What Can be Done?

By John Stanton and Wayne Madsen, 10 June 2002

"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not
be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience
hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they
are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpation's, pursuing
invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such
Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security [...]" US
Declaration of Independence, 1776

As July 4, 2002 approaches, Americans can no longer afford to practice
armchair democracy and checkbook citizenship. If the public does not rise
out of its feeble and hypnotic state it puts the lives of its children and
grandchildren at the disposal of utilitarian political, corporate and
military leaders who view flesh and blood as human capital, easily usable
and disposable in the march for the accumulation of wealth, power and
resources.

In June 2002, the United States of America resembles the Animal Farm eerily
portrayed by George Orwell in 1946 -a "farm" run by Mr. Pilkington and the
"Pigs".

From November 2000 to June 2002 those who record such events will note that
the Bush Regime rushed the United States to the heretofore unseen Stygian
depths of greed and corruption, ushered in Gestapo-like treatment and
profiling of US resident aliens and US citizens and pillaged the
environment, education and infrastructure budgets. It closed "Peacekeeping
Operations" in the Pentagon, adopted an aggressive nuclear weapons testing
and first-use doctrine, swept aside the checks and balances of the US
Constitution -most notably judicial branch rulings critical of its
detainment of anti-US rebels- and used specious terror warnings to defuse controversy over its Draconian policies.

In a scene out of classic thriller Seven Days in May, Bush asked the
broadcast networks for airtime on the evening of June 6, 2002 to announce
sweeping changes to the nation's intelligence and law enforcement
bureaucracy, creating a Cabinet- level homeland security department. So, on
the 58th anniversary of the Allied invasion of France to liberate Europe
from the yoke of fascism, we have a president chiseling into the marbled
government infrastructure in Washington the words "homeland security." The
term "homeland" was used and promoted by the very nation D-Day was meant to
eliminate from the planet. "Homeland" was also a favorite term of South
Africa's brutal apartheid regime. That government confined its majority
African population to sham countries it described as "homelands."

This action and others call for counteraction by the public and select
leaders who should recall the fate of many who dared sign the US Declaration
of Independence. According to Bethlehem, PA, Online, 5 signers were captured
by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. 12 had their
homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary
Army; another had 2 sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from
wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War; 25 were lawyers or jurists, 11
were merchants, 9 were farmers or large plantation owners. One was a
teacher, one a musician, and one a printer. These were men of means and
education, yet they signed the Declaration of Independence, knowing full
well that the penalty could be death if they were captured. And they were
mostly 20 to 40 year old men. Are there any leaders like these in 2002 who
can grapple with the insidious leadership of the country and the sickness
that pervades American Society?

Abuses, Usurpations and Negligence

Live from Moscow on June 10, 2002, with the Kremlin in Moscow as a backdrop,
Attorney General John Ashcroft announced the military's ownership of an
American citizen -- and Chicago street gang member -- Jose Padilla, seized on
May 8, 2002 by the US Justice Department for allegedly talking about a
"dirty bomb" -- a claim which European military officials find specious and
timed to counter the Bush Regime's 911 negligence. On June 12, from Qatar,
Donald Rumsfeld made the stunning announcement that "We're not interested in
trying him at the moment [...]. We're not interested in punishing him at the
moment. We're interested in finding out what in the world he knows." With
those statements, made on the soil of non-democratic regimes, American's
were put on notice that the Bill of Rights have been suspended and
superceded by military law. With this abominable decapitation of US justice,
and the nightmare that is the PATRIOT Act, Americans have seen perhaps the
most brazen usurpation of their rights and liberties in their history.

And the list is almost endless.

Agence France Presse: "The three-prong National Security Entry/Exit
Registration System is in response from the US Justice Department to a
mandate issued by Congress to track 'virtually all' of the 35 million
foreign visitors who land in the United States annually [...]. Such visitors
will be fingerprinted and photographed at the border, be required to
register "periodically" if they stay in the United States for 30 days or
longer [...]. Unfortunately, policies that single out particular religious
and ethnic groups create a false sense of security and end up further
damaging America's image and reputation around the world".

