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Politics : Bill Clinton Scandal - SANITY CHECK -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Thor who wrote (28281)	1/15/1999 8:55:00 PM
From: Charles Hughes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 67261

<< I believe the news media said he and Gore are some of the greatest "illegal fund raisers" in history. >> Whoever in the media said that certainly doesn't know much history. I cite Boss Daley, Huey Long, Teapot Dome. (Hey, are those all Democrats? :0) << at least the Republicans are kicking out their corrupt leaders Republican congressmen elected Gingritch Speaker, and he was always a ticking time bomb. The people elected Clinton. This is a representative democracy. As long as they are still representing the people, they should respect our opinion, and our vote. That means a very high standard should be met for impeachment before they start to discard the foundations of our democracy, the will of the people and the voting process, since the people oppose this impeachment, and elected Clinton president. << Its not Republican revenge Oh yes it is. Yes it is. Along with other disreputable motives. If not, why the murder accusations, the long series of failed prosecutions, the calumny. This is about people who lost one election not wanting to wait for the next one, and also, wanting to poison the next election in a desperate bid to preserve the Republican majority in Congress by taking the Democratic leader down. This is what you can get when media partisans and politicians spend hundreds of millions of dollars and billions of hours on propaganda and demonization. Otherwise normal people pick up their pitchforks and machetes, screaming for the blood of the despised one without any clear idea of how they got to hate a person they don't even know with such a passion. This is the result of a coordinated program constructed by the powers that be on the right. Not that they invented this kind of thing, of course. This is standard procedure when stirring up the people for a war, for instance. However, it is pretty dangerous in internal politics too. It is the stuff of civil war and revolution. Already, over half the people refuse to vote, and cite as reason the idea that they are not allowed to vote for anyone honest, or anyone who would actually represent their interests. If this impeachment succeeds, there are two possible long-range outcomes: 1. The democratic electorate is galvanized, voting out the Republicans for a generation. 2. Many more people will join the disenfranchised, among them many of the brightest, and many of the prosperous and well-organized. Don't expect them to simply lie down, and out of apathy allow the demagogues of the Religious right to take over by default, and for things from then on to go the way the right wishes. That won't happen. This place will come apart at the seams first. Eventually, this route will result in at least new political parties, at worst much worse, dictatorship and repression or revolution. This tendency has been underway for some time in America, perhaps has always been. The overthrow of this president could well be the event that gives critical mass to those forces, if the elections get to the point where a tenth or fifth of the population is voting in a sham of democracy. One thing I am afraid of is that the people of wealth and power in this country insufficiently understand the connection between prosperity and democracy in the West. They may be tempted to think they can run the place entirely through an oligarchy or aristocracy. That won't work here much beyond the extent to which it is true right now. They should put their hand in, with the influence they have with the Republican party they could stop this. But they have not. They should remember who the Ayatolla killed first, before they feed the mullahs of the right any more money. They should stop being pissed off about full employment and the rise in wages for a moment, and think about long term consequences. Of course, here I'm appealing to the likes of Dan Quail, so what use is it? You know, the Democrats could have impeached both Reagan and Bush over Iran-Contra. We could at least have called them before the Congress, and forced the Senate to make a decision. And certainly everyone in the administration lied full time and overtime in that affair, as in many other issues. ("Read my lips" - George Bush. "I have no recollection of that" - Ronald Reagan.) (Just in case we are saying that lying, on or off the record, is the issue.) It was thought by the Democrats that it would be an inexcusable blow to the presidency, the democracy, and the stability of our government, to impeach Reagan and Bush. Where are the Republican statesman? Chaz