Jefferson, Washington and Separation of Church and State

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

There may be millions of people in the United States who do not share our founders' reverance for what Thomas Jefferson called the "wall of seperation" between church and state. Many throughout the ranks of the religious right wing, for example, are eager to court bigots and fanatics, promising them a "theocracy" in exhange for their "souls". The following excerpt is typical of a "movement" to create an American Theocracy:

If conservatives are smart, we will make the GOP a relic of the past, and will go to the polls and vote the "Jesus Christ" line...Search out the spiritual life of every candidate, and eliminate those who do not follow the one true God.Long before November, we should have all of the members of our churches and their families commit to EVERYONE voting... Done properly, the turnout should be about 10% liberal and 90% conservative/Christian/ Tea-Party/etc. It would speak very loudly to have this kind of turnout.

--John Stone, comment left on "The Batavian"

Now George Washington is reputed to have been a "man of faith". But many others were not. As many if not more are described as "deists", better described as a philosophical view of a supreme being as opposed to an organized religion.

The bottom line is this: nowhere may be found any reference to "God" or deities of any sort in the Constitution. The fact of the matter is that our founders were prominently and most often not very religious. Some were Deists, some may have been atheists, and some probably did not care. That there is no clause in the Constitution that bases our nation on an "establishment of religion" is to be expected.

The single most effective challenge to would be theocrats is Thomas Jefferson's famous letter to the Danbury (Connecticut) Baptists:

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man & his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state.

--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to the Danbury Baptists

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On Liberty: More Relevant Than Ever

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

John Stuart Mill's classic essay "On Liberty" deals with the issue of "civil liberties" not the metaphysical issue of "free will". In context, it would appear that most attacks on civil liberties originate from within the right wing and, more specifically, tyrannical police states and/or aristocratic rule. Mill addresses threats against liberty from within the institutions of democracy. The issue is especially relevant when widespread domestic wiretapping and Government ordered surveillance violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Early 'libertarians' sought to limit the power 'rulers' over those governed. While many believed that rule by a popularly elected government addressed the issue, Mill, however, identified a need to limit the power of elected governments and officials as well. In 'On Liberty', Mill raises basic issues: "who should rule?" What are the limits of government power"? How may the people establish limits on the power that government may exercise over minorities and individuals? His work is more relevant now than ever.

Mill argues that, as an ideal, "government of the people" is often not the case in fact. Those asserting the power of the government -elected officials, bureaucrats, the judiciary -often develop their own interests, influenced as they often are by 'constituencies' at odds with the general interests of 'the people' and, in particular, the legitimate interests of individuals.

Mill makes no distinction between a tyranny of one and a tyranny of many. A tyrannical majority running roughshod over the rights of individuals and minorities is no less a tyrant simply because it is a majority or because it is elected, or because it is elected by a majority.

Mill believed that while society may not tolerate criminal behavior, for example, society may not legitimately interfere with or suppress non-conforming behaviors indiscriminately or simply because a majority may not approve. What then are the powers that society may legitimately exercise over the individual? Mill answers:

"The only purpose for which power can be rightly exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others."

-J.S. Mill, On Liberty

James Madison -called the "Father of the Constitution" -may have anticipated Mill's ideas in his draft of the Bill of Rights --the first ten amendments to the Constitution. Implicit in the Bill of Rights is the recognition that the power of the state must be limited! A majority --unchecked --is frequently a blunt instrument capable of oppressing and repressing the rights of individuals and minority groups alike. The Bill of Rights addresses this issue by guaranteeing "due process of law", limiting state power over individuals and groups, guaranteeing that groups and individuals may speak freely, worship freely.

The Fourth Amendment specifically is a promise that our government made to us in its very founding:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

---Fourth Amendment, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution

Let's make something abundantly clear: there are no "inherent powers", "implicit authorizations" that would, in any way, overturn, limit, or repeal the Fourth Amendment. Some politicians, perhaps many, are wrong about that; some may have deliberately lied. Moreover, Congress may not overrule the Fourth Amendment with statutory law. Constitutional Law is supreme and provisions in the Bill of Right are valid until amended as stated in the Constitution itself. Widespread domestic surveillance is illegal whatever may be done by Congress ex post facto. Until the Constitution is amended, such warrantless surveillance will remain illegal. At last, ex post facto laws, themselves, are expressly forbidden by the Constitution.

Mill is all the more remarkable for his insight into issues that remain contemporary. In every literate criticism of "special interest groups", PAC's, the gun lobby, the tobacco lobby, the Military/Industrial Complex, one sees the lasting influence of John Mill.

On Liberty is essential reading for anyone interested in law, the principles of government, political science, political philosophy, indeed, freedom itself. It is also essential reading for anyone interested in learning about the intellectual underpinnings of Anglo-American civil liberties.

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NRA Lies Exposed

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The NRA wants you to believe that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution gives them an unqualified, blank check right to 'keep and bear' arms as they choose. That's not so! The Second Amendment --from which the right to 'own and bear' arms is derived --is a single sentence':

 A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

U. S. v Miller is the only U.S. Supreme Court decision that directly "interprets" the Second Amendment. U.S. v Miller clearly states that the right to keep and bear arms occurs ONLY within the context of a "...well-regulated militia."
All other Federal decisions and state decisions having anything to do with the Second Amendment reference U.S. v Miller to the extent that they address that issue specifically. It is, at last, the only opinion regarding an interpretation of the Second Amendment that is, in fact, law.

The GPO report is an exhaustive source of original, official sources having to do with the Second Amendment. ONE of the original sources is U.S. v Miller (1939), the decision that is considered by scholars to be the most important. U. S. v Miller is the only U.S. Supreme Court decision that directly "interprets" the Second Amendment.

U.S. v Miller states clearly states that the right to keep and bear arms occurs only within the context of a "...well-regulated militia." All other Federal decisions and state decisions having anything to do with the Second Amendment reference U.S. v Miller to the extent that they address that issue specifically.

Before getting to the sources themselves, consider the following quote from R. William Ide III, former President of the American Bar Association, who stated bluntly in 1994:

"There is NO Second Amendment guarantee. There is NO confusion on this issue."

R. W. Ide [emphases mine, LH].

Further --the House of Delegates of the American Bar Association on firearms Violence stated that the Second Amendment "...relates to a well-regulated militia and that there are NO federal constitutional decisions which preclude the regulation of firearms in private hands." To sum it up, Erwin Griswold, the late Solicitor General put it this way:

Never in history has a federal court invalidated a law regulating the private ownership of firearms on Second Amendment grounds. That the Second Amendment poses no barrier to strong gun laws is perhaps the most well-settled proposition in American Constitutional law.

