STORMGLASS

"We know the state of the union, it's a lie". Truth has seldom been spoken in such simple terms. With these words Kucinich dismissed any need to postpone his move to impeach Bush until after the state of the union speech. The time has come for action and only one candidate is strong enough and of sound minded enough to step up the plate. (Pardon the baseball analogy but it had to be.)

This is what it has all been leading up to. This is what people will remember about this election years from now, not some speech Obama gave in Iowa. Not that the media and establishment won't do everything in their power to down play and ridicule or even ignore Kucinich's bold move now that he has already submitted articles of impeachment toward Cheney and gotten twenty four congress members to sign on. No matter what the main stream reaction is the articles will still have been introduced and it will in a way represent the moment when all of America somehow, deep down, starts to recognize that the dream is dead. The dream of America somehow being so great that we deserve to be the richest and most powerful people on the planet indefinitely - even if by force. That's the thing that Democrats and Republicans have been agreeing upon since World War II - particularly the Bush's and the Clintons - and the people believed it. It took the current administration's stunning level of corruption and lying to shake that belief but it has also taken a supremely qualified candidate such as Kucinich to drive the point home.

The gauntlet has been thrown and history will record that Dennis Kucinich introduced articles of impeachment against George W. Bush on the same day as the state of the union address. To Nancy Pelosi and her singular commitment to keeping impeachment off the table Kucinich has said "if impeachment is off the table than truth is off the table". A second gauntlet. Perhaps the all powerful one party machine should have thought twice about leaving a man like that out of the debates. Turns out they were damned either way - the truth is coming out. Perhaps the corporate controlled democratic candidates should be focusing more on the bigger picture rather than getting caught up in their theater of absurd squabble.

Kucinich's move, no matter how the "Sabotage press" (as Harry Truman used to call it) tries to spin it, will come back to haunt every candidate running for office at the current moment. The reason is because Kucinich has the law on his side. By the time the election rolls around the scandals will be exploding so fast and furious that the shock of revelation will stoke public outrage over the fact that nothing was done sooner. Before long even republicans will be calling for impeachment because they know that after the election, if Bush is not impeached, everyone will be admitting that he should have been. Then you will have an entire government full of people forced to explain why they didn't do their jobs.

When it comes to high crimes in the oval office congress members are law enforcement officials and they are all currently (all but twenty four that is) derelict in their duties. All the people whose job it was to push impeachment forward will have to explain to investigative committees why they refused so adamantly to do so. These committees will be forced into existence because without gestapo style homeland security curtailing freedom of speech and right to protest peacefully you will have a lot more public displays of outrage. You might even have the alternative press gaining in stature and market reach and suddenly the media monopoly is over and then of course the truth tends to spread around fast and furious in such a climates.

Then you have a change in who gets elected and with that you have hearings on the great big disaster that corporate corruption and clandestine military complex operations have inflicted upon our democracy for many decades. As all of this spills into public view the big question will be why didn't anybody in government break the silence and then people will remember.  Oh yeah that guy that everybody dismissed. That guy with the hard to pronounce last name who seemed really cool but everybody called unelectable.

By that time Kucinich will be everywhere. He will be the guy who stood up for the rule of law at the moment when Bush was preparing to pass his torch of tyranny to one of the other shills. Kucinich will be the guy who everyone recognizes as having had more guts and hope than anyone in politics for simply saying what needed to be said and doing what needed to be done. All of this is bound to happen because if you look closely enough you can see that the arguments against impeachment are all completely unethical and unable to stand the test of time.

I've read many  accounts of representatives trying to explain to their constituents that even though the vast majority favor impeachment they are still not going to sign Kucinich's bill. They all seem to read from the same script. I even attended a sit in where over a hundred people forced our local representative, who is supposedly extremely outspoken and progressive, into a meeting where he read from the same script. He scolded all of us simply because we insisted on a straight answer as if we were little children who just didn't understand how Washington works. We understand all to well. The big argument he gave was the same one they are all giving and it is an argument which is based completely on democratic party strategy.

Now correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think that is how our system is supposed to work. Putting partisan politics ahead of the law seems in and of itself grounds for impeachment. Didn't tricky dick learn that the hard way. I even read an article where the author had dined with Rep. Conyers and was given the same spiel. Conyers made the two strategy points that so many in the house have made to their angry constituents. First that it might cost the democrats the white house. Second that there just aren't enough votes.

