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Nancy Pelosi and the Arrogance of Power
Leadership Void
By CINDY SHEEHAN, CounterPunch
"They are advocates. We are leaders."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in regards to "Anti-war activists."
People of America, this is truly the problem with what was once a
Representative Republic and now is a country run by "elected" officials
who believe that they, individually and collectively, are above any
accountability and are not answerable to their constituents. Our public
servants erroneously believe that they are the leaders!
Ms. Pelosi made this statement to a group of reporters at a luncheon
recently and she also went off on activists who have been participating in
vigils outside of her chi-chi home in the Pacific Heights district of San
Francisco. The people who are vigiling outside her house regularly, in a
Pelosi Watch are only exercising their rights
as American citizens to make their concerns known to a Rep who was elected
from a district that is wholeheartedly against the occupation of Iraq and
for impeaching the liars who got us into the illegal and immoral
situation.
No, Ms. Pelosi, you are not a leader. You have proven time and again in
what you laughably believe is a "mistake" free run as Speaker of a
Democratic House that you will do anything to protect an Imperial
Presidency to the detriment of this Nation and the world, particularly the
people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
This Democratic Congress supported BushCo's disastrous and deadly surge;
handed him over billions of their constituent's tax dollars to wage this
murder; have by their silence and votes countenanced an invasion of
another country; approved more restrictions on the rights of the citizenry
to be protected against unreasonable search and seizure; Ms. Pelosi does
not even know if "torture" (which violates international law and the 8th
Amendment in our Bill of Rights) is an impeachable offense; and worst of
all the impeachment clauses were taken "off the table" in an ongoing
partnership with BushCo to make the office of the presidency a
Congressionally protected crime conglomerate that is rapidly sending this
Nation down a crap-hole of fascism. So, Congress has led us to a few
things: war, poverty, oppression, unemployment, and an inexplicable
continuance of the Bush Regime.
No, Ms Pelosi, you are not even a leader in the very narrowest of
definitions. We do not elect our Congressional Representatives to be
leaders, not to be used as willing marionettes for the war machine and
other special interests that serve the elite to the detriment of the rest
of us, but to represent the will of the people. We send our elected
officials to DC and pay their salaries and subsidize their benefits to do
the "Will of the People."
No matter how many times Ms. Pelosi and George Bush share tea and giggles
and no matter how often she "prays' for him, George is not the Decider and
she is only the Leader of the House of Representatives not the people. We
are the sovereigns in this country and I tried to demonstrate this when I
demanded a meeting with another haughty public servant: George Bush.
I cannot speak for every Democrat, Independent, Green or disenchanted
Republican (and there are many) in America, but the consensus from my
travels all over this country is that we put Democrats back in power in
both Houses of Congress to be an opposition to the Bush Regime and to stop
the annoying "bobble-headed, rubber-stamping" approval of all things
criminal and murderous. We did not wish to keep heading in the same
direction but desired to go another way, which would have required the
Dems to finally step up and forcefully counter and stop the high crimes of
BushCo. They have failed.
We are sick of excuses. We are tired of the blame being diffused on the
Senate, the Blue Dog Dems, the Republicans or even, incredibly, the people
of Iraq. A true leader accepts responsibility in ways that are not even
dreamed of by BushCo or Congress Inc. A true leader would stand up and do
what is intelligent and what is right and if he/she were a leader then
people would follow. A leader does not wait idly by for a crowd of
sycophants to gather around her before she does her job with integrity and
courage; a leader leads the way and the Democratic Congress with an
approval rating even lower than George's had better wake up to whom they
need to follow: us!
We have countless examples of true leaders throughout American history and
if not for them, women would not have the right to vote, much less be
Speaker of the House; Black Americans would still be slaves or at the very
least still drinking out of separate fountains; workers would not have the
right to unionize and children would still be mining coal; we would still
have troops in Southeast Asia, and we would still be under the aegis of
our close Cousins in Empire: the British. Some of our courageous leaders
have had to pay the ultimate price for their bravery and vision and Ms.
Pelosi should be ashamed of arrogantly whining over her rubber chicken
that Americans exist who want her to do her job because people are dying
and lives are being ruined with her complicity.
We have the right to hold both of the political parties accountable. We
not only have the right, we have the responsibility.
We not only have the right and the responsibility we have the power.
