America is looking less and less like America. And more and more Americans are worried about it.
What country is this? The president is claiming the right to keep his aides from testifying for Congress about the U.S. attorneys scandal; hundreds of men — according to a Seton Hall study, many of them innocent — are in legal limbo in Guantanamo Bay; U.S. agents are kidnapping people off the streets in Italy and Macedonia and `rendering’ them to be tortured; the president and his lawyers claim the executive has the right to call anyone — U.S. citizen or not — an `enemy combatant’ — and the person who should decide what that means is the President himself; civil rights organizations say peaceful citizens’ groups are being infiltrated and put under surveillance; and a new bill just made it easier, as Senator Patrick Leahy warned, for the president — any president of whatever party — to declare martial law.
Americans across the political spectrum are increasingly uneasy. We have always had a sense of our own invincibility in relation to our democracy: the system, many of us believe, simply rights itself. But we have to face the fact that when checks and balances are being systematically dismantled — when the Constitution is under such sustained assault — our assumption that democracy will protect us without our active intervention is dangerously naive.
The time has come for a grassroots democracy movement in America. I am relieved to be able to say that today the American Freedom Campaign (AFC) — a new organization prepared to engage hundreds of thousands of American citizens in restoring democracy and the rule of law — is ready for action.
The initial partners in the American Freedom Campaign represent a dynamic partnership of legal experts, human rights advocates, and grassroots expertise. Participating in the launch are the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and MoveOn.org. All Americans are welcome to join this campaign and it will undoubtedly grow larger and stronger over the coming months.
There is no time to waste. We have to get it — in a hurry — that the assaults we are witnessing are unprecedented and demand unprecedented responses from us. There have been times of state repression in our nation before now; as others such as Joe Conason, author of It Can’t Happen Here, and Bruce Fein, a founder of the American Freedom Agenda, have pointed out, `the pendulum’ has swung to extremes before now: President Lincoln suspended habeas corpus in some areas during the civil war — but it was restored after the war came to an end. 120,000 Japanese American citizens were interned in detention camps (the fear was that they would engage in `espionage’ and `sabotage’) during World War Two — and when that hysteria subsided, the camps were closed and these innocent Americans released. Both writers note that previous eras of repression had endpoints: the wars ended, the threat subsided — but the War on Terror is defined as open-ended in time and in space: there will never be a day of victory, and the whole world is a battlefield. So we can’t count on the pendulum to swing back as it always has — that is, not without a citizen uprising in defense of liberty.
Other times and places are worth thinking about when we witness these events. History, which Americans never take to naturally, has a great deal to warn us about right now. The historical record — and the contemporary record — is incontrovertible on the fact — a fact that flies in the face of the `democracy myth’ we cherish, that we are somehow exempt from these pressures — that while it is difficult to build and sustain a democracy, closing one down is actually quite easy. There is practically a blueprint for it, which would-be dictators and autocrats around the world have followed. All leaders who seek to close down an open society — or push back a democracy movement — do the same key things. Among other steps, they invoke an internal and external threat (it can certainly be real); create a surveillance apparatus aimed at ordinary citizens; establish military tribunals; infiltrate citizens’ groups; make it easier to detain citizens; target key individuals with job loss or other penalties if they speak out; reframe criticism as `treason’ or `espionage’; and pass laws that make it easier to circumvent or override a Constitution because of the threat that has been invoked or in the name of `restoring public order.’ It is also clear from the record that the Founders were right to tell us to be vigilant in defense of liberty — because democracy can become weakened and a point can be reached at which democracy cannot simply heal itself.
That is why everyone who is concerned about the abuses of power we are witnessing under the current administration should sign on to the American Freedom Campaign. As noted above, the AFC is backed by a dynamic coalition of some of the key organizations devoted to restoring the Constitution and defending freedom.
The mission of the AFC is to make the restoration of our democracy the paramount issue — especially at the level of the presidential campaign, but also at the level of citizen education and citizen pressure on Congress. Its ten-point agenda will, among other things, restore the right to a fair trial; make sure journalists can’t be intimidated with the Espionage Act; stop the president’s — any president’s — abuse of signing statements — an abuse that can basically override the will of the people as expressed by their representatives; and keep the state from breaking into our homes, tapping our phones and reading our emails illegally.
These are not partisan issues. It is about power, not politics. While it is ideal from a citizen’s point of view that leaders on both the left and the right are now pushing to restore our checks and balances, the issue transcends party affiliation. Without these horrific laws repealed, a President Hillary can be as dangerous to liberty — and to American citizens — as a President Giuliani.
It’s a good time now for citizens, as they are signing up to lead this grassroots movement to restore the rule of law and to confront the excesses of the executive branch, to reread the Founders’ debates. They would see how debased our discourse is right now. The excesses we are seeing in the power grab of the executive branch are presented to us in the name of patriotism; but if the Founders were around today, they would be outraged by the systematic dismantling of the checks and balances they put in place to protect us.
The framers and those who explained the new system to the public believed in their very souls that an American despot could easily arise — in America; that the reason each branch should `check’ the other is that leaders - even American leaders — tend, as part of human nature, to abuse power if they are not checked. They knew from their own experience or their family’s history how easy it is for an abusive leader to strip prisoners of their rights, send soldiers or agents of the Crown to break into people’s homes and go through their personal papers without proper warrants, and punish those trying to assemble with their neighbors or speak up about government overreaching.
One reason we need a grassroots democracy movement in this time of constitutional crisis is that many Americans have only a hazy sense of what democracy is — and what the Constitution really says. We are rarely reminded that the Founders enshrined our rights precisely because they or their parents had fled countries in which prisoners were detained without fair trial and turned into criminals and `traitors’ for using the kind of language that makes up the Declaration of independence. It was because they understood repressive governments and abusive monarchs so well that they set up our Constitution and Bill of Rights to make sure those evils would never take root again on our soil.
Few of us are taught in detail how easy it is to repress democracy movements and close down open societies — if you are willing to do a few key things. So that at just this moment of crisis, young people — and many citizens in general — are both disheartened and ill-equipped, lacking both the hope and the analytical tools they need to recognize the seriousness of these dangers and fight this fight.