Now, I'm no law enforcement expert but when arresting someone, as far as I know, you see how much evidence there is, you don't try to figure out who the jury will be and how they might vote at the end of the trial. Everyone knows that juries swing in different directions and that there is ABSOLUTELY NO WAY OF KNOWING (unless it is rigged which is what congress might be trying to tell us) which way a jury will swing once all of the evidence is presented. And you certainly don't base your decision on arresting a criminal upon the outcome of an upcoming election, that would be corruption of the highest order. Yet here is Mr. Impeachment expert himself, chair of the Judiciary committee coming out and exposing himself as one of the nations leaders basing the biggest decision of his career on the outcome of a future election and the chance that such an initiative might fail. That's like the FBI saying well, Al Capone is really powerful and can sway elections so I don't think we should try to arrest him. If they took that approach then Capone would have become president and beaten George to the punch.

No matter what the outcome for our political future we owe it to our system to keep the integrity alive. We must start to enforce law fairly otherwise the result, which we already see unfolding on the battlefield and on wall street, is complete lawlessness. The way to restore the law is to enforce it, even if at first you don't succeed. For if the Democrats put politics ahead of simply doing their jobs of enforcing the law than even if they get themselves elected nobody will trust them to do anything other than what Bush has been doing all along, using the law to bolster the his party and the corporate elite.

Democrats have just shown us that they do the exact same thing with a slightly different complexion and that is why they are not being seen as an alternative anymore. All except Kucinich. He is more than an alternative. He is the person who is going to lead the entire nation into a calm and deliberate backing away from our drift into the madness that accompanies all empires in their final years.

He is going to help the world realize that high powered financial elite move their assets from one budding empire to the next in a constant shifting of their global power. He is going to help unite people of integrity everywhere to economically shift the world away from supporting the power elites and their wars. He will teach us how to empower ourselves through earning power, spending power and investing power. He will serve a solid eight years in the white house and then most probably go on to become the first American president ever to travel into outer space. I say that just because it's the kind of thing Dennis would do. Just when you think he's done all he can do, he does some more.

In my attempts to introduce people to the candidacy of Dennis Kucinich and the host of pressing national and global issues that he represents I suddenly became aware that an acquaintance of mine, who I walked my dog with at times, was a Fox news watching republican. I never would have guessed. When I brought up politics after a good number of weeks of never stumbling upon that topic I assumed he was a democrat so I was blown over when he told me he thought the war was great and that we needed such a war to keep the cost of oil down.

I was speechless. "Then why is it going up" was all I could muster. "Well, that's only temporary" was his confident reply. After spending a lot of time discussing issues with like minded Kucinich supporters it was stunning contrast. He had tremendous confidence that he was being protected and provided for by the same people who brought us the war and that they were fighting to make his life as comfortable as possible. After regaining my composure I thought for a while about how to approach the situation.

Finally, I started painting a picture for him of a small Iraqi village where suddenly shells start exploding and American forces are breaking down doors, shooting people, arresting, raping and torturing. He denied that anything "too serious goes on" but admitted that bad things do happen in war and that's a shame. When I urged him to he even looked at it through the Iraqi's eyes and saw that the whole situation would be different if he were one of them instead of an American. He had to admit that if that were the case he would be against Bush and the war.

He then pointed out that so long as the park we were walking in was quiet and safe and so long as he had a good paying job and a roof over his head, that he would feel satisfied with the policies that provide that security be they democrat or republican. He just happened to lean toward republicans because it culturally suited him.

After all he was a city kid brought up in a house of democrats who when he moved out to the sticks wanted so badly to fit in with the locals that he changed his name to Bud and started listening to country music. Fox news is just the natural place for a redneck wannabe to wind up during his off hours. But the funny thing is, Bud is one of the nicest people I've ever met. I mean a really good guy through and through.

He even helped me fix my car a few times while a good friend who had been promising to do the same for months was a no show. Bud was the kind of guy that could disagree with everything I said about politics and yet neither of us would feel as if it mattered a damn weather there was agreement or not. He was willing to concede that I was very well informed about all kinds of things he would never have even thought of taking the time to look into but for the most part he insisted that on key issues I was the product of liberal propaganda which was made up of lies to make the president look bad. He pretty much considered all of the news media to be liberal propaganda lies except Fox news.