The Hartford Courant: "Three separate courts have told the US Justice
Department that its secrecy policy regarding the arrest of 1,200 Muslim
immigrants after Sept. 11 is illegal. Yet the department, in particular its
Immigration and Naturalization Service, has failed to heed the message [...]
"

The Miami Herald: "Luciano Martins, Brazil's ambassador to Cuba, wrote about
what he called 'Bush's imperial unilateralism,' which he said has unleashed
'intolerable and politically indefensible' US reactions to the Sept. 11
terrorist attacks, such as the invasion of Afghanistan. 'The [US]
irrationality and arrogance may not be just personal attributes of temporary
rulers, but may also turn into a collective attitude. As it happened in Nazi
Germany and now seems to be happening in Israel,' Martins wrote. "The
current silence of the Democratic Party and most American intellectuals
[...] seems to suggest that Bush somehow expresses a collective sentiment."

The CIA Factbook: "[...] development of a 'two-tier labor market' in which
those at the bottom lack the education and the professional/technical skills
of those at the top and, more and more, fail to get comparable pay raises,
health insurance coverage, and other benefits. Since 1975, practically all
the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households [...].
Long-term problems [for the USA] include inadequate investment in economic
infrastructure, rapidly rising medical costs of an aging population, sizable
trade deficits, and stagnation of family income in the lower economic groups
[...].

The National Center for Children in Poverty: "37 percent of American
children (27 million children) live in low-income families (40 percent of
US children under age six -9 million children), in families with incomes
below 200 percent of the poverty line ($27,722 for a family of three). Many
of the concerns of 'near poor' low-income families overlap with those of the
poor, such as the need for well-paying jobs and access to affordable quality
childcare and health care. 16 percent of children (over 11 million children)
live in poverty (17 percent of children under age six -4 million children),
in families with incomes below the federal poverty line ($13,861 for a
family of three in 2000). About the name number of children lived in poverty
in 1980."

The United States' child poverty rate is substantially higher -- often
two-to-three times higher -- than that of most other major Western
industrialized nations. The child poverty rate is highest for
African-American (30 percent) and Latino (28 percent) children. The child
poverty rate for white children is 9 percent. The poverty rate for children
under age six follows a similar pattern: 33 percent for African-American
children under age six, 29 percent for Latino young children, and 10 percent
for white young children. 6 percent of America's children (5 million) live
in extreme poverty (8 percent under age six -2 million children), in
families with incomes below half the poverty line. (In 2000, the extreme
poverty line was $6,930 for a family of three) [...].

Council for a Livable World: "The Administration is requesting a military
budget of $396.1 billion in fiscal 2003, a 1-year increase of $45.3. This
will be the largest increase in military budget authority since fiscal 1966
at the height of the Vietnam War. The increase alone is larger that the
military budget of all other countries beside Japan, whose budget is $45.6
billion. In fiscal 2007, the National Defense budget is slated to increase
to $469.6 billion. While the budget is being touted for fighting terrorism,
the bulk of the funding goes for buying weapons and a force structure
designed during the Cold War, not for 'transformation' systems such as
precision-guided bombs and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)."

Business Week: "PricewaterhouseCoopers forecasts that 11,000 companies will
file for Chapter 11 protection in 2002, up from a record 10,442 in 2001."

Workingforamerica.com: "Since January 1, 2002, there have been 555,783
layoffs with Hewlett Packard announcing up to 15,000. US unemployment was 6
percent in April 2002 [...] The states face budget shortfalls totaling $27
billion [...] June 2002."

American Society for Civil Engineers: "D+ for US infrastructure [...] $1.3
trillion needed to fix roads, sewage systems, drinking water, schools,
roads, bridges [...]."

