A local columnist responds to my impeachment Op Ed. [View All]

[femmedem]

As some of you know, I wrote an Op Ed for my local paper urging our city council to pass a resolution calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney. I had a wonderful surprise when I read Bethe Dufresne's column this morning:

To wit, asking the New London City Council to consider a resolution calling for the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as a few local residents have now done, may not be such a wild-eyed, futile idea.

When Ron Suresha and Rick Buell first raised the issue last month, I tended to agree with Councilor Charles Frink, who said the people of New London elected him to make decisions on local issues. Then I read Laura Natusch's fine, fact-based Feb. 17 Op Ed piece in The Day, outlining the historic right and tradition of local governments to petition Congress, and reminding us that in March 2003 New London joined more than 165 cities in passing a resolution opposing the launch of a war in Iraq

...

It's been a long time — way too long — since serious attention was paid to the particular problems besetting American cities. Last fall, two candidates for governor in this state — a Democrat and a Green — tried hard to get voters worked up over this, but they were plowed under by Rell's comfortable charisma.

Rell, unlike Natusch, won't bluntly state the obvious, that Bush's war is causing casualties at home. But at least she recognizes the obvious, which is that we're being dangerously shortchanged — from the pillaging of National Guard units to the abandonment of our cities.

Surely we don't need any more reminders that all politics is global, and that this war — and this president — are local problems.

http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=27fe495b-7bf4-4a99-ab70-7818ab1c9794

The lesson from this--one I continually relearn--is that one action leads to another in ways one can't predict. The people who brought an impeachment resolution to the city council couldn't have predicted that they would move me to write an Op Ed. I couldn't have predicted that my Op Ed would spark a column.

At least in New London, talk of impeachment is now mainstream. Can you ask for a better reason to bring an impeachment resolution to your own city council?