mob sit by quietly while the issue of press-ownership is decided for them? Will the mob elect deputies to make the relevant decision(s) in meetings governed by Robert’s Rules of Order? Or will the mob instead take inspiration from great populist leaders such as Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and Maximilien Robespierre? Other options will certainly present themselves but, regardless of what the mob finally chooses to do, the result will instruct everyone concerned.
Long term, dogged American reformers will find that the strongest and most bitter opponents of democracy and republican government — both here and abroad — are sandbagged into powerful positions in global banking and finance from whence they have for long ruled the world without regard to law or scruple. Some such criminals can be brought to justice. But many — maybe most of them — are beyond the reach of law and so, probably, are the anonymous few who own and employ them. To free America from the grip of those people will mean breaking America free of the institutions they control. That particular divorce will be the work of years — of decades, even — if ever it is deemed final.
Taken all together the task of rebuilding America after eight years of the Bush Crime Syndicate (the ne plus ultra of a hundred and fifty years of corporate rapine and war) promises to be the work of 50 years or more. American leaders in years to come will have to juggle a vast number of priorities, many being of a magnitude that simply boggles the mind. Any reform agenda will have to be accomplished in an environment of global unrest and domestic civil disorders. In short, reform of our present system looks impossible on its face and therefore only a crazy person would want to be the next president of the United States — which brings me back to John Edwards and the Democrats.
I put no stock in John Edwards. He talks vaguely of taking America back from the corporations, but his demeanor and his rhetoric on the stump emit no heat. I detect no fire in his belly. He does not convince me. Heaven only knows what he truly thinks and feels. Obama, for his part, seeks to fire crowds with talk of uniting Red-State and Blue-State America. Obama thus wants the wolves and the sheep to lie down together. If Obama gets what he wants, there will be no reform, and the result will more likely be a generation of shaggy purple offspring who (as soon as they’re old enough) will kill and cook and eat their parents. Ruthless corporate managers who presently govern us through their Democratic and Republican jackals will cede no power to anyone who asks them nicely but doesn’t carry a club. If Edwards or Obama or their foolish supporters think differently, they will learn the truth soon enough.
A Second American Revolution is coming. You might think that the latest kink in the saga of whistleblower Sibel Edmonds (Published in the Times of London, yet!) makes a second revolution inevitable, but it does not. What makes the coming revolution inevitable is the absolute, ironclad refusal of American leadership — people such as John Edwards and Barack Obama — to embrace the necessity of radical systemic reform.
This year’s struggle for the leadership of America is indeed an epic fight, just as Edwards told The Los Angeles Times. That’s because hidebound conservatism, pursued to its logical end, ends always in revolution. It happened in France. It happened in America. It happened in Russia and China and Romania and in dozens of other nations, over and over, throughout history. If present circumstances are let to run their full course, it will happen here again. And if you think — as I do — that it’s a damned long time overdue, take a tip from Charles Dickens:
In A Tale of Two Cities, Monsieur Defarge notes despairingly that the revolution is a long time coming. He fears that he and Madame Defarge will never live to see it and, if they see it, they won’t live to see what he believes will be its glorious end.
“How long,” demanded Madame, composedly, “does it take to make and store the lighting? Tell me.”
Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were something in that too.
“It does not take a long time,” said Madame, “for an earthquake to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake?”
“A long time, I suppose,” said Defarge.
“But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it.”
I heartily agree with your priorities and the necessary steps you have outlined. I also agree that neither Obama nor Edwards has demonstrated that they have a commitment to those priorities nor the ability to carry out the steps you suggest. I would also think it worth mentioning that Hillary Clinton is certainly not about to undertake such a program of reform.
In fact, no viable candidate of either of the major parties has the commitment to the Constitution and the rule of law, prosection of the Bush Crime Family, or media de-concentration. While some minor party candidates may agree, they have neither the ability nor any hope of success.
So where does that leave us? I think we must resign ourselves to the inevitable fall of the republic and the rise of something less democratic to replace it, and do whatever is feasible to soften the landing and preserve what few rights we have left. That means continuing to call attention to what needs to be done, as you have here, while realizing that no white (or black) knight is going to ride in and restore truth, justice and the American democracy. We then must choose a Presidential candidate from among the possible nominees and put as much pressure on him or her as possible to do the right thing.
I'm currently supporting Edwards because he is the most vocal critic of the system now in the race. His presence puts at least some pressure on the others. I even heard Clinton this morning saying on CNN that her priority is the Constitution and the rule of law. That's nice to hear, even if it means nothing.
1
January 08, 2008
Any Name: Ron Paul is our only hope
All the others are CFR Bilderbergers. Vote for Ron Paul.. if it's not too late. Hope for America.
2
January 08, 2008
Jimmy Montague: Ah, yes! Ron Paul.
About Ron Paul I will say only this: His supporters envision an America with no income tax, no social security tax, no medicare, no taxes at all, to speak of. And that America looks to them just like today's America except that it has no taxes.
Tell me: When Social Security is dead and gone and you no longer have to pay that tax, are you going to fork over three or four grand a month to keep your sick and aging parents? And if by chance you can afford to fork over three or four grand a month to care for your sick and aging parents, how many other Americans do you suppose can afford to do the same? And what happens to all the parents (95 percent of them, I reckon) whose children cannot afford their upkeep?
Ron Paul? Bad dope!
3
January 08, 2008
Andy Cap: USA is bab
The USA is like a turd that won't flush away.
All it needs is 5 more years of war to suck the life out of it (ali kida is winning). I'm going to laugh my tits off when I see starving Americans fighting in the street for rancid food, and the cops bashing their emaciated faces in.
4
January 09, 2008
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Some of the E-mails I get, you’d think I never, ever say anything positive. It ain’t so, I tell ya! For example: I once said some pretty nice things about 
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