<div dir="ltr"><div dir="ltr"><br></div><div class="gmail_quote"><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Wed, Nov 20, 2019 at 12:46 PM David Johnson via Peace <<a href="mailto:peace@lists.chambana.net">peace@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:<br></div><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr"><br></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="gmail-m_3769704505481681295WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">Great effective tactic Paul Street is advocating.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">The HUGE problem is, WHO will organize it ?<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)">David J.</span></p></div></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Especially since half of the so-called "working class" thinks that tRump is the greatest thing since sliced lunchmeat.  :-/</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><div lang="EN-US" style="overflow-wrap: break-word;"><div class="gmail-m_3769704505481681295WordSection1"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:14pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:11pt;font-family:Calibri,sans-serif;color:rgb(31,73,125)"><u></u> </span><b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif"> Peace [mailto:<a href="mailto:peace-bounces@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank">peace-bounces@lists.chambana.net</a>] <b>On Behalf Of </b>Karen Aram via Peace</span></p><div><div style="border-right:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none;border-top:1pt solid rgb(181,196,223);padding:3pt 0in 0in"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Tahoma,sans-serif"><b>Sent:</b> Wednesday, November 20, 2019 9:21 AM<br><b>To:</b> peace; Peace<br><b>Subject:</b> [Peace] Fwd: Trump's Removal Can't Wait for Impeachment by Paul Street<u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p><p class="MsoNormal">The most important point Paul Street makes, in addition to the futility of impeachment, is:  <u></u><u></u></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(28,30,33);background:white"><br><br></span><u></u><u></u></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(28,30,33);background:white">“If we are serious about getting rid of the demented fascist oligarch and his insurance policy, Pence, then we are going to have to join and expand an authentic opposition, a real popular resistance in the streets. The effective and meaningfully democratic way to remove Trump is not through elite procedures designed by 18th century slaveholders for whom democracy was the ultimate nightmare. It is through sustained mass civil disobedience—through rebellion by and for those whom the American ruling class fears and hates the most: the working-class majority."</span> <u></u><u></u></p><div><blockquote style="margin-top:5pt;margin-bottom:5pt"><div><div><div><h1 style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0.25in;margin-left:0in"><span style="font-size:36pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54);letter-spacing:-0.45pt;font-weight:normal">Trump's Removal Can't Wait for Impeachment<u></u><u></u></span></h1><div style="margin-bottom:27pt;box-sizing:border-box;background-size:cover;float:left"><div><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:7.5pt;line-height:13.5pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-removal-cant-wait-for-impeachment/" target="_blank"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:white;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:0.75pt;background:rgb(101,83,85);text-decoration:none"><u></u><u></u></span></a></span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:7.5pt;line-height:13.5pt"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:white;text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:0.75pt;background:rgb(101,83,85)"><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/trumps-removal-cant-wait-for-impeachment/" target="_blank"><span style="color:white;text-decoration:none">COMMENTS</span><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:windowtext;text-transform:none;letter-spacing:0pt;text-decoration:none"><u></u><u></u></span></a></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:6pt;margin-bottom:6pt;margin-left:0in"><u></u><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Symbol;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">         </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:6pt;margin-bottom:6pt;margin-left:0in"><u></u><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Symbol;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">         </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:6pt;margin-bottom:6pt;margin-left:0in"><u></u><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Symbol;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">         </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6pt;margin-left:0in"><u></u><span style="font-size:10pt;font-family:Symbol;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><span>·<span style="font:7pt "Times New Roman"">         </span></span></span><u></u><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><u></u> <u></u></span></p></div></div></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54);border:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in"><img border="0" width="500" height="500" id="gmail-m_3769704505481681295_x0000_i1025" src="cid:16e8a8d40a54ce8e92" alt="Image removed by sender. Trump's Removal Can't Wait for Impeachment"></span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">President Donald Trump addresses the mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio, at the White House in August. </span><span style="font-size:7pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">(Mike Vucci / <a href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Trump/c8edf42b22f0456e9875598c7a8c20b2/572/0" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3);text-decoration:none">AP</span></a>) </span><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div style="margin-bottom:0.5in;box-sizing:border-box;float:right"><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">The most powerful position in the world’s most powerful nation is occupied by a demented fascist oligarch.