Dennis Kucinich is introducing a bill with Articles of Impeachment against George W. Bush. Conyers already presented the bogus argument that there wasn't enough time to impeach Cheney last year so we can expect to hear the same baloney from him about the Bush impeachment. However there is plenty of time as impeachment can be completed in four months as Clinton's was.
The most important reason for impeachment now is not remove Bush in order to get a new leadership but to establish the historical record for the deterrence and prevention of Bush-like tyrants in the future.
I am very grateful for Kucinich doing this now and I hope it becomes a campaign issue in every Congressional district.
When we see Conyers saying, "There isn’t the time here for it." Let him know you know he is lying. Of course there is time. And of course Conyers will be doing everything in his power to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy by his own delaying tactics. I call this playing a desperation card because it is so lacking in substance. It is nothing more than B.S., i.e.,blowing smoke.
Why isn't there time? The history of recent impeachments show that there is time. According to the History Place article on Nixon's impeachment, Sen. Sam Ervin began the Watergate investigation in February of 1973 for the purpose of investigating all of the events surrounding Watergate and other allegations of political spying and sabotage After a nearly year-long court battle over the release of Nixon's tapes, the three articles of impeachment against Nixon were approved by the House judiciary committee on the three days of July 27, 29, and 30, 1974. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Thus, impeachment achieved its purpose from the beginning of the investigation to resignation in 18 months. But most of that time was the court battle over the tapes. For Bush there is no foreseeable reason for such a protracted delay of Bush's impeachment investigation to be held up in the courts.
All the evidence against Bush is already in the public domain. Testimony like McClellan's will only be icing on the cake. The evidence merely needs to be presented at a judiciary committee in an organized fashion to create the record for preferring the charges to the Senate. There are 6 months left in Bush's presidency and with no need for an original investigation like Watergate to occur we have plenty enough time, if the Democrats don't put up the road blocks.
In fact there was no time consuming preliminary investigation conducted by the House in Clinton's impeachment. According to the History Place entry on Clinton's impeachment, impeachment proceedings were initiated on October 8, 1998. The House and the Judiciary Committee did not need to conduct original investigations itself and instead relied upon testimony presented at the committee hearings. The Judiciary Committee sent a list of 81 questions to Clinton for him to either admit or deny under oath, and his responses then became the basis for one of the articles of impeachment. The committee voted on articles of impeachment on December 11, 1998, and upon the passage of H. Res. 611, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the full House of Representatives. And the Senate trial lasted from January 7, 1999, until February 12, 1999. Thus, the impeachment and trial of Clinton took only four months. We have that much time.
There are books already published with the allegations of Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors. It would only take a relatively short time to present the case for impeachment by the appropriate witnesses to introduce the events and facts in these books as evidence. It should/could/would take only two or three months for the House to vote on articles of impeachment.
If started before Bush leaves office it might be able to continue weven after he leaves.
If delays are created by the Democrats or Republicans, there is also the question of whether or not impeachment would be made moot by the end of Bush's term. In other words, the Constitution may allow impeachment of a president even after he has left office.
Certainly it is arguable that if impeachment proceedings are begun while the president is in office, because Article I Section 3 of the Constitution provides that judgement may extend to "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" that an impeachment is not made moot simply by the president leaving office, because a judgement disqualifying Bush from future office would still be an effective punishment that is not made moot by his leaving office by the end of the term.
When Nixon resigned the impeachment hearings were stopped because it was seen that his resignation was punishment enough. But if Bush didn't resign, as we know he wouldn't, if he stays through his term and is simply out of office by the time running out, then he would escape all punishment, so as I see it in order to have a punishment, since removal form office would be moot, the punishment that would be available is the disqualification clause. I would argue that leaving office would make impeachment moot only if the removal from office clause were the only punishment available. Since the disqualification clause is an additional punishment I believe impeachment would not be moot if Bush leaves office on January 21, 2009.
This is an interesting Constitutional question that I have not seen specifically addressed yet. If anyone knows references to this question please post them.
And besides, even if the Republicans could delay a vote on impeachment until January 2009 and that would make impeachment constitutionally moot, impeachment proceedings would still have been the right thing to do and in the name of upholding the rule of law. Conyers and Pelosi act like they doesn't understand that the rule of law is an even more important legacy than whether or not Bush is able to run out the clock. By putting impeachment on the table now, the Democrats finally would be saying that no matter how close to the end of a term a president is, he or she can't escape the checks and balances of our Constitutional democracy.
However, by refusing to allow impeachment proceedings to go forward, it is Conyers and the Democrats who would be preventing justice and it is Conyers and he Democrats who are thumbing their noses at our Constitutional system of protections. It is Conyers and the Democrats who are letting a criminal President literally get away with murder. It is Conyers and the Democrats who are establishing the precedent that a president doesn't have to worry in the least about committing high crimes and misdemeanors if he is near the end of his term.
If the People's sovereignty is not upheld at the very minimum by at least having a hearing of the impeachment charges against George Bush, who is arguably the worst criminal president in our history, then Conyers and the Democratic Party are the one's who should be held responsible and accountable for aiding and abetting Bush's crimes. Not only that, they will be laying the foundation for the future crimes of future presidents even yet to be born. Unless Congress takes impeachment seriously, they will be sending a message to all future Presidents that the days of being held accountable re over. That is the open door to fascism.
We are always hearing how the delusional Bush claims that history will show he ws right and the people are wrong. Impeachment is the best and necessary way to write the initial historical record today that will be used in the future to document that Bush is the worst President in US history.
Showing posts with label impeach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label impeach. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Votes and Vetos
Portside Tidbits
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007
From: Gregory Wonderwheel
Subject: Votes and Vetos.
A veto by any other name is just as effective. The
Democrats are using a double standard when is comes to
impeachement of Bush and funding the war on Iraq. When
it comes to impeachment, the Dems are vetoing putting
the measure forward because they say they don't have
the votes to pass it. Yet when it comes to funding the
war they put if forward becasue they say they don't
have the votes to override a veto.
In practice, the Congress doesn't have to worry about
the presidential veto if they exercise their "veto" of
the funding bill in the same way that they veto
impeachment. The President's funding bills are
effectively "vetoed" if Congress just doesn't let any
funding measures out of committee. While the Democrats
can't vote to override a veto, they should be able to
not vote at all as long as funds are for continuing the
war and thus their veto defunds the war.
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007
From: Gregory Wonderwheel
Subject: Votes and Vetos.
A veto by any other name is just as effective. The
Democrats are using a double standard when is comes to
impeachement of Bush and funding the war on Iraq. When
it comes to impeachment, the Dems are vetoing putting
the measure forward because they say they don't have
the votes to pass it. Yet when it comes to funding the
war they put if forward becasue they say they don't
have the votes to override a veto.
In practice, the Congress doesn't have to worry about
the presidential veto if they exercise their "veto" of
the funding bill in the same way that they veto
impeachment. The President's funding bills are
effectively "vetoed" if Congress just doesn't let any
funding measures out of committee. While the Democrats
can't vote to override a veto, they should be able to
not vote at all as long as funds are for continuing the
war and thus their veto defunds the war.
Friday, August 31, 2007
For (small d) democrats Impeachment Is the Issue of the Day
Why should you care? Well, because in a democracy the People are sovereign. Think about that. It means that there is no king, queen, nobility, or anyone who has a greater authority to say what kind of nation we will be. You are as equally in control of this country as any other voter. Sure your control is "diluted" in ratio to the number of voters, but it is still your control.
It is the apathy and disorganized mental condition that propaganda creates that allows people like George Bush and Nancy Pelosi to take your sovereign control from you, because you are isolated in your thinking processes. We are only one election away from a change in any direction! If overnight, a majority got tuned-in to the same thought waves and voted for real change, real honesty, real compassion, then the country would change. But fear prevents it, and the fear is created by the propaganda system that is maintained and supported by both the Republicans and the Democratic parties.
