Speech given by Sunsara Taylor (World Can’t Wait advisory board member and writer for Revolution newspaper) at World Can’t Wait town hall held in NYC Dec. 10.
Hello, thank you so much for coming out. I am so glad to be joined by the other speakers here today, especially Carolyn Ho, John Nichols and Cindy Sheehan, whose courage has made such a difference.
I am going to focus my remarks on the very high stakes wrapped up with the need for impeachment and driving out the Bush regime now and the challenges and responsibilities of all of us here.
Every generation puts its stamp on the world. It contributes or detracts…actively engages or passively lets events take their course…and each influences the way history unfolds.
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All of us living in this country today, have a greater role to play than even these.
The Nobel Prize winning British playwright Harold Pinter said last year, “The Bush Administration is the most dangerous force that has ever existed. It is more dangerous than Nazi Germany because of the range and depth of its activities and intentions worldwide.”
Driving out the Bush Regime before 2008 must be the mission of all of living in this country today, or else everything that Bush has done continues no matter who becomes the next president.
Will we be remembered as the people who sat back and passively accepted the wholesale murder of Iraqi people even though we knew the whole premise of the war was lies?
Will we be the people who accepted a new doctrine of pre-emptive war that spreads this to other countries that pose no threat?
The people who allowed all forms of torture: sleep deprivation, beatings, water-boarding, dogs, sexual violence to become legal?
Who allowed habeas corpus — a cornerstone of the rule of law that prevents arbitrary, indefinite detention — to be revoked?
The people who learned to accept government surveillance of emails, of phone calls, of bank accounts and students” records”signing statements…No-fly lists…the jailing of journalists?
Will the future generations be enslaved to their reproduction? Will the movement that has made such strides in restricting abortion get what they”re after next: ending birth control, preaching virginity as a girl’s worth, and child-bearing and submission to their husbands as a form of worship after that?
Will the fact of evolution and a scientific understanding of the world be buried, the next generation disarmed of the ability to think critically, to prevent global warming, and to simply be awed at the wonders of the natural world?
Will history be re-written — as it already has been in Christian fundamentalist textbooks and as is being attempted in a different way on college campuses by academic hit-men like David Horowitz — to erase and excuse the horrors of slavery and lynchings, the genocide of the Native Americans, and conquest of foreign lands?
Catherine Crier, a former Republican judge from Texas, writes of a movement that “would like to see the United States under biblical law. Comparable to countries like Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and Iran”a nation governed by Old and New Testament scripture. Born-again Christianity will supplant the Constitution.” She ends this passage with this, “For all of those Americans who believe that our democracy is safe, you are wrong. Today, the radical Right is winning, and they know it. Sooner rather than later, we may be living in a very different country, a country that had been ours, a country that will be theirs.”
These are the huge changes that we are living through. And they are a lot further along than most people realize.
And this direction was not derailed or even challenged in the 2006 elections.
Did you see any ads that showed the bodies of Iraqi children in town after town shot down by U.S. troops, where the candidate promised to immediately withdraw from Iraq? Did you see any ads that showed the photos of Abu-Ghraib, and implored you to vote out everyone who approved the Military Commissions Act? Did you see any attack ads that railed against candidates who favor criminalizing abortion, who oppose birth control, or who are against allowing gay people to marry?
There weren’t any. But there were thousands of mailings from Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer criticizing the Republicans for not having a “credible strategy for victory” in Iraq. There were television ads from Democrat Harold Ford in Tennessee just to proclaim his opposition to the “Morning After” pill for teenagers and gay marriage. And there was the promise all the way through — and since — from Nancy Pelosi, Howard Dean, and others that impeachment is off the table.
For about a day and a half after the election, Bush clumsily talked about having heard the American people and even about being open to “fresh” ideas about Iraq. But then he was right back to his old self, appointing a man who opposes birth control to a position overseeing population issues in Health and Human Services. And he’s back with his belligerent promise, “We’re going to stay in Iraq to get the job done.”
By November 30th, the New York Times declared, “In the cacophony of competing plans about how to deal with Iraq, one reality now appears clear: despite the Democrats’ victory this month in an election viewed as a referendum on the war, the idea of a rapid American troop withdrawal is fast receding as a viable option.” It goes on a bit later, “Even the Democrats, with an eye toward 2008, have dropped talk of a race for the exits [from Iraq], in favor of a brisk stroll.”
So, there it is. Already it’s being forecast that to win in 2008 the Democrats can’t push for ending the war any time soon. Despite the fact that the reason why so many people voted for the Democrats exactly because they want to get the U.S. out of Iraq.