Cindy Sheehan can be reached at: Cindy@CindyforCongress.org
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Words of "infamy" spoken by Speaker Pelosi have made a horrific nightmare come true for the American people, when she stated, "impeachment is off the table", "it's a waste of time", as if, in her blind arrogance, she could tamper with the most treasured document of the American people. Her treasonous, haunting words came true for the 110th Democratic Congress, another "waste of time", because, by taking the Constitution "off the table", they have no legitimate purpose on Capitol Hill. The American people have woken from the "nightmare" and are fighting hard to take back their country from tyranny, but Speaker Pelosi is in "la, la, land", blissfully relishing her arrogance in power.
Pelosi is so ignorant and arrogant that she fails to understand that when she allows funding for the unprovoked and illegal war in Iraq she becomes complicit in the conduct of the war. She becomes a war criminal. Someone needs to remind her that those civilian and military leaders in Japan responsible for the illegal and unprovoked attack on the US in 1941 were tried, convicted and executed for war crimes
GET IT NANCY--"TRIED, CONVICTED AND EXECUTED AS WAR CRIMINALS." YOU ARE GUILTY AND HAVE BECOME A WAR CRIMINAL. YOU HAVE SHAMED THIS COUNTRY AND YOUR FAMILY. THERE IS NO STATUE OF LIMITATIONS ON THIS CRIME MS. PELOSI.
Even since the Democratic Party won a virtual "landslide" victory -- instead of a genuine landslide -- in last year's election, Nancy Pelosi, by her stubborn, pig-headed and unrealistic decision to take the impeachment of Cheney and Bush "off the table", the current Congress has seen its status and approval rating among the American people drop to the same low double-digit numbers that Bush and Cheney have maintained for the past six years.
Thanks in large part to Mrs. Pelosi's spectacular mismanagement skills and her blatant misconduct in failing to carry out the duties of her office as Speaker Of The House at a time when 70% of the American people had given the new Congress their full support, the Congress is now seen as a puppet of Cheney/Bush and the Anglo-Dutch oligarchical bankers which own them (with a few lone exceptions, such as Dennis Kucinich), and the current Congress is held in even deeper public contempt than previous Congresses.
Mrs. Pelosi's continued support for funding the illegal war in Iraq is a clear indication that she does not -- and has never had -- the real interests of the American people at heart, and that her real desire is to support those Anglo-Dutch/Wall Street financial oligarchical interests who've managed to keep her campaign coffers supplied with blood money which have come from the profits made from this illegal, unprovoked war in Iraq. This makes her an equal co-conspirator because she has knowingly and willfully violated her sworn oath to "preserve, protect and DEFEND the Constitution of the United States" by allowing an illegal, unprovoked war to be funded, silently sanctioning the use of torture, and allowing crimes against the Constitution to be brazenly committed without even the threat of swift, sure and just punishment.
Mrs. Pelosi's reckless conduct and her dereliction of duty has also caused serious rifts within the Democratic Party as those who are at the "grassroots" level are growing frustrated, infuriated, angry and disgusted with the apparent unresponsiveness of the Democratic Party's upper echelon of "leadership" toward the progressive agenda which these "grassroots" members have worked so hard to see put into place with last year's mid-term elections.
Because Mrs. Pelosi's actions have put the continued existence of our nation in danger at a time when we have several massive financial bubbles exploding almost simultaneously -- the housing/mortgage debt bubble, followed by the explosions of the credit card debt, commodities and student loan debt bubbles -- and the looming spectre of a 21st Century Peloponnesian War against Iran draws ever closer, she has clearly engaged in conduct unbecoming a Speaker of the House, and her continued dereliction of duty by failing to follow and carry out the clearly expressed will of the American people makes her equally guilty as a war criminal, and she must be removed from office.
If she is not removed from office, and more competent, rational, responsive leadership in put in place immediately, America will collapse under the weight of a self-inflicted social/economic/Constitutional crisis, which will render the nation unable to play its virtually indispensible role in reviving the international economy and fostering genuine scientific and technological progress.
TELL IT LIKE IT IS and SHOW THEM HOW IT'S DONE - Kucinich, Paul - ALL of them. Because you have MORE AUTHORITY in your little pinky-finger than ALL THE DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS COMBINED.
Why? INDEPENDENCE, THAT'S WHY!
Find Cynthia McKinney, Mike Gravel and Ralph Nader and MAKE ALLIANCE WITH THEM. And we'll see IF DENNIS KUCINICH IS SINCERE ENOUGH AND SMART ENOUGH TO JOIN YOU.
Because your LEADERS ARE RIGHT HERE - we are listening, and we're WILLING TO FOLLOW, too - but THE ONE THING WE ARE NOT FUCKING WILLING TO DO IS TO GET THE HELL OUT OF THE WAY!
Dede has my e-mail; for whenever you may need me.
Semper Fi,
-Matty in Florida