Speech given by Debra Sweet, National Director of World Can’t Wait, at a Town Hall impeachment event attended by 500 people in Houston, Texas, April 9, 2007.
Did any of you vote for, or do you want, a
continuation of this illegitimate, endless war?
Did any of you vote for, or do you support, the
torture and secret detention of people identified as “enemy combatants” who are
deprived of the right of habeas corpus by a 2006 US law?
Did any of you vote for, or do you want, a theocracy
in America,
where a narrow and hateful brand of Christian fundamentalism will rule?
I thought not.
But this is where things are going.
It’s up to us to stop this. We are
here to talk about why and HOW, in the face of the Democratic Party saying it’s
not possible, Bush and Cheney can be
impeached.
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 now.
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?
President Bush the War Criminal in Chief is set
to veto the bill Congress passed which gave Bush another $100 billion for the
war – enough to fund the war into the next administration. The bill was not a
condemnation of an unjust war on Iraq, nor a real step towards
ending the occupation and bringing the troops home from the region, but Bush is
intent on vetoing it until Congress removes the withdrawal date and allows the
Bush administration to continue the war unchecked.
When Bush vetoes the bill,
even though it was never designed to stop the war, everyone who wants
the war stopped now should pour into the streets in protest. This could
happen after Congress reconvenes, either this week or next. We have time
to get out campuses and communities, to the public squares, to the recruiting
stations and federal buildings.
Otherwise, the terms will stay Bush v. the Democrat leaders. We must make the demand to stop the war NOW
heard when everyone is following the news, refusing to remain passive and let
Congress go where it will.
The “support our troops” Democratic Party is not
going to end this war. Senator Carl Levin told us that Sunday, when he
said that no matter what Bush does, the Democrats will fund the 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”, who some of you regularly protest, wrote an opinion in the NY Times
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.
We are convened here because we can’t wait till
2008.
Everyone in Congress knows Bush has openly violated the
Geneva Convention, US law and is contemptuous of the Constitution itself (He
answers to God’s law!) There are 8 books
–some of the authors are here with us-making well-developed arguments for the
impeachment of the Bush administration. This is well known in Washington, and to every
newspaper editorial board.
The reality we who are demanding impeachment have to
confront is the Democratic Party saying impeachment is not “realistic”. I’m here to say that impeachment is not going
to come from Congress. It must come from an overwhelming demand
from the people. We have to stop looking to Congress to sort
everything out. People in our
antiwar movement have this idea that Congress decides thing, and our job is to
pressure them to do the right thing, protesting when they don’t. But our responsibility is to state the
peoples” sentiments, creating a political situation where those who make the
decisions are forced to respond.
In 2002 and 2004 and 2006, the Democrats 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.
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.
Bringing the troops home now is not on the table because the Democratic leadership and all
the “electable” candidates for President are explicitly committed to a dominant
U.S. empire in the Middle East. The sentiments
of millions of people in this country who want an end to this unjust and
immoral war were in no way reflected in the Congressional “debate” or
in the bills they passed.
The suffering of the Iraqi people under an ongoing
US military occupation or the plight of the detainees being tortured in
Guantanamo is not a factor in the conflict between the Bush regime and the
Democrats. The terms of debate among them are over how to adjust Bush’s
war, to re-deploy troops into Afghanistan or provide more funds for training, or on who can seem harder on the Iraqi
puppet regime, to fight the “war on terror” more effectively.
It wasn’t Congress who stopped the Vietnam War, but
the disaffection of the millions of people who actively stepped into political
action to prevent it and who did not act like it was OK if it took
decades. They shut down draft boards and
got arrested by the thousands, and spread the anti-war movement into the ranks
of the soldiers who had to fight it and who actively refused. 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.
But it’s not going to come about without massive
popular upheaval!
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.
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 strikes this spring- 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!
Here’s what World Can’t Wait is doing now:
We are asking every one of you to read and sign our
Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime today.
Help distribute this Call to the millions who haven’t yet seen it, and
don’t know there is a vehicle to express our sentiments.
Thursday April 19, I am part of organizing people in
the arts, law, religion, science and politicians to stand on the Capitol steps
and demand that Congress start impeachment.
Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, Eve Ensler, Michael Ratner, Chris
Hedges and 20 others, so far, will be sending a message to the people to demand
impeachment.
That demand will be amplified on April 28,
impeachment day across the country when people spell out “IMPEACH”, including
here on the beach, in unity with more than 30 other organizations who are part
of the Impeach07 campaign.
In early and mid May, there should be Peoples
Impeachment Hearings as Howard Zinn proposes across the country, like this
one. We should reach out to Democratic
clubs, have debates on campuses about why and how Bush should be impeached
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!
We are calling all people of conscience to drop the
convenience and cynicism of daily life in America, and the complacency of
waiting for change to come from on high and take meaningful action to stop this
war and remove the regime that started it.
Time to Get Down to It! Who will be the
deciders? You or Bush?
Let’s Drive Out the Bush Regime! Impeach the war criminals now!