Hear Excerpts Now

Here’s a wonderful three-minute production featuring Naomi reading excerpts of the book. (Clicking the Link below will take you to our “eSnips” page, and the recording will start playing immediately. Please feel free to share it with friends.) We are grateful to Incompetech.com for the music used in the file.

Naomi Reading Exce…

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Congress Continues to Subversively Crush U.S. Constitution, Casting Noxious Seeds through the Winds of War

What you are about to learn should be screaming headline news, but media outlets along with freedom-professing politicians remain as still as roaches in refrigerator coils. Their game, it appears, is to keep Americans oblivious to the impending overrun of their democracy.

During the last two decades, starting with exposure over the shenanigans of the Clinton Administration, Americans have been warned of the impending collapse of their American way of life. Now, the appointed hour of “too late” has wound down to milliseconds on the clock. There are so many rampant abuses by government it’s impossible to track them, but this one needs to be broadcast because it’s deadly and coming in under the radar.

The Defense Authorization Bill contains provisions for expanded war authority that allows the President—any president—unchecked power to engage this nation in war. He will be free to take this nation into conflict without any checks and balances, without cause, without declaration, without clear enemies, and without limits to time of involvement or the objective to be achieved. It does not require a threat of harm to the United States, but allows the President to act on a whim and call for military action against anyone for any reason at any time for however long he wants.

This is not what a functioning Democratic Republic does. This is what a fascist dictatorship does.

What, I ask, is the purpose of the Oath of Office for any of these people who have turned against the Founding Principles? Where, I ask, is the American taxpayer going to come up with the 500+ billion dollars to fund such insanity, for just one year, when the nation is already bankrupt from corruption and mismanagement?

How, I ask, can Americans lay claim to being citizens of a great nation that wages war incessantly, whose leaders act so clinically paranoid that if they were embodied into one person, would be incarcerated for being a violent psychotic predator? Truth is…they are not afraid of “terrorists.” They want you to be afraid and through the relentless propagation of fear, they forestall public resistance to their deals and schemes.

This bill can go to the Senate by the end of May. The ACLU is fighting to stop it, so lend your support to their efforts to protect the Constitution. Go here to sign that petition. (Despite what some churches claim, the ACLU is not the Devil incarnate. This is a present cause you can support!) Contact your representatives and your news media. Get the word out and don’t be silent until this heinous betrayal—originating with none other than the infamous George W. Bush term—is defeated by the outraged roar of the American public.

Silence now is the ultimate shame…a mortal sin against the natural laws of inherent freedom. In the name of all that is good and right in this world, let your voices be heard and do it soon.

No Political Leadership for the American Sheeple: Whose Fault is That?

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The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. –Thomas Jefferson

Republican and Democrat Politicians who gave us NAFTA and outsourced our jobs, enriched banking/business empires and impoverished the taxpayer, started war, allowed 9-11, rubber-stamped a fascist Patriot Act, ruined the economy, allowed infrastructure to decay, allowed wanton immigrant overrun, built unmanageable, ineffective bureaucracies and vast intelligence networks, built political empires at our expense, induced hatred of America around the world with unenlightened policy and “shock and woe” invasions—these politicians were in charge when “things changed” in this country. You didn’t cause 9-11, you haven’t sold your country for political and financial gain, you haven’t ruined every good thing this nation ever stood for by implementing global policies while leaving the glorious design of a government of, by, and for the people, for dead.

They did.

It’s their fault.

Don’t expect them to admit that, because they are so used to people believing lies that telling even some of the truth is no longer necessary. Instead, they would have you believe it turned into a whole new world through no fault of their own and we had better get used to a new way of life. We had better get used to poverty, unemployment, inflation, encroachment, militarization of government, loss of liberties, taxation for war that was launched on a blatant, criminal lie. We had better get used to financial fraud, political corruption and crime, incompetence, extravagance, foolhardy governance, broken systems, slipshod agency oversights, lack of accountability, and a collapsing republic. Because they say that things have changed in this world and the old ways don’t work anymore.

Indeed, on 9/11/2001 the media announced America would never be the same. Those of us in touch with the political motives of the time knew it was true and today, the spirit of America is vanquished while the United States still limps along, boasting of greatness and bursting with pride for no good reason.

And whose fault is it that?

Well, that’s our fault—not theirs.

Through our ignorance and apathy, we, the American people have allowed our government to fail us. And while I used to cringe at the derogatory, redneck term “sheeple,” I have relented because it’s the undeniable truth of what we are. Even those who feel they are radical and rebellious with Tea Party politics are grass-roots sheep following a cloaked Republican agenda to hijack populace rage and manipulate it to status-quo advantage. Never mind there are many sincere moderates who have attached themselves to Tea Party affiliation, the result is the same: steering the herd and diffusing the chances for authentic, truly purifying change.

