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January
2006, Volume 13 Nr. 31, Issue 199
Giving
George W. Bush a Third Term
Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski
Recently, I dropped
into my town's local Vermont country store to pick up a couple
of bottles of a diet tea beverage. I typically avoid the
local Vermont country store as it often has a tendency to
elicit the worst in vocal political discussion. My town
is both provincial and conservative, one of the most
conservative of all in Vermont. In this instance, there
were a few local townsfolk who were delivering petitions for
the upcoming Town Meeting. Town meetings take place
across Vermont in early March. They are opportunities
for Vermonters to discuss the issues and express themselves
prior to voting. Most voting takes place the next day by
Australian ballot. Two of the petitions being delivered
had to do with local town elections and adding names onto the
ballot. Since my position is that those who volunteer to
serve the public deserve the opportunity to do so, I signed
these petitions. The remaining petition was a petition
to the town select board to adopt a resolution that thanks the
members of the military for their service. Being a
veteran, I know and understand the intent of the petition.
However, I could not sign the petition. I am eternally
grateful for those who volunteer to help make society and the
world a better place. I am grateful to the working class
who build the roads, construct the hospitals, teach children
how to read, help the sick, comfort the mournful, and uplift
those in poor spirits. I am most grateful for the
peacemakers. There is a special place for them in the
scheme of things within humanity. I am not, however,
grateful for the war makers and those who make war possible,
nor for those who profit from making war. A special
place for them also, exists in the scheme of things within
humanity. They will held accountable.
Not signing the
petition led to a dialogue regarding the illegality of the
Iraq war and its associated terror. Actually, I brought
this up. This was followed by my comments about George
W. Bush and his impending impeachment and trial for crimes
against humanity. My fellow Vermonters proffered that,
"If he could have a third term, I would for him
again". And so, the straw broke the camel's back.
To wit I replied, "George W. Bush is a criminal who had
deliberately misled a nation to war and he will be taken up on
charges and held accountable for his crimes." From
their reaction I could tell these were not comments they hear
very often. I can only surmise that a daily mega-dosage
of FOX news, Rush Limbaugh, Michael Savage, and Bill O'Reilly
has carved a fascist niche into the psyche of otherwise decent
people. The last retort that I received was, "Bush
is our president." To which I responded,
"He is not my president". The comeback
was, "The people elected him president". Did
we now? How quickly people forget? Or do they make
up history in order to justify accepting and documenting their
own lies and that of their maximum leader? Al Gore
received a-half million more votes than George W. Bush in the
presidential election of 2000. That election was stolen
by the Supreme Court by a plurality of just one vote.
The "democratic process" within the United States,
then, was subverted as a-half million more votes for Gore were
subjugated to just one more vote for Bush. The
improprieties of the Bush administration and the Republicans
in the 2004 election have consolidated the theft of both
elections in the minds of many millions of voters.
Millions in the United States, including this writer, no
longer believe that federal elections, and perhaps, all
elections, can be conducted in a fair and impartial manner.
We see that elections are being bought and stolen by those who
possess the capital and power to buy and steal them.
Elections are won through lying, cheating, deceit,
disinformation, character assassination, gerrymandering,
stuffing the ballot box, letting the dead vote, and denying
qualified people the right to vote. Both Democrats and
Republicans can be thusly accused, but the Bush administration
and the neo-conservatives have raised the impropriety to both
a science and an art-form. They have institutionalized
deceit by incorporating it into their business plan.
If George W. Bush
could run again for president (if that were possible) and
should he have won then in actuality he would be serving his
first term as president as the man is merely taking up
residence inside the People's (White) House. There is an
impostor acting as president. Here are a few reasons why
my fellow townspeople might believe that the pseudo-monarch
George W. Bush deserves a "third term" in the White
House:
Initiating a war of
aggression. John Pilger in his April 11, 2003
article published in countercurrents.org
entitled, "Crime
Against Humanity" reminds us that,
"To initiate a
war of aggression," said the judges in the Nuremberg
trial of the Nazi leadership, "is not only an
international crime; it is the supreme international crime
differing only from other war crimes in that it contains
within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." In
stating this guiding principle of international law, the
judges specifically rejected German arguments of the
"necessity" for pre-emptive attacks against other
countries.
Use
of Illegal banned weaponry and torture. In their May
20, 2004, open
letter to Representative John Conyers as published in counterpunch.org,
Tom Stephens and John Philo write that Bush and his cabal
have,
...conspired
to start an unlawful war of aggression, justified by lies.
