EXCLUSIVE
- The Jericho Report
America's First
Military Revolt
"A
Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a Tyrant,
is unfit to be the ruler of a free people."
The Declaration of Independence
"This
[the U.S. Constitution] is likely to be administered for a
course of years and then end in despotism... when the people
shall become so corrupted as to need despotic government, being
incapable of any other."
Benjamin Franklin
|
|
Read it again below - carefully - and you'll find
that 22 of the 27 conditions that led to a revolution
in 1776 also exist in America in 2008. |
In the 1700s, America's 13 colonies were, legally, British territory
and the Revolutionary War was, in effect, a military coup - not by
disgruntled British soldiers, but by a ragtag army created from the
British subjects who had had enough of British tyranny and taxation.
The 1776 Revolution started out with a bunch of militias, the Minutemen
being probably the most famous.
From that Revolution came the Declaration of Independence and the
Constitution, with its Bill of Rights, which some - including many in the
military - today say is in danger. Read the Declaration again, below, with
emphasis on what has been highlighted in blue - it's probably
been a long time - and see if you don't agree that the grievances of 1776
are the grievances of 2008.
I have numbered the specific grievances so they may be referred to
later, as they apply to our nation today. Out of 27 specific, numbered
grievances of 1776, 22 could also be considered legitimate and serious
grievances in 2008.
"A patriot must always be ready to
defend his country against his government."
Edward Abbey
It was the Declaration of Independence which proclaimed (emphasis
added):
When in the Course of human events it
becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which
have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the
earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of
Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the
separation.
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 Happiness.
— That to secure these rights, Governments
are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of
the governed,
— That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in
such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. 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 usurpations, 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.
— Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such
is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems
of Government. The history of the present King of Great
Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in
direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these
States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
- He has refused his Assent to Laws,
the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
- He has forbidden his Governors to pass
Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their
operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended,
he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
- He has refused to pass other Laws for the
accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people
would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature,
a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
- He has called together legislative bodies
at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of
their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into
compliance with his measures.
- He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing
with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
- He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause
others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of
Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their
exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the
dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
- He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for
that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and
raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
- He has obstructed the Administration of
Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing
Judiciary Powers.
- He has made Judges dependent on his Will
alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of
their salaries.
- He has erected a multitude of New
Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and
eat out their substance.
- He has kept among us, in times of peace,
Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
- He has affected to render the Military
independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
- He has combined with others to subject us
to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by
our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
- For quartering large bodies of armed
troops among us:
- For protecting them, by a mock Trial from
punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the
Inhabitants of these States:
- For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
- For imposing Taxes on us without our
Consent:
- For depriving us in many cases, of the
benefit of Trial by Jury:
- For transporting us beyond Seas to be
tried for pretended offences:
- For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring
Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary
government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render
it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same
absolute rule into these Colonies
- For taking away our Charters, abolishing
our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our
Governments:
- For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves
invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
- He has abdicated Government here, by
declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
- He has plundered our seas, ravaged our
coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
- He is at this time transporting large
Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death,
desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances
of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely
paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head
of a civilized nation.
- He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high
Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners
of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
- He has excited domestic insurrections
amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the
inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose
known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in
the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is
thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the
ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We
have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to
extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of
the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We
have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have
conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these
usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and
correspondence. They too have been deaf to the
voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold
them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America,
in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the
world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and
declare, That these united Colonies are, and of
Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved
from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and
that all political connection between them and the State of
Great Britain, is and ought to be totally
dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power
to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and
to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right
do.
— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on
the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other
our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
It may be unsettling to realize that so many of the reasons given for dissolving
the tyrannical rule of government and creating a new government in its
place (those highlighted in blue) have astonishing parallels to recent
actions not only of the Bush administration, but others preceding it.