Sheep-like people are highly predictable: they move with automated conformity. They might be buying iPads by the millions, crashing Wal-Mart doors, paying tribute to McDonald’s Holy Grill, consuming what we’re told to consume, buying outrageously inflated real estate, driving what Madison Avenue convinced us is the sexiest car, borrowing and spending with every provocation to do so, so busy at consuming with a frenzy and chasing stuff to make them feel powerful, when all the while we’ve been stripped bare of good government and losing all the democratic power we ever had. Our nation’s policy makers gave us a force-fed pasture to roll in and while we were busy living it up, they took our country. Now that they have it, there is no more reason to give us free range. The economic collapse was the intentioned end of our fat grazing and the beginning of something else.

If that sounds sinister to you—instead of uncomfortably extreme—then you aren’t thinking like a sheep. You are thinking, period. And while that’s a start, there’s much more to learn and do.

The truth will be horribly shocking to those who have immersed themselves in everything but democracy. Sheep-like consumers make sheep-like citizens, following bogus leaders, trailing behind the worst policies, the worst law-making, the worst decisions, the worst candidates, repeating duplicitous, manipulative, talking-point agendas that are mindless and hopelessly complicated at the same time. We’ve allowed ourselves to be mesmerized and yes…shorn. If you know anything about farming, maybe you can guess what comes next in the management of the herd.

Even the sheeple feel it coming: the angry ones are panicked and a bit crazy. A stampede can be a dangerous situation and one thing is certain: it ends up in a bad way for the livestock.

“The People Who Own the Country Ought to Govern it.” *

The only way any one of us is going to help ourselves and this nation is to discover the ways we behave and think like sheep. We have to stop repeating political talking points and embracing the issues political experts have defined for us. The answers to our immense problems are not simplistic bullet points, even when we want reductionist answers and fast solutions.

The political handlers and social planners know what the predictable sheep will go for and they feed us accordingly. All is designed to keep you a sheep, whether Tea Party, Independent, Democrat, Republican, socialist, Marxist, capitalist, feminist, red neck, atheist, Christian, Muslim, gay, straight, Black, White, or green. Whatever your leanings, there is a politically correct mantra for your crowd. Although sheeple are inbred to follow the crowd, resist the pressure to chant your politics with everyone else. Don’t consume what you are fed. Understand that the unity of a democratic republic is not to be achieved through conformity. Conformity is not the same thing as working together in a free society; it’s working for the boss who does not believe you should be free and does everything possible to keep you inside the fence.

The solutions that we need and the leadership we must have does not and will not come from social or political “leadership.” It must and will come from within each one of us who has the courage to break away from the herd and begin to think original thoughts, without searching for just another big sheep to follow.

In coming posts, we will examine personal power as an inalienable right; the difference between spirituality and religion, and why we should embrace the former and drop religion in politics like the hot coal from hell that it is. We will take a look at how people become sheep under the forces that shape a blindly obedient mentality; we will examine the philosophy that is driving the nation to ruin; and most important, we will expose the personal power within each American to save freedom, restore a functioning democratic republic, and achieve the enlightened transformation that Americans are begging for.

The answers you’re looking for are not simple or easy but they are as plain as the nose on your face. You don’t need anyone else to “fix things” or to save this country. It’s your turn, it’s your job and you can do it. The only real question is, will you?

*John Jay, Member of the Convention that wrote the U.S. Constitution

When Miss Manners Marries Big Daddy, the Stepchild Citizens Cry

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The story about the Elmhurst Illinois city council seeking to outlaw “rolling the eyes” after evicting a meeting attendee for making an eye-rolling gesture is an important lesson about how stupid laws get made. It shows average people how it happens that law comes to be twisted; and how it is that those in power—with zero common sense—can make life miserable for average people.

It also reveals a grave danger of Orwellian extremism moving rapidly through our connected social networks, fueled by the “zero tolerance” policies of government and its agencies. Schools, law enforcement, city councils, and government-at-large have gone over-the-top with intolerance and bullying toward those they are installed to serve; while exercising excessive tolerance for the abject failures of their actions, policies, responsibilities, fiscal accountability, administration, personnel, and governance.

“Zero tolerance” is a win-win for those in power and a “lose-lose” for citizens. Those in power get to act “big, bad, and tough” while professing with pride that they are taking care of business. They write themselves a license to bully and then get credit for it. What a deal.

Citizens who allow these policies, on the other hand, set themselves up for a guaranteed abuse of power and to be ruled by contempt. This is demonstrated by the Elmhurst Incident. When so-called “leaders” have no shame, no constraint, and no fear of public reprisal and yet award themselves the right to extract punishment and exert control on a whim, the population stands to lose everything most dear.

If these kinds of actions by government ring of fascism to you, you’re correct. That’s the philosophy at play and the actions at work.

It’s critical for Americans to realize that “zero tolerance” with its attending abuses has never been a solution, but rather a means to mask and perpetuate very bad “leadership.” Unwise or irresponsible public policies and covert agendas create multiple social problems, but rather than correct the cause, government pretends to solve the problems it has created through the application of force and punishment.

