The End of Greed May Be on the Horizon

Those Who Do Not Remember History

Are Doomed to Represent the Rightist Elite

We have arrived at a point in our history now where the nation that’s still clinging to its former status as a superpower and refusing to move on is appealing to one of military history’s most colossal mistakes, basking in the glory of the act, while forgetting the political and financial consequences for doing so. The 1% elites want glory today, tomorrow, and forever. They want credit for being the heroes, for saving civilization. The irony is that their narrow-mindedness, their embedded lack of perspective, and their superficial view on world events dooms them to be a curse upon their land. Nothing is getting done because of Congress and the President. And what are Congress and the President fighting to defend? One of the worst situations this country has been in for a long time, the triple combination of crises in unemployment, foreclosure, and student loans. The first of these three is an economic issue, while the remaining two are issues of excessive debt due to predatory lending practices. All three exist with the active participation of the US government.

America has spent itself into oblivion, and this series of events – of which the crisis of 2008 was only a part – was engineered by the crooks on Wall Street, the “banksters”, and the multinational corporations. Clearly some serious measures must be taken, there must be criminal prosecution of those responsible, and a total overhaul of America's financial and monetary systems is overdue. So what should be done? That's the problem, progress in this regard has been nearly nonexistent on the part of those who are charged with the task of overseeing it. Want reform of the financial markets? Screw you, we're filibustering. Want Healthcare Reform? Screw you, forty thousand people a year can die so the rest can be charged twice as much as the rest of the world for inferior care. Want jobs? You might as well forget about that, too, they have all been shipped overseas for pennies on the dollar. Ready to retire? Not! Wall St. gambled your retirement away on derivatives and Ponzi schemes, and so far nobody has served one single day. The balances on your 401K and your IRA are hovering at or near zero.

Of course, resisting all this is painted as resisting big government and the military-industrial complex. People like myself, who dare to openly express dissenting views, can be arbitrarily labeled as “domestic terrorists”. When that happens people get locked up without being charged with a crime, and they can be held indefinitely in flagrant violation of the US Constitution. Never mind that America's leaders conduct speaks poorly to their skills as fiscal guardians. The US political establishment needs their dark enemies to highlight their glorious crusades. The problem with that is, the whole darn world is sick and tired of wars, wars that we never wanted to begin with. On the other hand, single payer healthcare – which would essentially be putting everyone on Medicare and eliminating Medicaid – has to be this great evil, socialistic healthcare reform purported to be government taking decisions out of your doctor's hands. All I can say about that is to quote Thomas Jefferson, who said, “The first and primary purpose of any good government should be the safety and the general welfare of its people”.

Never mind the facts. They did this all along during the latter Bush Administration. Everything was about defending what Bush and his Congress were doing, everything was about justifying colossal mistakes. Whether turning a soldier's request for more armor into another chapter in the epic of the mainstream media, lying about the death of Pat Tillman, using Jessica Lynch as a PR stunt, or blaming hurricane Katrina's death toll and the subsequent humanitarian disaster on the victims themselves, or coming up with a million different justifications for outing former CIA asset Valerie Wilson, the Republicans devoted themselves to the task of rationalizing failure on a massive scale.

If I seem angry here, it is a righteous anger, and it reflects the anger of the American public. This is what I've fought against and wrote about for the last several years. I don't want to live in a country where the government exists in an alternate universe, where the politicians are so oblivious to reality. I refuse to live in a country where 99% of the wealth is in the hands of 1% of the population. And I'm not freaking done, not by a long shot! Since I don't have plans to leave this country that I love, I am an unofficial part of the Occupy and 99% Movements, and I write and publish nonfiction books about these movements, US civil rights, human rights worldwide, about economic inequality and how to combat it, and about ending the wars overseas and the drug war here at home. Whether it's me by myself, or millions answering the call around my nation, our goal must be to make the government that runs this country a part of the reality-based community. I'm in favor of a government that is lean, agile and flexible, and it's also time to make government Web-based and paperless, which would result in a tremendous reduction in costs and overhead.

