David Swanson Lays It Out on A28

Pelosi, Conyers, the People, and Impeachment
By David Swanson

Speech delivered in Portland, Maine, at rally organized by http://www.maineimpeach.org onApril 28th national day of impeachment events organized by http://www.a28.org

I want to thank Maine Impeach dot org for putting this event together. This is a wonderful crowd! The paper on grounds for impeachment drafted by Maine Lawyers for Democracy is incredibly well done: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/me

I spoke earlier today at a rally in Boston, Massachusetts, where one of the other speakers was Dan DeWalt, whose leadership and determination after many months led to the Vermont State Senate passing a resolution demanding the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. We spoke at Faneuil Hall, where men like Wendell Phillips led a movement to abolish slavery, something the wise and knowing of that day said could not be done. Those abolitionists made their movement a fight for freedom of the press. And make no mistake: our struggle is the same.

The corporations that control our communications system do not report the grounds for impeachment, do not poll the public's support for it, and at least until today have not reported on our movement. There have been exceptions, and the most significant has been the Boston Globe's Charlie Savage, who recently received a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on our President's habit of violating laws and announcing his intention to do so with so-called signing statements. There can be no better grounds for impeachment than those public advertisements of criminality.

And there is hope that today may mark a breakthrough in compelling the media to cover impeachment. In fact, I just did a television interview in the foyer. Events are being held in 43 states and several foreign countries today. Some are holding rallies. Others are spelling out the word IMPEACH with their bodies on beaches, with boats on lakes, with pizzas on boardwalks. I just got a text message that said "Everyone is taking off their clothes and spelling IMPEACH on the beach at Coney Island." I just got a phone call from Seattle where they've stretched hug IMPEACH banners over the highways. A fleet of seven airplanes is taking the impeachment message to the skies and photographing the displays below. And Bush is giving a speech in Miami where a huge crowd is gathered, but they're not there to welcome him.

Part of what has given this movement energy is the action that a Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, took last Tuesday. Rep. Dennis Kucinich introduced House Resolution 333, which contains 3 articles of impeachment against Richard B. Cheney. The Congress Members from Maine need to cosponsor this bill or defend the actions of Dick Cheney. Kucinich is a hero now to millions of Americans and to people around the world, but he merely did his duty, it was a long time coming, and it is his duty to impeach Bush as well.

At stake is not just an offensive use of signing statements. At stake is accountability for (and I am neither exaggerating nor using metaphor) – at stake is accountability for mass murder. A war based on lies and launched by an unelected president and vice president has cost the lives of approximately a million Iraqis, caused millions more to flee their country, and displaced many more within Iraq. In the process, over 3,000 US troops have died, tens of thousands have been wounded, and been driven into debt and divorce and been left to struggle with post traumatic stress disorder.

If one man on the streets of Portland, Maine, or some small American town, murdered one person, would prosecution be optional? Would the local sheriff wait for years before asking the man's friends to come in and answer a few questions? Would police and prosecutors stake their future careers on keeping the murderer at large? But this is the 2008 election strategy of Sheriff Pelosi and her followers. They want the war makers left free precisely because the public is outraged. They want the war to keep going so that they can benefit by "opposing" it. But November 2008 is too far off, and Pelosi will not be able to hold back the public pressure.

At the start of 2007, which is now one-third wasted, the new Democratic committee chairmen tried to appease the citizenry with talk of investigations and oversight. Four months later, the House and Senate intelligence committees have not investigated the lies that took us to war. The judiciary committees and the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee have looked into some related matters. But officials who have testified have experienced extraordinary lapses of memory. The unitary executive branch has refused to produce subpoenaed documents. And now Condoleezza Rice says she's "not inclined" to obey a subpoena requiring her to appear and answer questions about forged documents that were used to mislead our nation into war. She's not claiming executive privilege. What sense would that make these years after the crime was committed? She's claiming unitary executive privilege – the privilege to violate the law.

Congress can't compel Rice to appear, and neither can our courts. Law enforcement is handled by the executive branch. But executives who fail to faithfully execute the laws of this land can be removed from office. That power lies solely with Congress and is called impeachment!