Today, the increasing exercise of power takes precedence over justice, efficiency, and the accountability of public officials. While conformist subjects of the United States will submit like sheep, real Americans will not stand for it.

Which brings us to the public indoctrination of what is proper and what is polite. Since someone out there is going to assert that eye-rolling is rude, let’s set things straight: adults are not children and citizens are not subjects and this used to be a free country, not a soul-eating regime.

No Debate. No Dissent. No Democracy.

As we are told what speech, expressions, and body language is permissible, we are being corralled into conformity for the purpose of greater submission to power. The system that is now determining what expressions, words, lifestyles, and even body language are proper has no interest in the decency of our society—it conditions our behavior in order to implement fascist-driven philosophies by the people who profit from power. Their sole intention is to tighten the band around people’s minds; by establishing itself as the conscience for some, the State seeks to control the conscience of many.

In schools and government, in the workplace and in the public forum—what’s left of it—people are being pressured into conformist, compliant behavior. Whether by government mandate or by religious rule, unquestioned obedience to a system of authority conditions people to surrender the loss of their liberties with a patriotic smile or even as a faux act of worship. If we believe the Founding Fathers claim that liberty is an inalienable right, then we will cease to bow to other humans who exercise pompous, self-seized authority over us. It is not for officials in any station to instruct the public about how to act, what to say, what to think, and what is acceptable behavior. It is the duty and right of the public to enforce their behavior code upon politicians and government officials, not the other way around.

When you’re finally sick and tired of being made a fool of by politicians who know how to work you and then proceed to ignore and abuse you, your only choice is to find your backbone. However well-meaning, stop looking to anything or anyone else to tell you what to think, how to act, what to believe, what is proper to say, and how we should solve the nation’s problems…and take the lead yourself.

Want to know how to save this country? There it is.

When Being Human is Against the Law, What Next?

“When injustice becomes law, rebellion becomes duty.”

Thomas Jefferson

During a city council meeting in Elmhurst, Illinois, in which a lobbying contract was being discussed, a participant named Darlene Heslop was evicted by the council leaders.

She was thrown out because she was rolling her eyes and sighing.

This banal, harmless gesture made by Ms. Heslop was seized upon as “disorderly conduct” by the city council and they asked the city attorney to determine if it’s possible to put a law on the books that outlaws eye-rolling.

It’s a real story, not a joke.

Now at least—unlike the 18^th century French aristocrats they emulate—the city council didn’t order that her disrespectful head be returned in a basket. But with the unmitigated arrogance of America’s public officials being rubbed in our faces all across the country, we are being shown what people in positions of political power really think of the public. By their actions they show that a “government of, by, and for the People” is a quaint notion and nothing more.

Ask yourself: when a government treats its citizens as if they were underlings and ignoramuses and proceeds to make policy and law against the best interests of the general population, is it a government of the people?

From the bottom tier of local politics to the top echelon of national power, the ruling class in this nation has gone completely berserk with a pompous abuse of power and utter scorn of proper dissent. If elected officials can kick you out of a meeting for rolling your eyes, what next?

Now while the American people have far more to be concerned about than this backwater news story,  it serves to illustrate what’s gone terribly wrong with government.  Just as when a human body has an infectious disease a viral parasite will be found on the microscopic level; when a great nation skates along the edge of disintegration, we need to look at the microcosm of local communities and individual citizens to find what people and what agendas are to blame for the decay. Each one of us needs to be very concerned about what we are doing to protect the few liberties that remain, how to recover what liberties have been taken, and what we are doing to insulate our individual communities from the raging national epidemic of “power rabies.”

While Americans are tragically accepting of pathological arrogance from national politicians, this one small incident brings home the fact that we can run from bad politics and complain about unresponsive politicians, but we cannot hide. If we do not take a stand against unworthy and unfit leadership we will all live to regret it. Already, cities and states are heaping the failure caused by executive mismanagement onto taxpayers, like taxing driveways, closing schools, turning off streetlights, ripping up pavement, etc. It is not enough for any one of us to just roll our eyes and sigh…not if we desire any quality of life or the true American freedom we believe we have.

As far as the Elmhurst story goes, it’s unlikely that the county attorney will commit political suicide by obeying the council’s improper demand. Such a blatant abuse of the system might stir a comatose public to grab their pitchforks and “storm the Bastile”—in Elmhurst, Illinois and every other place that these egalitarian squatters have taken hold of government.

People can see that government is abusing them but what they don’t see is what can be done about it. In posts to follow, we will look at the true underpinnings of our nation’s collapse and what you can do to save America. The truth may surprise you.

