Impeachment: Cynthia McKinney's Call to Action

Cynthia McKinney's Call to Action
in Support of Dennis Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment Against Bush

With great satisfaction I learned of the courageous action taken by Congressman Dennis Kucinich on Monday, June 9th. On that day, on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, he rose to introduce House Resolution 1258, containing 35 Articles of Impeachment against President George W. Bush. The litany of documented High Crimes and constitutional abuses by the Bush administration took over five hours to recite.

I wish to take this opportunity to thank and commend Rep. Kucinich for his courage and tenacity, for the comprehensiveness of his research, and for the leadership he exhibited to press forward the democratic demands of the People for accountability and justice.

Under House Rule 9, which Rep. Kucinich invoked in introducing H.Res. 1258--"a question of the privileges of the House"-- the full House of Representatives was compelled within 48 hours to bring the matter to a vote. Consequently, two days later, on Wednesday, June 11th, our Congressional Representatives voted overwhelmingly (by a 251-166 margin) to refer the matter to the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Congressman John Conyers.

Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment effectively lay out the case against a lawless, degenerate regime that places corporate power and profits above the good and welfare of the U.S. Citizenry. In great detail they show that Bush & Co.:

* manufactured a fraudulent case for the Iraq war, lying to Congress and the American People;

* invaded Iraq illegally for the purpose of occupying a sovereign nation indefinitely and expropriating its public oil reserves and other natural resources for their billionaire cronies of corporate America;

* negligently failed to provide protective gear to our troops;

* outsourced the functions of the U.S. military and created a no-bid, private-contractor mercenary force which killed Iraqis with impunity and looted the treasuries of both the Iraqi and U.S. governments;

* tore up the United Nations Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and other binding international treaties to which the U.S. is signatory;

* retaliated against government whistleblowers attempting to shine a light on corruption, malfeasance and unconstitutional abuse of power;

* began illegal detentions without trial or access to counsel of U.S. citizens and foreign nationals alike;

* countenanced kidnapping and torture;

* created secret laws;

* unconstitutionally spied on American citizens without a court order;

and the list goes on and on.

Each fact exhibited in Rep. Kucinich's 35 Articles of Impeachment is true beyond dispute, and each by itself is sufficient to demonstrate the need to remove this criminal President and his gang of thugs from the Executive Branch--not least of all because most if not all of the crimes are still ongoing.

But, as a Black woman from the South familiar with the struggle against discrimination and racism, I am moved most profoundly, in particular, by three of the Articles of Impeachment that I think serve to point out the real sickness of this regime -- the fact that for Blacks, for Latinos, for Native Americans, for all peoples of color, and for much of the white working
class, democracy has never really existed in the United States, and that today the limited gains in the direction of "a more perfect Union" that were won in struggle two generations ago are now being reversed through the deliberate, illegal policies of the gang that has taken over the government. I'm referring to:

* Article 28--Tampering with Free and Fair Elections, Corruption of the Administration of Justice;

* Article 29--Conspiracy to Violate the Voting Rights Act of 1965; and

* Article 31--Katrina: Failure to Plan for the Predicted Disaster of Hurricane Katrina, Failure to Respond to a Civil Emergency.

Therefore, I am hereby putting out an urgent call to all the progressive forces throughout this country--including first and foremost the democratic forces of the Black community, together with my supporters in the Green Party, organizers of the Reconstruction Party, and most especially Katrina survivors--to mobilize specifically around these three Articles.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, one thing we have learned through Barack Obama's success in capturing the Democratic Party nomination--when everyone knows Hillary Clinton had been anointed by the Democratic Party apparatus --is that the People, when they mobilize at the grassroots, can "flip the script" on the Power Structure.

This past Monday, backed up by the sustained pressure of a persistent mass movement for impeachment, Dennis Kucinich succeeded in "flipping the script" on the House Democratic leadership, and now the Articles of Impeachment are before the Judiciary Committee--precisely the result that the impeachment movement has been fighting for over the last five years!

Today we find that the ball is back in our court. It's up to the People now to "flip the script" once again. A massive grassroots movement of the People must coalesce very quickly, which can move Chairman Conyers and the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings on H.Res. 1258.

I call upon all the forces of the Black movement nationwide--whether they currently support my presidential bid or the candidacy of Senator Obama--along with all my Green and Reconstructionist supporters, Katrina survivors and their supporters, the election protection movement, and all progressive forces, to organize a mass mobilization to push the House Judiciary Committee to move on the 35 Articles of Impeachment, with an explicit emphasis on the Black demands for fairness, equality and justice as laid out in Articles 28, 29 and 31.

I propose that all these social movements immediately combine in their local Congressional districts to organize street demonstrations, send delegations to their Congress members, and take any and all other steps necessary, including the formation of ad hoc action committees, to publicize Articles 28, 29 and 31 and convince their representatives to co-sponsor H.Res. 1258. Time is of the essence, brothers and sisters; it's necessary that we all swing into motion now.

Such efforts must especially focus on our Black members of Congress. Most important, activists in districts represented by the Black members of the House Judiciary Committee must most energetically target their representatives: Chairman John Conyers of Detroit; Bobby Scott of Richmond, Virginia; Mel Watt of Western North Carolina; Sheila Jackson-Lee of Houston; Maxine Waters of Los Angeles; my own distinguished successor in office, Hank Johnson of Atlanta; Luis Gutirrez of Chicago; Artur Davis of Black-Belt Alabama; and Keith Ellison of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

In the coming days and weeks, I will be announcing some concrete steps I intend to take to assist in the development of the mass movement it will take to ensure that accountability and justice are imposed upon the lawless Bush gang. Immediately, I am instructing my campaign staff to assist by setting up internet resources through my campaign website, RunCynthiaRun.org, that will be useful to local activists in conducting their organizing.

We have seen in this very election cycle how the mobilized masses, with Black America as their indispensable animating force, can "flip the script" on the Powers That Be. The time is now for us to do it again.

Keep the faith, my beautiful, powerful People!