100 Days to Restore the Constitution: Assessment

The First 100 Days of the Obama Administration: Small Glimmers of Hope, but Little Real Change

The first 100 days of the Obama administration presented a historic opportunity to restore the Constitution after the Bush administration’s systematic attempts to dismantle it, right by right, while ignoring international human rights standards. Yet, despite several strong steps, the Obama presidency has failed to live up to its promises in many areas of critical importance, including human rights, torture, rendition, secrecy and surveillance.

In the 2008 elections, the people of the United States resoundingly rejected the Bush administration legacy of torture, warrantless surveillance and a seemingly endless expansion of executive power under the rubric of the “war on terror.” What remained to be seen, however, was the political willingness and commitment of the Obama administration to not only promise hope and change, but to take concrete action to free the United States, its people and the world of the attacks on civil liberties and other human rights over the past 8 years – and beyond – and to restore the Constitution and the freedoms and rights it promises.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is committed to a vision of social justice that requires resolute action to restore and expand the Constitution. The Center has taken action accordingly – from its numerous legal cases challenging attacks on dissent, unlawful detention, extraordinary rendition, torture and other abuses, to its advocacy and education work addressing those same issues – in order to support existing movements and build a national movement for change.

In its first 100 days, the Obama administration has not lived up to its promises of hope and change. The record is contradictory and shows the critical task that lies ahead if we are to push this administration to honor those promises.

The future will judge the Obama administration based on how it handles these challenges. The president must initiate a significant rollback of executive power, far greater than that so far embraced by the administration, and hold high level Bush officials accountable for the crimes they committed.

The intention of this report on the first 100 days of the Obama administration – tracked against CCR’s 100 Days goals for President Obama – is to assess where it has made progress and where it has merely paused or even sustained Bush policies and to provide a guide to moving real change forward. The Obama administration can indeed fulfill its promise – by creating a historic precedent for the rule of law, reestablishing the Constitution and clearly acknowledging – despite 8 years of assertions of imperial power – that presidential power does not include automatic immunity for criminal acts.

Prosecutions and Accountability: Incomplete

	Positive: Releasing the Torture Memos
	Incomplete: Holding the Torturers Accountable

Perhaps one of the most pressing challenges facing the new administration in its first 100 days has been the question of prosecutions and accountability for former Bush administration officials who broke the law. While the Obama administration released key memoranda proving Bush administration officials’ and attorneys’ direct involvement in the creation, authorization and implementation of torture and war crimes, most public statements by President Obama and other administration officials have focused on “moving forwards” and avoiding “retribution.” The vast amount of public information pointing to criminal activity committed by high level government officials compels the Obama administration to fully and transparently investigate and hold those responsible accountable to the fullest extent of the law – not to put the issue aside. For both victims of torture and the people of the United States, moving forward means prosecuting those who committed serious crimes in order to ensure justice for victims and a permanent end to the legacy of the Bush administration’s approval of torture.

Take Action

Call for the Impeachment of Torture Architect Jay Bybee: ccrjustice.org/get-involved/action/impeach-torture-architect-jay-bybee, and call for the appointment of a special prosecutor to initiate criminal investigations into the actions of Bush administration officials.

Ending Torture: An Unfinished Promise

	Positive: Mandating compliance with the Geneva Conventions through Executive Order
	Negative: Keeping torture loopholes open in the Army Field Manual

President Obama’s January 22, 2009 executive orders mandating compliance with the Geneva Conventions and abolishing the “torture memos” of the Bush administration – as well as ordering the closure of Guantánamo within one year and shuttering CIA black sites – were a tremendous step forward. The reality of detainees’ continuing treatment today, however, and the persistence of Bush-era torture techniques added to the Army Field Manual in Appendix M, make ending torture an unfinished promise.

Take Action

Close the Torture Loopholes in the Army Field Manual: ccrjustice.org/get-involved/action/close-torture-loopholes-army-field-manual.

Ending Unlawful Detention and Extraordinary Rendition: Early Hopes Fading Fast

	Positive: Shuttering the CIA Black Sites and ordering the closure of Guantánamo
	Incomplete: Holding the Military Commissions on “Pause” for 120 days
	Negative: Defending Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan as a new prison outside the law

President Obama issued key executive orders on January 22, 2009, addressing unlawful detention and extraordinary rendition. The orders called for the closure of the prison camp at Guantánamo within one year and ordered CIA “black sites” and detention facilities to be shuttered. The same executive order that established the Army Field Manual as the guideline for interrogation practices also addressed extraordinary rendition, the forced transfer of a person to another country to be arbitrarily detained, and interrogation under torture. While the memos ordered a study and verification that no renditions are performed to countries that torture or for the purpose of torture, the process of rendition itself – the kidnap of persons in a foreign country and their subsequent transport to another country or the U.S. – remained intact. That these executive orders were introduced so quickly upon President Obama’s inauguration sparked an initial hope; however, that spark quickly faded in the ensuing 100 days and an Obama administration detention policy that has, in practice, too frequently has resembled that of the Bush administration. In practice, the men at Guantánamo have remained imprisoned, often under inhumane conditions, and the Obama administration has defended in court the use of Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan as a new prison outside the reach of law.

Case Study

Arar v. Ashcroft: ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/arar-v.-ashcroft.

Abolishing Preventive Detention: Dangerous Silence

Warning: Preventive detention structures remain available in the U.S. and new structures continue to pose a threat.

