Reply #17: One of the things that I find [View All]

fascinating about recent discussions on DU regarding the possibility of "impeachment" is the debates about would it be possible to even consider a House investigation of the executive office? Some say that it would require a significant change in the make-up .... in terms of democrats versus republicans; others point out that there were plenty of republicans in the early '70s that turned on Nixon; and still others say that the elected leaders then were of a superior quality than those of today. Baloney. They were -- just as today -- a collection of mainly snakes, weasals, racists, and petty criminals who prostituted themselves with glee. Were they "superior," one would find it hard to explain the difficulty in getting civil rights legislation passed; or explaining why RFK was despised for telling the truth about LBJ; or explaining the funding of the destruction of brown-skinned people in southeast Asia, red-skinned people in the Black Hills, and black-skinned people in Watts. This country was out of control, and those who offered a sane form of leadership were executed publicly, in Dallas, Harlem, Memphis, and LA.

I like Senator Byrd. I often quote from his wonderful book, "Losing America." But, as many of us know, he used to be a bad human being. One need only look at the speech he gave on the Senate floor on Friday, March 29, 1968 -- in which he gave a racist hate speech, aimed at Martin Luther King, Jr, and advocating denying King and his followers their basic Constitutional rights as American citizens. My point being that while there were a few honest Congressmen and Senators in the late '60s and early '70s, they were a tiny minority, marginalized by the majority.

What happened?

Nixon simply went too far. He began to violate everyone's Constitutional rights. He didn't limit it to some Black Panthers in Chicago, or AIM members occupying Paha Sapa, or socialists in NYC. He started spying on everyone, including his political enemies, as history shows. And a combination of things, from the average citizen turning against the war in Vietnam, to the dirty tricks against democrats, created a situation where these guys rose collectively to a higher level. They realized that it was their duty to protect something more important than their bank accounts and retirement funds. And that is the good potential that people have .... and one that the public needs to appeal to. The congressional leaders of today have the ability to rise to a higher station, and do the right thing.