But there has never been a more urgent time to change our minds and our behavior. The window can close — yes, even in America — if we fail as individuals to take up the patriot’s task. Our country needs us active — in the millions. The founders never intended for a professional caste to perform the patriot’s task of defending liberty: they expected ordinary people — farmers, small shopkeepers, schoolteachers — to be on the front lines.
The Founders would have been appalled at the helplessness that most people feel today in the face of serious encroachments upon our freedom and liberty — just as they would have been at the encroachments themselves. The system they set up — if it is working properly — is the most transformative and empowering of the individual on earth. They would have counted on each of us to rise up in defense of what they created and to directly challenge those who assert that they are not answerable to the American people — and not bound by the American system and the rule of law.
So in the name of those men and women who had the courage to establish this nation, let us all rise up together. Join the American Freedom Campaign and help defend our democracy.
Naomi Wolf was born in San Francisco in 1962. She was an undergraduate at Yale University and did her graduate work at New College, Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. Her essays have appeared in various publications including: The New Republic, Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Ms., Esquire, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. She also speaks widely to groups across the country.
© 2007 Huffington Post
It’s time for an honesty and accountability movement that demands the separation of private money from public leadership. Democracy cannot exist in a system which is run for by and for profit motivated private interests. It’s time to complete the American Revolution and create a truly democrtatic system that puts people before profits.
Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, and MoveOn.org do not a grassroots movement make. I will check it out, but it sounds like more of the same old professional activists to me. We need a true grassroots movement.
General Strike? You won’t get that either without a true grassroots movement. You guy have got the cart before the donkey.
A democracy movement? Gee, now that America’s liberal rich fear that Bush/Cheney will rob them of their democracy instead of just robbing America’s poor and middle-class of their wealth, suddenly they’ve all got supposedly bright ideas (and new organizations forming) to “take America back,” as if America’s poor and middle-class ever had America. Spare me.
Using campaign spending limits to get America better politicians is the only way to solve America’s problems enough.
MoveOn will cave and demand that we all get behind Hillary even though she supports Bush’s war policies.
Campaign spending limits and doing away with the Electoral College as well as obstacles to other parties. This is the way toward proportional representation which would be far more democratic.
Many people were asleep at the wheel with Reagan and he quadrupled the debt, which led to the stock market crash of 1987 and then the Savings and Loan meltdown of 1990. People get the government that they deserve. If they are going to continue to believe the lies that Republicans will bring them less government, lower taxes and make them rich, then they will continue to vote Republican and continue to ruin the country with debt and war.
I’ll vote for the Democrat no matter who it is in 2008 because it would be a step in our direction. Not a very big one, but any movement in our direction is movement.
On every other day of the year, I protest our corrupt election system.
On election day, I’m trying to get any movement in our direction I can.
Legitimate governments, fair markets, healthy environments
We have the ability to live in peace.
So, has The Decider declared The American Freedom Campaign a subversive group yet? I talk with people and THEY are telling ME that we are already a fascist dictatorship, it’s just that the velvet glove hasn’t come off yet.
We must give some credit for this situation as well to Nancy Impeachment Off the Table Pelosi and to Harry Don’t Make Waves Reid.
But the majority of the public is an inert uninformed mass, and probably won’t even notice that we don’t have a Democracy anymore. They will whine about their taxes going straight to the corporations and complain about rotting schools and unsafe food, and do nothing except plunk down in front of the TV and get fatter.
We need publicly financed campaigns to get candidates who aren’t millionaires or bought by the corporations, and we need to take back our airwaves and reinstate the Fairness Doctrine and give free time to candidates to talk directly to the people. We need to teach our children what democracy is starting in grade school. They need to learn why the founders created a fourth estate, which we no longer have. And they need to know that too.
But right now all this feels like too little, too late. This is like talking about rebuilding the foundation while the house is on fire.
Our Congress is behaving like someone trying to reason with a Pit Bull while it’s attacking you. If Americans won’t take to the streets and shut down the country, and Congress won’t do it’s job, what chance do we have?
The most ominous sign to me is that Bush has his smirk back.
Naomi Wolf’s article seems to have stirred up a Cynic’s Corner here at Common Dreams. Bladerunner explained above what the proposed (in)action is all about — but even THAT seems to be “too much trouble.” Has it occurred to anyone that the Red/White/Blu Flu might actually turn into a REAL general strike? And what that might portend?
“I’ll vote for the Democrat no matter who it is in 2008 because it would be a step in our direction”
Question: Considering the extent of the corruption and the ongoing record of complicity despite the campaign rhetoric( for example: claiming to “bring the troops home and end the war” when the plan is to station troops indefinitely)and the coup that gained the Right the seat of power, what makes you think the Democrats haven’t been thoroughly co-opted as well?
See, like others respond to the flag, believing we are on the side of liberty and freedom and bringing hope and democracy to the downtrodden masses, the faith in the Democratic party is just as blind, just as exploited. They count on your unquestioning assumption. Considering all else in the push for power, wouldn’t infiltrating and controlling the Democrats as well be an obvious undertaking? Are we really that naive to assume that it is too unthinkable–that it is a violation of the sacred trust? Do not put your faith in these artificial constructs that can be so easily corrupted, while you still perceive the party to represent what it defines itself through tradition and word only.
On the other hand, if we progressives would get active&influential their precinct’s caucuses in the tens or hundreds of thousands they way they’ve been trying to organize protests, something else might occur within the corporate-dominated Democratic Party.
It would be a first-time takeover by progressives, though. We’ve been locked in the two-party system, for president, since like 1850.
Nathan Andover, YOU are part of the problem. Look at all the Democrats who have refused to vote to end this occupation, to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine, to end lobbyist purchase of Congress. Yeah, they passed an ethics law, then rescinded it. Thanks, Nancy.
You think voting for Hillary is going to improve your life one iota? She will outsource every job in this country above minimum wage. You think she intends to get out of Iraq or stay out of Iran? Not a chance. She has no problem with all the power Bush has grabbed, she can’t wait for her turn at it.