I'm in favor of the current government finally coming to grips with the fact that their policies don't work, and they haven't for many years. They can keep their party affiliation, keep on favoring conservative ideas that trample the poor underfoot, keep on using the US Constitution for a doormat (at least until November's elections) but damn it, what gives them the right to let the whole country go straight to hell just to prove ideological points, or for political jockeying for position? These jokers are more out of touch with America than they've been in years, in no small part due to their failure to put politics aside and deal with a financial emergency with the fortunes of the nation, rather than the fortunes of their party first and foremost, followed by the needs of their political donors and their accompanying armies of lobbyists.

Failure is not an option for me. America's future, and that of its children and grandchildren, is at stake. A government that lets things fail to prove political points is guilty of willful dereliction of duty. A government that justifies failure by making political points is guilty of gross malfeasance in the course of their duties, a potentially impeachable offense, and is not worthy of governing this country. For the last decade, America has been the victim of unwise policies, policies that naively presupposed a willingness for restraint from the financial sector, policies that assumed that perseverance in military campaigns whose very legality is dubious would somehow lead to success. These were people who looked at our economy in the summer of 2008 and said the economy was fundamentally sound, right up until the point where the economic and real estate crashes made the obvious truth unavoidable.

I don't want more government by people who are simply persisting in their policies until events overtake them and make it impossible for them to maintain the status quo. I want people who are adapting to our problems in advance, and allowing the government that flexibility. On the other hand, if the government continues to do nothing but public bickering while engaging in private deal-making in smoke filled rooms, the American populace will be forced to take matters into their own hands. How this situation turns out could depend on the reaction of authorities. The folks in charge need to know that our intentions are peaceful, and that we only wish to take up where Rev. Dr. King left off in April of '68. We intend to maintain that peace even in the face of difficult odds or outside interference. The only exception would be if we were to be attacked by anyone, uniformed or otherwise. In that event we would be forced to fight back. Let's hope it doesn't come to that. We do not seek trouble, only justice.

The last thing this country needs is another decade, or decades, worth of governance from political parties that cannot tell the difference between a defeat and a victory, and who resists all efforts to bring its attentions to the American people's problems. There is at least a recognition among the rank and file that the current situation is not to be tolerated, or cannot be continued. The Charge of the Conservative Light Brigade should end, and this country should be allowed to get back to deciding what the wise thing is for America's 99%, not what is politically convenient and economically profitable to an undignified, money-and-power worshiping 1% minority.

What Would Jesus Protest?

What Would Jesus Protest?

It started in the fall of 2011 as most age-defining movements do, with some unrest and some recognition of what is right and wrong. It started with some people willing to take a stand against rampant injustice. And then some more people join. And then some more. Next time we look it is in another city, then another country. Sweeping across the globe, the civil unrest known as Occupy Wall Street or as the 99% continues to capture the attention of everyone, despite the attempts of the military-industrial complex and their media conglomeration to slander it, discredit it, and lie about it.

By now everyone realizes that there is a “la cosa nostra” of ultra-powerful people that control the vast majority of wealth in this world, beginning with the US. They have spoon-fed us American Idol, pro wrestling and Dancing With the Stars while sneaking around behind our backs tampering with our voting rights, stealing elections, repealing sensible regulations designed to protect us, and enacting laws totally in favor of the rich – and all this occurred as the 1% shipped all our jobs overseas for pennies on the dollar. There can be no question that their goal is the redistribution of wealth and consolidation of power to the 1% elite while squeezing the once proud middle class into the new working poor caste. You can already hear the screams of "class warfare!" The problem is we didn't start the war, they did. The same ones screaming “class warfare” the loudest are the ones who are waging the war.

Apparently when the Occupy Wall St. movement first started it didn't register with the power elite. They couldn't possibly fathom America's outrage. In their arrogance, they simply didn't comprehend that people had caught on to the illegal Ponzi schemes, crooked midnight deals and winner-take-all financial piracy of the money-worshiping top 1%. But since OWS and “the 99%” have gone viral in the social and political fabric of America, the 1% have begun frantically looking for ways to neutralize the movement, but they were already too late. So the next thing they did was to criminalized it, orchestrating mass arrests. They tried to intimidate the protesters and occupiers by sending in their police squads in full riot gear with pepper spray but that backfired on them too as it only served to garner more sympathy for the cause. Next up was an attempt to mock the group and pretend they were somehow uneducated and clueless about why they were protesting at all. That has backfired as well, as OWS has generated considerable interest from some very smart people.

