Cynthia McKinney's Call to Action

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Subject: Cynthia McKinney's Call to Action

Cynthia McKinney's Call to Action in Support of Dennis

Kucinich's Articles of Impeachment Against Bush



From Cynthia McKinney, Presidential Candidate



June 19, 2008, the Black Commentator



http://www.blackcommentator.com/282/282_mckinney_kucinnich_articles_impeachment.html



(This statement is also posted on the website of Cynthia

McKinney's Power to the People presidential campaign)



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 Gutiérrez

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!



To read more of Cynthia McKinney’s writings, please visit

www.allthingscynthiamckinney.com.



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