Even after polls started suggesting that the vast majority of americans were against the war and Bush and a slim majority favored impeachment, including a lot of republicans, Bud still had the bumper stickers and still towed the Fox party line. He did once admit that the bumper stickers started out as a way of trying to get out of tickets since he spent a lot of time driving for his job and was convinced that all cops were Bush supporters. In fact it was a company car so while he would otherwise be driving a used car, his job allowed him to drive around in a new one. This was one of the things that he held up as why he can't complain about the system.

He was a strange mix but the most interesting thing was that morally and ethically he seemed to be an outstanding person - they just didn't translate into how he would vote. He would admit that wrong doing, and lies and corruption was bad but would shrug his shoulders about it all the way a lot of liberals do and just chalk it up to necessary evil. Finally, in desperation, I pulled out a trump card. I asked him what his religious beliefs where. "Christian", he responded, although I think more specifically he had been raised catholic.

"Oh, Christian" I said and then went on to ask what Jesus would think of torture and rape and pillaging oil and trying to take over the world not to mention small communities with wall marts and fear tactics and race baiting and all in his name no less. Well that seemed to do it, Bud got kind of quiet. He thought for a while, then smiled and thought some more. He didn't have an answer to that one. Fox news had not prepared him for that approach. The answers were spinning around in his head, I could practically hear them but he was shooting them down himself as he knew I would, albeit in a good natured teasing way. He knew there was no credible rebuttal and was actually pretty amused by it.

The words were something to the effect of "I guess you're right" but there was some shrugging and a bit of hemming and hawing about how we humans can't possibly understand the world as Jesus would see it. "True" I told him, but I can't picture the savior of saviors sending a soldier to heaven because he's a good christian who just happens to blow up babies as his day job working for a president who claims to launch wars for god. It just doesn't make sense.

The conversation was rightfully over as we politely trailed off onto another topic. Bud was calmly reflecting. He was so sure that traditional morality was the stuff that fox news was spouting and that real morality having to do with higher principals was just not very relevant to the modern world. I could see he was rethinking it a bit. He even said in parting that he would keep his ears open for Kucinich though he was just being friendly. After that the political discussions went on the back burner again and when it did come up once and a while he was still holding firmly to the republican party and Fox news.

He said it would take loosing that job and the company car before he actually started taking someone like Kucinich seriously. Like other things he is very confident about, I doubt it. I think someday he will just wake up and decide to scrape off all the old bumper stickers and turn off his television.  He will go out and take a deep breath of fresh cool air and think to himself a thought concerning how everyone deserves to live this way.

I think the same thing will happen to all of the liberals who support people like Hillary, Obama and Edwards and take all their cues from CNN and Larry King. They are just as trapped as Bud. They are even better educated than the Fox news crowd and therefore even more confident in their ignorance. The ignorance of why the New York Times is hiring neo-con hacks for it's op-ed page while refusing to print opinion pieces by Congress members trying to launch impeachment hearings. It is a willful ignorance born of not wanting to face the truth of what is happening to our democracy. Some day, hopefully soon we will all wake up and realize that it is better to aspire toward truth and be unsure of yourself than to believe lies and be confident in your ignorance.

Today I am going to salute Kucinich by making a plea to his most famous supporters. Okay people let's get it together - Dennis needs your help and he needs it NOW! Granted, you may already be too late but that is no excuse to give up and you have only yourselves to blame for that. Now is when he has the nations attention (at least everyone who counts in the ethics department) and he desperately needs well respected people backing him up now more than ever. Not just to get him into the white house but simply to offset the goliath like power being wielded by the main stream media machine that is trying to trick people into thinking that the man doesn't exist, or is so irrelevant he might as well not exist. Well you and I know different and it is time we figured out a way of getting the general public up to speed.

Viggo Mortensen, your off the hook, for a while anyway. What you did in New Hampshire was commendable - but it shouldn't have taken Dennis being excluded from a debate to get you to do it, sorry to say. If you are so fired up and passionate about him you should have been pounding the pavement with him for months - lord knows you can afford to unlike many of Kucinich's less known supporters who work tirelessly for him while struggling with poverty. I've heard about and known of a number of them. And why didn't you call up Sean Penn and Shirley MacLain and tell them to get off those film sets and out there campaigning? Lord knows Dennis will never put the pressure on anyone so his biggest supporters kind of have to inspire the other supporters to step up to the plate, if you know what I mean. I'm sorry but no movie is more important that pulling this country back from the brink of imperialist madness and that's saying a lot coming from me.