Next Post is a follow-up:

When Miss Manners Marries Big Daddy, the Stepchild Citizens Cry

The Tree of Woe and its Taproot of Tyranny: The U.S. Patriot Act

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“When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

—Thomas Jefferson

There are things in life so obvious we shouldn’t have to make a case about them. To explain fundamentals is sometimes to labor the utmost. For example, we need to breathe air—that’s blatantly obvious—and who wants to try to explain to others the reasons we need to breathe? But then, what if people went crazy and there was an epidemic of forgetting to breathe?—Where would one begin to bring the detracted dying back to awareness? How would one make a case for the obvious, if millions of people became numb to the most elementary mechanism of their own survival?

Such is the struggle to awaken Americans to the grim conditions spawned by the U.S. Patriot Act. This legislative weapon against the American people has taken a hatchet to the Tree of Liberty, planted the Tree of Woe, and is nurturing unthinkable conditions of budding tyranny. This metaphor is not an exaggeration. It’s the bottom line. To cite even a summary of the evidence would take a book, so we will consider just some basic, evidential facts:

Recently, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the USA Patriot Act Extension Act of 2009. We should not be surprised they extended it; an arrogant attitude by Machiavellian policy makers has threaded through one administration after the other, despite a ceremonial changing of the guard. The Patriot Act was the biggest litmus test Americans had been given and the boldest of all political moves. When a blindly obedient American population stood for it, it opened the way for a barrage of abuses and unconstitutional prerogatives to intimidate the population and exert incredible and improper control over peoples’ lives.

The paradox of all this is that lawmakers, by breaking the fundamental Law of the Land, the U.S. Constitution, have become lawless themselves. This culture of lawlessness borne of disrespect for American citizens has invited a veritable free-for-all on every level of government where increasingly, just about anything goes.

Americans have been a free and sovereign people because their Constitution has given them the protection to live that way. It is the bedrock of our democratic life. Hack away at Constitutional protections and liberty starts to slide sideways. Intricate rationalizations about how to handle world politics do not change that; hair-splitting legal arguments and Orwellian language do not prevent that; popular young presidents with gleaming smiles and speeches on Hope and about Change will not prevent that.

Arguments for keeping the Patriot Act—and that includes concessions to modify it rather than allow it to expire—are intentionally crafted diversions by forces that don’t want you to be a sovereign person. This is the most obvious of all American political precepts. As Abraham Lincoln said, “We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the people who pervert the Constitution.”

It has not escaped the awareness of many Americans, at least, that the creators of the Patriot Act had the pompous audacity to redefine the meaning of a patriot as one who rescinds his or her Constitutional rights in order to support the government’s Machiavellian agenda. Beyond any doubt, it is a wicked reversal of the definition of patriotism. In fact, the love and support of our Constitutional nation has always been the genuine and treasured definition of a patriot. Today, some corners of government truly view Constitutionalists as potential terrorists and promote this assessment throughout law enforcement circles.

Everything is so upside-down, we have to walk on our hands.

It gets more bizarre. Federal servants take upon themselves an Oath of Office in which they swear to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America. George W. Bush took that oath and then proceeded to line his birdcage with Amendments IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX… We are wrong to think they won’t violate their oath. We are wrong to think there must be some “proper” and “safe” reason for circumventing the Constitution…if we’ve been seduced into getting analytical and “intelligent” about that, we’ve been expertly persuaded to jump off a cliff.

We can know whether something is good or not by the consequences that come from it, or, to continue with our metaphor, from the fruit that it bears. The products of the Patriot Act are poison. Many Americans aren’t aware of the many alarming incidents that have happened to this nation under the influence of the Patriot Act because the mainstream propaganda machine does not tell what could be revealed.

Before 9/11 and the spawning of the Patriot Act, the American way was to be considered “innocent until proven guilty.” No more. Like most everything else, this has also been turned upside down, into a mindset of “presumed guilty unless proven innocent.” This is a rape of justice from the start. A government that was once in place for the defense of its people now claims it is defending them by building a surveillance society and engaging in fascist-style enforcement practices.

It’s important for Americans to understand, also, that mass surveillance is occurring on a global scale. The global theme comes to bear in the necessary understanding of what this government has turned into. Everywhere on the Federal levels of government we see operations geared to global interests, while average Americans are left like rag-tag step-children to be tossed a few begrudging crumbs from tables set for the very rich and extremely powerful.

As American citizens have become a sideline to be dealt with in the pursuit of a global operative, it has become unnecessary to respect their directives or their Constitutional and human rights. The psychology of governance has domination on its mind, and with it comes the manifestation of roughness, false justification, coercion, warrantless searches, data mining, intimidation, suspicion, surveillance, wiretapping, heavy handed enforcement of endless and ridiculous laws that criminalize decent people, scanning bodily functions, racial profiling, National Security Letters, forced guardianships and property seizures, privacy invasions, police drawing blood by force, patting down, tasing, SWAT team tactics and most significantly: increasing incidents across the country that indicate the infectious spread of corruption in government, judiciary and law enforcement.

