"The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law."

Harold Pinter, Nobel Laureate, December 7, 2005

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html

Had John Lennon not been assassinated 25 years ago  from this day, he would have been delivering his own Nobel acceptance lecture and it would have contained a similar message. If Lennon had delivered it, though, the mainstream media would have been forced to cover it. How much media coverage surrounds Pinter's speech?

LA Democrat proposes, a few blogs down, that we push for New Orleans. Okay, then, vote in the poll, and attach a quick note explaining your choice.

I appreciate the desire of many within this and other democratic-minded communities to create momentum toward impeachment. Considering, however, the widespread and permanent damage that has been systematically delivered to the structure of this nation since the year 2000, a response such as impeachment or the lesser response calling for realignment is too weak. The Constitution provides only one response for all enemies of state who exploit internal connections to consciously damage national security. The response provided is not a weak one. It is called, by name, High Treason. If convicted, High Treason normally requires the felon to suffer the death sentence.

Through a wide network of fraud and other illegal activity, the twice un-elected President endangered national security. His motives are to a degree unknowable, and are not necessarily pertinent to the proceedings, though if he can prove he acted out of negligence and incompetence, instead of personal, financial and political interests, the charge of High Treason may be later be lessened, and, if convicted, the twice un-elected President and or any other convicted felon may accordingly serve sentences mitigated through due process of law. For now, however, the actions of the twice un-elected President were so extreme and one-sided that he bears the responsibility for the dissolution of U.S. security and what could become an irreversible state of crisis for this nation.

High Treason proceedings could and should not only be directed at the twice-unelected President, though they need to start with him. They should eventually be broadened to include examination of all public officials and political operatives who knowingly assisted the promulgation of fraud and other illegal activities which resulted in the endangering of U.S. citizens and the integrity of the political cohesiveness of the nation and its borders and affiliated states, counties, cities, towns and other municipalities and regions.

Impeachment and realignment are methods, respectively, within and without the political system of our republic used to correct mistakes. These methods respond to mistakes, errors, and omissions of judgment within high office. When our high office, through a wide network of public officials, appointees, and political operatives, commits a program of crimes of high degree, and commits these crimes without remorse and with high frequency, then the response of this republic has to correlate to the seriousness and impact of those crimes.

The charge of High Treason is the last resort of those who seek to preserve the political and national cohesiveness of this republic. Although it should be undertaken with patience and jurisprudence, it should begin with all possible alacrity.

My better half wrote a letter to Sen. Obama and receieved this reply:

Dear Sandie,

Thank you for advising me of your views on the nomination of Judge John Roberts to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  I appreciate hearing from you.

President Bush's decision to nominate Judge Roberts to serve as Chief
Justice following the death of Chief Justice William Rehnquist earlier this
month reinforces the importance of conducting a thorough inquiry into this
nomination...

This is really slick! Gov. Dean is getting support with a barrage of anti-Roberts mail to newspapers. This tool helps the process. It only takes a few minutes. My letter was addressed to the Daily Herald, the most right wing of the three mainstream papers in Chicagoland.

http://www.democrats.org/page/speakout/roberts

Friends,

If you haven't seen it, here is the text of a speech delivered today by the (true) President-Elect.*

Katrina shows how weak the US has become. We are less responsive than a third world nation when faced with a crisis. A poor country like Sri Lanka was able to respond and recover from a much larger and completely unexpected disaster last year. We can't even face what we know is wrong, let alone something unexpected.

After his election, Bush bragged about spending his "political capital." Of course, as a Washington insider and good friend points out, spending--not investing--capital typifies Bush's approach to the presidency, while further illuminating his lack of business ethics and knowledge. If you want to go bankrupt, please, by all means, spend your capital. The new fascists of the American right are spending scads of theirs.

For many, Powell's decline and fall will be the saddest story in the first Bush cabinet. Powell had stood in the public eye as a man of large character and esteemed values. He was trusted. He represented the best that the country had in it. This was his capital. It was a huge amount. He had a chance to invest that capital. He could have invested it by continuing to do what he initially knew to be right: decry the war that Bush was manufacturing in order to secure reelection. To say Powell oversold faulty intelligence reports is to demean the office he held. Our number one ambassador and diplomat needed to probe more deeply if it was indeed the case that he just didn't have enough information. But how likely was that scenario, really? When nuclear regulators were saying that Saddam's reportedly key aluminum tubes were NOT designed for uranium refining? When our "trusted" foreign intelligence sources were throwing up their arms and exclaiming, "What did you just say we said?" Was this the full capabilities of Secretary of State Powell?

He took his capital and he spent it. He decided not to invest. Like Roger Waters wrote in Pink Floyd's famous song, "Money," he and all the rest of the Bushies "grabbed the cash with both hands and made a dash." But Powell, man...he could have stopped the war. That could have been his investment. The thing is, that capital he had to invest, all that trust...that was ours. We invested in him. We gave him our capital. Instead of investing it for us, Powell became the chief salesman for a war that he knew from the start was not necessary, win-able, or morally justified. Enjoy the cash, Powell, and may it rot your insides to a slow death, you scurrilous little Uncle Tom.

Tonight I watched a CSPAN-2 broadcast of a cabal featuring CEOs of Tyco, Pepsi, and Goldman Sachs. They railed against trail lawyers who attack corporate wrongdoing, and bemoaned antitrust litigation and other regulations. The Pepsi CEO criticized the Democratic Party. He told the audience that the DNP was anti-business and that it shouldn't receive corporate donations (does it anyhow?) Another speaker claimed corporate execs were being mercilessly prosecuted by "the media," and the G.S. CEO even went so far as to call it a conspiracy. The former att. gen. under Bush claimed that telephones were more regulated than nuclear waste. You get the picture. This is the groundswell. They are going to use Congress and the Supreme Court to restrict litigation against corporate wrongdoing, drop all environmental and ethical regulations, and close the business environment to all but the megacorps.

Do MyDD readers work at one of these corporations? If so, you know what goes on. Corporate wrongdoing such as shorting stock, defrauding customers, and, of course, massive monopolization all detract from American competiveness and lower the standard of living here. I am a former corporate citizen, now an entreprenuer. The half of America with sanity needs to take stock of these RNC megacorp thugs and put our money elsewhere.