CALIFORNIA RESOLUTION TO IMPEACH BUSH & CHENEY!
June Caldwell
April 24, 2007
Thank you for this interview at such a historical time! April 28, 2007 has been dubbed "Impeachment Day" nationwide. This California Resolution for Impeachment appears to be just one piece of a national movement that can no longer be called a 'fringe group'. Please describe the Impeachment actions that are occurring on April 28, 2007 – including the resolution, Beach Impeach, and marches in San Diego and elsewhere in the country.
MW: April 28th is a national day of Impeachment actions, virtually all of them listed at A28.org Inside the San Diego Convention Center, delegates will unfurl "14-foot wide Impeachment is on Our Table" banners, march through the halls with our Impeach Bush & Cheney t-shirts, and greet House Speaker Pelosi and the Presidential candidates with signs calling for impeachment. Across the street from the San Diego Convention Center, in Martin Luther King Park, hundreds, if not thousands, of people will gather to demand impeachment and further away, on the sand abutting San Diego's blue Pacific, an Impeach on the Beach activity will involve people forming the letters IMPEACH with their bodies in the sand.
What do you hope to accomplish with these actions?
MW: We hope to demonstrate that there is a huge grassroots movement in support of investigation, oversight, and accountability in the form of impeachment. Speaker Pelosi may feel she can't talk about impeachment because she is third in line to the Presidency, but we, the people, must put impeachment in the center of the table because we are the deciders and we have had enough of this lawlessness. We must provide both pressure and support for Congress to pursue indictments against these war criminals, Bush and Cheney -- lest we set a precedent for a unitary executive free to launch wars based on lies and suspend constitutional rights at will.
What was it that made you personally decide to take on the project of a California Resolution? What is your day job? It is very inspiring that you are finding the time to be committed to this!
MW: By day, I teach English and US history at a Los Angeles high school, where students attend from 100 different zip codes. My focus is on social movements that changed the course of history, on ordinary people who made extraordinary change by challenging what seemed like an invincible power structure. For example, I have asked my students to brainstorm strategies for creating a mass movement to end slavery, to simulate the reaction of women banned from participating in the first World Anti-Slavery Conference, to explore what they would have done to end segregation in the military during WWII, and to identify methods of building a resistance movement to Nazi occupation.
Earlier in the year I asked my students if they thought California should secede from the country to protest the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Now, that last question got me into a bit of trouble, with one of my students writing an angry "Shut Up and Teach" editorial in the school newspaper. It was worth it though because that secession question, raised during a Civil War unit, led to one of our richest class discussions ever, with the majority of students arguing that we must not splinter or abandon the country to the right-wing.
Besides teaching, I also serve as President of Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles, a chapter of the 80,000 member Progressive Democrats of America. Many of us were active in the anti-war movement long before the US invasion of Iraq and see the Democratic Party not as an end in itself, not as our Party, right or wrong, but as a vehicle for social change.
What doubts did you have about impeachment, and what overcame them?
MW: Like a lot of people, I thought -- But what if Cheney becomes President?! Now, that would be an even worse nightmare, if such a thing is possible. The truth is there is nothing in the US Constitution that says both the President and Vice President can't be simultaneously impeached, so let's support Congressman Dennis Kucinich when he introduces Articles of Impeachment against Cheney this week and let's encourage others to issue similar articles against Bush.
So far, New Mexico and Vermont have come onboard to support impeachment. Will California be next?
MW: We hope so, though last year our Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez opposed an impeachment resolution introduced by progressive Assemblyman Paul Koretz. Koretz's resolution never made it out of committee. This time, however, we will approach key state senators who may have a better chance of passing an impeachment resolution because the leader of our state senate may be a lot more sympathetic. Senate Speaker Don Perata earlier introduced a resolution calling for an end to the US occupation of Iraq.
The impeachment hearings of Bill Clinton were generated by Congress after Newt Gingrich and a team purportedly decided to pursue impeachment, and then find an excuse to pursue it. How is this impeachment movement different?
MW: This impeachment movement is different because it is not top down, but bottom up with grassroots Democrats, from one end of the nation to another, clamoring for justice. In downtown Los Angeles recently a team of progressive activists wearing Bush and Cheney bobble-head puppet heads and chain-gang prison stripes appeared in Pershing Square, a busy intersection, with Assemblyman Koretz to broadcast the impeachment message as bus drivers whizzed by, honking in support. Newt Gingrich was not interested in developing a grassroots movement, only in monopolizing media coverage.
Is impeachment an option of a democratic government or is it indeed a responsibility – an inconvenient truth, as it were – of the people of a democratic government?
