Indict Bush

I share your view, B, m'man. What I'm thinkin' is along the lines of, if the people scream bloody murder loud enough, attention will have to be paid, even if it is to silence and censor those voices. Back alley deals be damned.

The truth. So simple, so powerful. I think you're right. Then again, our fear based culture loves to keep secrets. Supposedly for the good of the masses. Lies seem to follow secrets everywhere. Where there are secrets and lies, outright illegality finds sustenance upon which to feed.

I like adbusters. Cool art. Articles that promote thought and discussion.

The following article made me think about a great many things.
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_origin_of_americas_intellectual_...

Yeah, next they'll give a posthumous one to old Prescott. He was just misunderstood...or at least that's what they'll say.

I am gonna address the second point first, because I think it was just poor communication, on my part. When I say it isn't our fault, I mean that we, you and I, Barry and Amos and Nan and Diane and Darcy and Matt, didn't create the concepts of money and profit. They were extant ideas, and practices based around these ideas had long since been in operation, prior to our arrival on the scene. The same way I don't blame you, a white guy from the south, for racism or lynchings, I don't blame people today for the existence of profit or greed. I do blame us for the perpetuation of these destructive and illusory constructs, either by direct actions or tacit approval through suffering in silence and inaction. My hope is, if we cease our pursuit of and our belief in profit, it WILL cease to exist, as it is understood today.

In the sense that humans created the mess we're in now, I agree with you 100%. I don't see any choice other than to attempt to correct the mistakes and mistaken presumptions and assumptions of the past.

The second point is tougher. At the risk of contradicting my earlier assertion, here I go:

If a system is corrupt, I think it should be dismantled or, better yet, simply abandoned, as the failure it is. Make something new, from the ground up, with the intent that the result will be better than before. Discard that which was detrimental and keep that which was working as intended. There's a long road ahead, if we're lucky, and along the way, mistakes will be made. I'd prefer that we didn't need to dismantle the existing structure but, instead worked towards having something else ready, for when that structure is finally acknowledged to be FUBAR.

Reason has already met resistance, on a number of fronts, and the resistance to reason is as strong and irrational as it ever was. It is also prone to violent, aggressive acts, when faced with ideas and beings it does not understand. The only way people who cling to fallacious notions will ever believe another way of life is possible, is if they see it with their own eyes. Perhaps not even then. I'd rather not waste such time fighting that kind of true believer. I'd rather ignore them and let them consign themselves to extinction.

Unfortunately, their means and methods place you and I in danger of sharing their fate.

I guess the TLDR version is: I do advocate dismantling a corrupt system, if that is what is necessary but, first, I'd like to try building something else.

I hope that all made sense, I haven't eaten in several hours and my mind is starting to go a lil' loopy. Time for some eats!!!

I'm proud to consider you a friend and a brother.

P.S. That Cryptome site is very cool. I am currently enjoying the "Taxonomy of Secrets" post.

bump seeking to continue this discussion on what we should do when our elected officials betray us.

Since most(if not all) of those avenues have already been pursued, what then?

"Bush, and the rest of the world, was given certain information at the time they believed to be true so they acted on that information. It has since come to light that a lot of that information was incorrect."

There are several things wrong with this statement. Please go to this link:

http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/?gclid=CKOVsLfx4aUCFcFk7Aodp...

I can cut/paste some pertinent bits for you:

"President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration's case for war.

It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous bipartisan government investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had terminated Iraq's nuclear program in 1991 and made little effort to restart it.

In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14)."

The fact that the information was incorrect does not excuse Bush or his cohorts, due to the fact that they knew it was false and/or cherrypicked information. In fact, it makes them guilty as sin.

Is because it would send a message to ALL elected officials that they are accountable for their actions.

There seems to exist a notion that western world leaders are untouchables, yet Saddam Hussein was executed for his crimes. This needs to be expunged from the minds of citizens.

In my mind, when people in positions of power aren't held accountable for their actions, it places our whole legal system on extremely shaky ground. Why should anyone have to obey the laws of the land, if our elected officials don't?

What is the statute of limitation on murder?

Wrongs must be addressed before any kind of progress can be made.

Expedience and practicality are extremely weak arguments for not pursuing justice. Should we start excusing serial killers because certain amounts of time have passed? Maybe instead of calling them "laws" we should just call them "suggestions" or "guidelines" from now on? And we can all be put on the honor system as to when we choose to follow these suggestions and guidelines?