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For Democracy, We
Must Consider Impeachment
By Midge Miller
06/13/07 "Capital
Times" -- - - The United States democracy is in a
struggle for its life. A growing number of writers, generals and
other opinion leaders are speaking up to inform and encourage an
inattentive public to understand and to make a stand to protect
our nation from enemies within and without.
In his new book “Nemesis,” Chalmers
Johnson talks about the momentous decision Great Britain faced
after World War II. As its colonies struggled for freedom,
Britain understood that it would have to choose between empire
and democracy. If it resorted to tactics despotic enough to
maintain empire, it would lose its own democracy. Britain chose
democracy and humanity, and the British and the world are the
better for that choice.
That is our choice today. As our leaders
make their thirst for empire clear through one policy after
another, our struggle to keep our humanity and democracy becomes
the fight of our lives.
The Cheney/Bush administration lied us
into an ill-conceived war that has killed far too many of our
soldiers and uncounted numbers of Iraqis. The war has multiplied
the number of terrorists, armed and seeking revenge.
This administration shamed us before the
world and endangered our own soldiers by practicing and
condoning torture. They have alienated our friends and
infuriated our enemies. They have endangered our economy and
damaged the environment.
The tragedies of this war and the numerous
violations of our democratic rights are so egregious that we are
tempted to believe that the Cheney/Bush administration is the
whole problem, fixable by a different team in the White House.
Believing that would be a major mistake.
The Cheney/Bush cabal has been so arrogant, extreme and
incompetent that many have been prodded awake and found
themselves speaking out. But the U.S. has been building empire
for a long, long time.
While most Americans have not been aware
of it, the U.S. has overtly and covertly been building empire
for decades. Rather than establishing colonies like the empires
of old, we have killed or overthrown many leaders who did not
comply sufficiently with our demands. According to John Perkins,
a former self-styled “economic hit man,” we have enticed
countries into insupportable debt in order to manipulate their
economies. We have more than 700 military bases around the
world.
Our trade policies favor multinational
corporations over the people of countries whose economies are
too small to resist U.S. pressure.
As exploited people in these countries
discover our manipulations, it should not surprise us that some
seek revenge. “Blowback” is the CIA term for chickens coming
home to roost. No country is strong enough to repeal the laws of
cause and effect.
Quest for empire does not fit our
self-image, and many of us long shrank from such stories of
exploitation. But we can only change reality by first facing it.
It would be tragic to have been so diminished and not learn from
the experience.
Democracy is not merely the system of
government we happened to be born into, a system that only asks
us to vote for leaders from time to time. If democracy means we
are a self-governing people, then it means we not only have the
right but the responsibility to control the policies and actions
of our government.
Many of us have resisted the idea of
impeaching Cheney and Bush. But we now realize that by allowing
this administration to continue in power, we become a party to:
- Killing Americans and other people in wars of
aggression.
- Imprisoning and torturing people.
- Endangering our economy and the environment.
- Neglecting health, education and other needs at home and
abroad.
- Eroding our own liberties.
Our Founding Fathers understood the misuse
of power and gave us impeachment as a corrective measure. Facing
such a disastrous series of wrongheaded policies, if we fail to
use it, we signal to future presidents and other leaders that
they too can ignore the will and the welfare of the people of
our country and the world.
It will be a long time before the rest of
the world will trust us again. But impeachment would signal to
the world that the people of the U.S. are changing course and
wrestling back control of our government. It would be a first
step back from the precipice of empire and toward the family of
nations that will help us find our way.
Whether or not we can persuade Congress to
impeach Cheney and Bush, as self-governing people we must find a
way to change our country’s policies.
Having observed instances of election
fraud by officials in 2000 and 2004, we know that only our
vigilance will protect our elections. Having witnessed the
mainline media shirk their watchdog role, we are compelled to
search for truth from a variety of sources.
Our struggle to renew our humanity and
democracy will require time, money, energy and courage. We have
much to learn from the Boston Tea Party, the union movement, the
civil rights movement, the Vietnam peace movement and democratic
groundswells in South and Central America.
Eternal vigilance is still the price of
freedom.
A mother whose son was killed in the World
Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, later wrote: “Let us not, as a
nation, add to the inhumanity of our times.”
Midge Miller is a Madison activist and
a former member of the state Assembly.
© 2007 The Capital Times
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