Politics as a criminal enterprise

It is my contention that Republicans in the past 15 to 20 years have changed their politics into a criminal enterprise. I know we have our sayings, like, "politics as usual," and the like. And I know that historically politicians have lied about and insulted each other, but during and since the Clinton administration Republicans have converted politics into nothing more than a crime spree. Perhaps I am just too innocent but I confess that when Republicans manufacture and control the voting machines and use them to illegally win elections I think that crosses the line from politics into crime. Similarly, when they disrupt the Democratic telephone lines on election day, I think that is not merely politics. When they hire people to deliberately lie and distort someone's combat record, and they know absolutely they are doing so, I think that is criminal. When they illegally deny people their right to vote based on some trumped up list of felons, they go too far. When they manipulate the number of voting machines to insure that blacks do not have much of a chance to vote, they have gone too far. They worship Karl Rove for no reason other than that he is the acknowledged master of dirty (actually criminal) tricks.

Whatever you might think of Bill Clinton what Republicans did to him was no better than criminal. Indeed, there was an actual conspiracy to bring down an elected president. What do you think Linda Tripp, Ken Starr, and all the other lawyers working secretly were trying to do? Tripp and that other woman, the publisher woman, Goldberg, were quite up front about what they were doing - and what they were doing, along with Starr and many others, was trying to bring down Clinton for any reason they could find. How is it they were never charged with criminal conspiracy?

There is no longer any doubt whatsoever that the Republicans illegally won the last two presidential elections. And who knows the full extent of their conspiracy to do so? But in my opinion they went far beyond politics as usual and changed Republican and, indeed, American politics probably forever, and certainly not for the better.

It has turned out that our two party system has a fatal flaw. And that flaw allows the possibility for one party to completely take over all branches of government. This has now happened. Thus the minority party is totally helpless to do much of anything about it. This system does not protect the rights of the minority party as it should. Even as a minority they should have the right to supoena and investigate wrongdoing wherever it seems to be occurring.

We will probably never know the truth about the Gannon/Guckert scandal, and may not even get to the truth of the Rove scandal. Republicans are now going so far as to investigate Fitzgerald's investigation and are making noises about not extending his tenure. Why? Because he is threatening to expose the truth about their criminal behavior and they won't allow it if at all possible - and it seems to be possible. In this situation there would seem to be no recourse except for the masses of people to take to the streets and say finally enough is enough, just as they did back in the 1920's and 1930's.