Secret Presidential "signing statements" and "executive
orders" have placed the current president clearly "above and
beyond the rule of law" and the powers of either Congress or the
Judiciary, as required in the Constitution. Certain complaints in the
Declaration of Independence could just as well be addressing:
- the corruption of today's judiciary system,
- denial of the citizens' rights to free speech or assembly as
guaranteed by the First Amendment,
- the existence of secret prisons and torture camps such as Guantanamo
and many others, at home and abroad,
- the destruction of the Writ of Habeas Corpus to arrest and
imprison us at will, without benefit of trial or even accusation,
- the destruction of the Posse Comitatus so as to allow federal
troops to reign unrestrained across the land,
- denial of the citizens' rights under the Second Amendment to protect
themselves from armed tyranny,
- unfunded mandates imposing draconian laws upon the states without
their consent,
- obstruction of justice,
- the establishment of secret courts in which those arrested are
denied access to legal counsel, denied the right of witnesses in their
behalf, denied knowing the "evidence" against them, and
denied the right of a formal accusation against which they could try
to defend themselves, as well as denied even the right to a trial
itself,
- the waging of war and the invasion and subjugation of sovereign
nations "in the name of the people" but without the consent
of the people,
- taxation without honest, real representation - imposed by corrupt
and unreachable judges and legislators controlled not by the will of
the people, but by the iron hand of the corporations to whom they are
forever deeply and darkly indebted,
- the confiscation of private property for corporate use under
"eminent domain",
- the creation of "standing armies" - in this case private,
mercenary forces such as Blackwater - and placing them, too, above all
accountability to the common decencies of law, not only in this
country, but in all countries to which they are deployed,
- the formation of a "Secret Government" or "Shadow
Government" which, by presidential directive, expels the Congress
and the Judiciary from independent participation and the details of
which the Congress is prevented from even seeing.
... the list goes on and on and on.
Few people can tell you what the Declaration of Independence says, but
I would strongly urge that all of us read it again, and compare its
grievances to those we have today.
We live in a nation where the law is only what the President says it is
- and it applies only to those whom he chooses. He can create laws without
the consent of Congress (by "Executive Orders"), and he can pick
and choose those laws of Congress which he will or will not obey (by
"Signing Statements").
We live in a nation, indeed an entire world, that is controlled by
global corporations and international banks who have enslaved our
governments, our nations and the people of those nations through
deception, bribery, extortion, blackmail and even murder to destroy
nations everywhere and create in their place slave workers and serfs who
must do their bidding ... or face imprisonment and death!
The Constitution of the United States, written in 1787, is the second
most vital component of that First Revolution. It is the document which
all soldiers and publicly elected officials swear by oath to protect
"so help me God."
After spending lengthy time creating the Constitution, and poring over
the details of government, it quickly became clear that the most
important part of that Constitution - and without which the Constitution
could never be approved by the governed - was the Bill of Rights. There
was a motion at the original Constitutional Convention to include a Bill
of Rights in the original document, but the idea was rejected without
debate by the delegates.
Prior to the American Revolution, the original colonies, by way of
the Continental Congress, adopted the Articles of Confederation which
formed a bond between those original colonies as they struggled for in
dependence from England. However, these Articles of Confederation
did not adequately address or provide for the presence of a central
government to rule the new country.
To address this problem, delegates from the colonies met in 1787 at
the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to formulate a document
that would allow for the formation of this new government. While
the totality of the events that occurred at the Constitutional
Convention provides a number of fascinating and intriguing historical
points, perhaps most interesting is that the idea of a bill of rights
was initially put before the Convention only to be rejected without
debate.
The drafters of the Constitution were not against a bill of rights;
however, as they were drafting a document that would allow only certain
enumerated rights to the central government, they simply didn’t see
the need for guaranteed rights to be set out in the document.
However, following the drafting of the Constitution and it being sent
to the states for ratification, it became clear that the states held a
different opinion on the inclusion of language providing these basic
rights. Why? Simply put, the states didn’t trust the
government to protect the rights of the people unless the rights were
specifically enumerated. After all, the concept was not new.
In 1215, nearly 600 years before the drafting of the Bill of Rights,
King John of signed the Magna Carta, a document designed to protect the
English people from the Crown’s abuse of power. Following the
Magna Carta, and even later in the American colonies, similar documents
were drafted giving the people enumerated rights to protect them from
the misuse of the central government’s power. Even though the
drafters of the Constitution presented the colonies with a remarkable
document in the Constitution which crafted a government with an
elaborate system of checks and balances on power, until it included
certain enumerated rights, it was not complete.
As a result for the call for a Bill of Rights, the framers, led
primarily by James Madison, began work to create a document that
provided for these basic rights. It was a difficult time for the young
country. Many wanted a second Constitutional Convention to limit
the power of the new federal government and many disagreed on what
rights to include. The states provided a flood of proposed
amendments and much debate was had as to how the matter would proceed.
However, when the Bill of Rights was sent to the states for acceptance
or rejection, it was soon accepted.
