Why Do This?

Why is this site here? What would cause an ordinary American citizen to take up keyboard and mouse to light a match to a fuse hoping to spark nothing short of electoral revolution?

Freedom! And I do not invoke that sacred word as a humorous ploy, but as a plaintive cry, pleading with my fellow countrymen to once again remember their solemn duty as the home of that first great revolution, and asking them to take up the cause of liberty so that freedom's torch may once again be refueled with by the passions of its rededicated servants in our most recent struggle against tyranny and despotism, here at home.

The same cause that has launched a thousand ships to war, the same cause that has been the herald of countless armies marching off to war, the same cause that lead union organizers, civil rights activists, and peace protestors to take to the streets in defense of our most basic rights has stirred a single American citizen to action. What good can one man do with mere words? Little, unless like many before him, he hopes to stir others to action.

What would cause an ordinary American to believe his fellow countrymen might be stirred to action as radical as replacing a third of the members of our Congress? Our shared history, our shared beliefs, but most especially our shared commitment to the preservation of liberty, justice, and equality. Our history teaches us that whenever freedom faces peril from the forces of tyranny, or what we today might call dictatorship, the American people have answered the call to action and beaten back the forces of darkness with the blinding light of freedom.

History teaches us that a majority isn't necessary for freedom, justice, and equality to win the day. Samuel Adams said, "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." As one of our most vocal and radical founding fathers, Sam Adams would be proud that his posterity has time and again proven his words right. First with the abolition of slavery, then with the extension of the right to vote to black men. These irate, tireless minorities, didn't stop there, they continued the fight and won the vote for women, but our promise remained unfulfilled. At the same time women were gaining their equality, American workers grew the labor movement, ended child labor, then gained the right to organize and bargain collectively. From these union actions, many believe the civil rights movement was born. A small group of agitators, including a young black woman working at a department store, who refused to move from her seat on a bus, helped bring about the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voters Rights Act of 1965. For those who don't believe one ordinary American can make a difference, I remind you of Rosa Parks.

Yes, this is all a wonderful history lesson, but what does this have to do with the here and now, we already have the freedoms these people won, don't we? I rarely agree with this man, but on occasion he uttered a word or two of truth, and the following statement, was such an occassion. "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free," said Ronald Reagan.

An interesting statement, but again, what does this have to do with the here and now? Author Naomi Wolf in her recent book The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot explains the Ten Steps that have been observed throughout history during the early days of rising dictatorships as once open democracies become more closed fascist states, but what is troubling were the discoveries she made when she examined the "echoes" of these past events in the present day United States of America. I ask you to consider the ten steps, then beg that you rally to action, so that what Lincoln called, "The last best hope of earth," shall endure as a democratic republic.

What are the Ten Steps?

1. Invoke an External and Internal Threat

• Stalin did this by telling Soviet citizens about "sleeper cells" of "international capitalists" posing as ordinary citizens who would some day rise up to launch terrorist attacks.
• Today, "terrorists" and "evildoers" are reported to operate throughout American society according to the President of the United States and some members of Congress.

2. Establish Secret Prisons

• In 1933, while a democratic parliament, independent judiciary, and attorneys continued to function, 27,000 political opponents, mostly marginalized individuals and groups were detained at Oranienberg by Hitler, and German political cartoons of the era made light of abuses suffered by prisoners in these secret institutions.
• In October of 2006, President George W. Bush acknowledged the use of torture by American officials and the continued use of prison facilities at Guantanomo Bay, Cuba and other black sites by the United States government to detain "terrorists."

3. Develop a Paramilitary Force

• By 1922, Italian men dressed in black, loyal to Mussolini, regularly torched property owned by the opposition, beat workers, and intimidated the Italian people.
• By 1923, these same Italian men stood inside the voting booths in Italy to ensure "responsible voting."
• By June of 2006, Blackwater USA, a "private security company" that has provided services to the American government in Iraq, had earned $73 million from Katrina related work it performed in the American south.
• During the 2000 election in Forida there were reports of young men dressed in the same white shirts and chinos deployed to largely African-American polling stations, who were later identified as Republican political staffers.