The Democratic leadership, like Pelosi, need to be spanked. It is not that they "don't get it." They get it quite nicely, thank you. They get it that they can keep in power by distraction, by pretense, so they never have to deliver the goods. If they keep the big bad Republicans as the fall guy then they can keep the show going. And the political show they perform is no more real than professional wrestling. Sure they get real bruises, but it is all choreographed with the gentleman's agreement that at the end of the day the system won't be changed so that the program can continue next week.
Here is a hopeful sign that the grassroots are awakening. Dave Lindorff in his Counterpunch column titled "Excuse Us, Nancy Pelosi" passed along a letter from Kathy Ember, a Democratic Committee member in Pennsylvania, and president of the Kutztown Democratic Club.
That's clear enough. But the Democratic leadership still believes it can ride the tiger's tail and not be accountable to the grassroots.
Look at the numbers. After being elected in sea change of party control, the Democratic leadership has now steered Congress into an historically low approval rating!
We have to assume the Democratic Party leadership is not "stupid." So why don't they "seem" to care? As I see it, their tunnel vision fixation on maintaining the two-party power sharing system with the Republicans means that they will not dare to do anything that would rock the structural boat. Of course, as the Clinton impeachment showed, the Republicans have no such qualms when it comes to exercising power. In fact the Republicans relish in such power plays because they know that as long as they can maintain that they are acting on their principles, that their base won't abandon them. They know that like a battered wife, the Democrats are too frightened to pull the plug on the two-party marriage of convenience. The Democrats on the other hand do not have any clear "principles" and would not assert them if they did because to do so would threaten the marriage.
So why should you care? Because if you don't care you are letting your country be ruled by people who don't care about your freedom. When the principle of the rule of law becomes a mere political expedient, then every other principle is a mere sham. If you don't care, then you are supporting the two-party dictatorship that has usurped the sovereignty of the people every bit as much as the one-party dictatorships do. Because in the end, while the two-party dictatorship allows for more "play" or "slack" in the totalitarian control, it maintains the limits of that control just as rigorously.
So when the grassroots can be manipulated to put the Democrats into majority in Congress, still the Democrats will do nothing to support the principles of democracy held by the grassroots if it looks like to do so would rock the boat of political bureaucracy. To say it another way, the Clinton impeachment achieved its purpose to hamstring Clinton without hamstringing the money behind the presidency and Congress. If Bush were to be impeached, the situation is different, because that would threaten the money behind the Congress and the presidency. It would threaten the war profits, the oil profits, and the political profits that profit the Democrats just as much as the Republicans.
Now let's look at how this factors into the excuses that John Conyers says publicly. I believe that Conyers, if left to decide for himself, would put impeachment on the table, but I also believe that Conyers is,if nothing else, a loyal person and his loyalty extends directly to the Democratic Party leadership who has stated clearly that impeachment is off the table. In that situation, Conyers won't contradict Pelosi, and instead he provides her with excuses.
So what does Conyers say? In his recent interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, Conyers offers up once again the usual lame excuses.
This is their key strategy point. They actually argue that the Democrats have a better chance in the 2008 elections if they do not pursue impeachment. I think Ember's letter and the Gallup Poll approval ratings demonstrate how hollow that strategy is.
Well, actually, until the Iraq war is closed down, the Congress too should be closed down for other business. That's not hyperbole. We are in the midst of perpetrating an ongoing criminal enterprise in Iraq. It is bad enough that we are stealing their resources and high jacking their vehicle of democratic self-determination, but we, by our presence as a hostile invading and occupying force, are the primary proximate cause of the thousands of thousands of civilian deaths, whether or not our troops are pulling the trigger.
Instead of reversing the war, the Democrats have continued to fund the war. Instead of reversing the Patriot Act Democrats have supported continuing unAmerican surveillance of citizens. Instead of reversing the flight of business, Democrats have supported enhanced trade with China. The list goes on and on. One wonders what the Democrats are crowing about when they claim to have reversed anything?
This question about counting votes prior to impeachment investigation has not been clarified by Conyers. Is he actually talking about the 218 votes necessary to simply refer the matter of impeachment to his committee or is he talking about the 218 votes needed to adopt articles of impeachment after they might be recommended by the committee?
If the latter then it is a red herring at best, because then Conyers is pretending that the Nixon precedent has no educational value. Impeachment proceedings led to Nixon's resignation without the House ever voting on the bill of impeachment. Why? Because it was the hearings themselves that became convincing. More recently, we have seen Rove and Gonzales resign when the heat of investigations got too close. Impeachment hearings would shed light on the facts and create the opportunity for people to see the truth and identify why impeachment is warranted.
In our system of impeachment, the impeachment investigation is not supposed to start out with 218 votes in favor of impeachment itself. If Conyers is using this line of "not having 218 votes" as not having 218 votes in favor of impeachment, then Conyers is deliberately misleading the American people about the fundamental purpose of impeachment hearings which are to hear and decide whether to recommend or dismiss any action on impeachment to the full House.
The committee hearings should begin when there is simply enough probable cause to believe the president might have committed "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Under usual House Practice (see Section 6, page 540):
The House website on how bills work describes the usual hopper method in this way:
So, Putting those two sources together, it looks like impeachment would need to get an initial 218 votes for referral to committee only if the hopper method was not used. According to the House website, the hopper method is a routine referral to committee, if the Speaker approves the referral.
It appears that Speaker Pelosi is personally preventing the usual hopper method for referral to committee and that is what she means by "not on the table." Why has Conyers or the reporters interviewing him not made this clear? Thus it requires a resolution under constitutional privilege and 218 votes to refer impeachment to the committee only in order to get around Speaker Pelosi's apparent block at the hopper.
To get past Pelosi's block, the question is not about 218 votes to impeach, but about 218 votes to refer to committee for hearings on a recommendation or dismissal of impeachment charges. Any Representative who doesn't vote to refer the question to the committee is voting against impeachment even before the committee is allowed to put evidence on the record. That is a very hard vote to justify, because it is saying there should be no impeachment no matter what evidence is presented or what he has done. For example, the vote to refer to committee the impeachment charges against Nixon was 410 to 4. But after the hearings and the evidence only 6 of the committee's 17 Republicans voted to recommend articles of impeachment to the full House. Thus 11 Republicans still voted against. But only 4 voted against referral. So that shows that even though they were against impeachment when it mattered, they wouldn't vote against impeachment merely being referred to committee.
A representative who voted against even considering the evidence would be voting against a fair process and a hearing on the charges, not against articles of impeachment themselves. If that's the way they want to vote, then let them try to justify that to their constituents. Which way would Conyers and Pelosi vote?
If the chips were down and 218 would not support even a referral to committee, then those who didn't would really have their reelections put into jeopardy by impeachment becoming the central issue of their reelection. That is presumably the real reason that Pelosi doesn't want to put even the referral vote to the House.
After the evidence is in, a Representative can say he or she has reviewed the evidence and does or doesn't believe impeachment is warranted. But realistically, before even one item of evidence is considered, how many Representatives are not going to vote simply to refer the matter to the committee? As long as the Democratic leadership prevents the vote then we, the People, will never know. We will not have the Representative's vote as a matter of public record, no matter what Conyers' calculator is secretly whispering in his ear.
The committee hearings develop the evidence that should lead to the votes, not the other way around. After referral to the Judiciary Committee, the committee votes on the articles first, and then presents them to the full House. It is the presentation to the Judiciary Committee that organizes the evidence and forms the basis for writing the specific language for the articles of impeachment that then require a majority vote of the committee in order to put them before the full House.
