Thursday, October 27, 2005

Vermont Moves to Secede from American Empire

from peakoilanarchy

James Howard Kunstler, author of the book about “Peak Oil The Long Emergency,” will be the keynote speaker at The Vermont Convention on Independence to be held in the House Chamber of the State House in Montpelier, Vermont on Friday, October 28th, 2005.
(http://www.vermontrepublic.org/writings/vermontconventionprogram.html)

Sponsored by the Second Vermont Republic, the convention, which will begin at 9 am and conclude at 5 pm, is open to the public and free of charge.

This historic event will be the first statewide convention on secession in the United States since North Carolina voted to secede from the Union on May 20, 1861.

Organizers of the convention say it has two objectives: First, to raise the level of awareness of Vermonters of the feasibility of independence as a viable alternative to a nation which has lost its
moral authority and is unsustainable.

And second, to provide an example and a process for other states and nations which may be seriously considering separatism, secession, independence, and similar devolutionary strategies.

The Second Vermont Republic describes itself as “a peaceful, democratic, grassroots, libertarian populist movement committed to the return of Vermont to its status as an independent republic as it once was between 1777 and 1791.”

Earlier this year, Vermont secession activists published their opening salvo, the Middlebury Institute Letter.

It declared: “We believe that, of the options open to those who would dissent from the actions and institutions of a government grown too big and unwieldy and its handmaiden corporate sponsors
grown too powerful and corrupt, the only comprehensive and practical one is some form of separatism. Exploring this option is not a step to be taken lightly, because there are established forces that will hamper and resist, and yet it is a legal and viable enterprise, squarely in the American tradition…

“Moreover, the accumulating signs point to a series of major crises that will seriously disrupt and may even destroy the American system in the near future.

These include economic disruptions in the wake of global “peak oil” production before 2010, deterioration of the power of the dollar through mounting and uncontrollable national debt and trade imbalances, continued degradation of vital ecosystems on which the nation depends, climate change and severe weather causing widespread devastation of coastal areas, extended use of military force worldwide leading to increased terrorism and the reinstitution of the draft, [and] judicial takeovers at the Federal level by rightwing ideologues capable of altering fundamental legal rights…

Those who want to absent and cushion themselves from suchlike devastations would reasonably want to explore ways of removing their communities and regions from dangerous national political and economic mechanisms that are incapable of reform.”

Read the complete Middlebury Institute Letter here
http://www.vermontrepublic.org/writings/middinstltr.html

Sunday, October 23, 2005

What Happened to the Republican Party

"In the years between Nixon and Newt Gingrich, the party migrated southward...the party of Lincoln and Liberty was transmogrified into the party of hairy-backed swamp developers and corporate shills, faith-based economists, fundamentalist bullies with Bibles, Christians of convenience, freelance racists, misanthropic frat boys, shrieking midgets of AM radio, tax cheats, nihilists in golf pants, brownshirts in pinstripes, sweatshop tycoons, hacks, fakirs, aggressive dorks, Lamborghini libertarians, people who believe Armstrong’s moonwalk was filmed in Roswell, New Mexico, little honkers out to diminish the rest of us, Newt’s evil spawn and their Etch-A-Sketch president, a dull and rigid man suspicious of the free flow of information and secular institutions, whose philosophy is a jumble of badly sutured body parts trying to walk.
Republicans: the No. 1 reason the rest of the world thinks we’re deaf, dumb and dangerous.”

Garrison Keillor, from “We’re Not in Lake Wobegon Anymore"

Monday, October 17, 2005

Character Counts, or at least it did...

By Robert Steinback
MIAMI HERALD

So, why isn’t character on the table this time?

Character, we were all so piously told seven years ago, was what elevated Bill Clinton’s lie about an extramarital dalliance to an issue of national gravity and justified his impeachment. It was a lie that, to those of us who were not hyperventilating with rage, seemed trivial compared to matters concerning the ship of state, even if it was a lie told under oath in a trumped-up civil trial.

No, no, no, we were scolded; it goes to the character of the man. If you can’t rely on a leader to confess before the entire ogling world that he dropped his pants for the wrong woman, how could you trust anything he said? Our children would abandon all respect for honesty, integrity and propriety, using the excuse, “Well, the president did it. Why can’t I?”

These dire predictions of social anarchy struck me as absurdly exaggerated, but the standard was set. Or so we thought.

In rode a new administration and party promising to raise the bar on character. As I see it, they’ve splintered that bar into toothpicks.

