It's Time to Join the Resistance

"What country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of resistance?"-- Thomas Jefferson

Over the past few months, I've heard from many Americans who feel they've lost the power to be heard by their government. From the repeated assaults on our civil liberties to the financial ruin brought about by irresponsible corporations and government officials, Americans feel helpless and beaten down.

Faced with a government that is not heeding their demands, many are simply giving up. But we are far from helpless, and this is not the time to surrender our rights.

Too often, we forget that America began with a revolution. America was born out of the sheer grit and determination of a rebellious group of colonists. These freedom fighters stood their ground. They knew they had rights. And when those rights were systematically violated, they resisted.

Thankfully, there are a growing number of Americans--what I like to refer to as "teaspoons of resistance"--who have not given up the fight and are choosing to exercise their First Amendment right to peaceably assemble and "petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

There are many examples. Let me cite a few. In more than 40 cities across the country, growing numbers of Americans have been taking to the streets and staging "tea party protests" to voice their objections to the government's out-of-control spending and its bailout of mega-corporations and bad mortgages. Although no tea is being tossed at these protests, they are gaining in popularity as a way for citizens to express their discontent with government spending gone haywire. In fact, organizers are planning a nationwide Tax-Day Tea Party protest.

Mindy McAlindon of Franklin, Tennessee, is taking a slightly different approach in voicing her discontent about the economy. She plans to bombard the White House with actual tea bags and protest notes. Protesters in other cities are planning to do the same for members of Congress.

More than 10,000 demonstrators in 100 locations across the country recently gathered at the offices of major banks whose behavior both before and since the government bailout "epitomize an era of CEO and corporate excess at the expense of broader prosperity that has weakened the economy."

Thousands will soon travel to Washington, DC, to protest the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The rally, which will take place the day after the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, will reportedly be the first national antiwar demonstration in the United States since President Barack Obama took office.

And then there is Concepcion Picciotto, a small woman in her late 60s who has carried on the longest continuous act of protest in the United States. Since 1981, Picciotto has staged a round-the-clock peace vigil across from the White House in Lafayette Park in the hopes of ending U.S. interventionist wars and banning nuclear weapons. She has thus far managed to outlast four presidents--Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush--and she's planning to outlast Barack Obama.

To fellow activists, Picciotto is a living symbol of resistance and an amazing example of grassroots democracy who understands that power is with the people. Unfortunately, her vigil has not been without its trials. Over the course of the past 28 years, Picciotto says she has been cursed at, spat on and beaten up, arrested and issued $50 citations for illegal "camping" in the park. Nevertheless, she persists in her solitary vigil.

We could use more tireless freedom fighters such as Concepcion Picciotto today. Yet she is merely one of a long and historic line of Americans to stage populist protests in the form of sleep-ins, sit-ins and marches to oppose government policies, counter injustice and bring about change.

For example, in May of 1932, more than 43,000 people--World War I veterans and their families-- marched on Washington. Out of work, destitute and with families to feed, the veterans set up tent cities in the nation's capital and refused to leave until the government agreed to pay the bonuses they had been promised as a reward for their services. The Senate voted against paying them immediately, but the protesters didn't budge. Congress adjourned for the summer, and still the protesters remained encamped. Finally, on July 28, under orders from President Herbert Hoover, the Army descended with tanks and cavalry and drove them out, setting their makeshift camps on fire. Still, the protesters returned the following year, and eventually their efforts not only succeeded in securing payment of the bonuses but contributed to the passage of the G.I. Bill of Rights.

Thus, while protests and acts of resistance may not always achieve immediate results, they're a good place to start. Time and again throughout our nation's history, real change has come at the urging of the people. After all, governments aren't proactive, they're reactive. They only move when you urge them to move. The Civil Rights movement of the 1960s is a perfect example. Just imagine how much longer it would have taken to gain equality for African-Americans without the efforts of Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and so many other fearless black Americans.

Clearly, this is no time to stand silently on the sidelines. It's a time for anger and reform. Most importantly, it's a time for making ourselves heard. And there is no better time to act than the present. As Robert F. Kennedy reminded his listeners in a speech delivered at the University of Cape Town in 1966, "Hand in hand with freedom of speech goes the power to be heard, to share in the decisions of government which shape men's lives. Everything that makes man's life worthwhile--family, work, education, a place to rear one's children and a place to rest one's head--all this depends on decisions of government; all can be swept away by a government which does not heed the demands of its people."

