It has become clear to me, and I think the majority of other Americans, that there is no operative political force, either in play or being planned, that can be brought to bear on this president to dissuade him from continuing his lethal policy in Iraq and his assault on our Constitution and the middle class.

For this reason, the demonstrations in various large cities have had, and will continue to have, NO IMPACT. Sadly, the elected people we placed in power are not acting in accordance with our collective wishes -- they are moving forward on their own (too frequently) selfish, greedy, lethal, and illegal agendas.

Yet, in pursuing their agenda of fear and divisiveness, they have accomplished what they sought to exploit: they have created a consummate desire among ALL AMERICANS for action to reclaim our government and our nation's ideals.

Although a disabled vet on fixed income, I bit the bullet, took my walker and pain pills and flew cross country to participate in a march on the Capital in D.C. in January, and I stayed to lobby our Congress members at personal meetings with our elected representatives to NOT support the spring Iraq funding supplemental that would prolong the occupation.

Marches continued each month thereafter on the Pentagon and other places. Yet, despite the lobbying, the marches, and a blizzard of tens of thousands of letters, emails, and faxes, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING changed. Our troops and Iraqis continue to die, even as I write. Our Constitution continues to be secretly ravaged with signing statements and clandestine actions that undermine our rights and wishes and founding ideals, and war profiteers continue to accumulate wealth, all too often it appears, illegally -- and with no oversight or consequences.

Even if there are really 70-80% of the American public just as outraged as I am, and dissatisfied with the president and his policies as the polls indicate, or dismayed with the Democrats for their inactions, relatively few of these 70-80% of Americans can physically show up at demonstrations far away from home, for a variety of reasons. This majority continue to exist in despair and wring their hands, feeling helpless to affect events and the destiny of our great nation.

I HAVE COME TO BELIEVE WHAT IS NEEDED IS A SERIES OF NATIONWIDE STRIKES AND SLOWDOWNS, CARRIED OUT BY THIS 70-80% MAJORITY, TO TAKE BACK OUR NATION. THIS WE CAN ALL DO TOGETHER, AS AMERICANS, AND IN GREATER NUMBERS THAN HAVE BEEN DEMONSTRATED THUS FAR.

SUCH COLLECTIVE ACTION would engage ALL dissatisfied Americans from small towns to large cities, bringing into a participatory role all those of us which, to date, have not been able to go to these logistically difficult or inconvenient demonstrations of only a few hundreds of thousands in sporadic events scattered across the nation. Even hundreds of thousands of participants do not impact the level of arrogance and hubris of our elected officials in the manner required.

WE THE PEOPLE MUST UP THE ANTE. The action I am proposing would take place as a Day of Re-Declaration of Our Rights as Americans -- a Reassertion that We the People are in charge -- NOT career politicians (whether Dem or Repub) and CERTAINLY NOT a president and vice-president who continue to ignore and mock the will of the majority of Americans on a growing list of issues.

ON THIS DAY OF RE-DECLARATION, 70-80% of Americans would stop, or simply not go to work, or not provide a service -- complete stoppage and slowdown. There would be silence. This would have a rolling affect. Those Americans that fear for their jobs could instead take varying degrees of stoppage and slow down (i.e., something that normally takes them a half hour to do, could be stretched out to take a couple of hours or more or all day, and so on.)

The idea is to ignite the great majority of outraged Americans -- those of us who have lost our voices. Those of us who are no longer heard. The action(s) I propose is to bring the economy to a dramatic slowdown or stoppage with a Re-Declaration of our wishes and our insistence to our elected officials that if certain actions are not taken in line with the will of the American people for the greater good, and done within a brief, but realistic timeframe (such as two weeks for some things, or a month for others, or maybe 6-9 months for safe troop withdrawal from Iraq etc.) -- if those "in power" do not act in accordance with the desires of the majority of the People, then other slowdowns/stoppages would occur in short order with increasing duration and severity.