Last night on PBS, Bill Moyers celebrated the Democrats' beginning to use subpoenas. For 6 years, he said, they had been suffering from subpoena envy. I'm afraid they now may be experiencing premature congratulation, and self-congratulation. If subpoenas are ignored, the options for Congress Members, including Chairman Henry Waxman, are: backing impeachment, or retiring. And I don't want Congressman Waxman to retire.

I'm usually asked to speak about the evidence for impeachment, and frankly I'm a little tired of it. We've got enough smoking guns to fill an NRA convention. The evidence that Bush and Cheney intentionally lied to Congress (which is a felony) and to the public (which is an assault on democracy) about weapons of mass destruction and alleged Iraqi ties to al Qaeda and 9-11 is overwhelming. The Maine Lawyers have spelled it out, and it is collected at http://www.afterdowningstreet.org

Bush and Cheney are on video telling these lies. Cheney repeatedly visited the CIA headquarters to pressure them to get it wrong – a story we may hear about in George Tenet's forthcoming book. Cheney set up a phony intelligence operation in the Pentagon, distorted a National Intelligence Estimate, leaked misleading bits of classified information, and helped coordinate a marketing campaign to promote the war. Cheney led a campaign to punish Joe Wilson for exposing one of the lies – the same lie that Rice now refuses to talk about. The campaign involved exposing an undercover CIA agent, and act of TREASON. Cheney has directed contracts to Halliburton and profited there from, an act of BRIBERY. Cheney has allowed secret meetings of corporate executives to determine our national energy and military policies, a HIGH CRIME And MISDEMEANOR. A section of the US Constitution that was displayed last Thursday on a giant banner dropped in the courtyard of the Hart Senate Office Building (for which 14 people were arrested) says that officers of our government shall be removed from office upon impeachment for and conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. With Dick Cheney you get the whole package.

With George W. Bush it's worse. No investigation is needed to expose his war lies, or his spying in violation of the law. He's on video for years lying about warrantless spying and later brazenly confessing to it. He's on video being warned about Hurricane Katrina. He's on video claiming he wasn't warned. Both Bush and Cheney are on video threatening an aggressive attack on Iran. Such a threat – just the threat – violates the UN Charter and Article 6 of the US Constitution. As does the war on Iraq and all the war crimes that have been part of it. And Bush and Cheney are responsible for the actions of their subordinates, including Alberto Gonzales, especially those actions they do not investigate or hold anyone accountable for.

Bush has detained without charge, held people in secret prisons, and tortured. These facts are not in dispute. The crimes are simply so brazen, so radical, so far over the line of decency, such a retreat to the evils of monarchy that American revolutionaries thought they were leaving behind, that people are pretending not to see, and the media is not helping.

While no investigations are needed, hearings could help better inform the public. But the media only covers hearings with big-name witnesses, and they either forget everything they've done or refuse to appear. The problem, in any case, is not the public. It's Congress. How can we persuade Congress Members, other than Kucinich, maybe even a Congressman from Maine, to act?

The answer is not convincing them that impeachable offenses have been committed. They know it. Thirty-nine Congress Members in early 2006 signed onto House Resolution 635 to create an investigation into impeachment. At least one new freshman member was elected campaigning on impeachment, and many campaigning on accountability. They want impeachment. They know their duty. But Pelosi and the media are against it, with only the public for it. Who wins this struggle is a question of how active the public becomes and how smart we are.

We need to pressure Pelosi directly, but also indirectly. We need to raise hell until the media polls Americans on their support for impeaching Cheney and Bush. Or we need to raise funds to pay for state-level or national polls. We need to take those results to our Congress Members' offices and put them in their hands. There will be a majority for impeaching Bush and two-thirds for Cheney. I guarantee it.

We need to meet with editorial boards and persuade them to take a position for or against Dick Cheney. We need to demand that the media cover our events, or we need to hold our events in their lobbies and offices. Isn't there a newspaper near here? If they're not here with us, we should ALL go pay them a visit when we're done.

