It's not enough to know what we want to do, we have to know how to do it.

We all know what needs to be done: George W. Bush and a major segment of the upper level of his administration need to be brought up on charges of war crimes in an international tribunal. Charges of criminal conspiracy for war profiteering can wait for the results from the Hague. A proper indictment of this administration for starting an illegal war would include the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of Defense, and perhaps others.

But we can't do that NOW. We're nowhere near ready to actually see that those charges are brought, because we have no one else to run the country while an American administration is decimated by crippling international criminal charges. The British parliamentary system seems very attractive right now, but it's not available to us.

There is no constitutionally prescribed procedure to do what needs to be done to install a new, functioning administration when the president and his top advisors are brought up on charges. We have no mechanism to ask for a vote of no confidence. We lost whatever chance we had at doing this constitutionally on January 6, 2005, when the so-called Boxer Rebellion...didn't happen. With five or six senators standing in the Senate chamber stipulating that "of course what happened in Ohio would not have changed the outcome of the election," as an opening remark, it became clear that the leadership of the Democratic party had yet to catch up with the followership. And it hasn't caught up yet. But they can catch up if we tell them what we, and the majority of Americans, want.

What needs to be done is a second American revolution. And I don't know HOW, exactly, to do what needs to be done, but I do know it can be done, and has to be done. Whatever happens, it's going to be messy, but if we exercise real leadership, we can minimize the blood that will have to be, figuratively, shed. There might be some real blood shed, but right now, if we do nothing, the country is bleeding to death anyway.

Where I would start would be a couple of national polls, run by reputable pollsters. Get someone with money to take them -- George Soros? The first poll would ask one question: Who did you vote for for President in the 2004 general election? (We might throw in a second question: did you vote a straight party ticket, or split your votes between two or more parties?) Very simple questions. If we're right about what happened early on election morning, 2004, we would be a step closer after the poll results were in to demand a new election. The second poll would be a bit more complicated, but the general thrust of it would be to find out where Americans would stand on international prosecution of the Bush administration if it were proven that they went to war in Iraq illegally. It has been proven, but not yet in any recognized tribunal except the court of public opinion.

Before we run those polls, we need to have plans and contingency plans in place to pass a few laws, the first being the Special Election of 2005 law. This, and other special legislation to meet the dire needs of this time, will have to be passed by a coalition of Democrats and principled Republicans. After it's passed, the President may veto it, but if the coalition is sufficient to override the veto, it will become law. The Special Election of 2005 law will have to demand that all registered voters fill out a paper ballot, and these will have to be counted by impeccable panels of counters. It will take longer to get the results, but it can be done, and we will be able to trust the results when we get them. It will cost a little money, but it won't be wasted money, like the billions we are now spending in Iraq to enrich Halliburton and kill Iraqis and American soldiers. The Democrats and the principled Republicans in congress will have to work together, but the principled Republicans in the country have already given us Joe Wilson, Paul O'Neill, John Dean, and Richard A. Clarke, and I don't doubt there are other heroes ready to stand up. Dear Democratic party leadership: find those Republicans in congress, brace them, and do what has to be done.

The press and the mass media, bless their black little hearts, WILL get in line and start reporting the stories they can't *find* right now. When the Last Exit Poll of 2004 results come in, we may have some Republican operatives seeking to have speech with the FBI, in exchange for slightly reduced sentences.

I'm posting this because I have been reading this forum, and others, since the election, and I find many like-minded people conducting fine analyses of what has gone wrong, but I find few people thinking hard about how to rectify the situation. The contributors to DU can doubtless take my plan apart very quickly, but I believe strongly that we have to be clear and focused in telling our leaders what we want done. If we don't want the above done, what do we want done instead?

Please find someone to lead this process, cause it very badly needs to happen and quickly. These shit heads need to be taken out at the earliest possible time and sent to The Hague for their just rewards.

I would hope that most of the money that these suck-ups scamed can be recovered as well and put into the US Treasury where it belongs.

The leaders of the process are in Congress at the moment--they are named Kennedy, Kerry, Kerrey, Clinton. They are named CONYERS, to whom all gratitude for still believing this system can be made to work. I don't know who the Republicans will give us, but I believe that there are a number who, once they perceive which way the wind of history is blowing, will vote for the country above their party. Some have already started to. We need to round the rest of them up, take back the legislative branch, and throw the criminals out. America could, if this can be accomplished, once again stand as a defender of human rights, a believer in democracy, a leader in the world community. But we have to start a journey of a thousand steps with the first step, and we have to be in agreement on where the heck we're going.

The "second American revolution" needed to begin when the largest dam of democracy fell in the elections 2000. Now so much water has gone under the bridge that it is difficult to define where to start.
To start, the major damned DAM repair MUST BE DONE! The voting rights of every citizen must be restored! When more than half of this nation allowed the ballot to be flushed down the drain, it gave total power to the septic system of an ugly government!
We can't jump off and destroy instead of first trying to rebuild, but we may have to look to other nations of the world to help with the effort of getting back to truth.