The peace movement seems to have run out of gas.
What do we do?
Impeach Bush and Cheney. Mobilize the millions.
"We need to be in the streets," Sunsara Taylor, of The World Can't Wait, said. Taylor called for "an upheaval so great that it can't be ignored."
The World Can't Wait, which ran a full-page advertisement in the New York Times on June 22, followed it up with a meeting at the Ethical Culture Society June 25, attended by about 350 persons. In big, black type, the advertisement had proclaimed, "DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!"
At the Society meeting, Taylor carried through on the theme that silence and paralysis were not acceptable.
"The Cheney faction in favor of war against Iran is gaining ascendency," she warned, speaking passionately and gesticulating to emphasize her points. "War before this fall ... to change the regime." Those who are opposed to the war must "do something radically different," she said.
Rocky Anderson, tall, white-haired, the second-term mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, was the big political gun at the rally.
Anderson quoted the American Revolutionary War leader, Samuel Adams, who said, "The liberties of our country, the freedom ... are worth defending at all costs."
"Our nation is at a crucial point in our history," he continued. "We all value the rule of law.
Protection of individual liberties. A balance of power, constitutional checks and balances.
Honesty. Peace among nations. Adherence to treaties signed on to by the United States.
"Bush has betrayed all of those values," he said, calling for the impeachment of the president.
Mayor John Shields of Nyack, New York, a small village north of New York City, backed him up. Nothing "is going to happen without your activism," Shields said. "Our country is being taken over by a fascist dictator. It is a crime that members of Congress aren't screaming for impeachment. Go out and petition, petition, petition!"
Ann Wright, former U.S. diplomat and Colonel (ret.), expressed her opposition to the "criminal, illegal acts" of the Bush administration, torture, the Military Commissions Act.
A Congressional resolution for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney has eight sponsors, she noted.
The nature of the audience presented an observable difficulty: the majority were middle-aged or elderly, many carrying canes or pushing walkers. There was a scattering of young people, wearing an article of orange clothing in sympathy with those detained without recourse.
It was a very different kind of crowd from that which headed up the protests against the Vietnam War. Those protests were led by such intellectual powerhouses as the poets Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsburg and the novelist Norman Mailer and the inventive humorists Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and peace activist A. J. Muste and young rebels from Columbia University to Berkeley. They marched the protesters up to the doors to the Pentagon. They confronted the bayonets, and handed out flowers to the soldiers behind them. They deployed humor and ideas and repeated turnouts against the war. They upset the war planners, forced President Lyndon B. Johnson from office, and at long last, saw the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon.
What do we do?
Impeach Bush and Cheney. Mobilize the millions.
"We need to be in the streets," Sunsara Taylor, of The World Can't Wait, said. Taylor called for "an upheaval so great that it can't be ignored."
The World Can't Wait, which ran a full-page advertisement in the New York Times on June 22, followed it up with a meeting at the Ethical Culture Society June 25, attended by about 350 persons. In big, black type, the advertisement had proclaimed, "DRIVE OUT THE BUSH REGIME!"
At the Society meeting, Taylor carried through on the theme that silence and paralysis were not acceptable.
"The Cheney faction in favor of war against Iran is gaining ascendency," she warned, speaking passionately and gesticulating to emphasize her points. "War before this fall ... to change the regime." Those who are opposed to the war must "do something radically different," she said.
Rocky Anderson, tall, white-haired, the second-term mayor of Salt Lake City, Utah, was the big political gun at the rally.
Anderson quoted the American Revolutionary War leader, Samuel Adams, who said, "The liberties of our country, the freedom ... are worth defending at all costs."
"Our nation is at a crucial point in our history," he continued. "We all value the rule of law.
Protection of individual liberties. A balance of power, constitutional checks and balances.
Honesty. Peace among nations. Adherence to treaties signed on to by the United States.
"Bush has betrayed all of those values," he said, calling for the impeachment of the president.
Mayor John Shields of Nyack, New York, a small village north of New York City, backed him up. Nothing "is going to happen without your activism," Shields said. "Our country is being taken over by a fascist dictator. It is a crime that members of Congress aren't screaming for impeachment. Go out and petition, petition, petition!"
Ann Wright, former U.S. diplomat and Colonel (ret.), expressed her opposition to the "criminal, illegal acts" of the Bush administration, torture, the Military Commissions Act.
A Congressional resolution for the impeachment of Vice President Cheney has eight sponsors, she noted.
The nature of the audience presented an observable difficulty: the majority were middle-aged or elderly, many carrying canes or pushing walkers. There was a scattering of young people, wearing an article of orange clothing in sympathy with those detained without recourse.
It was a very different kind of crowd from that which headed up the protests against the Vietnam War. Those protests were led by such intellectual powerhouses as the poets Robert Lowell and Allen Ginsburg and the novelist Norman Mailer and the inventive humorists Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and peace activist A. J. Muste and young rebels from Columbia University to Berkeley. They marched the protesters up to the doors to the Pentagon. They confronted the bayonets, and handed out flowers to the soldiers behind them. They deployed humor and ideas and repeated turnouts against the war. They upset the war planners, forced President Lyndon B. Johnson from office, and at long last, saw the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon.
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