And while the government makes no bones about not trusting us, it also lets us know that we must not trust each other. Recent discussions have been about watching women…as being exceptional candidates for agents of terrorism. Next, it will be babies in strollers. What’s not under suspicion in the United States? —Just maybe, a roly-poly presidential puppy.

The stalking shadows of secrecy, the unnecessary suffering of innocent people, and the ravaging of Constitutional rights: all these travesties have occurred because the Patriot Act with its multiple offshoots has put our government on the prowl, turning it into a free-ranging predator with a bad attitude.

In great civilizations past destroyed, lunatic heads of state have infected the underpinning of great nations, bringing their achievements to a crumpled heap. Today we are repeating the cycles of history:

“Behold the supreme folly of blind and stumbling rulers who froth and rave and vow to “keep America strong” as she is laid waste without musket, cannon or ballistic attack. They are without wisdom and utterly without mind.”-The Ten Commandments of Political Office, p. 67

There is only one solution: when Nero and his senators go crazy, sane citizens must come to the fore. We must not relent until they repeal the Patriot Act in its entirety.

I should tell you that there are current efforts to reform it…a measure Americans might choose to support, as long as we continue to work diligently to have it repealed. Supposedly amendments are geared to create “better’ civil liberties under the Patriot Act. The very idea makes you want to weep, for we have traded away our gold so we can be thankful for a few scraps of tin.

Really, it’s a deeply tragic situation that shows how entrenched wrongful power has become and how partisan politics has contributed to the ruination of this nation. Too many cannot get humble enough to admit they were wrong. They are lost people and I hope they read this, for we are calling them back to their senses, asking them to find the courage to stand with their people and leave a legacy of honor, choosing for liberty.

As for us, when we as Americans return to an understanding of what our Constitution has given us, we will find a way to meet the conditions of a changing world within the framework of a great and visionary government, representative of a great and visionary people. We can do far better than what the politicos have done, and we must win this battle to wrench out the roots of tyranny and bulldoze the Tree of Woe.

It will be a long, arduous struggle to regain our nation and to heal it. We must remember it is necessary to breathe—first and foremost for the life of freedom—and for the love of a meaningful, authentic and courageous life.

It’s that simple and it’s that obvious.

Divided We Fall

Taking America back can’t happen as long as Americans are divided among themselves.

Some Americans who are angry with government have taken to verbally attacking each other and incredibly, many people talk about changing the country while they tow the party line. The infighting among citizens who defend party “talking points” is entirely antithetical to cleaning up government…and reclaiming it as a representative democratic republic.

So-called “grass roots” television and radio personalities are yet another example of the spite and diatribe that can incite further division among the American people. Talk hosts who have major media shows or expensive websites have a lot of money behind them. If we want to know who they really represent we need to follow the money. These are very perilous times with enormous stakes in the game. Hidden agendas skulk across the political landscape, positioned to bushwhack average Americans who have totally legitimate complaints about government but who are unaware that those who empathize with them may feign their sympathies…in order to keep the camp encircled.

Who do these people truly work for? Are they advocating unity…or do they fan anarchy, do they goad us into greater division and confusion…or do they offer solutions? Do they speak of what we can become, all together…or do they in one way or another encourage the disintegration of society, or the building of their kind of society under Constitutional guises?

“We, the People” was the common assent origin of this nation. The force of a unified population was required to overcome a tyrannical government and to establish a democratic republic. Thomas Jefferson often referred to brotherly affection because that was the origin of the united strength that enabled colonists to fight fiercely for a common cause, to win their epic revolution and to establish liberty and justice for all.

Today our Constitutional way of life—our very liberty and system of justice—is in critical jeopardy. Most Americans know this but what many fail to realize is that the end of our democratic republic will not come about by political betrayal alone, but primarily by “We, the Conservatives” and “We, the Liberals” blindly divided by disagreements over corrupt party agendas that are completely unworthy of defending. While precious time to save this nation slips away, there are too many who are satisfied to lash out over contrived and diversionary issues. The breathtaking paradox in all of this, is that both major parties are totally complicit in our democratic demise and neither one ought to be defended but need to be scourged of corrupted agendas or to be abandoned in favor of parties that genuinely represent the interests of the American people.

Both the Democratic and Republican parties have failed this nation miserably. To redeem themselves, they would have to essentially surrender to their own dismantling, which they will not. Entrenched and corrupted power will never surrender of its own accord. The last things that we should see happen is that Americans attack one another in defense of party platforms. Yet, too many are stuck there.

Will this nation survive? The raging conflicts between common Americans is the most accurate indicator of how close we are to losing this nation because emotionally overwrought people do not think clearly and further, as long as we are fighting among ourselves, politicians can continue their self-serving agendas because we are too distracted to get control of our government.