Discussions of preventive detention have recently come to the forefront due to numerous right-wing proposals for new “national security courts” or “preventive detention” structures that would enable the continuation of Guantánamo in the United States – detention without charge and without trial, without normal rules of evidence or standards of law. Preventive detention is, unfortunately, far from a mere threat in the United States or an issue that pertains only to those detained abroad. While structures enabling abuse and preventive detention have long existed in the United States, particularly following the passage in 1996 of immigration laws that substantially increased immigrant detention, the Bush administration made the domestic use of preventive detention a cornerstone of its so-called “war on terror” policy within the United States, a policy that was used with particular brutality against Arabs, South Asians, and Muslims. The Obama administration has been largely silent on the issue of preventive detention – particularly the existing domestic preventive detention regimes that have caused vast harm to many people who would never be charged at all or charge only with minor immigration violations without relation to criminal conduct. Preventive detention is a threat to due process, the rule of law and, most directly, to those targeted in “preventive” dragnets. It is critical that the Obama administration not only reject preventive detention in the context of Guantánamo but also in the context of the “war at home.”

Case Study

Turkmen v. Ashcroft: ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/turkmen-v.-ashcroft.

Protecting Dissent: Action Needed

Negative: Increasing “Green Scare” prosecutions of environmental activists

The Obama administration has failed to move in the first 100 Days on key issues regarding the right to dissent. The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security, however, have taken actions that led to the continued and enhanced use of “terrorism” prosecutions against animal rights and environmental activists. These actions indicate that the “Green Scare” – the repression of activists by designating them terrorists, with a specific concentration on the animal rights and environmental movement – continues in full swing. Without significant pressure from the movement for the right to dissent, positive action from President Obama, DHS and the DOJ are unlikely. The escalation of “Green Scare” prosecutions in the first 100 days of the Obama administration demonstrate not only the need for action from the Obama administration but an end to complacency among activists about attacks on the right to dissent.

Take Action

Join the Abolish the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act Coalition: abolishtheaeta.org/.

Reining in Presidential War Powers: The War Machine Rolls On

Negative: Expanding the War in Afghanistan and Pakistan

While the Obama administration revealed the series of Bush administration Office of Legal Counsel memos that laid out supreme executive power for the U.S. president and repudiated them in their entirety, presidential war powers have continued unchecked. It is incumbent upon members of Congress to take initiative to amend the War Powers Resolution, as the Center for Constitutional Rights recently recommended in its white paper on presidential war powers. To date, President Obama has continued on the path of war and occupation, promising to commit more troops to the war on Afghanistan, justifying continued occupation in Iraq, and relying on the Authorization for Use of Military Force to assert detention powers. President Obama could truly repudiate the past 8 years of unprecedented assertions of presidential war powers by taking the initiative to work with Congress to construct a War Powers Resolution that protects and affirms the checks and balances intended in the Constitution.

Take Action

Repeal the AUMF for Iraq: ccrjustice.org/get-involved/action/take-action-repeal-aumf-iraq.

Ending the Abuse of the State Secrets Privilege: The Bush Years Continue

	Positive: Affirming new guidelines for the Freedom of Information Act that promote openness
	Negative: Continuing the abuse of the state secrets privilege in an attempt to throw torture victims’ lawsuits out of court.

The first 100 days of the Obama administration have seen a disappointing reaffirmation of the Bush administration’s frequent abuse of the state secrets privilege. The state secrets privilege, initially a privilege asserted by the federal government in an attempt to exclude evidence from the courtroom, became, under the Bush administration, a key tool in attempting to block lawsuits by torture victims, victims of warrantless surveillance and others altogether. President Obama promised a greater transparency during his campaign, and has, in some cases, delivered: his January 21, 2009 order directing a new and positive approach to the Freedom of Information Act culminated in Attorney General Eric Holder’s guidelines for FOIA, which encourage transparency and the release of information. After 8 years of the Bush administration’s intense hostility to FOIA, this is a clear step forward against excessive government secrecy. President Obama and the Department of Justice have, however, continued the Bush legacy in legal matters involving the state secrets privilege, upholding Bush-era arguments and attempts to dismiss entire lawsuits by torture victims. It remains for the Obama Administration to re-establish the standards that the Constitution demands.

Take Action

End the Abuse of the State Secrets Privilege: ccrjustice.org/get-involved/action/stop-abuse-state-secrets-privilege%21.

Stopping Warrantless Wiretapping: Impunity and Immunity

Negative: Introducing new legal arguments relying on the Patriot Act to keep the government immune from lawsuits due to its illegal spying

The Obama administration has moved far from the positions the President Obama staked out during his candidacy. The Bush administration’s unlawful warrantless wiretapping program swept up the communications of millions of Americans – “nearly every phone call ever made,” according to press reports. In direct violation of U.S. laws and clear judicial precedent, the Bush administration’s National Security Agency engaged in a wide-ranging surveillance program that never sought or secured court approval. In cases challenging warrantless wiretapping in court, the Bush administration often defended itself by asserting the state secrets privilege, despite the widespread exposure of the program. As a candidate, President Obama denounced warrantless wiretapping, but in office, the new administration’s Department of Justice has repeatedly countered challenges to the program with state secrets claims and sovereign immunity claims.

Case Study

CCR v. Bush: ccrjustice.org/ourcases/current-cases/ccr-v.-bush.

Rolling Back Executive Power: Imperial Presidency?

