I report on how consciousness and community are transcending god and state, locally in Washington, DC, and globally, where ever I see progress - or backsliding, including on the feminist front! "Imagine there's no countries, and no religion, too." Most active 2007-17. See my public Facebook/CarolMoore1776 for daily posts.
I do want to comment on this briefly. Our American culture, especially politics, the media and video games, is filled with violence as the solution to problems, with violence as the means to proving manhood, with military force as the way to "promote democracy" -- i.e., to make sure our "democracy" can have all the resources of other nations the United States needs. In the Middle East that also means making sure we use brutal force, and even nuclear weapons, to make sure our ally Israel can steal all the land, water and oil it needs. In Congress, it means cops with semi (or fully?) automatic weapons making sure those Code Pinkers don't get too effective. . And if China and Russia don't cave to our demands, the United States' military is almost at the point it can First Strike Russian and Chinese nuclear weapons while assuring minimal American loses. (Maybe only a 40 or 50 U.S. cities?) . This means the United States would totally control the planet! See "The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy" By Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press, Foreign Affairs, March/April 2006. Geez, in an atmosphere like that is it any wonder a psychologically disturbed young man would grab a gun and start shooting at random? . I wholeheartedly agree with most of the analysis from the International Action Center (founded by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark) on Why the Virginia Tech Shootings Happened. Of course I do not blame all "capitalism," but patriarchal state capitalism, i.e., state control of markets to ensure the most dominant males can control society. Excerpts below: . What distinguishes this country from the rest of the world? It is neither the most affluent nor the poorest. It is neither the most secular nor the most religious. It is not the most culturally homogeneous nor is it the most diverse. . But in one area, it stands virtually alone. It has the biggest arsenal of high-tech weaponry in the world, way surpassing every other country. It has military bases spread all over; most countries have no troops outside their borders.It is conducting two hot wars at the moment, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and has sent hundreds of thousands of troops abroad over the last few years. . Every day, the public here is supposed to identify with soldiers who burst into homes in Baghdad, round up the people and take them away for “interrogation”—which everyone knows now can mean torture and indefinite detainment.It also sends heavily armed “special ops” on secret missions to countless other countries, like the ones who just facilitated the invasion and bombing of Somalia, or the ones who have been trying to stir up opposition in Iran. This is documented in the news media. . The immense brutality of these colonial wars, as well as earlier ones, is praised from the White House on down as the best, the ONLY way to achieve what the political leaders and their influential, rich backers decide is necessary to protect their world empire. Do lots of people get killed? “Stuff happens,” said former war secretary Donald Rumsfeld. “Collateral damage,” says the Pentagon. . At home, the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Over 2 million people are locked up in the prison system each year, most of them people of color. When commercial armed security guards are also taken into consideration, the U.S. has millions of employees who use guns and other coercive paraphernalia in their jobs.... . Violence is a big money maker in the mass culture. Television, films, pulp novels, Internet sites, video games—all dwell on “sociopaths” while glorifying the state’s use of violence, often supplemented by a lone vigilante. By the time children reach their teens, they have already seen thousands of murders and killings on television. . And these days even more suspense is added in countless programs that involve stalking and terror against women—and increasingly children.As the Duke rape case and so many “escort service” ads show, women of color are particularly subject to exploitation and have little recourse to any justice. And as the murders along the border show, immigrants of color are fair game for racist killers.... . Many liberal commentators are taking this occasion to renew the demand for tougher gun laws. Yes, assault weapons are horrible, but so are bunker buster bombs, helicopters that fire thousands of rounds a minute, and the ultimate—nuclear weapons. Disarming the people is not the answer, especially when the government is armed to the teeth and uses brutality and coercion daily. . The best antidote to these tragedies is to build a movement for profound social change, a movement directed at solving the great problems depressing so much of humanity today, whether they be wars or global climate change or the loneliness of the dog-eat-dog society.
A local activist media collective called WHYNOTNEWS.ORG put out a video of the April 26th Senate protest described in the entry below that includes a shot at the very end of me being led away by police and fully quoting the Declaration of Independence. Plus fuller shots of some of the scenes I shot more briefly in my Getting Rowdy at Congress video, plus lots of other good shots.