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He demonizes and scapegoats minorities and immigrants. He provides <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/former-white-supremacist-trump-charlottesville-bullhorn-dog-whistle-life-after-hate-2017-8" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">dog-whistle cover</span></a> for white supremacists. He <a href="https://apnews.com/7d0949974b1648a2bb592cab1f85aa16" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">sparks racist hate crimes</span></a> with his vicious nativist words. He <a href="https://chicago.cbslocal.com/2019/07/29/trump-baltimore-chicago-african-americans/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">speaks with disdain</span></a> about inner-city black communities. He tells police officers <a href="https://time.com/4878838/president-donald-trump-police-officers/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">not to “be too nice”</span></a> with suspects.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/trump-mcconnel-court-judges-plot/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">packs the courts</span></a> with hard-right racists, classists, sexists and eco-exterminists, toxically reshaping the federal judiciary for a generation. He has cultivated and rewarded <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/07/24/trump-and-christian-fascists" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Christian fascists</span></a>, one of whom (Mike Pence) is his vice president<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He calls African nations <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/11/politics/immigrants-shithole-countries-trump/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">shithole countries</span></a>. He told four nonwhite progressive U.S. Congresswomen to “<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1150381395078000643?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1150381395078000643&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.scmp.com%2Fnews%2Fworld%2Funited-states-canada%2Farticle%2F3018567%2Fgo-back-where-you-came-donald-trump-tells" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">go back</span></a> to … the crime infested places from which they came.”<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He has absurdly threatened to “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-trump/trump-says-he-is-seriously-looking-at-ending-birthright-citizenship-idUSKCN1VB21B" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">end birthright citizenship</span></a>” (the granting of U.S. citizenship to all persons born on U.S. soil under the Constitution’s 14th Amendment) with an executive order.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">Trump violates <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/06/27/claiming-trump-forcing-them-commit-widespread-violation-international-law-asylum" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">international asylum law</span></a> and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/family-separation-1556-more-migrant-families-were-separated-under-trump-than-previously-known/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">separates migrant children from their parents</span></a>. He indefinitely <a href="https://apnews.com/015702afdb4d4fbf85cf5070cd2c6824" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">detains tens of thousands of migrant children</span></a> and families in <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/2019/08/30/473966/private-prisons-profiting-trump-administration/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">for-profit concentration camps</span></a>.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He declared a <a href="https://www.paulstreet.org/31-actual-national-emergencies/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">fake national emergency</span></a> to criminally divert taxpayer dollars to the construction of a nativist border wall that most of the citizenry hates and Congress refused to fund.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">Believing his dotard self “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/03/trump-transcripts-australia-mexico-narcissism" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">the world’s greatest person</span></a>,” he promotes an absurd cult of personality, proclaiming himself a “stable genius.” He <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/02/politics/donald-trump-dictators-kim-jong-un-vladimir-putin/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">regularly praises dictators and despots</span></a> the world over. He absurdly claims that Article 2 of the U.S. Constitution means that “I have the power to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-falsely-says-constitution-gives-him-unlimited-power-president-2019-7" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">do whatever I want</span></a> as president.”<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">Donald Trump attacks basic press freedoms. He demonizes and falsely conflates liberals and leftists. He mocks and disrespects intellectuals and science.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He absurdly denies climate science and arch-criminally ramps up the eco-exterminist war on livable ecology. He <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#hurricanes" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">refused to adequately prepare for and respond</span></a> to the epic climate change-fueled Hurricanes Harvey and Maria. He absurdly blames California’s deadly climate change-driven wildfires on the state’s failure to “<a href="https://thinkprogress.org/trump-raking-forests-finland-california-wildfires-5bea1baf8a04/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">sweep the forest floors</span></a>.”<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He threatened North Korea and Iran with nuclear annihilation. He <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/20/world/middleeast/trump-saudi-khashoggi.html" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">provided cover</span></a> for the absolutist Saudi Arabian regime’s murderous vivisection of a dissident journalist. He funds and equips the Saudis’ <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-catastrophe-of-saudi-arabias-trump-backed-intervention-in-yemen" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">criminal and catastrophic war</span></a> on Yemen <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/02/senate-trump-yemen-1298350" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">over Congressional opposition</span></a>. Last Friday <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/15/trump-pardon-war-crimes-071244" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">he pardoned</span></a> three murderous U.S. military war criminals.