Dennis Loo: Let me ask you this, David: What is your, maybe you could recapitulate a little bit what you just said to me and elaborate on it a little bit. Why do you think that a majority of Democrats in Congress in and of itself would somehow cause the Democrats to wake up to all of the crimes that this administration is responsible for, and then start impeachment hearings? I mean, it's true that if John Conyers becomes chairman of that committee, the judiciary, right? He is one of the very few people in Congress who has been saying what needs to be said. He's been talking impeachment and so forth, and it's to his great credit that he's been doing that, so it would make a difference if he was chair, but his party as a whole, the leadership of his party has been dead set against it. Howard Dean 2 weeks ago said it would be a grave mistake to have impeachment, and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reed have both been on the record saying we're not going to pursue impeachment even if we get Congress, so let me ask you: Why do you think that the Democrats would wake up to this once they are a majority, because even when given the possibility of becoming the majority, they have declared ahead of time, "Oh we're not going to do impeachment."
David Swanson: Well I can't answer your question without explaining that I don't think there's such a thing as "the Democrats," and I do not think that Howard Dean will ever support impeachment and I do not believe that Nancy Pelosi will ever support impeachment, but I do believe that Congressman Conyers took a tentative step, introducing a bill for a preliminary investigation and the cosponsors were coming on by little bits up to 37 or 38, probably would have reached about 50, except that Nancy Pelosi ordered the Democrats off impeachment. And from that day, there was not a single additional cosponsor. The chief argument has been, "not until after the election". We saw Harold Meyerson put an op-ed in the Washington Post saying effectively "let's do a bait-and-switch. Lets talk about impeachment after we win the election talking about things people don't care so much about," which, of course, is a brilliant way to lose elections, but it's also THE argument that you hear in private and that you hear publically from the cautious Democrats and some of the more progressive Democrats is, we must wait until after the election, and it's the same argument you get from activists and leaders of activist organizations that see themselves as subservient to the Democratic Party rather than vice versa, and so that excuse is gone. They immediately need a different excuse, which is not to say they can't immediately have one, but it is to say that all of the energy that organizations have been putting into the election can go somewhere else. All of the activists that haven't been able to do anything on impeachment because they're tied up with raising money for awful ads for milquetoast candidates, that appears when the elections are over, and I certainly am aware of a number of organizations that are going to push impeachment and work the hesitant Democrats on the judiciary committee with everything they have got, and it's not clear to me that John Conyers will bow down to Nancy Pelosi on this, nor is it clear to me that she will oppose investigations; and the minute that you have investigations, you have refusals of subpoenas from the White House and you have a crisis, and we take it from there. Does that not seem like a possibility? Should we abandon all hope?
Dennis Loo: Well no, I think we don't abandon all hope, but I think we have to put our hopes in something that's really going to work, difficult as that may seem. I don't think that putting our hope into the Democratic Party or Democrats, if you prefer that formulation, is the way to go on this. What more do they need to talk impeachment and the things that this administration has already done? What more do they need?
David Swanson: So what should we do?
Dennis Loo: What should we do? We need to do two things I think: We need to raise consciousness among the American people about what's really going on and that's the reason we wrote this book, right, to get this out into people's hands and the reason that YOU write the things that you do and other of us, to get the knowledge out to people, because what people do is based on what they understand and we need to break through the lies that have been told about what's going on. We need to expose that, and the second thing we need to do is we need to encourage people to act politically, and when I say act politically, I don't mean go out and support the electoral process, because the electoral process has gotten us nothing but grief. As I was saying earlier, any really great things, any really wonderful things that have come out in American history, have been through people engaging in mass movement. When the march on Washington happened back in the 60s, that movement came from the grass roots.
David Swanson: I agree absolutely entirely with every word you have said, Dennis, but you seem to disagree with something I said, so I'm trying to find where that might be. I don't have a flag over my house saying Go Democratic Party. I don't believe Nancy Pelosi is a democrat with a small "d". I don't have faith in anything at all, but maybe where we disagree is that I think what you're talking about doing actually has a chance of maybe working.
Dennis Loo: Yes, where you disagree with me? You think that what I'm talking about in terms of building a movement cannot work?
David Swanson: No, no, I think it might work. I think it might work, and as awful as this might be, it might work by us forcing some of our so-called representatives who actually have that D after their names to do something. That's how it might work.
Dennis Loo: Oh I think so, I agree with you on that. I think that if there is a large enough and powerful enough and visible enough movement from the grass roots, that it will force...I mean look what happened in the Viet Nam war. Richard Nixon pulled us out of Viet Nam. Richard Nixon didn't want to pull us out of Viet Nam, you know, but there was a movement in the streets and there was the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese people forced his hand. He had to do it. I would say in response to your question on something that I just read of yours, your review of the latest book the "The Genius of Impeachment"...
David Swanson: By John Nichols, right.