After 40 odd years of repeated misdemeanors and the occasional felony, mostly related to victimless crimes and protesting, I finally got caught and arrested! . What was I doing? Trying to recite out (very) loud my favorite "patriotic" phrase from the Declaration of Independence: "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish government!" . Of course, I chose to do it at the end of a noisy antiwar protest in the atrium of the Senate Hart office building just as police had assembled their full force of officers and were doing a sweep for the most flagrant rowdies. And I chose that minute to become one of them. They hauled 14 of us off, 10 women and 4 men. They only kept us 4 hours and didn't even send us to the filthy D.C. jail. They'll have to be meaner next time. . Happily, I caught it on video, with two officers rushing over to grab me. See the video! More photos here. . Hmmm, I wonder if my first mug shot will ever end up on the Celebrity Mugshot page! . The fools. Don't they know I have an addictive personality? . Now that I've lost my virginity, it will be just like 38 years ago when I went hog (or boy) wild. Next thing you know I'll be chaining myself to AIPAC's door! . The New York crowd brought down two black, three story high banners reading YOUR SILENCE YOUR LEGACY and the inscription below. The crowd started yelling IMPEACH! IMPEACH! . In case you haven't heard, after much kicking and screaming, the peace movement is coming together behind impeaching Bush/Cheney. Even United for Peace and Justice has issued a statement supporting it.Tomorrow we spell out IMPEACH at the Washington Monument. WHAT FUN! See IMPEACH07.ORG.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich has started the ball rolling with articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney. However, as my my fun video shows, Daniel Ellsberg, Cindy Sheehan, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, activist Tina Richards and the Code Pink Chorus were shooting for the whole enchilada - Bush and Cheney. . More information at IMPEACH07.ORG including about April 28th Impeachment events. . Love the red IMPEACH NOW sign? It's being recycled from the Impeach Clinton movement which I supported heartily, in large part because of his cover up of the Waco massacre. . See my Impeach Clinton protest photos here and here! . I sell IMPEACH BUSH CHENEY, NO MORE EXCUSES t-shirts, etc. at my CafePress.com/RadicalStuffpage. And I sell the IMPEACH THE BASTARD button to cover all the bases at myRadicalButtons.Com Impeach Bush page. Hmmm, probably should offer the t-shirt, too! More photos here. Photographer seated, behind camera, asked a truly frightening and even shocking question: "Even if 100% of American people wanted impeachment, how could you ever convince congress?" Is the media so convinced that democracy is dead in this country that they could ask such a question? David Swanson who answered with all the reasons Congress would have to listen, also was amazed by the question when I talked to him about it later. . And people wonder why I preach radically decentralized, direct, supermajority democracy -- and the strategy of SECESSION.
Former Russian President Boris Yeltsin died today. And I immediately ran to Wikipedia and added three stories to his biography about his threats to nuke America -- the first brought on by an oversight, the second by U.S. attacks on Serbia, the third by President Bill Clinton's criticisms of his war on Chechnya. The point, of course, not to attack Yeltsin or Russia as to remind us that our fates rest in the hands of imperfect and even unstable leaders. Personally, I consider President George Bush to be far more unstable than Yeltsin - after all, he's just waiting for Jesus to tell him to start Armageddon! . I'll just quote my three Wikipedia entries below: . 1. On January 25, 1995 Russian early warning radar detected a rocket identified as possibly launched by an American trident missile. After notification, Boris Yeltsin immediately opened "nuclear briefcases" used to authorize the launch of nuclear missiles. Some claim he came within minutes of ordering a full scale nuclear attack on the United States, until the rocket was confirmed to be heading away from Russian airspace. It later was learned that the launch was an American and Norwegian scientific rocket and that Russian radar commanders had never received the widely dispersed advance notice of its launch. . See the video!
2. During the 1999 Kosovo war, Yeltsin strongly opposed the NATO military campaign against Yugoslavia, and warned of possible Russian intervention if NATO deployed ground troops to Kosovo. In televised comments he stated: "I told NATO, the Americans, the Germans: Don't push us toward military action. Otherwise there will be a European war for sure and possibly world war.
