Journey for Humanity and Accountability
Day 14
Cindy Sheehan

I am lying in my hotel bed at the end of a very busy,
productive, yet sad day.

About 300 people gathered today and marched the 3½
miles from the entrance of Arlington Cemetery to
Congressman John Conyers' office to demand impeachment
and accountability from one of the leading figures in
American politics for the last four decades.

We were so thrilled with the turn-out and the energy
of the group. There was great media coverage and about
one dozen freepers on the opposite corner with signs
like: "Traitors go to Hell" and "Cindy Sheehan go to
Hell." Nice. I have learned that hell can be on earth
and if there is anything worse than burying a child, I
don't want to know about it.

At the end of the march, Reverend Lennox Yearwood,
President of the Hip Hop Caucus, Ray McGovern (retired
CIA analyst) and I met with Congressman John Conyers
to implore him to institute impeachment proceedings
against the pretenders to the White House who are
destroying our democracy, making a mockery out of our
rule of law and who are responsible for the deaths of
hundreds of thousands of innocent people.

This was my third meeting with Congressman Conyers
about impeachment. I hold a special place in my heart
for him and I revere him for his decades long service
to this nation but for the life of me, I cannot
understand why he will not go forward with impeachment
now.

A year ago he introduced HR635 to impeach George Bush
while he was Ranking Member of the House Judiciary
Committee and not even chairman. He wrote the book on
impeachment called: The Constitution in Crisis and he
readily admits that BushCo have committed impeachable
offenses.

It's about partisan politics, pure and simple. The
Congressman claims that there is absolutely no way
that impeachment can go forward and when I was nearing
the end of my hope I cried out: "So, if the people's
house won't help us then we the people have no
recourse against the executive branch." To which he
replied: "Yes you do, vote the enablers out in '08."
Firstly, Congressman Conyers told us to put Democrats
back in Congress to end the war and impeach BushCo. We
did that and instead of ending the war, they gave
George Bush more money to wage it and to conduct his
deadly and tragic surge. Secondly, '08 will be too
late to hold George and Dick accountable. Thirdly,
thousands of more people will die in these last months
of the worst Presidency in American history and
lastly: after Dick proclaimed that he was not part of
the executive branch and that his office does not have
to comply with requests to turn over documents to the
National Archives: 435 Congress Reps should have
signed onto H Res 333 to impeach Cheney. Only fourteen
have co-signed Congressman Kucinich's bill, so that
makes 421 elected Congressional officials enablers of
the crimes of the Bush Regime.

At the end of this day, Speaker Pelosi has not
supported impeachment and has not upheld her oath of
office to "protect and defend" the Constitution. Like
Congressman Conyers said almost a year ago, our
Constitution is in Crisis and we can't wait for more
meetings and more stalling from Reps who think the
problem will go away in '08. The Middle East is
rapidly falling apart under this regime and our
country is sliding rapidly into a state of one-branch
tyranny while our "heroes" the Democrats fiddle.

It was with very heavy hearts that Rev. Yearwood, Ray,
and I reported back to the media that the Congressman
had said that with over one million signatures on
petitions and with one phone call coming into his
office every 30 seconds supporting impeachment and
with 300 activists in the hall to support him, he was
still not going to move forward with the most urgent
duty of his career. The Rev and I were particularly
disheartened and broken because we do love the
Congressman so much, but we love our country and the
people of Iraq and the Middle East more. The Rev and
Ray spent many years serving their country in the
military and the CIA and I had a son who gave his life
to do what the Congress is supposed to do: protect our
freedoms, not hand them over to the mob that runs our
country.

It is also with a heavy heart that I announce my
candidacy against Nancy Pelosi in California's 8th. If
anybody would dare think that I am not serious, I
would hope that they would look back at the last three
years of my life and everything that I have sacrificed
to restore our nation to one that obeys the rule of
law and can be looked up to with respect once again in
the international community and not as the hated
laughingstock on the block.

I am committed to challenging a two party system that
has kept us in a state of constant warfare for the
last 60 years and has become more and more beholden to
special interests and has forgotten the faces of the
people whom it represents.

I am committed to using our strength as a country to
wage peace and to elevate the status of every citizen
in our country by converting the enduring war economy
to a prosperous one with lasting peace.

Someone needs to step up to the plate to do this and I
challenge other Americans to do the same. Challenge
the status quo, because the status quo is no good. We
need to become plugged into our government once again
as active participants not just passive voters.

It is up to us.