Sorry dont agree with you that walking out will solve a damn thing, the
only thing that will is the complete vote for the acquital of Clinton.
That is the only way anything can be shown that the Republicans have been
nothing but hypocritical crybabys. If women want to express their
leadership, sticking to their guns and duking it out in the voting process
is the only feasible means.
My 2 cents
Bertina
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Sat, 23 Jan 1999, sewa leutten wrote:
> RE: Call for Response from Women Leaders:
> Urgently Concerned About Women's Leadership
> Women Leaders Need to Explicitly Expose ** Coup **
> CALL for WALK OUT and Use Crisis to
> Rally Attention to Illegitimacy of Proceedings
> Which Are Grossly Gender-Unrepresentative/Imbalanced
>
> Dear Sister Woman Citizens and Voters:
>
> This is an open letter to the heads of major women's groups and to
> women leaders in political life. It is meant as a friendly and
> positive critism, but one which deserves consideration and,
> hopefully, a major correction in the language with which women
> leaders refer to the matters that have held our country hostage
> all year. In essence, millions of women are watching, and a great
> many are asking why their women leaders have not
> been more forthright and explicit in calling the illegitimate official
> activities by their rightful name - a coup - aimed at overthrowing
> a President and ** electorate ** because his and ** their ** chosen
> policies have supported women, and a coup attempt with the explicit
> goal of disenfranchising already inadequately-represented women voters.
>
> As a female, I was shocked and disappointed at the decision of any
> liberal Democrats, but especially Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein,
> Barbara Mikulski, and Mary Landreiu to simply sign on to the 100-0
> "Deal" that gave legitimacy to the Unconstitutional coup attempt that
> was called "Articles of Impeachment" in the House. These good women,
> and the not so very many really liberal men of the Senate,
> as well as self-compromised leaders of the Dempublican party (a
> powerful male subsection of the Democrats) as well as the right wing
> extreme Republicoup camp, knew full well that the vast majority of
> women in this country have long wanted the "impeachment" game and
> House vote treated with the full disrespect earned. Women wanted
> this bogus process' legitimacy directly challenged and investigated
> on Constitutional grounds, because it was not only foolish, but
> mortally DANGEROUS to democracy, and they wanted the whole mess to
> be STOPPED and not allowed to enter the Senate. Women who make deals
> with coups may rapidly become seen as no more than hijacked tokens in the
> games of Senate male party leaders.
>
> The Dem Head of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. John Conyers, had
> explicitly called the maneuverings and vote in the House a coup; so
> had Maxine Waters, Nadler, and other Progressive Dems. Millions of women
> felt that Democrats and non-partisan Republican women could have and
> should have simply walked out, at minimum symbollically initially, and
> that walking out would have signalled their representation of millions
> of American's and especially women's, utter and profound objection to
> the right wing coup attempt. Many women are now asking why, in reference
> to the overwhelming public rejection of this process, more
> members of the Democrats and moderate Republicans, and especially
> women Senators, did not simply stage a symbolic walk out, and return
> to the Senate floor only as needed: to object to the basic legitimacy of
> the proceedings, to vote to dismiss, and vote against removal of
> the President, (if such a vote was ever taken.) A clear non-participation
> in the rest of these illegitimate proceedings, and a walk out would
> have forced a Constitutional crisis, forced the drafting of legislation
> that allows the people a final check on conspiracies that attempt to
> remove any President on sought pretext, and called for the explicit
> hearings investigating Starr and his office, that were needed to stop
> this dangerous coup-train which now holds the country
> hostage. An initial walk out would have been great PR for most Democrats
> and put all politicians, including the waffling ones keeping this
> travesty going, as well as the right wing, on the defensive with
> the people and without the smooth "somber" process they needed to
> pretend legitimacy for this coup. Instead, Dems made a deal; women
> should be asking why?