And what of the Iraq Study Group? Many have held out hope that this would be a voice of bipartisan sanity and a plan to finally end this war. But this report is not about ending the war, in fact it may very well contribute to sending in even more troops. Besides, George Bush has already rejected and dismissed its major recommendations. The whole purpose of the report was to provide political cover for the Democrats and Republicans to come together to preserve U.S. interests in Iraq, and U.S. “credibility” which just means their ability to militarily intimidate other countries, and to unite the country around a program for doing so.
Listen to what it says, “Its success depends on the unity of the American people in a time of political polarization. Americans can and must enjoy the right of robust debate within a democracy. Yes U.S. foreign policy is doomed to failure – as is any course of action in Iraq – if it is not supported by a broad, sustained consensus. The aim of our report is to move our country toward such a consensus.” Right there they are telling us two things, this report is about uniting the country behind continuing in Iraq and that they cannot do so if we don’t unite behind them – which should give us a big clue as to how to stop this war.
What is the logic that all of this is trapped within? Throughout this election — and the last one and the next one — the Democrats, and now the Iraq Study Group, have accepted and promoted the Republican logic of the so-called “War on Terror.” But this so-called war on terror was, from its very beginning, the rubric under which the Bush regime unleashed a war for permanent empire. And the rubric under which they demanded and got unprecedented police state powers. This was never just stupidity or incompetence. This was a plan to remake the world and they seized on 9/11 to do it.
It was from within the logic of the War on Terror that the Democrats rubber-stamped George Bush’s pre-emptive war on Iraq. Now Iraq’s morgues are overflowing, villages have been reduced to rubble, economy and infrastructure is decaying, and returned U.S. troops talk openly about how they were given a free-pass to massacre civilians.
It was in the name of the War on Terror that Democrats collaborated to pass the Military Commissions Act. And now George Bush and any future president have the legal right to disappear anyone, never press charges, never tell the family, and to have them tortured — everything we saw at Abu-Ghraib and more — indefinitely with absolutely no legal recourse.
These things I am talking about — preemptive war and torture — are war crimes. So is collective punishment and targeting civilians, hospitals and ambulances. And yet, again, there was bipartisan support for, to take one example, the decimation of Fallujah, once a city of 350,000. 70% of the city was bombed to the ground. The whole city was cut off from electricity or water for weeks, was pounded with more than one ton of bombs per person, was declared a “free fire” zone, and yes, there were U.S. snipers targeting hospitals, children, and ambulances.
As journalist Dahr Jamail testified at the Bush Crimes Commission, “Either in part or in full these policies have been utilized in the cities of Ramidi, Samara, Haditha, Fallujah, Alkaim, Bilad, Abuhishma, Sania, Najaf, Kut, Baghdad, Mosul, to name some.”
These are war crimes. These are crimes against humanity.
If this is not reason for impeachment, then what is!?
But we will not see an impeachment if we rely on the Democrats.
For five years we’ve gone through this dance where the Bush regime proposes – or gets caught doing something – outrageous. At first the Democrats make some noises of opposition, then they get reasonable, and eventually capitulate, and the world is made worse.
There’s been Roberts, Alito, the Patriot Act I, the Patriot Act II, the Terri Schiavo theocratic lunacy, the NSA spying, the Military Commissions Act, it just goes on and on and on. And now, we’re seeing the same thing happen – again – with the war on Iraq. The Democrats promised a “new direction,” but already they are accommodating to Bush, and saying it’s too messy to pull out, and maybe best to send in tens of thousands MORE troops.
But there is another force in society. There are people. Millions and millions of people. People who are sick of this war.
Troops who don’t believe in their mission stuck on their second and third tour of duty.
Thousands still scattered across the country by Hurricane Katrina and millions more whose smoldering anger at how Black people were treated there has been inflamed again by the NYPD’s 50 shots that killed Sean Bell.
Women and gay people whose fundamental rights are being systematically shredded.
Rivers of immigrants who not long ago clogged the streets of every city in this country in protest.
Intellectuals and artists who are not ready to bow down to a king.
And there are all the people who tried to give expression to their sentiments through this election.
These people, totaling in their millions, have the potential strength to upset this whole direction. These are the people that WE need to get out to and WE need to bring into the streets on January 4th, the first day of the new Congress to demand: Impeach the war criminals! The Bush Regime must go!