Dennis Loo: Yes, John Nichols' argument. I haven't seen the book, but you said in your review of the book that he points out that parties that refuse to carry out impeachment proceedings against the other party for things that they did ended up being soundly defeated the next time around.
David Swanson: Yes, he gives a lot of examples, including recent history, the Iran Contra scandal was obvious grounds for impeachment. There was a lone Democrat who actually introduced Articles of Impeachment and the Democrats cowered under their beds thinking that was the way to win the elections and then, of course, they lost the elections.
Dennis Loo: Well cowardice does not get rewarded, unless, I suppose, you dodge a real service in the Vietnam war and your daddy's named George W. Bush. (laughing)
David Swanson: (laughing)... right, then it gets rewarded plenty.
Dennis Loo: (laughing) I can't think of a person less deserving of the kind of power and influence that George W. Bush enjoys today.
David Swanson: Well, let's take it away from him.
David Swanson: Well I can't answer your question without explaining that I don't think there's such a thing as "the Democrats," and I do not think that Howard Dean will ever support impeachment and I do not believe that Nancy Pelosi will ever support impeachment, but I do believe that Congressman Conyers took a tentative step, introducing a bill for a preliminary investigation and the cosponsors were coming on by little bits up to 37 or 38, probably would have reached about 50, except that Nancy Pelosi ordered the Democrats off impeachment. And from that day, there was not a single additional cosponsor. The chief argument has been, "not until after the election". We saw Harold Meyerson put an op-ed in the Washington Post saying effectively "let's do a bait-and-switch. Lets talk about impeachment after we win the election talking about things people don't care so much about," which, of course, is a brilliant way to lose elections, but it's also THE argument that you hear in private and that you hear publically from the cautious Democrats and some of the more progressive Democrats is, we must wait until after the election, and it's the same argument you get from activists and leaders of activist organizations that see themselves as subservient to the Democratic Party rather than vice versa, and so that excuse is gone. They immediately need a different excuse, which is not to say they can't immediately have one, but it is to say that all of the energy that organizations have been putting into the election can go somewhere else. All of the activists that haven't been able to do anything on impeachment because they're tied up with raising money for awful ads for milquetoast candidates, that appears when the elections are over, and I certainly am aware of a number of organizations that are going to push impeachment and work the hesitant Democrats on the judiciary committee with everything they have got, and it's not clear to me that John Conyers will bow down to Nancy Pelosi on this, nor is it clear to me that she will oppose investigations; and the minute that you have investigations, you have refusals of subpoenas from the White House and you have a crisis, and we take it from there. Does that not seem like a possibility? Should we abandon all hope?
Dennis Loo: Well no, I think we don't abandon all hope, but I think we have to put our hopes in something that's really going to work, difficult as that may seem. I don't think that putting our hope into the Democratic Party or Democrats, if you prefer that formulation, is the way to go on this. What more do they need to talk impeachment and the things that this administration has already done? What more do they need?
David Swanson: So what should we do?
David Swanson: I agree absolutely entirely with every word you have said, Dennis, but you seem to disagree with something I said, so I'm trying to find where that might be. I don't have a flag over my house saying Go Democratic Party. I don't believe Nancy Pelosi is a democrat with a small "d". I don't have faith in anything at all, but maybe where we disagree is that I think what you're talking about doing actually has a chance of maybe working.
Dennis Loo: Yes, where you disagree with me? You think that what I'm talking about in terms of building a movement cannot work?
David Swanson: No, no, I think it might work. I think it might work, and as awful as this might be, it might work by us forcing some of our so-called representatives who actually have that D after their names to do something. That's how it might work.
Dennis Loo: Oh I think so, I agree with you on that. I think that if there is a large enough and powerful enough and visible enough movement from the grass roots, that it will force...I mean look what happened in the Viet Nam war. Richard Nixon pulled us out of Viet Nam. Richard Nixon didn't want to pull us out of Viet Nam, you know, but there was a movement in the streets and there was the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese people forced his hand. He had to do it. I would say in response to your question on something that I just read of yours, your review of the latest book the "The Genius of Impeachment"...
David Swanson: By John Nichols, right.
Dennis Loo: Yes, John Nichols' argument. I haven't seen the book, but you said in your review of the book that he points out that parties that refuse to carry out impeachment proceedings against the other party for things that they did ended up being soundly defeated the next time around.
David Swanson: Yes, he gives a lot of examples, including recent history, the Iran Contra scandal was obvious grounds for impeachment. There was a lone Democrat who actually introduced Articles of Impeachment and the Democrats cowered under their beds thinking that was the way to win the elections and then, of course, they lost the elections.
Dennis Loo: Well cowardice does not get rewarded, unless, I suppose, you dodge a real service in the Vietnam war and your daddy's named George W. Bush. (laughing)
David Swanson: (laughing)... right, then it gets rewarded plenty.
Dennis Loo: (laughing) I can't think of a person less deserving of the kind of power and influence that George W. Bush enjoys today.
David Swanson: Well, let's take it away from him.
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