>
> Consider the grounds women's groups could and should have demanded
> such a walk out, and why many women are demanding and expecting
> one now:
> 1) The House vote was Unconstitutional because the impeachment section
> of the Constitution intended a political impeachment House and Senate
> trial BECAUSE, in the Framers time, Reps and Senators were themselves
> subject to state recall, and therefore, had to run the risk of
> during-their-term voters that could remove THEM if they tried a
> political coup. But today Reps and Senators do not face such a check
> on their authority, and thus, via a watering-down of democracy passed
> over years by many party-politicized all white male state legislatures,
> can ignore the faithfully representative process that the Constitution
> clearly intended impeachment to be, ignore the spirit and explicit
> purpose of making the charging and trying of a President Legislative
> (subject to the will of the voters) and not Judicial. The House
> impeachment, by ignoring the people, deliberately ignored the intent
> and spirit of the Constitution. The majority of said people are
> women . Women leaders could have pointed all this out clearly; why
> didn't they yet? They must do so now.
>
> 2) It is the expectation that women leaders should focus on the
> on the representative responsibility as critically important
> to the whole process' legitimacy, because women understand that
> the impeachment/removal process was meant to be a representative
> process, and women often have a keener organizational grasp
> and attentiveness to process, than men do. Now rank and file women,
> the millions who are watching are exercising that woman's sense,
> and many believe that the actions of many of their
> women leaders have not yet been strong and sharp enough in decrying
> an Unconstitutional coup attempt. Women cannot preserve the
> Constitutional intent of representative democracy, that
> protects us from the aggressive elite power politics that too many men,
> (particularly southern and corporate patriarchs,) have learned to play,
> unless they call a conspiratorial coup attempt just
> that, "a conspiratorial coup attempt". Mrs. Clinton rightly
> called the process a conspiracy, and Toni Morrison,
> along with Jesse Jackson, among many others, have called what is
> occuring in our government a coup; millions of women are now asking why
> women's organizations and women leaders have not used the same
> strong language to call halt to a powerfully dangerous plotted
> process. Women's groups such as NOW and Feminist have certainly called
> it "unfair", "a betrayal", and "a circus"; but these words
> do not convey the central meaning of the word * coup *, which
> is a complete undoing of legitimate government. Furthermore,
> womens group's Web sites do not give the matter top priority,
> and it is often found buried in press releases on other issues.
> None of their websites anywhere alert their membership and the
> millions of women surfing the Internet that what is occuring in the
> Capitol is the final stages of an explicit "coup" attempt. This gives
> the impression that women are just too fuzzy-minded to know the
> difference between something they disapprove or find irritating,
> versus something that directly threatens all their progress and
> democracy itself at a structural level. The League
> of Women's voters, in an ill-thought out attempt to be
> "non-partisan" and thus, not criticize the events that amount to a
> coup against the women electorate, ignored the many people from ALL
> parties, yes, including many non-Democrat, Reform, Green and
> even Republican women, who regard the proceedings as a direct threat
> to the Constitution, along with hundreds of non-partisan historians,
> many of whom are women. At least the League should itself
> sponsor debates on the Constitutionality of the proceedings,
> a matter so centrally a structural threat in the minds of so many,
> and posted excerpts of such debate on their website. It seems to
> many rank and file women that women "leaders" are still playing it
> fuzzy and safe when it comes to open and straight talk; this perpetuates
> a myth that women cannot protect themselves intellectually and
> are unable to identify and respond effectively to true danger and
> manipulation. Current women leaders cannot afford this perception if
> they are to be taken seriously. What value does a League of Women
> Voters retain to women if it stands by and allows the very meaning and
> impact voting to be directly ignored and attacked by a male-dominated
> conspiracy whose momentum and basic legitimacy remains unchallenged?
>
> 2). This impeachment was lame duck; it ignored recent elections, and
> thus was not a representative legislative function. To their credit
> - many women's groups do say this; but again, apparently not strongly
> enough to have had impact on the women of the Senate (let alone the men).