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He has turned the U.S. Attorney General <a href="https://www.mic.com/p/william-barrs-travels-abroad-show-how-far-trump-is-willing-to-go-to-soothe-his-ego-18844393" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">into his own personal attorney</span></a>. He has conducted a corrupt foreign policy on behalf of his own economic and political self-interest. He brazenly <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#foreign-emoluments" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">violates the Constitution’s emoluments clause</span></a> while preposterously <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/10/21/trump-phony-emoluments-clause-g7-doral.html" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">calling that clause “phony.”</span></a> He denies and <a href="https://www.vox.com/podcasts/2019/11/16/20967383/donald-trump-obstruction-of-justice-impeachment-explained" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">obstructs Congress’</span></a> constitutional right and duty to investigate his conduct. He criminally intimidates witnesses and whistleblowers, calling them “<a href="http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/09/trump-suggests-whistle-blower-be-punished-like-a-traitor.html" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">traitors.</span></a>” He describes a constitutionally appropriate inquiry into his immoral and illegal behavior as <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-impeachment-inquiry/trump-compares-impeachment-effort-lynching-n1069906" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">a “lynching” and a “coup.”</span></a><u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">His far right-wing attorney general, William Barr, argues that his <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/17/william-barrs-chilling-defense-virtually-unlimited-presidential-power/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">executive powers are essentially unlimited</span></a> and <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/notre-dame-had-right-host-barr-his-talk-was-ridiculously-stupid" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">seeks to undermine</span></a> the constitutional separation of church and state.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He wages a relentless Orwellian war on Truth, replete with <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/politics/fact-checker/president-trump-has-made-more-than-10000-false-or-misleading-claims--the-fact-checker/2019/07/26/080f8376-225a-49cc-9c66-9b685abc3d5e_video.html" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">more than 10,000 documentable false statements</span></a> since his inauguration.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">He <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/15/trump-deletes-breitbart-post-how-tough-his-supporters-can-get/3172413002/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">openly flirts</span></a> with calling for the use of extra-legal political violence on his behalf by his heavily armed backers, suggesting that impeachment <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-trump-facing-impeachment-warns-of-civil-war" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">could spark “Civil War.”</span></a> He is the first president in American history to pose a serious threat of <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/01/cohens-overlooked-warning-and-other-media-silences-worth-hearing/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">refusing to honor</span></a> a re-election count that doesn’t go his way.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">This is a national, and indeed global, emergency. We need Donald Trump out of the White House. How do we make that happen?<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">There’s no great mystery about how citizens humble and even overthrow corrupt and tyrannical governments. They take to the streets in significant numbers, engaging in mass disruption for as long as it takes. Look at <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2019/08/algeria-revolution-abdelkader-bensalah-uprising" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Algeria</span></a>, Hong Kong, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Lebanese_protests" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Lebanon</span></a>, Puerto Rico, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/14/ecuador-protests-end-after-deal-struck-with-indigenous-leaders" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Ecuador</span></a> and <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/11/15/chile-protests-constitution-politics-latin-america/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Chile</span></a>, to mention six places where mass protest and popular resistance have recently proven highly effective. Look now to Iraq, where hundreds of thousands have marched against corruption, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/11/09/middleeast/iraq-protest-death-toll-intl/index.html" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">even in the face of lethal live ammunition</span></a>, and to <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-bolivias-racist-coup-trying-drown-resistance-blood" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Bolivia, where</span></a> workers and peasants are facing bloody repression to resist <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/situation-bolivia-worse-191116113111785.html?fbclid=IwAR1xQaHDybd5M-HJEQ4AxMcsCJq0CK34Sw6qAiF8uS1xOxR6iOgVzHJHGt8" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">a neofascist coup</span></a> that was immediately applauded as a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-donald-j-trump-regarding-resignation-bolivian-president-evo-morales/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">victory for “freedom” and “democracy”</span></a> by Trump.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">It doesn’t take the whole population to change history from the bottom up. Five days of insurrection by 200,000 people forced the French government to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/05/france-wealth-tax-changes-gilets-jaunes-protests-president-macron" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">back down</span></a> on its regressive gas tax last year. Extinction Rebellion leader <a href="https://www.rogerhallam.