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Brattleboro Man Sees His Impeachment Trek As A Success
Brattleboro, VT - He did not meet with Nancy Pelosi, and President Bush has not been impeached, but John Nirenberg sees his 485-mile journey from Boston to Washington, D.C., as a success."I accomplished personally what I set out to do," he said. "I had to do what I did because I was so outraged with the behavior of this administration and the persistence of our mistreatment of people both at home and abroad."
And he's not giving up now.
"I wish Nancy Pelosi had seen me personally," he said. "She may yet."
A retired professor and dean of the School for International Training, Nirenberg decided late last fall to march to the capital in order to spread his message that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have violated the Constitution and ought to be impeached.
"This whole issue of impeachment is, to me, the most important of all these issues, because how the president has behaved in violating the Constitution has led to all these other issues," he said, pointing to the Iraq war, waterboarding of prisoners and what he called "the elimination of dissent."
Nirenberg left Brattleboro Nov. 30 and began his walk outside of Boston's Faneuil Hall the next day. A month and a half later, he arrived in Washington with a pair of tired legs and more than a dozen supporters who joined him for part of his walk.
But the journey did not end there.
Nirenberg tried to visit the National Archives after reaching the capital but he and his compatriots were hassled by guards for wearing hats, shirts and ponchos bearing their message, he said. Noting the irony of being barred from viewing the very document that bestowed on him the right to free speech, Nirenberg said, "I took my hat off and went in to pay my respects to the Bill of Rights."
"I didn't want to get arrested before finding out whether or not I would get to see Nancy Pelosi," he added.
Throughout his more than two weeks in Washington waiting for Pelosi's office to call him back and visiting as many Congressional offices as he could, Nirenberg felt overwhelmed by the heightened security.
"Washington, D.C., appeared to me to be an armed camp," he said. "We were immediately on notice we were being hassled. The powers that be let us know who was in charge."
He wandered the halls of the Capitol and dropped off messages and petitions to members of Congress whose constituents he had met along the way. Most of them, he said, would not give him the time of day -- and many of their staff members seemed unfamiliar with their positions on impeachment.
"I was shocked the first day. I almost got ill at the ignorance of Congressional staffers and their lack of courtesy to people dropping in to visit them," Nirenberg said. "Your basic Wal-Mart greeter has more customer awareness than your basic Congressional staffer. They, at least, can tell you where to find things."
Nirenberg managed to meet with only a couple Congressmen, including Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Fla., and his own Congressman, Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt.
"He was very polite. He's a decent guy, but he's a total party drone," Nirenberg said of Welch. "He is impervious to all of the logic behind the impeachment movement. This is what is so insidious. He recognizes all the abuses of power and he refuses to take leadership."
Though he held out hope as long as he could, Nirenberg was not granted a meeting with Pelosi before returning to Vermont. He did, however, meet for an hour with two of her aides. They were polite and he had a good conversation with them, he reported, but the Speaker is no closer to putting impeachment on the table.
Now back in Vermont, Nirenberg is spending time blogging on his Web site, www.marchinmyname.org, thanking friends who helped him along the way, and waiting for Pelosi to call.
More frustrated with the system than ever, he at least feels successful in spreading his message through 485 miles of America.
"It's awakened in some people for the first time the urge to do something which they haven't done before," he said.
Paul Heintz can be reached at pheintz@reformer.com
© 2008 Brattleboro Reformer
9 Comments so far
Show AllI admire your determination and courage to try to do what is right.
Hoa binh
Mr. Nirenberg should be hailed as a national hero. I wish I had the guts and the time to do as he did. If there were hundreds or thousands of us camping out day after day, in office after office, we might actually get somewhere! I've emailed, mailed, and called my Congressman and Senators with every new impeachment movement that came my way. NOTHING happpens. Who do you have to sleep with to get a President impeached around here? (Irony intended.)
I cannot understand how a "public servant" can refuse to meet with a citizen. Pelosi won't even answer her email. She has a mandate and owes us to put impeachment on the table and to work as hard for it as say Congressman Wexler. Laws have been broken and manipulated resulting in great cost of the lives of our children and our national fortune. The rest of the world is waiting for us to act. It is not acceptable to have Pelosi and others just sit back with their hands folded and let this happen. Bring impeachment to the floor. Let the trial begin and the chips fall where they may. It is imperative that we get both Bush and Cheney before congress under oath in front of the American people to be held accountable for their actions. There is no other moral, ethical way to handle this situation.
