Impeachment cartoon caption contest

McClatchy is accepting reader-submitted captions for this Jim Morin cartoon.

Should liberals/progressives use rumors as a tactic to achieve our goals?

Last Sunday I posted an action item urging readers to send a hand-written letter to Nancy Pelosi in support of impeachment. I based my post on an e-mail I received that morning that said, “…Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it.”

I checked previous e-mails from the sender and found her credible. I also checked “urban legends” online and didn’t find any mention that this was a myth. I cautioned readers that I didn’t know if it was a rumor but that it sounded like a good idea to send Nancy Pelosi a hand-written letter in support of impeachment even if it was.

I have since learned that it is a rumor. According to Undercurrents, the Hartford Independent Media Center blog, Pelosi Staffer Denies She’ll Put Impeachment on the Table if She Receives 10,000 Letters, posted November 14: “I decided to check this out, and I called the Speaker’s office in Washington, DC. The staffer who answered denied the report. The aide told me that members of Pelosi’s staff are aware of the report, but the aide wouldn’t confirm that the Speaker herself was aware of it. He said the report is 'baseless' and that she never made such a statement.”

The sender of the e-mail I received last Sunday also sent me an e-mail stating that it was “a very good rumor,” “a fabulous idea.”

What do I do when I inadvertently spread a rumor, even if it leads to a positive result, in this case thousands of letters to Pelosi?

1. I disclose that I’ve learned that it’s a rumor in the same forum I put out the rumor.
2. I am more careful next time to track down something as significant as this. I should have called Pelosi’s office, too.

No matter how desperate we liberals/progressives feel about the need to impeach Bush and Cheney, I don’t believe we should resort to tactics or tools that are “extreme,” i.e., not based on the truth.

On July 1st, I posted, Read Rove's lips. He has resorted to rumor more than once in order to assure that Republicans win. Here’s an excerpt from my post: From Joshua Green’s 2004 Atlantic Monthly article, Karl Rove in a Corner: “…[N]o other example of Rove's extreme tactics that I encountered quite compares to what occurred during another 1994 judicial campaign in Alabama. In that year Harold See first ran for the supreme court, becoming the rare Rove client to lose a close race. His opponent, Mark Kennedy, an incumbent Democratic justice…was no stranger to hardball politics….This August, I had lunch with Kennedy near his office in Montgomery….When his term on the court ended, he chose not to run for re-election. I later learned another reason why. Kennedy had spent years on the bench as a juvenile and family-court judge, during which time he had developed a strong interest in aiding abused children….At the time of the race he had just served a term as president of the National Committee to Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect. One of Rove's signature tactics is to attack an opponent on the very front that seems unassailable. Kennedy was no exception." [emphasis mine]

Some of Kennedy's campaign commercials touted his volunteer work, including one that showed him holding hands with children….some within the See camp initiated a whisper campaign that Kennedy was a pedophile….what they tried to do was make him look like a homosexual pedophile. That was really, really hard to take." [emphasis mine]

(photo: Wired.com)

Standing up for impeachment and ending the occupation in Iraq

Yesterday my friend Phil and I hopped on the county transit bus* and an hour later joined several hundred people who had gathered at the "Stand Up Sonoma County: Impeach Now & End the Occupation of Iraq" rally at Santa Rosa’s Courthouse Square.

There were many inspiring speakers, including Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey; Peter Phillips of Project Censored; Linus Lancaster (who teaches at the high school in my town) on behalf of Veterans for Peace; Norman Solomon, founder and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, a national consortium of policy researchers and analysts, on behalf of Progressive Democrats of America; and my kayaking buddy, Miles Everett, of The Alliance for Democracy.

This morning, our county’s newspaper of record, the Press Democrat, reported "Hundreds protest war at SR rally". Excerpts: “Speakers included Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, who blasted Bush's priorities by contrasting his war spending with his recent veto of a popular children's health care bill….

”Norman Solomon, a nationally syndicated columnist and author, spoke at the rally on behalf of the Progressive Democrats of America. Solomon, who recently completed a film called ‘War Made Easy,’ echoed Woolsey's comments.

”Solomon, a West Marin County resident, said later that North Coast residents are ‘paying for war in terms of a lack of health care, education, housing and rapid transit.’”

Here’s a short clip from Miles Everett’s heartfelt speech:

Today I talked with Anna Givens, one of the organizers of the event. I asked her if she was happy with the rally. She responded that she was and that there were actually many more people there than the 200 reported by the Press Democrat if we add those that flowed through the square, stopping at the tables where they, too, wrote letters and signed petitions before moving on. This was an "action rally," according to Anna, where those who attended did more than listen to speeches; they got involved.

All of us can make our voices heard on impeachment and ending the occupation in Iraq by going to Congress.org and entering your zip code. You'll be directed to how to contact your representatives by phone, fax, mail, or e-mail.

*Sidebar: We rode the bus because we don’t want to contribute to global warming. It was fun, and we were joined by Anna Lisa Wiley, who doesn’t own a car. She's involved with Car Free Sonoma County. Check out the website: It’s great!

(photo of the rally)

When will enough people say, "Enough is enough"?

My friend and guest blogger Janie Sheppard has been sending me articles on the anti-war pro-impeachment rally in Washington D.C. last Saturday, along with photos taken by her brother, Bill Sheppard.

Of course, the mainstream media mentioned the anti-war rally, reporting that a “few thousand” protestor showed up. You will get the flavor of its reporting in this two minute video.

The real story of the protest, however, is told in words and photos of those who participated.

Bill Sheppard took the following photo of Carlos Arredondo and the symbolic coffin for his son, Alex (who died in Iraq on August 25, 2004), shortly before Carlos was attacked by at least five counter protestors, as reported by the stepmother of Alex here.
The message I got from this is that those who oppose the ongoing war in Iraq and the likelihood of an attack on Iran need to show up at protests in large enough numbers not to be dismissed as a “few thousand.”

I’m wondering when sufficient numbers of Americans will say “Enough is enough” and start showing up. And when we show up, will we have the courage to create a protective cordon around those who are susceptible to being attacked?

(photo- courtesy of Bill Sheppard)