Turns out that OWS and “the 99%” know exactly why they are protesting. People everywhere are arriving at the same conclusion – correctly, by the way – that it is financial suicide to go into hock for $100,000 to get a Bachelors Degree only to be offered jobs that require a paper hat when they graduate. They become furious when they see billionaires with golden parachutes getting bailed out while their parents are getting evicted. They are vehemently opposed to an economic and educational system that is only available to those who have enough money to pay. They have already read the 2011 United Nations Resolution stating that Internet access is a basic human right, and that denying Web access to anyone due to their inability to pay is a human rights violation at best, and a criminal act at worst. They already see capitalism for what it is – an economy based on plunder and conquest at home and abroad. They see all the homeless people on the street while entire neighborhoods are littered with abandoned houses that represent the shattered dreams of countless families, some of whom are now living in shelters or with relatives because there is no where else for them to go. They see all the school teachers, fire fighters and police officers who continue to get laid off so the country can have more for the top 1%, and so they can have more money for pointless foreign wars. They do not think that 1% of the population should control 99% of the wealth in this country -- and they are absolutely right.

So what would Jesus protest? Would Jesus protest merciless treatment of the neediest people? He already has:

“Then, with the crowds listening, he turned to his disciples and said, 'Beware of these teachers of religious law! For they like to parade around in flowing robes and love to receive respectful greetings as they walk in the marketplaces. And how they love the seats of honor in the synagogues and the head table at banquets. Yet they shamelessly cheat widows out of their property and then pretend to be pious by making long prayers in public. Because of this, they will be severely punished." (Luke 20: 45-47, NLT)

The Occupy and 99% Movements are all about the least fortunate of us, and it is these very people who want their lives back. They have lost jobs, careers, homes (some of which had been paid on monthly for years or even decades), savings, pensions and even their health. Economic inequality reigns supreme across our land, and the misery that it has spawned threatens to grow into revolution in American streets (cue “Revolution” by the Beatles).

Throughout the Bible the number one theme after Christ's salvation is taking care of the least in society. Jesus said that if we want to be considered religious, then we are to look after the welfare of widows and orphans. “Whatsoever you do for the very least of my brethren, that you do for me”, and this nugget of wisdom holds as much meaning today as when those words were uttered by Jesus 2,000 years ago. The divine truth of human equality that He illustrated with that verse is something that has yet to be fulfilled, and it's our fault. Human equality was a radical notion in the time of Christ, and most churches leave out of their teaching this revolutionary aspect of His ministry. So long as racial and ethnic hatred persist, equality cannot flourish.

I am painfully aware that some conservative writers are apparently in love with the New Testament verse that says a man who will not work shall not eat, presumably in reference to strikers, protesters and “occupiers”, but they are forgetting the original context of that verse:

“Even while we were with you, we gave you this command: "Those unwilling to work will not get to eat." Yet we hear that some of you are living idle lives, refusing to work and meddling in other people's business. We command such people and urge them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and work to earn their own living. As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good. Take note of those who refuse to obey what we say in this letter. Stay away from them so they will be ashamed. Don't think of them as enemies, but warn them as you would a brother or sister.” (2Thessalonians 3: 10-15, NLT)

The context reveals that these verses do not apply to the OWS/99% people. These verses deal with lazy people who simply don't want to work. The people protesting want to work and can't find jobs, that is why they are protesting! You may be of the opinion that the protesters are "lazy" or somehow not trying hard enough but I have actually been through what these protesters are experiencing. I know what it's like to see a 23-year career evaporate, and to not be able to find enough work to sustain oneself. I know what it's like to wind up homeless through no fault of my own, and I have personally experienced how homelessness, even for relatively short periods of time as was in my case, can and will literally ruin one's health. Like these multitudes of others, I too can attest to how brutal it is out there. The true unemployment rate is very likely in excess of 20%. The jobs being offered have absurdly low wages that are simply not enough to live on, come with no health insurance, and are often temporary or part time.

