Conyers' Contradictory Stances on Impeachment, Reparations
by David
Swanson
This article originally appeared in AfterDowningStreet.org.
"When it comes to supporting an impeachment bill, Conyers
offers the ‘we don't have the votes' excuse."
When a Member of Congress wants to push an agenda forward,
even one supported by very few other Congress Members, he or she will introduce
or sign onto a bill and urge others to do the same. Almost every Congress Member is willing to do this sort of thing,
often on very controversial issues. But
when a Member of Congress wants to oppose an agenda without explaining why, he
or she will tell you, "I can't sign onto that because we don't have the
votes." In addition to the
inconsistency, another problem with this excuse is that there are many examples
of Congress finding the necessary votes as a result of a small group of
Congress Members pushing an agenda forward.
"In January of 1989," Congressman John Conyers
writes on his website, "I first introduced the bill H.R. 40, Commission
to Study Reparation Proposals for African Americans Act. I have
re-introduced HR 40 every Congress since 1989, and will continue to do so until
it's passed into law." This is the
appropriate position and behavior for Conyers or any other Congress Member to
take on this or any other important matter of social justice. One day, Conyers and others may
succeed. And by putting their names on
a bill, they make clear to citizens which other congress members are failing to
take the same position.
On the question of impeaching Vice President Dick Cheney,
however, Conyers takes a very different tack.
He has published a book documenting the crimes of Cheney and Bush, but
when it comes to supporting a bill, Conyers offers the "we don't have the
votes" excuse.
"Conyers has published a book documenting the crimes of
Cheney and Bush."
This would be aggravating enough on its own. The aggravation is added to when some badly
confused individuals denounce those lobbying Conyers on this issue (or at least
those doing so who are white) precisely on the grounds that Conyers supports
reparations for slavery. Of course he
does! Conyers supports single-payer
health care. Conyers supports the right
to organize a union. Conyers supports
all sorts of good things. But none of
those things qualify him to take the wrong position on impeachment and not be
criticized or protested for it.
Of those who protested Conyers at
his office last week, most if not every single individual - including the white
ones - support reparations for slavery.
I've publicly supported and written about that project for years. For years I had a big link on my website to
an activist campaign for reparations.
In January 2005, I wrote an obituary for James Forman in which I said:
"In 1969 he carried
impoliteness so far as to disrupt a service at Riverside Church in New York to
demand that white churches pay $500 million in reparations to
African-Americans. If the movement for reparations ever succeeds, Forman may be
honored as one of its pioneers. Until then, he's known - where he's known at
all - as someone who pushed for a change that has not yet come (and must
therefore be ridiculed or attacked). We forget how many things he pushed for
that are now taken for granted."
My point was not just that efforts like those
made by John Conyers year after year may someday cease to be mocked and instead
be honored. The larger point I was
making was that Forman was willing to challenge even his allies when they were
wrong, and to do so in ways that were deemed impolite and inappropriate. Why go to a liberal bunch of pro-integration
church-goers, some of whom were no doubt funding and participating in important
work, and disrupt their religious service to propose a project for which
everyone knew we did not "have the votes"? The answer, of course, is that justice is more important than
decorum, damaged lives more significant than hurt feelings.
"The impeachment of Cheney and Bush is not in opposition
to the struggle for justice from slavery."
In April 2007 I gave a speech in Portland, Maine, in which I
said: "I spoke earlier today ... at Faneuil Hall,
where men like Wendell Phillips led a movement to abolish slavery, something
the wise and knowing of that day said could not be done. Those abolitionists
made their movement a fight for freedom of the press. And make no mistake: our
struggle is the same."
The struggle for the impeachment of Cheney and
Bush is not in opposition to the struggle for justice from slavery. It is inspired and informed by the
anti-slavery movement. Reparations for
the horrors of slavery must come, no matter how many years later.
So too, must reparation for the crimes of
today. We have killed nearly a million
Iraqis, driven another 2 million from their homes, and caused yet another 2
million to flee their country all together.
We have severely damaged the lives of every resident of that
nation. At the same time, we have
abandoned the people of New Orleans, many to their deaths. And, worldwide, our nation's policies are
leading the exacerbation of global warming, resulting already in hundreds of
thousands of deaths.
The time for reparations for today's crimes will
come. Those crimes include the use of
slave labor in the construction of the US embassy in Baghdad. Now is the time to end those crimes, to put
a stop to the suffering they are causing.
There is an urgent moral demand to put a halt to
the destruction. Then the cleanup can
begin. And it must include the
establishment of new standards for future behavior, a whole new direction for
our nation based on setting right our past abuses. The abuses we set straight must include the slaughter of the
Native Americans, and must above all include slavery.
David Swanson edits AfterDowningStreet.org and is the
Washington Director of Democrats.com
and of ImpeachPAC.org.
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