– Erwin Griswold, Solicitor General

In 1934, Congress reacted to gangster related violence by enacting the National Firearms Act which prohibited the interstate transportation of silencers, automatic weapons, and sawed-off shotguns. Jack Miller appealed his conviction under that law. He claimed that Congress had violated his Second Amendment rights. The court gave consideration to "...the dependent clause" of the Second Amendment --the first part which establishes the context of the Amendment as a whole: "A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state..." The following is an excerpt from the court's opinion:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that the possession or use of a "shot gun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such instrument Certainly it is not within Judicial notice that this weapon is any part of the ordinary military equipment or that its use could contribute to the common defense.

–United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) (USSC+)

The Supreme Court decisions continued, saying that the obvious purpose of the Second Amendment was "...to assure the continuation and render possible the effectiveness of the state militia". The court concluded that the Second Amendment must be interpreted and applied with that end in view." The views are to be found in United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 (1939) (USSC+)

Our most recent treatment of the Second Amendment occurred in United States v. Miller, in which we reversed the District Court's invalidation of the National Firearms Act, enacted in 1934. In Miller, we determined that the Second Amendment did not guarantee a citizen's right to possess a sawed-off shotgun because that weapon had not been shown to be "ordinary military equipment" that could "contribute to the common defense."

--Printz v. United States, 117 S.Ct. 2365, 2385-86 (1997) (Thomas, J., concurring)

The conclusions drawn by the court address the possession and use of guns within the context of a "militia". By the definition given in any dictionary, the U.S. Army is a militia. However the courts define "militia", the Second Amendment clearly addresses "well-regulated militias". Common-sense, law, English common law, and tradition would dictate that only a sovereign government of duly elected and ordained elected representatives of the people may regulate militias. If not, then who? Unregulated bands operating outside the law is unacceptable in any civilized society. The self-appointed "militia" groups clearly do NOT meet the requirement established in the Second Amendment and in U.S. v Miller which recounts the legitimate purposes that a "well-regulated militia" may pursue under law.

To sum up: U. S. v Miller is the only U.S. Supreme Court decision that directly "interprets" the Second Amendment. U.S. v Miller clearly states that the right to keep and bear arms occurs only within the context of a "...well-regulated militia."

All other Federal decisions and state decisions having anything to do with the Second Amendment reference U.S. v Miller to the extent that they address that issue specifically. It is, at last, the only opinion regarding an interpretation of the Second Amendment that is in fact, law --your experts and mine notwithstanding.

A thousand experts are either right or wrong on merit; the number of experts on either side is irrelevant. There are such things as "honest" disagreements. However, the official positions of the NRA re: the Second Amendment are NOT of this class. They are, rather, a pack of malicious lies, propaganda, distortions, and half truths.

Almost ten years ago, my article with the same title was published on 'The Opinion', a pioneering 'opinion' site presaging the onset of 'blogs'. To be expected, I was attacked by a legion of brainwashed NRA ditto-heads who called me names, called me 'stupid', and presumed to 'instruct me' with respect to the opinions of the 'founders'. Naturally, I refuted every NRA attacker not with my own logic or perspectives but with the writings of the 'founders' themselves, U.S. v Miller and every other decision that SCOTUS and Federal courts have handed down, as well as the writings of founders that gun nuts had said would have opposed me. They didn't! In fact, my argument is that of the founders themselves.

As a result of that experience, I concluded that the NRA is an organization of liars, dumbshits, ignoramouses, intolerant ideologues, obnoxious would-be thugs and a legion of Wayne LaPierre wannabes. In other words: fucking liars! Their lies and propaganda are not welcome on this site. The NRA has enough money to buy time on the corporate media! The NRA can fuck off!

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Why We Are Not Free

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

While it may be true that all societies indulge a process called 'criminalization', it seems that in the U.S. the process has been to an even greater extent institutionalized. Both crime rates and the profits of the so-called "Prison Industrial Complex" (P.I.C.) depend upon the criminalization of various behaviors, most notably, the cultivation and/or use of marijuana, a so-called 'drug' which many believe and support is not only hamless and non-addictive, its many uses could be of tremendous benefit to society.

'Criminalization' is often 'race-based', perhaps intended to justify endemic prejudice or bigotry. There is no reasonable doubt that persons of color are more often targeted by law enforcement. A study conducted in 1996 focused on Interstate 95 in Maryland; it found that almost 75 percent of motorists stopped for alleged traffic violations were 'black' though 'black' motorists constituted less than 18 percent of all motorists on Interstate 95.

Minorities are, likewise, more often to be surveilled! Such surveillance includes 'electronic monitoring' --video, audio, mail, etc. These tactics are often employed as devices of intimidation. That is most often the case with 'political dissidents'.

The answer to the question --'who gets watched' --defines the sweep and depth of surveillance as a means by which the 'state' may monitor and restrain citizens of any color or political persuasion. As a result, the mere present of police becomes an omnipresent means by which 'social control' is maintained. The presence of 'police' is a constant reminder that 'big brother' is watching. The message is clear: the police may routinely resort to violence to maintain a status quo beneficial to but a mere segment of the total population.

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Right Wing Attacks on the Separation of Church and State

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

When he was still indulging visions of the White House, the right wing's snot-nosed ideologue --Rick Santorum --was stirring up fears and spreading distortions about the First Amendment. Wing nuts have done this before. Fear mongering, they believe, rallies an increasingly radical religious fringe. The word for it is demagoguery. Rick Santorum, for example, has said that the separation of church and state is NOT absolute. I beg to differ and so would have Thomas Jefferson who described a WALL OF SEPERATION between Chruch and State. And I will venture that Jefferson was in a better position to know what he was talking about and that Jeffeson was infinitely more intelligent than Rick Santorum.

The following is the text of the letter that Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Baptist Association in the State of Connecticut, assembled October 7, 1801.

To messers. Nehemiah Dodge, Ephraim Robbins, & Stephen S. Nelson, a committee of the Danbury Baptist association in the state of Connecticut. Gentlemen

The affectionate sentiments of esteem and approbation which you are so good as to express towards me, on behalf of the Danbury Baptist association, give me the highest satisfaction. My duties dictate a faithful and zealous pursuit of the interests of my constituents, & in proportion as they are persuaded of my fidelity to those duties, the discharge of them becomes more and more pleasing.