The
Significance of the Bill of Rights by Sean
Keefer, Mar. 16, 2006
"America will never be
destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it
will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln
I'd suggest you also read that again - and make at least a mental note
of those Rights which have been eroded, twisted and, finally, abolished -
not necessarily by "law" but most certainly by practice. It's
easy to discover that every single one of the 10 Bill of Rights
have been emasculated and stripped to meaningless legal jargon.
Bill of Rights
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Both the Executive and Legislative branches, backed by the
Judiciary, have violated all of the components of the First Amendment
- whenever it is "convenient" to do so. As for petitioning
the government for a redress of grievances, it is still allowed to
"petition" - but if the petition is not simply ignored, if
it is persistent - then the petititoner often finds himself or herself
an "enemy of the state" and their names show up on Terrorist
Watch Lists or other such "lists of subversion."
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and bear
arms, shall not be infringed.
The right of "the people" to keep and bear arms is
guaranteed here because a "well regulated militia"
(made up of those individual people is "necessary to the
security of a free state." It has nothing to do with turkey
hunting. If an individual abuses that right - by harming another, or
murder or robbery - than that person must be held responsible for
those actions and, yes, punishment can indeed be harsh, depending on
the crime. The crime of that individual in no way negates the rights
of the rest of us.
No soldier shall, in time of peace be
quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of
war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Like the meaning of the word "is", the meaning of the
word "peace" is whatever the Executive branch decides it is.
Despite a "Korean War", it was not a war because it
was never declared as such. The word "war" has been
perverted and now includes a host of "internal" wars - the
War on Drugs, the War on Crime, the War on Terror, etc., etc. When the
power of Congress to declare war is ruled null and void - and
war-making is strictly the prerogative of the Executive branch, the
definition of "war" - and therefore "peace" -
becomes a meaningless exercise in semantics, with the definitions set
by the Executive branch. The phrase "in a manner to be prescribed
by law" is equally meaningless, since the Executive branch has
now set itself and itself alone as the definer of "law" - as
outlined in a number of Executive Orders, which the President declares
(or not) to be law without the consent and approval of Congress. Now,
Congress doesn't even need to be "informed" of what
"the law" is.
The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall
issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and
particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or
things to be seized.
They key words used by the Executive, sometimes with the
consent of Congress and sometimes not, to strip the Fourth Amendment
of any meaning are "effects" and "unreasonable."
Today, e-mail and telephone conversations can be spied upon without
warrants. Neither of these existed in 1776, but is it unreasonable to
establish that e-mail is just an extension of "mail" and
thus would be protected as one's "papers and
effects"? And cannot one properly claim that telephone
conversations are an extension of the "person" and just as
protected as "papers and effects"?
And what is "unreasonable?" What would be unreasonable to
the Founding Fathers would be perfectly reasonable to a dictator such
as Hitler, Stalin or Mao Tse-Tung ... or George W. Bush. If there is
any blame, it is perhaps to be laid upon the Founding Fathers who
provided no definition of "unreasonable" while they paid
such attention to the minute details of the rest of the Constitution.
As it now stands, nothing is "unreasonable" and
the Fourth Amendment has been shattered, so it is no surprise to see
search and seizure protections washed away and along with them, the
annoying trivia of needing such things as warrants.
In the end, all the attention to detail in the technical aspects
means nothing if the basic human rights of the Bill of Rights is
destroyed.
No person shall be held to answer for a
capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or
indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the
land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in
time of war or public danger; nor shall any
person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of
life or limb; nor shall be compelled
in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall
private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
As we've seen since Sept. 11, 2001, nothing is sacred. Some 30,000 citizens
have now been arrested without a "presentment" or grand jury
indictment. But this amendment does even limit its protection to
citizens; it says "no person" - period!
Like the old Soviet Union, the "Secret Police" show up in
the middle of the night and people are taken, never to be seen alive
again. No warrants. No trials. An anonymous accusation is all that's
needed. Torture is now use to illegally compel the accused to
"confess" - in effect becoming a witness against themselves
... and on this basis they are deprived of life, liberty and/or
property without "due process" of law. But the question is -
what, exactly, is "due process of law"? Anything the
Executive branch wishes?
"Eminent domain" of private property to help a real
estate developer build a profitable condo or shopping center at
rock-bottom "theft prices" of the private property taken
would clearly seem to be a violation of "due process". But
remember this - everything that Adolf Hitler did was by "due
process of law". Through intimidation, bribery, blackmail and
extortion, he got the laws passed that he wanted, and then he used
them to slaughter more than 12 million people.
