On Friday, September 21st, at lunchtime, a couple of Chesapeake Citizen farmers took the country’s growing hunger for Impeachment into the Longworth and Rayburn House Office Buildings.
We reckon our public servants in the House ought to know what the majority of Americans want from them, and old-fashioned citizen lobbying has proved ‘fruitless’ to date.
We were warmly welcomed by security personnel at the building’s entrance. A security staff member even kindly took our photo (using our camera).
Once inside, we visited Rep. Kucinich’s office to give him peaches in gratitude for H. Res 333, and we stopped in at Rep. Conyers’ office to offer him peaches in exchange for impeachment.
We then sang and strolled as we made our way to the cafeterias of both buildings, where we placed delicious peaches on the lunch tables of smiling staffers.
What we sang as we walked through the hallowed halls and crowsed cafeterias:
“Peaches, apples, pears are still ripe,
But rotten criminals must go.
Peaches, apples, pears are still ripe
But Bush and Cheney must go.
Reap what you sow.
And Congress you should know
You too will reap what you sow.”
Chesapeake Citizens utilizes true stories, geography and the imagination to re-dream our watershed back into its ongoing 10,000-year role as abundant, life-sustaining provider for all. We create and support: reparations, social justice actions, diverse democracy, and a thriving regional eco-economy.
At last Saturday’s DC ANSWER anti-war rally, eight Chesapeake Citizens had a splendid time doing our sublime and ridiculous Ripe imPeach Farmers Market Musical Street Theater Action. We sang adaptations of agrarian themed nursery rhymes, accompanied by an accordion, a cow bell, and egg and apple shakers. We also gave away dozens of ripe local peaches to hungry activists.
The time is ripe for impeachment, and impeachment will preserve our Constitution.
This absurd humorous action was created as a sane response to the absurd and tragic fact that Bush and Cheney have committed more impeachable crimes than any other administration in our country’s history, and yet Congress is doing nothing.
== Chapter 74. Torturing People, Assassinating Ideas ==
By Larry W. Bryant
on the waterboard,
she gurgles, writhes, and struggles
as the water seeps
through the towel on her face —
her tormentors pouring more
— Larry W. Bryant (18 Jan 08)
[Author’s Note: The world seems to know that certain male prisoners in Amerika’s Guantanamo gulag have been water-boarded. But who knows how many women there (and elsewhere in rendition sites across the globe) have incurred such abuse at the hands of U. S. officialdom? Can you imagine witnessing the waterboarding of your mother, sister, daughter, wife, or other woman? Akin to physical rape, waterboarding, whether it be adjudicated as a form of torture forbidden by international law, amounts to raping of the spirit. Its victim’s emotional scars doubtlessly permanent and deep-seated, the practice of waterboarding (and of authorizing/approving waterboarding, for that matter) has helped convert the United Korporations of Amerika into a rogue state. Ringing in the ears of any such victim of torture should be the lamentably immortal words of Herr Cheney (as allegedly uttered during his being interviewed by a journalist some months ago): “Waterboarding is a no-brainer.” On Friday, Jan. 11, 2008, a few hundred anti-Guantanamo citizens braved the morning’s cold rain and wind to assemble in protest upon the Mall of our nation’s capital. The event marked the sixth anniversary of Gitmo’s “illegal detention (in effect: assault and kidnapping of persons held without charge or trial”). Those quoted words come from a flyer distributed during the protest, which was sponsored by a group called Witness Against Torture ( http://www.witnesstorture.org ). The protest’s denouement occurred when a number of the protestors marched to the grounds of the U. S. Supreme Court. There, according to press accounts, some 80 of them incurred arrest for failing to observe the Capitol Police’s strict rules. Ironically, a number of the arrestees were well equipped for this turn of events, having predressed themselves in bright-orange jumpsuits, the now-universal symbol of Gitmo inmates’ plight.
During the evening hours of Jan. 11, 2008, another event destined to enter Amerika’s Political Hall of Shame occurred at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike. There, the venerable Yellow Rose of Texas Peace Bus ( http://tinyurl.com/2qflor ), owned and driven by Vietnam veteran Jim Goodnow, was set ablaze by perpetrators yet to be apprehended. For several months, this rolling message board of public dissent, protest, and patriotism had plied the highways and byways across the nation. Now, it suddenly had become too much of a threat to those cowards who have no means of discourse other than abject violence. Instead of, say, creating their own “Green-Thorn-of-Alabama War Bus,” they chose to kill our messenger of Truth-and-Hope as expressed by Goodnow and his fellow members of Veterans for Peace – Chapter 106 (1804 Tree Line Drive, Carrollton, TX 75007). Those of us who value that message now have the opportunity to help Goodnow resurrect the Peace Bus — by sending a donation to him at the above address. I’ve already sent mine, and I plan to renew it regularly. In this world of political unrest, there’s only one thing worse than assassinating a patriot activist: assassinating the IDEA that motivates his commitment and spirit.]
PIZAZZO [using a spent lollypop stick to dislodge a bit of pesky wax from her right ear]: Guys, I see that the NSA’s latest intercept of Larry W. (Worthless) Bryant’s e-mail shows him posing a viciously subversive question to his co-conspirators: “How can the U. S. government demand that Israel and the Palestinians thereabouts construct a worthy, viable peace treaty when Amerika’s current record of its own treaty compliance has rendered us the world’s laughing stock?” And then he goes on with the gall of signing himself as a “(post)card-carrying Extremist” (which refers to his distributing copies of those “Beach Impeach” postcards showing people lying on the ground so as to spell out the word “IMPEACH!”). That’s enough for us to . . ..
CHEEZEY [interrupting by slamming a fist upon his laptop]: . . . yes, enough to charge him with giving the appearance of advocating violent overthrow of the federal government. What the hell are we waiting for? Sedition is sedition, right?
BU$CH: Yeah, Dick. I wanna see sexual intellectual Bryant rot in Gitmo, especially because of his abusing the spelling of our beloved nation — AmeriCa.
GRATES: On thing at a time, guys! I thought we’d agreed that Goodnow’s Peace Bus should stay at the top of the list for extreme rendition. So long as he’s still alive, we’re not done with him yet. So, let’s pursue Bryant later.
PUKASY: I agree with ya, Robert. By the way: nice job on torching that shameful bus . . . and an even better job of ensuring that those three arsonists made it safely back to Alabama. If they ever do get caught, their cover story will hold up in any court of law — namely: they were merely homeless fellows taking refuge beneath the bus when one of ’em fell asleep with a lit cigarette in his hand. Dripping Diesel fuel from an old bus can happen anywhere, right?
BU$CH: Great, Mikey-baby — but how do we know they’ll stick to that story if they get nabbed? Was $100k per person really enough for ’em to keep quiet?
PIZAZZO: I think that that payoff was more than enough, Dubya. Besides, we can rest assured that no-one in AmeriCa’s law-enforcement community is gonna put any waterboard pressure on those suspects. Now, what say we break early for lunch? I want to catch tonight’s episode of “American Idol.”
http://www.bushbusiness.com/Bryant_OP.htm
http://www.petitiononline.com/arrest/petition.html
ROTFL! Loved it, just loved it! Roll on Ladies.
Very clever. This needs to be repeated often, a fun and non-threatening way to let our disgraceful non-representatives know what we think an could also be done to inspire citizens – which cafeteria could we visit?