“United we stand, divided we fall” is originally attributed to Aesop, a Greek slave and fable writer who lived approximately 620-BC – 560 BC. If anyone should know what it takes to get out of slavery it would be a slave, understanding that to break oppression under tyrannical power there must be an equivalent counter strength from the mighty unification of the ones who are oppressed.

The foremost answer to every problem we face is to first create a unity of heart and spirit among ourselves and use our collective power to make an out-of-control government respect us and to represent us with accountability. Furthermore, it must take upon itself a long-abandoned, but necessary mantle of humility. As long as we cannot govern ourselves—this begins with our coming together—the government will continue to have unchecked power over us and the intolerable arrogance that goes along with that.

It’s time to join, arm-in-arm, and leave the squabbles behind us. To save this nation and our lives, we must rule ourselves…or we will be ruled.

A Government of the Politicians, by the Corporations, and for the Powerful

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way…”

–Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

The above could be a statement about the time in which we live, but instead, it originated in 19^th century England. We can learn from this classic literary excerpt that history does, indeed, repeat itself. Why is that? Could it be that the essential elements of human nature and the challenges of the human condition, that determine social/spiritual progress, have not changed over generations of time? How is it—that while our technology advances in exponential leaps—the collective human psyche with all of its potential for war-mongering, deception, arrogance, greed, and self-interest has not been forfeited? How is it that the vices of the human condition continue to primitively breed and replicate under immaculate, respectable business suits, cross-infecting our society behind the brass-and-glass façades of corporate empires, sacrosanct chambers of orthodoxy, and from the emerging throne of an arrogant, all-mighty government?

A majority of those institutions that in the past our society has esteemed to be respectable are no longer operating for the good of society, like the banks bailed out by taxpayer money that are not using that money to loan but increase their usury, instead. Steadily—and most recently by psychological extortion over the American mind—powerful  organizations have an inside track to favorable legislation and government funding; they have politicians and government agencies in their pockets, doing their bidding. The real economic earthquake ravaging this nation is the monopolization of our system and a subsequent, total indifference to the economic and social disparity that such an oligarchy creates.

Fewer people today are deciding the fate of the many, partly because political clout is for sale, and partly because Americans have succumbed to the brainwashing which indoctrinated our society into accepting that seeking prosperity is a righteous pursuit, equating money to a sign of God’s approval…and that financial success equates to high respectability. We have become prey to the philosophy that greed is good, victims of our cultish worship of money and a deviant view of divine selection. It’s tragic but true: in many circles, mutual respect from human to human has disintegrated to a conditional respect based on an individual’s financial worth.

There has been a steady, downward spiral into the present divide between the rich and the poor, the have-everythings and the have-nots; of legal protection for the rich and no justice for the poor, a government of the politicians, by the corporations, and for the powerful. In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower foreshadowed what might be and what has now become when he said:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted.”

“The disastrous rise of misplaced power” is Eisenhower’s description of a democracy or the rule by the many, fallen into an oligarchy of rule by the few over the rest. In an oligarchy, the best of times is experienced by a privileged few and the worst of times becomes a forced fate for the masses. Today our politicians have sold out for their own gain, leading to economic and political strategies that have taken away our freedom to govern our own destiny while demolishing the broad opportunities that used to define the American way of life.

To answer the argument that business is entitled to act in its own self-interest by greedy, capitalistic domineering, I say the issue is not one of profit, but how much profit and further, self-interest to what extent? Unrestrained capitalism, meaning a system that is not governed by a balance between profit and social responsibility, is not defensible, nor is it truly capitalism—which is an ideal of free enterprise based on fairness and balanced opportunity if merely to avoid its own self-destruction. Such self-destruction has now occurred through our wrong application of a so-called capitalism and the building of ever-bigger monopolies, under the protection of a system firmly rigged for the already-wealthy.

Maybe we would do well to consider that in our support of greed we have not been spiritual. For what is the love of a deity…if it does not point to having proactive compassion for all…and a profound sense of responsibility for the common good?

For all the political talk of what’s being done for this country, what action is being taken to address the needs of common Americans who have been indebted for generations in order to save the wealthy from the consequences of their white-collar crimes, such as credit-default swaps? Who on Capitol Hill is giving lip service to the needs of American citizens but is not using his or her power to put this nation back on its democratic track?

Our current system of economics is antithetical to our founding democratic republic. Americans must understand that one sure way to lose our freedom is to have a few in this country have almost all of the money and thus, all the power. President Eisenhower continued:

“Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs — balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage — balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future.”

We must commit ourselves to a return to balance. American citizens must not allow the funneling of American resources to continue to pour into the pockets of the rich nor must we stand for the drunken-spree-spending for government agencies, administrative infrastructure, foreign expenditures…and dare I say…for President Barack Obama’s hugely expensive flight abroad to promote Chicago’s bid for the Olympics.