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties.

I reciprocate your kind prayers for the protection & blessing of the common father and creator of man, and tender you for yourselves & your religious association, assurances of my high respect & esteem.

Th JeffersonJan. 1. 1802.

ADDENDUM: Rick Santorum is of an authoritarian mentality that asserts a 'right' to believe claptrap i.e, 'intelligent design' and at the same time DENY you the right to believe the truth about modern theories of evolution even as they themselves lie about them or raise strawman fallacies. At the same time, they label both facts and theories --'Darwinian' --as if 'Darwinian' were a bad word. It's NOT!

Tragically --the right wing has a mental 'blind spot'. The 'right' is INCAPABLE of applying to themselves objective rules of logic and evidence. While most intelligent people today are comfortable with the fact that the 'laws of physics' apply everywhere in the universe and are discovered, described ONLY by observation and empirical methods, the 'right wing' inclined live in a pluralistic universe and never consider for a moment that their thought processes are, in fact, reversed.

Intelligent 'folk' will follow a premise logically to a conclusion. The right wing --rather --ASSUMES the truth of an ideology, a prejudice, a mentally impaired rationalization --and accept ONLY those conclusions which conform to the prejudice. The 'open mind' is anathema to them if not completely unheard of in their circles. By any definition, the American right wing is a 'kooky cult'!

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A Revolutionary Agenda

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Why has the right wing apparently succeeded in stacking SCOTUS with 5 justices who have in common their disdain for the work of our founders? They succeeded for several reasons:

1. the media, concentrated in very few corporate hands, demands 'free speech' but only for themselves;
2. the corporate community is interested in their privileges but disdain YOUR rights;
3. education is neglected and most notably in those states 'occupied' by the GOP.

Texas is a case in point. Prior to the arrival of the Bush crime family, one could get a good education in Texas. I would like to think that I am but one of millions who are the living proof of it. Bush/Perry, however, were more interested in the profits that 'private education' might make if declining test scores in the public systems were ignored. The 'private schools' are profitable but serve the ruling elite. Everyone else is expected to resort to crime and thus fill the gulag of corporate-owned prisons.

Recently, Karl Rove 'demanded' to know who gave us the right to occupy our country! Rove has apparently never heard of the Bill of Rights. I will be happy to educate Rove. In fact the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution does not 'give' or 'grant' those rights; it merely affirms the rights that all of us enjoy by common law.

I suggest Karl Rove read John Locke for a start. By 'common law' we have the right to speak, dissent, protest, criticize and, in every other non-violent manner, hold every politician --from elected dog catcher to President --accountable to US!!

Though he was not a 'founder' in that he was not among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Thomas Jefferson wrote of the right of people to abolish tyrannies, the right to abolish those governments failing to uphold their end of a 'social contract', a 'convenent' between government and people. Governments failing those responsibilities are in 'breach of contract', the 'social contract' which is, in fact, its only source of legitimacy.

Every philosopher who is connected in any way with what is called the 'englightenment' has held that when the 'government' i.e, the 'hired hands' who run it from day-to-day violate the terms of this 'social contract', it is the right of the people to 'abolish it. To wit:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

--The Declaration of Independence [authored by Thomas Jefferson; bolding mine, LH]

The nimrods in Washington D.C. to include all of K-street, the gang of lobbyists as well as paid liars like Karl Rove and numerous 'elected' representatives should go back to school. I suggest that their first course be entitled: HUMILITY with various lessons to include:

• public service
• the sovereignty of the people
• the enumerated responsibilities of government to its sovereign

The people are the final jurors. We, the people, are tasked with deciding whether a particular government shall remain or be replaced. Jefferson and the founders as well believed that that was our right! I have, at this point, given up on a corrupt establishment, controlled as it is by the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the population. I have given up on the 'community' of 'legal abstractions' called 'corporations'! Enough! It is time that the people be heard! A new broom sweeps clean. All things must pass!

The time is near, perhaps arrived, when the people must re-establish as matters of law that:

• the people are sovereign;
• that whenever any 'government' has failed its duties and responsibilities to the people it is the RIGHT of the people to abolish it;
• that any new government inherits, therefore, a legal and ironclad responsibility not to tolerate the rights of the people but to preserve, protect and defend them actively against all subversive attempts at home or abroad.

Our so-called 'government' --at least since Ronald Reagan --has failed the people. The Constitution is paid lip service. The Bill of Rights is reviled. The needs of the people are ignored. The environment is considered the preserve of corporations. Corporations are given 'rights' though they are not and never will be people. The coming revolution has a long list of wrongs to be undone and crimes to be punished.

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The United States is NOT a Christian Nation!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Whenever any court of any type restricts, bans or opposes religious intrusions into governmental affairs, an army of fundies --like cockroaches -- are sure to crawl out of the woodwork. Just as predictably, an army of politcians will ooze out --like sweet stuff --upon a public stage to court them.

Predictably, this circle of jerks --consisting as it does of the deluded on the one hand and the gaggle of oportunists/politcians on the other hand --will denounce the decision(s) and declare that it is against the 'wishes and intents' of the nation's "founding fathers".

The most obvious examples have to do with separation of church and state which should be a settled issue on the side of 'separation'. Propagandists throughout the right wing would have it otherwise. They try to re-write history everyday. If we are not vigilant, one day, they will succeed in creating and imposing upon us a theocracy when, in fact, the founders had decried 'theocracy' and deliberately created a secular state.

An alarming, perhaps a growing, number throughout the right wing will tell you with a straight face that the United States was founded upon the 'Christian' religion and that the founders were themselves 'Christians'. Neither statement is true. The U.S. is not a Christian nation nor was it intended to be. The founders themselves were not Christian, some where 'deists', others espoused no religion whatsoever. To sum up: our founders were not Christians and certainly did not believe in a literal interpretation of the bible.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free execise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peacably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
First Amendment, U.S. Constitution [emphasis above is mine, EC]

One wonders what it is about 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion' that is not understood by the American 'right wing'.

Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.

--John Adams, Treaty of Tripoli

The organized, concerted right wing effort to tear down the 'wall of separation' between church and state is a repugnant revision of our history that must not be tolerated.