The United Nations: "[...] global warming of between 1 and 3.5 degrees C
over the coming century. This may not sound like cause for concern, but the
global average temperature has changed by no more than one degree C up or
down for the past ten thousand years. Industrialized countries, with roughly
20 per cent of the global population, account for 60 per cent of annual
emissions of carbon dioxide, and the biggest emitter, the United States,
alone accounts for over 20 per cent. Of cumulative CO2 emissions from 1950
to 1992 -- these gases stay in the atmosphere for years -- industrialized
countries account for 74 per cent and the US for 28 per cent. Emissions by
developing countries, although growing rapidly, are not expected to equal
those of industrialized countries until 2035."

Sentencingproject.org: "Roughly 2 million inmates crowd US prisons and
jails. The US incarcerates 690 out of every 100,000 Americans. This makes
the USA the world leader in incarceration ahead of Russia, which jails 676
per 100,000. These figures exclude the millions on probation, house arrest,
illegally detained under the guise of the War on Terrorism and War on Drugs,
and the disproportionate number of African Americans, Latino Americans and
Central Asian/Middle Eastern Americans imprisoned."

Amnestyineternal.org: "111 countries have abolished the death penalty in law
or practice. 7countries since 1990 are known to have executed prisoners who
were under 18 years old at the time of the crime - -Congo (Democratic
Republic), Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, USA and Yemen. The country
which carried out the greatest number of known executions of child offenders
was the USA (15 since 1990). Amnesty International recorded three executions
of child offenders in 2001: one in Iran, one in Pakistan and one in the
USA."

Islam-usa.co (Shahid Athar, Associate Professor, Indiana University): "Yes we
are number one. We are number one not only as a superpower and being the
wealthiest and strongest nation, but the highest in crime as well. For
100,000 people, the US has a homicide rate of 9.4 while that of the UK is 2,
and Japan 1.2 for comparison. Though we are number one among those who
believe in the commandment 'thou shalt not steal,' we have also the highest
number of robberies. For 100,000 population, the figure for the US is 45; UK
9; Japan 1. We are also number one in the number of drug offenders. For
100,000 population, the US has 346 drug offenders as compared to the UK of
56, and Japan of 1. More American women are raped than any other country in
the world. For 100,000 women, the rape incidents are 114 in the US, 9 in the
UK, and 7 in Japan. 4 million women are physically abused every year by
their husbands or boyfriends and forced to seek emergency treatment.
Domestic violence leads to the death of 2000 women every year. 25% of all
attempted suicide by women is by those who were battered."

What Can be Done?

The US Constitution makes no reference to the "two party system". The
current anticompetitive duopoly has failed to represent, protect and
safeguard the American people from corporate and personal greed, and from
foreign enemies domestic and foreign. A viable fourth party -- the Greens
having established themselves as the third -- must be founded. Pillars of such
a party could be progressives such as John McCain, John Conyers, Russ
Feingold, Cynthia McKinney, Barbara Lee, Paul Wellstone, Bernie Sanders,
John Corzine, Dennis Kucinich, Jim Jeffords and like-minded individuals
within the established order. Millions of Americans would devote time,
energy and votes to a party that included these luminaries.

The Electoral College should be eliminated, as its presence is as sinister
as the interests and money that has corrupted the US political process. As
pointed out in the San Francisco Chronicle, "[...] to persuade southern
colonies to join the new union, they [the founding fathers] had to recognize
the South's right to perpetuate a slave system that treated human beings as
chattel. After months of dickering, they found a way around this political
impasse. Their decision to base congressional representation on each state's
population worked just fine for the more populous North, but not for the
slave states, where only a small number of free whites lived. So they
devised an ingenious solution, appropriately called the Great Compromise.
All free men -- plus three-fifths of all slaves -- would count toward the
apportionment of representatives. What this meant is that a handful of free
slaveholding southern white men would now be well represented in Congress
because they could count three-fifths of their slaves as part of their
state's population. That solved one problem. But the founding fathers faced
yet another political dilemma. If the colonists decided to elect their
president by direct vote, the South would have been vastly outnumbered by
the more populous northern colonies. As they drafted the constitution, James
Madison of Virginia worried that a popular vote would undermine the
political power of the southern colonies."