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Common-Sense-for-the-21st-Century_by-Roger-Hallam-Download-version.pdf" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Roger Hallam notes</span></a> that it requires dedicated resistance by just 3% of the population to overthrow a regime. If Hallam is right, then ten days of rebellion by a quantity of Americans roughly equivalent to the population of the Chicago metropwolitan area could force the U.S. ruling class to get rid of Trump.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">It is unthinkable that any but a few marginal voices in the mainstream “liberal” Democrats and their media (CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, et al.) would call for peoples’ power in the streets to bring down the Trump tyranny. The “liberal” elite is fiercely committed to Fake Resistance. It may be obsessed with Trump to the exclusion of practically everything else that ought to matter in national and world events (popular rebellions from France to Chile, Beirut, Quito and Hong Kong included) but they will not embrace the most effective method of collapsing the Trump-Pence regime collapse: mass mobilization and protest. Embracing an authentic people’s resistance movement would open a popular-democratic door that the Democratic establishment prefers to keep shut.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">That establishment is instead advancing two tepid, deeply conservative strategies that will likely fail to get Trump out and will come with dreadful downsides—even if they succeed. Both of these strategies are designed keep the U.S. working-class majority functioning not as engaged historical agents, but as passive, system-trusting spectators who accede to <a href="https://chomsky.info/20041029/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">a narrow definition of “politics” as little more</span></a> than the occasional, strictly time-staggered marking of ballots next to the names of candidates selected in advance by the nation’s unelected and interrelated dictatorships of money and empire.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">The first of these power-serving strategies is the standard quadrennial get-out-the-vote effort to rally citizens behind yet another corporate-centrist billionaire-pleasing and militaristic “national security” Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Democratic presidential candidate like Jimmy Carter, Michael Dukakis, Al Gore, John Kerry, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden or the <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/iowa-poll/2019/11/17/pete-buttigieg-leads-new-iowa-poll-warren-sanders-biden-follow/4198100002/?fbclid=IwAR1Z6QD_gzJEt2ZCEnKjLpf0EZQaClOBWP4ZJ8iH_FBnZ4Uy3mDxIMz9pPs" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">newly minted Iowa Caucus front-runner</span></a> Pete Buttigieg—a silver-tongued right-winger (see <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/all-about-pete" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Nathan Robinson’s brilliant take-down</span></a> in Current Affairs last spring) wearing fake-progressive identity cloaking (like a certain <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Barack-Obama-Future-American-Politics/dp/1594516316" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">technically black Wall Street-serving drone bomber-to-be</span></a> in 2007). This is the <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1107-us-politics-in-an-age-of-uncertainty" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">same depressing neoliberal track</span></a> that has so badly betrayed, divided and demobilized the nation’s working-class majority so as to grease the skids for Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Newt Gingrich’s Contract on America, George Bush Jr, the racist Tea Party and the malignant white nationalist Trump.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">With the usual help from the <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/08/the-real-constitutional-crisis-the-constitution/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">anti-democratic Electoral College</span></a>and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jun/07/black-voter-suppression-rights-america-trump" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">racist voter suppression in battleground states</span></a>, Trump will likely prevail over yet another dismal, dollar-drenched capitalist Democrat in November 2020. But even if the Democrats are able to win the Electoral College count and induce Trump to leave (with some help perhaps from constitutionalists in the U.S. military command), putting another Wall Street Democrat in the White House will just open door the for another neofascist white-nationalist Republican president in 2024—possibly someone more ideologically dedicated, less obviously corrupt and thus more dangerous than Trump.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">(Yes, the Democrats could prevail if they run the self-declared democratic socialist Bernie Sanders. But the Democrats’ big money bankrollers and media won’t let that happen. The Democratic establishment’s dirty little secret is that it <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/03/13/please-step-away-from-the-socialism-the-red-scare-dems-at-msnbc/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">would rather lose to the right</span></a>, even to a hard-right nationalist right-wing party, than lose to the mildly left wing of its own party. Even the avowedly “<a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/sanders-draws-line-between-himself-warren-capitalist-her-bones-n1065526" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">capitalist to her bones</span></a>” Elizabeth Warren is <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/wall-street-democratic-donors-may-back-trump-if-warren-is-nominated.html" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">considered “too far left”</span></a> by top Democratic Wall Street funders).<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">The second flawed “liberal” strategy is, of course, impeachment, likely by the end of the year. It requires just a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives, where the Democrats hold sway. But (as a remarkable number of U.S.