As we all observe with stunning detachment the symbiotic continuance of Bush-Obama Democratic-Republican support to the Wall Street looting of America led by Goldman Sachs, whose executives continue to “own” the Department of the Treasury and the Bank of New York (Federal Reserve), I believe it helpful to itemize some legitimate grievances that could inspire State by State nullification of federal mandates and regulations, and perhaps a few secessions, with Cascadia, Vermont, Hawaii, and Alaska being well positioned to abandon a compact that no longer serves the United STATES of America, nor We the People.
I am indebted to Kirkpatrick Sale, author of Human Scale and founder of the Middlebury Institute, for teaching me about the urgency and relevance of the secessionist movements, and the detailed reflections that they have published, reflections that I point to here for the common good.
LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES (Domestic)
The Chattanooga Declaration of 2007 (7 Points)
Core Point: Liberty can only survive if political power is returned from the banks and corporations that have corrupted the federal government, to local communities and States. The American Empire is no longer a nation or a republic, but has become a tyrant aggressive abroad and despotic at home.
The Burlington Declaration of 2006 (5 points)
Core Point: Any political entity has the right to separate itself from a larger body of which it is a part and peaceably to establish its independence as a free and legitimate state in the eyes of the world. Governments are instituted among peoples, deriving their just powers power from the consent of the governed, and whenever any form of government becomes destructive of the legitimate goals of life, liberty, prosperity, and self-determination, it is the right of the people in democratic fashion to aleter or abolish it, and to institute new government in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
The Logic of Secession: Three Tines to a Trident (A Manifesto by Kirkpatrick Sale)
Core Point: In the face of a rigged game in which two parties have conspired to corrupt, manipulate, and generally monopolize power, third party politics will not work. Only secession will allow for the emergence of a restored Republic once the federal government and its two-party tyranny are made irrelevant (and starved of revenue).
In Defense of Vermont's Secession from the Union (A Manifesto by Keith Brunner)
Core Point: Vermont was its own country before it joined the Union, and nothing in the Constitution of the United STATES of America precludes secession from this voluntary compact [Lincoln violated the Constitution in multiple ways, most Americans simply have not learned the truth of the matter]. The American Empire is economically, politically, cultural, and especially environmentally unsustainable, and far from fixing itself, is just getting worse. When a government of people who have no moral authority are in the possession of enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many times over, in the position to dominate the global economy for their own interests, and continually and foolishly pace the needs of the “economic system” above the needs of the natural world, the time for action cannot be put off any longer.
LEGITIMATE GRIEVANCES (Anti-Americanism)
In sound support of the above, I have itemized a list of the behaviors and conditions that have inspired anti-Americanism. Each is, without exception, a betrayal of the public trust and grounds for abolishing the present political criminal enterprise that has hijacked the federal government and the public treasury on behalf of its banking and corporate masters. Each of these high crimes and misdemeanors justifying impeachment is derived from one or more works on non-fiction.
- A harvest of lies and a complete lack of intelligence
- Always, without exception, failure to invest in peace in the aftermath of war
- Axis of Evil #1: poverty, disease, and ignorance
- Axis of Evil #2: US support for 42 of 44 dictators, idiocy on the other two (Cuba, North Korea)
- Blind to the inevitable “coming home” of all sources of pestilence overseas.
- Blind to the reality that our run is over–what matters now is how we influence Brazil and China and India
- Blindly accepting of the Treaty of Westphalia and the artificial concept of political sovereignty
- Blindly characterizing terrorists as irresponsible, when they tend to be middle-class and educated
- Blindly ignorant of the rich tapestry of cultural, tribal, and family networks across all boundaries
- Callous indifference to impact of sanctions on infants and the poor
- Contracting (out-sourcing) of covert intelligence and paramilitary and subversion functions
- Excessive faith in hard power–military force–without respect for soft power–all else
- Explicit preference for dictators over humanity
- Foreign operations “hatched on the fly, delivered at random, and operating without instruction”
- Historically, a “web of deceit” and a “legacy of ashes” as the twin attributes of US foreign policy
- Historically, a bone-headed blindness to the costs of war at home in lost education, trade, etc.