By claiming to require 218 votes before he even allows the vote to refer to committee to be considered, Conyers is acting to close off an investigation before it can be started. It is not hard to think of a law enforcement metaphor that prevents an investigation. For example this is like the policemen who believes no jury would convict the perpetrator because he is an important member of the community, so the cop doesn't investigate and never hands over a report to the DA. If a majority of the House of Representatives is so bold as to vote against the basic idea of having a committee review whether there is enough evidence for impeachment or not, then the People need to know their names.
It appears that Conyers and the Democratic Party leadership are preventing a vote even on referral to committee in order to allow those who are against even considering impeachment from being exposed to public scrutiny and accountability.
If after the presentation of the evidence, there are not 218 votes to pass a bill of Impeachment to the Senate, then the Constitution has done its job, i.e., the prosecutor has reviewed the evidence and found it wanting. But until hearings are done and an actual bill containing articles of impeachment is up for a vote before the House, constituents throughout the nation just do not have the basis or avenue for lobbying their individual Representatives to vote for or against impeachment.
The Democrats and Conyers have established a shell game of excuses. Conyers is standing in the way of the voters and preventing us from weighing in on impeachment through our representatives by keeping impeachment off the table so our representatives can rebuff us by saying Conyers won't let it get on the table. Until there is a vote, each representative can hide behind the screen of obscurity. If there are not 218 Representatives who would even vote to refer impeachment to the Judiciary Committee, then that would end the matter quickly, the People would know who they are, and the People could decide if they should be reelected in 2008.
So, why doesn't Conyers remember that Sam Ervin also didn't want to investigate Nixon until he was forced by public pressure? If it took public pressure on Ervin it will take public pressure on Conyers as well.
Now we see Conyers playing the card of desperation by saying, "There isn’t the time here for it." Is that a hoot or what? Of course there is time. And of course he is doing everything in his power to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy by his own delaying tactics. I call this playing a desperation card because it is so lacking in substance. It is nothing more than B.S., i.e.,blowing smoke.
Why isn't there time? According to the History Place article on Nixon's impeachment, Sen. Sam Ervin began the Watergate investigation in February of 1973 for the purpose of investigating all of the events surrounding Watergate and other allegations of political spying and sabotage After a nearly year-long court battle over the release of Nixon's tapes, the three articles of impeachment against Nixon were approved by the House judiciary committee on the three days of July 27, 29, and 30, 1974. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Thus, impeachment achieved its purpose from the beginning of the investigation to resignation in 18 months. There is no foreseeable reason for such a protracted delay of Bush's impeachment investigation in the courts. All the evidence against Bush is already in the public domain. It merely needs to be presented at a judiciary committee in an organized fashion to create the record. There are 17 months left in Bush's presidency and with no need for an original investigation like Watergate to occur we have plenty enough time.
In fact there was no preliminary investigation conducted by the House in Clinton's impeachment. According to the History Place entry on Clinton's impeachment, impeachment proceedings were initiated on October 8, 1998. The House and the Judiciary Committee did not need to conduct original investigations itself and instead relied upon testimony presented at the committee hearings. The Judiciary Committee sent a list of 81 questions to Clinton for him to either admit or deny under oath, and his responses then became the basis for one of the articles of impeachment. The committee voted on articles of impeachment on December 11, 1998, and upon the passage of H. Res. 611, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the full House of Representatives. And the Senate trial lasted from January 7, 1999, until February 12, 1999. Thus, the impeachment and trial of Clinton took only four months. We have that much time.
There are books already published with the allegations of Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors. It would only take a relatively short time to present the case for impeachment by the appropriate witnesses. It should take only three or at most four months for the House to vote on articles of impeachment, but even if it took nine months, there would still be enough time for a Senate trial and impeachment would be worth it.
There is also the question of whether or not impeachment would be made moot by the end of Bush's term. In other words, the Constitution may allow impeachment of a president even after he has left office. Certainly it is arguable that if impeachment proceedings are begun while the president is in office, because Article I Section 3 of the Constitution provides that judgement may extend to "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" that an impeachment is not made moot simply by the president leaving office, because the judgement disqualifying from future office would still be an effective punishment. I would argue that leaving office would make impeachment moot only if removal from office were the only judgement available. [This is an interesting Constitutional question that I haven't researched yet. If anyone knows references to this question please email me.]
And besides, even if the Republicans could delay a vote on impeachment until January 2009 and that would make impeachment constitutionally moot, impeachment proceedings would still have been the right thing to do and in the name of upholding the rule of law. Conyers acts like he doesn't understand that the rule of law is an even more important legacy than whether or not Bush is able to run out the clock. By putting impeachment on the table now, Conyers would be saying that no matter how close to the end of a term a president is, he or she can't escape the checks and balances of our Constitutional democracy. However, by refusing to allow impeachment proceedings to go forward, it is Conyers who is preventing justice and it is Conyers who is thumbing his nose at our Constitutional system of protections. It is Conyers who is letting a criminal president get away with murder. It is Conyers who is establishing the precedent that a president doesn't have to worry in the least about committing high crimes and misdemeanors if he is near the end of his term.
If the People's sovereignty is not upheld at the very minimum by at least having hearing of the impeachment charges against George Bush, who is arguably the worst criminal president in our history, then Conyers and the Democratic Party are the one's who should be held responsible and accountable for aiding and abetting Bush's crimes. Not only that, they will be laying the foundation for the future crimes of future presidents even yet to be born.
It is the apathy and disorganized mental condition that propaganda creates that allows people like George Bush and Nancy Pelosi to take your sovereign control from you, because you are isolated in your thinking processes. We are only one election away from a change in any direction! If overnight, a majority got tuned-in to the same thought waves and voted for real change, real honesty, real compassion, then the country would change. But fear prevents it, and the fear is created by the propaganda system that is maintained and supported by both the Republicans and the Democratic parties.
The Democratic leadership, like Pelosi, need to be spanked. It is not that they "don't get it." They get it quite nicely, thank you. They get it that they can keep in power by distraction, by pretense, so they never have to deliver the goods. If they keep the big bad Republicans as the fall guy then they can keep the show going. And the political show they perform is no more real than professional wrestling. Sure they get real bruises, but it is all choreographed with the gentleman's agreement that at the end of the day the system won't be changed so that the program can continue next week.
Here is a hopeful sign that the grassroots are awakening. Dave Lindorff in his Counterpunch column titled "Excuse Us, Nancy Pelosi" passed along a letter from Kathy Ember, a Democratic Committee member in Pennsylvania, and president of the Kutztown Democratic Club.
I am the president of a very active grassroots Democratic club just outside Philadelphia in PA. Recently, I got an email from Nancy Pelosi, asking all of us to help build the grassroots.
EXCUSE me Nancy, but we have been working our butts off out here for years trying to do just that. WE are the ones that put that Democrats back in power in Congress. We've been there for you, but you have let us down by not holding the current administration responsible for their crimes.
Not only are you losing us...you are making it impossible for us to "build the grassroots". Do you know how people look at you now when you ask them to join the Democrats? They laugh in your face. Why, they want to know, should we join or support a party that has done nothing toward getting out of Iraq or impeaching this president?
I am in contact with other Democratic clubs across PA. Some have recently changed the word "Democrats" in their name to a lower case "d". Others have abandoned their association with the Democrats altogether and have formed instead "citizen action groups."
When will the Democrats in Washington wake up and realize that it's not impeachment that will hurt the party...it is the lack of it.
That's clear enough. But the Democratic leadership still believes it can ride the tiger's tail and not be accountable to the grassroots.
Look at the numbers. After being elected in sea change of party control, the Democratic leadership has now steered Congress into an historically low approval rating!
