Report from Oakland Town Hall on Impeachment
By Cynthia Papermaster
CodePink presented a Town Hall the Peoples' Email Network called "The Biggest Progressive Event of the Year." So are peace and impeachment possible? The answer is "yes, no doubt about it". The goal was to mobilize the audience, mainly anti-war activists, to take action because it's up to us to make impeachment happen. The beautiful art-deco Grand Lake Theater was filled with 400 people who listened to peace and impeachment leaders call for impeaching Cheney first! for war crimes, violations of the Constitution, economic crimes and more.
The program included serious discussion and entertainment, opening with Wil b and Sean Moore, the "Political Power of Hip- Hop". David Swanson gave a riveting speech, followed by a panel discussion with Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan, and Phil Burk, an expert on impeachment procedure. Cindy is running against Nancy Pelosi in the November election so San Francisco voters will have a Representative with real "San Francisco values". SF voters and the SF Board of Supervisors voted to impeach Bush and Cheney in 2006, the last year Pelosi held a Town Hall. That's right-- she hasn't met with constituents since 2006!
Cynthia Papermaster of CodePink is organizing a California Impeachment Coalition to connect impeachment activists all over California. Over 100 members of the audience signed up. Norman Solomon showed a clip from "War Made Easy", based on his book, with Oakland Congresswoman Barbara Lee's stirring speech arguing against war on Afghanistan. She cast the only "no" vote in the House. Shirley Golub, who wants to impeach, is "On the Table" to defeat Pelosi in the June Democratic Primary. She's producing the play "I", co-written by conservative impeachment advocate Bruce Fein. "The Prosecutor" did the soliloquy from the play.
Medea Benjamin brought a CodePink chorus on stage to sing "The Pink Police" to the tune of "Someone's in the Kitchen With Dinah" substituting "someone's in the White House with George, cooking up another war. impeach them." ILWU leader Clarence Thomas urged everyone to support the statewide dock workers' work stoppage on May 1 to protest the Iraq War. Max Anderson represented the Berkeley City Council, voting in 2006 to impeach Bush and Cheney. Local impeachment leaders were honored for their tireless work. We've heard it was a fantastic evening.
- Login or register to post comments
-
- Email this page
- Printer-friendly version
- Spotlight this page
www.VelvetRevolution.us
Impeachment
Impeachment is something people will talk about to make them feel better , but they will never get enough nerve to take any action to stop them.
Bush, Cheney and their military-industrial complex grows stronger every single day that passes and they are achieving more power and control over our country and it's citizens.
If our elected democrats were really going to do anything to stop Bush and his criminal and war crimes , they would have already set in place the policies necessary to accomplish that. So in other words they are on the Bush/Cheney's military-industrial complex bandwagon , enjoying every minute of it's sucess.
We have seem how Pelosi and Reid and other democrats has jumped up and down claiming they disagree with Bush/Cheney's criminal crimes and corruption , but every time anyone has open their mouth in public to codemn their corruption, "our?" democrats have made them appologize for their statement.
If there is any action to be taken to stop Bush , Cheney , corporate takeover of our country it will have to come from the American citizens which will have to get the nerve to comdemn and stop this destruction of our country and democracy.
Global corporations first have to destroy our democracy , freedom , jobs structure and economy to control American and citizens in order to take the next step of Globalizaion of this planet as you use to read as fiction in the comic and hard back books of the past, and they are just about achieved this now.
They have everything set in place even their private mercenary army like Blackwater which took control of New Orleans in their disaster.
Bush's grandfather try to accomplish a coup on this nation but his effords failed, but it looks as if Bush has full backing of the Global corporate world with their control over the news media , which will make him succeed where his grandfather failed.
Impeachment
The only way people are going to wake up is when the truth of 9/11 slaps them in the face. This is an evil regime that will do anything it takes to globalize the planet...including the murder of 3,000 innocent civilians on 9/11. They can send 4,000 soldiers to their death over a lie, murder hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, set up secret CIA camps all over the world, torture at guantanamo, but people still believe they are not evil enough to orchestrate an attack on their own country. How we are to believe that 19 highjackers that never stood foot in the cockpit of a 747 could commit these atrocities is beyond me. Think in terms of remote control and why building 7 had to go. Wake up out there. 9/11 truth ends all wars.
"If We Fail To Impeach"
A 1984 PBS documentary entitled "Summer of Judgement: The Impeachment Hearings" included a spell binding speech made to the House Judiciary Committee by the Republican Representative Caldwell Butler of Virginia.
"If we fail to impeach we have condoned and left unpunished a course of conduct totally inconsistent with the reasonable expectations of the American people. We will have condoned a presidential course of conduct designed to interfere with and obstruct the very process he has sworn to uphold. We will have condoned and left unpunished an abuse of power totally without justification. In short, a power appears to have corrupted. It is a sad period in American history, but I cannot condone what I have heard, I cannot excuse it, and I cannot and will not stand for it" as he voted YEA for the impeachment of Nixon.
At the conclusion of the Watergate Committee proceedings James Mann issued a prophetic statement "if there be no accountability, another president will feel free to do as he chooses, but the next time there may be no watchman in the night".
Fast forward to the 110th Congress and the representatives have been relieved of their duties, impeachment is "off the table" during their term utters an about to be sworn in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and the chambers of the House Judiciary Committee go silent on impeachment as a president does what he chooses, and their Chairman John Conyers "takes a pass" on his constitutional duties.
There are no watchmen on duty in the night.
A Republican Hero in 1975
Thank you for this excellent post! Continue to speak truth to power. I have saved these quotes for future use.
If these useless meetings
Made you feel good , then everything is ok right???? WRONG!!!!!!
Bush , Cheney are arrogantly laughing their a.. off while we pay $4 $5 $6 dollars a gallon for gas , feed them our tax money to supply their war contractors , private mercensary army , foreign countries our manufacturing plants/jobs/security and economy.
Where is your democracy??? In another year or two (if that long) we will not be restricted to what we read or say on the internet, h... right now some of the information is being controlled.