Impeachment

Discussion about the I-word is, apparently, circulating through the blogosphere. I wouldn't know first-hand, because so much of the blogosphere, including this here, is patent crap that I don't have time to absorb any of it not related to me by blood or friendship or the imminence of asteroids impacting the Earth and extincting me. Especially the political stuff, which is all, including this here, such crazy-tilt Goebbelsing that its absorption just feeds mass psychoses that can only, dialetically, lead to the complete obliteration of the human race.

But that's trivial, sorry for the digression. Salon, which you should read even though its contributors are, collectively, crazy as loons who got into the ethanol, wants to talk about it. Salon, by the way, will make you watch a brief ad for the privilege of reading its group discussion about why Ralph Nader thinks Bush and Cheney (and maybe Tony Blair too--I can't tell, because the whole topic is such a snoozefest that I couldn't be bothered to click on the second page) should be impeached. Stop sniveling and watch the ad if you don't want to subscribe. Being fundamentally cheap, it's what I do, because I refuse to support people other than me who don't want to work for a living, except for maybe Ilse's children, and don't think I'm not looking for a country with friendlier child labor laws.

Today's offerings of Salon, by the way, also include discussions of why W is worse than Nixon, why the media missed the boat on some memo that British intelligence crafted that theoretically proves that W and Tony Blair collaborated to abuse the intelligence apparati of two nations to justify a war in Iraq, and an essay comparing W to Baghdad Bob.

I should note, in the interest of fairness, since I'm herewith trashing Salon as a bastion of left-wing schizophrenia, that I read Salon daily and adore it, and you should too (I'm particularly fond of the comics and the sports and the writings on entertainment, which, now that I think of it, correlates to the only two sections of My Local Corporate Media Organ that I'll bother to read any more). But most days, its political bent is just completely out of control, a perfect example of why fascists laugh at us openly and demonize us and get away with it.

Now, let's return to the topic I tried to establish with this piece's title, the I-word. Why, for the love of all that is holy, would we bother to try to impeach George W. Bush with a Republican-controlled Congress? While its constitutional function is certainly high-minded and necessary--I mean, you wouldn't want to try to operate a republic without it--the I-word very quickly became a political tool (78 years is nothing in historical terms), and has never been anything but, although it was, in one instance, used as a bludgeon to bring about a necessary and just legal result. The right's crass and childish behavior during the Clinton administration proved this beyond the shadow of doubt. The impeachment of President Clinton was nothing but an adolescent joke, a gotcha for the 20-year-old perceived slights of the Watergate era, when actual crimes were committed. It forever devalued impeachment as a constitutional tool, casting doubt on the intelligence and capacity for seriousness of anyone who would dare mention it.

And Salon's takeup of the topic is nothing but media masturbation. It's idiotic to discuss impeachment, because not only will it not happen, we don't want it to happen. W and the arrogant fascists in the Republican-controlled Congress are doing everything they can to irreparably piss off the people in the middle who actually elect governments. Those people fear actual poor people too much to read Salon or support a war for more than the 23 minutes it's supposed to take the U.S. military to blow through any country that doesn't span eight time zones or foreclose the possibility that their dumbass teenager can get an abortion after that horrible motorcycle cultist knocks her up, and they're too financially insecure to believe anyone who tries to tell them that no, really, the stability of the stock market has actually improved since October 1929. And while those people in the middle are, in all likelihood, stupid (I grant cheerfully that there are those who are not, but too many of them voted for Karl Rove, or did not vote at all, for it to be believeable that this fundamental conclusion is fallacious), they're not that stupid.

Furthermore, discussion of the topic further delegitimizes the left. The right has had almost 60 years of success demonizing anyone who supports the Social Security system as a Commie, and of appealling to the base instincts of certain segments of our society, and of convincing people who live in double-wides that they're well off. And as smart as the left thinks it is, it's too stupid to understand that when the Devil is demonizing you, you have to change your playbook.

There are those, like my dear friend Sasha, who will tell me that no other media outlet does what Salon does, that all other outlets are so corrupted by fascism or mediocrity that they won't even elevate issues from the left to the fore. They are correct. That doesn't change the fact that Salon isn't helping, and that throwing wacky lefty ideas up against the wall like sticky spaghetti doesn't work for us the same way that throwing against the wall wacky ideas like concentration camps and killing the poor works for the fascists.

So shut the fucking fuck up, Salon. And start paying Heather Havrilesky enough so that she writes more than twice a week.