All those Democratic “front runners” are full of promises of what they will do for us (don’t hold your breath), but not one is offering to return our democracy to us.
It is fun and easy to dismiss all the Democrats as being totally under the corporate thumb and completely indistinguishable from Republicans. However, I believe evolution developed a human brain with billions of neurons to allow it to make fine distinctions, because making such fine distinctions can often mean the difference between life and death.
There are Democrats of varying degrees of evil, and Republicans even have their diversity. Certainly it could make a significant difference with regard to the future of the world whether Ron Paul or Rudy Giuliani became US president.
And certainly progressives can influence the direction of the Democratic Party if they are dedicated enough to band together and work for political progress. I believe that the success of the Religious Right is vastly overrated, as they appear to mostly be the useful idiots of the corporate elite, but they have gained some power over the Republican Party, and that’s with minimal brains and little money to speak of. Progressives should be able to do at least as well as they have. And I would note that the Religious Right is often not very happy with the Republican candidate, but they hold their noses, i.e. practice “lesser evilism,” and vote and usually win.
hi all - guess what just happened? Inslee just put his bill to impeach Gonzales on the table. Here’s more about what it says -
………….
House Democrats calling for Gonzales impeachment inquiry
Brett Murphy at 10:27 AM ET
[JURIST] A group of US House Democrats said Monday that they plan to pursue a resolution instructing the House Judiciary Committee [official website] to launch an investigation into whether to impeach Attorney General Alberto Gonzales [official profile; JURIST news archive]. Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA) [official website], sponsor of the resolution, and six co-sponsors plan to introduce the measure to investigate whether Gonzales has been truthful about the Bush administration’s expanding domestic surveillance program [JURIST report]. The White House has said that this is just another “partisan attack,” but Inslee defended the move, saying that “it’s indefensible to treat the truth with such cavalier disregard when talking to the American people and Congress.”
And they’ve actually done it. There’s a press conference about it on c-span, audio and video -
You have to be a bit skeptical about a democracy movement spearheaded by Human Rights Watch and MoveOn. MoveOn significantly stifled democratic debate and alternatives by initially refusing to seriously recognize any Dem candidates besides the “top-tier” ones. They were eventually forced to change their (almost DLC) position somewhat by outraged members and the public, especially bloggers.
Human Rights Watch has equated the criminality of Israel’s actions with actions of some Palestinians and Hizbollah, implying that are all equal actors that use the same methods in their struggles with each other. That’s simply false. There is a difference between state terror and crimes against humanity and self-defense.
Also Ms. Wolf does not identify herself as a founder of AFC. Nor does she mention that one of the co-founders, William Haseltine, is a bio-tech company owner and “social entrepeneur, another is a PR chief and another is the head of MoveOn.
All appear to have a financial interest, at least indirectly, on seeing AFC succeed. While we can’t be purists in anything political, we should expect a certain amount of transparency.
Noami good point. How on earth can we expect to be spreading Democracy overseas when we are losing it at home. Anyone else tired of living in Orwellian America?
From Wikipedia:
Political consultant
Wolf was involved in Bill Clinton’s 1996 re-election bid where she brainstormed with the Clinton-Gore team about ways to reach “soccer moms” and other female voters.
During Al Gore’s unsuccessful bid for the 2000 US presidency, Wolf was hired as a consultant to target female voters, reprising her role in the Clinton campaign. Wolf’s ideas and participation in the Gore campaign generated considerable media coverage and criticism. According to a report by Michael Duffy in Time Magazine, “Wolf [was] paid a salary of $15,000 a month…in exchange for advice on everything from how to win the women’s vote to shirt-and-tie combinations.” This article was the original source of the widely reported claim that Wolf was responsible for Gore’s “three-buttoned, earth-toned look.” The Duffy article did not mention “earth tones.” The Time article and others also claimed that Wolf had developed the idea that Gore is “a beta male who needs to take on the alpha male in the Oval Office”.
In an interview with Melinda Henneberger in the New York Times, Wolf denied ever advising Gore on his wardrobe. Wolf herself claimed she mentioned the term “alpha male” only once in passing and that “it was just a truism, something the pundits had been saying for months, that the vice president is in a supportive role and the President is in an initiatory role…I used those terms as shorthand in talking about the difference in their job descriptions.”
I certainly think Democrats have been thoroughly co-opted.
They exist, act, and are produced by the corrupt system we have.
My choice on election day - because of our corrupt system - is “Empire” or “Empire Light”.
On election day I will vote for Empire Light to make sure we don’t get another dose of fully loaded Empire.
Every other day of the year I support world peace by promoting legitimate governments, fair markets, and healthy environments.
It is a tough choice to vote for Tweedledee to avoid Tweedledumb, but the reality is it will be one of them until we imporve our democracy and I definately prefer dee rather than dumb.
There’s something very right about Naomi Wolf’s article, & something very wrong about it.
What’s right is that she has a terrific grasp of how dangerous the current direction of the US really is, & how urgent the need is, to address this.
What’s wrong is that she named MoveOn.org as one of the pillars of the new AFC campaign. MoveOn’s presence suggests strongly that the whole thing will be unduly influenced by the Democratic Party — one of the principal causes of the very collapse of democracy that Naomi is talking about.
Even on this thread, we already see that there are 2 camps: those still stuck at the lower level of political consciousness, where they delude themselves that the Democrats can be “part of the solution.” And then there are those (well more than half, on CommonDreams, it seems), who have a deeper grasp of history & political theory, who understand that the Democrats cannot possibly be part of any solution, and are instead the main obstacle to progress.
As long as we have Dem Party apologists spreading naive illusions in the terminally corrupt Democratic Party, there can be no effective fight against the collapse of democracy. It must be understood that the Dem Party functions as enablers of Republicans. They are fully complicit in every Bush crime, & are organically incapable of serious opposition. They are incapable of fighting; they are incapable of exposing Republican crimes in their full & frightening scope; they are incapable of even saying the very accurate things Naomi Wolf spelled out in this article.