>
> 3). The impeachment proceedings, vote and senate deal all
> ignored massive polling data from consituents,ignored millions
> of emails, calls and letters, and ignored the press conferences
> of the women's groups! After the House vote, and when the Senate
> agreed to take the case, then, why were not an immediate howls
> of outrage posted on all women's groups Websites and
> especially, why was nothing posted about rallying women to
> vigils of resistance, the way that People for the American Way
> (whose director, by the way, is a woman I believe) and
> Rainbowpush did? Many women went to these vigils and rallys
> anyway, I believe, but where were thei women's groups leaders
> in asking and organizing them to go, or holding their own? As
> far as I saw, nothing was posted on women's groups websites.
> Is that strong enough leadership? Does it really safeguard the
> rights of the women of this country?
>
> 4) The current impeachment and removal trail are based on a coup
> conspiracy (the one Hillary Clinton and James Carville have
> referred to, involving Ken Starr, Faircloth and Helms, several
> in the Justice Department and Judicial Branch, the
> tobacco companies, other large corporate and millionaire donors and
> right-wing politicos). Janet Reno was clearly overwhelmed by
> the institutionalized depth of the conspiracy, and it does
> appear that in order to protect Gore on some issues, she
> was willing to sacrifice blowing the whistle on the maneuverings
> against Clinton, so it really remained for the people to reign in
> the conspiracy as it gained legitimacy and momentum. Such
> conspiratorial intent is not only unConstitutional; it is extremely
> unethical to the point of betrayal of the voting human rights of
> hundreds of millions of Americans; it is a human rights abuse.
> Women have always been in the forefront of human rights. Why
> haven't womens groups more explicity called for public hearings
> and press work investigating the Starr-tobacco and his male southern
> political-corporate conspiring? Why aren't they demanding this now?
> Do women's groups think these plotters will just give up and go away,
> and naively think we can just "Moveon" to other business without such
> business also becoming a target to the same unexposed conspiratorial
> illegitimacy? No wonder some of these patriarchs expect women to
> "graciously submit". A continued failure to articulate and focus on
> a danger from coup and conspiracy may suggest that women leaders
> are either cowardly, ditzy, or prone to denial. Most other issues
> and priorities are lost for women if the between-election power of
> women as citizen-electorate can be ignored and attacked by coups and
> unchecked conspiracies that gain pervasive momentum. Yes, this could
> happen again, and it is certainly continuing right now.
>
> 5) Whether or it results in a removal of a President or not, the notion
> that a Legislature can attack a President in contradiction of the
> votes and views of the vast majority of the electorate is already
> a dangerous coup against the American voter and citizen. The jog
> of a legislature in a republican democracy is to represent;
> if not it becomes just a large gang that writes laws. This
> politicians coup against the citizens' will must be decried as
> forcefully and explicitly as the coup against the citizen's President.
> If we fail to do delegitimize the proceedings, we allow the coup
> against the voter/citizen, and particularly the woman voter/citizen,
> to succeed. Can women afford that and think their organizations
> will have much meaning left?
>
> Without doubt, all major women's organizations ought declare that a coup
> occurred in the House; that it was unnecessarily and unethically accepted
> for hearing in the Senate unConstitutionally, remains a denial of due
> process, a deliberate and conspiratorial disenfranchisement of women
> voters, and an attempt to reestablish the confederacy in the Federal
> Government by deliberately weakening the President's and Legislative
> Branch's connectedness to the electorate, allowing Confederate states
> and corporations based within them to gain control of a weakened
> Federal government. Women leaders ought declare the whole coup a denial of
> political human rights. If they continue to fail to do this, many women
> will feel that a change in women's leadership is needed.
>
> Rev. Jesse Jackson's stated in a speech posted on his website:
> the "coup must be resisted"; John Conyers, head of the
> House Judiciary Committee, called it a coup; so has Rep Maxine
> Waters, Constitutional lawyer Gerry Spence, Toni Morrison and others.
> The heads of NOW, Feminist Majority, and all major women's groups
> must now clearly adopt this strong and meaningful language,
> so the women they lead, both as members of organizations and on
> behalf of all the women they have the mission to serve, can properly
> respond to the events that are, pompously, procedure by procedure,
> day by day and deal by deal, waiving and throwing electoral democracy
> to the winds of a handful of politicians in Washington and their
> behind the scenes mostly male large campaign donors.