3. During November and December of 1999 Yeltsin and President Clinton escalated sparring over Russia’s occupation of Chechnya. Speaking before a November meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Clinton pointed his finger at Yeltsin and demanded he halt bombing attacks that had resulted in many civilian casualties. Yeltsin immediately left the conference. In December while visiting China to seek support on Chechnya, Yeltsin replied to Clinton’s criticism of a Russian ultimatum to citizens of Grozney. He bluntly pronounced: "Yesterday, Clinton permitted himself to put pressure on Russia. It seems he has for a minute, for a second, for half a minute, forgotten that Russia has a full arsenal of nuclear weapons. He has forgotten about that." Clinton dismissed Yeltsin’s comments stating: "I didn't think he'd forgotten that America was a great power when he disagreed with what I did in Kosovo." It fell to Vladimir Putin to down play Yeltsin’s comments and present reassurances about U.S. and Russian relations.
To the top and left are photos of aborted, late term deformed fetuses and of babies born alive in Iraq, deformed allegedly because of the effects of the effects of the millions of pounds of depleted uranium ("d.u."). The waste of nuclear bombs was used as armor plating against Iraq in the 1991 Gulf War and even more so in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. . Can you tell which babies are which? . Many people who scream and yell because a few thousand late term abortions are performed using an unpleasant procedure called Intrauterine Cranial Decompression (aka "partial birth abortion") never complain about all the deformed babies who result because American and Israeli militarists use any means necessary to rule the Middle East and exploit is resources for their own good. Depleted Uranium is a GOOD thing if it "saves Americans' lives." . However, consider this, all you "pro-lifers" who support the Supreme Court's recent ban on "partial birth abortion." If you knew your Iraq veteran spouces' d.u. irradiated sperm or ovaries had produced this sort of monstrosity, would you let the grossly deformed fetus be born live? When you discovered only in the fourth or fifth month of gestation the grossness of the deformies, would you abort it? And would you use whatever medical procedure was safest for the woman's health? . I am sure that hundreds and even thousands of husbands and wives will face this choice. And if we use nuclear bombs against Iran and that nuclear radiation spreads worldwide, tens of thousands of Americans might face that choice. . See more medical facts about abortion. The statistics on how many of these Intrauterine Cranial Decompression ("partial birth") abortions are performed yearly are contested. Sure there may be some greedy or lazy or incompentent doctors who use this procedure unnecessarily. However, this is no excuse for banning a medical procedure that protects a woman's life. . The National Organization for Women's response reads in part: "The law is so vaguely written that it may ban the most common abortion procedure used after 12 weeks of pregnancy, and there is no exception to allow its use if the woman's health is in serious danger. The joint ruling in Gonzales v. Carhart and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood is a major step in the campaign to outlaw all abortions, first by chipping away at and then by fully overturning Roe v. Wade." . Why are there so many late term abortions? To quote a wikipedia article: "In 1987, the Alan Guttmacher Institute collected questionnaires from 1,900 women who were at abortion clinics procuring abortions. Of the 1,900, 420 had been pregnant for 16 or more weeks. These 420 women were asked to choose among a menu of reasons why they had not obtained the abortions earlier in their pregnancies. Two percent (2%) said "a fetal problem was diagnosed late in pregnancy". 71% responded "did not recognize that she was pregnant or misjudged gestation", 48% said "found it hard to make arrangements", and 33% said "was afraid to tell her partner or parents". . In one word: PATRIARCHY. Poor education about signs of pregnancy - or denial of pregnancy because of fear. Fear that boyfriends or husbands will abuse or abandon them; fear of being punished or even kicked out of the home by parents. And even those who have no fear often lack health insurance or ready funds to pay for an abortion, especially if it involves travel and overnight stays because abortion facilities have been driven out of their area. . Why do so many patriarchs want to outlaw abortion? After all this means that some men will be forced to marry some pregnant women -- or at least support the children they father? . The answer, in screaming bold capitals, is simply: CONTROL OF WOMEN'S BODIES MEANS CONTROL OF WOMEN'S LIVES. It's simply the psychopathology of control. (Read comments on Howard K. Stern's means of controlling Anna Nicole Smith, even if it destroyed her body, in two posts below.) . Want to get rid of late term abortion? Take on PATRIARCHY. . See my article on getting rid of the leading institution of patriarchal control - the nation state. WOMAN VS. THE NATION STATE. In it I write: . Patriarchy and patriotism — both from the same root word, pater (father) — are simply two sides of the same authoritarian coin. Patriarchy is the ideology that males should rule. Patriotism is the worship of male-dominated states. Males have created — and still create — political culture worldwide, so it’s no surprise that male values, needs and ambitions dominate. . Male-dominated culture — patriarchy — discourages individual men and women from expressing the mix of assertion and cooperation, independence and compassion that is natural to individual men and women. Our culture indoctrinates men — often savagely —into dominance and aggression, and bullies women into dependence and passivity. . What would seem to be the primary value of human culture, the one for which all must be sacrificed? I believe it is the need for males to prove manhood – personally, politically and militarily. This value will soon destroy the world if women and sensible, non-dominating men, do not create a new culture that values the nonviolent self-actualization of all peoples.