August 21, 2007
Congress Approval Rating Matches Historical Low
Just 18% approve of job Congress is doing
by Jeffrey M. Jones
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE
PRINCETON, NJ -- A new Gallup Poll finds Congress' approval rating the lowest it has been since Gallup first tracked public opinion of Congress with this measure in 1974. Just 18% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, while 76% disapprove, according to the August 13-16, 2007, Gallup Poll.
We have to assume the Democratic Party leadership is not "stupid." So why don't they "seem" to care? As I see it, their tunnel vision fixation on maintaining the two-party power sharing system with the Republicans means that they will not dare to do anything that would rock the structural boat. Of course, as the Clinton impeachment showed, the Republicans have no such qualms when it comes to exercising power. In fact the Republicans relish in such power plays because they know that as long as they can maintain that they are acting on their principles, that their base won't abandon them. They know that like a battered wife, the Democrats are too frightened to pull the plug on the two-party marriage of convenience. The Democrats on the other hand do not have any clear "principles" and would not assert them if they did because to do so would threaten the marriage.
So why should you care? Because if you don't care you are letting your country be ruled by people who don't care about your freedom. When the principle of the rule of law becomes a mere political expedient, then every other principle is a mere sham. If you don't care, then you are supporting the two-party dictatorship that has usurped the sovereignty of the people every bit as much as the one-party dictatorships do. Because in the end, while the two-party dictatorship allows for more "play" or "slack" in the totalitarian control, it maintains the limits of that control just as rigorously.
So when the grassroots can be manipulated to put the Democrats into majority in Congress, still the Democrats will do nothing to support the principles of democracy held by the grassroots if it looks like to do so would rock the boat of political bureaucracy. To say it another way, the Clinton impeachment achieved its purpose to hamstring Clinton without hamstringing the money behind the presidency and Congress. If Bush were to be impeached, the situation is different, because that would threaten the money behind the Congress and the presidency. It would threaten the war profits, the oil profits, and the political profits that profit the Democrats just as much as the Republicans.
Now let's look at how this factors into the excuses that John Conyers says publicly. I believe that Conyers, if left to decide for himself, would put impeachment on the table, but I also believe that Conyers is,if nothing else, a loyal person and his loyalty extends directly to the Democratic Party leadership who has stated clearly that impeachment is off the table. In that situation, Conyers won't contradict Pelosi, and instead he provides her with excuses.
So what does Conyers say? In his recent interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, Conyers offers up once again the usual lame excuses.
We also are trying to make sure that we don’t bring resolutions or hearings that would put the election in jeopardy.
This is their key strategy point. They actually argue that the Democrats have a better chance in the 2008 elections if they do not pursue impeachment. I think Ember's letter and the Gallup Poll approval ratings demonstrate how hollow that strategy is.
We could close down the Congress -- I have been in more impeachment hearings than anybody in the House or the Senate. And our legislative attempts to reverse so many things would come to a stop.
Well, actually, until the Iraq war is closed down, the Congress too should be closed down for other business. That's not hyperbole. We are in the midst of perpetrating an ongoing criminal enterprise in Iraq. It is bad enough that we are stealing their resources and high jacking their vehicle of democratic self-determination, but we, by our presence as a hostile invading and occupying force, are the primary proximate cause of the thousands of thousands of civilian deaths, whether or not our troops are pulling the trigger.
Instead of reversing the war, the Democrats have continued to fund the war. Instead of reversing the Patriot Act Democrats have supported continuing unAmerican surveillance of citizens. Instead of reversing the flight of business, Democrats have supported enhanced trade with China. The list goes on and on. One wonders what the Democrats are crowing about when they claim to have reversed anything?
AMY GOODMAN: Why would impeachment hearings put the election in jeopardy?
REP. JOHN CONYERS: Well, because unless I’ve got the Constitution in one hand and a calculator in the other, so I’ve got any kind of hearings on removing both the President and the Vice President -- or putting it in reverse, remove the Vice President and then the President -- within the months remaining, would require 218 votes in the House of Representatives. That’s my calculator giving me this information. And then, in the Senate we need two-thirds to convict. Notwithstanding all of my progressive friends that would love to see me start impeachment hearings, those votes I do not think exist in the House of Representatives or in the US Senate.
This question about counting votes prior to impeachment investigation has not been clarified by Conyers. Is he actually talking about the 218 votes necessary to simply refer the matter of impeachment to his committee or is he talking about the 218 votes needed to adopt articles of impeachment after they might be recommended by the committee?
If the latter then it is a red herring at best, because then Conyers is pretending that the Nixon precedent has no educational value. Impeachment proceedings led to Nixon's resignation without the House ever voting on the bill of impeachment. Why? Because it was the hearings themselves that became convincing. More recently, we have seen Rove and Gonzales resign when the heat of investigations got too close. Impeachment hearings would shed light on the facts and create the opportunity for people to see the truth and identify why impeachment is warranted.
In our system of impeachment, the impeachment investigation is not supposed to start out with 218 votes in favor of impeachment itself. If Conyers is using this line of "not having 218 votes" as not having 218 votes in favor of impeachment, then Conyers is deliberately misleading the American people about the fundamental purpose of impeachment hearings which are to hear and decide whether to recommend or dismiss any action on impeachment to the full House.
The committee hearings should begin when there is simply enough probable cause to believe the president might have committed "high crimes and misdemeanors."
Under usual House Practice (see Section 6, page 540):
In most cases, impeachment proceedings in the House have been initiated either by introducing resolutions of impeachment by placing them in the hopper, or by offering charges in a resolution on the floor of the House under a question of constitutional privilege. Deschler Ch.14 Sec.5.
The House website on how bills work describes the usual hopper method in this way:
Introduction and Referral to Committee
Any Member in the House of Representatives may introduce a bill at any time while the House is in session by simply placing it in the "hopper" provided for the purpose at the side of the Clerk's desk in the House Chamber. The sponsor's signature must appear on the bill. A public bill may have an unlimited number of co-sponsoring Members. The bill is assigned its legislative number by the Clerk and referred to the appropriate committee by the Speaker, with the assistance of the Parliamentarian. (Emphasis added)
So, Putting those two sources together, it looks like impeachment would need to get an initial 218 votes for referral to committee only if the hopper method was not used. According to the House website, the hopper method is a routine referral to committee, if the Speaker approves the referral.
It appears that Speaker Pelosi is personally preventing the usual hopper method for referral to committee and that is what she means by "not on the table." Why has Conyers or the reporters interviewing him not made this clear? Thus it requires a resolution under constitutional privilege and 218 votes to refer impeachment to the committee only in order to get around Speaker Pelosi's apparent block at the hopper.
To get past Pelosi's block, the question is not about 218 votes to impeach, but about 218 votes to refer to committee for hearings on a recommendation or dismissal of impeachment charges. Any Representative who doesn't vote to refer the question to the committee is voting against impeachment even before the committee is allowed to put evidence on the record. That is a very hard vote to justify, because it is saying there should be no impeachment no matter what evidence is presented or what he has done. For example, the vote to refer to committee the impeachment charges against Nixon was 410 to 4. But after the hearings and the evidence only 6 of the committee's 17 Republicans voted to recommend articles of impeachment to the full House. Thus 11 Republicans still voted against. But only 4 voted against referral. So that shows that even though they were against impeachment when it mattered, they wouldn't vote against impeachment merely being referred to committee.
A representative who voted against even considering the evidence would be voting against a fair process and a hearing on the charges, not against articles of impeachment themselves. If that's the way they want to vote, then let them try to justify that to their constituents. Which way would Conyers and Pelosi vote?
If the chips were down and 218 would not support even a referral to committee, then those who didn't would really have their reelections put into jeopardy by impeachment becoming the central issue of their reelection. That is presumably the real reason that Pelosi doesn't want to put even the referral vote to the House.