	Positive: Recognizing that the Attorney General, and not the president, has the authority to make the decision whether to prosecute torturers
	Negative: Failing to renounce the Bush administration's claimed "inherent authority" in the so-called "war on terror”

It was not only the potential for an end to the lawless actions, repression, imperial arrogance, and criminal brutality of the last administration and that a new day of expanded rights would emerge that brought hope to the world in the 2008 U.S. elections – President Obama’s historic victory was seen by many as an achievement of the civil rights movement and the struggle against racism. Activists around the globe hoped for the expansion of social, racial, gender and economic justice and other human rights, the recognition of health care as a human right, respect for international law and respectful, not imperial, engagement with the rest of the world. The Bush administration’s officials and advisers oversaw and directed an unprecedented expansion of executive power. Presidential signing statements on legislation attempted to invalidate the separation of powers through an unauthorized line-item veto, and legal advisers espoused a ‘unitary executive’ theory which proposed kinglike powers for the president, unchecked by Congress or the judiciary. The so-called “war on terror” paradigm, within and without the United States, saw grave damage done to human rights and human lives, the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. The Obama administration presents an opportunity to reconnect with the world; however, it has not seized that potential to date. The great challenge of the first 100 Days of the Obama administration can no longer be pushed aside: as the mountain of evidence grows, particularly with the administration’s release of the infamous torture memos, President Obama must allow the Department of Justice to pursue accountability for the crimes of the Bush administration without political interference or pressure. If the Obama administration acts with principle, firmness and commitment to law and justice and holds those officials accountable, it has the potential to fulfill its promise as a historic presidency. Without accountability and prosecutions, however, the first 100 Days of the Obama administration will lead to a historic disappointment and failure.

Some suggestions and resources to help bring about positive changes

Below are some suggestions and resources to help bring about positive changes:

1. Spend time with who and what you love. Surrounding ourselves with love should help us to remember the beauty of life.
2. Learn to filter and recognize propaganda. It is corporations that profit from wars, not individuals. Always apply the filter: ‘Ownership determines content.’ “If we accept that it is desirable for individuals to practice moral agency as fully as possible, then we should seek to create a different kind of media system.”
3. Your body, your voice, your mind, and your spirit are required at peace rallies for us to reach critical mass. Additional information at the following news sources: CODEPINK: Women for Peace, Raging Grannies, ANSWER Coalition, Stop War, United for Peace, Move On, Anti War, Common Dreams, bellaciao, PEJ News, OpEd News, Information Liberation , Project Censored , Information Clearing House , Global Research , Prison Planet , The Raw Story , Gush Shalom, and Truthout
4. Stop watching corporate news on TV, they do not provide information, just propaganda. Frequent legitimate unbiased news sources such as: The Real News Network, Democracy Now!, International News Net, Sub Media TV, Free Speech TV, Link TV, and Alternative Radio: Audio Energy of Democracy.
5. Stop supporting corporate education and entertainment. Learn about your rights, how society functions, what we have done, and are doing to each other and the planet. Watch and learn from movies and documentaries such as: Earthlings, America: Freedom to Fascism, A World Without Cancer, Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre, Chemtrail: Aerosol Crimes, The Oil Factor: Behind the War on Terror, The Future of Food, Liquid Crystal Vision, Marcus Garvey: Look for me in the Whirlwind, The Doomsday Code, Iraq For Sale, Plan Colombia, The Revolution will Not be Televised, Freedom Downtime: The Story of Kevin Mitnick, Zeitgeist, and Loose Change.
6. Learn about the financial institutions that have been established to profit from the ultimate consuming machine known as war. Watch and share: ZEITGEIST, The Movie: Part 3 of 3 (47:05), and the animated Money As Debt (47:07).
7. Stop supporting mass media that has been the voice of government and corporate propaganda and the driving force behind the recruitment, promotion, and continuation of the war agenda. Begin to acquire your news from actual people blogging and reporting What Really Happened, Ya Ya Canada, Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches, Desert Peace, Daily Kos, plus countless others available on the Internet. on the true nature of life. News blogs such as:
8. Write, call, and personally contact your representatives in government ( US and Canada), demanding that they begin to represent you and your family, not corporate money. Realize that most of our representatives have not even begun to grasp the “terminal” path that we are on.
9. Not only should you be consuming less and locally, but also producing locally. Corporations over the years have destroyed the infrastructure of local economies, but it is time for us to rebuild. Additional information at Post Carbon Institute, People and Planet , BALLE, 100 Mile diet and numerous other sources available on the Internet.
10. Reduce your dependency on oil by using public transportation and or alternative means of transportation. See Critical Mass for additional information.
11. Downsize your car and/or convert to hybrid transportation. The sooner you do this the better. This will not only save you money on fuel, it will also allow you to sell your large gas-guzzler before the rise in fuel prices reduces the value of your car to nothing. And you better hurry, because the waiting lists for hybrid cars are long and used models are selling for more then the new cars.
12. If you are working for an organization which is actively supporting war then try to find a different occupation which does not require of you to promote the destruction of humanity.
13. Begin to invest in yourself instead of Stock markets who launder money while profiting from war. Additional information for Canada at Stop Pension Plan Investments in War!
14. Begin to work with nature and not against it by learning about natural resources available in your area. Additional information at: World Changing, Planet Friendly network, and NI Business Info.
15. Make healthy eating choices. Studies have found that most bankruptcies are due to medical bills, and since the passing of the Bankruptcy Bill you will no longer be cleared of your debts if you declare bankruptcy in the US, which means that you will become a slave to the banking institutions. This will take away your freedom and force you to abide by their agendas, the main agenda of which is war.
16. Support artists against the war and boycott those that support the war. There are many artists who have officially spoken out against the war and are proactive in their attempts to bring us peace. Some of these artists are: Immortal Technique, System Of A Down , Ben Harper, Dead Prez , Dixie Chicks , Serj Tankian , Anti-Flag, Michael Franti and Spearhead, Charlie Sheen , Susan Sarandon, Rose O'Donald, Banksy, Carlos Latuff , Ben Heine, Simon Regis, and even Sean Penn.
17. Participate in civil disobedience. Peace organizers are now advocating “people in the antiwar movement to move from protesting to performing acts of civil disobedience that ‘get in the way of the war machine.’
18. Understand that we are one people occupying one planet, and that we are and will be held accountable for the actions of our governments. Learn about our history by reading books such as: Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, A People's History of the United States, Hegemony or Survival, Wilhelm Reich in Hell, Mass Psychology of Fascism [PDF] , Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, The Shock Doctrine, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, and War Is a Racket written by America's most decorated general US Marine Corp Major General Smedley Butler.