My great-great-great-great grandfather was Colonel James Barrett, the head of the militia at Concord, Massachusetts on April 19, 1775. The battles at Lexington and Concord that day were the start of America’s War of Independence. As it happens – and I have confirmed through Daughters of the American Revolution records -- two other great-great-great grandfathers fought at Concord and at Lexington that day as well. . While part of me wants to crow about my "revolutionary blood," the pacifist in me remembers that these battles actually undercut a very successful non-cooperation movement against trade or other relations with Britain. They gave the British an excuse to raise an army to crush the rebels through murder most foul. . And more than 100 people, American and British, died on April 19, 1775 itself. Evidently they were all combatants, so does that mean it was not murder? And let's not forget the tens of thousands of indigenous Native American Indian people who had died from outright murder in the almost 300 earlier years of colonization, not to mention the millions who died of starvation and disease. . But fast forwarding to modern times, April 19 is also the anniversary of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) 1993 assault with CS gas and massive military tanks on the Branch Davidian church and home outside of Waco, Texas. The attack resulted in 76 deaths, mostly of women, children and the elderly. See my book THE DAVIDIAN MASSACRE, a systematic analysis of Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) and FBI crimes against the Davidians. . BATF had come in shooting first, from the ground and from helicopters, murdering six Davidians. They had to keep the rest of the Davidian witnesses to their crimes in there long enough to have an excuse to destroy all evidence of illegal gun fire in order to protect agents from prosecution. And so FBI finally managed to destroy the evidence -- and so many inconvenient witnesses -- 51 days later. . A disgruntled Gulf War Veteran who had witnessed American tanks bulldozing and burying living Iraqis went insane upon seeing that obviously intentional mass murder on television just two years later. Two years after that that veteran, Timothy McVeigh, blew up the federal building in Oklahoma City, murdering 163 people. . On April 20, 1999, as Bill Clinton mercilessly bombed and murdered civilians in Serbia, two loners at Columbine High School murdered 12 students and a teacher. They did so on the birthday of the third greatest mass murder of the 20th Century, Adolph Hitler. (China's Mao Tse-Tsung and the Soviet Union's Joseph Stalin coming in first and second.) Fox News provides a whole list of school shootings in America over the last 10 years! And now an obviously psychotic Cho Seung-Hui has killed another 32. . And not to let Howard K. Stern off the hook (see entry below), remember FBI killed the Davidians to get rid of witnesses. New reports state Anna Nicole Smith blamed her son Daniel's death on Howard giving him methadone, his very first "hit." And Howard definitely had reasons to want to keep Daniel sedated. After all, the card of the private detective Daniel allegedly was considering hiring to spy on Howard was found on his dead body. Howard must have feared what the grieving, and presumably relatively non-drugged Anna might say, once on the stand at Daniel's inquest. Howard Stern is suing Anna's mother and her attorney for libel and slander for alleging Stern's involvement in both Daniel and Anna's deaths. I have a feeling THAT case will be dropped the second the inquest is completed. Either way, the mother may not be as crazy and evil as Howard would like everyone to think. . Well, enough pondering the acts of obsessed madmen -- not that the news media will let us do anything else! Fear keeps people tuning in to make sure someone is protecting them - from evils real, imagined and fabricated! . Of course, as long as the media keep pushing out of the limelight George Bush's attempts to demonize Iran by focusing on private crimes and massacres, we might be tempted to feel safe from war. But then who was the happiest man in the world that 9-11 came along? (Besides Dick Cheney and Ariel Sharon, of course.) Remember Gary Condit? And the constant news stories about the then representative's affair with the missing young Chandra Levy? The speculation that he murdered her to keep her quiet? Those stories immediately disappeared and slipped down the post-9/11 memory hole. . So despite the hopes of so many, Americans and Iranians, a U.S. military strike on Iran may be near. The U.S. can't keep those three aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf forever. And Israel's leader Ehud Olmert has made it clear that if Bush doesn't attack, Israel will. And then Bush will be forced to come in, at a time perhaps less convenient and more costly to the U.S. . Nuclear weapons, if not the first day weapon of choice, will be used to crush Iran should it retaliate against an attack - especially if it uses missiles against gulf oil targets, U.S. troops and the Green Zone in Iraq, or Israel. Millions of Iranians could be dead in hours; tens of millions in weeks. And, if the Russians freak out at nuclear weapons exploding just hundreds of miles from their borders, half of humanity could be dead before the summer solstice. (See some scary nuclear war videos here.) . Last night I was shocked when a news broadcast of the Virginia Tech madman's video rant about mass murder suddenly was interrupted by a Geico add chirping: "So easy, even a cave man can do it!" . Was universal consciousness trying to send us a not very subtle message: EVOLVE BEYOND VIOLENCE OR DIE! Transcend god and state. Get into consciousness and community.