Like the word "is" (in the words of Bill Clinton), it all
depends on what the meaning of "due process" is. One cannot
help but believe the Founding Fathers would be hanging their heads in
shame at our perversions.
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused
shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an
impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall
have been committed, which district shall have been previously
ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the
accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to
have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and
to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
More than halfway through the Bill of Rights, we see not a single
one has remained intact ... and certainly the Sixth Amendment is no
exception, what with the secret trials (or no trials at all) mandated
by President Bush in his Executive Orders, which even Congress is not
allowed to see. This amendment has six distinct requirements ... and
every one of them have been made null and void by the secret swipe of
a pen which applies not only to "terrorists" but to all of
us! This amendment does not limit its protections to just citizens -
it clearly says "the accused" with no distinction between
those held at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo and those fine citizens of New
York or Seattle.
In suits at common law, where the value in
controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury
shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be
otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according
to the rules of the common law.
Twenty dollars? This requirement fell by the wayside a long, long
time ago, since these things now go before General Sessions or Small
Claims Court, where there is no jury. Notice that this amendment did
not apply to criminal cases or defendants, but to civil cases ... and
it is, or was, a right to be exercised by either party in a common law
dispute.
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor
excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
Excessive bail? Well, just allow no bail at all and it technically
floats. Excessive fines? The fines levied against the criminal actions
of corporations is so small that it is but a tiny fraction of their
ill-begotten gains. Cruel and unusual punishment? Tell that to the
interrogators at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. It all depends on the
meaning of "cruel and unusual", doesn't it? If it has become
commonplace, such as water-boarding and the rape of one's wives or
children to force confessions that in most cases are coerced
fabrications, then I guess it becomes "usual" not
"unusual."
The enumeration in the Constitution, of
certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained by the people.
The Ninth and Tenth Amendments are clearly enter-twined. This one
says that those powers not specifically given to the federal
government cannot in any way be interpreted to deny the people their
rights.
The powers not delegated to the United
States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are
reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
And just what are those "other" rights? If it is not
given specifically "by the Constitution" to the federal
government and is not specifically prohibited to the states "by
the Constiution" - then those rights are reserved to the
states respectively, or to the people. That would seem pretty
clear.
The grievances outlined in the Declaration of Independence launched a
revolution, a war, in 1776 ... and the result was the Constitution and the
Bill of Rights. In 1776 there were 27 specific grievances; in 2008 there
are, with the first ten amendments added as grievances, a total of 32
grievances which give the American people the right, if they have the
courage, to once more declare their freedom.
This is how the Declaration of Independence ends, with a mutual pledge:
"And for the support of this Declaration, with
a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we
mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred
Honor."
Do we today have the courage to keep the freedom these men - and the
women behind them - gave their all for? Or are we like the frog placed
into cool water which is slowly heated until the clueless frog is boiled
to death?
We depend, it seems, upon our military forces to protect us from
enemies abroad, and perhaps by extension, those at home. For the most part
of our history, that worked well, because every Soldier, Sailor or Marine
took the same oath as the politicians ... and because the military put
their lives on the line to uphold that oath - whereas the politicians
didn't - they took that oath much more seriously.
There have been several times in our history when the military objected
and dug in its feet to protect that oath against the orders of those in
higher places who had little or no regard for those words.
After Vietnam, when the troops came home to jeers and catcalls and
screams of "baby killers", the military became much more
sensitive to the feelings of the people they were sworn to defend. The
military, as an institution, decided that in the future it was more
important to have the support of the American people than to have to
claim, as the Nazis did, "I was just following orders." The
grunts of Vietnam were not the ones who should have been repulsed and
castigated; it should have been the Lyndon Johnsons, Richard Nixons and
Robert McNamaras.
Today, as our president prepares for a full strike against Iran while
soldiers are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan and American opposition to the
war mounts, as it did in Vietnam but with the finger of blame being
pointed at the politicians and not the troops, we find ourselves in the
same situation as in Vietnam.
And so does the military.
Unpopular war.
Mistreated and neglected soldiers required to pay for their own way
back home, required to pay the government for the clothes and boots blown
off when they lost their legs.
The anger and, in the words of Barack Obama, "the
bitterness", are growing within the ranks.
We stand at the edge of a Generals' Revolt which could forever alter
the history of the United States of America.
If you find this depressing and perhaps even hopeless, just remember
that "hope springs eternal" and, if we have the courage - even
if we lack the numbers - courage can work miracles. It is not too
late ... not yet.
- Jim Moore
Chapter
2: The Bonus Expeditionary Force
|