-Americans I encounter seem not to know) removal requires a two-thirds vote in the U.S. Senate, where the nation’s most racist and right-wing regions are <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/11/08/the-real-constitutional-crisis-the-constitution/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">absurdly over-represented</span></a> and the Trumpified Republican Party holds sway. The Republican-run Senate is not going to remove the demented fascist oligarch from office just because he tried to trade New Cold War arms for political dirt on Joe Biden in Ukraine—not when <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/11/01/trumps-approval-rating-among-republicans-falls-wapo-abc-news-poll/4120897002/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">a super-majority of Republicans “strongly approve”</span></a> of Trump’s performance no matter what he does or says. And Trump may well use “exoneration” by the Senate to his electoral advantage next November.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">At the same time, the Democrats are pursuing impeachment on chillingly narrow and imperialist grounds that whitewash the crimes of U.S. foreign policy, past and present. Democratic politicos and talking heads proclaim House impeachment testifier Ambassador William B. Taylor Jr. a great “national hero” and all-around “good guy” because Taylor was a rifle company commander “serving” in the Quang Tri and Thua Tien provinces in the United States’ beloved 101st Airborne during <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/09/22/ken-burns-and-lynn-novicks-vietnam-war-some-predictions/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">the so-called Vietnam War</span></a>. Fellow Ukraine-Gate witness Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is upheld as another great patriot for “serving” in the U.S. invasion of Iraq. How depressing: The U.S. “crucifixion of Southeast Asia” (Noam Chomsky) <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/product/american_war_in_vietnam/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">murdered 2-5 million</span></a>Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians between 1962 and 1975. The arch-criminal U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq killed one million-plus Iraqis.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">One need not be a fan of Vladimir Putin’s oligarchic regime to wonder what’s so great about Washington’s sponsorship of the corrupt U.S.-backed capitalist Ukraine government, which is the product of a U.S.-backed 2014 coup and contains neo-Nazis. On what grounds do top Democrats think Washington <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/11/war-over-ukraine/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">has the right</span></a>to play power politics and help fuel hot wars on Russia’s western border? “The U.S. government,” <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/11/war-over-ukraine/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">Sheldon Richman</span></a> tried to remind Americans one year ago, “has no businesses policing relations between Ukraine and Russia. Even if that role were appropriate for some party, the U.S. government would not be the one, because it hardly has clean hands in the matter.”<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">How would U.S.-Americans feel about Russia and/or China sending military equipment to an anti-U.S. regime in Mexico or Canada? And if Democrats are so committed to democracy around the world, why have none of them beyond Sanders and a few other progressives denounced the recent neofascist coup in Bolivia or voiced support for this year’s popular uprisings in Ecuador and Chile?<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">Trump deserves removal not just for his crooked Ukraine shenanigans and related obstructions of justice, but for setting up concentration camps, <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#separating" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">separating babies and children</span></a> from their families, <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#incitement-violence" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">inciting violence</span></a>, <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#voting-rights" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">interfering with voting rights</span></a>, <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#religious-discrimination" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">discriminating on the basis of religion</span></a>, <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#illegal-war" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">waging criminal war</span></a>, criminally <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#illegal-threat-nuclear-war" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">threatening nuclear war</span></a>, <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#abuse-pardon-power" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">abusing his pardon power</span></a>, violating the emoluments clause, assaulting press freedoms, backing coups in Venezuela and Bolivia, unconstitutionally declaring <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#emergency" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">a fake national emergency</span></a>, violating campaign finance laws, illegal <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#proliferation" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">proliferation of nuclear technology</span></a>, <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#taxfraud" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">tax fraud</span></a>, <a href="https://rootsaction.org/trump-articles-of-impeachment#border" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">instructing Border Patrol to violate the law,</span></a> stripping environmental and public lands protections, and doing everything he can to turn the planet into a giant Greenhouse Gas Chamber as soon as possible.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">Even if impeachment leads to removal, Trump’s defenestration merely for interjecting his personal interests into Washington’s imperialist policy in Eastern Europe could constitute both an undeserved validation of that policy and an exoneration of Trump for his much bigger transgressions. And it would put the dangerous right-evangelical troglodyte Mike Pence in the Oval Office—a chilling prospect.