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TechnoratiWhile observing the Fourth of July, Americans would do well to reflect on the fundamental principles of this country as found, for instance, in our Declaration of Independence. The true patriot is the American who is not content merely to celebrate the ideals of the Founders but who struggles to defend those ideals today.
In 1776 the Founders affirmed that governments, instituted to secure the "unalienable rights" of the people, derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it."
To illustrate how George III was moving toward the "establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States," the Founders charged that "he has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good." George W. Bush flaunted both domestic and international law by invading Iraq and by deceiving the American people and Congress with false allegations of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and ties to Al Qaeda.
Under the Bush regime, even some U.S. citizens have been arrested and held without trial and without charges; the Founders charged the king with "depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury."
Moreover, thousands of U.S. citizens have been subjected to government surveillance in the absence of court orders. Indeed, Bush admitted that he authorized agents to make an end run even around the extremely cooperative Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court which had been set up to handle requests by government security agencies to spy on citizens. (Such disrespect for the law led one federal judge on that court to resign in protest.)
A huge National Security Agency database contains information on phone calls made by tens of millions of Americans.
The Declaration of Independence continued its charges against George III in terms which ring surprisingly applicable to today's despot: "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers."
On the home front, the Bush regime has given abundant evidence of its hostility to civil liberties. In the international arena, Bush has stretched his executive authority by committing troops to combat without any congressional declaration of war, by imprisoning "enemy combatants" without judicial overview, and by demanding that other nations refuse to cooperate with the International Criminal Court in any prosecution of members of the U.S. military.
The current practice of "extraordinary rendition" involves handing over prisoners taken by the U.S. in its "war on terror" to foreign states for robust interrogation, which probably includes torture and other practices of terror. The previous George was charged with "transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences." (Rendition some day could include transporting "us" citizens.)
The victims of Katrina, and of the government's criminal negligence in its response, may find some contemporary parallels in this accusation by the Founders against their George: "He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people."
In one allegation the signers of the Declaration reveal their narrow racist view of their Indian opponents: "He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured 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." The white invaders excelled in showing merciless savagery against people who were defending their own land, as a T-shirt extremely popular in the Southwest (depicting armed Indian chiefs) explains for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear: "Homeland Security: Fighting Terrorism Since 1492."
Our George can be charged with being the commander-in-chief of ground and air forces "whose known rule of warfare is," in many instances in Iraq as it was in Vietnam, "an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions." In addition to killing large numbers of civilians by massive firepower, destruction by torture of prisoners is another violation of U.S. and international law condoned by the Bush team.
True American patriots today, struggling against an encroaching fascism in spite of all the empty slogans about freedom, could use the closing words of the Declaration in sealing their commitment: "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."
Joseph Mulligan writes for The Village Voice.
© 2008 The Village Voice
10 Comments so far
Show AllWhile celebrating your Independence don't forget the genocide you committed and never apologized for to achieve it. American Indians, after five hundred years, are still waiting.
canuckchuck July 4th, 2008 8:24 pm
the USA should have been drowned at birth
You'd miss us if we were gone no matter what you think Chuckie. We love you.
How apropos that on this 4th of July one of the Godfathers of American Right-Wing Fascism has died. I would wish that he rest in peace but I can't, keeping in mind all those he refused peace to.
The only thing more amusingly ironic would be a gay black man meeting him at the pearly gates.
Oh please tell us great machine that makes the ice shine what amazing tasks you've completed to restore freedom and democracy to the land?
You can look around and see what's out there already and try to help build it. Or you can sit on the sidelines and bitch. So, what are you doing?
An awful lot of this is a struggle for the mind. Its a struggle of information. Its a struggle of truth versus lies. The reason this continues today is that more people believe the corporate propaganda on TV than come to CD and read and chat. Everytime someone new finds this a reads a bit, we win. Step by step, person by person.
When we've got enough people, change will be automatic. It will be as inevitable as the collapse of the Soviet Union was if you happen to be old enough to have seen that.
But, to get there its a battle of information. Anyone who reads a site like this, anyone who shares anything off this site with someone else, anyone who writes and comments (whether I agree with them or not!) is contributing to that struggle.
During the Revolution, they formed 'Committees of Correspondence' so that the patriots in the various colonies could share news and support each other. These day, we don't need that because every damn patriot in the country can get online and see and lend support themselves.
What did you do today?
"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 to 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."
the USA should have been drowned at birth
...yeah, right. More of the "true American patriots" blah blah mantra here. Beware of encroaching fascism, you say? Newsflash 4U Mr. Mulligan: fascism has been fully functional here in USA for the past 8 years-if not even earlier. Should I write my representatives about it Mr. Mulligan? Or petition for redress of grievances? Talk with with my homeys over a beer about our "creeping fascism"? Don't make me laugh. All our clever analyses and emotionally charged rhetoric bounces right off the resilient "fascist" bubble that surrounds Bush, Cheney, and pretty much the rest of our government officials-and, for that matter, the main-steam media.
Methinks more clever liberal analysis and talk-talk like this article ain't gonna change a goddamn thing. You're all a bunch of armchair liberals, chatting to each other while Rome burns.
Happy Independence Day to all Usanians!
As we commemorate the independence of the third largest state in the world and the world's second-largest democracy, people of all nations would do well to contemplate the wisdom of their ancestors:
"So likewise a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."
George Washington
"Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder."
Ataturk
http://www.fourwinds10.com./siterun_data/bellringers_corner/people_of_th...
So say all of us!