The other truth revealed from the context of these verses however is how we should be acting. The apostle Paul does not say that we should treat these people with contempt, lie about them, or sneer at them. He does not say they should only help those who can afford to pay. Instead, we should be doing for others what we would have them do for us. We must treat others the way we want to be treated. We must love our neighbor as ourselves. He says we should treat them not as enemies but to warn them as if they were a brother or sister.

“Though you offer many prayers, I will not listen, for your hands are covered with the blood of innocent victims. Wash yourselves and be clean! Get your sins out of my sight. Give up your evil ways. Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows. -- Isaiah 1: 15-17 (NLT)

What God is saying here is to check your hands before raising them to Him to see whose blood you have on them. Give up your sins. Learn to do good. And then what does the Lord say is doing good? Seeking justice. Helping the oppressed. Defending the cause and fighting for the rights of the needy. If you really and truly think that there is no injustice in our current system then you have no heart, never mind your soul. If you honestly do not believe that there is oppression for the lowest in our society today then I advise you to stop watching Fox News. There is a world out there and it is really hurting.

The people at OWS want social and economic justice. They want the same thing God speaks about throughout the entire Bible. They want the same thing Jesus taught about. Once Christ told a parable about the Good Samaritan. Most of us know the story. A man is mugged essentially and left for dead on the street. He is passed over by a Temple assistant and a priest. But a Samaritan stopped and helped him, bandaged him, and paid for him to recover at a nearby inn. But the context of this parable is the point. Jesus told it because He was asked the question -- "who is my neighbor?" The Samaritan was chosen as the hero of this story by Jesus because there was much hatred towards them by the Jewish people then. Who is my neighbor? I think this is the question we need to ask ourselves every day. We need to ask it when we hear the hate merchants on TV and radio trying to stir up our darker side. We need to ask it when we think that we know the motives of people we never even met. We need to ask it when we start to use God to defend things He obviously would never defend. Jesus finishes the Parable of the Good Samaritan with these words:

"Now which of these three would you say was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by bandits?" Jesus asked. The man replied, "The one who showed him mercy." Then Jesus said, "Yes, now go and do the same." (Luke 10: 36-37, NLT)

As far as the teacher of law that asked the initial question here was concerned, only fellow Jews were his neighbor. Anyone else was not looked upon the same way. We have that same spirit infecting this country too. The other side is presented only for the purpose of blame and hatred. Those who find themselves on the right look upon the OWS crowd negatively because they are not their neighbors to them. They are somehow unworthy of mercy. They are somehow to blame not only for their own plight, but for the plight of the country as a whole. God requires something from us and He spelled it out very plainly in the Old Testament: “No, O people, the Lord has told you what is good, and this is what he requires of you: to do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6: 8, NLT)

The world sells various shades of gray to hide the truth, spinning it and disguising it as it goes. The truth is that if somehow you think Jesus would support a system where over 40 million people are homeless while the ultra rich clothe their dogs, then I suggest that maybe you do not understand what "doing what is right" truly means. If you think that Jesus would support a system where 16,000 children die every day from hunger while the world's top 1% gets richer and fatter, then I am not so sure that you understand the concept of loving mercy. Not just being merciful – really loving mercy and walking humbly with your God. I want you to think the next time someone is trying to sell you on the notion that the OWS and “the 99%” people are this or that. It makes me wonder what their motivation is for saying such things. If you have the snooty opinion that the OWS and “99%” folks are lazy, fine. If you have the social opinion that they should go home and find a job, fine, but have any of you tried to find a job lately? Brothers and sisters, those are nowhere near being Christian arguments. They are most definitely not Biblical arguments – and they are devoid of any compassion, any mercy, or any humility. What will we do to help all these people? What have we done lately to help each other? Because in the end, that's all that really counts.

The Folly of Afghanistan

Taking A Stand Against War

“No nation ever profited from a long war.” – Sun Tzu

Today's commentary is about the ongoing and undeclared war in Afghanistan and the fact that no good is apparently coming from it. As far as I am concerned, no Christian can be a true follower of Christ unless they are willing to take a stand against war in all its forms. In order to worship the Prince of Peace you must first and foremost be a peaceful person yourself. You cannot be warlike and then worship Christ in the same breath, the two are incompatible with one another. War is about killing and being killed. It is bloody and gory beyond description. It is so bad that even those who survive the conflict are often left with mental scars that never heal. Thousands of veterans are homeless today partly because they suffer from mental illnesses of one kind or another. In fact, one out of five veterans of the Iraq war #1, Iraq war #2, and Afghanistan campaigns return home with psychiatric disabilities so severe that they will never work again. That's what war does to people.