We need to lobby the progressive Democrats to join Kucinich, especially those on the House Judiciary Committee and especially Chairman John Conyers. And we need to talk to these politicians in terms they understand: election gains and losses. Impeachment, for many of us, is not about elections or parties or individuals. It is about restoring limitations to the offices of the presidency and the vice presidency. But that won't move Pelosi or persuade many Democrats to defy her. It is, however, what they should talk about when they do step forward. And they should ask Republicans to join them. At least one Republican, Ron Paul, has said he favors impeachment. Many rank and file Republicans cannot possibly want a Democrat to hold the powers Bush has assumed. I certainly don't.

What Democrats in Congress need to feel is immediate public pressure painting them as defenders of Dick Cheney. And what they need to be told is that impeachment is good for elections. It is. The Democrats held Nixon to account and won, and let Reagan off easy and lost. The Republicans went after Truman and won. They went after Clinton despite public opposition and still held onto power and began expanding it. If the Democrats do not act, the public will see Iraq as their war and Bush as their president long before November 2008, and when election day comes, voters will stay home.

Democrats in Congress also have to be told that impeachment is not a distraction from ending the war or anything else worthwhile, but rather the way to achieve those goals. Four months of avoiding impeachment has accomplished virtually nothing. Anything that is accomplished will be vetoed or signing statemented. In contrast, during Nixon's impeachment, Congress raised the minimum wage, created the Endangered Species Act, and ended a war. And it was the pressure of impeachment that made those things possible. And, as my friend and fellow agitator John Nichols points out, in 1973 the Speaker of the House Carl Albert said impeachment was off the table. The Speaker clearly does not get the final word, because the table belongs to us.

Of course, it's worse when the Speaker is taking her talking points from the White House. That's what Pelosi did a year ago when the Republican National Committee announced with no evidence the absurd fantasy that talk of impeachment would be good for Republicans in the 2006 elections. Pelosi immediately made the same announcement. This bit of recent history needs to be made known, because what popular support the Democrats have comes from their opposing, not obeying, Bush.

In at least 16 states, the state Democratic Party has passed a resolution asking for impeachment. The California Democratic Party is expected to pass such a resolution tomorrow, and when Pelosi hosts the dinner tonight, delegates plan to dramatically put impeachment on the table. I got a phone call from San Diego, where they say they've spelled IMPEACH on the beach, and no one can get into the Democratic Convention without being greeted by impeachment advocates. The right-wing San Diego Union Tribune has even run a story about it, featuring a photo of impeachment advocates Marcy Winograd and Cindy Asner, the wife of impeachment advocate and actor Ed Asner.

Ultimately, all we want from Pelosi is neutrality. If she won't lead or follow, she should step out of the way. The minute she does, John Conyers will lead.

"I have a choice," Conyers said last year. "I can either stand by and lead my constituents to believe I do not care that the president apparently no longer believes he is bound by any law or code of decency. Or I can act."

We need to remind John Conyers of this choice every day until he does act. If he acts, he will be remembered as a hero. If he does not act, some future Emerson will write of him words like those Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote of Webster:

Why did all manly gifts in Webster fail?

He wrote on Nature's grandest brow For Sale.

John Conyers' legacy deserves better than that. For his own sake, we must pressure him to do what he knows is right. I'm convinced that he wants us to pressure him. I'm confident we will do so. And I'm certain that Bush and Cheney will be impeached and removed from office before the end of their terms.

But if someone asks you whether impeachment is likely of unlikely, guaranteed or impossible, tell them that you are not a spectator, you're a citizen, and impeachment will happen because you're going to make it happen. In two days it will be four years since Mission Accomplished was declared, and two years since the Downing Street Minutes were published. We have our own mission to accomplish. With no fear, no hesitation, and no sleep till impeachment.

Dennis Kucinich Introduced Articles of Impeachment Today

Go to Articles of Impeachment of Dick Cheney.

Make Hip Hop, Not War: The Tour

by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

‘It's time for the streets to rise up," says Rev. Lennox Yearwood, head of the Hip Hop Caucus, whose "Make Hip Hop, Not War" tour is traversing the country. The tour showcases the best political elements of Black youth culture - the "conscious" rap that huge media corporations have tried to eliminate from the airwaves, record stores and public discourse. The real "gangstas" are the U.S. government, and the poets of the people continue to tell the story. Contrary to the corporate media line, hip hop is not just about "nappy-headed hoes" - but the liberation of a people, and the unification of the world through the strongest cultural and political message that America has yet produced.