Just for fun -- SEND ME THE MONEY!

Treasury Department Issues Emergency Recall Of All US Dollars

Constitutional Rights - YourNetwork.tv

Are YOU dangerous?

Do you object to anything your government does? Are you homeless? Are you a returning veteran? Are you concerned about your economic security? Do you belong to a religious group believing in "right to life?"

If so, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, you need to be watched, because YOU are a "right wing extremist."

(U//FOUO) Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment

This issue was discussed today in the House of Representatives (at length) after discovery of this document.

I watched it myself on CSPAN.

There's Very Few Things Worse For A President To Do Than Protect War Criminals!

A Lexicon of Disappointment

Lookout

By Naomi Klein

April 15, 2009

All is not well in Obamafanland. It's not clear exactly what accounts for the change of mood. Maybe it was the rancid smell emanating from Treasury's latest bank bailout. Or the news that the president's chief economic adviser, Larry Summers, earned millions from the very Wall Street banks and hedge funds he is protecting from reregulation now. Or perhaps it began earlier, with Obama's silence during Israel's Gaza attack.

Whatever the last straw, a growing number of Obama enthusiasts are starting to entertain the possibility that their man is not, in fact, going to save the world if we all just hope really hard.

This is a good thing. If the superfan culture that brought Obama to power is going to transform itself into an independent political movement, one fierce enough to produce programs capable of meeting the current crises, we are all going to have to stop hoping and start demanding.

The first stage, however, is to understand fully the awkward in-between space in which many US progressive movements find themselves. To do that, we need a new language, one specific to the Obama moment. Here is a start.

Hopeover. Like a hangover, a hopeover comes from having overindulged in something that felt good at the time but wasn't really all that healthy, leading to feelings of remorse, even shame. It's the political equivalent of the crash after a sugar high. Sample sentence: "When I listened to Obama's economic speech my heart soared. But then, when I tried to tell a friend about his plans for the millions of layoffs and foreclosures, I found myself saying nothing at all. I've got a serious hopeover."

Hoper coaster. Like a roller coaster, the hoper coaster describes the intense emotional peaks and valleys of the Obama era, the veering between joy at having a president who supports safe-sex education and despondency that single-payer healthcare is off the table at the very moment when it could actually become a reality. Sample sentence: "I was so psyched when Obama said he is closing Guantánamo. But now they are fighting like mad to make sure the prisoners in Bagram have no legal rights at all. Stop this hoper coaster--I want to get off!"

Hopesick. Like the homesick, hopesick individuals are intensely nostalgic. They miss the rush of optimism from the campaign trail and are forever trying to recapture that warm, hopey feeling--usually by exaggerating the significance of relatively minor acts of Obama decency. Sample sentences: "I was feeling really hopesick about the escalation in Afghanistan, but then I watched a YouTube video of Michelle in her organic garden and it felt like inauguration day all over again. A few hours later, when I heard that the Obama administration was boycotting a major UN racism conference, the hopesickness came back hard. So I watched slideshows of Michelle wearing clothes made by ethnically diverse independent fashion designers, and that sort of helped."

Hope fiend. With hope receding, the hope fiend, like the dope fiend, goes into serious withdrawal, willing to do anything to chase the buzz. (Closely related to hopesickness but more severe, usually affecting middle-aged males.) Sample sentence: "Joe told me he actually believes Obama deliberately brought in Summers so that he would blow the bailout, and then Obama would have the excuse he needs to do what he really wants: nationalize the banks and turn them into credit unions. What a hope fiend!"

Hopebreak. Like the heartbroken lover, the hopebroken Obama-ite is not mad but terribly sad. She projected messianic powers onto Obama and is now inconsolable in her disappointment. Sample sentence: "I really believed Obama would finally force us to confront the legacy of slavery in this country and start a serious national conversation about race. But now he never seems to mention race, and he's using twisted legal arguments to keep us from even confronting the crimes of the Bush years. Every time I hear him say 'move forward,' I'm hopebroken all over again."

