Report from Illinois WorldCantWait.org organizers, followed by local news report:
After organizing for about a week and a half, approximately 40 people crowded into the conference room of the Batavia, Illinois, public library on Tuesday for an intense and hopeful town hall meeting on impeaching the Bush administration. People came from all over the conservative stronghold, Kane County, after hearing about the event from emails from both World Can’t Wait and Fox Valley Citizens for Peace and Justice, through fliers in the area and also from a favorable article the day before in the local county-wide daily. People came from Batavia, Geneva and Elgin, but also Rockford,
Aurora, and Mendota.
Organizers had guessed people in former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert’s district would be eager to participate in an open discussion on impeachment – and it turned out to be true. One person came early with a sign reading “2 thousand [and some odd] days without terrorism” and an
American flag. He ended up coming into the event with everyone else and participating (although politely disagreeing with others). The rest of the crowd was overwhelmingly and voiciferously in favor of impeachment.
A short clip of Daniel Ellsberg’s speech from “Voices for Impeachment” was played to introduce the topic. The panel of speakers featured an English professor from the nearby College of DuPage, Jason Snart, legal expert and member of the Board of the Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyers
Guild, Nick Stein, and member of the steering committee of the Chicago Chapter of the World Can’t Wait, Liz Lazdins. The speakers covered both the legal grounds for impeachment, the historical moment that we are in, and the moral obligation that rests on the people of this country.
The meeting discussion lasted well over an hour after the presentations. Many expressed fear that if only Bush himself were impeached the situation could become even worse. Impeaching them all (including at least certain members of congress) was the best received solution. The larger question that lay in a number of questions was, “how do we make this happen?” The specifics of what articles of impeachment could and should be brought against this administration, as well as whether that was the best “strategy” for the democrats to take for political success in 2008 were also raised. All in all though, the local newspaper got it right when reporting the next day that the room “..was overfilled with passionate citizens seeking change.”
One elderly couple from Rockford brought impeachment petitions that they had drafted themselves and were in the process of circulating throughout the country’s Unitarian Churches. Another Batavia resident described her window boxes decorated with “IMPEACH BUSH AND CHENEY!” The Fox Valley peace group announced their upcoming plans to regularly do a “honk for peace.” Others suggested holding a larger event; if each person brought everyone they knew who felt the same there would be hundreds. John Laesch, the democratic candidate who nearly beat Dennis Hastert during the last election, made an appearance. He read Hastert’s comments concerning impeachment from the
recorded notes of his remarks during the Clinton impeachment, to a room of laughter. Near the end of the evening, there was a solemn moment as one of the local people talked about her great fear of even coming to this town hall meeting. She had overcome her fear enough to bring her to the event but she admitted she was still too afraid to do anything else. This brought on discussion of the need to resist before the curtain closes on our ability to even gather in meetings like this.
If the library hadn’t closed at 9pm the discussion would have continued into the night. Many people took their opinions and anger outside and talked in small groups afterwards. People seemed to have a bit more hope and feeling of strength after gathering in close quarters with their neighbors in a meeting that made it official for Kane County: impeachment is on the table.
Group out for impeachment
May 23, 2007
By Erika Wurst Staff Writer
BATAVIA– “Hastert Country” was ripe with protest Tuesday evening.
Local residents from Mendota to Aurora showed up at the Batavia Public
Library to participate in a forum sponsored by the Chicago area chapter
of World Can’t Wait — a national grass-roots organization looking to
drive out the Bush regime.
The small room, meant to hold 30 people, was overfilled with passionate
citizens seeking change.
“We are very angry,” said Geneva resident Vlasta Brusic Kaufman, on why
she attended the forum. “There are lots of problems with today’s foreign
and internal policy.”
The World Can’t Wait Chicago Chapter, which usually meets on Mondays
from 7-11 p.m. at ACME Art Works in Chicago, has sponsored mock impeachment
trials and protest picnics across the city in light of recent
congressional
events.
On April 24, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, introduced articles of
impeachment in Congress against Vice President Dick Cheney on the
grounds that he misled the United States into war with Iraq. Three other
representatives have signed on as co-sponsors.
“Whether or not we get the impeachment ball
rolling is not the issue,”
said panelist Nick Stein, a member of the board of the Chicago Chapter of
the National Lawyers Guild. “The issue is the moral obligation that faces
us all.”
Across the country, local chapters of World Can’t Wait have been
convening at town halls, encouraging open dialogue among citizens.
In Batavia, residents heard the call.
“We live in a nation where we can help form and decide policy,” said a
passionate Liz
Lazdins, a World Can’t Wait member. “If we sit back, we
might as well live in a dictatorship.”
Residents and panelists alike rattled off the Bush administration’s
allegedly impeachable offenses and discussed courses of action.
“We can’t just wait for 2008,” Lazdins said. “We can’t let them walk
away from this travesty like nothing ever
happened.”
Residents were urged to call their congressional representatives and
speak their minds — a comment met with laughter.
“Even if you think (Hastert) is going to say ‘no,’ call anyway,” one
women said. “Our voices need to be heard.”
That is great news. Impeachment is long overdue.