Some people say we should stay away from impeachment, that it’s better to just let the Republicans twist in the wind and take a loss in ’08. How removed from reality, how enveloped in political meaninglessness do you have to be, not to see or not to care that it is the torture victims, the Iraqi families, the people of Iran, the women and gays, the immigrants and Black people you would be leaving to twist in the wind as this regime barrels forward?
Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democrats say that “impeachment is off the table.” But if George Bush is not impeached over these crimes, then everything he has done — the doctrine of preemptive war, the torture, the assault on the separation of church and state, the undermining of the rule of law — all of this is legitimized and will continue, no matter who becomes the next president. And it means we are complicit in all of this.
Some say – oh no, this will divide the country. Today the major media won’t mention impeachment except to say that the Republicans would love it. And many are afraid of saying things because it might incite the Republicans. Hello! Bowing down and giving them the horrific future they want without a fight, is even worse.
When you had racist vigilantes hunting down and terrorizing Black people and you had laws and good ol’ boy networks backing it all up – you had to politically confront it!
When you had an unjust war sending tens of thousands of young men to their deaths and destroying the Vietnamese countryside and slaughtering millions of Vietnamese – you had to politically confront it.
Without a political confrontation, these crimes weren’t going to go away.
We are not talking about spoiled children making mischief that you can ignore long enough that they’ll eventually get bored and move on. This is a regime with a strategic plan for remaking the whole world. They have their hands on the levers of state power and they have an unthinking fanatical social base they have built up and are increasingly unleashing to intimidate and terrorize people who don’t agree with them. This reality needs to be politically confronted and transformed. Avoiding that political confrontation, avoiding the necessary polarization and upheaval means being complicit as all of this gets worse.
Besides, what is so wrong with polarizing people when they are wrong – and going along with great crimes?
The biggest problem right now is not that people don’t want what we are for. It is that too many people are inactive, tuned out, they don’t know how bad it is and they don’t know how they can affect things. The only way this will change is if we go out and challenge and polarize people around what is being done in our names.
Seriously, imagine how much further along we’d be if every person in this country was forced to take a side: Are you for torture or are you against it? For the slaughter of the Iraqi people or against it? For spying on the public or against it? For preaching abstinence, ignorance and patriarchy or against it? For denying fundamental rights to gay people or against it? For replacing science with religion in the public schools or against it? For papering over global warming or against it? Let’s get people picking sides.
It is good to stand against these crimes. It is RIGHT to stand against these crimes.
This country needs to be polarized. The White House and Congress needs to look out and see that the country is overwhelmingly polarized against them and they need to seriously fear that if they don’t put a stop to this whole direction that they are going to lose the allegiance of millions of people.
We have to challenge people to take a stand on this. And we have to do it on terms that are radically different than those being counseled right now by the Democrats.
So, January 4th, everyone here needs to be serious about getting to Washington, DC and organizing others to be there. On that day, the new Congress, the people of this country, and the people of the world need to hear the will of the people ringing out loud and clear: Start the impeachment and open the investigations. If war crimes, torture, and crimes against humanity aren’t enough to start impeachment, then what is? Bush must go!
Doing this now, when people are feeling less alone and less defeated off the election, and when the Bush regime has encountered huge problems in Iraq, and when they have lost the confidence of so many, can affect the mood and momentum of the whole country. It makes a difference when you step out and stand on principle – like when Cindy Sheehan camped out on the road in Crawford, Texas or when Lt. Ehren Watada courageously refused to fight in an unjust, immoral, and illegal war.
Again, every generation puts its stamp on the world. How will future generations remember us?
The final scene of Ground Truth, a new movie out that interviews soldiers back from the Iraq War, Camilo Mejia, the first soldier to openly refuse to fight in Iraq and who served a year in prison for this, is near tears. Earlier in the film he tells about how he participated — with his whole unit — in torturing and killing innocent people. He says:
To the people I just want to say that I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry for all the damage. And I am really sorry for my cowardice. For not opposing the war, for not speaking out sooner, for not disobeying more orders. I’m sorry.
…I want to say that there is a way out. And if it means jail or if it means disgrace or shame, then that’s what it’s going to take, but there is a way out. And I also want to tell people that, after being in jail, that there is no higher freedom that can be achieved than the freedom we achieve when we follow our conscience. And that’s something we can live by and never regret.
Let’s not wait, only to regret tomorrow that we didn’t act while there was still time. Let’s seize this moment. Let’s wake people up and bring them together to make good on our obligation to the world and the future. The world can’t wait any longer. We must Drive Out the Bush Regime!