Arkansas Impeach for Peace Rally…

From “Bush & Satan inc: Greed, Fear, and Violence for All” — This is a speech I gave at an April 30th Impeachment Rally we organized on the U of A campus.

Impeach for Peace Rally Speech

Now let’s get to the point. We must impeach our criminal leaders! George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney!

Why impeach? We could spend all day listing the crimes including any of the 34 scandals during Bush’s first term, but instead I’ll focus solely on the highest crimes. Briefly, the charges are manipulating intelligence and lying about Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction and ties to 911 to justify their illegal war of aggression; they conducted warrantless spying of our computers and telephones; they authorized torture; illegal detainments that violate several Constitutional laws; and illegal use of signing statements to over 100 Congressional laws, allowing escapement from accountability with a telling example from McCain’s anti-torture bill, which pegged Bush’s pro-torture views. The US Supreme Court and District Courts have already found the Administration guilty of most of these charges.

Bush and Cheney are guilty of the most serious international war crimes by conducting a “war of aggression” and committing a “grave breach” of the Geneva Conventions with authorization of torture.

The most glaring impeachable offense is their lies to the American People about Iraq’s posing an imminent threat, Weapons of Mass Destruction and links to the 9/11 attacks.

Evidence clearly indicates intentional manipulation of pre-war intelligence to gather public support for war. The top secret Downing Street memo clearly states that “intelligence and facts were being fixed” regarding WMDs in order to justify the Iraq Invasion. We also know that most of the intelligence sources used such as “Curveball” and others were known to lack credibility by many intelligence experts, but critics were silenced.

Last night on 60 Minutes, former CIA director George Tenet stated forcefully that those in the CIA knew for a fact that Iraq had no connection to 9/11, but Bush and Cheney ignored the CIA and lied to America and the World. Even today, there is a significant percentage of dumb American’s who still believe this lie, mostly Fox News viewers.

Unfortunately, many Americans are also uninformed about the actual support for impeachment. Let’s thank all of the media for this, not just Fox News. There is a serious suppression of impeachment polling or news stories related to impeachment by all mass media. Washington Post chief pollster Richard Morin was asked about lack of impeachment polling and he responded, “this question makes me angry”. The director of Gallup Poll also said he would only do impeachment polls if the issue gained mainstream attention. Uuuuh”¦duhhh, what the hell does he think creates mainstream attention on such issues, perhaps polls and media coverage of them.

The last impeachment poll was from Newsweek in October 2006. This poll found that 51% of Americans support impeachment, and even 20% of Republicans, so we are not just a majority, but a bipartisan majority! Sadly, Newsweek did their best to hide this fact even in their own report and all other mass media followed suit. Likewise, there have been no new impeachment polls since the Democrats won both houses of congress in November. The whole situation seems very fishy at best. Shit, by now 60% of America could support impeachment.

Not only do the majority of Americans support impeachment, but many major cities and 5 states introduced measures supporting impeachment. In addition, 39 Vermont cities and the Vermont State Senate recently passed impeachment resolutions, which have greatly elevated the level of debate nationwide.

Also, the tremendous Congressman and Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich has just introduced articles of impeachment against Dick Cheney in the US House of Representatives with the idea that Bush would be easily co-ensnared with investigations into the well-known crimes.

Likewise, we recently started this new student RSO Impeach for Peace UA a couple weeks ago and we already have nearly 100 members. Our objectives are simple: to raise awareness about impeachment at such events and to pass impeachment resolutions on campus and in the City of Fayetteville. We could be a shining example for the Red State South and we could show the rest of the country that we’re not all inbred Rush Limbaugh-Fox News zombies.

There were also nationwide protests in dozens of cities this Saturday, April 28th. All of this impeachment activity was summarized nicely by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark when he recently said, “The Winds of Impeachment are Sweeping the Nation”.

Now let’s talk briefly about the arguments against impeachment. Most of the arguments are very weak, but two are worth rebutting.

The first is that impeachment will distract from Iraq Withdrawal. This argument is weak because Bush has promised to veto withdrawal bills and with his illegal use of signing statements, he could negate any bill even if he signed it, so I hate to burst the bubble, but we’re probably staying in Iraq until Bush is out of office, so why not accelerate his departure with impeachment? Impeachment may be the only option to end the War soon.

The other argument I wish to rebut was mentioned by Barbara Walters last week on the View. Impeachment was being discussed and the four women seemed to reflect America’s support for impeachment. The ditzy conservative, Elizabeth was against impeachment and the two more liberal women, Rosy and Joy supported impeachment. Barbara Walters, the moderate one, said she didn’t support impeachment because it would tie up business in Congress.

Please allow me to rebut Barbara! Has our congress really got shit done since Bush has ruled as supreme leader? The vast majority of accomplishments were wrong at best and evil at worst, with most legislation aimed at helping the wealthiest 10% of Americans and Corporations. So hell yeah, Let’s tie them up until we get a new president! Furthermore, one of the priorities on Bush’s Agenda is arguably to invade Iran, so again let’s impeach to prevent further atrocities. No business is better than bad business.

The Primary purpose of impeachment is not simply punitive justice for our criminal leaders, but more importantly in regaining the world’s respect and setting an example for future Presidents. We must impeach to exemplify democratic accountability and that it is wrong to wiretap, torture, and manipulate intelligence and lie to justify an illegal war.

Regarding global respect, many people now see the billboard of America as the tarnished arrogant image of Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, and illegal Iraq War. Even Colin Powell said America is losing it’s moral authority. We’re also losing diplomatic credibility and persuasive power. How are we supposed to encourage democracy and human rights in China, Russia or Israel, when our moral voice rings hollow. When we criticize them for unfair elections or human rights abuses, they can say, “eat shit” you rig elections and illegally wiretap, imprison and torture people, so why can’t we?

If we don’t impeach our criminal “leaders”, we’ll continue sending a message to the rest of the world that we’ve completely abandoned our respect for the rule of law. If America, the shining example of democracy, abandons the abiding of our own laws, then other countries will begin to follow our corrosive example, until we become a world of lawlessness with a reversal of societal evolution back to the Dark Ages. Let’s impeach to show the world that this is not King George’s America and we’re not his sheepish lockstep followers.

But we mustn’t simply impeach Bush because he’ll only be replaced by another Bushclone like Cheney. We must impeach “˜em all and let God sort “˜em out. For the past 6 years, an assload of neocons has been constipating progress and staining the walls of the white house with blood and greedy corruption. It is time to cleanse and purge, like a grand enema of justice flushing out this stinky rotting fecal matter from the highest offices of our government. Let’s patriotically create a brighter and better America than we’ve ever had, a country of peace and justice that we can proudly deliver to our children and the next generation of Americans.

Impeach Now! Impeach Now! Impeach Now!