Hopelash. Like a backlash, hopelash is a 180-degree reversal of everything Obama-related. Sufferers were once Obama's most passionate evangelists. Now they are his angriest critics. Sample sentence: "At least with Bush everyone knew he was an asshole. Now we've got the same wars, the same lawless prisons, the same Washington corruption, but everyone is cheering like Stepford wives. It's time for a full-on hopelash."

In trying to name these various hope-related ailments, I found myself wondering what the late Studs Terkel would have said about our collective hopeover. He surely would have urged us not to give in to despair. I reached for one of his last books, Hope Dies Last. I didn't have to read long. The book opens with the words: "Hope has never trickled down. It has always sprung up."

And that pretty much says it all. Hope was a fine slogan when rooting for a long-shot presidential candidate. But as a posture toward the president of the most powerful nation on earth, it is dangerously deferential. The task as we move forward (as Obama likes to say) is not to abandon hope but to find more appropriate homes for it--in the factories, neighborhoods and schools where tactics like sit-ins, squats and occupations are seeing a resurgence.

Political scientist Sam Gindin wrote recently that the labor movement can do more than protect the status quo. It can demand, for instance, that shuttered auto plants be converted into green-future factories, capable of producing mass-transit vehicles and technology for a renewable energy system. "Being realistic means taking hope out of speeches," he wrote, "and putting it in the hands of workers."

Which brings me to the final entry in the lexicon.

Hoperoots. Sample sentence: "It's time to stop waiting for hope to be handed down, and start pushing it up, from the hoperoots"

About Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (September 2007); an earlier international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies; and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002).

A Message from Campaign for Liberty

April 14, 2009

Dear Friend of Liberty,

Once again, Americans are turning to the calendars and dreading the coming of April 15th. This year, the federal government will reach into our pockets to pay for their unnecessary corporate bailouts, the so-called stimulus, and an escalation of unconstitutional wars overseas. But even with all this dangerous recklessness, we can have hope in knowing that each day our coalition of freedom-loving individuals grows by leaps and bounds.

In "honor" of April 15th, allow me to share with you excerpts from an article on taxes written by Ron Paul. It's called The Case Against the Income Tax.

Could America exist without an income tax? The idea seems radical, yet in truth America did just fine without a federal income tax for the first 126 years of its history. Prior to 1913, the government operated with revenues raised through tariffs, excise taxes, and property taxes, without ever touching a worker's paycheck....

The harmful effects of the income tax are obvious. First and foremost, it has enabled government to expand far beyond its proper constitutional limits, regulating virtually every aspect of our lives. It has given government a claim on our lives and work, destroying our privacy in the process. It takes billions of dollars out of the legitimate private economy, with most Americans giving more than a third of everything they make to the federal government. This economic drain destroys jobs and penalizes productive behavior. The ridiculous complexity of the tax laws makes compliance a nightmare for both individuals and businesses....

Is it impossible to end the income tax? I don't believe so. In fact, I believe a serious groundswell movement of disaffected taxpayers is growing in this country. Millions of Americans are fed up with the current tax system, and they will bring pressure on Congress....

And this pressure is building! Thousands of tea parties and protests will take place tomorrow in opposition to the dangerous policies being pursued by the federal government. If you are attending any of these activities, I encourage you to distribute our educational and action-oriented handouts to fellow citizens also disaffected with the current economic situation. Additionally, be sure to read some very helpful advice for effective grassroots activity at these events from our very own Adam de Angeli here.

It is critical to make those attending the tea parties aware of the culprit behind our country's economic woes - the Federal Reserve. While the elimination of the income tax is a noble and necessary goal, we must understand that our efforts will be in vain if we do not deal with the silent, destructive tax of monetary inflation. Dr. Paul's bill, HR 1207, requires a legitimate audit of the Federal Reserve System. Please sign our petition here to urge your congressman to co-sponsor the Federal Reserve Transparency Act.

Rest assured, with your continued efforts, we are building a coordinated grassroots-oriented network that is becoming more and more effective in standing up for freedom, individual liberty, and the Constitution as envisioned by our Founding Fathers. Together, we will accomplish the goal of making April 15th just another day on the calendar.

For Liberty,

John Tate

President, Campaign for Liberty

P.S. If you're attending an event tomorrow, don't forget to take along some Audit the Fed slimjims, petitions, fliers, and fact sheets to spread the word about HR 1207!

Questioning U.S. Priorities Concerning Afghanistan/Iraq

By Robert Knowles

April 10, 2009

Isn’t it strange that as our boys and girls and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis and Afghans die in the name of Democracy, Christianity, freedom and terrorism that the U.S. Empire will not agree to pull out of these war ravaged countries leaving no permanent military bases and manpower? Isn’t it strange the U.S. cannot deny it’s a global Empire with 2,500,000 U.S. personnel serving across the planet, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons scattered around the globe, 737 military bases spread across each continent and growing, as the Pentagon oversees 28,819,492 acres worldwide making it the world’s largest landlord with a cost of over $500 billion a year — morethan all the rest of the world put together?

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Iraq holds more than 112 billion barrels of oil, while the Caspian Sea natural gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet and oil reserves may reach 60 billion barrels, while some estimates reach 200 billion barrels. So now that the Iraqi oil and U.S. permanent bases are mostly intact for Halliburton, Big Oil and other Capitalistic Free Trade, it’s on to finish the job in Afghanistan, one of the most wasted and plundered places on earth; ludicrously immoral since the U.S. Empire’s nucleararsenal is the most powerful on earth having no comparable threat, much less Afghanistan.

