A serious movement to stop funding the occupation would include a filibuster strategy for the Senate and would think ahead to the next step following a refusal to fund by either the Senate or House. Almost certainly Bush would misappropriate funds to continue the occupation with a new level of illegality added. Congress would then have to impeach or whimper away with its tail between its legs. Taking the peace and impeachment movements in the opposite order might make more sense, however. Impeachment hearings might embolden congress members to end the funding, and Congress would be free to impeach for its top choice from the long list of Cheney's and Bush's impeachable offenses. There are nine Judiciary Committee members and dozens of other congress members urging John Conyers to hold hearings. Every one of you should phone John Conyers every morning to ask the same.
It only makes sense, of course, that an occupation we want to end involves actions we consider impeachable offenses. So we should be pushing for an end to the funding and a commencement of impeachment hearings. It is far from too late for either project. Impeachments and impeachment movements that accomplish worthy goals without reaching impeachment tend to happen late and to not take much time. The movements to impeach Truman and Hoover happened significantly later in their terms than where we are now with Bush and Cheney. Andrew Johnson fired Edwin Stanton on February 21, 1868. On March 2nd, ten days later, the House voted to impeach him for that action. No lengthy process is necessary.
Internet organizing, which is the only real organizing I do, is most effective if it inspires real world groups on the ground to take collective action and facilitates that action. Useful actions can be taken at any time, but can also gain strength through national coordination. One possibility that has been tossed around is to turn May First into a national strike day for peace, impeachment, and human rights. What if some funded organizations invested in that instead of in ads to fund the corporate media and make sure the last four people in the country know that John McCain likes wars?
As an individual, we can all take actions every day, including outreach to potential activists. Memorize (202) 224-3121 and phone your congress member and senators every day. Contact the corporate media and support honest independent media in some way every day. Work with local peace and justice groups in your area to plan fun and creative events to bring more people into the movement. Advertise your views on your clothing, start conversations, hand out flyers. Recruit people into local and national groups. Send them to impeachcheney.org or unitedforpeace.org or any of a thousand websites where they can get connected to a movement.
Plan local events and activities that apply pressure to your congress member and senators. Do what it takes to disrupt and attract attention, but have a good-cop on your team as well. Talk to your elected officials, but be aware that most of their excuses are simply excuses. Refuting them will just be an annoyance. What you need to communicate is the electoral advantage of doing what you ask.
If the Democratic leadership believed, as I do, that there was more electoral risk in not ending the funding than in ending it, the funding would stop. If they believed failure to impeach to be a greater risk for them at the polls than impeaching, impeachment hearings would be happening. There is no reason we cannot change their thinking quickly in both regards. The Republicans won after impeaching Johnson and trying to impeach Truman. The Democrats won after trying to impeach Nixon, but lost after failing to pursue Reagan. The Republicans, against the public will, impeached Clinton for a private non-offense and still took both houses of Congress and the White House. For an impeachment movement to succeed in restoring justice and succeed electorally, it need never reach impeachment. Impeachment hearings now on torture, detentions, spying, rewriting laws, lying to the public and Congress, etc., would compel John McCain to defend each offense even while campaigning against it. Impeachment would be a gold mine for a political party capable of thinking offense rather than only defense.
If enough of us choose to act in very easy ways, we can change the US approach to the world over the next 10 months. But what if we don't? Then would we be better off to have worked on the elections? I don't think so. I think the best way to help Obama and other Democrats get elected is to push them toward stronger clearer positions for peace and justice. Were Obama to lead the way with a filibuster of the funding of the occupation, he would look stronger and more decisive, and his supporters would be energized. And the best way to put ourselves in a position to accomplish our goals in 2009, no matter who ends up in the White House and Congress, is to try to accomplish our goals in 2008. If we educate the American public now on the fact that Congress can end the funding of the occupation of Iraq, we will be in a better position to make that happen in 2009 should we not succeed this year. And succeeding this year is entirely possible. New scandals we don't know about will emerge to assist us. New wars not yet launched will enrage those not yet taking action. And awareness will begin to penetrate the Democratic Party that the failure to act is a liability. Important victories never look likely until they happen, but they do happen. Let's keep our republic. Thank you.
DAVID SWANSON is a co-founder of After Downing Street, a writer and activist, and the Washington Director of Democrats.com. He is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America, and serves on the Executive Council of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA. He has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including Press Secretary for Dennis Kucinich's 2004 presidential campaign, Media Coordinator for the International Labor Communications Association, and three years as Communications Coordinator for ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. Swanson obtained a Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Virginia in 1997.
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