Thomas Jefferson is not, by definition, a 'founder'; nevertheless, he drafted the Declaration of Independence and shared with those who later made up the Constitutional Convention, the view that the United States was --in no way --'founded upon the Christian religion'.

The United States is NOT a 'Christian' nation.

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.

--Thomas Jefferson, Danbury Letter

We will never be free to relax with respect to this issue. The American right wing, extremists and religious fanatics have a subversive agenda. Unless they are constantly opposed or stopped, they will stop at nothing to effect their agenda. They have already proven that they are willing to change the meaning and legal significance of 'precedent' upon which is based the legal and philsophical underpinnings of Western Civilization.

Clarence Thomas is articulating the view that precedent doesn't count... I think that if Bush were to appoint people who believe that precedent doesn't count, you would really see a carnage of the laws passed by the New Deal courts.... I think that this...new Court is perfectly capable of reaching back and substantially reversing and eroding the decisions of the Supreme Court in the late 1930s. And that, to me, is a great danger.

--Martin Garbus

It is not claimed in the preamble to the Constitution that God ordained our Constitution! No external lawgiver is cited! Nor is the Constitution based --as Gary Bauer had said --on the Ten Commandments. The Constitution never mentions the Ten Commandments. The Constitution is not based on the Talmud, nor the Upanishads, nor the Bhagavad-Gita, nor the Koran!

Fundamentalists of any religious persuasion should read the Constitution from the first letter to the last period. They should be required to count the number of times the word "God" is used!

NOT ONCE!

Count the number of times the word "Christian" is used!

NOT ONCE!

Count the number of times that the name of any religion is named or even referenced!

NOT ONCE!

That is the case because the Constitution is a secular document creating a secular, humanist nation --A FREE REPUBLIC --and until it is overthrown by GOP/wing nuts/Religious fanatics in a coup d'etat, it will remain so!

Five ideologues have proven themselves contemptuous of both the rule of law and a basic principle underlying our founding: the separation of church and state! The constitutional subversives are Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel A. Alito and Sandra Day O'Connor. None of them can be trusted to be faithful stewards of our heritage, our Constitution, indeed, our very freedoms as they are guaranteed to us in that document. Some examples:

In 1993, William Osburne was convicted of kidnapping, assaulting and raping a woman in Anchorage, Alaska. He spent the next 14 years of his life behind bars. Osburne insists that he is innocent, the State of Alaska has in its possession DNA evidence which will once and for all prove his guilt or innocence, and Osburne has offered to pay for DNA testing out of his own pocket. Allowing Osburne to prove—or disprove–his claim of innocence will cost Alaska literally nothing.

--Ian Millhiser, Think Progress, In 5-4 Decision, Conservative Supreme Court Denies DNA Evidence To Potentially Innocent Man

Yet another example among scores:

Today, a Supreme Court majority ruled against women by siding with the country's largest employment discriminator, saying Wal-Mart, essentially, is too big to sue. The brave women, led by Betty Dukes, who stood up to Wal-Mart at great personal sacrifice, are told simply they're on their own.

"With this decision, the Supreme Court has assisted Wal-Mart in its efforts to systematically dole out promotions and pay raises on the basis of sex. The law calls that illegal discrimination, but this Court has turned its back on the more than million women who only sought simple justice," said NOW President Terry O'Neill. "The women of Wal-Mart deserve respect and fair treatment, and we will continue to stand up for their rights."

In 2002, NOW declared Wal-Mart a "Merchant of Shame" as part of its Women-Friendly Workplace Campaign. NOW chapters have led countless community demonstrations at Wal-Mart stores around the country to educate shoppers about Wal-Mart's exploitation of its women employees.

Today, NOW demands an immediate legislative response to help the women of Wal-Mart. We call on Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would provide more effective remedies to victims of sex-based wage discrimination. This bill passed in the House in January 2009, but ultimately was defeated in the Senate.

"The gap between women's and men's pay is still sizeable, which is why it's so important to get this legislation passed," stated O'Neill. "We will continue supporting the efforts of Senators Mikulski, Cantwell, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Stabenow and others to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and hold accountable those who stand in the way of this sensible remedial bill."

A legislative remedy is only part of the solution, however. NOW also calls on Wal-Mart to end its unconscionable resistance to employees' efforts to form unions and bargain collectively over pay, benefits and other conditions of employment. Research demonstrates that unionized women workers earn better wages and have better benefits than their non-union counterparts. In fact, women in unions earn 11.2 percent more or $2.00 more per hour than non-union women workers. And the gender wage gap is smaller in unionized workplaces.

--Political Affairs, In 5-4 decision, conservative Supreme Court justices dismiss Wal-Mart lawsuit

These 'justices' and the American right wing which supports them wish to undo the work of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and every founder whose signature is to be found at the bottom of what has been called the most magnificant document to have issued from the mind of humankind: the U.S. Constitution.

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A Citizen's First Defense Against Tyranny

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Over the years, I have had the good fortune to have met some interesting people, many of whom I considered to be mentors. Many of them probably never knew how much I had learned from them. Some were famous but many, many more were not but the lessons learned were just as important and, in many cases, more so.

Dick DeGuerin, a near legendary Houston-based defense attorney whom I knew briefly in Houston, TX, credited many people for having been his mentors. Those include, of course, lengendary trial lawyers --among them Percy Foreman with whom he worked for years. When 'Texas Monthly' interviewed DeGuerin, the famous lawyer underlined how important it is that all our citizens acquire an essential knowledge of those few documents that guarantee ---by law --our rights as people and citizens.

Times, took a kind of informal poll of people. He stood out on a corner and read various lines to people and asked them where it came from and if it was a valuable right, etc. A lot of people said “Well it must be the Communist Manifesto” or some radical writing or we don’t need that. What he was doing was just reading the Bill of Rights.

--Dick DeGuerin, Famous Defense Attorney as quoted in 'Texas Monthly'

Our 'rights' are guaranteed us in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights! They are not 'common law'; they were written down on paper, put before the people and ratified! They are the law! We must be vigilent in their defense as the laws themselves have protected us from those who would deny them. Until A. Scalia can undo them, the mountainous body of case law that affirms them and protects us from tyranny.

We must be vigilent. It is clear of late that the government must not be expected to think for us! Nor will the powerful lobbies on K-street restrain themselves. They are not paid to protect us. They are paid handsomely by wealthy special interests NOT to protect the rights guaranteed you in the Constitution; rather --they are paid to protect --not rights but privileges that are claimed by the increasingly rich and powerful ruling elite. This elite of just 1 percent of the total population owns more, controls more 'wealth' than the rest of us combined.