4. Surveil Ordinary Citizens

• In the 1920s Mussolini ordered ordinary Italians' phone lines tapped, and even ordered that the Pope be spied on. During the 1930s, Hitler had the SS and Gestapo observing ordinary Germans, including a half-million Berliners.
• In October 2001, the USA PATRIOT Act allowed the US government to obtain information from libraries and booksellers about their patrons. By 2006, it was reported that the NSA had obtained phone records about billions of calls from ordinary Americans.

5. Infiltrate Citizens' Groups

• Intellectual and dissident groups were infiltrated by Stalin's agents. Mussolini's fascists infiltrated trade union organizations. Hitler's men infiltrated communist groups, anti-Nazi student organizations, and labor groups. They did this not simply to spy, but to provoke violence by the groups to help marginalize their actions.
• During the 1960s, the FBI infiltrated groups of Freedom Riders for similar purposes. Since September 11, 2001, there have been reports about groups of "peace activists" being infiltrated by the police. For further information see Farenheit 9/11 and this from the ACLU.

6. Arbitrarily Detain and Release Citizens

• A survey of German citizens who had lived through the Nazi regime showed that 36 percent of people had been arrested, questioned, and released by authorities.
• The US government wrongly jailed an attorney from Portland, Oregon for 2 weeks claiming terrorists connections to a Madrid bombing, despite Spanish authorities assertions of his innocence. In September 2003, Chaplain James Yee was arrested for suspicion of "espionage" and possible treason. He was held in solitary confinement for seventy-six days where he was manacled, blindfolded, and his ears were blocked. He was later charged with adultery, lying to investigators, and two counts of downloading pornography, but never actually charged for the original crimes. Canadian citizen Maher Arar, a software consultant, was taken into custody by the US government while changing planes at JFK airport and flow to Syria where he was imprisoned and beaten for over a year. Following a two year investigation, the Canadian Royal Mounted Police determined Arar had no ties whatsoever to terrorists. For more confirmation that this is becoming commonplace consider this video or this one. Since when is asking a question a crime in America? Since when do you have to sign a confession in America? Since when do you have to sign paperwork stating you have been served? Since when do we as Americans jail people for minor traffic infractions? I ask these questions as not only a citizen, but also as an attorney.

7. Target Key Individuals

• In Nazi Germany scientists who did not agree with the government lost funding for their research. Hitler's regime passed a law in 1933 to help conform student groups to Nazi ideals. During the 1930s Goebbels forced entertainers who would not co-operate with the Nazi's out of business. The Nazis purged the German government of civil servants, especially lawyers and judges who weren't supportive of the regime.
• In 2004, 6,000 US scientists issued a statement regarding their concerns over the politicization of funding for scientific research sponsored by the US government. David Horowitz, a member of a right-wing think tank drafted a model law requiring political "balance" in University discourse. Several outspoken professors at various state universities, including tenured professors have been fired for speaking out against US policies, especially those of the Bush Administration. Following comments on his show Politically Incorrect in 2001, Bill Maher was fired by ABC's parent company, The Walt Disney Company. After making a comment that she was "ashamed that the President of United States was from Texas," her home state, singer Natalie Maines of the musical group Dixie Chicks saw a boycott of her music on radio and rallies to destroy the band's CDs. In 2007, filmmaker Michael Moore faced threats of prosecution and threats of confiscation regarding his film Sicko following his reports about the President's actions in his previous film Farenheit 9/11.

