History Lessons -- For Nancy, Jack, John, Jimmy and "the Troops"

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

As a college student in the 1970s, I avoided history classes after receiving a mediocre grade in the first one that I did take. Studying Texas history in the Houston public schools for a mandatory three years just hadn't prepared me for Western Civilization 1-2. In retrospect, I wish I had stuck with history.

Water under the bridge. We all make dumb choices when we're 18.

In the decades since then, life has treated me to some first-hand experience of history. I've seen and learned a few things, and time does lend perspective. Veterans Day today has triggered memories, as did the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam Memorial Wall last week. Dennis Kucinich's introduction of an impeachment resolution triggered more memories. I'm going to share my memories and lessons learned.

Then, my best friend Jack was in the infantry dodging bullets in Vietnam. He was good at that, although less good at avoiding tropical diseases. My only brother, John, was drafted. At Fort Campbell, Kentucky, a little voice told him to take a pass on helicopter paratrooper training, so he later shipped out to serve in Germany. A kid named Jimmy, who had argued against my views in social studies class discussions on the "conflict" in Vietnam, went to serve there after graduating from high school. His name was listed under "In Memoriam" in our first class reunion announcement.

Most of my other male friends were dodging the draft one way or the other. Some had strong anti-war convictions, others just a strong survival instinct. The FBI knocked on my sister's apartment door in their search for her liberal, church-going buddy who was already in hiding somewhere in Canada. As things turned out, he remained "MIA" for decades. On my campus I attended peace vigils, and I marched on Washington when tear gas was in the air. My school shut down when citizen soldiers shot and killed citizen students on the Kent State campus in Ohio.

The times were scary. What you believed and what you did mattered a lot. Americans of different generations, genders, and races did not trust one another. We did not pull together in one direction. "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem," our posters proclaimed. "Don't trust anyone over 30."

Somehow the world kept spinning. I finished college, got a job. Then came "Watergate." Our country was broken in another way.

Nixon stalled in many ways, but one by one the various episodes on the evening news moved the story along. When the public-television-broadcast hearings came, I missed most of it, but my tuned-in mother was a rapt audience. She was a teacher, a student at heart, and someone who knew when history was unfolding before her eyes. She also was a fierce democrat, with a little "d." She had "liked Ike," but she did not like Nixon. She kept me informed.

Suffice it to say, Americans' faith in ourselves and our institutions was shaken, but eventually it returned. People with plenty to lose came forward. They did what had to be done to bring balance, truth, and ethics back to Washington at a time when that was no foregone conclusion.

Private citizens who knew "stuff" leaked it to The New York Times (Daniel Ellsberg's "Pentagon Papers"). In Congress, our representatives drew up articles of impeachment. Some Republicans in the Nixon White House showed up and told the truth when subpoenaed by Congress. (We still owe you, John Dean, fired White House Counsel, Oval Office scapegoat, and star Watergate witness.) In the Judiciary, we got two principled special prosecutors. We also got an indicted Attorney General whose wife kept talking to reporters (Martha Mitchell). Woodward and Bernstein became our journalist/heroes.

It took over two more years, but Richard Nixon did board a helicopter in disgrace, and our surviving troops came home. The names of the other 58,256 who served are carved in stone on a wall in Washington. A couple of years ago at about this time of year, my brother and I visited that wall, now 25 years old. We cried and turned away from each other as we both remembered.

We know now Richard Nixon lied to us when he campaigned for president on "Peace with Honor." Peace didn't come during his two terms, and honor -- well. Nixon distrusted the American people and institutions, and he trampled on them. His burglars ransacked Democratic headquarters. His FBI persecuted the "enemies list" of artists, intellectuals, Democratic Party workers, and peace activists. He was wrong, and he was made to pay a price. Our country certainly paid, too.

Governments have come and gone since. Now we have George W. Bush, the proud "war president." We have his Iraq war of choice, his unwinnable and perpetual "war on terror." We have Blackwater and a privatized military instead of the draft. Under the banner of a "unitary executive," the Bush and Cheney Executive Branch has usurped powers rightly belonging to Congress (bypassing duly enacted laws via hundreds of signing statements) and the courts (no habeas corpus, no subpoenas when intercepting citizens' emails and phone calls). Secrecy is rampant. Fear is a political trump card to be played as needed.

Yet Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi doesn't want impeachment.

Perhaps she thinks the "politics of personal destruction" that shamed and shackled President Bill Clinton will end if she refuses to play that game. But that's not the lesson history teaches, when bullies control the playground.

John Dean, having played a key role in Nixon's White House and in his impeachment, sees that. I'm inclined to trust him on this one.

In his book Broken Government and in his recent interview with BuzzFlash, John Dean explains. The neoconservative Bush/Cheney plan depends on personal destruction and dirty politics. They wanted a much more powerful presidency -- 9/11 and Republicans in Congress and on the courts gave them the green light to create it. The Executive Branch power grab succeeded immensely, in equal measure to the Bush/Cheney foreign policy failures.

Trouble is, now they will never let a Democrat who assumes the presidency use that power. Their solution? They must attack and destroy the person sitting in the Oval Office, while retaining the power of the office for the future. President Bill Clinton, pursued relentlessly and at great taxpayer expense, was their dress rehearsal.

Nancy Pelosi, you sincerely want to do the People's business. Voters want that, too, as all the polls indicate. You want to restore Congress to its proper processes and role.

The trouble is, to do that you must put impeachment back on the table. What else stands between the American people and the steamroller of an unstoppable Executive Branch? As the sadder but wiser Former Counsel to the President has learned, another election won't do the trick.

Speaker Pelosi, and all our Representatives: You should do this for the troops, past, present and future. They gave and continue to give their lives for America's dreams. Their sacrifice was for something. It matters.

Now it's your turn. Just bite the bullet.

Christine Bowman

A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS

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