Speech given by Debra Sweet, national director of World Can’t Wait, to the Emergency Summit to Impeach Bush for War Crimes on Feb. 17, 2007:
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Text:
This week, I was asked
again by a reporter if the impeachment of George Bush is “realistic” because
the Democratic Party says it won’t happen.
Being a child of the 60’s, that question really aggravates me. We used to say “Be realistic. Demand the impossible!” and we were right to
say that, and to go for changing everything that was unjust in our society.
But, the reporter asked a
question we have to answer, not only for the millions of people who will ask us
the same thing. Removing from office what Harold Pinter called “the most
dangerous force that has ever existed” because of scale of its ambitions, doesn’t
happen without a fight. Stopping
the hard-core cabal of Bush, Cheney, and the neo-cons who are determined to
advance an unchallenged US
empire, especially when they tell us they aren’t concerned with public opinion,
won’t happen by politics as usual. This is an administration filled with
political operatives of the Christian right, many of whom actually believe Bush
is in office because god put him there, and all of whom are trying to bring the
10 Commandments as the basis of the law, executing gays, and banning
divorce. They are not joking, they are
not over and they”ve already gotten very far.
Here are our real choices
– be confined to the “art of the possible” (while setting limits on what is
possible) that is passed off as “realism” in Washington or start from reality. “Realistic”
is the term for settling for what you think you can’t change, because you”ve
been told so by people in power. It was
never going to be possible for women to have the vote or own property, or
divorce, if you followed the logic up those who wrote the laws before
1921.
Slavery in the US was ordained
by God, even up to 1863, and couldn’t be changed because the economy of the
country rested on it. Slavery got
changed through a bloody civil war, but then segregation was the “law” and
therefore sacred. Since those who made
the laws couldn’t agree on changing it, segregation was always going to be part
of this society. Then came a pretty
small number of people at first with courage who sat in, sat down, rode the
buses, got shot and shot at, and defended themselves, registered people, and
said flat out, “we”re not taking this anymore”.
They forced a change in the way society functioned by making millions
feel that segregation continuing was immoral and intolerable.
There was no “realistic”
way in 1964 to stop the Vietnam war, because the people of the US supported
it. That got turned around. History is full of examples where people settled
for what wasn’t realistically possible to change”but, even in some of our
lifetimes, people have shown this is the wrong way to go. Let’s kick that way of going at changing
things to the side.
Starting from the reality that we
must bring the Bush regime’s program of illegitimate war, torture, the police
state measures and theocratic ridiculousness within the country to a HALT is
the first step. If George Bush is not
impeached because of 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. We need not just a replacement, but a
repudiation of that direction from the people. This is our responsibility, and why we”re
in this room tonight.
Bush’s plan to attack Iran is a huge imminent
danger hanging over the world. He is
putting his own facts on the ground to make everyone respond on his terms. One scenario has Israel
attacking Iran
and then the argument made that we have to come to the aid of our most reliable
and vulnerable ally. This is not just a
re-run of 2003, with the choreographed “evidence” being rolled out against Iran being
viewed with, shall we say, huge skepticism everywhere?
We are convened here
because we can’t wait till 2008. The war
is widening now, and no one-including the “non-binding” Congress is going to
stop it. We heard today how the Bush
administration is guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. There are 8
books –some of the authors are here tonight-making well-developed arguments
for the impeachment of the Bush administration.
This is well known in Washington,
and in every newspaper editorial board.
Everyone in Congress knows
Bush has openly violated US
law and is contemptuous of the Constitution itself (He answers to God’s law.)
The reality we who are demanding
impeachment have to confront is the Democratic Party saying impeachment is not
“realistic”. In 2002 and 2004 and 2006,
they said they had to get a majority before they could do anything. Now they have it and they are refusing to do
what they promised. The Republicans filibustered a non-binding resolution
to stop the war. But time after time,
the Democrats refused to use to mount a filibuster. Not even to stop the Military Commissions
Act, a truly fascist law, or to stop NSA spying. Where were they?
Many of them voted again
and again for the war, and the rest have spent 4 YEARS wringing their
hands about how you can’t stop a war-time president or be perceived to be
against the troops. Some people will
tell you that the slogan “support our troops” is why the anti-war movement now
is so much better than the 60’s.
No, this is completely WRONG. It’s why our movement now is more ineffective
and chauvinist. You can’t be against
the war, but support what the troops are doing. “Our” troops are in an army
carrying out an unjust and illegal war.
They are getting instruction on prime time TV every week like the show
“24” that says torture is fine. Regardless of what they are told, or what they
think they are doing, they are not fighting for the freedom of people in Iraq, or in
this country. They are not even fighting for their “buddies”. We have an obligation to tell the truth about
this, including to the troops.
They are in an army of
conquest, and they are getting orders to commit crimes against humanity. Each and every one of them has a legal and
moral obligation to refuse these orders, as Lieutenant Ehren Watada. He confronted reality, and chose to resist,
very eloquently and firmly, this illegitimate and immoral war, getting the
respect and support of millions. We
support the troops who resist!
The logic which says we
can stop the war by saying “support our troops” leads to the conclusion
that you can’t cut funds to an illegal war because you have to support the
troops. Thinking and saying this is completely against the interests of the
people because it justifies continuing the war. And this is exactly where they
want you.
The “support our troops” Democratic
Party is not going to end this war. They
are paralyzed and their paralysis is affecting millions of people who know or
should know better. John Yoo, the Bush
appointee known as “Professor Torture” wrote an opinion in the NY Times this
week taunting Democrats, making the point that they HAVE the mechanism to stop
the war. Cut off the funds! But why won’t they? Yoo said, “Our national
security interests here are high. If we falter now, it would be read as a
“defeat””. Yoo says the Democrats share the Bush regime’s vision. The US must be an unchallengable
empire. And, except for a notable few
Democrats, that party’s critique of the war is not that it was illegitimate
from the beginning, but that it’s not been fought correctly.