After almost two months of worldwide publicity as the worst man on the planet, there is one person who is thanking shock jock Don Imus and Virginia Tech mass murder Cho Seung-Hui for successively over the last week or so grabbing that "honor." And that is Anna Nicole Smith's attorney and toxic-codependent Howard K. Stern.
. Below is the finalized blog entry that was in draft just before Cho's rampage. Comment on that and other horrors of bad male behavior follow in the next couple posts. . Imus should have been fired long ago for bigotry, just like MSNBC cable television fired the disgusting Michael Savage for some bigoted comment soon after they hired him several years back. Every time I'd accidentally catch Imus on television in the morning he'd be saying something that annoyed or disgusted me. . As for the original Howard Stern, I confess. I had my radio alarm clock tuned to his station. Every time 6:30 a.m. rolled around and I heard his voice ranting bigoted obscenities at me I instantly would be shocked wide awake. . I lived for a while with a guy who LOVED Howard Stern, went to New York City to appear in a crowd scene in his movie, and never cashed the paycheck for his role in the movie, much as he needed the money. Considering this was a mixed race guy, it was pretty absurd to hear him, from time to time, spout Howard-esque ridicule against other people of color. . Pointing out that such adulation was self-defeating and even self-hating didn't make much of an impression on him. He would say it was "just fun" or he would yell out in a guttural voice probably copped from Howard or one of his flunkies "HOWARD ROCKS!" . And then there is Howard K. Stern. . I confess, I've followed every lurid detail of the case since Anna Nicole Smith's February 2007 death. I knew little about her, but found her feisty and funny when I'd chance upon some news or entertainment report about her. However, the controversies surrounding her death immediately roused the radical feminist in me. . Smith's story is an exceptionally high profile case of an obsessed, controlling male -- Howard K. Stern -- using a variety of means to manipulate and dominate a woman he "loves." The show biz money -- and the potential for Smith's ex-husband's millions -- were just the icing on the Anna Nicole cake to Howard. (Though he doubtless got a lot more money out of the relationship than the "nothing but my rent" that he claims to have received.) . Sue me, Howard if I NOTICE news reports that: she had a falling out with her family soon after you became her lawyer and confidant; that you spoiled her with your constant attention to her needs; that you constantly lured her into using (prescription) drugs saying things like "Come, on, Mama. Try a little something. I'll do it with you."; that when she was visiting friends and not under your wing she'd be straight and outgoing but as soon as you showed up she'd immediately go "incommunicado" and you would not let others have access to her; that you rarely would let her mother and later even her beloved son speak to her by phone; that she spent many days drugged and asleep, until you would rouse her for some profit-making venture; that when she fell in love with Larry Birkhead you insisted on sleeping downstairs on the couch and even would barge into their bedroom without knocking; that after she became pregnant by Birkhead, you gave her an ultimatum - "me or him" (i.e., me and all the drugs you want or him and no more drugs); that when that ultimatum so upset her she ended up in the hospital - which tried to wean the pregnant woman off drugs - you sneaked the drugs into the hospital so you could keep giving her her fix; that you constantly reminded her that Larry might seek sole custody of the child because of her drug use; that you helped her find a hideaway outside the country, somewhere you could keep her safely to yourself; that you took a (later widely shown) video of an obviously drugged and pregnant Anna Nicole where you joke she is "doing mushrooms" and claim the video can make "a lot of money"; that the drugs and seclusion so