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TechnoratiLeslie Angeline hasn't exactly been shy about her feelings for the Bush administration.
She has protested outside the White House countless times and has been arrested there twice. She has been kicked out of the Capitol twice. And she is currently banned from the Hart Senate Office Building, having been thrown out of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman's office.
Her options limited, Angeline tried last month to come up with another way to send a message to the Bush administration and a Congress she thinks has done too much enabling: She stopped eating.
Then she took it a step further. Angeline, 51, took her fast to the office of House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), where she vowed to stay and not eat until he agreed to meet with her. One day went by, then another, and another, and finally, on the 10th day of Angeline's sit-in, Conyers agreed to talk with her about the impeachment of Vice President Cheney.
"He was sympathetic," Angeline said, but not sympathetic enough to hold hearings. So Angeline kept fasting - for 25 days in all - until she caught an upper respiratory infection last week and a doctor told her she had to eat.
There's more where she came from.
Hundreds of other members of Code Pink have now stopped eating, too. The Code Pinkers, as members of the much-maligned anti-war women's group call themselves, are trying to convince reluctant congressional Democrats to join Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) in calling for impeachment hearings.
Their argument: In addition to leading the country to war on false premises, the members say the vice president and his boss abused their power by violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and approving the torture of terrorism detainees.
The Code Pinkers were on the Hill Tuesday, going door to door as they tried to make their case to lawmakers who weren't particularly interested in the spectacle of impeachment hearings when Cheney and President Bush had years to go in office and are even less interested now that they're in the home stretch.
Among the supplicants Tuesday was 54-year-old Ellen Taylor, a former environmental engineer from Bryan, Texas. Pale-faced, hungry and admittedly "a little spaced out" as a result of not having eaten much for 15 days, Taylor made her rounds with a sign on her back that said, "Hungry for justice? Impeach him fast."
Her motives were both large and small. She wants to see Cheney impeached. She also wants lunch.
"I'm really hoping this will happen, because I would really like to eat a sub sandwich," Taylor told a staffer for Rep. Jim Moran (D-Va.). Taylor handed the staffer a packet on why his boss should call for impeachment hearings.
The staffer nodded and the lady in pink moved on.
The Code Pinkers aren't hunger-striking, exactly. They're fasting - surviving, in Taylor's case, on water, clear juices, miso soup and soy shakes. "A fast is about cleansing," literally and metaphorically, Taylor explained. "This country has built a lot of toxins. ... We can't have this toxic stew sitting here."
Every morning, Angeline, Taylor and a group of other Code Pinkers gather in their (pink) headquarters on Capitol Hill, where they sit in their (pink) bathrobes, in their (mostly pink) living room, and plot their next moves and machinations. Slowly, they insist, they are reaching each member of the Judiciary Committee.
"We're within three or four votes," Taylor said, ticking off the names of committee members who may or may not support their call for impeachment hearings.
On Tuesday, Taylor and Angeline showed up at Conyers' office to remind him they're not giving up.
Conyers wasn't there - he was off campaigning for Sen. Barack Obama - but a staffer listened patiently as Taylor and Angeline made a five-minute pitch for hearings.
When they were done, the ladies in pink said, "Thank you."
The staffer said, "Best of luck with your fast."
A spokeswoman for the House Judiciary Committee said Tuesday that an impeachment hearing is "not going to happen."
© 2008 Politic.com
27 Comments so far
Show AllI mean truthfully how do you feel when you read the articles that are being posted in here? Do you feel good or do you feel horrible? Feelings are our compass.
It is one thing to be aware of what is taking place in the world but that is not our goal as progressives. Nothing seems to stop what is happening. Neocons keep destroying life and progressives are on to it, so how is that going to change it? That is the thing that is missing from the equation here. Most people don't even believe in universal energy. If we keep on going down that pike things are not going to change.
I guess what I truly want to say is that we are not using the "law of attraction" to the best of our abilities. I just believe that if we keep our focus on what we don't want that we will continue recieving what we don't want plus some.
