FUSsa-talk Mailing List: ACTION Just Received: Impeachment could stop the slaughter

[MADELINE SIMON (madeline-mpls]

Just got this today!  Action is below--we still can call.

Peace,
Madeline

From: Peter Barus [mailto:peter [at] barus.com]
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2008 1:08 PM
To: Undisclosed recipients:
Subject: Impeachment could stop the slaughter

Friends and Family of mine,

I just called Conyers' office. The woman who answered the phone guessed
what my call was about. She said she has personally answered 150 calls in
the last hour about this. She said, "How did I know? You are the eight
hundredth person to call."

The Impeachment movement has been building for quite awhile, and now
numbers well over a million citizens who have petitioned Congress to start

proceedings against the administration. As everyone knows, the existing
Impeachment bill(s) have been dropped into limbo under the tender care of

Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers. The accepted narrative is that this idea is

"off the table" and beyond serious consideration by sensible grown-up
people. It is reasonable to suspect this idea is very heavily supported by

backroom arm-twisting involving the usual sticks and carrots: thousands of

corporate jobs in Congressional districts hanging in the balance, for
instance.

When you think about it, in view of the stunning crimes Cheney and Bush
and their cronies have committed so blatantly, this Impeachment-aversion
syndrome is beyond amazing, it's downright terrifying. Our government has

been taken over by completely documented and public actions any one of
which by itself constitutes high treason. Yet, if you bring up Impeachment

in a conversation you get first rueful expressions of agreement, and then,

if you don't take a hint and say something about some sports industry
"event", concerned expressions for your mental wellbeing.

Ramsey Clark recently wrote: "In his remaining eight months, President
Bush will continue to threaten other nations in violation of international

law and clearly intends to commit new aggressions in his belligerent
presidency. If not stopped by impeachment he may strike Iran's nuclear
projects and immerse the United States in avoidable war for a generation
far more exhausting than any we have known."

Former Bush sock-puppet Scott McClellan's kiss-and-tell book seems to make

it normal and acceptable to have been purposefully blind and deaf at the
beginning of this gang's berserk orgy of industrialized killing. But a
great many of us ordinary folks knew full well what a Cheney/Bush
administration would do once they got their hands on the big red button,
and said so at every opportunity, while Scottie opted for the money and
prestige and future book royalties.

Now we, and a great many highly respected and knowledgeable people,
diplomats, military, cabinet-level insiders, career policy experts - real,

experienced, mature, sensible grown-up people - are trying to warn us of
far worse consequences just over the horizon.

Look, friends: either the USA is now being directed by criminals with
avowed intentions to invade Iran, pernicious designs on other nations in
the region, and extensive plans for "regime change" in several South
American nations, or it isn't. And now, in a bizarre twist, the words of
Secretary Condoleezza "Condi" Rice when she was National security adviser

apply with chilling appropriateness: "We don't want the smoking gun to be

a mushroom cloud." That's right! Or a smoking bombed-out nuclear power
station. Or a land paved with unexploded cluster-bombs. Or another million

dead innocent children.

Will it take a mushroom cloud over Iran to convince our Congress to act
upon its Constitutional responsibility, to defend that sacred document
"from all enemies, foreign and domestic?" I say it is not too late,
Impeachment is our last best hope to avert real catastrophe BEFORE a
November Surprise, and if we don't at least try to exercise our own
responsibilities of Citizenship and shine a bright light on Congress, we
will never have any chance to repair the creaking juggernaut that has
carried us and our families so far and so close to a sustainable and
workable world.

Our inaction is perhaps the most powerful and consequential act the
American people have ever committed. We must draw the line, if we still
can.

Today, Tuesday June 3, is the National Call-In Day for Impeachment. Take a

moment right now and call Rep. John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary

Committee  at 202-225-5126, 202-224-3121, 202-225-3951, 313-961-5670, or
734-675-4084. Demand that articles of impeachment be introduced by July 4.

Love,
Peter
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