Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Newsvine
Facebook
Google
Yahoo
TechnoratiImpeachment: We've Got a Job to Do
The following remarks were offered by John Kaminski, Chair of the Maine Lawyers for Democracy, at the Citizens Summit for Impeachment Rally that took place in Kennebunkport, Maine on Sunday, July 1st, 2007:
Thank you to the Maine Campaign to Impeach and thank you to the Kennebunk Peace Department for organizing this rally and march -- they have done a great job. Their countless hours of effort are the reason we are able to be here today.And thank you all for standing with me on this beautiful Sunday afternoon, instead of being at the beach, a picnic or a softball game or fishing with President Putin in the ocean off Walker's Point. Thank you for recognizing that we've got a job to do together.
I am the Chair of Maine Lawyers for Democracy, an organization of around 80 Maine lawyers who have called for impeachment. We firmly believe that impeachment is ultimately about accountability. And there is much to hold the Bush - Cheney Administration to account for.
I am in some ways very traditional and old-fashioned. I still believe that the power in this country ultimately rests with the people, not the corporate interests and the military-industrial complex. But, we have the power only if we band together, rise up and use that power. So, the power is in our hands, the burden is on our shoulders, to change history by holding this Administration to account through impeachment. No one else will do it, so we must. It is our obligation to ourselves, our children, our neighbors, our Nation and the world - it is our responsibility. We have a job to do.
Let's talk more about our job in a minute or two. Before that, I want to talk about the reasons that this Administration must be held accountable.
High crimes and misdemeanors - the standard for impeachment - have been committed - let me list just a few instances:
•They deceived the country into the Iraq War by abusing the intelligence gathering process and telling us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, leading us to believe that Iraq was involved in the 9/11 attacks and was a direct threat to the United States. We now know that none of that was true and we continue to learn more about the ugly and dishonest process that took this Nation to War. I cannot conceive of a more significant reason to impeach a President and Vice President than brazenly misusing the capabilities of this government to start a War. That War has cost the entire world dearly. The price we are paying continues to grow. The country of Iraq has been destroyed along with over half a million Iraqi people dead. Our Nation has lost the lives of thousands of young men and women, seen many more come back wounded or disabled and disrupted the careers and family lives of our National Guard troops - the suffering and damage is beyond comprehension, and yet it goes on and grows. And beyond that, we have spent billions upon billions of dollars that have mostly been borrowed from future generations. Consider for a moment what those billions could have accomplished if they had not been wasted. And all of this for what? I am outraged by every part of the decision to start this war and the way that they have carried it out. And I ask you, are you outraged? I ask you, given this picture must Bush and Cheney be held accountable?
• I am outraged that here in this country, they listened to phone conversations, intercepted emails and spied electronically on Americans with a program that was so clearly a violation of the law that even Bush's own attorney general, John Ashcroft, refused to certify it as in compliance with law. I ask you, must Bush and Cheney be held accountable?
•In this country, at Guantanamo and around the world, they illegally captured and detained people without appropriate hearings and safeguards in a way that was determined by the Supreme Court to be a violation of the Constitution. Just Friday, the Supreme Court took the very unusual step of re-opening its consideration of an appeal from Guantanamo. I ask you, must Bush and Cheney be held accountable?
•They used torture and sent prisoners to other countries where they would be tortured even more severely -and the Vice President was one of the chief architects of the torture program. I ask you, must Bush and Cheney be held accountable?
And we see even more reasons to impeach - the blatant disregard for the rule of law is rampant in this Administration. President Bush uses signing statements to announce which portions of laws passed by Congress he will not obey or enforce. The Administration refuses to cooperate with legitimate Congressional inquiries or to comply with subpoenas. And then there is the secrecy and the covering up - the refusal to comply with Federal law about preserving secret information, setting up a separate secret email system and then deleting thousands of emails, the order to the Secret Service to destroy all logs of visitors to the President and Vice President. I can only imagine how many more grounds for impeachment there would be if we knew all they are hiding.
But, outrage and anger are not enough. We have a job to do and that job is to hold this Administration accountable and take this country back. The power to change history is on our hands. We share a positive vision that we can help our Nation change for the better. We are the ones that we've been waiting for. There in no one else who will do our job. But our job is not easy. As we've called for impeachment, we've heard many objections - even from those who believe that there has been serious wrongdoing.
We've heard that: It's more important that we end the Iraq War than become distracted by impeachment.
It is difficult for me to imagine the Iraq War ending with President Bush still in office unless he is substantially weakened politically through the impeachment process. Impeachment proceedings are on the path to peace, not off the path to peace. Our job is to stay on that path to peace.