If you would be free, you must defend freedom for every citizen.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

--Eugene Debs, upon sentencing on November 18, 1918 to ten years in prison

Eugue Debs opposed U.S. entry into World War I but was arrested, jailed and sentenced for having opposed it in a speech. Free speech did not exist for Debs. But as he himself made clear, if anyone is denied free speech, if anyone is denied his/her freedom, WE are not free!

His sentence was appealed but upheld by the Supreme Court in a decision famous for a blatant fallacy, an obvious false analogy that would not be equaled until A. Scalia would join the court and reverse the laws of cause and effect! Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes likened Debs' opposition to the U. S. entry into WWI to '...yelling fire in a crowded theater' when there is no fire.

But ---there was a fire!

There was a clear and present danger then just as there is now --the 'clear and present danger' that is posed to every 'right' that is listed in the First Ten Amendements to the U.S. Constitution. Then as now, war --whether declared or undeclared, legitimate or no --seems always to be the convenient rationalization by which our very freedoms are or will be denied to us.

Tens of thousands of Americans are being held in super-maximum-security prisons where they are deprived of contact and psychologically destroyed. Undocumented workers are rounded up and vanish from their families for weeks or months. Militarized police units break down the doors of some 40,000 Americans a year and haul them away in the dead of night as if they were enemy combatants. Habeas corpus no longer exists.

American citizens can “legally” be assassinated. Illegal abductions, known euphemistically as “extraordinary rendition,” are a staple of the war on terror.

Secret evidence makes it impossible for the accused and their lawyers to see the charges against them. All this was experienced by the Argentines. Domestic violence, whether in the form of social unrest, riots or another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would, I fear, see the brutal tools of empire cemented into place in the homeland. At that point we would embark on our own version of the Dirty War.

--Chris Hedges, America's Dissappeared

In Orwell's '1984' the institutional denial of all rights and, indeed, humanity itself is 'justified', rationalized and made 'the law' because of 'war', a perpetual state of war. In 1984, the war may have been a fiction maintained by government for the very purpose of enslaving the population. Likewise, a 'War on Terrorism' need never end! Thus --the government need only cite it to deny you every ratified right listed in the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

But --a citizen cannot defend those things about which he/she is ignorant. At the very least, a good citizen should be expected to have read the Bill of Rights --the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Every citizen should know what his/her rights are and should be prepared to quote them to your arresting officers and/or any 'judge' who would deny you those protections.

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'They may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!'

By assuming the power to wage war upon the people of the United States, Bush has made it official: he is a traitor. Under the US Constitution, the people themselves are sovereign and Bush has declared war upon the sovereign. The word for that in law and throughout history is: high treason! [See: Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, Joseph Story]

The Constitution of Estados Unidos Mexicanos (United States of Mexico or, if you prefer, United Mexican States) is the product of a revolution that was waged in that country in 1910. Unfortunately, the American United States, (Estados Unidos) could not be expected to have given a revolution in Mexico an adequate treatment, having failed to educate US citizens about its own history. Arguably, George W. Bush could never have gotten away with a complete repudiation of the US Constitution had Americans known as much of their history as do the citizens of Mexico about their country.

Cases in point involve the rights of individuals vs the powers of 'state'. States have no powers but those which derive by the consent of the people. The people, in fact, are sovereign. Any 'leader' who wages war upon them is, by defintion, a traitor! It is on this issue that Bush is either dead wrong or deliberately lying.

It is unfortunate that in the United States, for example, a 'Bill of Rights' was almost an after thought. So confident was James Madison that the Philadelphia Constitution was itself a bulwark against tyranny by virtue of an ingenious 'separation of powers' that he felt a separate 'Bill of Rights' to be unnecessary if not superfluous. At last, when a 'Bill of Rights' was insisted upon, Madison would draft it himself and his work therein is arguably more relevant to the individual than are those powers delegated either the President or Congress in the main body of the Constitution. It is the Bill of Rights which draws the line between state and individual, a line that state dare not trespass. People as 'sovereign' may (to use Thomas Jefferson's word) 'abolish states at their pleasure!

In Mexico (also called Estados Unidos) it is, I think, especially notable that the rights of individuals were not merely after thoughts. The rights of individuals vs those powers of state that might transgress against them are dealt with upfront and in language strong and unambiguous. While the body of the US Constitution is concerned with enumerating the powers and responsibilities of three branches of government, the very first Article in the Mexican Constitution deals with the rights of the people and individuals.

These rights cannot be denied and they cannot be suspended. Slavery is illegal in Mexico; any slaves from abroad who enter national territory will, by this mere act, be freed and given the full protection of the law.

Also covered Article I is the prohibition of all types of discrimination based on ethnic or national origins, sex, age, or social conditions. Everyone is protected by the rule of law regardless of different capacities or talents, social class or conditions, health, opinions, or preferences.

Bush, meanwhile, claims a 'right' to wage war upon the people themselves. This concept is TREASONOUS! Mexican revolutionaries understood what Bush does not: the people are sovereign. This principle was agreed to at Runnymede by King John and it is the very basis for Democracy; it the very foundation upon which any Democracy is based. Any state which presumes to wage 'war' upon its people or to enslave them upon ANY pretext is, by definition, a dictatorship, a tyranny and, in the words of Thomas Jefferson, it must be overthrown, by force if need be!

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Che Guevara said put it this way:

Of these three propositions the first two contradict the defeatist attitude of revolutionaries or pseudo-revolutionaries who remain inactive and take refuge in the pretext that against a professional army nothing can be done, who sit down to wait until in some mechanical way all necessary objective and subjective conditions are given without working to accelerate them.

As these problems were formerly a subject of discussion in Cuba, until facts settled the question, they are probably still much discussed in America. Naturally, it is not to be thought that all conditions for revolution are going to be created through the impulse given to them by guerrilla activity. It must always be kept in mind that there is a necessary minimum without which the establishment and consolidation of the first center is not practicable.

People must see clearly the futility of maintaining the fight for social goals within the framework of civil debate. When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law; peace is considered already broken.

--Guerilla Warfare, Che Guevara

Bush, by contrast, has said that 'The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper!" and, in so declaring, he has begun his war upon the people. He is a traitor! He must be charged with high treason and brought to trial. King Charles I of England lost his head for less or similar offenses.