What can ordinary citizens do? Instead of sitting around and waiting for someone else to change things, take charge. Never discount the part that everyday citizens play in our nation's future. You can change things, but there can be no action without education. Get educated about your rights and exercise them. Start by reading the Bill of Rights. You can do so online at www.rutherford.org. Or, if you want a copy to keep with you, email me at johnw@rutherford.org and I'll send you a free one.

Most important of all, just get out there and do your part to make sure that your government officials hear you. The best way to ensure that happens is by never giving up, never backing down, and never remaining silent. To quote Dr. King, "If you can't fly, run; if you can't run, walk; if you can't walk, crawl, but by all means keep moving."

It doesn't matter whether you're protesting the economy, the war, the environment or something else altogether. What matters is that you do your part. As that great revolutionary firebrand Samuel Adams pointed out, "It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in people's minds."

Take some time right now and start your own brushfire for freedom. In the words of one Tea Party organizer, become "10-minute citizens. Take 10 minutes, six days a week and learn about the issues, and then call politicians, or email them, or call talk radio, or write letters to the editor and make your voice heard."

It's midnight in America right now. But the real question is, will there be a dawn? That's up to you and me. The future is in our hands.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-w-whitehead/its-time-to-join-the-resi_b_176270.html

THE PARADOX OF ROADS AND BRIDGES

By Nancy Levant
March 21, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

We are told that the building of roads and bridges will “stimulate” the economy. Isn’t that something…? In America’s new five and six county “regions,” only one or two cities in these regions are slated to receive “development” or growth dollars according to the Grand Visions of the regional councils of appointed leaders. These new multi-county regions, and in all 50 states, tell us that development will not include money to build or maintain roads except for those in the one or two target regional hubs or cities.

Now, these designated multi-regional, multi-county hubs also mandate pedestrian walkways and bicycle paths to very purposefully discourage automobile travel. In fact, all multi-regional cities who receive stimulus dollars mandate the building of pedestrian and bicycle paths. Let us add to this equation, the failing auto industry, governmental leans on the failing auto industry, and the fact that jobless Americans cannot afford to drive nor insure automobiles. Let us also include the road removals in America’s rural and wilderness areas, which, of course also makes impossible travel and mobility. And we know where the eco-community stands on our use of filthy automobiles.

Clearly, we find another governmental paradox of dialectic proportions. Therefore, let us ponder road building in a new governmental era that prefers us not to drive, clearly limits and discourages mobility and tells us it is unconscionable to pollute with automobiles when obese Americans should be walking and biking our way to governmentally-imposed weight standards, or else charged with a personal pollution tax (carbon credits) to drive and only in designated and very limited areas.

Clearly, our days of the free and wonderful use of automobiles, specifically as a reflection of a very free society, are over. As with everything else, including the groceries, healthcare, and education, “highly limited” are the keywords of the New American way of controlled life. And still, the governmental answer to our (their) economy is “the building of roads and bridges.” Well, you can pretty much guarantee that this stimulus plan ties directly into the new international transportation system, the super-highway and rail systems which will primarily serve corporate and military interests.

We, however, won’t be served by these new transportation systems minus our forced-to-pay for high-speed rails which will be for the full purpose of transporting you and myself back and forth to our tax-generating, corporate-serving job or civilian service details. After all, universal service, I assume, means universal service. I don’t think it will be voluntary service but more like mandatory civilian labor.

One of the greatest expressions of freedom in America was our ability to travel, to move to other locations, to choose other jobs, and to drive into and through the country at will, to drive into the farmland, the wilderness areas — deep into the forest and to experience the beauty of the nation through the freedom of mobility. This freedom connected us to our nation as nothing else could — to experience its beauty, its natural diversity, and to meet and experience people all over our nation, their dialect, their cultures and arts, and to enjoy and cherish the joy of our multiculturalism, instead of the forced politics of government multiculturalism.

The nation was so much better prior to Washington D.C.’s takeover and governmental polluting of America. Now they tell us they can fix this country with more controls, more laws, more land confiscations, more oversight of people and property, more taxes, more national debt, and a homeland military. Don’t forget the Real (national) ID. I’m sure they hope you will forget.

One cannot help but wonder, when the world has experienced and continues to experience wars all over the planet, if it’s not America’s turn to keep the war economy wheels turning. Europe had their turn which made billionaires of many. The mid-east experiences their turn also creating billions in corporate rebuilding wealth. Asia has experienced their turn, which forced them into the industrial and technological business models. And now America, I fear, faces her turn to comply with something new and surely forced down her throat.

Roads and bridges? The curtailing of mobility? The failing auto industry to assist in the curtailing of mobility and yet we are to fix the economy with roads and bridges? You tell me what is wrong with this picture. You tell me why the government, and how “the world” owns our wilderness areas making us trespassers in our nation. The question we must ask is, to where do these roads and bridges lead?