Such extremes, excesses, and blindness to what is really important to America must be met with the outrage it deserves. If Americans do not want the day to come that “their children shall suffer untold pangs; they will labor under oppressive burdens that will grind their living into dust, ^1.” then we had better know that an economy good for the rich is slavery for the rest. It is an all-out war against the life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness for the common American—and we must not allow the present politics to continue.

It’s time to howl out loud, as surely as a sheep being skinned alive, for that is what’s being done to us. Whether it is by recall, impeachment, boycott of products and services, or through the force of outraged and unified public opinion, it is up to us to stop the abuse by refusing to lay down for it.

^1. The Ten Commandments of Political Office, p. 67, by Naomi Silverthorn

The Declaration of Independence

July 4, 1776

When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

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 shown 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. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the dangers of invasions from without and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms; our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in our attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity; and we have conjured them, by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which denounces our separation, and hold them as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the authority of the good people of these colonies solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

John Hancock Josiah Bartlett, Wm. Whipple, Saml. Adams, John Adams, Robt. Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry, Step. Hokins, William Ellery, Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, Wm. Williams, Oliver Wolcott, Matthew Thornton, Wm. Floyd, Phil. Livingston, Frans. Lewis, Lewis Morris, Richd. Stockton, Jno. Itherspoon, Fras. Hopkinson, John Hart, Abra. Clark, Robt. Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benja. Franklin, John Morton, Geo. Clymer, Jas. Smith, Geo. Taylor, James Wilson, Geo. Ross, Caesar Rodney, Geo. Read, Tho. M’Kean, Samuel Chase, Wm. Paca, Thos. Stone, Charles Carroll, George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Th. Jefferson, Benja. Harrison, Ths. Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton, Wm. Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn, Edward Rutledge, Thos. Hayward, Junr., Thomas Lynch, Junr., Arthur Middleton, Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, Geo. Walton

Real Terrorism is an Inside Job: Part Three

Part Three

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government — lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”

— Patrick Henry

In Part One of this three-part feature we read how the government overstepped Constitutional and human rights, asserting that the torture of human beings would not “shock the contemporary conscience” because government interests were of paramount importance. Americans would be wide-eyed if they sufficiently understood that this very same assertion of supreme government importance is also the primary tenet of fascism.

Hard to swallow, maybe, but what is happening to our government is the truth too terrible for many to bear. Although people are hysterically flinging the “socialist” word around over Obama’s health care plan, the socialized structuring of government, banks and big business–including so-called health care that is not health care for Americans but rather a windfall for insurance companies–is symptomatic of the more sinister political agendas at play. The shift to heavy-handed government and the philosophy that puts government interests ahead of the people and their interests is certainly not a democratic ideology, nor is it strictly socialist. By definition, it is fascist.

To use the correct description, fascism, is not being extreme. It’s time for Americans to use words correctly and stop dignifying the despicable by whitewashing the contaminated. Those who shrink from words that describe the facts need to stop kidding themselves because there is no where to run and no where to hide. The “little guy” in this country is in for it, if the present political agendas at play are not relentlessly overturned.

For those in power and those they favor, fascism is a pretty good deal. For the common person, for the struggling masses, it is misery without hope. If we want a good life, if we want liberty and happiness, we had better defend these priceless treasures before the democratic door that opens the way for these opportunities…finally closes for good.

We protect ourselves and our rights by being the Authority over the authorities, by demanding answers to suspicious and objectionable actions and implementing justice upon those who have subverted our Constitutional way of life. People don’t ask enough of the right questions because they have been trained to cower to authority and consequently, the people of this nation are being increasingly bullied as strong arm tactics advance inward toward the huddled masses. Out on the fringe, where abuses always begin, foreigners have been persecuted and tortured: such is the perennial beginning of the fall of all great societies. So, in the defense of life, liberty, and happiness, let’s ask ourselves right now, “Since when have Americans looked askance at torture, the suspension of Constitutional principles and the trampling of human rights, just because the government says it’s justified?”

The answer is: since 9/11.

The patriotic fervor that swept this nation following 9/11 was an irrational wave of fear-centered patriotism, which saturated our society under the manufactured guise of “saving America.” Questions about the Bush Administration or challenges to the actions taken at that time were attacked as “Un-American” and dissenters were openly viewed with deriding suspicion.

Far from being beneficial to our country, this outpouring of propagandized conditioning—reminiscent of the patriotic frenzy that gripped Pre-Weimar Germany—led The United States into:

1. An invasion of Iraq based on falsehoods,

2. Conflict in Afghanistan,

3. Constitutional violations and the loss of personal liberties,

4. An ominous expansion of government and quasi-militarization of local police,

5. Run-away overspending and hopeless debt,

6. The deaths of millions of innocent people and thousands of American soldiers,

7. A rise in dangerous Fundamentalist extremism,

8. The loss of privacy and pervasive intelligence gathering on the American people,

9. The creation of a culture where Americans have been shamelessly encouraged to “spy” and report on their neighbors, as well as other drastic changes to our post 9/11 way of life that fulfilled the sycophant-media’s culture-molding prophesy: “America has changed forever.”