There can be no serious Left movement, without a full & decisive break from the Democratic Party.
Don’t break from the Democratic Party.
Take it over and use it to restore democracy.
The Democratic Party can’t be “taken over.” The people who control it have thought about that potential problem. You can be sure they’ve taken all appropriate measures to guard against it.
The party is a tool of the corporate oligarchy. It is incapable of doing anything against the wishes of that oligarchy. That’s why they won’t impeach monsters like the Bush-Cheney gang, & why the “top tier” Dem candidates are also war mongers. See for example this analysis of Obama. The Democrats only have the guts to go after “enemies” like Cindy Sheehan. But when it comes to fighting Republicans, they’re on their knees whimpering.
this is what democracy looks like
Nathan: I’m an advocate of try to take over, but without legitimizing it.
That is, if Americans can’t take back their parties by November 3, 2008, they either vote third party, or don’t vote at all. Voting for a co-opted party only encourages the string-pullers.
As someone else brilliantly posted here a few days ago, politicians only enjoy the power over us that we tolerate. It’s always our choice.
Saying the Democratic Party can’t be taken over is like saying that Republicans can’t be defeated in elections because they’ve taken all appropriate measures to guard against it.
Republicans lose elections and the Democratic Party is more than open to a takeover by a democratic movement. We can use the Democratic Party - as it has been used many times throughout our history - to promote and support democracy.
Every social formation has an objective base. A community is the sum total of social, political and cultural relations. A community arises from and is based upon the economy – which is the sum total of the ways social wealth is produced and distributed. That economy’s base is the sum total of the means of production. The community and the economy together make up what we call society. Entangled within and indispensable to society are the way people relate to one another in the process of production. These relations can be slave and master, serf and nobility, wage-laborer and capitalist, or communal.
Society is not one sided. You have the capitalist economic base and the community made up of, congress, both political party’s, police, courts, military, education, msm etc . The community supports the economic base.
You can’t reform the community without changing the economic base.
If you believe this economic base can be reformed then you proceed with one strategy.
If the economic base can’t be reformed then you must develop another.
You can never solve a problem unless it is set up properly.
Maybe this is a replay of my Nader vote.
I support almost everything Nader says.
Did my Nader vote put George W. Bush into office?
I wasn’t going to stay home. So it was Nader or Gore.
I work every day for the goals Nader and I share, but after seeing what George W. Bush has done, I’m ready to vote Democrat again.
Before and after the election I will continue to work on efforts to improve our democratic system. If this democratic movement is successful, the leadership voices we hear will represent democratic values instead of plutocratic values.
It is important that our efforts be active non-violent resistance. It is important to remember to organize ourselves and our neighbors in our neighborhoods to support these democratic movements.
Read and then use:”Building Powerful Community Organizations: A Personal Guide To Creating Groups That Can Solve Problems and Change the World”
Michael Jacoby Brown;
Nathan Andover (4:27 pm) writes,
Saying the Democratic Party can’t be taken over is like saying that Republicans can’t be defeated in elections because they’ve taken all appropriate measures to guard against it.
- This is a false analogy. Saying the DP can’t be taken over is NOTHING like predicting elections, because the type & degree of control over the 2 processes is different. The DP pooh-bahs exercise GREAT control over their party — far, far more than either party exercises over electoral outcomes.
The example of Dean in ‘04 illustrates this. Dean was not progressive in any serious sense, but the party pooh-bahs didn’t want him as a presidential nominee. He was identified too much with antiwar sentiment, & the party pooh-bahs feared this. They wanted to run a pro-war candidate who would merely challenge THE WAY Bush fought the war, but not the war itself. They very skillfully stuck a knife in Dean’s back in just a few days in Iowa, & essentially knocked him right out of the race. // For ‘08, it’s already been decided by donors, strategists & Dem apparatchiks that pro-war Hillary or Obama will be the candidate. // So much for democracy in the Dem Party.
Nathan continues, Republicans lose elections and the Democratic Party is more than open to a takeover by a democratic movement. We can use the Democratic Party - as it has been used many times throughout our history - to promote and support democracy.
- This is a marvelous illustration of the fact (as I noted above) that those spreading illusions in the Dem Party have no grasp at all of real history or serious political analysis. The real history of the DP, if you’d bother to study it, has nothing to do with “supporting democracy,” any more than Bush’s war would be an example of “America bringing democracy to Iraq.” The purpose of the DP is to help the ruling class control the population, by giving them false hopes to keep them obedient. I challenge you to name a few of these “many times throughout our history” where the DP has done anything like what you claim. (Let me confidently predict in advance that you won’t come up with anything except the New Deal — and in fact, that was a special case requiring a bit more space than we have here.)
Also, let’s hear your argument backing up the statement that the DP is “more than open to a takeover by a democratic movement.”
Our opportunities continue to open.
Have we ever had a discussion like this before?
I don’t think the internet is the solution to our problems, but our democracy has become far more active in the past decade on a grassroots level.
You say yourself that the Dean movement scarred the crap out of the powers that be.
They got rid of Dean, but we’re still here growing more powerful everyday as we continue to connect with each other through sites like this one.
Big difference from a population passively watching their monopoly media screens.
Everything changes.
We have the ability to make the changes we want to see.
There are a lot of bad policies that we still live with, but we have moved forward on a lot of issues compared to 50 years ago. This was all done while both Republicans and Democrats were in power.
I think the red/blue flu would be more effective in San Francisco and in Detroit
Pelosi and Conyers districts…we vote people in, then for however long their terms are, there is no recourse except letters, phone calls–all of which are on mechanical receiving systems.
