posted October 23, 2004 03:28 AM              

I share Sen. Byrd's concern for what is happening to this country and the same fear he has about the Constitution. So many people have told me that this election has a different feeling than any other election. They sense a certain kind of uneasiness about it. A feeling that the whole future of the U.S. and the world depends on the outcome of the election. I think we have come to a crucial point in our destiny when we have to open our eyes to what is really happening and stand up to evil with courage. Truth is our weapon against the lies and deceit that are passed off as truth and we have to keep speaking it regardless of how frustrating it may get. Sen. Byrd has done that from the beginning and he continues to do it. The words he spoke in his speech to Congress on the eve of the Iraq war are etched in my memory and keep my hope alive. It was an impassioned speech and in it he said, " The truth will come out, truth always comes out, and when it does this house of cards (speaking of the Bush administration) built on lies and deceit will fall." The extraordinary has become the norm but I don't think that is the case for half of America judging from the polls. I think half of us are aware of what is happening to this country and where it is leading us and the world. That is apparent when people like John Eisenhower and William Milliken, republican moderates, come out and say they are voting for Kerry and why. Their why is that they can see where we are headed and what is going on in this country.

Byrd's Eye View
When the Extraordinary Becomes the Norm
By NIRANJAN RAMAKRISHNAN

A minor gratification to the student of political history is the opportunity to sneer at past generations. With a quiet air of superiority, he may wonder what manner of fools were they, that they could not comprehend what was going on right in front of their eyes?

How could a demagogue like Hitler take over Germany, an advanced nation with a highly educated middle class? How could a Stalin become the uncrowned emperor of a sprawling land, one moreover which had so recently had a revolution overthrowing a monarchy? How could an Islamic theocracy overtake a nation like Iran, which was by all accounts the most westernized in the Middle East? How did Beirut, often called the Paris of the East, disintegrate so quickly into a war-torn hell-hole? How did these remarkable transformations happen?

A casual glance might make them appear to have happened overnight. The inevitable compression of time when looking at historical events causes us to juxtapose in our minds events with several years between them, often for no better reason than that they appeared close together in a book. But a deeper inquiry will show up this fallacy. It took Hitler a good five years to consolidate his hold on Germany. It took Stalin a decade after the death of Lenin to fully grasp power. And the Iran hostage crisis notwithsanding, it took Khomeini several years to turn Iran into a place where a fatwa could be issued to kill some faraway writer -- and be taken seriously. Lebanon's militias were fifteen years in the making.

Though the Second Law of Thermodynamics dictates that entropy (chaos) shall ever rise, this indicates aimless drift rather than decisive deterioration. The late Nirad Chaudhuri, a lifelong student of decaying civilizations, was of the opinion that decline required as just much leadership as did ascent. To paraphrase the old poster, 'To err is human, but to really screw things up takes sustained effort'. How does the world's longest democracy permit the hijacking of its most sacred processes? Why would the country permit draconian laws abridging the very freedoms upon which it was founded? Why would it countenance the disenfranchisement of large swaths of its own electorate? Why would it mutely tolerate the use of dubious voting devices that would undermine the entire basis of fair voting? How could it, in the heyday of the Information Age, manage to be misled into a briar patch entanglement in Iraq? And at the end of such a glorious era of bungling, why would the election be such a close thing?

One can imagine a person two hundred years hence, studying the history of our times (in Chinese?). As they would other decaying civilizations, they would look at ours with some wonder. How did such a remarkable system collapse? Why did it systematically accomplish its own downfall by overspending, overpopulation, pockmarking its hillsides with housing developments, depriving its children of education, exporting its jobs, and embroiling itself in debilitating wars abroad?

A common theme appears to run through every deteriorating society -- the extraordinary progressively becomes more and more acceptable, accepted -- and normal, in that order. Like graffiti in the neighborhood, one is aghast when one first encounters it, but soon one stops noticing it.

The balance of powers enshrined in the Constitution is intended to prevent exactly such wanton decay. Executive excess was to be held in check by Congress. One powerful person could be driven mad by power, so the thinking of the founders went, but it was unlikely that 535 others would follow suit.