And yet, isn’t it curious how in the public discourse today one rarely hears references to character as a material issue with respect to political leadership? If an extramarital affair was proof of a vacant character, wouldn’t questionable actions that actually affect people - soldiers, covert agents, Congress, storm victims and the like - be exponentially more serious?

Apparently not. The word from the character crowd today is that we mustn’t involve ourselves in the “blame game.” We’re told that we must wait until people are actually found guilty at trial before we dare venture an opinion on whether their actions were unseemly.

We’re told that we must wait for an investigator’s report to know if anyone in the White House broke the law by leaking a covert CIA operative’s name to the press - even though the public already knows the operative’s name and the two senior administration officials who did it.

We’re told not to question the character of the man who assured us that anyone found to be involved in the matter would no longer be part of the administration - yet has fired no one.

We’re told that associations with known sleazeballs such as alleged shakedown artist Jack Abramoff aren’t really suspicious unless, presumably, videotapes of illicit cash being stuffed into politicians’ jacket pockets are uncovered. We’re told the deliberate concealment from Congress of the true cost of the Medicare bill was just harmless politics as usual.

We’re told that intentional efforts to manipulate public opinion with undisclosed payments to talk-show hosts, a White House-planted phony reporter (who ran a gay escort service on the side) and actors posing as genuine TV news reporters in what amounted to taxpayer-supported propaganda pieces - deeds the General Accountability Office has called out-and-out illegal - was just a little enthusiastic advocacy.

We’re told that hiring incompetent cronies to run an agency charged with preparing for and responding to disasters - well, no one has tried to defend that one, though the usual suspects have tried mightily to shift the blame.

We’re told that there’s nothing odd about the president nominating yet another close crony - his own counsel - to the Supreme Court, and then calling her the most qualified candidate for the position.

We’re told that profoundly misleading statements by leaders we implicitly trust and that caused Congress and the nation to support the invasion of another country, shouldn’t be considered lies because, well, they haven’t admitted they were lies.

We’ve been told there is nothing inconsistent about the fact that the administration has said the Mission was Accomplished six weeks after invading Iraq; later, that the insurgency was in its final throes; and still later, that it might take as long as 12 years to quell the insurgency. And that worldwide terrorism was on the decline when it wasn’t, that Iraqi soldiers were rapidly being trained to take over security roles when they weren’t, and that the capture of Saddam Hussein, the drafting of a constitution and elections would ease the unrest, when they didn’t.

And yet, none of this has stirred the old “character” crowd to comment. Character, as I understood its usage seven years ago, referred to those qualities that went beyond minimum expectations; to qualities that spoke to virtues you’re supposed to manifest even when no one is watching; to what you should and shouldn’t do whether or not there were tangible consequences, and not just what you could get away with. Character referred to your willingness to play fair, be honest and be forthright - or so I thought.

Evidently, character is only an issue when the other side’s is in question. Is hypocrisy also an element of character?

Monday, October 10, 2005

Martial Law and the Advent of the Supreme Executive

by Mike Whitney
www.dissidentvoice.org
October 7, 2005

On Tuesday, President Bush warned the nation that outbreaks of Bird Flu may require massive quarantines enforced by the US Military. He said that the military would be better able “to prevent people from coming in to get exposed to the flu”, although he failed to explain why that task couldn’t be carried out by the National Guard.  Bush’s comments echoed the same themes we’ve heard repeatedly since Hurricane Katrina: that the president needs the power to deploy troops within the country at his own discretion and without any legal restrictions. It is a conspicuous attempt to militarize the country and declare martial law, although the media has scrupulously avoided the obvious conclusions.

Bush now claims that he will need to deploy the military following a terrorist attack, a national disaster, or after the outbreak of a flu-epidemic. “Sending in the troops” has seemingly replaced “tax-cuts” as the one-size-fits-all answer for every question asked of any member of the hard-right administration.

“I am concerned about avian flu” Bush opined. “I’m concerned about what an avian flu outbreak could mean for the United States and the world. If we had an outbreak somewhere in the United States, do we not then quarantine that part of the country? And who best to be able to affect a quarantine? One option is the use of a military that’s able to plan and move. So that’s why I put it on the table. I think it’s an important debate for Congress to have…. I think the president ought to have all options on the table to understand what the consequences are—all assets on the table, not options—assets on the table to be able to deal with something this significant.”