I have experienced three general strikes in three different countries…it’s a sight to behold. These are poor countries with nasty armies, with no adhesion to order—on an ordinary day the experience mostly is how things don’t work…and yet I have seen the word travel, without benefit of internet, that on a specific day, there will be NOTHING done…the business sector becomes absolutely paralyzed. There are no taxis—the banks can’t open, telephones don’t work, kids don’t go to school, even the airports are shut down. It is totally awesome. Everyone is prepared for no water, no electricity. Hospitals and fire companies work with skeleton crews, A couple of years ago, in protest against a Spanish corporation that has been given a franchise over vehicle inspection…more than a thousand commercial vehicles were driven to the main road in the capital and parked, and left empty—no traffic could move… as soon as one car was towed off another would be left.
I have looked on in amazement, always thinking that this sort of thing could not happen in the United States…and I have wondered why, and have come to the conclusion that there are too many of us over-conditioned to follow the rules, and meet expectations.
In yesterday’s batch was the article about bees and turkeys…in it there is something of a list of habitual choices we make in our culture—the national mindset as it were…which we have all internalized…that mind set causes the manifestation that is Bush and Cheney, “Writ rather large” for us and all the world to see. If we take all those mental habits to their logical conclusion–it is what we got.
#2 The Constitution begins with the principle of individual choice and then the larger groups which make up their associations…the principle is that groups of people create agreements—which are the laws that mediate between conflicts of free will. Rights not specifically given to the three branches of government rest with the people.
There other balances of power written into the Constitution. Selecting one, the rights of the States vs the union of States. The individual State was meant to be the reflection of the majority agreement of the people in that region. Theoretically, law created at the Federal level has to ratified by the people of a state before it can be enforced.
The design was not centralized power…but we have this “Bigger is Better” thing and a love of mechanical efficiency…and we made another mistake…
At first glance, corporations would seem to be groups of people, the shareholders, a social grouping of intent, free to associate etc…and in different times the assumption was that they would also be responsive to the overall good of society. The people of a State give permission for Corporations to operate and the responsibility to revoke that permission if the Corporation is causing harm to the general weal. Without the political boundary of the individual State—the right of people to make and unmake the laws they live under—the result is what we have today. Corporations without anyone one to pull the plug. It should be a State function…
With the removal from the Governors of the States right to call out their national guard units, the sovereignty of the States (which is the people) has just about been wiped out.
What remains and still seems important to this administration — for at least the pretense of the peoples’ will, is the vote. Wasn’t it like that in the USSR?
I do like your framing of your choices as between “Empire” and “Empire Light”. Ain’t it the truth.
The thread begun on Friday in response to David Greene’s subject on “Forget Third Parties” and instead “Take over the Democratic Party” has been most illuminating. While Green’s essay is not particularly inspiring, alot of the comments are wonderful. I encourage everyone to go back to that and read all the comments which continue through to today, because they pertain to this thread as well. Indeed, it is so rich in ideas, someone needs to cull the good ideas, organize them and post them to CD, as a sort of Manifesto of what we should do.
What this article misses is the INDIVIDUAL PERSON ELEMENT. Meaning: As long as orders are blindly obeyed and as long as each individual in uniform or three piece suit fails to listen to the “inner voice” of conscience–then all we are
are puppets jumping to the strings of a few megalomaniacs!
Would Kent State have happened? Would Hitler have even been a mention in a history book if the German soldiers had listened to their moral conscience.
What this article misses is the INDIVIDUAL PERSON ELEMENT. Meaning: As long as orders are blindly obeyed and as long as each individual in uniform or three piece suit fails to listen to the “inner voice” of conscience–then all we are
are puppets jumping to the strings of a few megalomaniacs!
Would Kent State have happened? Would Hitler have even been a mention in a history book if the German soldiers had listened to their moral conscience.
What this article misses is IMPEACHMENT, the constitutional remedy. Speaking of Orwellian, how can you talk about restoring democracy and ignore the constitutional remedy?
Nathan Andover, vote for a Democrat? Makes me think of having sex with a Don Juan. Who will say anything before, and after, will dump you for their real agenda. How many times do you want to be fooled by that lie? Forever?
Maybe the article misses impeachment because of Moveon’s position on it–going with Pelosi …
asker (6:23) - an excellent case in point. The impeachment issue would be a perfect illustration of how MoveOn, as a Dem Party appendage, would steer this new AFC coalition into the usual posture of impotence. The Democrats are too cowardly to impeach –> so MoveOn is too cowardly to impeach –> so AFC might well do the same thing. Several posters above, including tj, have made this point.
pfutrell (5:47 pm) — I entirely agree about Friday’s David Michael Green thread. It was one of the best & most vigorous discussions I’ve seen on an Internet discussion board in a long time.
Horrible thought. Maybe a move to impeach would trigger martial law?
Things will change only when the populace is alienated and hopeless.
Then they may :
STAND UP - for what they beleive to be right.
SIT DOWN - in the nearest street to bring transportaion, retail, everything to a standstill.
FIGHT - I hope like Gandhi’s Pathan friend Badshar Khan(Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan) (check him out)a Pashtun nonviolent Muslim
FIGHT - Even if it means sacrifice to themselves to totally repudiate the oligarchy
FIGHT - As if our lives depend on active resistance - which they do
When people realize that they cannot ignore the actions of the government and relaize they themselves are the governmet, only then is change possible..
Allow me to quote another blogger of my vintage - estebandito:
(I hope he does not mind)
‘As an old hippy draft-dodger,who has been out in the streets se’veral hours a week behind my Iraq anti-war signs demanding an end to the madness since this insanity began (how many years now?), I gotta report: very few people of any age give a good goddam. Oh yeah, we “protestors” get a free coffee now an then and lots of happy honking as the cars go by, but the truth is very sad. Old radicals tell me they are afraid of losing their subsidized rents!! ” FBI lists! Got no time for it…”
Practically no one can remember that the way a people get new governments and new directions is ancient and simple: you stop up the streets and you go to jail for misdemeanors and then you go back and do it again. respectfully and peacefully. The fact that this is so self evident yet almost completely ignored tells me that our population of united statesians has largely ceased to function as truly caring, conscience-filled people. Reasons are many……but we are losing hope, and we deserve whatever happens to us now. This is not nice talk in front of the children, or at parties.