concerned her son Daniel he met with a private detective in his first visit to the Bahamas, claiming Anna Nicole was being held in a drugged state like "a virtual prisoner" by "Svengali" Stern; that right after the birth of the daughter, you picked up Daniel at the airport, and within 24 hours he was dead, allegedly because methadone you were seen giving him reacted badly with other prescription medicines he was taking; that you sold photos of Anna, her son and daughter to tabloids the day after he died; that you made sure your name was put on the birth certificate as father of the child, though you knew perfectly well it could not be you; that eight days after Anna's son's death, you convinced her to wear a wedding dress and participate in a comical "commitment ceremony" where you both jumped off a yatch into the ocean; that you took video of an obviously drugged Anna with her child; that you let Anna's psychiatrist prescribe multiple drugs for her in your name; that you claimed that "media attention" prevented you from taking Anna to the hospital in Florida when she developed blood poisoning from a dirty needle to the rump, when the truth doubtless is you feared doctors in hospital might recognize the severity of her drug addiction; finally, that you probably know who gave Anna Nicole that final shot chloral hydrate that the coroner believes, in interaction with the other drugs in her system, killed her. It might even have been you. . In Anna Nicole Smith's system at death were prescription anti-seizure, anti-anxiety, muscle relaxant, pain and sleeping aids and sedatives like: Ativan (lorazepam), Cipro (ciprofloxacin), Klonopin (clonazepam), Methadone, Noctec (chloral hydrate), Robaxin (methocarbamol), Soma (meprobamate), Topamax (topiramate), Tylenol (acetaminophen), and Valium (diazepam). . Once Anna Nicole was dead, Howard K.Stern refused to take a paternity test and only under court order released her will which put him in complete control of the estate, while explicitly excluding all future children, including Danielynn. Gee, is there any question WHY media pundits and legal analysts like Nancy Grace would be yelling BLOODY MURDER? . Obviously, after almost two months of worldwide publicity worse than that heaped on Bush's current "Satan" Mahmoud Amadinejad -- and with the Bahama's coroner's inquest on Daniel's death fast approaching -- Howard did not contest giving up the baby to the DNA-proved father Larry Birkhead. . Of course, lots of people use others' dependencies -- on drugs, booze, sex, love, attention, slavish capitulation, etc. -- to control them. Is toxic co-dependence a crime? . Some may say that at least Stern didn't beat Smith into submission, or shoot her when he feared she was leaving him for another man, has had the husband of a former Playboy Playmate. But the woman is still dead! Drugging a woman to death -- or encouraging any friend or lover's self-destructive addictions to alcohol, food, cigarettes, etc. as a way of keeping them dependent -- obviously are pathetic and cruel ways to get or keep love. And at some point they may become truly criminal acts. . See Anna Nicole's mugshot. Used to avoid any lawsuits from Howard. It's a cute picture! I'm sure any such photo of Mr. Stern will be far less comely. . That being said, my actual view on punishment for crime is very close to that of the famous defense attorney Clarence Darrow, as described in his book Resist Not Evil, for which I wrote the Loompanic's edition introduction. The cure for all the bad male behavior that is destroying the world is not punishment, but love -- and taking away their nastiest toys, physical and psychological. Women, we've got to start doing it, NOW!
Last November I reported on Jim Bovard's blog posting on metro employees warnings against taking photos on the metro -- police might be alerted!! The entry included a truly terroristic looking photograph I took immediately thereafter. Today I saw a billboard that I would really enjoy being arrested photographing. Would love to get the advertisers into court to explain their intent! Thought I'd share it.