Even before Katrina, Donald Rumsfeld had repeatedly expressed interest in using the military domestically. According to many reports the delay in getting relief to the victims of the hurricane was the result of a power-struggle between the administration and local officials (Governor Kathleen Blanco and Mayor Ray Nagin) over who would control the operation. The administration was determined from the onset to federalize the effort and put the Pentagon in charge. This caused a 3-day holdup in the federal response to the tragedy. The choice was made to withhold aid until the governor capitulated. It is impossible to calculate the number of lives that may have been lost by this decision.

The main obstacle to Bush’s militarization scheme is the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. The Act bans the military from participating in policing activities on US soil. It does not, however, prevent the military from helping out in national disasters. This is what is so troubling about Bush’s request to change the law; it shows a clear intention to assert military authority wherever the troops are deployed. It is clearly not an attempt simply to help out.

A careful look at New Orleans shows the danger of this. The military presence has been used to establish order and to set the precedent for future deployments. Blackwater mercenaries are not really part of the relief effort at all, but are employed to harass and intimidate the locals and to protect private property. One of their many functions was to force the evacuation of local homeowners and to strip them of their legally registered firearms, a clear violation of the 2nd Amendment. Their presence is intended to soften the attitudes of citizens to seeing military personnel on their streets and to help them adjust the effects of a transformed America.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate Dean of Columbia University’s School of Public Health for Disaster Preparedness, told the Associated Press that giving the military a law enforcement role would be an “extraordinarily Draconian measure” that would be unnecessary for the distribution of vaccines.

“The translation of this is martial law in the United States,” said Redlener.

“Gene Healy, a senior editor at the conservative Cato Institute, said Bush would risk undermining `a fundamental principle of American law’ by tinkering with the act, which does not hinder the military’s ability to respond to a crisis.”

“What it does is set a high bar for the use of federal troops in a policing role. That reflects America’s traditional distrust of using standing armies to enforce order at home, a distrust that’s well-justified.” The use of the military “can result in serious damage to American life and liberty,” Healy added. (CNN)

The intention to use the military in a “policing role” creates a permanent state of martial law that can’t be fully grasped out of context. In the last few months the administration has made a number of dramatic changes to the system which have upset the critical balance between the co-equal parts of government. Just three months ago, Bush issued an executive order that created the National Security Service (NSS), a branch of the FBI that now works entirely under his authority. It is America’s first secret police, no different than the East German Stasi or the Soviet Union’s KGB. It operates completely beyond congressional oversight and is answerable to the president alone. It is Bush’s personal Gestapo.

Also, less than a month ago the 4th Circuit Court ruled that the president had the power to declare any American citizen an “enemy combatant” and summarily rescind all of his human and civil rights --including even the right to know the reason for which he is being he imprisoned. The ruling confers absolute authority on the president and ends of any meaningful notion of “inalienable rights.”

Also, just last week the Senate Intelligence Committee “approved legislation that allows Pentagon Intelligence operatives to collect information from US citizens without revealing their status as government spies.” The Pentagon may now conduct clandestine investigations of American citizens without the traditional safeguards that are applied to FBI. In effect, the legislation revokes the fundamental guarantees of privacy under the 4th Amendment and “green-lights” the Pentagon to operate covertly against American citizens whether they are legitimate terrorist suspects or simply political enemies.

In another shocking development, President Bush said he will veto the upcoming Pentagon budget of $435 Billion if the bill contains any provision that limits the “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of prisoners.” The President’s action implies that he has the right to torture and abuse according to his own judgment, a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, the 1996 Treaty on Torture and the 8th Amendment.

And, finally, the revised version of Patriot Act is quickly moving through the Congress. The new edition eviscerates the last feeble strands of the 4th Amendment and paves the way for “administrative subpoenas,” which allow law enforcement to carry out searches without judicial oversight.

This is the context in which we should evaluate the push to use the military in domestic affairs. Every change that has taken place within the government has been designed for one purpose alone: to increase the power of the president. If the congress chooses to overturn the Posse Comitatus Act, they will have removed the last bit of rickety scaffolding that protects the country from becoming a de facto military dictatorship. The power to deploy troops within the nation is the power to use the military against American citizens. It transforms the “people’s army” into a direct threat to the democracy it is supposed to serve.

This is the essential vision of the globalists who currently control all the levers of state-power in Washington. They’ve now articulated their intention to use any conceivable national tragedy to achieve their objective of colonizing America through force of arms and establishing the supreme authority of the president.