Here's a statistic about the illegal occupation of Afghanistan that most people are barely aware of: $57,000.00 per minute. That's how much money the United States is spending on the illegal occupation of Afghanistan. That works out to a million dollars a year for each man we have in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan War has been going on for eleven years and counting. Nearly 100,000 American troops are currently deployed there. More than 2,000 American service members have lost their lives there. The United States has wasted billions on the effort so far. Yet polling suggests that the war in Afghanistan is barely a blip on the public's radar.

In a nationwide New York Times/CBS News poll conducted last year, 60 percent of Americans said that the economy or jobs were the most important problems facing the country. A mere 3 percent mentioned Afghanistan or the war. The war is all but forgotten while death and destruction grinds on. For example, in September, at the NATO hospital doctors amputated a major limb – a leg or arm – an average of once every other day according to Navy Capt. Michael Mullins, a hospital spokesman. The number of civilian dead and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan stands in the hundreds of thousands. The cost of the Iraq war alone is likely to be more than three trillion dollars.

The National Security Advisor says there are less than 100 Al Qaeda operatives in Afghanistan and we have over 100,000 troops and probably as many mercenaries chasing them. Maintaining one American soldier in Afghanistan for one year costs one million dollars. This expenditure could be for twenty jobs at home with a salary of $50,000 each. There are now over 90,000 battlefield casualties from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars. Over 500,000 veterans patients from the two wars (not counting Iraq #1) have flooded into VA hospitals and clinics. That's one new war casualty walking into a VA medical facility every five minutes of every day – about 9,000 new patients every month with no end in sight.

The Iraqis still don't have a real government and Christians are being ethnically cleansed. 190,000 AK-47s handed out by the US Army to Iraqi security force recruits vanished and wound up in the hands of militants. Afghani soldiers may be shooting our own troops! The total D.O.D. budget for the current fiscal year is over $700 billion. It is an amount just under what the entire rest of the world spends for defense and most of them are allies. America's defense budget is about three times the combined budgets of China, Russia, Cuba, North Korea, and Iran. The Defense Department spends in a few hours more than al Qaeda spends in an entire year. For this post-World War II high in spending, we get the smallest Army, Navy, and Air Force we have had since 1946. And, our tanks, ships, and aircraft are, on average, older than they have ever been before.

The Pentagon budget does not include what we pay for foreign aid, arms sales and arms control, Veterans, Homeland Security, the Pentagon's share of interest on the national debt, and other defense expenditures like nuclear weapons that are hidden in the energy department. To tally up our entire national security budget, we are cozy with $1 trillion. How many jobs could this wasteful spending that is bankrupting America generate?

How many indeed! What a beautiful world it would be if there were no more wars, and all the money that was formerly spent on them was redirected towards peaceful pursuits for the advancement of science and medicine, and for the exploration, commercialization and eventual colonization of the moon and planets. Meanwhile back on earth, everybody would get a free college education, national health care and senior care and there would be gleaming new infrastructure everywhere. There would be a vigorous space program that will put the first city on the moon and the first man on Mars. There would be no more disease in the third world because everybody would have access to fresh water. Untold millions could be fed, and all with the money that used to be spent on wars. Just think of the limitless possibilities!

Let's look at this another way. If the US military took all the money spent in one single day on its wartime expenditures and put it into a savings account, there would be enough funds to pay for the college education of every school kid in America from pre-K through high school – tuition, books, dorms, food, transportation and a new portable PC. Let me give you another example. The money in our hypothetical bank account from one day's military expenditures would be sufficient to take every homeless person in America off the street and put them into a 2,500 square foot house – fully furnished, stocked with groceries, and with all utilities included. And yes, I meant they would own the home free and clear. Hopefully that puts into focus the obscene amount of money our country is spending on wars overseas.