We've heard that: Impeaching Bush and Cheney will generate sympathy for them and distract from the more important priority of electing a Democratic president in 2008.
Let's think about that. All of these reasons not to impeach Bush and Cheney are strategic and tactical considerations. That somehow it's not convenient right now to hold them accountable or impeach. Many, including Congress, believe that more good will come from letting the wrongdoers off the impeachment hook than will come from holding them accountable.
I believe differently. I believe that doing the right thing, the moral thing, the just thing has a way of working out for the best. We must impeach.
As many of us have gone around Maine the last few months gathering nearly 13,000 signatures supporting impeachment, we have heard one consistent point: that we cannot let them get away with it - we cannot allow the precedent that would be created by permitting the abuses of the Bush-Cheney Administration to go unchallenged.
We've heard genuine concerns about precedent from a member of Congress, from state legislators, from the former mayor of Portland and a town councilor, from lawyers and physicians, from teachers, from students, from artists, from some of the many shipbuilders at Bath Iron Works, and, yes, even from Republicans.
We have a job to do. It is hard, but we cannot shirk our duty. As I think about whether our Nation will make the difficult moral choice to impeach or the convenient choice to simply look the other way, I am reminded that confronting government and wrongdoing is never easy, convenient, without trouble or without fear. There will always be a reason or a rationalization to avoid the confrontation. But sometimes the abuses are so outrageous we have no choice. This is one of those moments.
History presents us with decisive moments, forks in the road, where the stakes are high and the moral and just choice is the difficult path. There was no convenient moment for African Americans to take on the cause of civil rights, yet they did and we are all far better for that. There was no convenient moment for the German people to confront the Nazis in the 1930s, and they did not confront them and the world paid a horrendous price. We cannot afford to let our moment to take back our Constitution and our country pass because it is not convenient to us or because we are afraid. We have a job to do.
We in New England have a history of doing our job even though it's hard and risky. The American Revolution started in New England over 200 years ago, and we New Englanders continue to take out job very seriously. Just last week, a high school senior from Wellesley, Massachusetts named Mari Oye showed remarkable courage. She was being recognized at the White House as a presidential scholar. Before the photo opportunity, she presented President Bush with a letter signed by 49 Presidential scholars urging an end to torture, illegal detention and advocating for the human rights of detainees. Mari saw her job and did it courageously.
We must do our job. Today we stand here to do our job to hold this Administration accountable for its extreme abuses by using the most serious tool that the Constitution gives us - impeachment. Here in Maine on the shores of the Atlantic, the tide is turning and the powerful wave of the people calling for accountability and impeachment will be felt around the world. Together we will change history.
Today, we will march to call for an end to the abuses of the Bush-Cheney government. Today, we are representatives of people all over the country and around the world. As we march today, let us remember that our message will travel far from Kennebunkport. We may meet others along our walk who believe that we have chosen the wrong path. They may shout at us, they may insult us, they may attempt to provoke us or drown out our message. There is no need to take them on or to confront them -- disruption is their agenda, not ours. They are not the ones that we are trying to convince to join us. We know that we are on the right, moral and just path and we will keep our focus. After all, we have a job to do.
A large part of doing our job is convincing Congress to do its job. Only the House of Representatives can impeach a President of a Vice President. The tide is turning. Already 11 members of Congress have co-sponsored Representative Kucinich's resolution of impeachment of Vice President Cheney.
We must contact our representatives in Congress and tell them that we will not stand for them letting the wrongdoers off the impeachment hook because it's political expedient or convenient or because they are afraid. We must get others around the Nation to join us in our call for accountability and the restoration of power to the people.
Finally, we have a stark choice: we can condone these abuses and see them repeated in the future or we can impeach and change history. So, I ask you, given the choice of impeach or condone, what must this Nation do?
Given the choice of impeaching to defend the Constitution or condoning Bush and Cheney's outrageous abuses, what must Speaker Nancy Pelosi do?
Given the choice of impeaching or excusing Bush and Cheney, what must the entire House of Representatives do?
Given the choice of impeaching or condoning, what do the people want?
Impeachment is ultimately about accountability. We have the power. It's our job to choose to use it. Let's hold them accountable. Together, let's change history.
John Kaminski is the Chair of Maine Lawyers for Democracy and practices law in Portland, Maine. He can be reached at mainelawyersfordemocracy@yahoo.com
19 Comments so far
Show AllMeanwhile, let's do SOMETHING!
Keep at your Congress person to support HR 333 to impeach Cheney and thank Dennis Kucinich for being one member of Congress with some leadership ability!
Organize, we have to be in the streets. Not every 6 months..every day. I would love to have Cheney tried and convicted of so many things..but for starters, let's get him out of the White House. It's going to happen. Let's make it soon!