Indeed the reliance on such an antediluvian system that also involves
walking to a voting booth is entirely dysfunctional in a time of commonplace
Internet-based banking and stock trading, telework, teleconferencing,
automated battlespace management. Moreover, it puts voters at risk. Why
chance walking a city street or assembling under the watchful eyes of hidden
cameras or spiteful officials? Why risk votes not being counted in the
electoral process? Why must the individual put herself in danger when the
elected and unelected hide themselves at the first sign of danger? Are they
worth more than the individuals that make up the public? An automated
registering and voting process adopting Internet-based financial
transactions must be implemented. If the US is to retain its damaged
electoral system, then United Nation's appointed observers must be enlisted
to monitor US polling places.

And as the US Capitol, White House and Federal Buildings become off-limits
to the public -- and their occupants safely secure and governing from remote
and alternative locations- its seems pointless other than for quaintness to
assemble the governing organizations in one central point in Washington, DC.
The US Capitol is now symbol, not substance, and, as such, national
governance could be conducted through regional gatherings where those
elected and appointed would be forced to face constituents 24x7.

The US Constitution must be amended to include national referenda and
confidence measures that collar and leash those in power to the public. To
begin this and other changes to the US system of government, a national
petition-for-change drive must be undertaken via the Internet in conjunction
with a nonviolent change-movement involving nationwide demonstrations. These
efforts can be organized through Indymedia and the hundreds of nonprofits
that include Americans from every walk of life.

Instead of targeting nations for preemptive nuclear and conventional attack,
US governing leaders should call a worldwide summit at a neutral location to
address global inequities that lead to despair, hatred and hunger. Former
Presidents Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford would do the nation a great service
by immediately calling for such a meeting. Invitees must include those
nations who have most suffered most from ill conceived US and Western
European policies. Critics of such calls are fond of dismissing diplomacy,
but aggressively remind of the noble US effort to rebuild Europe after WWII.
They would do well to support such a cause that includes the "non-white"
resource-rich playgrounds of empires new and old. Brutish capitalism must
give way to reasoned generosity, along with enlightened US reentrance into
the global community to be evidenced by adoption of protocols and treaties
gutted by the current Regime and left to languish by the Clinton
Administration. For starters, the US must sign-on to the International
Criminal Court, Convention on the Banning of Landmines, Conventions on
Children in War, and the Kyoto Protocols.

Additionally, the dividing line that once stood between US civilian and
military elements must be reestablished and widened. The "revolving door"
that places retired military officers in charge of US diplomacy and national
"Blue Ribbon Panels", places them on the boards of major corporations who
seek defense contracts -- and allows them to spin media coverage of events and
advocate military/industrial policies--should be shut down. And many of
these retired military officers are advocates of using federal troops to
police the United States, ostensibly for Homeland Defense. But there are
some enlightened dissenters among them.

Dr. William Burcham, a former US Navy officer -- and a member of a group that
opposes the establishment of the US Army's Northern "Homeland"
Command -- indicates that it is time to counteract the efforts of the Bush
Regime. "Since 911 there has been a steady pressure exerted by some in the
current administration to infringe upon the civil liberties of US citizens
in attempts to make their own functions easier to accomplish. Now is not the
time to stand by and allow further erosion of the US Constitution for the
benefit of these few. Anxious times make for poor policy decisions. US
constitutional tradition and years of political wisdom, combined with
national experience, clearly indicate the people do not support the use of
federal troops for law enforcement purposes."

Orwell sounded such a warning 56 years ago through his characters in Animal
Farm: "[...] Then there came a moment when the first shock had worn off and
when, in spite of everything -- in spite of [...] the habit, developed through
long years, of never complaining, never criticizing, no matter what
happened -- they might have uttered some word of protest [...]" But they
didn't.

Copyright © 2002 by the News Insider, John Stanton and Wayne Madsen

John Stanton is a Virginia-based writer on national security affairs and
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC- based investigative journalist who writes
and comments frequently on civil liberties and human rights issues.