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Tag(s): Demonstrations; Impeachment; Impeachment; Pelosi-Nancy; Protest- Civil Disobedience
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September 9, 2007 at 09:32:24

Pelosi's Fear of Flying: The Immediate Consequences of Aiming Low on Impeachment

by Elizabeth Ferrari Page 1 of 1 page(s)

www.opednews.com

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This week, we as a nation find ourselves in a surreal political position. We are awaiting the results of the "Petraeus" report as if that report were actually an independent account untouched by the White House Communications Office and as if this piece of propaganda could in any way alter the Bush agenda.

General Petraeus is the same good soldier who breathlessly announced to the press that Saddam had mobile weapons labs when he knew those vehicles were weather balloon stations. Remember? That Petraeus.

This same week, all over the country, anti war and impeachment activists are preparing for demonstrations on 9/15. There will be a march on Washington. There will be marches and vigils and protests all over the country. Here in San Francisco, three thousand of my neighbors and I will spell out the word "Impeach" with our bodies. This is our third attempt to convey our needs visually and materially to our ever more remote representative, Nancy Pelosi.

We invited the Speaker to take the fourth seat in the chopper that will video tape our action -- so she could get the best possible view of her constituents' wishes. Pelosi was unable to find a two hour block to hold a town hall meeting during the August break so we thought; this would be an efficient way for her to reconnect with her district.

Unfortunately, she is unavailable that day. When we offered the seat to anyone on her staff, we were told no one was available that day. I can only hope that the whole office is out hitting the streets that day, helping homeless veterans retrieve the lives that the Bush Administration has stolen from them.

My representative is not a timid person or politician. She coined the phrase "miserable failure", if I'm not mistaken, giving a timely expression to what so many of us felt and knew. But that was years ago. That "miserable failure" has since morphed into a global danger and a domestic menace.

Note to Speaker Pelosi: Even The National Coalition of American Nuns is calling for impeachment. Who are we waiting for, the Pope?

As I've said before, I don't know what is possible. I don't know if we can impeach George W. Bush or Dick Cheney but I know we must try. Not holding our government accountable in the past allowed seasoned and skilled felons to continue in our government today. Men to whom our values are at best abstractions they can mentally wave away like so many flies -- habeas corpus, due process, international law, clean elections. The Salvador Option has migrated to Iraq. These career scofflaws are nothing if not catastrophically efficient.

But I know one thing. If you don't try, you foreclose possibility. And I am not willing to foreclose the possibility that these men, men who let us die on September 11, who let us die when the levees breached, who let us die every day from IEDs or preventable disease, will be held to account for those irrevocable losses of precious human life. Our lives, life itself, must be more important than political calculation.

Recently Mr. Conyers explained to Amy Goodman on her program, Democracy Now! that, with respect to impeachment, he had the Constitution in one hand and his calculator in that other. That while there was no doubt that the Bush Administration had committed impeachable offenses, we don't have the time or the votes to do it and, as the argument goes, the Democrats only have a nominal majority so putting the 2008 election in peril would be a grave error.

With all due respect to one of our most courageous and progressive Congressmen, Mr. Conyers, you are wrong. It is the job of Congressional Democrats to find both time and votes. Because your oath was to the Constitution, not to expediency. Your calculator is misleading you because it has no conscience.

Alexander Hamilton wrote: "The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law."

Note to Mr. Conyers: Mr. Hamilton did not qualify this statement with, "if we have the time, the votes and the go ahead from our suicidal political leadership."

The 2008 election is not only not a reason to forgo impeachment, it is the reason impeachment must go forward. If a certain Democratic frontrunner doesn't want the word "impeachment" wafting in the air during her campaign, then she might be a frontrunner but she is no leader. In fairness to Senator Clinton, her advisors may have made this call for her. I hope for her sake (and for ours) that this isn't the same group that advised Mr. Kerry to concede an election that wasn't his to give away. It was ours and it was stolen from us - there is no other construction that fits the facts of that election.

Note to the Democratic leadership: No one was held to account for the massive election fraud of 2004, so our next Federal election is already in jeopardy. You must impeach now if you have any hope for a clean election in 2008. You have won and not been seated twice. There's no need to make it a trifecta. On the contrary, it is incumbent on you to make sure we are not robbed again.

Most urgently, if Mr. Bush and President Cheney have time to bomb Iran in our name and via recycled lies broadcast in our fully owned media, we must find time to impeach them first. Enough. Impeach.

Elizabeth Ferrari is a San Francisco author and activist.

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5 comments

A retired Navyman who has ran for 1st. District of Tennessee as a Green with a primary plank of Impeaching Bush/Chaney and a secondary plank of listening to and serving people instead of corporations. He now has accepted the position of FOAVC Coordinater for TN. He also is a direct decendent both on his Mothers and Fathers failies of members of the Seneca Nation.
Robert N SmithA retired Navyman who has ran for 1st. District of Tennessee as a Green with a primary plank of Impeaching Bush/Chaney and a secondary plank of listening to and serving people instead of corporations. He now has accepted the position of FOAVC Coordinater for TN. He also is a direct decendent both on his Mothers and Fathers failies of members of the Seneca Nation.