An example is the war in Iraq. We don't want war, the last election was about the war but when democrats got elected what happened? Bush got a surge.....
So what is it that was accomplished?
Please don't misunderstand me I think what these women are doing is honorable, it is just that it isn't working. Like someone said above members of Congress have been supporting Bush doing what he has been doing. I am not faulting members of Code Pink.
Resisting doesn't seem to be working, if anything it is bringing more resisitance. We are being drawn towards what we don't want rather than what we do want. These issues has been perpetuating rather than producing a positive outcome.
I just think it is time to look at this situation from a different perspective. Maybe you will all think I am crazy but there is a power greater than the government that we all can draw wisdom and energy from. I believe we need to focus on what we DO want and take this in another direction.
As someone who was in on this from almost the beginning, I would like to offer my thoughts.
25 days is Leslie's new personal best, having exceeded by one her previous best of 24 days in her attempt to be BFF with Sen. Lieberman. It wasn't her fault the man was no good. She could have gone on a bit longer if not for the need to "feed the cold" and all that. Also, she promised her son that she would not allow herself to come to harm because of the fast.
Meaningful? You got something better? This might be a good time to remember that there are Argentine Generals going to jail these days because a bunch of housewives who would stand in the square with pictures of their desaparecidos/I> and refused to forget their friends and relatives. Later, they overthrew three governments in five days by banging on pots and pans. Do not underestimate the power of the absurd, especially when it is in the hands of ballsy women.
I will be up there this weekend and will do what I can to ensure Ellen gets her sandwich.
Code Pink should receive an award of honor for its action. It's amazing that 75% of the country is not protesting in one way or the other. It seems that the people (in the USA) have become numb to the fact that their gov't leaders have thumbed their nose at the very laws they swon to uphold.
The problem with this situation is those whom are responsible for the "impeachment" are in complicity.
Out of the more than 935 lies Bush told about a planned attack on Iraq, he told the truth once. HE SAID HE CONSULTED WITH THE LEADERSHIP IN CONGRESS. So these folks whom voted to OK the international terrorist attacks, and remained silent on the easesdropping and spying on the US public, are in a delima. How can they give Bush a green light to commit crimes and then impeach him for committing them? That's why Conyers, and Pelosi, and the repubs, are mute. It sends a troubling message and sets a president for future presidents; especially when Bill Clinton was impeached for infidelity.
Fasting and hunger strikes have long been used by people in protest against repressive governments.
Ghandi used it very effectively and up to 8000 Irish prisoners went on hunger strike to protest their detention by the British.
The same with early American suffragettes until the passage of the 19th amendment.
It gets people's attention and focuses shame and dishonor on the offenders.
I consider these people modern day saints and my "pink" hat is off to them!
MA Matriarch wrote:
"Code Pink certainly have the right intentions BUT instead of attaining what they want they are hurting themselves and ultimately acquiring more resistance."
No, they aren't hurting themselves. Fasting is a way of purifying, as Ellen Taylor correctly said. That one of them caught an infection may have been entirely unrelated to the fasting. As far as "attaining what they want," let's face it, most protests don't do that; but that isn't any reason not to protest.
I applaud there efforts, but I don't see a lot of progress being made here. They are endangering their own health. If I really thought a "fast" would get rid of bush-I'd start immediately.
re: "the much-maligned anti-war women's group"
yes, maligned by the corporate media... it's interesting the way such phrases, by lacking a grammatical subject, operate as obfuscation.
Seems to me that abuelito is the only one that has really got it. Most of the rest of the commentors seem to think that the way business "is done" in Washington is just going to keep on going on - and that we will have to continue living with that reality. I disagree. As an advocate in the environment arena, I understand that a complete change in the way "things" are done has to occur if the planet and our own lives are to be saved. And of course there is all the rest of the inequity that continually gets worse under the current "system" that could be affected by an impeachment. Don't think small. A national fast, leading to impeachment is the only way to send out a message from the American people that says "things" are going to seriously change. Code Pink's fasting campaign is a wonderful idea.