- Historically, allowed corporations to become powers unto themselves
- Historically, allowed corporations to commoditize people and ignore social obligations
- Historically, consistent willingness to send the poor to war without regard to merits of the war
- Historically, from the Native Americans to American colonialism, no regard for indigenous peoples
- Historically, myopic (and often uneducated) US leaders have exaggerated external threats
- Historically, no accountability to the public for incompetence, hubris, and criminal misbehavior
- Historically, no moral qualms about ignoring or enabling the murder of millions
- Historically, US leaders have believed they (the elite) can make policy without regard to public
- Historically, US leaders have enjoyed secrecy as a means of deceiving their own public
- Historically, US leaders have favored pragmatism of the moment over long-term values
- Historically, US leaders have felt privileged to lie to the public as a means to a “higher” end
Historically, US leaders have given Israel excessive favor without regard to Palestinian merits - Historically, US opposed wars of national liberation because Soviets were on humanity's side
- Historically, US spawned Islamic fascism and radicalism against communism
- Ideology consistently triumphs over ideas, in part because the debate is secret, not public
- Ignorance of reality including true costs of war
- Intellectually impoverished appreciation for the role of morality and legitimacy in foreign affairs
- Naiveté makes our humanitarian interventions part of the problem, fostering corruption & crime
- No inter-agency operational oversight and orchestration
- No inter-agency planning, programming, and budgeting
- Oblivious to the fact that we have used terrorism as a tactic throughout our history, as has Israel
- Oil has been a narcotic, an addiction, which has addled our brains and led to very bad behaviors
- Perennial refusal to craft a grand strategy or do cost-benefit analysis–bravado instead of brains
- Pervasive ignorance of both foreign history and foreign cultures at the tribal level
- Refusal to engage with dissident groups
- Separation of church and state has gone too far, role of morality and values absent from state
- Too willing to take Embassy and media reports at face value, even though third hand in nature
- Too willing to take foreign government assurances at face value, with no eyes actually on target
- War as a profit-making enterprise that enriches the few at cost to the many
- Wrong leaders, wrong strategy, wrong military (says Robert S. McNamara)
<strong>What is to be done?</strong>
I personally do not favor secession, but I do favor the use of secession as the legitimate non-violent alternative if the present Administration refuses to sponsor Electoral Reform (1 Page, 9 Points).
I am acutely aware of the degree to which civil society advocacy movements are “invested” in the two-party tyranny. They fear what they do not know and they fear the loss of the tiny hand-outs they have received from the interchangeable two parties. All of my experience suggests that the existing political and financial systems are not going to “improve” or ever achieve a prosperous world at peace. We need to change the game and unrig the system.
I also favor the creation of a Big Bat for We the People that funds public intelligence in the public interest, a public policy institute, and a public budget office, all of which can be used to confront our errant federal government with truth as an antidote to the fraud, waste, and abuse that now characterizes virtually every piece of legislation, every federal regulation, and most federal behavior.
We the People have legitimate grievances that have not been addressed for close to thirty years, since the capture of the government by corporations and banks beginning in 1981. Neither violence nor the confiscation of ill-gotten gains will do. Instead, We the People must create our own form of self-governance, one that is immune to corruption and exploitation from above, one that enables the creation of Infinite Wealth,Wealth of Networks, Wealth of Knowledge, Revolutionary Wealth, Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid. This is called Epoch B leadership and is emergent. We can create a web of participatory democracy, moral capitalism, and infinite wealth that embraces, nurtures, and empowers the five billion poor with immediate access to what I hope will be a vibrant World Brain and Global Game that ends “rule by secrecy” and the abuse of the public. I know how to do this–the challenge is getting enough sane people to “get it” in time to avoid a global train wreck.
Obama has a choice, and he appears to have made that choice: he is sticking with the two-party tyranny and the rigged financial and political co-conspiracy that is an absolute betrayal of his Oath taken upon his inauguration. He is impeachable–he can also be ignored….or he can make a choice and be empowered. None of these are choices I can make–the first is Obama's alone, and the latter for to be derived from the Collective Intelligence of the awakening public.
Phi Beta Iota: Drawn from the chapter by this title in ELECTION 2008: Lipstick on the Pig (Earth Intelligence Network, 2008), the above extracts were rejected for publication by a national electronic newspaper that is left of center, with the observation that secession was over the top for them. We respect their right to censor what appears in their online newspaper, but this makes them no better than the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Los Angeles Times, all of which have lost touch with investigative journalism and therefore reality. The truth is not disloyal, and one could go so far as to say that avoidance of the truth is treason–certainly a betrayal of the public trust. E Veritate Potens–From the Truth, We the People are Made Powerful. On this we stand firm. Truth is the Bunker Hill of the 21st Century digital landscape.
