Some of you may remember, way back in December and January, the fun we had putting the word "IMPEACH" back in the political lexicon.
Back then, the NSA spying story had just broken -- though now we know that the New York Times had actually been sitting on the story since well before the 2004 elections. (Thanks, fellas!)
Reading that story was transformative for me. That's the moment I knew that the "I word" had to be liberated from all its fringe-y connotations, and that a serious case for this most serious Constitutional remedy could be made out.
So we came up with a way to lift the veil, and put the word back in the public eye.
Pretty soon, everybody was talking about it, if only in hushed tones.
We had some internal debate, to be sure. Senator Feingold's censure resolution was still on the table back then, and some wanted to start out with that more measured step.
Some stuck to -- and still do stick to -- the "we don't have the numbers" line of thinking. It makes a certain amount of sense, as far as it goes. Meaning that the truth is that "we don't have the numbers" for anything we propose, but only one proposal is singled out as forbidden -- the one we really need to be discussing.
And of course, some said they supported impeachment in concept, but we needed "an investigation" first. Well, that had its own problems, too. But we can set those aside now. Because Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has conducted the only kind of "investigation" that matters, and she has laid it all on the line for us: the "administration's" NSA spying program is illegal and unconstitutional.
Period.
Full stop.
But just as was the case in December of last year, if you venture out into the wide world, you won't see any evidence that things have changed. And that's what amazed me so much about the aftermath of the NSA story. Americans were confronted with the news that their president was openly in defiance of federal law and the Constitution, had promised to continue defying it, was claiming the "right" to do anything and break any law he wanted to, and nothing had changed. Nobody said a word.
They all read the news. But they read it at home, or in the office cubicle. And when they walked out the door to meet the world, they didn't say a damned thing to each other. As I have put it in the past:
[E]veryone in America (and indeed, around the world) knows something has gone haywire within the American government.
Yet, once we put down the newspaper and head out the door, there's no evidence of the malfunction, and worse still, no indication whatsoever that other people just like you feel the same way.
So the challenge, obviously, has become one of how to get people to think and talk -- on their own, without necessarily parroting what they've read in the paper or seen on TV -- about what's going on, and what should be done about it. And that's where the guerrilla marketing idea came from:
This idea isn't new, by any means. It's just being put to a new use -- taking impeachment out of the realm of broadcast wonkery, and making it real.
This isn't about achieving the result of impeachment directly. I think we all know where we stand on that score. This is about building resonance, and making impeachment "real," because it's being brought to the attention of real people.
What I'm proposing is this: Go into your word processors right now, and type out the word "IMPEACH." Go ahead, use caps. Center it. Bold it. Make it 72 point. Turn the page to landscape if you like, and make it bigger.
You've got a sign. Print it out. Xerox it. Put it up on a lamp post. On a supermarket bulletin board. Inside a newspaper vending machine. Anywhere.
You've joined the movement.
How does it feel? Want more? Would you be willing to spend a little money on it?
Pick up a pack of Avery labels down at the office supply store. Print out a page worth of stickers that say the same thing. IMPEACH.
Not impeach Bush. Not impeach Cheney. Not Chimpeach. Just IMPEACH.
Everyone will know what you're talking about. Everyone will know who you're talking about, even if you're talking about Cheney and not Bush. They'll still get it. Stick those stickers anywhere you like, and that you won't get in trouble for. Go ahead. Anywhere.
Got more money than that, and want to spend it?
Go the "freeway blogger" route. Print it out banner-sized. IMPEACH -- greeting every commuter on their way to work.
Now, it turns out that you don't actually need money to do freeway blogging. It's dirt cheap, and probably the biggest bang you can get for your buck. And you don't even need a whole buck, at that.
Above: The Freeway Blogger shows you how it's done.
To get a real flavor for what this medium can do, visit the Freeway Blogger's (non-freeway) blog. Hundreds and hundreds of stories and pictures from all across the country, from people just like you, who put paint and salvaged cardboard together, shake well, and make patriotism.