So what could America do with all that money currently being squandered on illegal military occupations and endless wars that serve only the top one tenth of one percent of the American corporate establishment? First and most obvious is the dire need to rebuild America's infrastructure, such as widening and repaving roads, rebuilding or replacing worn out bridges, and ditto for sewage and drainage systems across the country. Then there is the problem with America's ramshackle power grid. The US electrical power grid is based on technology that is over 125 years old. Certain people have been too busy resting on their laurels and depositing their paychecks instead of doing their jobs, otherwise this critically necessary rebuild would already be well under way. In point of fact, America needs to convert to a digital low-voltage direct-current power grid that can be run far more cheaply than the existing 110 volt grid. Remember, the higher the voltage required, the more current is necessary to generate it. So, if electricity in your area comes from a coal-fired power plant, your utilities company will only need to generate about 20% of the power needed for the existing high-voltage AC system to run the new one. Also, let's not forget the fact that any one of the above public works projects would create hundreds of thousands of jobs.

So now you can see that being a Christian is not about being a nice person or going to church. Being a good Christian means being anti-war to the point of refusing to serve in the military. It means being in favor of free college education, free health care, plus free day care and senior care for everybody without qualification. Make all of the above fundamental human rights for everyone, not just for those who have large sums of cash or stellar credit scores. War does irreparable harm, but being Christian – or at least being a decidedly peaceful person – does everybody tremendous good. Make a commitment to yourself and to God today to stand against war and to be in favor of world peace. Our only other choice is annihilation.

The New American Declaration of Independence

Legally Rejecting The Federal Government

This independence day is a good time to re-post this 2011 essay on the Declaration of Independence, its relevance to the plight of 21^st century Americans, and its roots in Christianity. Today's commentary is taken from my 2011 book “The Middle and Working Class Manifesto”, the book that accurately predicted the start-up of the Occupy Wall St. and 99% Movements throughout the US while making a small but significant contributions to both these movements by helping to define the goals and aspirations of each. It is closely modeled after the original Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson in the pivotal summer of 1776, with updated language and a volatile description of the criminal activity, class warfare based on enforced inequality, and sinister manipulations being perpetrated by the US government against the American people. 

 

The New American Declaration of Independence

When in the course of human history it becomes necessary for the American People to dissolve the political bands which have connected them to the existing political system, and to assume among the powers of the Earth the unconditional equality to which the laws of God and of nature entitle them, a decent respect to the unconditional rights, stated as civil rights issues, as well as the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all mankind is created with an unconditional equality, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness in a clean, nurturing and peaceful environment. In order to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men and women, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, to such an extent that whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it becomes the right of the American people to alter or abolish it and to institute a new American government of Direct Democracy, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form so as to seem to the American people to be most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence dictates that governments long established should not be changed for whimsical or transient reasons. The American people have for a long time suffered through hard economic times even though these hard times have been unbearable, out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty, maintaining a peaceful servant's heart rather than revolt against the injustice that surrounds them. 

 

But when a long series of civil and human rights violations, illegal and immoral usurping of power and other abuses by those who the American people have entrusted to govern reveals a premeditated plan to reduce the American people to poverty so that a certain elite may rule by political and economic domination in such a way that bypasses or neutralizes the law of our land, the United States Constitution, it is their fundamental human right and their duty as American citizens to throw off such a government, and to provide anew for their future security through the establishment of a new but very small, Internet-based, paperless and interactive Direct Democracy that will be designed to replace the old federal republic. Such has been the patient suffering the citizens of the 50 states and other American territories, and this suffering has become the mother of necessity which forces and compels us to alter our current system of government. The history of current and recent presidential administrations is an example of a history of civil rights abuses, gross economic inequalities and other usurpation of power with the prime objective of having absolute control over the US economy and its people while gradually having increased limitations on our Constitutional rights. To prove this, let certain facts be made known to a formerly free America regarding the Federal Government of the United States.

The List of Charges Against the Federal Government

The US government has refused to pass laws that provide for the common good of American citizens and legally residing foreign nationals. Instead, it has passed laws allowing domestic spying against US citizens without a warrant from a judge in direct violation of the fourth amendment.

