I urge citizens who are troubled by the unprecedented efforts by the White House to unbalance the traditional balance of power between the legislative and executive branches of government to act in solidarity with the Berkley City Council in calling for the impeachment of George Bush. Bush has launched us into a disastrous was in Iraq. Our sons and daughters are dying in Iraq for bogus claims of WMD’s - which rapidly morphed into bringing the sunshine of democracy to the Middle East. Our high tech weapons have destroyed much of the basic infrastructure of Iraq and resulted in the death of approximately 200,000 civilians – starkly reminiscent of the crude claims made in Vietnam, ‘we need to destroy villages in order to save them’. Our legislators are paralyzed with fear and have chosen to remain silent while Bush and his neo-cons continue to attack the Constitution and federal law. They have engaged in unwarranted wire tapping of phones and financial records of millions of Americans – all justified by concerns for national security under the dark clouds of secrecy. National security is a very legitimate concern but these actions could easily have been conducted within existing legal statutes. This information could easily be exploited for political gain (remember Nixon’s enemy list. Details of the planned action by the Berkley City Council follows:

If you can, please act before 7 p.m. to counteract a crowd of Fox News viewers

who are mobilizing at this very moment.

I'm writing to you from the back seat of a limousine returning me from the Fox

News Channel studio in San Francisco, where I was just interviewed live on The

Big Story with John Gibson.

The subject of my interview was a vote coming up TONIGHT at the Berkeley,

California City Council on whether to put a referendum on the ballot calling for

impeachment of George Bush and Dick Cheney. Within minutes of air-time, the

right-wing Fox audience began dumping pressure on Berkeley's Council to ditch

the measure.

Berkeley is the first of more than 40 cities to take up the measure, promoted by

a nationwide group called Constitution Summer. The goal is to spark a national

grassroots discussion about the checks and balances and the rights contained

within the U.S. Constitution; why they are so important; and how the Bush

Administration has exceeded them. In the interest of time, I won't go into all

the arguments here. You can view the text of the proposed referendum in Adobe

Acrobat (pdf) format (72K) at:

<Web Link>

As Gibson noted in interviewing me, national Democratic leaders are backing away

from this movement out of fear that Karl Rove and company will use it to raise

money for Republican candidates in the fall. They will -- but the only way to

prevent that from happening is for the Democrats to say nothing about anything.

Rove will always find plenty of ways to reach into the pockets of his extremist

donors.

Our most basic Constitutional principles and freedoms are at risk, as the Bush

Administration tramples on even the limits imposed on it by the Republican

Congress. This is not a time for timidity. We can't count on the Democratic

leadership to lead the charge to restore the Constitution, which is why

Constitution Summer is going the grassroots route, calling for citizen referenda

on the November ballot in cities throughout the U.S.

Whether an impeachment process begins or not, it is clear that most U.S.

citizens are woefully ignorant of the Constitution's limits on executive powers,

of our Constitutional rights, of how these are being eroded, and of the

consequences of that erosion. It's vital to get the public conversation started,

and I know of no better way than to put these issues before the voters.

The Fox News crowd throughout the U.S. is bearing down on Berkeley right now,

and it's possible some of our Council members will get weak-kneed before

tonight's vote if they don't get countervailing messages from progressives.

Please take a moment and write to the mayor of Berkeley immediately, calling on

him to vote "yes" to put the impeachment referendum on the November ballot. If

you get a chance, send a separate message to each of the Council members listed

below.

If the Foxies kill this measure tonight, it will be a big setback. If Berkeley

puts the item on November's ballot, the national conversation about the

Constitution will move forward.

I will let you know what has happened, and how you can help bring this movement

to other communities throughout the U.S.

---------------------------------------------------

Contact the Mayor of Berkeley, and others (listed in order of importance) if you

have time, to urge them to put the impeachment referendum on the November

ballot:

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates

e-mail: mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us

phone: (510) 981-7100

fax: (510) 981-7199

TDD: (510) 981-6903

Council Member Linda Maio

e-mail: lmaio@ci.berkeley.ca.us

phone: (510) 981-7110

fax: (510) 981-7111

Council Member Darryl Moore

e-mail: dmoore@ci.berkeley.ca.us

phone: (510) 981-7120

Council Member Gordon Wozniak

e-mail: gwozniak@ci.berkeley.ca.us

phone: (510) 981-7180