How you do it, and on what scale, isn't really the issue. It's that it get done, and that people see it. Eight months after the story broke, people still whisper furtively and check over their shoulders when they say the "I word" out loud.
But people do say it.
And some people do more than that. Some of you here are familiar with David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet.org. David wears and "Impeach Bush and Cheney" t-shirt everywhere he goes, every day. I've met David twice now, and he always tells great stories about how many people stop him each day, give him the thumbs up, and say, "I really love your shirt!" But they always tell him, "I could never wear it." And while we could debate whether or not that's true, what's indisputable is that people everywhere -- and I mean everywhere -- are thinking the same thought, and they have been for some time. Believe it.
We now have another very rare opportunity to step on the gas with this discussion. Judge Anna Diggs Taylor has rendered a decision that, at one time in our history, would have been the talk of the town. Every town. But instead, we've let the media do the discussing for us. And what have been the results?
"Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, a Carter appointee...."
"In a controversial decision, Judge Anna Diggs Taylor..."
"Legal experts dispute the validity of the decision..."
People, a federal judge has just told America that its president has broken the law, violated the Constitution, and lied to us about the supposed legality of the biggest program of domestic spying ever undertaken. And while we debunk and debate here in the blogosphere, Americans are being told that the judge is crazy, that the judge is corrupt, that the judge is biased, that the judge is... a Democrat! All this, even though we all know what they really want to be told: is our president a criminal or not?
Ladies and gentlemen, delivering the answer to that question is going to fall to us. Judge Taylor cannot take her case to the media, and she cannot take her case directly to the people. She is limited in her capacity to communicate, but you and I are not. And you know that America is waiting for a real answer to its question. Not yet more smearing. Not still more Swift Boating.
I suggest we give it to them. I suggest we give them the word they're looking for.
Now, you can debate -- and I know we will debate -- the timing. We will debate the efficacy. We will debate the legal, political and psychological effects. But if there's ever going to be any kind of accountability for this at all, the plain fact is that it is a discussion that cannot be cold-started in January.
Do not look to your candidates for Congress, whether incumbents or challengers, to declare their intentions to you now. That die is cast. We know that. We understand it.
But do not let your Congress make its decision believing that Americans do not want this president held to account, and do not let them make their decisions thinking that after 2008, it all goes away on its own.
No, the abuses we are seeing from the Bush "administration" are a part of a long-term strategy to change our very understanding of the Constitutional limits of executive power. Waiting it out simply does not work. It must be repudiated entirely and unequivocally. And that won't happen unless you make it safe for it to happen, by showing your Congressional Representatives that you are willing to accept this drastic measure. Indeed, you demand it.
We need to start carrying the message forward from the blogosphere. But we need to gather our forces here, too. To that end, I offer you this, the point of the diary:
Starting at noon ET on September 1, 2006, and lasting 24 hours, websites and blogs all across the internet are being asked to replace their front pages with the single word "Impeach" in simple white text on a black background. Here's an example: http://impeachnet.net
Visitors to those sites and blogs will be able to click and link to the sites' usual front pages. But first they will see a word that, standing alone, is as powerful as any word right now: it is banned by our political and media leadership but more popular among citizens and activists than perhaps any other. It is both shocking and welcome. For 24 hours, web surfers and blog readers will see that word first when they visit their favorite sites. In this way, we hope to get the public talking about the one tool guaranteed by the Founders to restore our Constitutional Democracy. Please encourage your favorite websites to take part in this action. If you plan to take part, please let us know here:
http://www.impeachnet.net/....
This is about as easy as participation in the call for impeachment as it gets. But the idea, of course, is to move the story from the blogosphere to the "real world." If you don't run your own blog, you can participate by helping to spread the word "out there" with a physical presence -- simply by putting the word in front of your friends and neighbors, whether on a simple sheet of paper taped to a wall, a sticker, or a freeway-sized sign. And if you do run your own blog, you can help both online and off, by spreading the word in both places.
Nothing could be simpler. And nothing can do more to advance the discussion than to ask your fellow citizens simply to have it with you.