Miss Polosi resign

Miss Polosi has shown she doesn't believe in her oath to protect and preserve the Constitution. She has shown that her only loyalty is to her perceptins of what might get her reelected. Since she has no loyalty to the people who elected her or the people she supposidly serves, the best thing she can do is resign and go home. She is not a leader.

by Robert N Smith (10 articles, 0 quicklinks, 8 diaries, 112 comments) on Sunday, September 9, 2007 at 10:36:23 AM

I am a retired opera singer. I was a leading soprano with the New York City Opera for ten years. I am a strong supporter of Dennis Kucinich and worked for his campaign in 2004. I believe that he is the ONLY honest man in congress. He has been working against this insane war since before it began. I am 72 years old and I have been so frustrated with the media, the Congress and the American people that they don't tell the truth.
CaronomeI am a retired opera singer. I was a leading soprano with the New York City Opera for ten years. I am a strong supporter of Dennis Kucinich and worked for his campaign in 2004. I believe that he is the ONLY honest man in congress. He has been working against this insane war since before it began. I am 72 years old and I have been so frustrated with the media, the Congress and the American people that they don't tell the truth.

Lets impeach Pelosi!

The previous writer has the right idea. Pelosi has no right to hold office if she does not uphold her oath to defend the Constitution. That is her job and she should be relieved of that job. After Pelosi is gone, elect Cindy Sheehan who does understand how horrible this situation is.

by Caronome (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 225 comments) on Monday, September 10, 2007 at 2:12:01 AM

Mother of 7, grandmother of 21, great grandmother of 41 and great-great grandmother of 2 and loving every minute of it. I want a better world for us all than the mess we have now.
RaeMother of 7, grandmother of 21, great grandmother of 41 and great-great grandmother of 2 and loving every minute of it. I want a better world for us all than the mess we have now.

Pelosi

According to the Constitution it is her constitutional duty . The Constitution says Shall not may on impeachment for high crimes and misdemeanors. There have been more than enough of those by Bush & Cheney to qualify them for impeachment. She also did not have the right to take impeachment "off the table".

Conyers has wimped out but Kucinich has not...we just have a whole bunch of cowards in office that are too scared/wimpy to sign on and support his bill for impeachment.

Speaking of Kucincih, he went to Syria and met with Pres. Assad while the rest were on vacation. How much have we heard about that? One little bit on Tucker Carlson show (gag) but of course he wouldn't shut up long enough for Sen. Kucinich to get much said.

Sen. Kucinich will be on the Ed Shultz show for 3 hours on Sept. 12th and will be taking calls.

Pelosi shouldn't be 'afraid' to fly, after all she is pandering to the Administration so I'm sure there wouldn't be any 'unfortunate accidents'.

by Rae (0 articles, 1 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 218 comments) on Monday, September 10, 2007 at 8:09:29 PM

Brett Paatsch is an Australian born secular humanist with degrees in management and science and an interest in politics. He is a former pro-American that wishes to be pro-American again and thinks the impeachment and repudiation of President George W Bush for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 is necessary to reestablish trust in American signatures on international treaties and confidence in the global rule of law.
Brett PaatschBrett Paatsch is an Australian born secular humanist with degrees in management and science and an interest in politics. He is a former pro-American that wishes to be pro-American again and thinks the impeachment and repudiation of President George W Bush for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 is necessary to reestablish trust in American signatures on international treaties and confidence in the global rule of law.

What is needed are politicians that are willing to put

their careers at risk to uphold their oaths to support and defend the Constitution.

The oaths are personal ones. Failure to uphold them are personal failures of character and of integrity, but when failures of character and of integrity are the norm than individual representatives will factor that into their risk calculations.

To get representatives to take career risks and to stand up for principle I think their constituents have to make the conversations and the questions they ask their representatives personal. As personal as the oath they take. There isn't one oath of office taken by Democrats and another taken by Republicans the oath (or affirmation) is an oath or affirmation taken by individual representative. And so kept or broken by the individual representative.

I think constitents have to ask their representatives how they can be expected to trust them on the small stuff when they won't step up on the big one and support and defend the Constitution. And I think constituents have got to try to get their representatives answers to such questions on the record and to ensure that their is some accountability for failure.

When standards in office are already low it is not enough to be the lesser of two evils. Citizens have to do some of the heavy lifting in making their representatives keep their promises - or they won't get representatives that represent them.

by Brett Paatsch (0 articles, 2 quicklinks, 22 diaries, 1010 comments) on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 9:49:24 AM

Elizabeth Ferrari is a San Francisco author and activist.
Elizabeth FerrariElizabeth Ferrari is a San Francisco author and activist.

I appreciate your comments. And reading them over,

it seems to me, anyway, that this isn't about Nancy. She's just the person between a rock and a harder place. This is about the party "leadership" -- people who aren't directly accountable to us.

What the heck kind of "democracy" is that?

They are putting a political calculation ahead of our wellbeing. It may be their job to do that. It's our job not to let them get away with tanking our needs.

by Elizabeth Ferrari (18 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 73 comments) on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 1:52:21 PM