IT'S THE ECONOMY, STUPID. The way to get the attention of neocons and profiteers is hurt them where it hurts them the most: the wallet. And we apparently must slapdown the career politicians who continually ignore us and who continue to make excuses. We must reassert our imperative that they follow the Will of We the People. We must tell them to stop the war and the billions of dollars a month drain on our tax dollars first, and cover children's health care, and stop spying on Americans, and habeas corpus must be reinstated as a non-negotiable right and functioning rule of law... and on and on until the government gets back in line with the will of the We the People and the Founding Fathers, NOT just a tyrannical few.

As mentioned, I have seen and participated in the demonstrations and marches of hundreds thousands in large cities and they have no lasting impact whatsoever. I see, almost weekly, many other little protests, local and regional, here and there, such as the Veterans for Peace who stayed at our place on their way to a protest in Seattle -- but nothing of the size and coordination I am talking about here.

WE NEED TENS OF MILLIONS all across this nation, simultaneously, to make the statement required, and there needs to be consequences for the government and elected officials who do not act for the greater good and in line with the will of We the People. It is time to figuratively "storm the Bastille," K-Street office by K-Street office, war-profiteer by war-profiteer, negligent elected official by negligent elected official.

A PROPOSITION OF THIS MAGNITUDE is too big for any one organization: it is going to take the cooperation, and contact lists, of the Rural Organizing Project, MoveOn.Org, United for Peace and Justice, Veterans for Peace, HuffingtonPost.com, Veterans in Action, Veterans Against Torture, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Gold Star Families Speak Out and numerous other groups which are now each doing something on their own but at different times in different places which no collective entity is coordinating to have a STRONG "STAND-UP-AND-TAKE-NOTICE" IMPACT.

BUT IT COULD START RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW. I DON'T FEEL WE CAN WAIT ANY LONGER. THE NATION, OUR CONSTITUTION AND GOVERNMENT, ARE LITERALLY DISINTEGRATING RIGHT BEFORE OUR EYES -- AND I DON'T THINK I AM BEING AN UNREALISTIC ALARMIST. AND MANY MORE PEOPLE THAT HAVE PROTESTED THUS FAR WANT TO ACT, BUT COMPARATIVELY LITTLE ACTIONS HAVE SHOWN TO HAVE ZERO IMPACT, AND THE PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW HOW THEY CAN PARTICIPATE AND PEACEFULLY UNLEASH THEIR OWN OUTRAGE IN THEIR OWN HOMES AND IN THEIR OWN TOWNS, YET WITH AN IMPACT BEYOND THEIR OWN LOCALITY IN D.C. WHERE IT MATTERS.

FIRST SHOULD COME THE WARNING that these disparate groups are now presenting one united front -- together with the 70-80% of outraged Americans -- on the most important colossal issues we face.

THEN AN ACTION DATE IS SET. PREFERABLY BEFORE CHRISTMAS 2007, AND PREFERABLY BEFORE CONGRESS GOES HOME ON THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY. When the date arrives, the country is literally shut down. NOTHING moves that day; NOTHING is bought that day; NO television is watched that day; NO cell phone or land line phone calls are made; NOTHING is manufactured that day; NO services are performed that day -- except emergency -- very few transactions take place by the majority of Americans. This will have a rippling affect across the nation. THE SILENCE WOULD BE DEAFENING -- ONLY THE ARROGANT AND GREEDY WOULD BE ABLE TO HEAR THE ROAR OF THE PEOPLE. WE THE PEOPLE, HOWEVER, WOULD BE SOLIDLY TOGETHER, AS WE HAVE NOT BEEN FOR QUITE SOME TIME.

ON THIS DATE OF RE-DECLARATION OF OUR RIGHTS come the ultimatum(s): to the president and to Congress: Do our will or else we will shut the country down again, only for longer, and with ever more severe consequences. THERE ARE MORE OF US than there are of the handful of arrogant tyrants currently acting only on their own arrogant, greedy agenda and literally telling each and every one of us to go screw ourselves.

