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US Electorate Deals a Serious Blow on Bush Regime
as Democrats Take Over US Congress From Republicans
By Prof. Jose Maria Sison
Chairperson, International Coordinating Committee
International League of Peoples' Struggle
10 November 2006
The US electorate has held the Bush regime responsible for its disastrous policies and
actions and has dealt it a serious political blow by giving to the Democratic Party control
over the House of Representatives and the Senate. Bush is not just a lameduck president
for being on the last two years of his second term. He is likely to be a dead duck if the
Democrats follow the American people's expectations that Bush and Cheney be impeached
and convicted for their high crimes.
The Bush regime is culpable for so many exposed cases of corruption, the use of the
anti-terrorist hysteria to engage in wars of aggression and to attack civil and political rights
in the US and worldwide, the increasing human and material costs of the war in Iraq for
the benefit of the US war profiteers, capital growth of big business through tax exemptions
and overpriced state contracts and the drastic decline of regular employment and income
for the workers and middle class.
The Democrats are generally and basically of the same imperialist stripe as the Republicans
in Congress. They cannot be expected to make any change of policy that would overturn
monopoly capitalism. But if they aim to win the 2008 presidential elections, they have to
work hard to win the imperialist infighting and to put Bush and his kind in a corner in two
ways.
One way is for the House of Representatives to investigate and impeach Bush and Cheney
for the high crimes that they have committed. The Democrats have the number in Congress
to impeach them as well as the number in the Senate to try and sentence them. If the
Democrats fail to act on the impeachable crimes of Bush and Cheney, they will squander
their current gains, beat themselves and earn the ire of the American people.
Another way is for the Democrats to pass bills which would reverse the Bush regime's
extremely wrong acts of commission and omission against the American people. Bush
would threaten to veto or actually veto the bills and thus place himself in a more untenable
position than before. In view of the clear wishes of the people, he is in no position to use
his veto power in order to have his way or compel bipartisan compromises in his favor, unless
too many muddleheads and softheads among the Democrats lose sight of 2008.
The Democrats can put the two ways mentioned above into play at the same time to cut
down and place Bush in his proper place and more importantly to set aright the wrongs
committed by him. But they can play both ways effectively only if the principal way is
the impeachment and possible conviction of Bush and Cheney and the secondary way
is legislative action to expose and reverse the continuing wrong course of Bush et al.
The Democrats would discredit themselves and dissipate their current advantage soon
enough if they do not pursue the investigation and impeachment of Bush and Cheney
on flagrant high crimes like the following:
1. The lies (especially those claims about weapons of mass destruction and connections
with al Qaeda) and dirty tricks (demolition of dissenters within the US government) to
push through the war of aggression against Iraq,
2. The connivance of the regime with giant US firms in corruption and profiteering from
Iraqi oil resources, military contracts for weapons and other supplies, privatization of military
functions and so-called reconstruction work in Iraq.
3. The systematic attacks on the civil and political rights of individuals, groups and people
in the US and abroad in the name of a permanent and preemptive war on terror.
Bush is now a big loser in the US midterm elections, more because the people hate his
wrong policies and actions than because they love the Democrats. If the Democrats
betray the expectations of the people, they would soon be seen as being at par with
or as collaborators of Bush in the persistence of policies and actions detrimental to the
people of the US and abroad. They would have to blame only themselves if they botched
up their chances for the presidential elections in 2008. ###
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