Impeachment forward!
While some of the commentary here seems to be from Karl Rove's office of diversion, there are constructive view points from some of the critics to impeachment.
One of, if not the, greatest act to come out of the call to impeach will be a bonding of humanity, both within this nation and around the world: a human bonding that could produce a viable third party in this country, and or produce the governmental leaders of today and tomorrow.
As part of my answer to the call to impeach will be going door to door for signitures in support of impeachment within my personal congressional district. This will help weave the fabric of humanity.
Another part of my answer to the call to impeach will be an email, bulliten board, street hand out action of a one page newletter - Impeachment '07.
This will act as a rallying cry as well as an organizing tool for the "tipping point" action, what ever that may be (currently focusing on Rev. Yearwoods actions of the coming week, with his connection to the vitally powerful Hip Hop community).
A major point of Impeachment '07 will bring to consciousness the underlying fact beneath one of the neocon's remaining effectivelies, that being that the Iraq war is about Iraq freedom instead of the truth of privatrization for the likes of Bechtael and Blackwater.
Here is an email address if you would like to add (and or help with) Impeachment '07 to your call to impeach action: Impeachment07@aol.com .
Also, remember what Patti Smith wrote in Radio Baghdad on her Trampin album - "Fear not your neighbors affliction...fear not your neighbors paralysis...but extend your hand."
Faith - Courage - Solidarity.
Impeachment would be great, if it was fast and efficient. Go ahead and start the impeachment proceeding, slapping the face of any legislators who dare to stand in the way. But, in the meantime, what really needs to begin is an insurrection. Why does America always think it is above real revolution? It has happened all over the world, but here in politically correct America, all we talk about is what should be done for us by our politicians. Piss on that! If the 45 million people who don't have health care in this country, and live at or below the poverty line, all decided to stop dead in their tracks, paying none of their bills, buying no goods from large corporations, refused to pay their taxes, and boarded buses for Washington DC, funded by a few very wealthy individuals, impeachment would happen in a moments notice, and by the time we got to DC, there would be a few more members of the cabinet in handcuffs. It is ACTION that they are afraid of people!!
How's this for an idea? Let's stop bullying the world into accepting the neo-con version of democracy (read, capitalism and its unpopular first cousin, fascism). We can teach democracy by restoring our US Constitution and supporting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by all civilized nations since 1948. Deep six the Patriot Act and restore our own democracy. Take the trillions already committed by this useless war and put it into housing, health care, education, public transportation and real alternate energy research and DEVELOPMENT. Hey, these things won't make a perfect world, but they just might make it a better world.
Since this is Independence Day, I suggest you read the Declaration of Independence and look for the key phrases which would call for the impeachment of the entire Bush regime. A good start, I'd say.
"The conservatives see impeachment as petty vindictiveness because liberals have no better ideas about how to lead but I say screw that"
Yes, progressives DO have better ideas, but no one wants to try them.
One note: I suspect that many Americans don't really realise how big the stakes are wrt impeaching Bush and Cheney. The case for impeachment is even clearer for them than it was for Nixon. If they don't get impeached, the Rest of the World will not take anything the US says about democracy, freedom, and rights seriously for at least a generation.
The conservatives see impeachment as petty vindictiveness because liberals have no better ideas about how to lead but I say screw that. We cannot progress with criminals running the place and honor demands they be impeached. Honor is still important to me and, I hope, to our nation.
The American government has always maintained the right of its citizens to ship arms to belligerents. President Washington, through his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, and his Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, took this position when France protested against the sale of arms to England in 1793, the answer being that "the exporting from the United States of warlike instruments and military stores is not to be interfered with." - Theodore Roosevelt's "Fear God..."p.160
just in case you were wondering what America has always been about.
the freedom/democracy crap was just window dressing.
in 1853 Admiral Perry felt free enough to threaten the Japanese with bombardment if they did not "open" their market to American exploitation.
President Polk lied to start the Mexican War and justify stealing California etc.
Lincoln freed the slaves but introduced the draft.
Get over yourselves, America.
The only thing you produce that anyone wants to buy are arms.
Back to square one.
Peace.
Americans have allowed this zealot (and unelected) president to manipulate our rights by tolerating the senate's acceptance of unfit and dangerous justices, among other abuses including countless environmental sellouts, manipulation of science to impede environmental reforms on scales beyond comprehension, and the list goes on.
The gravity of these abuses eclipse the Lewensky scaandel which led to an impeachment, & are more serious than the Watergate scandel which brought down a presidency.
Nonetheless Americans have only themselves to blame for tolerating these unnprecedented outrages
Impeachment imo isn't nearly enough. Bush and his cohorts have committed fraud, treason, war profiteering, and genocide. They should all be tried, convicted, and executed.