But what if this actually happened, and a pusillanimous legislature prostrated itself tamely when faced with a mix of blandishment and threat? The extraordinary would have come to pass. As it has! While a mere burglary outraged us only three decades ago, acts far worse scarcely raise an eyebrow any more. We live in times where the trivial ("Here's breaking news on the Scott Peterson Trial") gets prodigious amounts of press, and the vital ("Diebold Machine voting results cannot be verified") goes largely unexamined. An age where the extraordinary has come to be accepted as ordinary.

Agonizing over the slipping away of his beloved Constitution in an age of inanity, a public figure has written a book with an apt title, 'Losing America'. If anyone is qualified to write such a book, it is he. Imagine the fate of the hero in the movie, Planet of the Apes. His tragedy is his alone. No one else realizes what has been lost. He beats his head against every wall, appeals to every one of his colleagues, pleads for them to consider the glorious heritage of their magnificent institutions, all to no avail.

Such is the plight of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va), the lion of the Senate, author of Losing America. Sen. Byrd has drawn up as stinging an indictment of the Bush Administration as anybody could. Over the past four years, his spirited speeches from the Senate floor, reminding that enfeebled institution of its true duty, have offered shimmering glimpses of what the Senate ought to be. Losing America is to America's politics what Silent Spring was to its environment, an urgent wake up call.

The book takes us through the last four years, laying bare the cavalier irresponsibility, chronic mendacity and unprecedented ignorance which characterize this president, and the brazen combination of smugness, incompetence and arrogance that marks his cabinet. Packed in this brief but powerful volume is a tour of the Bush presidency, written in a way that makes the blood boil by reliving the succession of horrors it has perpetrated. Sen. Byrd is a scholar of both American and European (particularly classical, I think) history, and the book makes good use of his knowledge. He has been in the Congress for 50 years, and draws telling comparisons to show what we have become.

Above all, the book is refreshing in its frankness. It is free of Washingtonese in general and Kerry's Disease in particular, that art of the artless platitude. Here is an example of what I mean. Bush has just announced a homeland security initiative (which the White House had earlier done its utmost to resist) in front of the TV cameras.

"Bush turned to Speaker Dennis Hastert and to the majority and minority leaders of both houses for remarks. Then, with brief apologies, Bush announced his imminent departure for St. Louis to make a speech. As he pushed his chair away from the table, I asked to be heard. "

"...I noted that the president wanted quick action on his 'homeland security package' but I had never been informed of just what was in the 'package'. I had once heard one leader at the table vow passage of 'this thing' by Election Day. I repeated that, as yet, 'I don't know what 'this thing' is'. The president responded with a non-sequitur, thanking me for my statement and assuring me that it would be considered. Then he promptly rose and headed out the door. Amazing. I might as well have been reciting a recipe for Christmas fruitcake. My opinion of meetings at the White House hit a new low. I was struck by the president's dismal performance. To say it was mediocre would be a gross exaggeration. He was disorganized, unprepared, and rambling. This fellow was all hat and no cattle, as they would say in Texas. It was obvious that he had no idea what was in his Department of Homeland Security proposal, nor did he seem to care. The gratuitous "thanks to members" was so phony it bordered on an affront. I had sat in meetings with many presidents: John Kennedy knew his subject... (more about other presidents and their qualities)...Bill Clinton, likable, jovial and with a vast knowledge of policy on a wide array of topics which he liked to display. But this president, this Bush number 43, was in a class by himself -- ineptitude supreme. This meeting with Bush the Younger had topped anything I had seen, from Truman on, for absolute tripe!"

One can only wonder where he might be in the polls if John Kerry ever spoke this way. It is instructive to recall that Truman used the plainest language and overcame Dewey.

Disgusted as he is with this president, he reserves his bitterest words the current day United States Congress. A Congressman and Senator since 1953, and a historian of the Senate to boot, he never thought he would see his beloved institution fall to this low point:

"Senators were content to play it safe, to argue, say, over federal judges, an important matter, but not compelling on the brink of war...the world was in turmoil, we were on the precipice, and the Senate was in full denial. Having handed Bush carte blanche by passing the Iraq war resolution, it wanted no more to do with the matter. It had washed its hands and taken an aspirin... Privately, members would engage, expressing horror at Bush's path; wonder at his radical reshaping of America's foreign policy in a scant two years; dismay at his lack of experience, amazement that he had been able to blend the images of bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the public mind; and anger over the arrogance of Rumfeld, Wolfowitz, and others in the Bush administration."