I frequently enclose in my emails the quotes below, but I invite you to please read or reread them again and absorb these words left to us by some of the wisest and most courageous men and women that have ever graced this planet. Then muster your own courage that is within all of us to move forward.

Those with organizational expertise, such as the founders of the organizations mentioned above, and with control of the communications apparatus necessary to rapidly accomplish notification of the citizenry must lead the way so we can act quickly together and in harmony with the 70-80% of Americans that are sick and tired of this. And we know what 'THIS' is -- it is tyranny -- the word we are so afraid to use in reference to our own country. The 'THIS' which is frighteningly like nothing ever seen in this land.

OCTOBER 27th IS SLATED AS A DAY OF DEMONSTRATION IN MANY CITIES, BUT HERE AGAIN, THESE DEMONSTRATIONS WILL NOT IMPACT CONGRESS OR THE PRESIDENT IN THE MANNER REQUIRED TO BRING THEM INTO COMPLIANCE WITH THE WILL OF THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS.

A NATIONAL PEACEFUL PROTEST, STRIKE, AND WORK STOPPAGE, I feel, is where we ALL at last come together as a nation -- as Americans -- to save our nation. I feel we only have a small window of opportunity before it is all lost. I would not put it past this president and this vice president and their shrinking percentage of supporters to somehow, deviously, waive the elections in Nov 2008, to perhaps declare marshall law to remain in power on the pretext of the "global war on terror." We should be alert to possible "false flag" actions at the time leading up to the elections. I do not think that such a scenario is out of the realm of possibility, based on their past actions -- and especially with the private army of "security" personnel they have assembled owing their allegiance (and paycheck) NOT to Congress or We the People as it should be, but rather only to an imperial president and this administration -- these mercenary groups we know as Blackwater and others. We now not only face the military/industrial complex Eisenhower warned about, we also face the 'security'/industrial complex this administration has brought into being and answerable only to them.

IF SOME PROTEST SUCH ACTION IS UNWIELDY SUCH PROTEST TO UNSPECIFIC, JUST REMIND THEM OF THE WORDS OF DONALD RUMSFELD: "HEY, DEMOCRACY CAN BE UNTIDY."

THIS WE CAN DO TOGETHER. WE MUST SAY TO THEM, LOUDLY, THAT WE SEE AND UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY ARE DOING, AND WE DO NOT LIKE IT. WE MUST SAY, LOUDLY, THAT WE WANT THEM TO CHANGE IMMEDIATELY.

WE DO NOT HAVE TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE -- WE NO LONGER HAVE TO SIT IDOLLY BY AS OUR CONSTITUTION AND MILITARY AND TREASURY AND REPUTATION ARE RAVAGED UNTIL THEY ARE BEYOND REPAIR. WE CAN / WE MUST DEMONSTRATE OUR UNITED COLLECTIVE WILL AND INFLUENCE, OVER THOSE WHO CONTINUE TO IGNORE OUR WILL, WITH COORDINATED, PEACEFUL, YET FIRM AND UNYIELDING, ACTION.

Respectfully, yet Urgently,

~Bruce Freeman (FOUNDER: Veterans Against Torture; MEMBER; Veterans for Peace, Veterans In Action, Disabled American Veterans, Patriot Guard Riders, Veterans and Military Families for Speak Out, Veterans for America, Veterans Defending the Bill of Rights, VoteVets, Veterans For Common Sense; SUPPORTER: Gold Star Families for Peace; Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America; Military Academy Graduates Against the War)

________


PLEASE READ AND HEED:

"The only answer to organized money is organized people." ~Bill Moyers

"Thank God our time is now when wrong
Comes up to face us everywhere.
Never to leave us till we take
The longest stride of soul we ever took." ~Christopher Fry

"A little patience (and action), and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake." ~Thomas Jefferson, 1798

"No one man can terrorize a whole nation unless we are all his accomplices." ~Edward R. Murrow

“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.”  ~James Madison

"When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty." ~Thomas Jefferson

"An elected despotism is not the government we fought for." ~Thomas Jefferson

"Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." ~Mark Twain

"The only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry -- in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can here protect the values of democratic government." ~Justice Potter Stewart, writing in 1971 Pentagon Papers decision.

"Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak, and that it is doing God's service, when it is (really) violating all His laws." ~ John Adams

"Remember, all that Hitler did was legal in Germany at the time." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

"The provision of the Constitution giving war-making power to Congress was dictated, as I understand it, for the following reasons: Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions, and (thus), they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us."   ~Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to his friend and law partner William H. Herndon (15 February 1848)

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist." ~Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address

"The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist, the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public, but rather how best to use the news to deceive the public." ~Former Vice President Henry A. Wallace, New York Times

"I agree to this Constitution, with all its faults because I think a General Government necessary for us, (but it) could end in despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being incapable of any other." ~Benjamin Franklin speaking, September 17, 1787, about the Constitution

"Rebellion against tyrants is obedience to God." ~Thomas Jefferson (Motto on his seal)

"The healthy man does not torture others – for generally, it is the tortured who turn into torturers." ~Carl Jung

"The practice of arbitrary imprisonments, (has) been, in all ages, (one of) the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny." ~Alexander Hamilton, Federalist Paper 84

"Torture is unlawful under the laws of this country. It is not what this country is all about. It is not what this country stands for. It’s antithetical to everything this country stands for." ~MICHAEL B. MUKASEY, President Bush’s nominee for attorney general.

"Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." ~James Madison

"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts." ~Edmund Burke

"Yes, we did produce a near perfect Republic. But will they keep it, or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the surest way to destruction." ~Thomas Jefferson

"Government is not reason and it is not eloquence. It is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." ~George Washington

"It is easy to be 'brave' when far away from danger." ~Aesop

"The nobility of the soldier willing to give a life for country and God
lies silent and still amidst the broken promises of leaders.
Send them not to futile sacrifice on shores so far from home.
But keep your word to all that serve that none shall die in vain."
~ a poem by Rich Raitano, a brother Vietnam medic

"Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world." ~William Allen White

"To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war." ~Winston Churchill

"Let America realize that self-scrutiny is not treason. Self-examination is not disloyalty."  ~Richard Cardinal Cushing

"Our country is not the only thing to which we owe our allegiance.  It is also owed to justice and to humanity. Patriotism consists not in waving the flag, but in striving that our country shall be righteous as well as strong."  ~James Bryce

"Only Americans can hurt America."  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely, or to think sanely, under the influence of a great fear." ~Bertrand Russell

"If America ever passes on as a great nation, we ought to put on our tombstone:  America died from a delusion she had Moral Leadership."  ~Will Rogers

"We Americans have no commission from God to police the world."  ~Benjamin Harrison

"We need a type of patriotism that recognizes the virtues of those who are opposed to us.  We must get away from the idea that America is to be the leader of the world in everything.  She can lead in some things.  The old "manifest destiny" idea ought to be modified so that each nation has the manifest destiny to do the best it can - and that without cant, without the assumption of self-righteousness and with a desire to learn to the uttermost from other nations."  ~Francis John McConnell

"Laws are the sovereigns of sovereigns." ~Louis XIV

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~John F. Kennedy

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." ~Martin Luther King Jr., "The Trumpet of Conscience," 1967 

"Riots and demonstrations are the voices of the unheard." ~Martin Luther King Jr.