This is “politics as usual”
and we have to stop thinking that way.
The paralysis of the Democrats can’t be our own! We have to step decisively out of that box
and stop wasting our time and precious energies on a political process that is
not going to end this war short of something entirely different coming on the
scene.
But it’s not going to come
about without massive popular upheaval.
Howard Zinn echoes what World Can’t Wait thinks: “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 White House and
Congress need 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.
This will only happen if we, all of us,
draw a sharp line between what is right and what is wrong. The
reality we have to go tell people: YOUR government is committing war crimes. People in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran –
unless we stop the attack – are on the receiving end of an empire, paying the
price of life without electricity or water or hospitals, never knowing if your
neighborhood will be bombed or your door kicked in.
There’s a basic difference
when you are living in the empire as we are. People here are upset about the war. For military families it’s very upfront and
immediate and painful. But large numbers
of people can still go about life and school and work, they can still shop like
no where else on earth.
But there is no doing the crime without paying the
price. If we don’t stop the crimes being
done in our name, we are complicit. We have to pull
the curtain back and shine a spotlight on these crimes. If you know, yet choose to remain silent or
passive, then that is being complicit in forging a society and a world that no
one would want to live in. Can we
challenge people or do we take the attitude we can only tell people what they
already agree with?
It falls to the people to fight in our
own interests. And yes, it means
creating such a political uproar in society that those in power feel compelled
to change their positions. This why the
student strike Thursday – a potential sign of students finding their rebel
streak and breaking with the status quo-is so precious and important.
The trouble the Bush
regime is in with the Iraq
war, and the high stakes and uncertainty war with Iran will mean will likely mean
that conflict and real differences in Congress will deepen. But what is still missing is what the NY Times
in the fall and winter of 2002 called the “other superpower””public opinion
against the war. If this anti-war sentiment gets focused in action, it can change
the course of history.
But it won’t change
history positively if people we get sucked into putting our righteous demands
aside to hope, yet again, for a savior in 2008.
My god, you”d think the election is tomorrow. You know in advance what you’ll be voting for
by then. Here’s what a “realistic,
electable” position will be.
John Edwards:
“Let me be clear: Under no circumstances can Iran be allowed to have
nuclear weapons”Americans can be educated to come along with what needs to be
done with Iran.”
Barack Obama has also
been upfront about how he would deal with Iran, arguing that he would not rule
out the use of force and supports surgical strikes of alleged nuclear sites in
the country if diplomacy (read: coercion) fails.
Hillary Clinton told
the crowd of Israel
supporters. “In dealing with this threat … no option can be taken off the
table.” And she knows Bush has
insisted he could use tactical nuclear weapons against Iran.
This is what we”re talking
about when our Call says, “What you do not resist and mobilize to stop you
learn-or be forced-to accept”. Every
accommodation the Democrats have made to the Bush juggernaut has strengthened
it. And then the “realistic” politics of
Obama, Edwards, and Clinton
bludgeons us into accepting what we know is just wrong.
The logic of “electable”
candidates means justifying more illegitimate war in our names, we can’t accept
that. If “realistic” means allowing the
culture to shift at the expense of a woman’s right to reproductive freedom with
birth control and even the right of divorce under the threat of religious
theocrats. What things will we learn to
accept next, if the morality of the country is based on discrimination, hatred and
fear of homosexuality and the celebration of patriarchy? And yes, even these are part of the Bush
regime’s program and are not “impeachable offenses”, we have to keep
repudiating them.”
We started World Can’t
Wait with a Call to Drive out the Bush regime.
Its message stands out on the political terrain today for telling people
the truth not only about the intolerable crimes and fascist trajectory this
government has unleashed, but also that “politics as usual cannot meet the
enormity of the challenge” and that only mass resistance by the people holds
the potential to bring these crimes to a halt. Not only the diagnosis of
the Bush crimes in the World Can’t Wait Call, but also the Call’s prescription
must start setting terms much more broadly throughout society today. In
the next period this Call should be seen by millions who sign and circulate it
and spread the spirit and organization of driving out this regime.
Bush could be impeached if
the PEOPLE put this on the table. If we
say “ENOUGH” and “WE INSIST”, if people sit in and occupy offices, and take to
the streets and say “I can’t be party to the crimes of torture, war and spying”
we can bring this to a halt. It’s up to
the people to stop it!
Tomorrow, we”ll be
planning the next months of actions to make this demand rise and resonate
across the country. Building off the
first wave of student strikes against the war on Thursday, spreading the
movement on campuses is first priority.
The “Mission
of a Generation” Speaking Tour with Liam Madden of the Appeal for Redress, who
just got out of the Marines, and Revolution writer Sunsara Taylor of World
Can’t Wait, leaves again Tuesday for an east coast swing. See World Can’t Wait about bringing them to
speak.
Saturday, March 17 we are
marching on the Pentagon, marking four years of an unjust war on the
world. There are already buses coming
from 100 towns. We will be bringing the
demand “Impeach Bush for War Crimes” – and of course we mean indict Cheney too,
and the rest of them. It’s absolutely
righteous to march on the Pentagon, it will be opposed by reactionaries of all
kinds. We should all organize for this
like driving out the Bush regime depends on it.
It better not only be a big march, but profound in effecting the
campuses and arousing more and more people to stop the war criminals in
office.
There should be Peoples
Impeachment Hearings as Howard Zinn proposes across the country.
Be part of this! Jump in with BOTH FEET. Let’s go into FULL COURT PRESS to repudiate
the direction the Bush administration has taken the world. And drive this regime from office in 2007!