Our Long National Nightmare Is Over

I have been reluctant to be too excited, too relieved. Life is full of disappointments. I write this on Martin Luther King Day, a day that commemorates the life and work of a man who tried to end the three headed monster that holds us all down - racism, poverty and war. Yet, we cannot celebrate this man's life and work without acknowledging how his life ended. His assassination, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, and of other men who fought to end these things were disappointments. They were more than disappointments. They were crushing blows to the human rights movement, crushing blows to anyone who believes in human dignity. So we are wary. We've been taught to be. We've been taught that hope is a dangerous thing, something in finite supply to be used only at the most critical junctures. And yet, that is exactly where we are.

So to quote an unlikely source:

Our Constitution indeed does work. Yet in order for us to be a nation of laws, we have no choice but to protect those laws. So we have some housekeeping to do. We have been left with a mess and in the weeks and months and years to come, we will be digging out from the disgrace that is the Presidency of George Walker Bush. Although it seems impossible, we are sure to discover things these disgusting men have done that are so vile, they will make what we know about the last eight years seem like a stroll in ethics-berg and morality-ville.

Tomorrow we will see the end to the worst Presidency ever. We will see an end to one of the darkest times in our nation's history. President Bush is a criminal. He is a murderer. We circle around these terms in our political discourse, downplay the importance of the power of the Presidency, of US government, US policy. But there is no argument. No qualifications. No sugarcoated terminology like "Enhanced Interrogation." Our President is a murderer. We can discuss the death toll on his watch. Argue about the numbers. But the facts are clear. President Bush used the US military and Intelligence organizations to murder people.

If we put the invasion of Iraq on hold for a second and focus strictly on torture, the path becomes clear. President Bush has admitted to authorizing torture. These torture techniques are illegal under our law as well as international law. There is at least one instance reported of a death, due to these techniques. And there you have it.  Murder. 2. Depraved indifference to human life. If we are to be a nation of laws, then it is clear that President Bush must be prosecuted for murder. This is quite simple. He ordered the torture of a prisoner that led to that prisoner's death. There are precedents to back up this course of legal action. The very same "enhanced interrogation techniques" authorized by President Bush were prosecuted by the US government during the Vietnam War. That's right folks. We prosecuted US soldiers for using waterboarding during Vietnam. Are you sick yet? I sure am.

What makes this so insidious, so ridiculous, is the ease with which these policies were put into place. The ease with which President Bush turned our Constitution into a roll of toilet paper for his own desperate need to defend the failed ideology of Neo-conservatism. The Bush administration even used the names of their policies to mock human decency, human dignity. We were sold a Patriot Act that allowed the United States to prosecute illegal, un-American acts. It's like naming the Missouri compromise the "End of Slavery Act."

There can be no compromise on these issues. Are we a nation of laws or not?  If not, we should all start robbing banks tomorrow. We could even name our bank robbing policy the "Protection of Banks Act." We could go further. War crimes trials. Investigations into the handing out of military contracts to companies owned by members of the Bush administration. We could investigate Bush's reaction to hurricane Katrina, or Bush's dismantling of the SEC, or the implementation of the Enron loophole, or the falsification of intel in the run up to the illegal invasion of Iraq. The list goes on and on. We could investigate the erosion of our civil liberties as policy. We could investigate the allegations of racism in the Civil Rights office in the Justice Department. We could investigate rendition of prisoners to torture friendly nations. We could investigate the erosion of the separation of church and state. We could investigate. We could.

We could do many things, but one thing is clear. I believe that without at least an attempt by the Justice Department to look into the actual death of a prisoner in American hands, due to illegal torture, authorized by President Bush, we will not begin to free ourselves from our recent history, and get back on the path of civilization.

So the day before the heaping pile of steaming shit that has been the Bush presidency comes to a close we are left with two thoughts. The future and the past. Hope and Justice.

So we hope.

I hope for Justice....