>
> We must hear more women leaders explicitly call this mess "coup",
> using the word seriously, with the moral weight the situation
> deserves. If womens' groups leaders just weakly complain, and either
> "ungraciously" or "graciously" submit by legitimizing an Unconstitutional
> process that deliberately ignores the rights of women to meaningful vote;
> are they acting effectively as our spokespeople? I think the major
> women's groups need a far more forthright resistance and protest; they
> must call the current process "a coup" and "unConstitutional" without
> mincing words, and also should call upon women clergy to take their
> rightful place like Jackson, as spiritual leaders, who understand that
> democracy and the inclusive political empowerment of all people without
> sexism and racism are matters of human ethical and spiritual rights and
> cannot be "compromised" or "Dealed". They should welcome
> the statement of visionary women like Toni Morrison calling this a coup,
> and they should publish them on their websites. Women do not
> only care about birth control, reproductive rights and domestic violence,
> as important as all these issues are. Women need democracy and full respect
> as political citizens, and democracy is their best moral refuge and
> strongest spiritual asset, as nature has made women a majority in
> this country as in most countries. Any lack of a democracy-insisting
> moral voice creates a political moral and spiritual vacuum, and that's
> another reason why the women Senators were willing to sign onto the
> "Deal" that I am quite sure the all male, still uncampaign reformed
> Republocrat leaders pressured them to sign onto, betrayed the explicit
> pleas of millions of women, and like cogs in a mostly male wheel, helped
> let a coup attempt enter our Senate.
>
> In joint protection of nonsexist and nonracist democracy, we want to see
> major women Clergy lead, with Rev Jackson and other minority clergy, along
> with "secular" and legal groups like Feminist Majority/NOW. Lay
> and clergy both, men and women together, they must issue many more
> like and even joint statements about the coup, that are available on their
> web sites for all to see, and urge other women leaders of legal
> and government watchdog groups Claybrook of Public Citizen and McBride
> of Common Cause to understand their leadership to clearly and explicitly
> needed, expected and welcomed by women of all political affiliations, and
> by all women. to decry a coup against voters. Women should encourage
> he support partnership of Nader and Wertheimer of these organizations too,
> as men and women of democracy must together decry this coup against the
> voters. It is certainly possible for women clergy to do this while
> upholding concern about marital lying infidelity and upholding a spirit
> of pastoral healing and respect for privacy, intimacy and marriage; one
> can be for honesty and fidelity but passionately against a coup; just
> as can even dislike Clinton and continue to challenge some of his
> policies, but nevertheless blow the whistle on a coup from the dangerous
> political right! Women need to see ecumenical women clergy and feminist
> theologians develop and operate with organizational support from secular
> women's groups and leaders in the way that Rev. Jackson has received
> support from Rainbowpush and others groups, in the way Mandela and
> Tutu worked together. This coalition of women seculars and women clergy,
> with support from the men of their organizations, will help Rev. Jackson
> himself to keep from backsliding; big corporate Dems would love to flatter
> and coopt him just enough to make him spiritually pacified, and one can
> be sure that the pressures on him, as a male leader alone, will be
> enormous to demote the importance of the nonsexist agenda that he has
> championed as wisely and honorably as he has the nonracist. But if women
> clergy and seculars work together as well, our brother Rev. Jackson is
> likely to remain as staunch a nonsexist as he is a nonracist; this will best
> serve all the agendas of justice, equity, environment and ultimately, peace,
> which also remains a strong women's issue. Women's organizations should post
> the statements of men like Nobel Peace Prizewinner Elie Wiesel and many
> women's leaders together calling HALT to the trial. Women leaders must
> make it clear to the women of this country that they are building this
> kind of spiritual, moral and legal coalition to explicitly delegitimize
> this coup and its underlying hold on government; or they must answer to
> the women of this country. Although it has received some, this kind of
> coalition-building deserves far more attention on women's groups websites,
> and women must be seen as leading such coalition building, as well,
> defining women's rights as CENTRAL to the fate of political and human
> rights, in this country as elsewhere. Political human rights and coup
> conspiracies are incompatible.