After the evidence is in, a Representative can say he or she has reviewed the evidence and does or doesn't believe impeachment is warranted. But realistically, before even one item of evidence is considered, how many Representatives are not going to vote simply to refer the matter to the committee? As long as the Democratic leadership prevents the vote then we, the People, will never know. We will not have the Representative's vote as a matter of public record, no matter what Conyers' calculator is secretly whispering in his ear.
The committee hearings develop the evidence that should lead to the votes, not the other way around. After referral to the Judiciary Committee, the committee votes on the articles first, and then presents them to the full House. It is the presentation to the Judiciary Committee that organizes the evidence and forms the basis for writing the specific language for the articles of impeachment that then require a majority vote of the committee in order to put them before the full House.
By claiming to require 218 votes before he even allows the vote to refer to committee to be considered, Conyers is acting to close off an investigation before it can be started. It is not hard to think of a law enforcement metaphor that prevents an investigation. For example this is like the policemen who believes no jury would convict the perpetrator because he is an important member of the community, so the cop doesn't investigate and never hands over a report to the DA. If a majority of the House of Representatives is so bold as to vote against the basic idea of having a committee review whether there is enough evidence for impeachment or not, then the People need to know their names.
It appears that Conyers and the Democratic Party leadership are preventing a vote even on referral to committee in order to allow those who are against even considering impeachment from being exposed to public scrutiny and accountability.
If after the presentation of the evidence, there are not 218 votes to pass a bill of Impeachment to the Senate, then the Constitution has done its job, i.e., the prosecutor has reviewed the evidence and found it wanting. But until hearings are done and an actual bill containing articles of impeachment is up for a vote before the House, constituents throughout the nation just do not have the basis or avenue for lobbying their individual Representatives to vote for or against impeachment.
The Democrats and Conyers have established a shell game of excuses. Conyers is standing in the way of the voters and preventing us from weighing in on impeachment through our representatives by keeping impeachment off the table so our representatives can rebuff us by saying Conyers won't let it get on the table. Until there is a vote, each representative can hide behind the screen of obscurity. If there are not 218 Representatives who would even vote to refer impeachment to the Judiciary Committee, then that would end the matter quickly, the People would know who they are, and the People could decide if they should be reelected in 2008.
AMY GOODMAN: What would be the reasons you would list for impeachment, if you weren’t holding your calculator, just holding the Constitution?
REP. JOHN CONYERS: Oh, OK. Well, to me, we can accomplish probably as much as we would need to to make the record clear that there has been a great deal of violation of the sworn oath of office, abuses of power, through the hearings and inquiries that we can conduct. But it isn’t that -- and no one has ever heard me suggest that we don’t think that there is conduct that could be proven to be impeachable.
But when Ron Dellums and Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug and William Fitts Ryan of New York, when we -- Parren Mitchell -- when we introduced an impeachment resolution, the first one against a sitting president in over seventy-five years, when Richard Nixon was being investigated, it was at the beginning of his term. And although he had been overwhelmingly reelected, there was time for us to have the hearing. This -- the timing of an administration which will go down in history as probably one of the most disappointing, there isn’t the time here for it.
So, why doesn't Conyers remember that Sam Ervin also didn't want to investigate Nixon until he was forced by public pressure? If it took public pressure on Ervin it will take public pressure on Conyers as well.
Now we see Conyers playing the card of desperation by saying, "There isn’t the time here for it." Is that a hoot or what? Of course there is time. And of course he is doing everything in his power to make this a self-fulfilling prophecy by his own delaying tactics. I call this playing a desperation card because it is so lacking in substance. It is nothing more than B.S., i.e.,blowing smoke.
Why isn't there time? According to the History Place article on Nixon's impeachment, Sen. Sam Ervin began the Watergate investigation in February of 1973 for the purpose of investigating all of the events surrounding Watergate and other allegations of political spying and sabotage After a nearly year-long court battle over the release of Nixon's tapes, the three articles of impeachment against Nixon were approved by the House judiciary committee on the three days of July 27, 29, and 30, 1974. Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Thus, impeachment achieved its purpose from the beginning of the investigation to resignation in 18 months. There is no foreseeable reason for such a protracted delay of Bush's impeachment investigation in the courts. All the evidence against Bush is already in the public domain. It merely needs to be presented at a judiciary committee in an organized fashion to create the record. There are 17 months left in Bush's presidency and with no need for an original investigation like Watergate to occur we have plenty enough time.
In fact there was no preliminary investigation conducted by the House in Clinton's impeachment. According to the History Place entry on Clinton's impeachment, impeachment proceedings were initiated on October 8, 1998. The House and the Judiciary Committee did not need to conduct original investigations itself and instead relied upon testimony presented at the committee hearings. The Judiciary Committee sent a list of 81 questions to Clinton for him to either admit or deny under oath, and his responses then became the basis for one of the articles of impeachment. The committee voted on articles of impeachment on December 11, 1998, and upon the passage of H. Res. 611, Clinton was impeached on December 19, 1998, by the full House of Representatives. And the Senate trial lasted from January 7, 1999, until February 12, 1999. Thus, the impeachment and trial of Clinton took only four months. We have that much time.
There are books already published with the allegations of Bush's high crimes and misdemeanors. It would only take a relatively short time to present the case for impeachment by the appropriate witnesses. It should take only three or at most four months for the House to vote on articles of impeachment, but even if it took nine months, there would still be enough time for a Senate trial and impeachment would be worth it.
There is also the question of whether or not impeachment would be made moot by the end of Bush's term. In other words, the Constitution may allow impeachment of a president even after he has left office. Certainly it is arguable that if impeachment proceedings are begun while the president is in office, because Article I Section 3 of the Constitution provides that judgement may extend to "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of Honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" that an impeachment is not made moot simply by the president leaving office, because the judgement disqualifying from future office would still be an effective punishment. I would argue that leaving office would make impeachment moot only if removal from office were the only judgement available. [This is an interesting Constitutional question that I haven't researched yet. If anyone knows references to this question please email me.]
And besides, even if the Republicans could delay a vote on impeachment until January 2009 and that would make impeachment constitutionally moot, impeachment proceedings would still have been the right thing to do and in the name of upholding the rule of law. Conyers acts like he doesn't understand that the rule of law is an even more important legacy than whether or not Bush is able to run out the clock. By putting impeachment on the table now, Conyers would be saying that no matter how close to the end of a term a president is, he or she can't escape the checks and balances of our Constitutional democracy. However, by refusing to allow impeachment proceedings to go forward, it is Conyers who is preventing justice and it is Conyers who is thumbing his nose at our Constitutional system of protections. It is Conyers who is letting a criminal president get away with murder. It is Conyers who is establishing the precedent that a president doesn't have to worry in the least about committing high crimes and misdemeanors if he is near the end of his term.
If the People's sovereignty is not upheld at the very minimum by at least having hearing of the impeachment charges against George Bush, who is arguably the worst criminal president in our history, then Conyers and the Democratic Party are the one's who should be held responsible and accountable for aiding and abetting Bush's crimes. Not only that, they will be laying the foundation for the future crimes of future presidents even yet to be born.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
More On the Impeachment Struggle: Response to Solomon's Response
Portside is again leaning to starboard by sending out Mark Solomon's follow up to his lame attack against the impeachment struggle.
Now Solomon tells us
My word! Why do we have to put up with Mark Solomon telling us to throw our Constitutional principles out the window because "politics (especially in the USA) is not driven by principle"?
Solomon's argument that peace and justice activists should "seek a consensus and unify around shared goals" is only the false logic of assuming the conclusion, that is, his conclusion. If impeachment of the greatest living perpetrator of crimes against peace and justice and humanity is not part of the consensus, then there are no real shared goals, only fake ones.