" But there was not a lot of eagerness to say anything on the record. Why bother? Why rock the boat? Oh no -- just reach for the phenobarbital and listen to the siren calls. What an odyssey. Where was public dissent? "

And this of the Democrats (with Majority Leader Daschle himself having introduced the White House War resolution):

" ...what the situation finally came down to was action on HJ Resolution 114, passage of which was now a foregone conclusion in the Democratic-controlled Senate. We had been swept away by campaign fever. Some high-priced pollster had apparently convinced the Senate Democratic leadership that we could 'get the war behind us' and change the subject to that of the flagging economy, where the election prospects would appear to be more favorable to the Democrats. What nonsense. The White House war machine was in full tilt. They would keep the focus on 'terror'. There would be no 'getting it behind us', I told the caucus, so why hurry with the resolution? ...Why, thirty days before a congressional election, when politics so distorts every issue and so grips the mind and soul of everyone running, were we choosing tomake such a critically important decision? "

"I made an urgent public plea to Joe Lieberman and Tom Daschle, who were driving toward a hasty vote: please cancel the order for a cloture vote. It would be unpatriotic to not ask questions. My plea came to nought...Paul Sarbanes, my friend and a man of piercing analytical ability -- surely one of the best minds in the Senate -- remembered dealing with the Panama Canal treaties. Debate had begun on February 6 of 1978 and ended on April 8 of that year. We had spent twenty-one days on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, twenty-three days on the energy bill, nineteen days on the trade bill, and eighteen days on the farm bill; yet we were about to spend only a week debating whether to give this bellicose and secretive president unfettered authority to take us to war. We were being stampeded. And anyone willing to look a fact in the eye knew it."

Despite Robert Byrd's heroic resistance, the resolution passed, with twenty-nine of fifty Democrats voting for it. Jim Jeffords (Independent) and Lincoln Chafee (R) voted against. Byrd writes,

"Never in my half century of congressional service had the United States Senate proved unworthy of its great name. What would the framers have thought? In this terrible show of weakness, the Senate left an indelible stain upon its own escutcheon. Having revered the Senate during my service for more than forty years, I was never pained so much."

"On the eleventh of October, the Senate gave Bush what he wanted. The damage done, it adjourned on October 28 for the midterm elections. When we reconvened on November 12, we had lost the majority."

Thus did Daschle, Gephardt and Co., stuck in a blue funk about being labeled 'unpatriotic' if they did not support the war, engage in all their obsequious contortions to avoid squarely opposing the rush to war, only lose the moral high ground and the senate majority for the Democratic Party. To quote a line used about supine businessmen during India's Emergency, 'When asked to bend, they offered to crawl'. John Kerry too, we need scarcely add, was among those voting for the resolution. Looking at all the troubles Kerry now has explaining his vote, Byrd might have added from Shakespeare, "Had I but served my god with half the zeal I served my king, he would not in mine age have left me naked before mine enemies."

The book includes eight of his senate speeches in an appendix, all of which (and more) can be found on the senator's website (http://byrd.senate.gov). Without ever saying so, the case to dump this administration shines through page after page of this brief volume, with a clarity that eludes George W. Bush's main opponent. Senator Byrd writes with a keen sense of history, an outrage at what has happened to his beloved Senate, and a deep anxiety for the future of the Constitution.

A bell of alarm from a public servant of unusual erudition and unflagging idealism, this gem deserves to be read by every American.

posted October 23, 2004 12:44 PM            

I can, he's feeling old....and confused, having lost about 3/4 of his brain cells.

It's also noted there's no mention of HOW the Constitution is being lost, no mention of what articles of the Constitution are being breached. Nothing unusual in that though because it's the dimocrats themselves who insist on altering the Constitution, sans the amendment process and have been moving heaven and earth for more than 40 years to do just that.

Example

The President is given Constitutional authority to appoint federal judges...with the advice and consent of the Senate.

For more than 2 centuries, American Presidents have placed their nominations for federal judges before the Senate of the Unites states...for debate and a majority vote up or down.

Not so anymore. Now the dimocrats have decided to do away with 200 years of advice and consent history by filibustering appointments to the federal bench. A trick not ever tried before in the history of America.

Now, thanks to that so called Constitutional scholar, Robert KKK Byrd and his merry little band of Marxist obstructionists led by Tom Daschle and Ted Kennedy, it takes a cloture vote of 60 to override filibustering Senate obstructionists to even get an up or down vote on prospective appointees to the federal bench.