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">To make matters worse, impeachment threatens to become a great rallying point for Trump’s ugly white-nationalist base while encouraging the nation’s all-too-silent progressive majority to stay seated in front of glowing Telescreens to watch House Democrats and liberal cable news taking heads falsely claim to be collapsing the Trump regime from the top down.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">If we are serious about getting rid of the demented fascist oligarch and his insurance policy, Pence, then we are going to have to join and expand an authentic opposition, a real popular resistance in the streets. The effective and meaningfully democratic way to remove Trump is not through elite procedures designed by 18th century slaveholders for whom democracy was the <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/81399/the-american-political-tradition-by-richard-hofstadter-with-a-foreword-by-christopher-lasch/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">ultimate nightmare</span></a>. It is through <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-only-solution-to-americas-political-crisis/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3)">sustained mass civil disobedience</span></a>—through rebellion by and for those whom the American ruling class fears and hates the most: the working-class majority.<u></u><u></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:21pt;box-sizing:border-box"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">The sooner Trump can be forced out, the better. Curiously enough, impeachment makes the need to form a grassroots movement to overthrow the Trump-Pence regime more urgent than ever. Now that he’s looking at impeachment and a Senate trial, there’s no telling what Trump and his heavily armed minions might do. He has enormous means of mass destruction and mass distraction at his neofascistic fingertips.<u></u><u></u></span></p><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">We need Trump and Pence out now, not some time next year. The way to make that happen is with a mass movement that will not only sweep him from power but challenge the richly bipartisan racist, sexist, imperial and eco-cidal class rule system that hatched the Trump regime in the first place.<u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div><div style="margin-top:5.25pt;margin-right:21.3pt;margin-bottom:15pt;box-sizing:border-box;float:left" id="gmail-m_3769704505481681295134"><h5 align="center" style="margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:15pt;margin-left:0in;text-align:center;line-height:14.4pt"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(166,66,30);font-weight:normal"><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/author/paul_street/" target="_blank">Paul Street</a><u></u><u></u></span></h5><div style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;box-sizing:border-box"><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;line-height:12pt"><i><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">Contributor<u></u><u></u></span></i></p></div><div style="margin-bottom:7.5pt;box-sizing:border-box"><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)">Paul Street holds a doctorate in U.S. history from Binghamton University. He is former vice president for research and planning of the Chicago Urban League. Street is also the author of numerous books,…<u></u><u></u></span></p></div><p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/author/paul_street/" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(147,42,3);border:1pt solid windowtext;padding:0in;text-decoration:none"><img border="0" width="100" height="100" id="gmail-m_3769704505481681295_x0000_i1026" src="cid:16e8a8d40a5a30f8d381" alt="Image removed by sender. Paul Street"></span></a><u></u><u></u></span></p></div><div style="border-top:1pt solid rgb(211,209,209);border-left:none;border-bottom:1pt solid rgb(211,209,209);border-right:none;padding:14pt 0in 16pt;margin-bottom:28.5pt;box-sizing:border-box;float:left"><h5 style="margin-right:9pt;margin-bottom:2.25pt;margin-left:0in;line-height:13.5pt"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(46,55,58);text-transform:uppercase;letter-spacing:0.55pt">IN THIS ARTICLE:<u></u><u></u></span></h5><div><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family:Arial,sans-serif;color:rgb(54,54,54)"><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/chile" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">chile</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/donald-trump" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">donald trump</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/ecuador" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">ecuador</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/fascism" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">fascism</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/george-h-w-bush" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">george h w bush</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/hong-kong" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">hong kong</span></a><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/mike-pence" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">mike pence</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/new-york-times" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">new york times</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/newt-gingrich" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">newt gingrich</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/twitter" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">twitter</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/ukraine" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">ukraine</span></a><a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/vladimir-putin" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">vladimir putin</span></a> <a href="https://www.truthdig.com/tag/william-barr" target="_blank"><span style="color:rgb(89,89,89);text-decoration:none">william barr</span></a><u></u><u></u></span></p></div></div></div><p class="MsoNormal">_______________________________________________<br>Peace mailing list<br><a href="mailto:Peace@lists.chambana.net" target="_blank">Peace@lists.chambana.net</a><br><a href="https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace" target="_blank">https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace</a><u></u><u></u></p></div></blockquote></div><p class="MsoNormal"><u></u> <u></u></p></div></div></div>_______________________________________________<br>
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