Impeachment by the People

Impeachment by the People

By Howard Zinn

AlterNet, Posted on February 3, 2007

http://www.alternet.org/story/47467/

Courage is in short supply in Washington, D.C. The realities of the Iraq War
cry out for the overthrow of a government that is criminally responsible for
death, mutilation, torture, humiliation, chaos.

But all we hear in the nation's capital, which is the source of those
catastrophes, is a whimper from the Democratic Party, muttering and
nattering about "unity" and "bipartisanship," in a situation that calls for
bold action to immediately reverse the present course.

These are the Democrats who were brought to power in November by an
electorate fed up with the war, furious at the Bush Administration, and
counting on the new majority in Congress to represent the voters.

But if sanity is to be restored in our national policies, it can only come
about by a great popular upheaval, pushing both Republicans and Democrats
into compliance with the national will.

The Declaration of Independence, revered as a document but ignored as a
guide to action, needs to be read from pulpits and podiums, on street
corners and community radio stations throughout the nation. Its words,
forgotten for over two centuries, need to become a call to action for the
first time since it was read aloud to crowds in the early excited days of
the American Revolution: "Whenever any form of government becomes
destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish
it and institute new government."

The "ends" referred to in the Declaration are the equal right of all to
"life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." True, no government in the
history of the nation has been faithful to those ends. Favors for the rich,
neglect of the poor, massive violence in the interest of continental and
world expansion -that is the persistent record of our government.

Still, there seems to be a special viciousness that accompanies the current
assault on human rights, in this country and in the world. We have had
repressive governments before, but none has legislated the end of habeas
corpus, nor openly supported torture, nor declared the possibility of war
without end. No government has so casually ignored the will of the people,
affirmed the right of the president to ignore the Constitution, even to set
aside laws passed by Congress.

The time is right, then, for a national campaign calling for the impeachment
of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.

Representative John Conyers, who held extensive hearings and introduced an
impeachment resolution when the Republicans controlled Congress, is now head
of the House Judiciary Committee and in a position to fight for such a
resolution. He has apparently been silenced by his Democratic colleagues who
throw out as nuggets of wisdom the usual political palaver about "realism"
(while ignoring the realities staring them in the face) and politics being
"the art of the possible" (while setting limits on what is possible).

I know I'm not the first to talk about impeachment. Indeed, judging by the
public opinion polls, there are millions of Americans, indeed a majority of
those polled, who declare themselves in favor if it is shown that the
President lied us into war (a fact that is not debatable).

There are at least a half-dozen books out on impeachment, and it's been
argued for eloquently by some of our finest journalists, John Nichols and
Lewis Lapham among them. Indeed, an actual "indictment" has been drawn up by
a former federal prosecutor, Elizabeth de la Vega, in a new book called
United States v. George W. Bush et al, making a case, in devastating detail,
to a fictional grand jury.

There is a logical next step in this development of an impeachment movement:
the convening of "people's impeachment hearings" all over the country. This
is especially important given the timidity of the Democratic Party. Such
hearings would bypass Congress, which is not representing the will of the
people, and would constitute an inspiring example of grassroots democracy.

These hearings would be the contemporary equivalents of the unofficial
gatherings that marked the resistance to the British Crown in the years
leading up to the American Revolution. The story of the American Revolution
is usually built around Lexington and Concord, around the battles and the
Founding Fathers. What is forgotten is that the American colonists, unable
to count on redress of their grievances from the official bodies of
government, took matters into their own hands, even before the first battles
of the Revolutionary War.

In 1772, town meetings in Massachusetts began setting up Committees of
Correspondence, and the following year, such a committee was set up in
Virginia. The first Continental Congress, beginning to meet in 1774, was a
recognition that an extralegal body was necessary to represent the interests
of the people. In 1774 and 1775, all through the colonies, parallel
institutions were set up outside the official governmental bodies.

Throughout the nation's history, the failure of government to deliver
justice has led to the establishment of grassroots organizations, often ad
hoc, dissolving after their purpose was fulfilled. For instance, after
passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, knowing that the national government
could not be counted on to repeal the act, black and white anti-slavery
groups organized to nullify the law by acts of civil disobedience. They held
meetings, made plans, and set about rescuing escaped slaves who were in
danger of being returned to their masters.

In the desperate economic conditions of 1933 and 1934, before the Roosevelt
Administration was doing anything to help people in distress, local groups
were formed all over the country to demand government action. Unemployed
Councils came into being, tenants' groups fought evictions, and hundreds of
thousands of people in the country formed self-help organizations to
exchange goods and services and enable people to survive.

More recently, we recall the peace groups of the 1980s, which sprang up in
hundreds of communities all over the country, and provoked city councils and
state legislatures to pass resolutions in favor of a freeze on nuclear
weapons. And local organizations have succeeded in getting more than 400
city councils to take a stand against the Patriot Act.

Impeachment hearings all over the country could excite and energize the
peace movement. They would make headlines, and could push reluctant members
of Congress in both parties to do what the Constitution provides for and
what the present circumstances demand: the impeachment and removal from
office of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Simply raising the issue in hundreds
of communities and Congressional districts would have a healthy effect, and
would be a sign that democracy, despite all attempts to destroy it in this
era of war, is still alive.

For information on how to get involved in the impeachment effort, go to
After Downing Street.

Howard Zinn is the author, most recently, of "A Power Governments Cannot
Suppress" published by City Lights Books.