I wonder what would happen if the people and their representatives were
to shock the powerful and their funders for a change? What if on
November 16th, the Iraq Moratorium day, everybody together took major
actions? What if everyone with a job took the day off work? What if
everyone wore orange? What if everyone with a tax bill wrote to the IRS
to say not to expect another dollar of that portion of taxes that goes
to war? What if everyone who gives money to Democrats wrote to them to
say not one more dime before impeachment? What if everyone left their
homes in the morning and went straight to the nearest district office of
their congress member, sat down, and picnicked on the floor, refusing to
leave without two written commitments: 1. to vote no on any more money
to occupy Iraq, and 2. to cosponsor articles of impeachment against
Cheney and Bush? What if everyone brought cell phones and media lists
and spent all day phoning the media from their congress member's office?
If everyone did these things, the congress members would be shocked, the
police would be shocked, the media would be shocked, and the White House
would be in a state of total panic. The risk to the millions taking
action would be minimized by the numbers involved, and the agenda in
Congress would be a blank slate for the public to write its will upon.
Illegal reactions from the White House would aggravate the crisis, to
the disadvantage of those in power.
If the people shocked the country, we would shock the political parties
and the activist groups as well. We could divert the $100 million
election funds now being pulled together to waste on Senator Clinton's
electoral defeat into creating networks and media outlets that report
the news without influence from corporate owners or advertisers. We
could create funds to support members of the military who refuse illegal
orders, members of the government who report illegal activities, and
members of the military-industrial-media complex who quit their jobs.
We could shift the political conversation in ways that impact every
candidate, and we could legislate publicly funded clean elections with
free and fair use of our airwaves. We could inspire lawyers to file
civil and criminal cases against Bush and Cheney, as many of them as
possible, case after case after case. We could inspire activist groups
that claim to stand for justice to stand with us behind the Constitution
and insist on impeachment.
On Monday, November 19th, Congress could hit Bush and Cheney hard with
announcements from Pelosi and Reid that there would be no more funding
for the occupation of Iraq, and that every troop, contractor, and
mercenary must be brought home by New Year's. While the White House was
swallowing that awesome announcement, Congressman John Conyers could hit
it with this shocking one: Impeachment hearings begin in the full House
Judiciary Committee today, beginning with the obvious charges for which
investigations are not needed or possible, and proceeding to the more
complex investigations, passing each Article of Impeachment in turn on
to the full House of Representatives. Before lunch, Bush, Cheney, and
Rice would be impeached for refusing to comply with subpoenas, and the
trial in the Senate would be scheduled. Before Thanksgiving, we'd have
impeachments for FISA violations, signing statements, a CIA agent
outing, misleading Congress, misappropriating funds, torture, war of
aggression, threat of war of aggression, detentions without charge or
legal process, war profiteering, and election fraud. Hearings would be
scheduled in an extended session of Congress to begin impeachment
hearings on 9-11, Katrina, global warming, whistleblower protection,
the production of phony news reports, the politicization of the Justice
Department, and the long list of war crimes in Iraq.
Now the public's role would shift from blanket opposition to include
support for those Representatives now acting on behalf of the public.
It would become very clear to every congress member and senator exactly
where they could stand if they wanted to turn intense opposition into
adulation. Bush's and Cheney's days would be numbered. Congress would
take back its Constitutional power and refuse to confirm replacements
for Cheney (or Bush) who did not commit to faithfully executing the laws
of the land. The November 2008 election would look very different from
how it looks today. But waiting for that election to change the
nation's course would miss the opportunity provided by the reverse shock
of a democratic un-disaster. The next 12 months, even while Bush was
still in office but now on the defensive, would be the time to push
through legislation backed by the public that would be very hard to take
away from us again. Social Security seems unimaginable today, but we
have it and they have failed in every attempt to eliminate it. We
need to be thinking on the scale of Social Security.
Before the dust settles, here's what we'll legislate: publicly funded
elections with free air time and hand-counted paper ballots overseen in
total transparency by non-partisan officials, the elimination of NAFTA,
the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and all their children, the creation
of single-payer health coverage, a green-energy jobs program, the right
to card-check union organizing, fully funded pre-school and college,
fair taxation of corporations and multi-millionaires, repeal of the
PATRIOT Act and the Protect America Act, drastically tighter limits on
monopolistic media ownership, and the elimination of large sections of
the military and intelligence budgets, including a ban on all privatized
military operations, and shifting a portion of the eliminated funding to
diplomacy and foreign aid. Just watch them try to rebuild their
plutocracy. It can't be done.
Neither can we accomplish our goals slowly. It's too difficult, and we
don't have the time to spare. Now is the moment for reverse shock.
An activist in Florida, the scene of Bush's first presidential crime,
recently proposed to me that citizens counter Bush with their own
signing statements. His is posted here:
http://afterdowningstreet.org/citizensigningstatements
You can write your own and post it there as well. Write down what you
intend to do and not do, and then get out there and do it, starting
Friday, November 16th. And send this (and print it and hand it) to
everyone you know, and ask them to do the same.