Bush has repeatedly asserted a 'power' to wage war on the American people, claiming and aggressively exercising, the "right to use any and all war powers against American citizens within the United States". Like any other tin-horn dictator he insists that he is above all restraints by Congress and the courts. In any state in which the people are sovereign, anyone waging war upon them is a traitor and is, by law, guilty of high treason! See: Glenn Greenwald: The NSA Fight Begins - Strategies for Moving Forward

Many of these 'wars' are still fought north of the Rio Grande (Rio Bravo in Mexico). They are still fought north of the Rio Grande because of one party primarily: the GOP, otherwise called the Republican party, in fact, not a 'Republican' party at all but the party of the self-declared and absolute dictatorship of George W. Bush.

In 1910, the people of Mexico were oppressed by the regime of Porfirio Diaz. Unlike the people of the United States, Diaz was effectively opposed and eventually deposed by a people's revolution which was eventually responsible for elevating the rights of the people as opposed to the assume and arbitrary prerogatives of any government.

Revolution 1910

As he was portrayed by Mel Gibson in 'Braveheart', William Wallace addressed his rag tag band of 'revolutionary' Scots and allied Irish who opposed the oppressive regime of King Edward, called 'Longshanks'. "What will you do without freedom?", Wallace asked!

What will Americans do unless freedom is restored in Bush's wake? Will America simply slide off into oblivion, slavery, bankruptcy and collapse?

Don't dismiss the notion. Financially, the US is already bankrupt, careers lay in ruins, millions have already lost homes and suffered broken families. The worst is yet to come and FEMA has not constructed a gulag of camps for nothing. The Bill of Rights is but a memory and unless Bush is challenged, it will remain so. The next time you feel the impulse to condescend to your neighbor who lives south of the historic Rio Grande, reflect upon the fact that he is still protected by a rule of law which states without exception:

These rights cannot be denied and they cannot be suspended.

Since the ascension of Bush, you have NO SUCH guarantees!

"They may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!

Jesse Ventura lays it all on the line on the Howard Stern show. Jesse correctly and politely states the issues in question regarding the war and the events of 911.

Part 1

Part 2

A Police State Update:

DALLAS (Reuters) - Texas defied the World Court and executed a Mexican national by lethal injection on Tuesday over the objections of the international judicial body and neighboring Mexico.

Jose Medellin, 33, was pronounced dead at 9:57 p.m. CDT in the state's death chamber in Huntsville, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.

He had been condemned for the 1993 rape and murder of 16-year-old Elizabeth Pena in Houston and lost his bid late Tuesday for a last-minute stay from the U.S. Supreme Court.

The World Court last month ordered the U.S. government to "take all measures necessary" to halt the upcoming executions of five Mexicans including Medellin's on the grounds that they had been deprived of their right to consular services after their arrests.

Medellin's execution is sure to anger neighboring Mexico and analysts have said it could make life rough for Americans arrested abroad if other countries decide to evoke the U.S. example and deprive them of their right to consular services.

This typically means diplomats will visit and provide legal advice to their nationals being held by authorities.

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles had recommended that the state's Republican governor Rick Perry not grant a temporary reprieve, paving the way for Medellin's execution.

Texas, which executes far more convicts than any other U.S. state, had taken the view that the brutal nature of Medellin's crimes rendered him unfit for a reprieve or lesser sentence.

--Ed Stoddard, Texas Defies the World With Execution

Additional resources:

• The Mexican Revolution 1910-1920
• The Mexican Revolution: An Overview
• The Williwood Meador Collection: Pancho Villa and the Border Revolution

Published Articles

• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part II, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part III, In Fascist Dictatorships Telling the truth becomes a crime
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part IV, the state forces an 'existential' choice
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part V, Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VI, The government places itself above the law
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VII, The Government Denies 'Due Process of Law'
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State Part VIII: Atrocities are justified with lies, myths or propaganda

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The Historical Significance and the Failure of George W. Bush

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Lincoln summed up what it was that made the United States not an alliance of separate states but a single nation of "United" states. Our nation was, he said at Gettysburg, 'conceived in liberty', an abstract, philosophical idea that had been given practical meaning in the US Constitution. We were, Lincoln said, 'dedicated' to a 'proposition'. '

Proposition' is a precise term found in philosophy and logic. Meaningful propositions are provable. They are 'meaningful' to the extent they are provable. Bush has no patience with any of that. He does not 'do nuance'. Our founders did 'nuance' and within it is found the source of American liberty: the Constitution. "The Constitution," Bush said, "is just a goddamned piece of paper!"

Thus --Americans are united not by ethnicity or other characteristics of 'nationality' but by abstract, philosophical principles. The US is a product of deliberate and considered 'choices' of an existentialist nature. Bush's failed presidency is already measured by the degree to which his administration exploited our patriotism while subverting the very source of it --those abstract ideas referred to by Lincoln: our very conception in 'liberty', our 'dedication' to the principle that all men are created equal, the 'nuance' wherein is found our nationhood.

The United States, though it is still a young nation, is already brought to the brink of its dissolution because one man, though he has derived power from the apparatus of state and nation, has failed to grasp the source of it or its significance. The political philosopher David Miller defined a nation is a group of people sharing a sense of common membership, believing that others, likewise, share the sense of membership and belonging. A nation, he wrote, is capable of acting as a 'group' the members of which share a common history, a 'shared public culture'. It is absurd to consider a regime wherein the 'defense' of this 'shared public culture' is, in fact, the destroyer of it. But --this is what Bush has done.

It is the measure of Bush's failure that the destruction of that 'shared public culture' so succinctly summarized by Lincoln, articulated significantly by Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence and, later, by James Madison in the Constitution, have fallen victim --not to terrorists --but to Bush's presumed defense of it.

It was Bush --not terrorists --who dismantled our Constitution with the pronouncement that 'The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper'. It was Bush --not terrorists --who declared an end of habeas corpus, due process of law, the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizure, the rights of free speech, assembly and petition. It was Bush --not terrorists --who must surely 'just hate freedom'. It was Bush --not terrorists --who robbed us what it was that made us a nation!

David Miller stressed the importance of 'trust'. A history of the 20th Century is replete with stories of nations whose regimes were distrusted by citizens. The obvious examples are the communist regimes of the Soviet Union, China under Mao. But there are as many on the right wing --Hitler, Mussolini, Pinochet! If my rights so ardently defended by Jefferson, so articulately described by Madison, are imperiously abrogated, what difference does it make to me whether the assault is from the left or from the right?

