THINKING FOR OURSELVES

Beyond Congress

By Shea Howell

Michigan Citizen, Nov.11-17, 2007

Last week I was at Oregon State University in Corvallis to hear Detroit activist-writer Grace Lee Boggs give this year’s Pauling Memorial Lecture. Her theme was “Active Citizenship.” In the course of talking about her own political journey, the current crisis and the challenges we face she said: “The crisis of the Iraq occupation and of the imperial presidency of George W. Bush call for impeaching a president and vice-president who have been systematically expanding the powers of the executive, have subverted the U.S.,Constitution and are also violating international laws, the sovereignty of other nations and the sanctity of individual rights and liberties.”

This call for impeachment brought the audience of nearly 1500 people to its feet in loud, sustained applause.

Such a spontaneous, heartfelt response deserves consideration. What is it about the call for impeachment that resonates throughout this country?

Many of us realize that the U.S. is currently one of the most destabilizing nations on the planet. Our leaders control vast, destructive power that they are willing to use everywhere. They have no decent respect for the opinions of humankind, the will of the majority of their fellow citizens nor the laws and practices that have evolved to govern international relationships.

The impeachment of Bush and Cheney is the single most important tool we have to establish some restraint on an executive that has used fear to turn our country into a nation despised by much of the world. Impeachment is a step toward recreating an active democracy inside the U.S.

Dennis Kucinich, Democratic candidate for President, understands this.

This week he introduced a privileged resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. This parliamentary maneuver allows him to circumvent the Democratic leadership that opposes voting on the measure.

“The best option to prevent an unnecessary war with Iran,” Kucinich said, “is to impeach the Vice President, the lead cheerleader of the war. The Constitution gave Congress the power to impeach. Congress must use its power to restrain the Administration and impeach the Vice President before he prods the United States into another war.”

Twenty-one other Congress members joined Kucinich, The only one from Michigan was Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick. We should applaud Kucinich’s effort and hope that each of the supporters of the bill invokes similar tactics to keep impeachment alive in Congress. But we have to face a deeper crisis.

After Boggs’ speech a women asked “Do we have to wait on Congress to impeach Bush-Cheney?” Clearly we cannot depend on Congress to do the right thing. Most Democrats are so caught up in wanting to win that they have forgotten that the point of power is to use it for the common good, not to protect your job.

We need to create a citizen-based impeachment. Already more than 100 municipalities, including Detroit, have passed resolutions in support of impeachment. We need to pass such resolutions in every gathering we attend, every association or organization we belong to.

Churches, professional meetings, universities, community groups and civic boards all need to go on record for impeachment. And we need to begin to hold some public impeachment hearings of our own so that we can engage with one another about what we believe to be the proper roles of the Executive and of Congress. We need to establish new principles to guide our engagement with the world community.

The most important thing about impeachment is not what it would do to Bush and Cheney, but what it would do to and for us. We have a unique responsibility to create a new, living democracy. Clearly, the one we have doesn’t work.

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