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McKinney speaking at World Can’t Wait |
LISTEN (mp3):
Text of speech given by Rep. Cynthia McKinney at a teach-in held by World Can’t Wait Dec. 4, 2006 at George Washington University:
First, I want to state that I am in awe to be in the company of my fellow panelists this evening.
Christopher Hedges, a student of divinity, who reminds us what is right and what is wrong and how we should conduct ourselves in this once-noble enterprise that we call America.
Ray McGovern has had access to our nation’s secrets. I was once told by an elected official that when you become an elected official, you become a member of the elite club in this country that gets the keys to the file cabinet. But Cynthia, you’re not supposed to tell what’s in it!
Well, Ray helped put those files together in that file cabinet. But when the lies outweighed the truth, and he saw his country on a morally unsustainable course, he spoke up.
Now, Ray, I don’t know if you’ve told us what is *in* the file cabinet, but you certainly have helped us understand what *isn’t* in it and the lies that we, the people of this great country, have been told by our leaders.
Debra Sweet is a committed sister. Not just a talker, but the best kind of doer. She put together this organization, state by state, action by action, finding other committed Americans who believe that our country can be more than it is today, that it can and should be better. Not just to us, but for the world.
Dr. King told us that we have guided missiles and misguided men, that our country had become the largest purveyor of violence on the planet.
Mario Savio said that there comes a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious that you can’t even take part. That you have to put your entire body against the gears and the levers and the wheels of the machine and you have to say to the owners that they have to stop it. And if they don’t stop it, then we, America’s people of conscience, will stop it.
Christopher, Ray, Debra, and all of you here tonight are breathing life into Mario Savio’s words. He didn’t protest in vain, because he inspires our actions here today. He certainly inspires me; and Christopher, Ray, and Debra *are* putting their bodies against the gears and wheels and the levers of the war machine-they are doing this out of the deepest love and patriotism for our country.
Thank you Christopher, Ray, and Debra for what you do every day.
The mouthpieces of the war machine, the powers that be, will say to you that people like us are rabble-rousers (that’s what the FBI called people like us in the 1960s and 1970s). They denigrate us in an effort to denigrate our peaceful message. And so, in 1967, they wrote the playbook that is still in use today. Here’s what the FBI wrote in 1967:
“When an opportunity is apparent to disrupt or neutralize black nationalist, hate-type organizations through the cooperation of established local news media contacts or through such contact with sources available to the Seat of Government, in every instance careful attention must be given to the proposal to insure the targeted group is disrupted, ridiculed, or discredited through the publicity and not merely publicized. Consideration should be given to techniques to preclude violence-prone or rabble-rouser leaders of hate groups from spreading their philosophy publicly or through various mass communication media. Many individuals currently active in black nationalist organizations have backgrounds of immorality, subversive activity, and criminal records. Through your investigation of key agitators, you should endeavor to establish their unsavory backgrounds, other types of personal misconduct on the part of militant nationalist leaders so any practical or warranted counterintelligence may be instituted.”
Now, who exactly was the FBI talking about back then? Why, among others, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.! Back then, the FBI lied on people, falsely accused them and sent them to jail, incited murder, broke into people’s homes, disrupted marriages, and participated in violence against people whose only crime was wanting to make this country better for *all* Americans.
And if they would do that then, what do you think they’re capable of doing now?
When the World Can’t Wait began its initial campaign in 2005 to rid the world of the George W. Bush Administration, I immediately loaned my name to their effort.
We all know that George Bush and the Republicans stole the 2000 election, and in my mind, are of questionable legitimacy because of it.
Despite the obvious theft, explained to us by Greg Palast and shown to us in the film American Blackout, George Bush was sworn into office without so much as a whimper from the Democratic Party.
The Democrats’ refusal to fight such an obvious wrong, from 2000 to 2004, has brought us to this.
And sadly, the Democrats have been handmaidens to the Republicans ever since. If we are to believe the news reports, they even went so far as to find Republicans willing to run as Democrats, what I’ll call neo-Democrats. So, what can we expect for all the issues that led to the founding of World Can’t Wait? I say we’d better expect to stay busy sending our message out, across our country, and holding our national leadership accountable. Regardless of party!