The US government while never perfect seemed secure in a system of checks of balances. It was Bush --not terrorists --who deliberately upset the balance. A purely partisan 5-4 Bush v Gore was the harbinger of things to come. Bush v Gore, it is said correctly, made no law. It's effect was to stop a recount that had it been completed would have elected another man to the Oval Office. The US government has been illegitimate since that date.

No one can tell if the US will ever find its way back. The Presidential primaries were uninspiring. The previews of the upcoming Obama v McCain race give me little hope. No one is talking about the only issue that without it nothing else matters: the nature and legitimacy of the government in Washington.

Published Articles

• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part II, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part III, In Fascist Dictatorships Telling the truth becomes a crime
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part IV, the state forces an 'existential' choice
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part V, Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VI, The government places itself above the law
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VII, The Government Denies 'Due Process of Law'
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State Part VIII: Atrocities are justified with lies, myths or propaganda

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Why Newt Gingrich is Dead Wrong About Our Rights, Bush, and the Constitution

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has revealed a naked would-be emperor. At Drew University in New Jersey, Gingrich defended Bush's dictatorial power grab --the Bush administration's assault on the Bill of Rights --saying that the government has a 'right to defend society'. Against whom? Patriotic Americans of some party other than 'GOP'?

Perhaps Newt has in mind "foreign terrorists" whom Bush forgot to thank for 911! Newt never cleared it up! Newt never explained where, by whom and how was America threatened in such a manner that it may be quick fixed by repealing the Bill of Rights or --worse --applying it inequitably upon whims, bad moods, lies, propaganda or --worst of all --phony terrorist attacks about which nothing said by Bush and his administration can be proven! Nothing!

Not content to leave bad enough alone, Gingrich added that when threatened, "...people will give up all their liberties to avoid that level of threat." Thus --Newt tipped his hand! Given his record, it is fair to conclude that that is precisely what Newt Gingrich and similar ilk have had in mind all along.

I am not surprised that Newt would get it the wrong way 'round! But it is time to straighten Newt out! The responsibilities of the government are clearly spelled out in the Constitution itself. The Constitution is quite specific about those instances in which Habeas Corpus may be suspended. A phony state of emergency and lies about WMD don't qualify!

Newt's position is typical 'backward' thinking that makes of the state an end in itself. The Constitution, however, assigns to government but one over-arching responsibility and, as Jefferson said "... Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."

Newt and his ilk pose a clear and present danger to our Democracy, the Constitution that created it, the freedoms we enjoy! The 'clear and present danger' is Newt and the GOP --not foreign terrorists! When Newt is preaching right wing sedition, one may rightly conclude that the GOP has and continues to exploit the 'clear and present danger' to our nation and its Constitution. But --as Pogo said of the enemy, we have seen the enemy and he is the GOP! When the Constitution is rescinded and/or retired it will be the work of crooks and idiots like Newt --not terrorists!

If Newt is correct, then perhaps the time has come to abolish it. The government --clearly --is not the source of our rights. Rather, 'powers' exercised by government derive from us! "We, the people" are aggrieved by the arbitrary and dictatorial manner in which the Bush administration lied about both Iraq and terrorism; we --the true sovereigns of this nation as established in the Constitution are aggrieved by Bush's deliberate failure to live up to his only Constitutional responsibility:

"I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of the President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

--Presidential Oath of Office

Preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States was and remains Bush's only job. Bush not only failed, he has, himself, posed the greater threat! Bush has worked overtly to subvert the Constitution. Put another way: Bush put his hand on a black book and lied --under oath!

Note to Newt: that is high treason! In the 18th Century, it was sufficient cause for a hanging.

The subversion of the Constitution was effected --not by alleged 'terrorists' --but by Bush and complicit supporters like Newt Gingrich. Of Al Qaeda and Bush, Bush is the bigger threat! He’s here, on our soil, working with the likes of Alberto Gonzales and John Yoo to subvert the Constitutional principles that he claimed had been 'hated' by 'turrsts'.

The world's number one terrorist is George W. Bush.

The world's biggest terrorist organizations are the US Military and the CIA. Clearly --Bush cannot defend what Bush and Bush alone has destroyed.

It is not a matter of American's 'giving away' their liberties and freedoms. No one took a poll. Bush quickly exploited approval ratings of some 90 percent and proceded to act as if his dictatorship had been a fait accompli. Democrats rolled over and played dead. Key Democrats got "Anthrax Letters" --not exactly fan mail. Flag - waving, SUV driving would-be 'brownshirts' burned Dixie Chick CDs.

While the media was distracted, Bush and Gonzales were busy re-writing the Constitution. Sadly, I haven't heard the candidates address the issue of restoring the Bill of Rights though it should be the number one issue of this campaign. Until someone meets this issue forthrightly, everything else is beside the point.

Newt is wrong and disingenuous in his assertion that government has a 'right' to abrogate the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in order 'protect society'. We, the people are society and 'under the Constitution' WE are the sovereign. If the "government" will not defend our constitutional rights, then that government should be abolished. That idea is not original with me; I learned it from Thomas Jefferson.

The language so cavalierly tossed aside by the Bush junta was made the basis for the Supreme Law of the Land. It's only purpose is the protection of the people from criminal, usurpers and traitors like Bush, Ashcroft, Scalia and Gonzales!

Read Madison's Preamble to the Constitution and Joseph Story's 'Commentaries' on it.

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. [bolding is mine, LH]

The 'United States of America' is a creation of 'the people' for which the 'Constitution' is their voice and the sole affirmation of their sovereignty. Government as envisaged by James Madison is a caretaker of no inherent rights whatsoever. It has, rather, responsibilities to the people and only those powers necessary to enable it to fulfill those responsibilities. Of Al Qaeda and Bush, Bush is the greater threat to the lives and rights of the people and the people's Constitution.

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"There is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?"

Either this government --that of Bush and his co-conspirators --is legitimate or it is not! If it is not, then, by definition and law, nothing following from it is lawful. Unlawful regimes may get away with issuing decrees but without "legitimacy", decrees are unlawful. Dictatorships, therefore, find it necessary to enforce decrees with tanks and arms.

Bush's every signing statement is in itself unlawful and doubly so if his regime is illegitimate. I submit, moreover, that because Bush's regime is illegitimate i.e, unlawful, no law passed by this Congress is validated by Bush's signature, required by law to become law! That, of course, likewise includes his every signing statement, his every decree, his every order to the men and women who comprise the armed forces of this once great land. All are unlawful.