Senator Robert KKK Byrd should keep his mouth firmly shut when even thinking about Constitutional issues in the Senate because he is one of the problems and in no way could he be considered innocent of shedding the blood of the Constitution on the Senate floor.

It's also become an article of faith for the Marxists dimocrat Senators that anyone with any religious faith is persona non grata on the federal bench....except for dimocrats, who it is clearly understood, have no faith whatsoever, regardless of their self professed beliefs.

posted October 23, 2004 01:16 PM            

OK, Democrats are in competition with the Republicans, Democrats go after people for there color and Republicans go after people for they're beliefs, in fact, the conservatives got a lynch mob going on right now, they call it the Iraqi Liberation effort!

posted October 23, 2004 01:24 PM              

Congress was duped but if they had listened to Byrd when he besought them to take more time before coming to their decision they might not have been duped. They might not have given Bush all the power they did and the war would not have happened. Now we are stuck in a mess that if any leader and his cabinet had thought through carefully and planned would not exist.

In fairness I cannot totally blame Congress. They are there to serve us and they need feedback from their constituents to get a feel of what we are thinking about the issues. We as citizens are at fault for not protesting the fiasco of the 2000 election. We should have stood up for our Constitutional rights and demanded in unison a new election. When Bush pointed the finger at Sadam Hussein and Iraq I know many of us thought as I did, "how did we get from Osama bin Laden to Sadam Hussein?" And beyond just thinking that we talked to each other about it. But we didn't talk to our representatives in Congress about our thoughts and feelings. At the same time the Bush administration was setting up a whole new system for democracy by saying" if you are not with us you are against us." And in the heat of anger over 9/11 and through fear many Americans picked up on that. A new cry rang out in the land of the free where the first Amendment right to free speech has always been treasured and that cry said, " If you are not for the President you are for the enemy." If you speak out against the war and do not support it you are unpatriotic. There was no dissent. So Congress had no idea that we didn't all feel as the Bush supporters felt.

But I think that Byrd is jumping for joy over the moderate Republicans that are coming out to say they are voting for Kerry and for the polls that are so close. That, I think gives him hope that there are those of us who can see what is going on in this country and the Bush administration. There are half of us, maybe more, who are standing up for country and the Constitution and thinking for ourselves. We are thinking and speaking out. I think Byrd would be happy about all the organizations fighting for democracy that have sprung up and grown in numbers of members who fight for democracy and the Constitution.

There is hope for our civilization if we continue speaking out and confront the lies with truth. Half of us are not brainwashed.

posted October 23, 2004 01:38 PM            

It sure is not the people of America, at least not the ones that truely believe in the American ways, that is! But I've been called a Marxist by people here, so what do I know?

posted October 23, 2004 01:41 PM              

This is not a post where we are at all interested in hearing your partisan BS and your smearing and name calling. I did not put this post in to discuss Byrd so much as his ideas and thoughts and our ideas and thoughts about the past four years. Bush has redefined America. No one can question that. It is worth discussing I think. Our thoughts and ideas and sharing them are worth hearing. What do we foresee for the future of this country and the world if we continue on the path that Bush has us headed? Can our civilization endure if we continue on this path? Is our Constitution in danger? How do we all feel about the election in light of the next four years and beyond that? Those are the kinds of things I would to hear and hear the opinions of others here. We can learn from each other and discuss what we can do about it maybe. I don't want to get into arguing about partisan politics and who is a communist in your eyes. I personally think anyone who disagrees with you or Bush is a communist in your eyes. As for Byrd I admire the man very much. Tough bananas that you don't. But I don't care to hear it.

Ozone it isn't a party thing with me. I am supporting Kerry because the only two choices we have in this election is really Kerry or Bush. I definitely don't want Bush. If John McCain or John Eisenhower or any other moderate Republican were running I might be voting for them over a Democratic candidate. There are good men who are Republicans and good men who are Democrats and an equal number of bad ones in both parties. I am all in favor of election reform that allows us to pick who we want to run for candidates and not each party. And not just two parties. I tend to vote for the man and not the party so much.

I know it doesn't sound like that when I get into heated debates with jwhop and defend Kerry. But that is only due to the smearing of Kerry's character by jwhop and the Republicans in this campaign. It is not so much the man or the party I am defending. It's truth as opposed to lies, distortions and smearing the character of another.