US electorate deals a serious blow on Bush regime as Democrats take over US Congress from Republicans

By Prof. Jose Maria SisonChairperson, International Coordinating CommitteeInternational League of Peoples' StruggleThe US electorate has held the Bush regime responsible for its disastrous policies and actions and has dealt it a serious political blow by giving to the Democratic Party control over the House of Representatives and the Senate. Bush is not just a lame duck president for being on the last two years of his second term. He is likely to be a dead duck if the Democrats follow the American people's expectations that Bush and Cheney .be impeached and convicted for their high crimes.The Bush regime is culpable for so many exposed cases of corruption, the use of the anti-terrorist hysteria to engage in wars of aggression and to attack civil and political rights in the US and worldwide, the increasing human and material costs of the war in Iraq for the benefit of the US war profiteers, capital growth of big business through tax exemptions and overpriced state contracts and the drastic decline of regular employment and income for the workers and middle class.The Democrats are generally and basically of the same imperialist stripe as the Republicans in Congress. They cannot be expected to make any change of policy that would overturn monopoly capitalism. But if they aim to win the 2008 presidential elections, they have to work hard to win the imperialist infighting and to put Bush and his kind in a corner in two ways.One way is for the House of Representatives to investigate and impeach Bush and Cheney for the high crimes that they have committed. The Democrats have the number in Congress to impeach them as well as the number in the Senate to try and sentence them. If the Democrats fail to act on the impeachable crimes of Bush and Cheney, they will squander their current gains, beat themselves and earn the ire of the American people.Another way is for the Democrats to pass bills which would reverse the Bush regime's extremely wrong acts of commission and omission against the American people. Bush would threaten to veto or actually veto the bills and thus place himself in a more untenable position than before. In view of the clear wishes of the people, he is in no position to use his veto power in order to have his way or compel bipartisan compromises in his favor, unless too many muddleheads and softheads among the Democrats lose sight of 2008.The Democrats can put the two ways mentioned above into play at the same time to cut down and place Bush in his proper place and more importantly to set aright the wrongs committed by him. But they can play both ways effectively only if the principal way is the impeachment and possible conviction of Bush and Cheney and the secondary way is legislative action to expose and reverse the continuing wrong course of Bush et al.The Democrats would discredit themselves and dissipate their current advantage soon enough if they do not pursue the investigation and impeachment of Bush and Cheney on flagrant high crimes like the following:1. The lies (especially those claims about weapons of mass destruction and connections with al Qaeda) and dirty tricks (demolition of dissenters within the US government) to push through the war of aggression against Iraq,2. The connivance of the regime with giant US firms in corruption and profiteering from Iraqi oil resources, military contracts for weapons and other supplies, privatization of military functions and so-called reconstruction work in Iraq.3. The systematic attacks on the civil and political rights on individuals, groups and people in the US and abroad in the name of a permanent and preemptive war on terror.Bush is now a big loser in the US midterm elections, more because the people hate his wrong policies and actions than because they love the Democrats. If the Democrats betray the expectations of the people, they would soon be seen as being at par with or as collaborators of Bush in the persistence of policies and actions detrimental to the people of the US and abroad. They would have to blame only themselves if they botched up their chances for the presidential elections in 2008. ###