Nevertheless, I will continue to sally out and attempt to show folks the facts as well as try and get them to laugh at our predicament ( i usually dress as a clown ’cause clowns have more fun…..it seems like the compassionaste thing to do.’
Additional thoughts:
“To me nonviolence has come to represent a panacea for all the evils that surround my people. Therefore I am devoting all my energies toward the establishment of a society that would be based on its principles of truth and peace.” – Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan
“Today’s world is traveling in some strange direction. You see that the world is going toward destruction and violence. And the specialty of violence is to create hatred among people and to create fear. I am a believer in nonviolence and I say that no peace or tranquility will descend upon the people of the world until nonviolence is practiced, because nonviolence is love and it stirs courage in people.” – Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan to an interviewer in 1985
Here’s a quote from the article that pfutrell mentions about taking over the Democratic Party instead of supporting third party candidates or staying home:
“In short, both parties look a lot different today than they once did, and that happened largely through the efforts of activists seeking to achieve precisely that end. And this, it seems to me, remains the only viable solution for the progressive community today - not a continuing hopeless quest for a prominent third party that has a very low probability of materializing, especially given the institutional and ideological obstacles described above.”
Here’s the link for the “Forget Third Parties” article and discussion:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/07/27/2797/
Perhaps if we were to stop talking about elections and candidates and begin focusing on ideas that are important for a better society and then organize to get them, we might be taking a big step toward telling the public servants we hire during these elections what they ought to do.
Participatory democracy. What I wild idea?
RICH M: once more with a surgeon’s precision you define the issues and with a lawyer’s acumen, show both sides. You said, “There’s something very right about Naomi Wolf’s article, & something very wrong about it.
What’s right is that she has a terrific grasp of how dangerous the current direction of the US really is, & how urgent the need is, to address this.” Thanks for clarifying the dichotomy I felt while reading this otherwise good piece of analysis on the part of a writer I admire.
The ridiculous article linked above ignores the fact that “third parties” exist because the corporate-imperialist duopoly has failed to serve the needs of the people–on the right as well as on the left. The genie is out of the bottle already and won’t be harassed, bullied or frightened back into it. The movement to establish a multiparty democratic system in this country is a social justice movement, and people like the author of the above-mentioned article seem to have forgotten that “justice deferred is justice denied.”
People who still believe that the Democratic Party can be reformed from within (or “hijacked” as David Michael Green suggests) might as well join a group like Klansmen Against Racial Bigotry–which has exactly the same chances of success: Zilch!
It is the height of hypocrisy to support the corporate-imperialist duopoly and still call yourself a progressive. And a call to build a “Democracy Movement” coming from Moveon.org–which is just a shallow front for the Democratic Party, and an enemy of REAL democracy–is completely disingenuous.
FORGET THE DUOPOLY and Move On from Moveon.org!
Nathan Andover — at 5:12 pm above, I asked you two fair & very relevant questions. You’re apparently avoiding them. This is entirely understandable. (If I were an apologist for the Dem Party, I’d avoid them, too.)
To refresh your memory — You had written: “We can use the Democratic Party - as it has been used many times throughout our history - to promote and support democracy.” || I asked that you give us some specific examples of this — preferably from more recently than 1965.
And you’d written: The Dem Party is “more than open to a takeover by a democratic movement.” || I asked that you try to back up that statement, with arguments more substantial than your mere personal assertion that it’s the case. Please try to show some reasoning, not just faith-based claims. Thanks.
asker:
Yes, that about sums it up. Included in our manifesto, we need to “undo” those vast changes that our history has brought. I particularly like the idea of the states’ ratifying all federal laws. And giving power to the people over corporations … I’m getting kind of giddy here.
Of course that would presume an honest electoral system at the state level. And following from that, decent state government where representatives actually meet together for much of the year, addressing state problems.
Viva the strike, Sept. 10 — 11
(funny stuff about strikes in Lieberman postings)
bidlad states, “People who still believe that the Democratic Party can be reformed from within (or “hijacked” as David Michael Green suggests) might as well join a group like Klansmen Against Racial Bigotry–which has exactly the same chances of success: Zilch!”
Why is this statement true? Is it true?
Can you “reform” the Democratic Party, who’s sole purpose is to support the capitalist economic base?
I am not saying this is good or bad, just a fact.
Can the capitalist economic system be reformed?
Don’t you have to develop a strategy that is based on an understanding of the relationship between the economic base and the superstructure?
Never in the history of the United States has an administration been so corrupt, deceitful, disingenuous, and UN-American! The arrogance of the Republicans serving the Bush/Cheney regime in making obsolete our Constitution, the Bill of Rights, habeus corpus, and everything else they want to destroy, could have only been executed with the help of the Democratic Party, starting from day one, when they signed the Patriot Act. ( With the exception of Russ Feigngold in the Senate ). The so called opposition party ( opposition to what? ) have given ” their gentle friends” on the other side of the isle ( has anyone seen a divider beyween isles? ) carte blanche to do whatever the Bush/Cheney gang of criminals want. Imagine giving him permission to wage war wherever he wants and whenever he wants, for whatever reason.
We have seen too many Democrats vote the Bush/Republican agenda over the years and when the constituents of these politicians complain, all we heard was they were the minority party and when they became the majority, things will get better, and “they’ll do the people’s business”, whatever the hell that means?
I was a lifelong Democrat but saw the writing on the wall, got over it, and switched to the Green Party. My die-hard Dem friends tell me my vote is wasted by not voting for the “DLC” choice. In 2003, I went up and down the state of California campaigning for Dennis Kucinich. My friends told me he was “un-electable”, repeating all the messages and subliminal advertising the corporate media drenches us with. When asked why he was “un-electable”. the answers were ridicululous, and they admitted he had the best policies and an excellent record in Congress, and had been opposing Bush/Cheney’s fascist plans from the start…still, he was “un-electable”. This is why I say on so many of my comments on Common Dreams, that “IGNORANCE IS NOT BLISS, IT IS UNFORGIVABLE!
I’m sorry folks, but the Democrats cried wolf too many times but “howl” in the moonlight with their republican twins.
