Impeachment by The People
Using tools the Founding Fathers gave us can energize calls for
impeachment of Bush and Cheney
By Howard Zinn
The realities of the Iraq War cry out for the overthrow of a government
that is criminally responsible for death, mutilation, torture,
humiliation, chaos.
But all we hear in the nation's capital, which is the source of those
catastrophes, is a whimper from the Democratic Party, muttering and
nattering about "unity" and "bipartisanship."
These are the Democrats who were brought to power in November by an
electorate fed up with the war, furious at the Bush administration and
counting on the new majority in Congress to represent the voters.
But if sanity is to be restored in our national policies, it can only come
about by a great popular upheaval, pushing both Republicans and
Democrats into compliance with the national will.
The Declaration of Independence, revered as a document but ignored as
a guide to action, needs to be read from pulpits and podiums, on street
corners and community radio stations throughout the nation. Its words
need to become a call to action for the first time since it was read aloud
to crowds in the early excited days of the American Revolution:
"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends,
it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute new
government."
The "ends" referred to in the Declaration are the equal right of all to
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." True, no government in the
history of the nation has been faithful to those ends. Still, there seems to
be a special viciousness that accompanies the current assault on human
rights, in this country and in the world. We have had repressive
governments before, but none has legislated the end of habeas corpus,
nor openly supported torture, nor declared the possibility of war without
end. No government has so casually ignored the will of the people,
affirmed the right of the president to ignore the Constitution, even to set
aside laws passed by Congress.
The time is right, then, for a national campaign calling for the
impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Representative John Conyers, who held extensive hearings and
introduced an impeachment resolution when the Republicans controlled
Congress, is now head of the House Judiciary Committee and in a
position to fight for such a resolution. He has apparently been silenced
by his Democratic colleagues who throw out as nuggets of wisdom the
usual political palaver about "realism" (while ignoring the realities
staring them in the face) and politics being "the art of the possible"
(while setting limits on what is possible).
Judging by the public opinion polls, there are millions of Americans,
indeed a majority of those polled, who declare themselves in favor if it is
shown that the president lied us into war (a fact that is not debatable).
There are at least a half-dozen books out on impeachment, and it's been
argued for eloquently by some of our finest journalists, John Nichols
and Lewis Lapham among them. Indeed, an actual "indictment" has
been drawn up by a former federal prosecutor, Elizabeth de la Vega, in a
new book called “United States v. George W. Bush et al.”
There is a logical next step in this development of an impeachment
movement: the convening of "people's impeachment hearings" all over
the country. Such hearings would bypass Congress, which is not
representing the will of the people, and would constitute an inspiring
example of grassroots democracy.
These hearings would be the contemporary equivalents of the unofficial
gatherings that marked the resistance to the British Crown in the years
leading up to the American Revolution. What is usually forgotten about
that struggle is that the American colonists, unable to count on redress
of their grievances from the official bodies of government, took matters
into their own hands, even before the first battles of the Revolutionary
War.
In 1772, town meetings in Massachusetts began setting up Committees
of Correspondence, and the following year, such a committee was set up
in Virginia. The first Continental Congress, beginning to meet in 1774,
was recognition that an extralegal body was necessary to represent the
interests of the people.
Throughout the nation's history, the failure of government to deliver
justice has led to the establishment of grassroots organizations, often ad
hoc, dissolving after their purpose was fulfilled. For instance, after
passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, knowing that the national government
could not be counted on to repeal the act, black and white anti-slavery
groups organized to nullify the law by acts of civil disobedience. They
held meetings, made plans and set about rescuing escaped slaves who
were in danger of being returned to their masters.
More recently, we recall the peace groups of the 1980s, which sprang up
in hundreds of communities all over the country and provoked city
councils and state legislatures to pass resolutions in favor of a freeze on
nuclear weapons. And local organizations have succeeded in getting
more than 400 city councils to take a stand against the Patriot Act.
Impeachment hearings all over the country could excite and energize
the peace movement. They would make headlines and could push
reluctant members of Congress in both parties to do what the
Constitution provides for and what the present circumstances demand:
the impeachment and removal from office of George Bush and Dick
Cheney. Simply raising the issue in hundreds of communities and
congressional districts would have a healthy effect, and would be a sign
that democracy, despite all attempts to destroy it in this era of war, is
still alive.
Howard Zinn is the author, most recently, of “A Power Governments
Cannot Suppress” published by City Lights Books. A version of this story
first appeared in The Progressive magazine.
| IMPEACH OK1 Congressional District 1 Committee for the Impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney |
| Links To OtherTulsa Activist Sites |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
This country belongs to the people and whenever they shall grow weary of their
government they can exercise their constitutional right to amend it, or
revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.-- Abraham Lincoln
government they can exercise their constitutional right to amend it, or
revolutionary right to dismember it or overthrow it.-- Abraham Lincoln