Solomon portrays himself as the hero who can see through the complexities of the "power relations" of government and steer the rest of us confused idealists through the treacherous shoals of realpolitik. In the end Solomon is just telling us poor misguided idealists to be quiet about impeachment and let our betters in activism decide whether upholding the Constitution is a realistic struggle.
Solomon has his logical knickers in a twist. Our struggle is of the principle, by the principle, and for the principle, so that the principle of the rule of law shall not perish from this Earth.
His words beg the question, why is Solomon struggling so hard against impeachment? If Solomon is not up for the struggle to preserve the principle of Constitutional law, then he is the one who should just shut up and get out of the way!
Post Script: Haven't the peace and justice activists who are opposing impeachment noticed that the Democratic controlled Congress now has even lower approval ratings than George Bush? Those activists providing cover for Conyers and Pelosi are hiding their heads in the sand! The Democrats were elected to stop the war and put this president in his place! The Democrats have refused to do either. These two issues are inextricably entwined and the belief that they can be separated, with impeachment put off the table while we fight against the war, is only playing into the hands of Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership, who after all, are the ones tying Conyers hands on impeachment.
The Democrats had better see the writing on the wall. They had a mandate in 2006 and so far they are squandering it. By 2008 they may be too weak by their self-inflicted damage to keep a majority in Congress, much less win the presidency.
Now Solomon tells us
One can readily agree in principle with those who argued that all elected officials have a moral duty to uphold the Constitution and to pursue impeachment of the Bush administration in the light of powerful evidence of its high crimes and misdemeanors. However, politics (especially in the USA) is not driven by principle, but by power relations and by struggle inherent in those relations. The configurations of power and resulting social struggles are often complex and not given to idealized standards. Such is the case with impeachment where tactical considerations are inevitable.
My word! Why do we have to put up with Mark Solomon telling us to throw our Constitutional principles out the window because "politics (especially in the USA) is not driven by principle"?
Solomon's argument that peace and justice activists should "seek a consensus and unify around shared goals" is only the false logic of assuming the conclusion, that is, his conclusion. If impeachment of the greatest living perpetrator of crimes against peace and justice and humanity is not part of the consensus, then there are no real shared goals, only fake ones.
Solomon portrays himself as the hero who can see through the complexities of the "power relations" of government and steer the rest of us confused idealists through the treacherous shoals of realpolitik. In the end Solomon is just telling us poor misguided idealists to be quiet about impeachment and let our betters in activism decide whether upholding the Constitution is a realistic struggle.
Solomon has his logical knickers in a twist. Our struggle is of the principle, by the principle, and for the principle, so that the principle of the rule of law shall not perish from this Earth.
His words beg the question, why is Solomon struggling so hard against impeachment? If Solomon is not up for the struggle to preserve the principle of Constitutional law, then he is the one who should just shut up and get out of the way!
Post Script: Haven't the peace and justice activists who are opposing impeachment noticed that the Democratic controlled Congress now has even lower approval ratings than George Bush? Those activists providing cover for Conyers and Pelosi are hiding their heads in the sand! The Democrats were elected to stop the war and put this president in his place! The Democrats have refused to do either. These two issues are inextricably entwined and the belief that they can be separated, with impeachment put off the table while we fight against the war, is only playing into the hands of Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership, who after all, are the ones tying Conyers hands on impeachment.
The Democrats had better see the writing on the wall. They had a mandate in 2006 and so far they are squandering it. By 2008 they may be too weak by their self-inflicted damage to keep a majority in Congress, much less win the presidency.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Impeachment Is The Best Strategy
This is a response to the recent opinion piece by Bill Fletcher, Jr., in the Black Commentator titled "Accountability, John Conyers and The Impeachment Controversy." It was passed along recently by Portside in its continuing defense of John Conyers.
Here's the beginning of the article:
I like Bill Fletcher, having enjoyed his insights over cafeteria lunch with him one day at an SEIU sponsored labor event at California’s Sonoma State University many years back. However, I cannot agree with his defense of John Conyers’ refusal to put impeachment on the table. Fletcher asks “does impeachment make sense strategically?” While Fletcher says “No,” I answer this question with a resounding “Yes! How could anyone doubt it?” Rather than a diversion, impeachment is the necessary core to any strategy to getting us out of Iraq.
The first point that Fletcher makes is the old saw about the votes not being there. I really fail to see why good folks like Fletcher even think this is a credible point. Conyers puts the reparations bill on the table every year even though it hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in a hot hell to be considered, yet he continues to do it and for good reason. There is no rational argument why reparations should continue to be put forward without votes but impeachment, because it doesn’t have the votes, should not.
Fletcher’s second point, that we need to concentrate on ending the war and occupation of Iraq, also is in favor of impeachment. The war is illegal. The Democrats are refusing to face this question head on. That is why the Democrats have refused to vote to defund the war and instead have continued to vote to pay for the war. We must face the truth that the Democrats won’t lead, they have to be pushed. Sam Irvin didn’t lead us to impeachment of Nixon either. He was pushed by the people and the polls. Nothing the Democrats are planning has any effect on the President’s war plans. Bush has shown that he is willing to use the patriotism card against the Democrats as long as he is in office. Impeachment is the only tool that will provide the Democrats with the political cover against Bush’s use of the patriotism card. Impeachment is the stake in the heart of this vampire president. The Democrats are afraid to use it, so they have to be pushed.
Fletcher argues that the momentum building toward the September 21st Iraqi Moratorium is critical and must be supported. However, if the 9/21 Iraqi Moratorium does not admit that the war is illegal, and instead only makes the claim that it is unwinnable, then I want no part of such a lying deceitful protest. Only impeachment acknowledges that the war is illegal and that Bush got us there by his high crimes and misdemeanors, not by mere mistakes in judgement about how to do successful “regime change” and “nation building” after toppling Saddam
The question “should Conyers generally be considered an ally?” is a red herring as it applies to the argument of impeachment. Obviously, Conyers is an ally on some issues, but he is not now an ally on the impeachment issue. Nobody on the left is treating Conyers as “an enemy.” That is a straw-man argument. Criticizing Conyers for refusing to put impeachment forward is not calling him an enemy. Saying Conyers shows great courage by putting the reparations bill forward does not excuse his apparent cowardice at refusing to put the impeachment bill forward. In fact his courage in support of reparations puts into bright relief the credibility issues around his refusal to do impeachment.
The question of betrayal comes up only because of Conyers’ previous behavior. When he was in the minority party on the committee he could talk tough on impeachment. It was by his own previous tough talk that people got their hopes up that when the Democrats became the majority party and this tough guy actually became the chair of the committee that impeachment could go forward. It is Conyers’ own 180 degree turn on impeachment that is in fact a betrayal of his previous stance and of those in whom his previous rhetoric had encouraged and led on.
The real question is what is causing Conyers’ to appear cowardly when we know he isn’t a coward by character? The only answer to this is that he is being ordered by the Democratic leadership, specifically by Nancy Pelosi, to keep impeachment off the table, and he doesn’t have the courage to oppose Pelosi. Why? Because she can take away his committee chairmanship. Therefore Conyers just can’t say openly, “Gee folks, I’d like to do impeachment, but you know, the Boss Lady says I can’t.” I've kept quite under such conditions and I know it feels awful.
This is the hard strategy decision that Conyers is facing. Whether to be honest about his convictions or face the wrath of Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership. Unfortunately Conyers has no easy way out. His friends like Bill Fletcher are doing the best they can to keep up appearances and provide the continuing cover for Conyers to hide the real reason that Conyers can’t act. But the inconsistencies of their defense only points to the real reason that is fundamentally irrational: Conyers can't do it for no reason of his own, but because he is told not to do it.