"The idea of the sacred is quite simply one of the most conservative notions in any culture, because it seeks to turn other ideas -- uncertainty, progress, change -- into crimes." ~Salman Rushdie

"We must free ourselves of the hope that the sea will ever rest. We must learn to sail in high winds." ~Hanmer Parsons Grant

"The tragedy of our day is the climate of fear in which we live, and fear breeds repression. Too often sinister threats to the Bill of Rights, to freedom of the mind, are concealed under the patriotic cloak of anti-(terrorism)." ~Adlai Stevenson

"Liberalism is the supreme form of generosity; it is the right which the majority concedes to minorities, and hence, it is the noblest cry that has ever resounded on this planet. It announces the determination to share existence with the enemy; more than that, with an enemy which is weak." ~Jose Ortega Y Gasset

"Do not ever say that the desire to 'do good' by force (or chicanery) is a good motive. Neither power, lust, stupidity (nor arrogance, nor vanity) are good motives." ~ Ayn Rand

"It is easy to take liberty for granted when you have never had it taken from you." ~M. Grundler

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed." ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Our ideas and aspirations --- were crushed. Sometimes we were crushed by army tanks, and sometimes we were crushed by think tanks. And by think tanks, I mean the people who are paid to think by the makers of tanks." ~Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism"

"As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we all must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become victims of the darkness." ~Justice William O. Douglas

"The sinews of war: a limitless supply of money." ~Marcus T. Cicero

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, from sleeping under bridges,begging in the streets, and stealing bread." ~Anatole France

"Before honor is humility." ~Bible

"The people have a right to the truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." ~Epictetus

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess freedom, yet fail to act – they are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning, they want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters... power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them." ~Frederick Douglass

"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection." ~Henry Wallace, former V.P. of the United States

Franklin D. Roosevelt said he didn't "want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of (World War II);" Harry Truman equated war profiteering with Treason, and Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the military/industrial complex had the potential to "endanger our liberties and democratic processes."

"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt." ~H. L. Mencken

"Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed."  ~Martin Luther King Jr. (Letter from Birmingham Jail)

"A great revolution is never the fault of the people, but of the government." ~Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

"I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." ~Mahatma Gandhi

"There's always more to it. This is what history consists of. It's the sum total of all the things they aren't telling us." ~Don DeLillo
"How long will they kill our prophets while we stand aside and look?" ~Bob Marley

"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." ~Voltaire

"Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer." ~George Santayana

"It would be easy for us (America), if we do not learn to understand the world and appreciate the rights, privileges, and duties of all other countries and peoples, to represent in our power the same danger to the world that fascism did." ~ Ernest Hemingway

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." ~Upton Sinclair

In the imaginary world Orwell described in 1984, the word "doublethink" meant (paperback page 32) "To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, know them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget, whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and, above all to apply same process to the process itself . . . ." ~George Orwell
"War is peacefreedom is slaveryingnorance is strength." ~George Orwell

"They must find it difficult... those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority." ~Gerald Massey

"Fascism is capitalism plus murder." ~Upton Sinclair

"No man is entitled to the blessing of freedom unless he be vigilant in its preservation." ~Gen. Douglas MacArthur

"Honor to the soldier and sailor everywhere, who bravely bears his country's cause. Honor also to the citizen who cares for his brother in the field, and serves, as best he can, the same cause." ~Abraham Lincoln

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WARNING: Due to presidential executive orders and signing statements, and provisions passed by the previous Republican-controlled Congress, the National Security Agency may have read this posting, as well as and any other private correspondence of mine, and may listen to my private phone conversations without warrant, warning, or notice, and certainly without probable cause. They may also arrest me without telling me of any charges against me, even transport me outside the United States, and hold me secretly and indefinitely in an undisclosed location without notifying my wife or relatives, and deny me access to an attorney. They may take my property under the executive order of July 17, 2007, never to be returned. They may torture me without fear of penalty or repercussions to them for their actions. They may do this with little or no judicial or legislative oversight. This danger became ever more apparent, and ominous, on Sept. 19, 2007 when the U.S. Senate failed to reinstate habeas corpus as an inalienable right of American citizens. I/We have no recourse nor protection save to call for the impeachment of the current president and vice-president, and voting to remove all rubber-stamp Republicans and neocons from office, as well as other elected officials acting only in their own interests instead of those of the People or the Constitution, be they occupying local, state, or national offices.