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Last updated: February 8, 2009 About Beach Impeach
THE INSPIRATION for the “Beach Impeach
Project” came to San Francisco cabdriver Brad Newsham on a Saturday
afternoon in late October 2006, while he was sitting around the kitchen
table with his wife and then 9-year-old daughter. For a year and a half
prior, Newsham had been involved in the impeachment movement, where he
had noticed an over-abundance of bluster and chatter and angry words
but a near-total lack of compelling visuals. And now, suddenly, he had
his idea… [Ocean Beach, San Francisco: January, 2009 (photo left) -- Three hundred
giddy citizens celebrate the final sunset of the Bush era and the
coming dawn of the Obama administration.]
Exactly eleven Saturdays later – during the
5 AM darkness of January 6, 2007 – Newsham (then 55) steered his
tool-packed station wagon away from his home in Oakland, across the Bay
Bridge, and toward Ocean Beach in San Francisco. He had spent the past
11 weeks arranging special-event insurance, a Park service permit, a
helicopter and photographer, and also teaching himself how to outline
crisp, 100-foot-tall letters in sand. Through the Internet, Newsham had
spread word of his intentions, and that morning he was hoping for a
crowd of 1,000 people to join him, and to lay their bodies down on the
beach to spell out the message “IMPEACH!” Just recently San Francisco’s
elected congressperson, Nancy Pelosi, had assumed the speakership of
the US House of Representatives. Now, two days into her term, the Beach
Impeach Project was unfolding right in Pelosi’s “backyard,” and many in
the progressive movement were hopeful that the Bush administration
would finally be held accountable for a long list of crimes.
Anyone who was at Ocean Beach that day
knows that Beach Impeach #1 came off magically (the several events that
followed were almost identically perfect). The weather was an ideal 65
degrees with flawless blue skies. One thousand people did in fact show
up, and did in fact arrange themselves to spell out “IMPEACH!” The
hired helicopter arrived right on schedule, as did a Channel 7 News
chopper. The imagery captured that morning – with the huge IMPEACH! in
the foreground and the Golden Gate Bridge draped elegantly in the
background – was stunning, world-class (“iconic” was the word used by
the San Francisco Bay Guardian.) Footage of the
event went nationwide on the ABC network, worldwide on CNN, and was
featured in newspapers, magazines, and websites all over the planet.
For a few heady days the impeachment movement was galvanized by the
idea that justice was indeed on its way…
Everyone knows that things didn’t turn out
quite as hoped (not yet, anyway!) -- Bush and Cheney did indeed survive
their terms – but it wasn’t because the Beach Impeach throngs lost
interest. During 2007, three more events were held – two drew 1,000
people, one drew 1,500. Beach Impeach #5 took place in April, 2008, and
on January 19, 2009 (at sunset on Martin Luther King Day, and just 19
hours before Barack Obama would be sworn in as president of the United
States), a “final celebration” (pictured above) was held.
Anyone who attended any Beach Impeach
events knows that the spirit created (and it was the same spirit each
time) was equally as magical as the spectacular imagery – if not
moreso. Veteran activists said they had never been to anything so
peaceful, and so much fun. There were kids, dogs, elderly, young,
middle-aged, gay, straight, black, brown, white, and countless Codepink
– and no speeches or chants or shouting to suffer through. Laughter and
giddiness and delight were the order of each event, all of which were
short and sweet – and free! Twice, a rocking, nine-piece, Zimbabwean
marimba band added spice to the fun. And within a few weeks,
participants in each event received aerial-imagery postcards in the
mail.
Well, there it is – a brief history of the
Beach Impeach Project as recalled by its creator, me, Brad Newsham.
(Sorry about using the third person above – it seemed easier for me to
write it that way.)
Thank you for reading. And if you came to
one of the events (and I know that some of you came to ALL of them),
thank you Forever.
Brad Newsham
Email: newsham@mac.com
Cell: 415-305-8294
Postal: 4096 Piedmont Av, #601, Oakland,
CA 94611