8. Restrict the Press

• Mussolini imposed fines and other controls on the Italian press, even requiring all reporters to register as Fascists. Through laws Mussolini exercised great control over Italian radio. In 1931 Carl Ossietzky was arrested and tortured by the Nazis for reporting on acts of the German army that violated the Treaty of Versailles. In 1933, Goebbels fired 13 percent of state radio employees in six months. Radio managers friendly to prior social democratic regimes were arrested and taken to concentration camps. Hitler's regime used false news and propaganda, such as Leni Reifenstahl's film The Triumph of the Wills, following Hitler's own edict from Mein Kampf, "The great masses of people will more easily fall victims of a big lie than a small one." Following the invasion of Belgium and Holland, a German Colonel reported to the press that Germany had invaded to preserve those nation's neutrality. False reports of abuse of ethnic Germans in the Sudetanland were used to justify the invasion of Czechosolvakia by Hitler's regime. Goebbels "embedded" reporters and camera crews with Nazi troops invading Poland and controlled photgraphy of their war dead and their coffins.
• In 2004, the Bush Administration appointed a new chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, his first task was to purge PBS of its "liberal bias." Following a report based on what were later discovered to be false documents, CBS News Anchor Dan Rather was forced to resign. CIA agent Valerie Plame was "outed" by the Administration after her husband authored an opinion piece suggesting that the "weapons of mass destruction" rationale for the Iraq war was based on false information. Reporters in Los Angeles, California were attacked by police while covering a protest by Mexican-Americans regarding immigration reform in early 2007. In 2003, BBC reporter Kate Addie told Irish radio that independent reporters in Iraq were threatened with attack by the US military if they transmitted there stories. Non-embeded journalists in Iraq have been held and interrogated by US military police. On April 8, 2003, 3 journalists were killed by the US military. French footage of one incident shows that the attack by American tankers was not in self-defense as reported by the American press. An English speaking Al-Jazeera cameraman has been held by the United States for 6 years. He has been beaten and tortured, despite the fact that he is not the same man originally sought by US authorities. Pulitzer Prize winning AP photographer Balil Hussein, famous for photographs of women and children suffering from the war has been held without charges by the US since April 2006. A similar situation faced a CBS reporter who was held for 2 years before he was cleared of all charges. Following reports about victims of Hurricane Katrina reporter Greg Palast of Armed Madhouse and The Best Democracy Money Can Buy fame and Matt Pascarella were charged with "unauthorized filming of a 'critical national security structure'" for filming the ExxonMobil refinery bordering the encampment where the victims were staying. YES, THAT GREG PALAST, the outspoken critic of the Bush Administration!

9. Cast Critisim as "Espionage" and Dissent as "Treason"

US Constitution, Article 3, Section 3

Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.

No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.

The Congress shall have power to declare the Punishment of Treason, but no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted.

Our founding fathers knew a thing or two about treason and being called a traitor, and because of this they made it exceedingly difficult to convict anyone of Treason to protect the right of the people to dissent, and provided further protections for the families of anyone actually convicted of the serious crime of Treason.

• In Stalin's Russia, criticism of the regime was initially defined as Slander and then defined as Treason and in both instances treated as a crime. In Hitler's Germany, political "libel and slander" were criminalized. Nikolai Bukharin, the editor of Izvestia was convicted in a Moscow show trial by Stalin's regime of "espionage" and "treason" as the result of his publication and eventually executed by the regime.
• Right-wing pundit Ann Coulter accused liberal politicians of criminal behavior in her book Slander and has since published a newer book Treason accusing dissenters essentially of crimes against the Constitution for their words, despite a legal education that should provide knowledge of the Constitutional safeguards for speech and the real definition of Treason under our Constitution. If it stopped there that would be troublesome, unfortunately, there have been calls from right-wing pundits for prosecutions of New York Times reporters for "espionage" and "treason" for their publication of information about warrantless searches of banking records purportedly related to terrorist investigations. While still rhetorical arguments at the time, the Justice Department has since prosecuted people under the 1917 Espionage Act for possessing knowledge of "information related to national defense" that they were not supposed to know, which had been leaked to them. This was not a prosecution of the person who leaked the information, but rather the recipient. This could have a terrible effect on the press if a whistleblower stepped forward to expose government atrocities for example that were officially "classified." Adam Gadahan, a southern Californian became the first American in more than half a century to be charged with Treason. His crime? He has been accused of making videotapes for al-Qaeda urging violence against the United States. Distasteful, morally reprehensible, and wrong, without having seen the material, quite probably, yes, of course, there may be "facts not in evidence," but a crime, quite probably not because Supreme Court precedent provides protection for speech under the First Amendment urging violence, provided it does not immediately incite violence, without more, it would appear to me that the political speech of America's adversaries, al-Qaeda, is equally worthy of First Amendment protection, so unless these materials are part of specific plans to attack specific targets our Constitutional protections for speech would preclude prosecution under the very narrow Constitutional definition of Treason.

10. Subvert the Rule of Law

• On April 7, 1933 Goebbels purged the state attorneys offices and the German judiciary of officials who were not loyal to the Nazi party. As Mussolini and Hitler gained ever greater power, the legislatures in those two countries continued to function, right up until the moment they claimed the ultimate power. In 1936 Hitler asserted, "I am not a dictator, I have only simplified democracy."
• In March of 2007, the Bush Administration fired 9 US Attorneys in various swing states. The Bush Administration has repeatedly shown disregard for the Constitution of the United States and for international law through its foreign policy actions and its actions at home, including invasions of privacy on a grand scale, in violation of the fourth amendment, and the use of substantial pressures to limit first amendment rights, while defying the fifth and sixth amendments guarantees of due process, including especially failure to give notice of the crimes alleged, and providing an opportunity to be heard by a jury of ones peers in the district wherein the crime was alleged to have been commited.

