I've been reading the reaction to the Libby scandal and I've been waiting for someone to mention the big picture, of which Libby's commuted sentence and even the obstruction of justice charges and the increasing calls for impeachment are only a very small part. Here's what I've known since I watched the election of 2000 stolen and what has become clearer to me every day since, with moments of crystal clarity happening during events like the passage of Medicare Part D; Katrina; the 2002, 2004 and 2006 elections; the DoJ scandal; the signing statement scandal and every time BushCo passed another budget designed to bankrupt this country: The powers that be, who right now function primarily through the Republican party and a chunk of the Democratic one as well, want to destroy the image and functionality of our government because a strong, capable and fully functioning American government is all that stands in the way of the complete corporate takeover of this country.
Of course, in a frictionless universe, the answer would be to impeach the two criminals at the top of the heap and throw a scare out there. Show the bad guys that while they can install puppets in the highest reaches of our government, the American system is strong enough to push this kind of rampant corruption from itself, like a healthy human body forces out a sliver of wood. But in this world, in this less than healthy body politic, an impeachment would do nothing more than provide a gift to the people in whose interest it is to have our government appear a circus, staffed by freaks, clowns and crooks. Further, there is no hope of justice being served without the support of a free and independent press and we just don't have one right now. And so, while I'm usually not a voice for patient restraint when it comes to defending the foundations of our government from ongoing attack, I reluctantly take up that cause now. Impeachment is out. So what do to?
My advice is to go back to the vote, which, while we're playing whack-a-mole trying to keep up with all the BushCo assaults on the American system of government, remains under attack on all sides by the drive to remove voter-marked, voter-verified paper ballots from this country's elections systems. We need to pay attention to the bills that are creeping their way through the Congress and which will do more harm than good if passed, leading, I think, to the loss of our vote. They are H.R. 811 and S.1487. If you need proof of what happens to elections that are held on unverifiable machines, visit Sarasota, where 18,000 votes disappeared in an election decided by a few hundred. Or come visit a town near me where we've got six votes unaccounted for in an election that was decided by four votes. This is the future of elections in America except that we won't always be so lucky as to have ones that close or discrepencies in the poll books that easy to spot. But we will be subject to the results of elections decided on machines that are unable to be audited independent of the machines themselves. We will, in short, have no way to prove the vote. Ask yourself if this is a system we can trust in the hands of anyone but especially in the hands of the people who have brought us Katrina, the DoJ scandal, the Gang of Fourteen, the War on Iraq and hundreds of other smaller insults to our democracy.
Digby often and rightly says that if the zombie criminals in this administration aren't held accountable, they'll keep coming back to do damage. But equally correct and, I think even more frightening, is the fact that if we don't protect our vote, we will have no peaceful way to keep those zombies, once they return, out of office.
The very cold fact is that the people in charge, whoever they are, have an interest in a hobbled, discredited, barely functioning federal government and that everything good that America has ever stood for and every promise for her future rests on the integrity of our vote because that's the mechanism through which our government rights itself. Why aren't we in the streets demanding that it be preserved?
Related: I couldn't work it in because I'm flat out exhausted after a long work day - but watch for the next outrage coming to a veto pen near you as Dear Leader derails the budget process by vetoing any appropriations bill that exceeds his lunatic spending limits. This will not be about reigning in federal spending, although the fun the GOP gets from punishing the poor and middle class and watching useful idiots like the Blue Dog Democrats run around chasing their tails will be perks for them. This will be about creating yet another embarrassing and confusing mess of the federal government. The people in charge are treasonous psychopaths with the destruction of our system of government on their minds and they never miss an opportunity to put the shiv in.
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