“The facility, located in North Carolina, is composed of several ranges, indoor, outdoor, urban reproductions and has over 7,000 acres (28 km²) of land spanning Camden and Currituck counties.”
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=BlackwaterUSA&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=42.03917,60.292969&ie=UTF8&ll=36.486453,-76.187439&spn=0.334549,0.471039&z=11&om=1
“It is one of the largest firearms training facilities in the world. Company literature claims that the company runs ‘the largest privately owned firearms training facility in the nation.’
In November 2006 Blackwater USA announced it recently acquired an 80-acre (30 ha) facility 150 miles (240 km) west of Chicago, in Mount Carroll, Illinois to be called Blackwater North. That facility is now operational.”
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Blackwater+Mount+Carroll,+Illinois&ie=UTF8&ll=42.177144,-89.975281&spn=0.308366,0.471039&z=11&om=1
“Blackwater is also trying to open a facility in California for military training, in Potrero, San Diego County.”
http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/dplu/docs/PR/4-27-07/0620001-location-map.pdf
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=Barrett+Lake,+United+States&sll=32.610568,-116.611161&sspn=0.020931,0.02944&ie=UTF8&cd=1&mpnum=0&ll=32.657009,-116.614208&spn=0.04184,0.05888&t=h&z=14&iwloc=addr&om=1
There was a time when pressure from the Left could impact on Dem party policies–civil rights, women’s movement, environmental issues, social injustice, poverty etc–but that dynamic has shifted into a wholesale rejection of–a studied and aggressive attack upon those issues and their advocates-activists except for the hollow lip service performed at election time. The Clintons, and the DLC horse they rode in on, has done more damage to our fundamental quality of life and effort to improve it for all, than we can really get a handle on. And it continues, the Clintons rally while they rake it in, and they have remodeled the Democratic party as the politically correct yuppie party–which may continue the rhetoric of social justice (Bush does the same)or claim their identity as “progressive (co-opted)but they have done greater damage to the potential for the party to be an effective vehicle to support - that would keep an idiot like Bush(a national embarrassment who couldn’t even sell a used car, in check rather than cowering at his feet in order to serve the global corporation. Don’t know how long this downhill coast is going to last–but at some point, something has to give.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/05/18/1349
edit
Three words: WE THE PEOPLE. THAT is who is going to change things, not professional lobbyists, not organisations, not money. WE THE PEOPLE. When we get off of our lazy butts, step away from our computer screens, quit reading so many blogs and whining about the state of the world and start ACTING, then things will change.
Away from your 200 channel satellite TV’s. Away from your broadband computer connection. Away from your cell phones. Away from your Palm Pilots. Get off your butts NOW and take to the streets. NOTHING is going to happen by just talking about it on blogs like this.
Sure, the Internet has made it possible for folks from all corners of the planet to come together in one big electronic community, but it hasn’t changed the fact that we use it in place of doing what we SHOULD be doing and that is by getting out there and taking action by taking to the streets and calling for:
1. An end to the illegal occupation of Iraq.
2. Universal health care for all Americans.
3. Impeachment of Messrs. Bush and Cheney and their subsequent removal from office, along with trial for war crimes against humanity.
4. The complete restoration of our Constitutional democracy and a strengthening of our systems of checks and balances to prevent future abuse of them.
Until - and unless - we do this instead of just talking and talking and talking about it, the abuses will continue. We can’t just sit here day after day after day in front of our computers whining about how bad things have gotten.
ACT. NOW. DO SOMETHING!!!!!!! BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!!!!
New Evidence Clearly Indicates Pat Tillman Was Executed
Army medical examiners concluded Tillman was shot three times in the head from just 10 yards away, no evidence of “friendly fire” damage at scene, Army attorneys congratulated each other on cover-up, Wesley Clark concludes “orders came from the very top” to murder pro-football star because he was about to become an anti-war political icon
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Friday, July 27, 2007
Astounding new details surrounding the death of Pat Tillman clearly indicate that top brass decided to execute the former pro football star in cold blood to prevent him from returning home and becoming an anti-war icon.
These same criminals then engaged in a sophisticated conspiracy to create a phony “friendly fire” cover story.
Shocking new facts emerged about the case last night but were bizarrely underplayed by the Associated Press under nondescript headlines like ‘New Details on Tillman’s Death’ - a complete disservice to the horrific implications that the new evidence carries.
(Article continues below)
Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman’s forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player’s death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.
“The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described,” a doctor who examined Tillman’s body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.
The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.
The report also states that “No evidence at all of enemy fire was found at the scene - no one was hit by enemy fire, nor was any government equipment struck.”
The article also reveals that “Army attorneys sent each other congratulatory e-mails for keeping criminal investigators at bay as the Army conducted an internal friendly-fire investigation that resulted in administrative, or non-criminal, punishments.”
So there was no evidence whatsoever of friendly fire, but the ballistics data clearly indicated that the three head shots had been fired from just 10 yards away and then the Army tried to concoct a hoax friendly fire story and sent gloating back-slapping e mails congratulating each other on their success while preventing the doctors from exploring the possibility of murder. How can any sane and rational individual weigh this evidence and not come to the conclusion that Tillman was deliberately gunned down in cold blood?
The evidence points directly to it and the motivation is clear - Tillman abandoned a lucrative career in pro-football immediately after 9/11 because he felt a rampaging patriotic urge to defend his country, and became a poster child for the war on terror as a result. But when he discovered that the invasion of Iraq was based on a mountain of lies and deceit and had nothing to do with defending America, he became infuriated and was ready to return home to become an anti-war hero.
As far back as March 2003, immediately after the invasion, Tillman famously told his comrade Spc. Russell Baer, “You know, this war is so fucking illegal,” and urged his entire platoon to vote against Bush in the 2004 election. Far from the gung-ho gruff stereotype attributed to him, Tillman was actually a fiercely intellectual man with the courage of his convictions firmly in place.
Tillman had even begun to arrange meetings with anti-war icons like Noam Chomsky upon his return to America before his death cut short any aspirations of becoming a focal point for anti-war sentiment.