Conyers’ refusal to act in impeachment highlights the fundamental divide on the left: what is the role of the left in the Democratic Party? The companion question is whether the Democrats are truly a left party or really just the sometimes left leaning center party. The Democratic Party survives as an on-again off-again majority because of one reason alone: it is part of the two-party dictatorship of American politics. As long as the two-party dictatorship remains in place, the corporate centrist’s in control of the Democratic Party know that those on the left have no where else to go for any effective political impact. Therefore when they think it is not going to create any real structural change, the Democratic leadership can allow itself to sound left. There is no better example of this than Hillary Clinton. But when the chips are down, whether it is defunding the war or impeachment, the Democratic leadership refuses to support the real left positions.
The anti-war mobilization has become the proffered distraction to impeachment. “Just support the mobilization and forget impeachment” we are told. But those of us on the left who happen to believe that the Constitution is actually the bedrock of our liberties, also happen to think that the Democratic Party leadership doesn’t really give a damn about the Constitution any more than Bush does. The Democratic leadership’s refusal to put impeachment on the table against the worst President any of us have every seen in our lifetimes for his crimes and unconstitutional conduct speaks of power not truth. Conyers failure to speak truth to power against his own leadership is the real beef against Conyers and is the betrayal of the left.
With the chips going down on impeachment, Conyers is choosing to obey the orders of the centrist Pelosi, rather than to represent the left within the Democratic Party. Though Conyers’ is definitely not an enemy of the left, in Fletchers’ terminology Conyers' kowtowing to Pelosi makes him only “an ally of the moment” on left issues, and thus in this moment on this issue, he is no ally of the left at all. He has beome the centrist gatekeeper keeping the left left out. Impeachment is not only the best strategy to end the war in Iraq, it is the best strategy to expose the corporate powers in control of the Democratic Party who marginalize the left when it counts.
Which raises another important question: why has impeachment been marginalized as an issue of the left? There are plenty of honest conservatives with integrity who support impeachment, because they also believe that the Constitution should be used to protect the nation from a lying cheating deceiving criminal President. Anyone who argues that we should let such a president get a free pass on impeachment merely because of strategy considerations is basically at heart neither a supporter of the rule of law nor of democracy which depends upon it. The USA does not stand a chance of becoming the nation we know in our hearts that it is intended to be until impeachment is liberally exercised to remove president after president, if need be, who continues to do awful, unhumanitarian, and illegal acts in the name of the people and the Constitution.
Here's the beginning of the article:
So, what do we make of the controversy surrounding the actions taken at the office of Congressman Conyers when protesters demonstrated against his alleged failure to move impeachment proceedings against President Bush? Did it make sense strategically? Was Conyers the right target? Where did race come into this, if anywhere?
The actions taken by Cindy Sheehan and the Rev. Lennox Yearwood aimed to bring attention to the matter of accountability. In that sense, they were morally correct. They protested the failure of the Democratic leadership to hold this lawless administration accountable, with the threat of impeachment being the preferred method of addressing accountability. There is little question but that most of the world views the Bush administration as composed of criminals, and it is equally clear that as a result, both the US government and the people of the USA are viewed with a jaundiced eye by much of the globe, because the people of the USA permitted the re-election of the Bush group.
That being said, does impeachment make sense strategically? This is where I have differences with my friend, the Rev. Yearwood and others. Yes, emotionally, I would love to see the Bush/Cheney team ousted through impeachment proceedings, but I continue to feel that more immediately, we must focus our attention on strengthening the movement against the Iraq war/occupation, as well as building mass and activist sentiment in favor of major structural reforms, such as single-payer healthcare. To that extent I think the impeachment movement is a well-intentioned diversion.
Continued at Impeachment Strategy Debate Part3
I like Bill Fletcher, having enjoyed his insights over cafeteria lunch with him one day at an SEIU sponsored labor event at California’s Sonoma State University many years back. However, I cannot agree with his defense of John Conyers’ refusal to put impeachment on the table. Fletcher asks “does impeachment make sense strategically?” While Fletcher says “No,” I answer this question with a resounding “Yes! How could anyone doubt it?” Rather than a diversion, impeachment is the necessary core to any strategy to getting us out of Iraq.
The first point that Fletcher makes is the old saw about the votes not being there. I really fail to see why good folks like Fletcher even think this is a credible point. Conyers puts the reparations bill on the table every year even though it hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in a hot hell to be considered, yet he continues to do it and for good reason. There is no rational argument why reparations should continue to be put forward without votes but impeachment, because it doesn’t have the votes, should not.
Fletcher’s second point, that we need to concentrate on ending the war and occupation of Iraq, also is in favor of impeachment. The war is illegal. The Democrats are refusing to face this question head on. That is why the Democrats have refused to vote to defund the war and instead have continued to vote to pay for the war. We must face the truth that the Democrats won’t lead, they have to be pushed. Sam Irvin didn’t lead us to impeachment of Nixon either. He was pushed by the people and the polls. Nothing the Democrats are planning has any effect on the President’s war plans. Bush has shown that he is willing to use the patriotism card against the Democrats as long as he is in office. Impeachment is the only tool that will provide the Democrats with the political cover against Bush’s use of the patriotism card. Impeachment is the stake in the heart of this vampire president. The Democrats are afraid to use it, so they have to be pushed.
Fletcher argues that the momentum building toward the September 21st Iraqi Moratorium is critical and must be supported. However, if the 9/21 Iraqi Moratorium does not admit that the war is illegal, and instead only makes the claim that it is unwinnable, then I want no part of such a lying deceitful protest. Only impeachment acknowledges that the war is illegal and that Bush got us there by his high crimes and misdemeanors, not by mere mistakes in judgement about how to do successful “regime change” and “nation building” after toppling Saddam
The question “should Conyers generally be considered an ally?” is a red herring as it applies to the argument of impeachment. Obviously, Conyers is an ally on some issues, but he is not now an ally on the impeachment issue. Nobody on the left is treating Conyers as “an enemy.” That is a straw-man argument. Criticizing Conyers for refusing to put impeachment forward is not calling him an enemy. Saying Conyers shows great courage by putting the reparations bill forward does not excuse his apparent cowardice at refusing to put the impeachment bill forward. In fact his courage in support of reparations puts into bright relief the credibility issues around his refusal to do impeachment.
The question of betrayal comes up only because of Conyers’ previous behavior. When he was in the minority party on the committee he could talk tough on impeachment. It was by his own previous tough talk that people got their hopes up that when the Democrats became the majority party and this tough guy actually became the chair of the committee that impeachment could go forward. It is Conyers’ own 180 degree turn on impeachment that is in fact a betrayal of his previous stance and of those in whom his previous rhetoric had encouraged and led on.
The real question is what is causing Conyers’ to appear cowardly when we know he isn’t a coward by character? The only answer to this is that he is being ordered by the Democratic leadership, specifically by Nancy Pelosi, to keep impeachment off the table, and he doesn’t have the courage to oppose Pelosi. Why? Because she can take away his committee chairmanship. Therefore Conyers just can’t say openly, “Gee folks, I’d like to do impeachment, but you know, the Boss Lady says I can’t.” I've kept quite under such conditions and I know it feels awful.
This is the hard strategy decision that Conyers is facing. Whether to be honest about his convictions or face the wrath of Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party leadership. Unfortunately Conyers has no easy way out. His friends like Bill Fletcher are doing the best they can to keep up appearances and provide the continuing cover for Conyers to hide the real reason that Conyers can’t act. But the inconsistencies of their defense only points to the real reason that is fundamentally irrational: Conyers can't do it for no reason of his own, but because he is told not to do it.
Conyers’ refusal to act in impeachment highlights the fundamental divide on the left: what is the role of the left in the Democratic Party? The companion question is whether the Democrats are truly a left party or really just the sometimes left leaning center party. The Democratic Party survives as an on-again off-again majority because of one reason alone: it is part of the two-party dictatorship of American politics. As long as the two-party dictatorship remains in place, the corporate centrist’s in control of the Democratic Party know that those on the left have no where else to go for any effective political impact. Therefore when they think it is not going to create any real structural change, the Democratic leadership can allow itself to sound left. There is no better example of this than Hillary Clinton. But when the chips are down, whether it is defunding the war or impeachment, the Democratic leadership refuses to support the real left positions.