In my mind we need to nip this in the bud with our children. We can't allow them to grow up and become victims of the system. We need to bring them up strong willed and educated (know who they are and independant) not self-alienated and dependant on corporate America.
If we keep on financially supporting corporate America to abuse us then how can we teach our children?
What is most appalling to me it is the children in this country who are suffering the most. This just shouldn't be. This has to be the biggest crime. In my mind we need to focus on what we can do that will do the most good without hurting ourselves in the process.
Economy Statistics > Child poverty (most recent) by country
VIEW DATA: Totals
Definition Source Printable version
Bar Graph Map Correlations
Showing latest available data. Rank Countries Amount (top to bottom)
#1 Mexico: 26.2
#2 United States: 22.4
#3 Italy: 20.5
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_chi_pov-economy-child-poverty
I agree fainthope, if someone died in their office they would feel all the more powerful. It's so bad.
Why do I say this? Under different circumstances but in a government office this nearly happened to me. Money means more to these people than life, whether that is the life or a baby or what have you. It's really that bad!
He was sympathetic," Angeline said, but not sympathetic enough to hold hearings. So Angeline kept fasting - for 25 days in all - until she caught an upper respiratory infection last week and a doctor told her she had to eat.
She hurt herself......and she wasn't successful.
Code Pink is way to0 serious for me. My idea would be like being "the king's fool as in the old Monarch days." You are bringing a quirky, innovatiove, symbolic message to the king in the towns and cities of the country, you are Robin Hood, The Green Man, Dionysus, Inanna, Damuze the town curandera, the midwife birthing the new baby called democracy. That sort of thing. We still have public places called parks, use them.Just sayin'
Well, the rich and the powerful have been ruling forever.
Light yourself on fire, starve yourself to death, the rich will lunch on with their chardonnay and cucumber sandwiches, bemused at the antics of the little people.
What's to be done? Elect the Hill or the Barack? Please.
It's about corporations. Stop the consumption, stop supporting your minders. Buy small and buy from your neighbor. I guarantee that election time brings big grins to the corporate titans in their private clubs in NY, London, and Beijing. 'Look at the cretians, infused with the hope that one of these puppets we've bought and paid for are going to change the game. Ain't going to happen.'
Looking for salvation? Look locally. Here ends the sermon.
With the November elections right around the corner and a little under 10 months until the administrations change, No one in congress is going to begin impeachment hearings on Cheney or Bush. It would take the media spotlight completely off the presidential candidates. The only reason why some on the hill continue to placate the likes of Code Pink and others that are calling for impeachment is to keep them in the Dem camp for the general election. Impeachment has and always will be "off the table".
MA: What makes you think so?
ANYTHING any of us can do to get impeachment hearings is worth the effort. Hearings NOW!
Does anybody know how many signors Wexler has on his letter to Conyers?
Bush gave Saddam a Fast Exit with a trap door. Will George evade justice with his own Secret Box?
Of course it's not going to happen. On the Hill, politics always trumps truth, justice and the Constitution!
Code Pink certainly have the right intentions BUT instead of attaining what they want they are hurting themselves and ultimately acquiring more resistance.
Instead of fasting for impeachment, how about fasting for an assurance that these two miscreants will be prosecuted after their terms are up?
Unrequited justice will FOREVER be pinned upon the tail of this lame duck, and follow his every butt-dragging beleaguered waddle in infamy, UNLESS … … …
the future I envision has that amazing day when the demons dogging his trail, catch his scent of justice delayed, and hone the sword upon his fall.
Namaste
The machine is broke on both sides of the aisle. To hope for impeachment is to believe that there is a driving sense of integrity and justice in our government. It isn't there and it won't be found unless someone discovers another stained blue dress. Excuse me, not even then if it is in a Republican closet.
Go Code Pink! Nobody else is doing anything. don't listen to those people who try to tell you it's impossible. when you are right, you're right, and so ya gotta fight.
We have to figure out how to overthrow this government and bring the criminals to trial. If we don't injustice triumphs. If injustice triumphs the rich and powerful will rule forever. Reactionaries have to be eliminated.