The circumstances surrounding 9/11, including the invasion of Iraq, have not been shown to be sufficiently true, and further, no one gave government officials permission to ravage and dismantle our democracy.

Like all good usurpers, they didn’t ask.

What they did do, is to polish a turd and wait for us to accept it as a rose. As long as Americans pause over such a travesty, our hesitation is considered by self-serving bureaucrats to be equivalent to our approbation.

9/11 was the biggest litmus test yet, Americans having failed to draw the line against democratic infractions and deceit. What we got for that was a shameful loss of liberties at home and a justified loss of respect in the world.

These are not un-American statements. They are facts, and the situation they describe is not about the America of our Forefathers. In the America that represented human liberty and human rights, people would not have tolerated medical professionals engaging in torture. But that is how far down the sewer our politics has taken us.

In Part Two of the Justice Department Memo, we read how medical and psychological oversight was involved in torture…an oxymoron if ever there was one. We read the keywords and phrases that clinicized torture, making it a cold concept, as aloof from the living as if it were an autopsy report. For some prisoners it was indeed a clinical overview of how they met their demise. And while the memo provided repeated references that no serious harm would be done, the American people learned from subsequent investigations that harm is exactly what occurred—and further, evidence suggests malice of forethought. The involvement of physicians and psychologists in torture, even as “monitors” of physiologic and psychological responses, is an unmistakable parallel to Nazi practices following the fascist takeover in Germany.

Currently, we witness that the torture debacle is being “damage-controlled” by those who fear acquittals for detainees and who oppose Constitutional civil rights of trial. This can only mean that those implicated in the crimes against human rights fear the truth, and have the audacity to protest civil rights under the continued guise of “homeland” security.

Just what is the truth, so tightly under wraps? Could it be that innocent people were tortured and imprisoned without cause? The revelation of this would expose the true criminals from the not-criminals; it would topple numerous political and official careers, and reveal an underbelly of darkness at the helm of the nation.

This is very important for all Americans to consider, because a free nation does not and will not subvert human rights to achieve its agenda because of a foundational philosophy that the government is not a preeminent force in and of itself, but that the people it governs are the collective entity in charge of the government and that government will be responsive and accountable to them. A democratic government that oversteps these primary boundaries is anathema to what a democratic republic is, clearly betraying its own definition.

Some people will refuse to be convinced that things are that bad in this country, even though they are opposed to government actions. So, if our government is not behaving like a democratic republic, then I ask you: is it a democratic republic—or has it morphed into something else? If you still wonder if things are that bad, read on. What follows is the concluding abridgement of the Justice Department Memo to the CIA, dated May 30, 2005:

“Each year… the United States condemns coercive interrogation techniques and other practices employed by other countries…the techniques the United States has condemned appear to bear some resemblance to some of the CIA interrogation techniques.”

The memo goes on to list Indonesia as psychologically torturing through food and sleep deprivation; Egypt, as torturing by stripping and blindfolding victims, suspending victims from a ceiling and dousing them with cold water; Algeria, for placing a rag drenched in water in victim’s mouths; Iran for engaging in practices of sleep deprivation, nudity, water dousing, sleep and food deprivation.

Despite the statement within the memo that CIA interrogation matches the torture methods condemned by the State Department, the memorandum repeatedly reaches the following conclusion: “We do not believe that the reports provide evidence that the CIA interrogation program ‘shocks the contemporary conscience.’” (Bold added.)

——————–End of Justice Department Memos———————

In fact, the memo is an open confession of blatant hypocrisy, in that the methods of torture the government condemns in other countries, it nevertheless connives to do. What this says to the world is that America is not only untrustworthy, hypocritical and dishonest, but that America has a god-complex…willing to do what it will, always asserting moral superiority, even in evil acts. That is far from being a “shining city on a hill” but it is a bulls-eye for being viewed as a veiled menace to the human condition, all across the globe.

Finally, at least as to the scope of this blog, let’s not overlook our American democratic principles of not being held without charges, of not being punished for something you did not do, for being presumed innocent until proven guilty. None of these prisoners—and we can choose not to support the government seduction by refusing to use the deceptive word “detainees”—were treated according to our most honored principles of justice, and the democratic rule of law.

It is not good enough for Americans to have a cursory opinion about torture, having taken spoonfuls of sugared assurances from the media machine about how the “detainee program” has been for the safety of the nation. Common sense alone suggests that when we target a population with hate and torture, they will hate us in equal or greater measure and will vow vengeance toward us as the victimizing perpetrators. Far from keeping us safe, it begs for the worst kind of revenge.

Injustice by this great nation, under guise by deranged leadership, will sow great remorse in all of our lives. It’s our country and it’s up to us to make things right again while we still can. But we had better hurry, because the door is closing fast.