Welcome To Vermont, Now Off To The Hague

Crazy enough it just might work:

President Bush may soon have a new reason to avoid left-leaning Vermont: In one town, activists want him subject to arrest for war crimes.

A group in Brattleboro is petitioning to put an item on a town meeting agenda in March that would make Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney subject to arrest and indictment if they visit the southeastern Vermont community.

"This petition is as radical as the Declaration of Independence, and it draws on that tradition in claiming a universal jurisdiction when governments fail to do what they're supposed to do," said Kurt Daims, 54, a retired machinist leading the drive.

As president, Bush has visited every state except Vermont.

The town meeting, an annual exercise in which residents gather to vote on everything from fire department budgets to municipal policy, requires about 1,000 signatures to place a binding item on the agenda.

The measure asks: "Shall the Selectboard instruct the Town Attorney to draft indictments against President Bush and Vice President Cheney for crimes against our Constitution, and publish said indictment for consideration by other municipalities?"

Indeed, Bush hasn't visited our fair state and I'm actually cool with that, though it does reduce his chances of being arrested in Brattleboro.  Of course this measure is silly, but it is another way to dissent in an official fashion, particularly at the community level.  It's not just an op-ed or a blog post by an individual or small group, but a significantly more collective, public way to go on record as being against the administration and its criminal policies.

More concrete things need to be done, yet announcing your intentions or motivations is an important component to resistance.  If you are silent about your dissent, then it isn't really dissent, or at least not likely to have any impact on your opponent or other people who might also be against the opponent and be willing to act if only there were more people involved.  It's hard to reach critical mass if we remain isolated, whether in Chile or the United States.

Silence = betrayal.  Silence = death.

ntodd