————————————————————————————————————-
The Internet leader in activist media - Prison Planet.tv. Get access to hundreds of special video reports, audio interviews, books and documentary films. Subscribers also get instant access to our hugely popular forum where you can network with like-minded people, meet up and get active! Click here to subscribe.
————————————————————————————————————-
According to Daily Kos, Wesley Clark appeared on Keith Olbermann’s Countdown last night and stated that “the orders came from the very top” to murder Tillman as he was a political symbol and his opposition to the war in Iraq would have rallied the population around supporting immediate withdrawal.
The notion that the U.S. government gave orders for Army top brass to execute Pat Tillman in cold blood is the most damaging indictment of the Iraq war since it began, trumping the lies about weapons of mass destruction tenfold, but if the establishment media continue to soft-peddle and steam-valve one of the biggest stories of the century its impact will be completely diluted.
It is up to us to make this story go viral because the implications are so dire that they could act as the final death knell for the blood-soaked and illegal occupation of Iraq and become the clarion call to bring our troops home.
Oh no, MoveOn.org and hordes of
impotent White liberals are
involved; yawn, fuck that shit,
forget it.
Most sincerely, Dwayne Chandler.
Only the ACTIONS of free people
will begin to make change
possible; non-violence, civil
disobdience and pacifist resistence
are numerous TACTICS, not the sole
strategy.
Now, take that to mean whatever
scapegoat best fits the holier-than-
thou White liberal disagreements
to follow.
Most sincerely and lovingly, Dwayne Chandler.
Also, before my post are banned
by CHAMPIONS OF DEMOCRACY, take
notice that the fourth and fifth
posts(by zazmo and vern) criticize
MoveOn and the wealthy(obviously
White) liberal elite.
Those posts have not been removed;
nor should mine.
Actual democracy and freedom
starts with FREEDOM OF SPEECH.
So many of you that post here, and
those that control this site and
posting board, love to boast of
supporting freedom of speech.
However, that freedom only extends
to regurgitations of your opinion
and uppity respectability.
Sincerely, Dwayne Chandler, US Army.
I don’t get it. There already IS a mechanism for restoring balance. Its called “impeachment”.
The impeachment mechanism has two key features that will never be achieved by ANY grass-roots political movement that MOVEON could create, no matter how much money it can find:
#1. It culminates in a legally binding TRIAL run by actual lawyers, not a bunch of speeches or a blog-fest. Media spin doesn’t work in a trial. Bush’s lies and obfuscations won’t work either. Look what happened to intelligent design creationism. Crooks and liars can win with sound bytes in an all-sides-are-equal media spin-fest, but they will fall flat on their faces in a TRIAL run by lawyers with laws of evidence.
#2. Both the TRIAL, and the earlier investigation phase that leads to IMPEACHMENT (i.e., indictment) take place in a pre-established center of public attention: the US congress. The main-stream media cannot turn their backs to this, like they do for protest marches. This would qualify as “serious” by MSM standards. The cameras would be rolling, and the mainstream news every night would be covering the evidence that progressives have been hearing for 4 years about defrauding congress, torture, rendition, signing statements, warrantless wiretapping, leaking state secrets, using the power of his office to punish political enemies and advance unqualified cronies.
So, we have the potential for a 24/7 media feeding frenzy that will educate the public and expose executive crimes, all in the course of a legally binding trial. This is the answer to everything Naomi Wolf wants (so why doesn’t she want it?).
All that needs to happen is for the ringmaster, Nancy Pelosi, to blow the whislte and the circus will start. But she won’t do this unless your congressperson demands it. So fax them or call them today.
If anyone here has actually started work on a National Strike, they should contact those of us who’ve long-ago started-up citizens impeachment movements; so we can strengthen each others’ work.
Strike advocates can search the web for local/state impeach org contact people.
Pushing (simultaneously) for a nation wide strike PLUS impeachment hearings in the House, makes more sense than either one alone; one synergizes the other - and more progressive causes can & should be incorporated later, but only as the initial ‘core issues’ gain momentum.
I think we’ve gotta start first, with a manageable, focused set of progressive demands that the general public can quickly understand.
A GENERAL STRIKE, DEMANDING THE FOLLOWING:
>out of Iraq
>investigate/impeach Bush&Co (a civics lesson for a dumbed-down public…)
>mandatory public financing of federal
elections (this may require a constitutional amemdment, but maybe not; anyway, many Americans are ready for it)
Or some variation on above opening themes.
Even if all these Strike issues fail[ed] to get immediate/targeted results (failure’s almost guaranteed at first), strike mechanics would help further-organize people for the longer term goal: a sane, citizen-run Republic (like Americans were ’supposed’ to have in the beginning…)
It took years to build-up this kind of national ‘people organization’ on political and ecomomic issues, during the Vietnam War decade. But well-organized grassroots power, back then, did yield at least some results.
In one sense, it’ll be much harder to do now, than 30 yrs ago: America is much sicker now.
In another sense, we’ll be helped by the fact that more people are closer to seeing the sickness now than ever before.
It’s a huge amount of work to get momentum going on a new peoples’ movement, and it’s real easy to do it flub it.
We’re staring to do it in MT, but we, like everybody else, need much more organized communications/linkings.
poclad.org
supplies us with the history of corporations.
In the US, they were originally supposed to be for doing something in the public interest that was too expensive for individuals to do on their own.
Owners and managers were once legally held accountable for wrongs done and debts accumulated.
Corporations were not allowed to own another corporation.
They had a limited life span as written into their corporate charter or ‘license’, that gives these things life of a legal ‘person’. Usually 10, 20, 30, or 40 years.
Once that time was up, corporation was disolved.
We can still revoke corporate charters
Here is a beautiful article that can explain more.
http://www.ejnet.org/rachel/rehw488.htm
We could also make laws in our individual states that no corporate charter is issued unless it is operated democratically. democracy
So how do we get such information to people who do not pay attention to politics. So each of us can participate meaningfully in the process of running our own lives.
I’m not thinking or looking towards mass media here.