Opinion Editorials, July 2007
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US Liberals Mad about Libby, But Mute About the Israel Lobby
By Frank Scott
ccun.org, July 14, 2007
The presidential pardon of Scooter Libby, in the tradition of executive mercy for the privileged class , elicited outrage from liberal sectors of the ruling party. Calls for the impeachment of Bush, Cheney, Mrs. Bush, their dogs, and several members of the Bush family, have grown in vehemence as the president's lame duck term nears its end. His reign of terror may soon be turned over to those critical of his more blatant expression of America's role as self chosen ruler of the world. The opposition, while still desperately in need of a spinal transplant , has become slightly bolder as polls - and term limits - reveal that the president has become much weaker .
How significant is the Libby case, compared to others in the financial pornography business we call justice, where those with power find love while the powerless get screwed? Not very. Thousands of innocents are wasting away in America's penal colony, while many of the guilty are serving incredibly long sentences for crimes which affected no one but themselves. And these innocent and non violent people are members of an economic class which cannot afford to buy leniency from the ruling establishment.
The cries of outrage at this alleged assault on our democracy would be more convincing if they were raised on behalf of those thousands, and not simply over one highly noticeable sick tree in a terminal ward of a forest . Libby broke the law, and his dishonesty was from a position supposedly in service to the people, and not only the market or the empire. At least directly . But his is only one of many cases of well connected criminals going free while the laws protecting power assure that the powerless don't notice.
We should never forget that the legal system serves the ruling forces of society. We need merely check the constitution, our holy bible, Talmud and Koran of legality. It was written by the original rulers primarily for their own benefit, to protect their status and their property from what were seen as the common mobs. Those mobs almost immediately amended it with the Bill of Rights for everyone else, demanded when there was still some fight among the ruled. Now, though it may seem that most of us have surrendered to the corporate nobility, many have grown disgusted with the entire process of a sham democracy . They are justifiably concerned over the contradiction between what we are; an allegedly democratic society in which equality is an hallucination, and what we are professed to be ; a nation of freedom, equality and opportunity for all, and not just a few.
Calls for impeachment have been loud and numerous, but only from the people and hardly ever from their representatives. Now, a handful of those are finally aroused, but only since this latest assault on a constitution usually treated as a non-binding resolution by the regime. The war that has nearly destroyed a nation, killed hundreds of thousands of its people and more than three thousand of our own, draws mealy mouthed opposition from establishment figures, while this pardon of Libby caused the usually docile to rise up in anger. How many people have to be murdered before any of these devout believers in the sacredness of the law notice what that law has done to Iraq? Don't hang by your lip waiting for congressional employees of corporate power and a foreign nation - not necessarily in that order - to do anything but dance to the tune of those who finance their campaigns.
Why is there no outcry about the illegality of a lobby for a foreign country exercising power over the American government? Especially since that power has led to Americans spending billions of dollars and thousands of lives to protect Israel, which has won the war that America has clearly lost. At American expense, Israel has rid itself of the only Arab ruler who openly supported the Palestinian resistance , and is now working, through its American lobby, to get the USA to destroy Iran under pretenses even more idiotic than those used to get us into Iraq. How many more billions will we spend to murder foreigners, demolish their social systems, make our country as hated in the world as Israel is in the Middle East, and continue denying vital social needs at home?
Again, do not hang by your lip - or any other sensitive body part - waiting for this sorry crew in Washington to do anything but suck up paychecks from the taxpayers who receive nothing in return, while accepting campaign money from the Israel lobby which gets everything it pays for: a criminal performance by our government for a foreign interest which threatens America's well being.
In the face of this reality, the choreographed fury about holy law which the Libby case has brought about should be seen for what it is; business as usual among the hypocritical fulminators of our one party with two factions ruling regime. If they confronted their own guilt in much larger crimes that break moral as well as legal codes by committing mass murder elsewhere and bringing greater threats of terror here, they'd have to impeach themselves.
Term limits may finally get rid of the Bush regime, but it will take something more to transform this group of hypocrites into servants of the American people. And it won't happen because of some law already on the books. The books will need to be rewritten by the demands of the people. Maybe when we finally express and act on those demands, we'll have something approaching actual democracy. To do so, we'll need to stop worrying about diversions like Libby, and start dealing with realities like the Lobby.
frank scott email: frank@marin.cc.ca.us
Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in the Coastal Post, a monthly publication from Marin County, California, on numerous web sites, and on his shared blog at:
http://legalienate.blogspot.com
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