And where are Roy Sheider, Hector Elizondo and James Cromwell when you need them. They should be following Dennis from town to town as far as I'm concerned - Hollywood careers be damned. After all what is going to happen to Hollywood if our country doesn't change course asap? More banks, more right wing fanatics, more apocalyptic imagery and under aged booty call films that don't win anybody no awards. If liberals are hired at all in an even more right wing America it will only be to occasionally portray weak kneed liberal presidents caving in to terrorism while die-hardesque renegade heros explode their way in to save the day. What we want is the opposite - a hollywood where the only thing the right wing actors can get cast in is to play an out of control president who is swept out of office by a popular uprising long before he has a chance to ignite WWIII.

And there are more of you out there, lots more. I've seen the lists of his donors and there are a quite a number of famous people who send him money but never publicly support him. Shame on you. And I'm not even going to mention the ones who due to their positions should support him and yet have gone for one of those three candidates who seem to want war with Iran almost as much as Bush does.

There's no question about it, we need to see all of the celebrities who support Dennis to get together and hold a joint "star studded" press conference in which they all collectively draw attention to his impeachment efforts, his truly not-for-profit healthcare program, his firm opposition to the war from the beginning and his total lack of corporate money. Then, as if that weren't enough, they should also bring along computer and election law experts and declare American elections null and void while calling for a nation wide repeal of computerized voting devices as well as the ending of Diebold's involvement in elections period. forever.

Famous people of integrity, your country needs you now more than ever. Dennis needs you now more than ever. History is calling upon you to react not just as individuals but as a collective. The world is waiting for you to all join together with all the other famous and not so famous people who know the difference between right and wrong in a climate where truth has become a casualty of war. Now is the time to unify with all those who have spoken out for full disclosure of the many government cover ups over the last fifty years and those who have spoken up for global peace and justice and an end to global military/banking complex tyranny. It is time to show that there is a just and honest future course for America waiting for us it's just that its messenger has been shouted down by the forces of corruption.

It is time to recognize that the elite cannot and win the hearts and minds of the American people. All the population needs is to be led toward more accurate information than they get on tv and in newspapers and sensible leadership like Kucinich. We are backing away from the hijacked course we have been set upon and are soon we will re-embrace a humane cooperative approach to life with an emphasis on true democracy and real freedom. That's just the way the pendulum swings.

Ed Begley Jr. Didn't you support Dennis - speak up! Demand to be heard. Lord knows you've got more of a bully pulpit than I do. And what about Charlie Sheen shouldn't you be a Kucinich supporter what with all of your controversial views? There isn't a liberal or progressive actor who is off the hook. Quite frankly, at the risk of offending some, Hillary and Obama are taking a lot of you for a major ride. It is embarrassing to see so many of you embrace them just because they are in the celebrity club. News flash, they are corrupt to the core and it is rubbing off on all those who rub up against them. Even Republicans with integrity should be backing Dennis to show that they are not part of the establishment machine.

Granted I'm sure I sound a wee bit cranky about the whole subject and I know you catch more flies with honey and all that but Dennis has been out there standing up for what we all agree is right for quite a number of years now. All people seem to do is sit back tsk tsking that he doesn't stand a chance. What is wrong with us? Where's our "can do" spirit of personal empowerment? If we all pulled together we would MAKE SURE he stands a chance. A good number of his supporters could even afford to put their careers on hold for a while and campaign for him full time. Why not, you might learn something - about policy and people. The entire experience will help you a great deal when trying to decide which script you should choose to do next. I should know - I'm the guy who will be peddling it to you.

Dear Mr. Obama,

If you truly believe all of the things you profess to believe then I
feel that there is only once sensible course of action: throw your
full weight behind the candidacy of Dennis Kucinich and hope that he
will return the favor by asking you to be his running mate.

This is the truly revolutionary thing to do. Such an act would
convince the majority of Americans that you really do stand for hope
and change. It would also convince the vast majority of the world's
population, who are a good deal more savvy about such things than we
are, that we really are going to take our collective fingers off the
proverbial trigger.