I totally agree with bikerdude and wish to profoundly thank professor Nirenberg and the people of Brattleboro, VT. If only we could mobilize like that all across the US!~ Mrs. Pelosi is a huge disappointment and really bad for the advancement of a Democratic Congress which seems to just sit there and roll over to any kind of Republican insult -- like drilling in the Chukchi Sea and all the other insults on the environment and on Human Rights.
I wonder, is there anything we can to besides plead with our congressional representatives and senators (who are selectively deaf)? Is there no way that progressive groups and human rights organizations can ban together and pressure someone in Congress to start impreachment proceedings against Pelosi and Reid? They are enablers. The are like Vichy! We can't wait until the next round elections to have people like them destroy the Constitution and this once marvelous nation. Those of us who are older also owe it to the next generation coming up behind us to leave this country in as good or better condition than it was when we were born or immigrated into it. It's not simply a matter of their disgraceful and avaricious self-interest. We're looking at the end of the United States of Amercia. I think the title of Namoi Wolf's book says it all. If you have not read it, buy it read it, and buy copies for your doubting friends. http://www.amazon.com/End-America-Letter-Warning-Patriot/dp/1933392797/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1202351565&sr=1-1
"I wish I had the guts and the time to do as he did."
Maybe you do.
Plan to have enough money available to finish. Expect to wear out one pair of running shoes. Put Dr. Scholl's moleskin and small scissors in your pack. Always walk against traffic for safety. Set up places to stay for maybe 3 days at a time, all along the route. Set up rides and spotters if you can. Remember to tell people on the website where you'll be, so they can find you and walk with you or at least deliver hot tea. Wear a reflective vest especially in low light winter situations.
Carry leaflets. Carry a firm unbendable lightweight sign. Yellow worked well for John -- highly visible. Go for huge huge lettering -- high speed passing cars won't be able to read much more. A short stick to hold the sign above your head isn't a bad idea, but they won't allow the stick as you pass through New York City. Local law with a history.
I wouldn't have thought that anyone would try this in December and January, but John did. That's all the time he had off.
Will you succeed in changing things? I refuse to say no. Will you be right with your God? Will you be right with your fellow citizens, with unborn generations of citizens and with your long-dead forefathers and foremothers, who believed in the concept of Liberty enough to pay for the Statue of Liberty's base with their pennies? Maybe, and all that's for you to ponder.
A shout-out to the Peace Pilgrim Center. A 50 year old woman took the ultimate trip back in the 1950s. She gave up all of her possessions except her clothes, a comb, a toothbrush. She gave up her old name too. Peace Pilgrim walked until someone offered her a ride, and fasted until someone offered her food. Well over 30 years later she had logged 50,000 miles or more alone on foot across America, summer and winter, and had spoken to millions of people about peace. Pamphlets and books about her are given out by the Peace Pilgrim Center.
I am contacting my city counsel here in Minnesota to see if we can be annexed by Brattleboro. The larger the aea the better the chance bush or cheny might try to sneak through.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants-----Thomas Jefferson
You have to admire the likes of Professor Nirenberg. Throughout history people have marched to try to change the course of events and mostly the marchers have been met with police and military force. Why is that? the reason is because criminals have been encouraged by the people to take control of the country but didn't realise the enormity of that stupid decision. After a while it dawns on the odd few that something isn't quite right which starts the ball rolling but then it's all too late, the freedom they had is now a distant dream, democracy is in tatters, the representatives don't answer the door.
In order to calm the sheeple elections are a constant feature of news, this gives the impression that all will be well when the new Resident is selected but the history of the voting in matters which they claim to represent doesn't indicate change.
Pelosi is just such a character, she is a republican dressed as a democrat, just as Blair was a Tory dressed as a Socialist.
I'm not in favour of impeachment as such because the Senate would let the criminals off the hook but I am in favour of the arrest and passage to the international court at the Hague. It will not happen we all know that but where there's life there's hope.