On Revolution and Late-Breaking Trends
As the incremental costs of food, energy, shelter, water, oxygen, and health care increase, the “privatization of freedom” gains momentum. Though he said it in another context, soon, we shall be in the position of Patrick Henry, who warned his listeners to “Give me liberty, or give me death!”
As the Arab Spring has turned into the American Fall, we can see the seeds of revolution growing in the states. There are remarkable parallels between the East and West: Social networking as organizing tool, educated but unemployed and indebted young people, the increasing gap between the rich and poor, marking an exponential increase in the unfairness of American Capitalism. And the jackboots have filled their hands with batons and pepper spray.
The Corporate Oligarchy has fully exercised a financial coup d’etat and hijacked Congress and Presidency. Not only is Congress on the take but both sides of the aisle are profiting on insider trading–according to the latest mainstream news reports. The polls say some 50 million or more support OWS. Social Unrest is here to stay for the foreseeable future as the 99% seek their fair share from the swindlers on Wall Street and the bandit lobbyists on K Street in D.C. We no longer depend on alternative or independent sources of news about national piracy and treasonous behavior in Washington D.C. The news is brayed loud and clear right there on the front page of the establishment’s apologist: The New York Times.
President Obama, already the target of Tea Party racists (See Nascar boos) from the right, has raised more money from the finance sector than all the Republican presidential candidates—“Cathy’s Clowns”—combined. Ironically, the current President has normalized “torture” for foreigners and Americans alike by continuing the practice—see isolation and detention of super WikiLeaks whistle blower Bradley Manning. By allowing the AG to let the villains, the ones who overturned the Geneva Convention—go scot free, the President has become Pontius Pilate. Domestic spying, the erosion of habeas corpus, and assassination of American citizens abroad—sans due process–indicates that governance by fiat and jackboot accelerates. Our Congressional representatives merely engage in food fights–grabbing what’s left on this table of “inverted totalitarianism” (See Chris Hedges on truthdig.com).
We used to say things like, “Our kind of people (Constitutional lawyers, Beacons of Hope) don’t do that sort of thing.” But they do. In Dante’s “Inferno,” the image of Geryon, represents Fraud: it’s a winged beast with the face of an honest man, the paws of a lion, the body of a dragon, and a poisonous sting on its tail. Mayor Michael Bloomberg of NYC and President Obama are on the same page. “You’ve had your say, get outta my park—go listen to your pop culture icons, the opiates of the masses, on your iPods.”
A reader sent in the following quote from John Adams: “We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Avarice, ambition, revenge or gallantry would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net. Our Constitution is designed only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for any other.”
Below, Taos Friction posts an ancient but once proud American founding document. If you take the time to read it with some imagination, you will understand how far we have fallen from the visionary purpose of the founder’s mission statement. As Jefferson famously said, “every generation needs a revolution.” It is time to renew the covenant and speak plainly to the Orwellian defenders of Corporate Oligarchy and revoke their charters.
For this is the real charter of the American people, the one Abraham Lincoln used to renew the faith, which faith was consecrated in blood during the Civil War and referred to in the “Gettysburg Address.” But, who today, you might ask would have the courage to sign the Declaration of Independence? For surely, as John Hancock said, we shall all hang separately if we don’t hang together.
And in Taos—we hang out to dry.
The Declaration of Independence
IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation: For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us: For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States: For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world: For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent: For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury: For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments: For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic 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.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Yours Truly, Bill Whaley