The anti-war mobilization has become the proffered distraction to impeachment. “Just support the mobilization and forget impeachment” we are told. But those of us on the left who happen to believe that the Constitution is actually the bedrock of our liberties, also happen to think that the Democratic Party leadership doesn’t really give a damn about the Constitution any more than Bush does. The Democratic leadership’s refusal to put impeachment on the table against the worst President any of us have every seen in our lifetimes for his crimes and unconstitutional conduct speaks of power not truth. Conyers failure to speak truth to power against his own leadership is the real beef against Conyers and is the betrayal of the left.
With the chips going down on impeachment, Conyers is choosing to obey the orders of the centrist Pelosi, rather than to represent the left within the Democratic Party. Though Conyers’ is definitely not an enemy of the left, in Fletchers’ terminology Conyers' kowtowing to Pelosi makes him only “an ally of the moment” on left issues, and thus in this moment on this issue, he is no ally of the left at all. He has beome the centrist gatekeeper keeping the left left out. Impeachment is not only the best strategy to end the war in Iraq, it is the best strategy to expose the corporate powers in control of the Democratic Party who marginalize the left when it counts.
Which raises another important question: why has impeachment been marginalized as an issue of the left? There are plenty of honest conservatives with integrity who support impeachment, because they also believe that the Constitution should be used to protect the nation from a lying cheating deceiving criminal President. Anyone who argues that we should let such a president get a free pass on impeachment merely because of strategy considerations is basically at heart neither a supporter of the rule of law nor of democracy which depends upon it. The USA does not stand a chance of becoming the nation we know in our hearts that it is intended to be until impeachment is liberally exercised to remove president after president, if need be, who continues to do awful, unhumanitarian, and illegal acts in the name of the people and the Constitution.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Progressive, yes, but Liberal or Radical Progressive?
Portside recently sent out this brief comment about the criticism of John Conyers:
Frankly, I'm amazed that the atrocious behavior of John Conyers is receiving so much defense. On the progressive left, this must be the dividing line between liberal and radical. I'm a radical who sees Conyers' inaction as completely, totally, and absolutely unjustifiable. Every (let me emphasize -- every, single, each, and all) excuse I have heard in Conyers' defense has rung hollow. After hearing all the excuses there is only one logical conclusion: Conyers can't come up with a valid excuse because he has none. Perhaps Conyers is to be pitied, because circumstantial evidence points to the sad truth that he would probably like to bring the bill of impeachment, but Speaker Pelosi is ordering him not to do so. Since he can't just come out and say this openly, he is left to give the clearly bogus rationalizations that we have heard.
Portside readers like Claire Carsman wonder how are we going to build "a unified movement" by criticizing Conyers, yet she doesn't ask why Conyers is breaking up the unified movement by refusing to act? Why is it that Conyers should get a free ride as the liberal gatekeeper against the radicals while the radical's complaint at being locked out of Congress is then called the source of the problem?
This divide on the left was recently revealed in the attempt by Hillary Clinton to cover it up. In the most recent Presidential debates, Clinton was asked to define liberal and state if she is a liberal. She waffled and evaded and said that liberal used to be a positive word but isn't any longer, so now she considers herself a "modern progressive." I used to relish the label progressive until I heard if from her lips. The question is begged: what is a "modern progressive" -- is it a liberal progressive or a radical progressive?
I'm a radical progressive and proud of it. Let the liberal progressives like John Conyers, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton continue to wield their gatekeeping power against the radical progressives like us, so be it; that's real politik. Radicals criticizing Conyers have been called racists, but let me say it plain: it is the radicals in the progressive movement who are continually treated as the house slaves by the liberal Democrats, always expected to give our votes and money but never to raise our voice in criticism. But don't for a minute think that we radical progessives are going to hush up like good servants or slaves and keep quiet while the liberal masters lock up Congress, keeping it for themselves, and in so doing aiding and abetting George Bush's crimes against humanity and the Constitution.
Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007
> From: Claire Carsman
> Subject: John Conyers
>
> It's appalling that people on the left have chosen to
> attack John Conyers. How are we ever going to build a
> unified movement with ridiculous tactics like that.
> And not to ignore the underlying racism.
>
> Claire Long Beach, CA
Frankly, I'm amazed that the atrocious behavior of John Conyers is receiving so much defense. On the progressive left, this must be the dividing line between liberal and radical. I'm a radical who sees Conyers' inaction as completely, totally, and absolutely unjustifiable. Every (let me emphasize -- every, single, each, and all) excuse I have heard in Conyers' defense has rung hollow. After hearing all the excuses there is only one logical conclusion: Conyers can't come up with a valid excuse because he has none. Perhaps Conyers is to be pitied, because circumstantial evidence points to the sad truth that he would probably like to bring the bill of impeachment, but Speaker Pelosi is ordering him not to do so. Since he can't just come out and say this openly, he is left to give the clearly bogus rationalizations that we have heard.
Portside readers like Claire Carsman wonder how are we going to build "a unified movement" by criticizing Conyers, yet she doesn't ask why Conyers is breaking up the unified movement by refusing to act? Why is it that Conyers should get a free ride as the liberal gatekeeper against the radicals while the radical's complaint at being locked out of Congress is then called the source of the problem?
This divide on the left was recently revealed in the attempt by Hillary Clinton to cover it up. In the most recent Presidential debates, Clinton was asked to define liberal and state if she is a liberal. She waffled and evaded and said that liberal used to be a positive word but isn't any longer, so now she considers herself a "modern progressive." I used to relish the label progressive until I heard if from her lips. The question is begged: what is a "modern progressive" -- is it a liberal progressive or a radical progressive?
I'm a radical progressive and proud of it. Let the liberal progressives like John Conyers, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton continue to wield their gatekeeping power against the radical progressives like us, so be it; that's real politik. Radicals criticizing Conyers have been called racists, but let me say it plain: it is the radicals in the progressive movement who are continually treated as the house slaves by the liberal Democrats, always expected to give our votes and money but never to raise our voice in criticism. But don't for a minute think that we radical progessives are going to hush up like good servants or slaves and keep quiet while the liberal masters lock up Congress, keeping it for themselves, and in so doing aiding and abetting George Bush's crimes against humanity and the Constitution.
Monday, July 02, 2007
The Democrats'. Disgrace
The President has commuted the sentence of convict Scooter Libby so that Libby won't have to do the prison time he was sentenced to do. The Democrats are crying "Discrace!", but it is the Democrats who bear the responsibility for this most recent discrace.
Since the Democrats have refused to charge Bush with his crimes of starting wars based on lies, why shouldn't the criminal Bush commute the sentence of his convict henchmen? The Democrats have let it be known that Bush can do what he wants and the most they will do is whine about it. So what does he care whether the Democrats conplain? If the Democrats had come into office in January 2007 with a bill of impeachment Bush would never have felt he could interfere with Libby's sentence. It is the Democrats' disgrace that they have let Bush have a free pass and not impeached him. This is what they get for it.
Since the Democrats have refused to charge Bush with his crimes of starting wars based on lies, why shouldn't the criminal Bush commute the sentence of his convict henchmen? The Democrats have let it be known that Bush can do what he wants and the most they will do is whine about it. So what does he care whether the Democrats conplain? If the Democrats had come into office in January 2007 with a bill of impeachment Bush would never have felt he could interfere with Libby's sentence. It is the Democrats' disgrace that they have let Bush have a free pass and not impeached him. This is what they get for it.
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