We cannot accept elected representatives of any Party who vote to authorize and fund the War in Iraq!
We cannot accept elected representatives of any Party who tolerate prisoner abuse and torture!
We cannot accept representatives who vote to erode our civil liberties, fail to pursue the truth about September 11th, remain silent on the Administration’s so-called War on Terror that has become, for some, a license to conduct war on the streets of poor white, black, and brown America!
We cannot accept representatives who do precious little to address the searing economic, health care, and social justice disparities now exposed to the world by Hurricane Katrina!
We cannot accept.
And now that the Democrats control Congress–and we are excited about that, wish them success, and applaud the first woman Speaker of the House–but we’re being told by them to *wait* on ending the war-wait on torture-wait on civil liberties-wait to learn the truth about September 11th; wait for justice for Hurricane Katrina survivors!
All you dispossessed and marginalized Americans who have been waiting far too long for justice, the Democrats have told you to *wait*!
*Wait* on impeachment!
Well, we are here tonight because deep in our loins we know . . . The World Can’t Wait.
And we, the American people, shouldn’t have to.
There is something deeply, structurally flawed in our country.
Now, suppose I were to tell you that the New York Times wrote that nearly one half of all the black men in New York City between the ages of 16 and 64 were unemployed.
Suppose I were to tell you that Hull House and Loyola University in Chicago wrote that it will take 200 years for black Chicagoans’ quality of life to catch up to that enjoyed by white Chicagoans.
A University of Cincinnati report shows that African-Americans are stopped more often, receive unequal treatment after being stopped, are held for longer periods of time, and are searched and arrested more often.
If nothing is done in US public policy, it will take 1,664 years to close the homeownership gap between blacks and whites, 581 years to close the per capita income gap according to United for a Fair Economy.
National Urban League 2006 State of Black America tells us that the economic status of black Americans is 56% that of white Americans.
According to Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates, in his series “America Beyond the Color Line,” a full 40% of all black children are living at or beneath the poverty line. The Washington Post tells us that hundreds of District of Columbia children tested at least 47 percent higher than the national average for lead poisoning.
Former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. David Satcher wrote in a report that 83,750 black people died premature deaths for no other reason than that they are black.
A Harvard University study finds that the quality of health care varies by race and those who need to understand the problem the most, white physicians, don’t even see it.
A few months ago, the Bush Administration reported that the racial gap on family income widened between blacks and whites. Add to that unemployment and infant mortality where the gaps are widening instead of narrowing.
I will never forget Jesus Blanco, a Salvadoran immigrant, froze to death on the streets of the most powerful city in our country.
This man paid the ultimate price for a foreign policy and an immigration policy that is literally killing people. At home and abroad.
This Administration’s so-called War on Terror has sadly been brought home to poor neighborhoods across our country as rogue police officers kill and maim citizens through their repeated use of excessive force. In Las Vegas and San Antonio, DeKalb County, Georgia; Atlanta, and New York, voices of families who have lost loved ones are being raised to stop the terrorism in our neighborhoods. Even 92 year-old grandmothers inside their own homes aren’t safe from police violence.
Never before in the history of our country have the crimes of an Administration been so blatant and so clear.
The way to end this war is to remove our money and our troops from Iraq! Not by a draft that feeds the war machine.
And the way to end this Administration is with an impeachment bill.
According to a non-partisan national poll, 50% of Americans agree with the following statement:
“If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him.”
87% of participants in a MSNBC poll said yes to impeachment!
We must restore integrity to our domestic and foreign policies and just like the petty criminals caught up in the so-called drug war or 3 strikes and you’re out–those guilty of crimes must pay!
Especially when they live at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue!
Finally, If we don’t stand for justice at home, how in the world can we be taken seriously when we prate about justice abroad?
My commitment to you is to remain true to your values-I will never compromise on the issues that matter most to you.
Thank you very much for inviting me to be with you this evening.