In spite of, to finish the job is to complete the 1,040 mile long pipeline (Halliburton no less) through Afghanistan to move the gas and oil nof the Caspian region making it readily navailable to the insatiable Empire no nmatter how much death and ndestruction their policies cause. And just like in Iraq, the U.S. permanent bases and personnel will be left to protect Big Oil and Corporate interests making billions, along with the CIA being in charge of the lucrative opium trade that has increased 90 percent since the U.S. invasion, no different than the CIA drug trafficking thrived during the Iran-Contra scandal. Isn’t it strange that as the oligarchic right wing war profiteers dictate the wars and get richer, the least of them among us suffer and die -- while we support a state of permanent war and killing most faithfully gracious?

Freedom is Scary!

By Jessica Pacholski

Robert Heinlein wrote that “People fall into two categories: Those who wish to rule and those who have no such desire.” I have never had any desire to lead, I also have no desire to follow, mostly I’ve always just wanted to do my own thing and allow others the same latitude. I don’t think I know what’s right for the world, mostly because over the last 36 years I have only been able to figure out what’s right for me. I know the laws I live by and they are not externally enforced, but rather my own code that I developed through trial and error. I have no need to force these views on others. However, I know the world is filled with people looking for a savior or looking to be one.

I am unusual in that I’m a non believer in government designed society. It seems that people hold a superstition that there is a magical set of men and women, who upon election will right every wrong and make this world a utopia. They swear that there is a group of people who are better, smarter, and more capable of making decisions for you than you are. If you disagree with this premise then you are obviously a dangerous anti social non conformist who must be educated. However, I don’t know how any small group can make decisions that are fair and equitable for all of us unless they protect the rights of each person individually. From where I sit there are two major flaws in their premises, one: that coercion can ever bring utopia and two: that the nature of man changes by being elected.

“All men having power ought to be mistrusted to a certain degree.”

- James Madison

Being a non conformist myself, I’ll tackle two first. The men and women offered as candidates are no more omniscient or omni-benevolent than you are, in other words: their feet are as made of the same clay as yours. The notion that democracy is sacred in some way deludes even relatively smart people into believing that a person who is voted for is somehow “better” than themselves and their fellow citizens. Just because you voted for one candidate or another doesn’t mean there will not be tyranny, democracies can and have voted themselves into totalitarian states.

Democracy, in and of itself, is not an insurance of good governance or protection of liberty, especially when accountability is abandoned and the law is derided as anachronistic. When I use the term law I mean the Constitution, there is plenty of lip service paid to it, but very few people understand it or advocate its protection on the whole. They tend to cherry pick what they see as unbreakable and dismiss other parts as unimportant. This document must be kept as a whole and not subject to whimsical interpretation if it is to protect anyone’s rights. That means that we all better start thinking that all speech is protected, our privacy is sacred, that to bear arms is a right and to return to hard currency. They are all important pieces to the firewall against tyranny.

There is an old saying, “Never give power to a friend when an enemy may inherit it.” In a democracy this is an especially important piece of advice. We seem to trust those who have our views with powers that we would never trust the opposition with and then we are afraid what will happen when the “other guy” takes over. When you put anyone in power, where they have say over you, you better understand that they are human and subject to the temptations power. Knowing your rights and the governments limitations set forth in the law are the only protection you have against a despotic government. In other words, ignorance is not bliss, it’s slavery.

“Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

- George Washington

Government is not a good tool to bring upon social change because its nature is one of coercion. The end argument is always the gun when it comes to enforcement of policy and this is not the optimum method for changing things for the better. Every law enacted is an increase of centralized power and a decrease in individual power. In essence, every time you ask the government to enact a law, even if it is with the best of intentions, to force another to do the “right” thing, you inevitably tighten the noose around your own neck. Let’s take a look at Social Security, good intention, bad outcome. We have an entire generation paying into an insolvent system that will more than likely collapse before they can receive their “benefits”.

The War on Drugs is another example, as are the Brady Laws. The restrictive laws against gun ownership have only served to increase violence in the areas that have the highest compliance, a completely contrary, though foreseeable, outcome of those policies. The War on Drugs has increased drug use, drug potency, and related violence and given the cartels more power and money than they could ever had amassed without them. As a matter of fact, it seems that those two policies, along with other government intervention like eminent domain, have been a toxic combination for our inner cities. Yet, they are still championed by many as necessary to bring about a “great” society. I beg to differ, I think they have managed to turn our cities into mini police states and the effect is rippling out from those epicenters like a mushroom cloud.

“Be the change you want to see in the world.”

- Mohatma Ghandi

Ghandi had it right, if we are to live in freedom we must all act as free people. I do not think it is possible to legislate utopia, from everything I’ve seen it usually backfires. Peace and freedom are up to us as individuals and cannot be reached by blind belief in the government. The state is always looking to expand its power, by trying to use it to control others or to take care of you, you put yourself in its sights. The complement to freedom is responsibility, if you give up responsibility over your own life in the hope that you will be provided for by your representatives, you will lose your rights to them in exchange. In some ways liberty is like walking the high wire without a net, it is risky and it takes knowledge and self discipline. This is what scares people about freedom, that they will be held responsible for their own welfare. You can have liberty or you can have security, but you can’t have them both at once. Centralized organization may give you a sense of security, but is it worth its cost?