>
> Women and women's groups must now become a chorus:
> Let's NOW help the women Senators correct their deal-mistake;
> so that they do not become simply tokens in the Senate,
> and their liberal brothers just the puppets of campaign donors.
> Let them make this their clear and simple position: Let any and all
> government officials and other leaders hold a Press Conference(s) to
> personally censure the President for adultery and misleading do so, but
> get the whole hypcritical nonsense **OUT** of our Legislative branch
> immediately; and make it clear, with moral authority, that all women,
> with the whole electorate of which we are the majority, have had more
> than enough of this pompous but clever gradual coup against the voter!
> Any Dems or Repubs who continue this coup against the voter in any official
> form face a permanent loss of our future support or legitimatization of
> their still male dominated party leadership, and women's massive exodus
> to third parties with more gender egalitarian leadership, or choose
> "none of the above" choices at the ballot box. Senators must begin
> to WALK OUT; women Senators must publicly threaten this and demand that
> their liberal and moderate brothers follow them or face becoming tokens
> and puppets that no longer really serve the women of this country.
>
> In the matter of this threat to our elections, Senators must
> represent us; and to do so, they must DISMISS and STOP THE COUP NOW AND
> COMPLETELY or WALK OUT of a daily Unconstitutional body calling itself the
> Legislative Branch. If needed, women's organizations and women's labor
> should be prepared to organize sit ins, marches and hunger strikes of the
> types of Gandhi, King and Mandela, to protect women's most important
> political right, the right to a meaningful vote, from male political
> machinations and disenfranchising coups, and ** use the impeachment trial
> games to highlight, via vigils and rallys, ** women's extreme lack of
> representative numbers in the errant legislative branch; an imbalance
> that would in itself be illegal in several European democracies,
> and a growing list of other progressing nations around the world.
>
> And, like Jackson, women at all levels but especially leaders must
> articulate that they will never accept a resignation from Clinton; a
> resignation borne of a coup is also against our form of government.
> Women must make that clear to Al Gore, as well. Only legitimate and
> democratic processes that represent and include the people can choose or
> remove Presidents. Rank and file women will insist on that, and their
> leaders had better understand that right now if they wish to have any
> respect among the millions of living disciples of both Abigail Adams
> and Martin Luther King of this country. Women are central to the
> preservation and fulfillment of democracy; and women's rights and democracy
> go hand in hand, or democracy will be lost for women and the
> feminist majority first, but ultimately, for everyone. Millions of rank
> and file women will not compromise this, and they will not silently tolerate
> it when their "leaders" accept deals that compromise that precious
> understanding of women's special responsibility and opportunity in the
> present crisis.
>
> We are sending copies of this to major women's organizations
> and ask that they respond in this and a few other major listserv forums.
> We are sending a copy this to others who have already identified the coup
> and who have faith and trust that women leaders, no matter what their party,
> will listen to their millions of rank and file women sisters, cut the fuzzy
> talk and pseudo "non-partisan" excuse making, and openly refuse the
> Constitutional legitimacy of proceedings born of and perpetuating
> a conspiracy and coup. For women, these proceedings are as illegitimate
> and insulting as a voting booth that bears the sign "Women, Keep out",
> or a election tally that deliberately subtracts the votes of women.
> This is a a coup against women as voters and citizens. Women's leaders
> must make that clear, or their ability to lead and serve the
> women of our country must be reevaluated. As other women and men
> have done, we now call upon women' groups leaders to explicitly call
> the proceedings **coup** and challenge its basic Constitutional and ethical
>legitimacy, on behalf
> of all women voters and citizens.
>
> Signed,
>
> On Behalf of Millions of Concerned Women
>
>
> cc. NOW
> Feminist Majority
> League of Women Voters
> WAND
> People for the American Way
> RainbowPush Coalition
> other women's forums
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at
>http://www.eudoramail.com
>