Right now statistics show that the country is deeply disgusted with not
only the war but; the lies, the erosion of civil liberties, the so called war
on terror, the corruption of the media, the criminality in Washington, the
gangsterization of the private sector, the military complex and election
machinery. Many are demanding impeachment and we are all hungry
for a real democracy and an end to imperialistic doublespeak. We are all
pondering how those who kill, maim or torture millions around the world
over many decades through media manipulation and war could possibly
be held accountable. The answer escapes most because we are all ultimately
held accountable, through our actions. None are uninvolved.

With all due respect you do not appear to be on the path to providing us
with the complete legal and ethical overhaul this country, and even more
so the rest of the world, truly deserves. The song and dance the democratic
leadership is peddling is only mildly distinguishable from that which the neo-cons
are offering and everybody seems to knows it on one level or another.

If you remain on your current course your ability to change the system
from within will come up against the brick wall of the corporations who put
you in power in the first place. The only thing that might provide
you with the power to change the country for the better would be the
people themselves but they are not truly activated because you are cueing
them with a wink and a nod that you are not really about change in the
grand sense. Only enough change to be able to let some steam out of the
pot before spiraling down into a lame duck president mired in age old scandals.

The motivation of the people will be sapped significantly by our
bitter acceptance that you were just another politician who talked big
about change and hope but implemented and inspired very little of
either. We will have come to accept that hope does not come in the
form of handsome politicians who talk tough to get elected but
otherwise pretty much do what the ultra elite tell them to do.

You may score a few points with the people for normalizing relations
with the rest of the world and even more points from the elite for
helping to usher in their fabled new order but that certainly
isn't going to give you the kind of legacy historians will want to
write about fifty or a hundred years from now. At least not write
about kindly. History is of course a much more brutal adversary than
republicans and progressives. History may just look at this time in
America and see two types of people occupying all points of the
political spectrum. Those aiding and abetting fascism and those doing
everything in their power to reverse our decline into a culture of
death and imperialist destruction.

If as you read this letter you take a deep breath and look into the
depths of your being, the part where you ponder the world your
children and their children will be left with, if you dig deep enough
you may awaken to the merit of this suggestion. If when you search
down into that personal space you have a most important epiphany and
come to understand what is at stake and what is good, then you may actually
take this outlandish concept to heart. If you do, the very next day historians
will sharpen their pencils to write about the unfolding of one of the
most noteworthy events in modern history. Far bigger and broader and
earth shattering than simply becoming the first black president - and
that's saying a lot. That's how big such a move would be.

Your readjusting to such a clear position of integrity and courage
would be such a large scale act of humility and grace that it would
stand to eclipse all of the horrible events of the past few years.
Such a statement would show that you really are worlds apart from
Edwards and Hillary and give the American people the chance to step up
to the challenge and emulate your gesture by, themselves, doing what
needs to be done.

Your sudden act of clear, breathtaking leadership would encourage
people not only to support Kucinich's candidacy but also, even more
importantly to; start boycotting major corporations, start taking part
in the electoral process, start helping their neighbors get back on
their feet financially and otherwise transform themselves into better
people who are busy going about the business of creating a better world.

By singling out the one man who has been saying and doing the right
thing for the people of the world from the very beginning of this
national nightmare, you will be singling yourself out for the most
authentic form of political redemption. By embracing the man who has
implemented impeachment proceedings, and who accepts zero corporate
funding and who has the only truly not for profit universal healthcare
plan, you will be dramatically and unequivocally transforming your
words and positions into actions. Nothing would so boldly and
effortlessly place you among the truly heroic history makers of our time.

This is a time where we desperately need a new generation of founding
fathers and mothers to assume the reins in public life. So far, there
are only twenty-four signed on to Kucinich's impeachment bill. It is a
start. We could use a Senator! By placing your weight behind Kucinich,
who would institute a truly incorruptible, peace seeking, environment healing
administration you will be taking a much more profound position of leadership
than by seeking the presidency yourself.

By backing Kucinich you would instantly become part of a broad
tapestry of citizens who are leading America through perhaps the most
significant transformation in her entire history. A growing coalition
that will help the world move toward peace and cooperation. By
becoming part of this team of truth seeking advocates and protectors
of the greater global community you will allow history to smile upon
you. You will also be, after eight years of Kucinich, elected for two
terms as the person who people trust most to make sure we don't slide
backwards after all of our hard work.

It's a hard decision. We certainly know what your handlers would say. Good luck.