I respect the people you mentioned, especially Ramsey Clark and Cindy Sheehan, whom I know a little better through their work. I met Cindy Sheehan at the "Building a New World Conference" in Radford, Virginia last May. She's a diamond. And Ramsey Clark - he's up there with Nader in terms of my respect for him. Nonetheless, I don't see the point of impeachment at this time.
In June of '05, I wrote a piece called "25 Reasons to Impeach Bush." It was at several websites, including Counterpunch. Even U. S. Representative John Conyers posted it on his website. I think that was the time to seriously pursue impeachment.LR: Wait, wait, Gary! The objective isn't necessarily to get Bush impeached. It's holding Bush's feet to the fire every moment until Obama is sworn in as President.
What can be done here in America, now, to have some impact on the apparently 90 pieces of repressive legislation that Bush intends to push through Congress before Inauguration Day? And, how long will it take to get the international movement you're asking for rolling, really rolling?
GC: If we lived in a real democracy, rather than a sham democracy, I'd say go for it! - go for impeachment now. But we live in what Joe Bageant calls the "simulacrum" society, what Justin Raimondo calls a "Bizarro" or upside-down world. I agree that it will take a long time to get the international movement "rolling, really rolling." So we better start working on it today!
Along these lines, I plan to attend an international peace conference in Bangalore, India, in February, '09. And I'm in touch with leftists in Rome and London and Sydney-and around the U.S. But I'm just one small cog in this movement. "Collective action" should be more than rhetoric. Technically, and organization-wise, we can learn from leftists around the world. And they can learn from us, too. We all face this unifying, behemoth problem: the mal-distribution of wealth on this planet.
Given our system - with anti-democratic elements actually built into our very flawed and rather antiquated constitution! - there's virtually nothing we can do to stop Bush at this point - not within our own system! We have a better chance holding Obama's feet to the fire as soon as he lowers his right hand. (As I said/wrote before, I see him back-tracking already.) The "pragmatists" of the Democratic Party will never push for impeachment now. They feel they have "won" - their people will get the new jobs, new appointments. Their careers are battened.
The role of the left is to be a vanguard movement for social justice, real political freedom, and economic security for all. I don't see how we can achieve that now by working with the Democratic Party in its triumphalist and take-no-big-chances mode.
LR: I got it. Although I still wonder about the appropriateness of your advice for the aged, the handicapped, and for those whose financial destitution precludes travel abroad. Maybe I have an exaggerated idea about the size of these populations in America.
So. You were saying that from June of '05 through '06 was the time to seriously pursue Impeachment...
GC: I'm not saying everyone in America should start traveling. In his day, Emerson looked at the phenomenon of upper-class Americans traveling abroad and he commented wryly: "they carry ruins to ruins." In other words, they did not prepare themselves to learn from the experience. What I'm talking about is openness to the outside world. Thanks to the U.S. news and entertainment media, we're very insular, very isolated. We need to exert ourselves to get beyond that insularity. We can travel physically and we can also travel mentally-through cyberspace, for example. We can rent movies from abroad, read foreign authors, and connect through the internet to foreign media, to organizations or to individuals. We live in an age of connectivity. Let's make use of that; make use of that to build a global consciousness!
The crimes of Bush have only gotten worse since the end of '06 - 100,000's more Iraqi deaths, displacement of millions there; Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, etc. Can there be a greater crime than lying this country into war in order to expand our empire in the Middle East; to internationalize, build bases and deploy our assets to capture the Caspian basin resources to fatten the coffers of our oil companies, Halliburton, etc? What about the destruction of the world economy? If we cannot hold these criminals liable for this kind of devastation - what is democracy? What is "We the People?" What are our rights, our powers?
When the Democrats returned to majority status in Congress in '06, one of the first things Pelosi did was announce that "Impeachment is off the table." I think it was clear that the fix was in; that our duopolistic parties would continue to collaborate to keep the military contracts coming in, to pork-barrel their way to re-elections. I'd really like to see the American Left internationalize itself. Instead of wasting efforts on an impeachment trial here-which will split the country and fragment the Left (just as Clinton's impeachment did in the 90's)-I'd like to see the American Left work with the Left in Europe, Asia-all the continents-to bring our war criminals to trial in the Hague, etc. (Friends tell me that the World Court, etc., has no authority for this kind of prosecution. If that's so, then we'd better start working to develop an international court which has such powers! We need new Nuremburg trials so justice may reaffirm itself throughout the world.)
So, to cut to the chase: Before Bush bombed Baghdad in '03, something like 10 million people around the world marched against the coming war. We need those kinds of actions repeatedly. The problem with our system is that we're easily distracted. Decades of mis-education and Bernays-type propaganda have created a narcotized population.
LR: Bernays, who is Bernays?
GC: Bernays was one of the most important and influential intellectuals of the 20th century (he lived 100 years). But very few people know about this nephew of Freud who used Freudian techniques to create our modern world of advertising and "public opinion." Bernays influenced Goebbels and F.D.R. directly. All that you've ever heard about repeating a big lie often enough so people will believe it came originally from Edward Bernays.
LR: Okay, thanks, Gary. Now, you were talking about the need for millions of people around the world to protest and demonstrate against the American Empire, repeatedly, before change will occur.
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