Despite all of these "echoes" Naomi Wolf is optimistic "that the United States is not vulnerable to the violent, total closing down of the system that followed Mussolini's March on Rome or Hitler's roundup of political prisoners. Our press, military, and judiciary are too independent for a scenario like that." She is in part optimistic because she understands that the response to these measures that has beaten back the march towards dictatorship in the past is a response held sacred by the American people. A response ingrained in our very beings! And she is optimistic in part because our foe is not ideological, but rather the most basic of opponents, greed. Greed in the form of corporations seeking to extend lucrative government defense and security contracts, and greed in the form of wealthy individuals seeking to consolidate the gains they have made in the cause of laissez-faire capitalism.

Fortunately for we Americans, our response to laissez-faire capitalism and aristocracy has won battles against these opponents in the past and we can win this pending battle as well. That response is democracy and freedom, sponsored by good old fashioned civic activism and political engagement at its very best.

The time for passive citizenship has ended. We must remember that Benjamin Franklin's words to a young woman inquiring about the form of government created at the constitutional convention, "a republic madam, if you can keep it," remain true today, despite a 230 year history of sustained republican democracy. Our nation faces perhaps the greatest threat to its survival since the horrors of the civil war, not from external threats, but from an insidious loss of our ideals and idealism, foisted upon us in the name of an unattainable sense of security, and in the support of greed and avarice by a fortunate few.

America has been special and remains special today, not because we have been blessed with fertile land filled with an exceptional supply of natural resources -we have- and not because our people are hardworking and particularly industrious or clever -we are- but because unlike all nations that came before us, America was built upon an idea and ideal that always placed our goals just over the horizon, so that each new generation had something to achieve.

Our national creed is simple, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Hapiness." In America there are no guarantees beyond the right to pursue your own hapiness, but if we do not act now to defend that creed, we may forever lose our way.

Our national promise is likewise incomplete, "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Our forefathers only offered us hope of "a more perfect Union," because they knew perfection was our unattainable goal, but a goal they hoped we would strive to achieve with each successive generation.

Now is the time for this most recent generation of Americans to repay the debt of honor owed to our ancestors by reclaiming our democracy for the benefit of our people, but more importantly, now is the time to remember our solemn duty to continue the legacy of freedom, justice, and equality that makes us uniquely American, so that our posterity may enjoy the same fruits of those who came before us, that we have been blessed to recieve.

While I share Ms. Wolf's optimism, the "echoes" of past despotism observed in my America have caused me to ask the question, "how could it happen here?"

It is not a question I find comfort in answering, but it is a question I have pondered with some trepidation, and I share my worst nightmare with you now, so that it may never come to pass. In 1994, HBO aired a made for TV movie called The Enemy Within starring Forest Whitaker and Jason Robards. In that film a military backed coup de tat was the backdrop, and an important point was made, in America, unlike other nations, the ordinary citizen, and the ordinary soldier would never stand for an outright military coup. The appearance of legality would be required for the American people to accept the overthrow of their government.

While a work of fiction, this sentiment somehow rings true, perhaps because respect for the rule of law is of paramount importance to Americans, and with that in mind I asked myself what would cause the American people to concede that the usurpation of our normal democratic process was legal? At the end of the day, there is nothing that will obfuscate the American people's basic understanding of democracy, so it was clear to me that a regular election must be held for any American coup de tat to succeed. With that in mind, I thought to myself how could the Constitution be subverted while giving the appearance of legality? How could a sitting President remain in office beyond the eight year limit of their term, yet appear to do so legally?

Only an unimaginable national crisis, and in particular a crisis that left the United States without a Congress and without a President-Elect, or a Vice-President-Elect, or in other words, a crisis that left our country without a natural line of succession under our Constitution, could ever provide a plausible legal argument for the continuation of a Presidency beyond its legal term. I leave each of you with that word of caution, and ask that we all stand guard against such a fate. As our forefathers have warned, "eternal vigilence is the price of liberty."