The US government has utterly neglected to exercise due diligence to governing and to the welfare of its people, by allowing a national debt to accrue that is well in excess of $14 trillion dollars, by allowing through gross negligence an imbalance of foreign trade that has exceeded another $10 trillion dollars, so that through enormous amounts of deficit spending and economic malfeasance the US government is effectively bankrupt.

The US government has refused to pass laws making the USA energy independent, and instead have used their connections in the global petroleum industry as well as unsavory alliances from overseas, to solidify the stranglehold that the oil industry has throughout the world, compromising the national security of the United States of America.

The US government has called the legislature, or allowed it to be called, at unusual hours and uncomfortable times in order to fatigue Congress into compliance with regard to passing numerous legislative measures, usually without giving our Congressional representatives time to read the legislation they are voting on. The sole purpose of forcing this kind of legislation through Congress is for the aggrandizement of certain deeply embedded special interests from the American political, corporate, financial and business establishments.

The US government has harassed, intimidated, prosecuted and convicted innocent American citizens for their opposing with firmness and conviction the federal assault on the fundamental rights of “we the people” as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States by arresting and holding in solitary confinement certain individuals who have exposed certain high crimes and misdemeanors to the media, and especially to the Internet.

The US government has been criminally negligent to defend the borders of the United States, on our shores, on the north, or on the south, from the dangers of invasion from without, from the dangers of terrorist infiltration, and also from illegal immigration and imported workers that eliminates many possible job opportunities for working Americans. In the meantime, the US government wages an economic and/or class war against the American middle and working classes, and also against the poor, from within America's borders instead, in the misguided belief that he who governs best governs absolutely in a flagrant violation of the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

The US government has erected a multitude of new offices in the form of a huge and prohibitively expensive federal bureaucracy without the consent or approval of the American people. It has sent out swarms of armed officers and undercover operatives whose sole purpose of existence is to harass, spy upon, intimidate, shake down and rough up unarmed American citizens while enforcing their existence through the illegal collection of unjust taxes and by the illegal diversion of fines and seizures collected through the judicial system. 

The US government has kept standing armies among us, even in times of peace, while outlawing the formation of armed local militias and prosecuting its members, whose right to existence is guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The US government has made the US military independent of and superior to formal civilian authority through the creation of a vast military-industrial complex, and has militarized police forces throughout the US for the sole express purpose of compromising or outright elimination of our Constitutional rights.

The US government has conspired with certain fanatical elements within it to subject the American people to a legal jurisdiction foreign to the US constitution by way of a presidential assassination in November 1963, in a way that is unacknowledged by US laws, while engaging in foreign wars that are contrary to the best interests of the American people:

For shielding US troops and certain “contractors” from prosecution for any murders and other war crimes that were committed while engaged in illegal occupations of certain countries against the civilian population of the country being invaded:

For creating an unsustainable US foreign trade deficit well in excess of $10 trillion dollars:

For allowing a US national debt that has exceeded $14 trillion dollars through massive and irresponsible deficit spending:

For imposing federal income taxes on the American people without their consent instead of a far more equitable national sales tax:

For depriving the American people of the benefit to a speedy trial by jury as it is guaranteed by the 5^th and 6^th amendments to the Constitution of the United States.

For allowing the transport of US citizens overseas without the benefit of due process in order to be tried for certain unproven crimes in foreign countries:

For failing to enforce US boundaries to the point of dereliction of duty on the part of those who are charged with US border security:

For altering fundamentally the form of US government by allowing a former democracy that operated within the auspices of a US federal republic to be changed into a federal government that operates within the auspices of corporate America, the politically well-connected, the US military-industrial complex, and all their armies of lobbyists:

The elected US government has violated its oath of office by waging domestic economic and class warfare against “we the people”.

The US government has allowed the cost of a higher education to become out of reach for the majority of working Americans, effectively neutralizing opportunities for US citizens to improve themselves and to better provide for themselves and their families.

In the same vein, the US government has allowed a pattern of predatory lending to those fortunate individuals who are able to afford higher education, to the point that these same persons find themselves under the enormous weight of student loans that take decades to repay, if they can be repaid at all.

The US government has endangered the health and welfare of the majority of working Americans by allowing the cost of health care to become out of reach for over 50 million of its citizens.