---

"Genuine hip hop culture is not gangsta rap, but reflects the core progressive character of Black America."

"Our president is addicted to war," said Rev. Lennox Yearwood, head of the Hip Hop Caucus, on the first leg of a national "Make Hip Hop, Not War" tour. "We knew that, but we held out hope that this congress would have done an intervention. But our congress is co-dependent. They act just like the person who is addicted, as well."

The young minister spoke at Manhattan's West Park Presbyterian Church, a magnificent edifice that has been condemned to death by gentrification, just as minority communities have been condemned to a slow death by the onrushing forces of hyper-capital. And as Black New Orleans was sentenced to death. "Instead of building levees, Bush built bombs," said Yearwood, who was raised in Louisiana.

The massive redistribution of America's wealth to the rapacious "defense" sector and the most wealthy segment of the population, if allowed to continue, will doom any hope of revitalization of the nation's inner cities, which are rapidly being dispersed by the same forces that that will soon raise million-dollar condominiums on the site of the West Park Presbyterian Church in New York City. We are all facing social death.

"'Instead of building levees, Bush built bombs,' said Yearwood."

Hip hop's massive international appeal has the potential to create rivers of communication among the sufferers. At the heart of the culture - the real one, not the industry-manufactured variety - is the essential internationalism and human compassion of the African American population-at-large, a culture that has been hijacked by huge corporations that put forward a caricature of Black life. An array of hip hop artists have joined with Rev. Yearwood to present the other face of Black culture and politics.

The national tour is designed to demonstrate that genuine hip hop culture is not gangsta rap, but reflects the core progressive character of Black America. "It's time for the streets to rise up, for us to rise up, to say that we are not caught up in that mess," said Rev. Yearwood.

Alternative media is key, since corporate media is the enemy - the purveyor of lies. "The revolution may not be televised, but it will be uploaded," Yearwood told the 200 or so folks who inaugurated the tour. "Humanity is counting on us."

There is much work to be done. In the United States, populations are methodically segmented by the corporate media, and white supremacy still rules even in leftist circles. "We noticed that during the immigration rallies, they were all brown, and during the Katrina rallies, they were mostly Black, and during the anti-war rallies, they were mostly white."

The hope is that a common language created by the Black culture of hip hop will bridge this gap in politically effective ways, rather than cosmetic ones. There are many performers willing to serve in this struggle. "Articulate," a rapper, educator, Howard University alumnus and activist from Washington, D.C. told the Manhattan crowd, "I think of myself as an artist for the people."

"The diversions of Black culture so effectively created by corporate America have allowed the marginalization of our best and brightest."

These "artists for the people" exist in every community, but must be supported by those who claim to represent Black America. The diversions of Black culture so effectively created by corporate America have allowed the marginalization of our best and brightest - the true cultural warriors and heroines.

The "Make Hip Hop, Not War" movement finds only lip-service support from the white-dominated anti-war "movement," which finds itself unable to include the most anti-war segment of the American public: Black people. Rosa Clemente, of Pacifica's New York radio station WBAI and a founder of the National Hip Hop Political Convention, says, "This is why the anti-war movement is not working. How are you going to have an anti-war movement that marginalizes Black people?"

Probably 80 percent of African Americans would support the ejection of George Bush from the White House. That's part of the agenda of the tour. "On April 28, when this tour is over, let it be impeachment day," said Rev. Yearwood.

If it were up to Black people, it would be so.

BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Yeah, and that's the problem.

As Newsweek's Fineman put it (Imus in the Morning, 4/9/07): "You know, all of us who do your show, you know, we're part of the gang. And we rely on you the way you rely on us."

UFPJ Statement on Impeachment

United for Peace and Justice

George Bush, Dick Cheney and other top administration officials have committed impeachable offenses.

These include leading the country into war under false pretenses, ordering violations of the Geneva Conventions, the U.N Charter and International law; violating the civil liberties of U.S. people in an unconstitutional manner; lying to the people of the U.S. and the world; and other high crimes and misdemeanors.

There is growing awareness of these facts among the U.S. people. From across the country there are demands that the Congress act on the principle that this is a government of laws, not of individuals. There is a grassroots movement demanding that Bush and Cheney and others be impeached.