Statists claim that the Sunday, April 1, 2007 Washington Post story “The Once and Future Republic of Vermont” by two self-described Vermont secessionists, publisher Ian Baldwin and professor Frank Bryan, was just an April Fools Day joke. However, these excerpts from the article prove it is not: . Vermont was once an independent republic, and it can be one again. We think the time to make that happen is now. Over the past 50 years, the U.S. government has grown too big, too corrupt and too aggressive toward the world, toward its own citizens and toward local democratic institutions. It has abandoned the democratic vision of its founders and eroded Americans' fundamental freedoms. . Vermont did not join the Union to become part of an empire. . Some of us therefore seek permission to leave. ... Vermont seceded from the British Empire in 1777 and stood free for 14 years, until 1791. .. No other state, not even Texas, governed itself more thoroughly or longer before giving up its nationhood and joining the Union...It's quite simple. The United States has destroyed the 10th Amendment, which says that "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." . The present movement for secession has been gathering steam for a decade and a half. In preparation for Vermont's bicentennial in 1991, public debates -- moderated by then-Lt. Gov. Howard Dean -- were held in seven towns before crowds that averaged 230 citizens. At the end of each, Dean asked all those in favor of Vermont's seceding from the Union to stand and be counted. In town after town, solid majorities stood. The final count: 999 (62 percent) for secession and 608 opposed... . In October 2005, about 300 Vermonters attended a statewide convention on the question of secession. Six months later, the annual Vermont Poll of the University of Vermont's Center for Rural Studies found that about 8 percent of respondents replied "yes" to peaceful secession, arguably making Vermont foremost among the many states with secessionist movements (including Alaska, California, Hawaii, New Hampshire, SouthCarolina and Texas). . ..Against this backdrop, secessionists from all over the state will gather in June to plan a grass-roots campaign to get at least 200 towns to vote by 2012 on independence. . I'm sure we can be confidant that the authors and some of their cohorts attended the First North American Secession Convention in Burlington, Vermont last November, 2006. . Coincidentally, the day before the Post featured a (unlinked) photo from the March 30 "V" protest featured in my blog entry below. We The People Foundation liked my OBEY THE GOVERNMENT - OR WHAT? video and featured it in its list of reports on the event - resulting in 8000 hits in just 5 days. Plus a couple people circulated the link to various lists before I even got a chance to announce it! My first big hit video. Check it out. Just today someone on a United for Peace and Justice working group list responded to a proposal that Americans should launch a general strike if Bush bombs Iran by stating we should consider secession. That is was a "moral issue." This goes well beyond the usual peace activist threat to raise (nonviolent) hell until Bush/Cheney are impeached and prosecuted if they dare attack Iran. . I replied: If Hillary is elected and keeps up her warmongering ways not only will anti-war people be ready to secede, so will all the rightwingers and gunowners! . Yes, we are going to live in interesting times!
Constitutionalists are people who believe that we can fix the U.S. Constitution by interpreting it narrowly as it is written -- or they believe it is written. Of course, some Constitutionalists will interpret it as meaning more freedom on their pet issues, but not on other people's pet issues with which they disagree. . Declarationists pretty much agree the Constitution is a failed experiment because its various provisions have not been able to protect us from encroaching tyranny. They hold as their founding principle the Declaration of Independence and especially its third sentence asserting the people's "right to alter or abolish" government. They may promote a variety of constitutional alternatives. I promote radical political decentralization and confederated communities at Secession.net. . March 30, 2007 I joined the We the People Foundation "Right to Petition" Vigil at the White House which featured dozens of "V for Vendetta" characters whose message was "Obey the Constitution or Else." . Unfortunately, a few of them did not like my ad hoc costume or my sign below reminding everyone the Declaration of Independence says "it is the right of the people to alter or abolish" government. But a couple agreed that that was one thing "or else" might mean.See my VERY cool video with controversial background music.
And more photos here. And t-shirts, bags, etc with that slogan here. . See a longer report and more photos on the Wayne Madsen Report. Photo below courtesy of IsisImagery.Com. She has more photos there.
I do want to comment on this briefly. Our American culture, especially politics, the media and video games, is filled with violence as the solution to problems, with violence as the means to proving manhood, with military force as the way to "promote democracy" -- i.e., to make sure our "democracy" can have all the resources of other nations the United States needs. In the Middle East that also means making sure we use brutal force, and even nuclear weapons, to make sure our ally Israel can steal all the land, water and oil it needs. In Congress, it means cops with semi (or fully?) automatic weapons making sure those Code Pinkers don't get too effective.