MW: It is, indeed, the responsibility of a democratic government to hold its leaders accountable when they violate democratic principles. Some argue that, while they abhor Bush and Cheney, they oppose impeachment because issuing an indictment, followed by a trial, would interfere with other business -- and what could Congress accomplish in the meantime? My response is -- What is more important than peace and constitutional rights? We've got to stop thinking that impeaching Cheney and Bush and ending the US occupation of Iraq are two different animals, when in fact beginning impeachment proceedings may be the best and fastest way to bring our troops home from Iraq.
If the people - and Congress - of a country give up their right to impeachment when it is appropriate, how does that impact the power structure of the branches of government?
MW: We will have only one branch left – the executive branch.
What is the procedure, and hurdles to be crossed to get this impeachment resolution on the record?
MW: The short answer is we expect the Party's resolutions committee not to pass this resolution or to table it, prompting progressive delegates to fan out throughout the convention to collect hundreds of signatures, within a twelve hour period, demanding a full floor vote of thousands of delegates on the question of impeachment.
Is the state resolution for impeachment in conflict with the official stance of Congress, that ‘Impeachment is off the table”?
MW: The Party leadership may not want to embarrass House Speaker Pelosi, who earlier pronounced impeachment is off the table -- and it may argue that the Party passed an impeachment resolution last year, taking Bush to task for the war, illegal spying and torture. While it's true that the Party passed a resolution calling for investigation, oversight, and possibly impeachment, the previous resolution did not call on the California legislature to pass an impeachment resolution to be submitted to Congress. Our resolution addresses the importance of state legislatures, like Vermont, passing impeachment resolutions.
What are the chances for real support for this impeachment resolution?
MW: If we can push this resolution, as well as another resolution calling for no attack on Iran, to the convention floor on Sunday, then we expect the resolutions to pass overwhelmingly -- not only because most Americans are outraged by the Bush administration's high crimes, but also because a few months ago we successfully ran slates of progressives who were elected as delegates to the California Democratic Party. These newly-elected delegates will support impeachment.
How is the election process used to support impeachment?
MW: Last year when I ran for Congress on a peace platform, challenging six-term incumbent Jane Harman, a third of the delegates at the California Democratic Party convention stood to endorse my candidacy. A third of the estimated 1,000 delegates in attendance were willing, in a most dramatic way, to go public with their rejection of Harman, a Party insider who at that time was the ranking minority leader on the House Intelligence Committee. Wow, we thought -- What if we could elect a majority of progressive delegates, we could demand the leadership of the Party either end the US occupation of Iraq or face losing our support. So that's what we did -- we organized up and down the state of California, working with the Progressive Caucus within the California Democratic Party, to elect delegates who would support impeachment, a return of our troops, single-payer universal health care, election protection, public campaign financing, and anti-poverty programs.
Is it true, that for impeachment to be carried out, more Republicans in Congress would have to support it than it is realistic to hope for?
MW: Richard Nixon resigned before impeachment proceedings began. A similar scenario may play itself out this time, as well. If Bush and Cheney refuse to step down, at least the Democrats will have stood up to defend our Constitution. It's impossible to predict what will happen, given the ongoing scandal with Gonzales and Bush's insistence on supporting the Attorney General in the face of growing Republican Party outrage over political firings of federal prosecutors. As 2009 approaches, more and more Republicans may want to distance themselves as much as possible from Bush and Cheney.
Would supporting impeachment fulfill the Republican Party’s stated wish in many instances to separate itself from George Bush? Would it indeed be the one thing that can save the Republican Party at this point from his stain on it’s credibility ?
MW: If history is our guide, then impeachment empowers, not weakens, the Party that demands accountability. We must remember that investigations and talk of impeachment empowered the Democrats during Nixon's presidency. The Party that holds the President and Vice President responsible for high crimes is the Party that commands respect. Besides, if charges were brought against Bush and Cheney and a trial were to take place in the US Senate, you can bet a lot of other Republicans would find themselves on the hot seat, having to answer questions about Niger, Plame, and on and on. It would not be good for the Republican Party, I promise you that.
How long would an actual impeachment process run? Would it by necessity take longer than the 2008 Presidential election? And, should that be a consideration?
MW: It strains credulity to believe that the Republican Party would allow a trial to drag on and stain the Party’s image during the next Presidential election. Its leaders would demand Bush, Cheney, and Rice resign. Ultimately, however, political logistics should not trump the pursuit of truth and justice, not when the stakes are so high. How many have died as a result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq? An estimated 700,000 Iraqis; over 3,000 American troops. How many would die if the Bush administration launched a war against Iran and its 70-million inhabitants?
How would neglecting to carry forward with impeachment affect the War in Iraq?
MW: If Congress fails to move forward on impeachment, then it might as well tell the world that it approves of what the Bush administration has done. It might as well kiss goodbye any possibility of reigning in the next President who decides to declare war on a sovereign oil-rich nation. We may forget that the rest of the world is watching and waiting, waiting to see if we redeem ourselves for the sins of our fathers.
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