Then they carried out their illegal conspiracy. It included
unlawful killing of thousands of Iraqi civilians,
destruction of civilian infrastructure, and use of weapons
of mass destruction like cluster bombs and depleted uranium
against the civilian population of Iraq. Throughout this
conspiracy, they have implemented policies and practices for
unlawful arrests, detention, interrogation, beatings, abuse,
humiliation and torture, in violation of fundamental human
rights protected by law.
Fallujah.
The destruction of this city in order to save it, is the 21st
century equivalent of Guernica. I doubt my fellow
townspeople will read Saul Landau's "Fallujah,
the 21st Century Guernica". Everyone should.
I doubt many in my home town know what Guernica
is?
The
hurricane Katrina disaster. The installation of
unqualified cronies within the administration and the Bush
regime's incompetence says it all.
Destruction
of Global Environment. The Bush regime is
responsible for the distortion of science and the obstruction
of international efforts to stem global warming (Citizens
Tribunal, bushcommission.org).
This being mid January, the local Vermont lake is unusable for
ice-fishing. It has been a warm winter. While
there may or may not be a direction connection between global
warming and this phenomenon, the Bush regime's outright
disregard for facts supporting global warming and its inaction
to deal with them are egregious.
Attacks on
Global Public Health and Reproductive Rights. The
Citizens Tribunal, bushcommission.org
emphasizes in "particular" the "reference to
the potentially genocidal effects of enforcing abstinence
only, global gag rule, distortion of science, and restriction
of generic drugs."
Lying to
the people of the United States and the world. There
are too many lies to list them all, and new ones are told
daily, especially by the Minister of Fact Reconstruction,
Scott McClellan. Many of the lies are documented at the
website, http://www.bushwatch.com/bushlies.htm
For me, the lies that require nothing less than impeachment
are the lies that led us into war, and the absurdity of the
staged aircraft carrier jet landing where Bush stated,
"Mission accomplished." By themselves, the
Downing Street Memo(s) are evidence enough for impeachment.
The downingstreetmemo.com
website explains,
The Downing
Street "Memo" is actually meeting minutes
transcribed during the British Prime Minister's meeting on
July 23, 2002. Published by The
Sunday Times on May 1, 2005 it was the first hard
evidence from within the UK or US governments that exposed
the truth behind how the Iraq war began.
Awareness
The occupants
of the White House are fully aware of the crimes they have
committed. That is why they are now preparing for the
worst case scenario, that being impending impeachment
proceedings. There exist numerous drafts of articles of
impeachment. They include those written by Ralph Nader,
and former US attorney general Ramsey Clark.
Representative John Conyers is working toward articles and has
perhaps, the best possibility of success. It is only a
matter of time before masses of people who have a conscience
demand impeachment. The criminals in the White will be
stopped only by a mass movement of, for, and by the people,
that demand justice be done. To my fellow Vermont
townspeople, especially to those who espouse the Christian
ethic, I ask, what about the Decalogue you call, The Ten
Commandments: Thou shall not bear false witness against thy
neighbor? Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house
(oil)? Thou shall not steal? Thou shall not kill
(100,000 civilian Iraqi deaths)? My fellow Vermonter's,
what would your Jesus bomb? Not only are the Bush
administrations actions and behavior against your professed
Christian ethic, they are illegal!
I do not
expect my encounter with my neighbors in the country store,
nor this article to make any difference to them as they
believe that being a "good American" in the 21st
century United States is very much like the German people
being good Germans in the 1930s. Apparently, no amount
of evidence or reasoning can change their minds that their
maximum leader is above board, that he is intelligent and that
he knows what he is doing. When asked for explanations
for his deceit, George W. Bush, in a moment of divine and
intelligent inspiration says: I ain't gotta tell you nuthin'.
As Cliff Patterson, in his article
on prisonplanet.com
about Commander Bush puts it, "If the leaders of this
nation aren’t obligated to answer to the people, then we
should just go ahead and call it what it is - a
dictatorship." Apparently, a dictatorship is just
fine for my Vermont neighbors. It is not fine by me.
As for George W. Bush's third term? I would settle
for letting the Texan have his first term...in prison, for
high crimes and misdemeanors and for not defending the
Constitution of the United States as is required by the oath
of office he stole. But, if my fellow Vermonters want to
give George three terms in the slammer, I won't argue.
Impeach Bush!
Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski is co-editor and co-publisher of Metaphoria
along with his life partner and wife, JeanneE. He is
30-year veteran teacher and a member of Veterans For Peace.
His writings have appeared in After
Downing Street, Buzzflash,
Counterpunch, Thomas
Paine's Corner, Rense.com,
Omni Center, Rutland
Herald, Times Argus,
and others.
©
2006 Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski
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