Interview with Cynthia McKinney

John Geraghty talks to one of the most outspoken US Politicians of 2006.




For some, former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney was a divisive and unruly character in American politics. Speaking her mind to Donald Rumsfeld about military spending, requesting a full appraisal of the security apparatus post 9/11 and also making it known that the black-white economic divide is still a troubling issue for a lot of Americans. For speaking her mind and really representing her people she was stabbed in the back by her own party and offered up to
Republican money men as a sacrificial lamb. Cynthia
McKinney, like many before her, represented the constituents of Georgia’s fourth congressional district, though unlike those that went before her and those that followed her, she did not represent the corporate interests of her state and tried her utmost to defend her constituents from increasing unemployment and heightening social ills. It was her refusal to tow the party line and her presence as an independent voice that united Democrats and Republicans in their ousting of her from Congress. Some might have laid down and thought this giant military industrial intelligence congressional complex too large a foe to fight, but Ms.McKinney fought back. In November of last year, Cynthia McKinney as her parting shot, drafted and introduced legislation calling for the impeachment of President George Bush, vice president Richard Cheney and secretary of state Condolezza Rice on a number of charges including lying to the public about intelligence leading the nation into a war in Iraq, complicity and sanctioning of torture around the world and a plethora of related ineptitude on the administrations part.

McKinney’s call for the impeachment of George Bush proved to the 51% of people that favoured the action, that she was the only member of Congress willing to enact the wish of the people and do what she was put there to do. An impeachment movement had been growing in the run up to Novembers Congressional elections, headed by Representative John Conyers (D-Michigan). Since the ascendance of Democrats to a position of dominance in both houses of Congress, an attitude of cooperation with the Bush administration has gripped the
Democrat leaders, most notably speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi (D-California). It is likely that Conyers was asked to stay within ranks and declare, as Nancy Pelosi did, that impeachment was “off the table”. Had Cynthia McKinney still been in Congress, the calls for impeachment would have been louder and her popularity among the left would have grown
immensely. Though she no longer walks the halls of power, she still engages in what she feels is the ultimate form of
patriotism, dissent. In this way she still fulfils her oath of allegiance to her country and to the people that she still represents. I spoke to Ms.McKinney about her articles of impeachment, where she sees her country going and the current political dogfights in both parties.

What differentiates McKinney’s impeachment bill from those proposed by other peace activists is the fact that she lists Bush, Cheney and Rice as all being complicit. The joke in Washington is that if Cheney dies then Bush might actually become president, that is the fear of simply impeaching George Bush on his own, that the country will then be in the hands of Cheney, a man that was not elected on his own to that position. “Not only must justice be done to those who are still in Government, but to those who have left Government service and who are responsible for deceiving the American people and putting our country at war based on that deceit”. It is rare for a politician to speak in such frank terms, comments Are usually filtered through public relations firms and legal analysts before anything of such magnitude is said. McKinney is very aware of the culpability of Democratic representatives in the invasion of Iraq and the consequences of this action. McKinney is widely known not to have been a firm supporter of her party, due in part to many peoples perception that only one real party exists in the US, “the war party” as peace activist Cindy Sheehan once remarked to this author. Indeed McKinney is a rare breed, there are few elected officials in Ireland that have spoken with the vehemence that she has in recent years, berating her own party when needs be. “If
democrats fail to impeach Bush and punish him for his war crimes, in addition to stopping further war crimes, they are culpable too”, accusing ones own party of being party to war crimes is indeed unheard of. She went on to remark “Many of them voted for the war,

which I and of itself is inexcusable. Further inaction is shameful while the US retains the largest prison population in the world. The message the democrats send is ‘punish the little guys, but leave the biggest criminals alone so they can get away with more’”. Among the democrats that Ms.McKinney speaks of is Hillary Clinton, a current white house candidate. Clinton voted for the war in Iraq and has done little or nothing to halt the infringement of the Government upon the civil liberties of US citizens. McKinney is not a big fan of Barrack Obama, who has unveiled a plan to remove troops by March 2008 should he get elected. Obama is quoted in September 24th’s edition of the Chicago sun as remarking that “surgical air strikes” against Iran and Pakistan may be necessary. These remarks would indicate that Obama is no more a dive than the others that were in the Senate at the time of the vote on the war in Iraq. Ms.McKinney declared that she doesn’t “think the American people should vote for anyone who supports war and more war”. The results of the November elections clearly portrayed the support among the democrat mainstream for a discontinued US presence in Iraq. Several Democratic candidates ran on purely anti war platforms, most notable of whom was Ned Lamont, who beat Al Gore’s former running mate, Joe Liberman in the democratic primary, only to lose due to a Republican crossover vote for Lieberman (a similar occurrence to the ousting of Cynthia McKinney).

It has never been in the interest of the financial backers of the US government to see a strong voice like Cynthia McKinney asking tough questions. One of McKinneys greatest triumphs was her grilling of then secretary of defence Donald Rumsfled over the Government’s policy of awarding contracts to Dyncorp, who have engaged in human trafficking, the missing $3 billion from the US military budget and the Government’s lacklustre handling of security post 9/11. The video of this exchange can be found on youtube also features in a documentary ‘American Blackout’ which chronicles McKinney’s recent career against the backdrop of the disenfranchisement of black and Hispanic voters in the 2000 and 2004 elections. A few lines ago I mentioned corporate backers of the US government, let me recount an unrelated fact which may startle a lot of you. Are you aware that the owner of seemingly liberal clothing store urban outfitters is a mojor contributor to the Republican party and that he has given $13,000 in donations to homophobic Senator Rick Santorum? Corporations may portray one image to engage a market, but practise a very different ethic.

So what does Ms. McKinney propose America do to immediately rectify its tarnished image and unequal society? “1. End the war; 2. Take care of the American people; 3.Focus on jobs and Education; 4.Get the Fiscal house in order 5; Cut energy usage, change energy habits and inputs”. There is nothing radical in these words, though she is deemed a controversial politician in the US. Seemingly it is controversial to ask ones own Government not to spend $350 billion (the cost of the Iraq war so far) on the military and to spend it on things that will bring tangible benefits to its own citizens.

When the impeachment of Bill Clinton was proposed in congress for marital infidelity the media gave it priority status on the news. Last November Cynthia McKinney asked that George Bush be impeached for war crimes, yet there was no mention of it on the BBC website, nothing on CNN international and not a peep from supposedly liberal newspaper like the New York Times. Why did we not hear of this brave act of defiance? The answer simply put, is that the same corporations that control the media are also the corporations receiving contracts from the Government. Who owns CNN? General Electric. Who owns Fox, The times, myspace, the sun, sky, the news of the world, harper Collins? Rupert Murdoch, who pays little or no tax.
It is McKinney’s understaning of the real power structure in Washington D.C. that sets her apart from her political counterparts. She may no longer represent Georgia, but she represents me.


The Advocate will be hosting a screening of the documentary
‘American Blackout’ on Wednesday the 28th of February. See www.maynoothadvocate for further details.

The advocate will reschedule the screening of this film due to the late publication of the paper. If you can not make the screening you can watch it full on the net.
Here it is,