The 9/11/01 attacks alone was enough of a crime. You mean to tell me that they had no idea that we were going to be attacked? It's just a coincidence that the Bush family had ties to the Bin Ladens? Dubbya himself was simply "shocked" when he was told that our nation was under attacked and sat with his thumb up his butt for ten minutes?
And look at how he's benefitted from it all. The WTC getting blown to bits was the best thing that ever happened to him aside from being born into a big oil clan.
Several have said that we are not organized so consequently are not getting anyplace in stopping this disaster that our country is becoming. What to do is the problem and as our bought and paid for media keeps supplying propaganda to the masses there seems to be no chance for change. I do believe that if all who are sick of this mess would tell their friends and families to listen to "Countdown" with Keith Olberman on MSNBC it would have some effect. At least it does one good to hear someone tell it like it is, pulling no punches and do it in a professional manner rather than listening to constant trash and misinformation.
I think he is exactly right about Americans being at a fork in the road. There are many constituencies calling for impeachment, including many city councils across the country. Even some state legislatures, I think. These groups need to consolidate. This may be your last chance to save your democracy.
I posit this: Any member of the House of Representatives that does not move to investigate this administration, that will with all probablility lead to the impeachment of this administration, is subject to impleachment themselves. They swore to uphold and defend the Constitution. They are all witnesses to several crimes that have been comitted by this administration. One crime, just to name one, is the unauthorized wire tapping and surveilance of Americans. This is a slam dunk because the administration has already admitted to doing it. The entire house,in my opinion, is guilty of dereliction duty.
Why are they not moving to investigate and impeach? Crimes have been committed and crimes have been admitted to.
Well stated, namvet67.
Although I abhor obscenity and violence - this White House administration and our do-nothing Congress have us all on the verge of despair; their rape of the America we love deserves immediate correction, neutralization and replacement.
"Iron Heel" is nothing compared to what we face, "just down the road a piece"....
If we had Statesmen instead of politicians, impeachment proceeding would have started long ago. Bush is a dildo and Congress is his whore. Cheney is a buttplug and Americans are his asshole. Time to read "IRON HEEL" by Jack London.
Hoa binh
Ron, good comments. We are on the same track on this one. Different coaches perhaps.
Mr Kaminski says that Pelosi "must" impeach; that we "must contact our representatives in Congress and tell them that we will not stand for ...(blah blah blah)."
Well, that's nice. That's the liberal viewpoint. It accepts the legitimacy of Congress and "our representatives." It takes the position that "our job" is simply to implore these people to behave better; & that our problem of thoroughgoing government corruption can be cured by remaining inside the framework of existing institutions -- the very institutions which have led us to this sorry pass.
A politically aware populace would be angry, all right. But it would not simply continue to accept the political framework that has been imposed upon us. It would challenge the idea that "Republican" and "Democratic" rule are the only possible choices. In fact, in its righteous anger, an aware population might well move to outlaw both those criminal parties, just as the Nazi party was outlawed. The Republicans are not much better than latter day Nazis, with new & improved PR technques. The Democrats are nothing but their treacherous accomplices.
If all we manage to do is beg traitors & cowards like Pelosi to "please do their jobs," it's not hard to predict what will happen. It will be no more effective than the millions of protestors were, who came to the streets a month before the Iraq invasion. That was one impressive weekend of demonstrations -- which accomplished virtually nothing.
So, let's face the reality that simply imploring representatives of the 2 big parties to cure the very problem that they've done so much to create, is not going to do a damn thing.
We in fact do have the POWER. The problem is that we do not have the ORGANIZATION.
People are deliberately kept fragmented in the US. The korporatist media are designed to spoon-feed the lies and create the faux reality that keep the public in The Matrix and away from the truth.
The tools to permit us to break free exist--the Internet and associated technologies. But the fascists know this, which is why they are trying to eliminate internet freedom.
Impeachment, even if unsuccessful, is the monkey-wrench which can be thrown into the gears of the emerging fascist state. We should begin the process, if only because it will put the Bush crime family on the defensive and slow the process down, maybe enough to stop it.
"We have the power." We do? Since when? All of this hot air and indignation has been going on for years now. Obviously, we are powerless to bring about impeachment proceedings. It's not even on the table. I have contacted my representatives and senators many times. They don't give a bleep. Write to Pelosi, condemning her lack of action, and you get a form letter saying thank you for your interest. This democracy thing is just a joke. The people are not in charge at all, Mr. Kaminski. Why profess otherwise? 13,000 signatures supporting impeachment? That'll do it! Thank you for your interest.