Hit Tip: Blue Ibis

The US Constitution established the sovereignty of the people of the US. That means the government works for you --not the other way 'round. The Bush government, however, would not have it that way. It is typical of dictatorships, totalitarian regimes and monarchies that "people" serve the government.

If the Bush regime is not legitimate, then Bush is not really "President" nor can the legislature represent you Constitutionally in the absence of a legitimate executive. Bush, meanwhile, has worked assiduously to marginalize the legislative branch and rob them of Constitutionally mandated oversight authority. All are characteristics of Bush's illegitimacy, his lawlessness, his contempt for the rule of law.

Bush is nothing more than an enforcement puppet of the Military/Industrial complex, itself complicit in the Iraq war --a criminal fraud perpetrated upon the people of the US, the people of Iraq, US allies, and the peoples of the world. The defense department budget is a deliberate fraud --thinly disguised bribes to defense contractors and Bush's corporate sponsors.

I proposed almost a year ago that the people of the US convene a new national convention. The people have that right. I also wonder what might happen if a guy like George Soros and other folk provided the underwriting it would take to set up an alternative direct election of the President and the members of Congress authorized by the new national convention. This mechanism must ensure a paper trail confirming EVERY vote. Thus the very crookedness of the GOP might bring down the crooked establishment it created. There is no way to argue with a valid, verifiable beyond any reasonable doubt vote! It could be done!

Where does it say in the Constitution that only the existing parities may finance and hold an election? Where does it say that a new Constitutional convention cannot authorize such an election? In fact, thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence gives the people that right.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Likewise, the preamble to our existing Constitution gives us precisely that right by declaring that the people of the United States are sovereign, that "government" rules ONLY by their consent. That is undeniably true whether the fascist cabal in Washington likes it or not! It is time THEY be overthrown and replaced with a legitimate government of the people!

From the comments to my last article:

I think the point that reverberates the most is this, "It will take a revolution to change things." Just as Keith Olbermann expressed in his lament about the Military Commissions Act, and the suspension of habeas corpus. "Depriving us of trial by jury was actually considered sufficient cause to start a war of independence." Such an undertaking was perhaps easier in 1776 than today - the oppressor is no longer across the Atlantic - but no less necessary.

--Sadbuttre

How will the revolution be fought? My friend, who uses the cyberspace moniker "Fuzzflash" pointed the way.

But none of these people had access to cyberspace, like we do. Tommy Paine would have ovulated on the spot, or at any rate have gotten inordinately excited if similar pamphleteering potential were available to he and his dissident peers.

In a way, the smoke signals of cyberspace are all we've got left.

He continues with a reminder that American suburbs are short on public or town squares, plazas, in fact, any place where revolution might be fomented. It's almost as if it were by design. Certainly, the small towns prior to having been Walmartirized, were big on meeting places, most commonly a town square just across the street from the courthouse.

...“carnival, in Rabelais work and age, is associated with the collectivity; for those attending a carnival do not merely constitute a crowd; rather the people are seen as a whole, organized in a way that defies socioeconomic and political organization (Clark and Holquist 302). According to Bakhtin, “[A]ll were considered equal during carnival. Here, in the town square, a special form of free and familiar contact reigned among people who were usually divided by the barriers of caste, property, profession, and age” (Bakhtin 10). At carnival time, the unique sense of time and space causes the individual to feel he is a part of the collectivity, at which point he ceases to be himself. It is at this point that, through costume and mask, an individual exchanges bodies and is renewed. At the same time there arises a heightened awareness of one’s sensual, material, bodily unity and community (Clark and Holquist 302).” From wiki

Will Youtube take the place of courthouse squares?

Imagine what would happen if millions of Americans took to the streets wearing masks of Bush and Reagan and Nixon et al. demanding that BushCo bow to our constitution. Flash mob assembles, demonstrates peacefully and loudly. Clips go straight to You Tube.

Perhaps the combined and allied corporofascists have outsmarted themselves. Tiananmen Square played into the hands of the totalitarians for whom it was an easy target, a killing field.

In the weeks ahead, I hope to take a look at successful revolutions --Ghandi's India, Walesa's Poland, the Velvet Revolution et al. The future of the US is on the line. If the people will not stand up for Democracy, Bush and his moneyed ilk will only get worse and more outrageous. Will Americans allow this man of no talent and no humanity to get away with robbing the nation of what had already been gained at great cost? Will Americans be pacified with a timid, compromise Democratic party?

It is time to recreate a Democracy. It is time to hold alternative elections. It is time to drive the crooks from Washington.

Bertrand Russell, in one of his "unpopular" essays, outlined three possible futures for mankind. Our complete obliteration by nuclear war was one of them.

An update:

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 10 — When state Democratic leaders from around the country meet this weekend in Vermont, the California chairman, Art Torres, expects to be peppered with the sort of questions that have been clogging his in-box for weeks.

What is this about Republicans trying to change the way Electoral College votes are allocated in California? Is there a countereffort by Democrats in the works? What does it mean for presidential candidates?

Frustrated by a system that has marginalized many states in the presidential election process, or seeking partisan advantage, state lawmakers, political party leaders and voting rights advocates across the country are stepping up efforts to change the rules of the game, even as the presidential campaign advances.

In California, this has led to a nascent Republican bid to apportion the state’s electoral votes by Congressional district, not by statewide vote, in a move that most everyone agrees would benefit Republican candidates. Democrats in North Carolina are mulling a similar move, because it would help Democrats there.

In more than a dozen states, the efforts have also led to a game of leapfrog in the scheduling of presidential primary and caucus dates. Most recently, on Thursday, Republicans in South Carolina moved their primary to January from February to get ahead of Florida’s. ...

--States Try to Alter How Presidents Are Elected

This is how the GOP has managed to rise to power! They CHEAT! It all began in Texas with one Tom DeLay.

Additional resources

• Dick Cheney Lied About His Whereabouts on 911
• The Threat of U.S. Fascism: An Historical Precedent
• In '94, Cheney Warned of US Quagmire in Iraq
• War in Iraq, Revolution in America
• DynCorp Sex Abuse Scandal
• Halliburton Profits

The Existentialist Cowboy

Conservative Lies
Indict Bush
Why Conservatives Hate America
GOP Crime Syndicate
Iraq

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