Jessica Pacholski is a 36-year-old mother of three beautiful girls who lives in Clayton, NC. She is a full-time mother and part-time writer who enjoys reading, painting and stirring the pot. You can contact Jessica at jessicapacholski@gmail.com.

Saving Obama

By Bob Koehler

“Now, I’d like to speak clearly and candidly to the American people . . .”

I believe him, with a passionate urgency — this new president, swept into office on a surge of hope and anger. I believe him without cynicism. After all, he has a terrifying job to do, a toxic legacy left to mop up. I cut him slack, listen for the sound, in his words, of the turning of the ship of state. How does he plan to engage the future? He’s an intelligent and, I think, courageous leader. And he has a global constituency to back him up. All he has to do is speak to it, clearly and candidly . . .

I was numb to the lies and simplistic rhetoric of George W. Bush. But when Barack Obama tries to fill those incredibly small shoes, to rev up the same constituency of true believers (the constituency that didn’t vote for him) and sell the same war — new! improved! — to the American people, I am not numb. The hope in my heart bursts into flying shrapnel. You’re making a serious mistake, Mr. President.

In honor of the man I voted for, and who, I insist, must assert himself and address his constituency not just marginally but with the full measure of his intelligence and compassion, at the heart of what matters — true global security, the building of a just peace — I take a close look at Obama’s most disappointing performance thus far: his speech last week “announcing a comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Here are four ways the president’s speech failed his constituency:

1. It was simplistic. In the fine old tradition of military solutions to whatever, which brook no complexity of analysis, he fed us the same old story of good versus evil, even invoking 9/11. The formula for war never changes: Hype fear into hysteria, then propose the application of righteous violence to save the day. The bad guys who pulled off 9/11 are still in the mountains of Central Asia and they’re “planning attacks on the U.S. homeland.” It’s as simple as that. We must root them out.

One of the prime assumptions here is that terrorism is subject to central control, as though aggrieved fanatics all take their orders from a single source, which can and must be bombed. Evil plans can’t be hatched in London, Paris or New York.

2. The speech affected a selective concern for humanity. American dead matter most. “Attacks against our troops, our NATO allies, and the Afghan government have risen steadily. Most painfully, 2008 was the deadliest year of the war for American forces.” Missing from the speech were any references to the Afghan dead — as many as 8,000 — caused by U.S. and NATO forces since 2001.

When the suffering of “the Afghan people” is evoked, the concern is suspect. “. . . a return to Taliban rule would condemn their country to brutal governance, international isolation, a paralyzed economy, and the denial of basic human rights . . . especially (to) women and girls.” Is American compassion limitless or what? Yet women and girls constitute a high percentage of the collateral damage we churn up.

As Tom Hayden noted recently in The Nation: “Anything resembling genuine popular democracy in Afghanistan or Pakistan would end the Western military occupation, or at least the air war, house-to-house roundups, and mass incarceration at Bagram.”

3. The speech, most speciously, presented war itself, as wielded by the U.S. and its allies, as consequence-free: an apparently surgical operation that will root entrenched evil from its mountainous redoubt. This aspect of Obama’s speech is least forgivable. It failed to so much as hint that war is a clumsy tool, that high-tech violence wreaks incalculable environmental and human havoc, which always overwhelm its short-term strategic aims.

A few days after the speech, Jacques de Maio of the International Committee of the Red Cross castigated both sides of the conflict for their indifference to civilian casualties: “My point is that there is no such thing as a clean war and . . . what’s going on in Afghanistan and in Pakistan right now is an ample demonstration of that,” he said. The agency is anticipating that fighting in the area will displace as many as 140,000 people this year, according to Agence France-Presse.

Obama rode an American — a global — passion for peace into office, yet he spoke to us about expanding Af-Pak operations as though we had voted for ignorance and war.

4. The speech called for dialogue only among parties on one side of the conflict: the U.S. and the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan. There was no mention of communication with the evil Taliban, our former Cold War ally, and no mention that huge, festering grievances in the Arab world against the West (the Palestinian situation, for one) are fueling terrorist activities and merit serious world attention.

The isolation of power has made our president a prisoner of the Washington establishment, whose “clear and desperate urge,” Tom Engelhardt wrote recently, “is to operate in the known zone, the one in which the U.S. is always imagined to be part of the solution to any problem on the planet, never part of the problem itself.”

We must demand accountability from the Obama administration (202-456-1111). It’s too late to surrender, again, to cynicism, despair and more of the same.

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Robert Koehler, an award-winning, Chicago-based journalist, is an editor at Tribune Media Services and nationally syndicated writer. You can respond to this column at bkoehler@tribune.com or visit his Web site at commonwonders.com.

© 2009 Tribune Media Services, Inc.

Patriotism versus Nationalism

by R. Lee Wrights

“If a person is decent and a pro-government American patriot, he or she is not intelligent. If a person is intelligent and a pro-government American patriot, he or she is not decent. And if a person is decent and intelligent, he or she is not a pro-government American patriot.”

- William Blum, Killing Hope (1995)

After an article I wrote some time ago titled, “What’s Wrong with Patriotism,” it was brought to my attention, by the voluminous feedback I received, that people not only agreed with my thesis; but also, took the argument a step further. A distinction was made between patriotism and nationalism. They are very similar in nature but quite different as well. First of all being a patriot requires serious, analytical, rational thought. A nationalist, on the other hand, throws off the cloak of thought and wraps himself in a brightly-colored flag. He lets someone else do his thinking for him, always destined to be a follower of the leader du jour. A patriot will always question the “leader du jour” before he engages an enemy. A patriot does not charge blindly into battle without having become convinced that the cause for battle is a righteous, principled stand.

