Mario Peñalver, a graduate student in the Humanities Program at the University of Chicago, is walking the seven hundred miles from Chicago, Illinois to Washington D.C. to demand an end to the Iraq War and in protest of the impending attack on Iran. Penalver calls for this to be done through the impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as the chief architects of these acts of aggression in violation of international treaties and for other crimes, misdemeanors and abuses of office.
Mario Penalver
In an e-mail to World Can't Wait and Impeach for Peace last week, Peñalver said:
"There must be some basic understanding amongst us, as organizers, as leaders of impeachment, as to why all our actions must face the doors of the White House. I could state that understanding in my own words. But I would rather begin with the words of one far greater than I, one whose method has proven itself in the history of civil rights. "I'm here," Martin Luther Kind said from a Birmingham jail, "because injustice is here."
Marching to DC is the pinnacle of our efforts because that is where our voices have stopped. Our efforts, in protest - in letter-writing campaigns, in our optimism at the polls - have stopped at the doors of the White House, in which stands one man with his ears covered and his mind set on defiance of the national conscience. How can we continue in our local processes, when those processes, in and of themselves, find no resolve where they matter most?"
Peñalver has committed to embark on his quest on Thursday, June 21st and arrive in our nation's capital by Friday, September 21st.
In accordance with an idea from impeachment activist Sgt. Daniel Fearn through ImpeachforPeace.org, Mr. Peñalver will be carrying with him a small rock, which he will place in a location to be determined near the White House - possibly in the Constitutional Gardens as a memorial to the Constitution of the United States. It is Peñalver's assertion that the Constitution - the citizen rights of which were suspended by Patriot Acts I & II and the Military Commissions Act - is dead. Anyone wishing to meet Mario Peñalver in Washington D.C. and lay a stone with his on September 21st is invited and encouraged to do so.
Pebbles for Peace
One stone is insignificant. Piles of stones, or cairns, historically indicate important locations established at critical times. If a hundred people join him, it will be a pile. If a hundred thousand add their rock, a monumental mound will be established.
Anyone wishing to host Mr. Peñalver along the way, providing him with lodging, food, water and other necessities or to arrange for a press conference or speaking engagement along the route can contact either Mario directly or Mikael Rudolph of ImpeachforPeace.org:
~ Mario Peñalver penalvmf@uchicago.edu (253) 720-1200
~ Mikael Rudolph minneapolis@impeachforpeace.org (612) 302-9252
To learn more about Mario Peñalver's intentions a for travel progress updates of his pilgrimage will be available online at: March for Peace Progress
Mario Peñalver's personal statement:
WHY WASHINGTON?
While faced with the threat of unparalleled destruction and the onslaught of a second war, our efforts against the Bush administration require more than failed attempts and variations of the same old thing. So far, four years later, our demands for the war's end have gone unheeded. Four years have past, and still, our demands for the war's end have gone unheeded.
Minneapolis Organizer: World Can't Wait-Drive Out the Bush Regime ~~~ Co-Founder: ImpeachforPeace.org ~~~ Theatrical Entertainer and Ballroom Dance Instructor by trade