Since its formation, UFPJ’s central mission has been working to end the war in Iraq and other wars of which George Bush is Commander in Chief. We welcome the growing movement to impeach him and others in his administration who have aided and abetted his crimes.

Some of our member groups and friends are already active in Impeach07, an umbrella forum in the impeachment movement. Others may see ways to incorporate impeachment efforts into their antiwar agendas, and we encourage them to do so.
http://www.impeach07.org

Issued by the UFPJ National Steering Committee, April 11, 2007

Amen!

Commentary: What would Jesus really do?

By Roland Martin
CNN Contributor

Editor's note: Roland Martin is a CNN contributor and talk-show host on WVON-AM in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith."

NEW YORK (CNN) -- When did it come to the point that being a Christian meant only caring about two issues, abortion and homosexuality?

Ask the nonreligious what being a Christian today means, and based on what we see and read, it's a good bet they will say that followers of Jesus Christ are preoccupied with those two points.

Poverty? Whatever. Homelessness? An afterthought. A widening gap between the have and have-nots? Immaterial. Divorce? The divorce rate of Christians mirrors the national average, so that's no big deal.

The point is that being a Christian should be about more than abortion and homosexuality, and it's high time that those not considered a part of the religious right expose the hypocrisy of our brothers and sisters in Christianity and take back the faith. And those on the left who believe they have a "get out of sin free" card must not be allowed to justify their actions.

Many people believe we are engaged in a holy war. And we are. But it's not with Muslims. The real war -- the silent war -- is being engaged among Christians, and that's what we must set our sights on.

As we celebrate Holy Week, our focus is on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But aren't we also to recommit ourselves to live more like Jesus? Did Jesus spend his time focusing on all that he didn't like, or did Jesus raise the consciousness of the people to understand love, compassion and teach them about following the will of God?

As a layman studying to receive a master's in Christian communications, and the husband of an ordained minister, it's troubling to listen to "Christian radio" and hear the kind of hate spewing out of the mouths of my brothers and sisters in the faith.

In fact, I've grown tired of people who pimp God. That's right; we have a litany of individuals today who are holy, holy, holy, sing hallelujah, talk about how they love the Lord, but when it's time to walk the walk, somehow the spirit evaporates.

A couple of years ago I took exception to an e-mail blast from the Concerned Women for America. The group was angry that Democrats were blocking certain judges put up for the federal bench by President Bush. It called on Americans to fight Democrats who wanted to keep Christians off the bench.

So I called and sent an e-mail asking, "So, where were you when President Clinton appointed Christian judges to the bench? Were they truly behind Christian judges, or Republican Christian judges?

Surprise, surprise. There was never a response.

An African-American pastor I know in the Midwest was asked by a group of mostly white clergy to march in an anti-abortion rally. He was fine with that, but then asked the clergy if they would work with him to fight crack houses in predominantly black neighborhoods.

"That's really your problem," he was told.

They saw abortion as a moral imperative, but not a community ravaged by crack.

If abortion and gay marriage are part of the Christian agenda, I have no issue with that. Those are moral issues that should be of importance to people of the faith, but the agenda should be much, much broader.

I'm looking for the day when Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Joyce Meyer, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, James Kennedy, Rod Parsley, " Patriot Pastors" and Rick Warren will sit at the same table as Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Cynthia Hale, Eddie L. Long, James Meek, Fred Price, Emmanuel Cleaver and Floyd Flake to establish a call to arms on racism, AIDS, police brutality, a national health care policy, our sorry education system.

If they all say they love and worship one God, one Jesus, let's see them rally their members behind one agenda.

I stand here today not as a Republican or a liberal. And don't bother calling me a Democrat or a conservative. I am a man, an African-American man who has professed that Jesus Christ is Lord, and that's to whom I bow down.

If you concur, it's time to stop allowing a chosen few to speak for the masses. Quit letting them define the agenda.

So put on the full armor of God because we have work to do.

What is your take on this commentary?E-mail us

The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the writer. This is part of an occasional series of commentaries on CNN.com offering a broad range of perspectives, thoughts and points of view.

Announcing the Show It Off! Campaign April 23-27, 2007

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