“Patriotism: a loyalty to the principals that ones nation [was] founded on. Nationalism: a loyalty to a particular government.”

-Chris Snyder, Cosby, Tennessee

I saw the following quote in a letter to the editor of a newspaper in a southwestern town:

“In time of war, patriots throw their politics aside and stand behind their leaders, because there can be only allegiance to their country….”

With this one simple statement the writer, who claims to be a patriot, gives carte blanche to whoever owns the government to act with impunity in a blatant display of nationalism. A true patriot would never make such a statement, much less write about it in her/his local newspaper. It is this very attitude that has allowed dictators to rise throughout history and massacre untold millions whether it has been in the name of the Fatherland, or the Motherland, or the Homeland. This false-patriotic philosophy dictates that in times of war it is the citizens’ duty to support their leaders regardless of how evil or pure their intentions may be. As the Little Rascals would say, “What a bunch of hooey!” I am sorry, but I just cannot accept that as a proper definition of patriotism. Blind allegiance is the mother of tyranny, not patriotism.

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice.”

- Albert Einstein

Is it not blind allegiance that has been the very cornerstone in the foundation of every militaristic dictatorship ever established throughout the annals of recorded history? Was not nationalism the philosophy that caused hundreds of thousands to march in goose-step behind an insane elected official who was killing millions behind the “patriot’s” backs? Do we really want hundreds of thousands of highly-trained and well-armed government employees that will follow the orders, without question, of every crackpot that manages to achieve high military or civilian rank? One of the greatest living patriots I know taught me long ago that a good patriot always reserves the right to question authority. Indeed, a true patriot insists on questioning authority. A nationalist, by contrast, willingly gives himself to the ruling elite and sacrifices his own soul upon the altar of the highly exalted State. How many young “patriots” have died fighting for “our freedom” in some far-away land where “our freedom” was never threatened in the first place? How many soldiers have nationalists killed by duping them into believing that they risk their lives in a patriotic cause?

“Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along… All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

- Hermann Goering

How unfortunate it is indeed that true patriots are reviled as enemies of the State by nationalists that will sacrifice all to preserve the glorious Father-, I mean, Homeland. It is a shame that patriotism has become too easily confused with nationalism; and yet, it happens in every war. At the very moment that patriots need to question their leaders the most, nationalist sweep to the front of the fray screaming for all good patriots to follow them in defense of the Homeland. Everything is “in defense of the Homeland” with these nationalists. One reason to go to war is just as good as any other as each will be recycled in political rhetoric that proclaims we are fighting for “our freedom” and preservation of the Homeland. The nationalist tries to exploit the natural patriotic fervor within the citizenry to create a ground swell of support for war, regardless of the reason. But we must learn to think as individual patriots, able to determine for ourselves the difference between a justifiable war of self-defense and a war of pillage void of principle or righteous cause.

Patriotism is too often mistaken for nationalism. Nationalism is a strong devotion to one’s country, and is well-represented by the tired phrase, ‘My country, right or wrong.’ Is it really a good idea to support one’s country when it is doing something wrong?

Such misguided nationalism also rears its head when talk of flag-burning is in the air. However, it seems to me that the values that a flag or nation stand for are more important than the flag or even the nation itself. True patriotism is about taking pride in our country when it does right, and helping to put it back on track when it is not upholding the very values that it stands for.

“Another misleading attitude is about ’supporting the troops.’ This is irrelevant. It’s not a matter of supporting the troops, because ‘the troops’ aren’t the ones who make the decision to go to war. If we really want to support the troops, we should not send them to risk their lives in useless and unnecessary wars, but only deploy them when we truly need military defense.”

- Michael A. Clem, Oklahoma

Michael gives us a splendid concise example of true patriotic thinking. However, the nationalist would say that their “cause du jour” is righteous and that anyone that did not support their country in time of war is certainly no patriot. The truth is, nothing is more patriotic than having the balls to stand up and say no to warmongers that only desire to expand an empire. These are times when true patriots call for “supporting our troops” by bringing them home to their families. The nationalist have done enough damage and it is time to put a stop to the senseless slaughter of America’s best and brightest. As a patriot myself, I know I would feel much safer if they were here at home, rather than thousands of miles away on the other side of the world.

As I wrote recently at Rational Review in an article entitled, “Support Our Troops?” we need to show some real support for these courageous men and women, who have already fought and won a war, by calling on Congress to pressure the White House to bring the troops home. I reiterate from the aforementioned article:

“Stop saying, ‘Support our troops’ and start demanding that President Bush, ‘Bring our troops home!’ They want to come home, their loved ones want them safely in the bosom of their families; so, show your support by calling on legislators to pressure the White House to ‘Bring our troops home.’ Start cranking out those new bumper stickers and resist the urge to embrace blind allegiance dressed in the splendid garb of patriotism.”

Blind allegiance is the tool of tyranny used by the nationalists who have staked a false claim to that precious pearl called Patriotism. Think. Be aware. Don’t let it happen to you.

R. Lee Wrights is a writer and political activist living in North Carolina. He is the co-founder and editor of the free speech online magazine Liberty For All. Contact Lee at rleewrights@gmail.com.