The US government has compromised the wealth and long-term security of working Americans by allowing predatory lending practices that have resulted in a mortgage crisis of unprecedented proportions, resulting in the loss of millions of homes to foreclosure.

The US government has compromised the retirement savings of millions of working and retired Americans by allowing malfeasance, gross negligence, theft, fraud and incompetence to thrive in US financial markets, and by failing to adequately fund Social Security and Medicare, and by failing to monitor those companies that market and underwrite pensions and other similar retirement and related insurance plans.

The US government has failed to protect American jobs by allowing mass illegal immigration, the mass importation of workers from the Third World, and by allowing the mass out-sourcing of good American jobs to the Third World for pennies on the dollar.

The US government has neglected its states, cities and towns, as well as its infrastructure, and it has devastated the lives of its people by allowing the entire country to be ruined with debt.

The US government is, at this time, transporting armies of US troops and paid mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, cruelty and tyranny already begun under dubious circumstances through the deception of the American people and in such a way that circumvented the US Constitution. The illegal and questionable occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, plus the hundreds of unnecessary US military bases located in numerous foreign countries are actions that are totally contrary to the acts of a nation that purports to be the leader of the free world.

The US government has threatened to re-institute the military draft so as to compel America's youth to continue fighting these unlawful wars that is bankrupting our great country by spending over $60 billion dollars per month on wars and unneeded foreign military bases that few Americans are in favor of.

The US government threatens to excite civil insurrections among the American people by creating a class system of people who are either wealthy or poor, with few if any other persons in between. This ticking time bomb of inequality threatens to explode across the American political and economic landscape with devastating results if something isn't done to alleviate this injustice.

The Conclusion of The Matter

In every stage of this repression, mass manipulation and control, the American people have tried repeatedly to address these injustices by voting new Congressional representatives into office to replace the incumbents who were perceived as being part of the problem. The American people's voting for newer and better leadership has only resulted in poorer quality of leadership, which is exactly the opposite of the intended effect of American voting. An utterly corrupt US government, whose character is so like that of every act that defines a merciless tyrant, is therefore unfit to be the leader of the free world. 

 

From time to time “we the people” have tried to warn the US legislature about their extension of an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them that we address them as united Americans. We appeal to the federal government in its sense of justice and magnanimity as we disavow these civil rights abuses and other unconstitutional abuses of power. The US government has been deaf to the voices of reason and justice, and it has been blind to the red-blooded relationship of all Americans. We must therefore come together as a corporate body of US citizens in the necessity of this New American Declaration of Independence, uniting with the rest of mankind while standing against the tyranny that the US government has become. War has been declared against the US middle and working classes by the rich and politically powerful, and “we the people” will do whatever it takes to take back our country. We, the American people, will stand for this abuse no more.

We, therefore, the people of the United States of America, in general Congress assembled of our own free will due to the total lack of confidence in any currently elected US president or Congress, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World (knowing that He sees all our good intentions) do, in the name of all the good people of these 50 United States and its territories, solemnly publish and declare that the population of the United States is, and of a right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT PEOPLE OF A NEW UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, that they are all absolved of allegiance to the federal government as it currently exists, and that all political connection between them and the federal government is and ought to be totally dissolved. Furthermore, as independent states free of the jurisdiction and influence of the current federal government, they have the full power to organize armed militias, maintain the peace, establish commerce, mint their own coin currency, administer education and public health and levy local taxes provided that the citizens support it. As for the support of this New American Declaration of Independence, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to one another our lives, our fortunes and possessions, our honor and respect.

Respectfully yours on behalf of the American people,

Rev. Paul J. Bern

Author's note: I have since released another book about the impending revolution in America that is simply the best and most comprehensive book about the Occupy Wall St. and the 99% Movements published so far. Titled, “Occupying America: We Shall Overcome”, this book chronicles the history of the Occupy and 99% Movements, it contains extensive reporting and commentary on where these movements are headed, and the book ends with a prediction of mass civil unrest in America in 2012 and beyond if something isn't done soon to relieve mass unemployment and epidemic foreclosures that are ongoing. Get your advance copy today, it's only $14.95 plus shipping, and it's a great read. Shalom.