Join us this week on Govern America as our guest will be former talk show host Chris Gerner of Amerikan Expose. Chris has spent years documenting the implementation of the United Nations system in America and around the world.

Govern America is broadcast every Saturday morning from 8AM to 11AM Eastern time on the Republic Broadcasting Network. Click here to listen live.

© 2009 Nancy Levant - All Rights Reserve

Nancy Levant is a renowned writer for Constitutional governance and American culture. She is the author of The Cultural Devastation of American Women: The Strange and Frightening Decline of the American Female (and her dreadful timing).

She is an opponent of deceptive governance and politicians, global governance by deception, political feminism, the public school system, political economics based upon manufactured wars and their corporate benefactors, and the Federal Reserve System. She is also a nationwide and lively radio personality. To book an engagement with Nancy Levant, send an email request to:

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http://www.newswithviews.com/Levant/nancy123.htm

The whole nation should take note of the action of this maine town. Corporate personhood is extremely dangerous to us all, and ALL laws granting corporations the rights of personhood should be repealed immediately!!

Maine Town Passes Ordinance Asserting Local Self-Governance and Stripping Corporate Personhood

Submitted by Chip on Sun, 2009-03-01

Maine Town Passes Ordinance Asserting Local Self-Governance and Stripping Corporate Personhood | Press Release

Today the citizens of Shapleigh, Maine voted at a special town meeting to pass a groundbreaking Rights-Based Ordinance, 114 for and 66 against. This revolutionary ordinance give its citizens the right to local self-governance and gives rights to ecosystems but denies the rights of personhood to corporations. This ordinance allows the citizens to protect their groundwater resources, putting it in a common trust to be used for the benefit of its residents.

Shapleigh is the first community in Maine to pass such an ordinance, which extends rights to nature, however, the Ordinance Review Committee in Wells, Maine is considering passing one in their town. These communities have been under attack by Nestle Waters, N.A., a multi-national water miner that sells bottled water under such labels as Poland Springs.

Communities have opposed the expansion by Nestle Waters, but the corporation will not take no for an answer. The town of Fryeburg, Maine has been in litigation with Nestle for six years. Nestle wants to expand and the town's people say no to the tanker trunk traffic which has disrupted their quiet scenic beauty, so Nestle's tactic is to wear them down, and break their bank.

Nestle is the world's largest food and beverage company and has very deep pockets. However, we won't back down, we are the stewards of this most precious resource water, and we want to protect it for future generations.

Activists in Maine are well aware that the Nestle Corporation is not just interested in expanding for the purpose of filling their Poland Springs bottles today, they are interested in the control of Maine's abundant water resources for the future. They are expanding in many parts of this country from McCloud, California to Maine. Nestle is positioning themselves to capitalize on the emerging crisis of global water scarcity.

The right to water is a social justice issue and we believe that it should not be sold to those who can afford it, leaving the world's poorest citizens thirsty. Citizens will do a much better job of protecting this resource than a for-profit corporation.

The concept of a rights-based ordinance was pioneered by environmental attorney Thomas Linzey, founder of the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund of Gettysburg, PA. Linzey has assisted the town of Barnstead, New Hampshire with their rights-based ordinance, which was passed in 2006 and with another in Nottingham, New Hampshire, which passed in 2008.

To date there have been no legal challenges to these ordinances. Linzey also crafted Ecuador's new Constitution, which also gives the ecosystem rights. Ecuador is the first country in the world to protect its natural resources from corporate exploitation.

Activists have learned the hard way that trying to protect their communities and the environment by going the route of fighting a typical regulatory ordinance, which is written by corporate lobbyists, will fail to protect communities from harms done.

The multi-national corporation's allegiance is never to the communities where they do business, as that could conflict with their fiduciary responsibility to make a profit for stockholders.

People throughout the country are saying "enough is enough, large corporations have too much power." Constitutional Rights were granted to corporations from the bench in the 1800's and it is time to rectify a wrong! People are saying let's dismantle the neo-colonial corporate power by starting with their right to personhood.

In Maine, we are tired of Nestle behaving as if they are a Colonial power with a right to our water resources. We decided that we will behave as if we have the power and ignore the naysayers who said that people will never vote to take rights away from corporations or to give rights to nature. We want to encourage other communities join us. The time is now!

Copies of the The Shapleigh, Maine Town Warrant calling for a special town meeting and The Shapleigh Water Rights and Local Self-Government Warrant are available from the Contact Person, below.

For more information on attorney Thomas Linzey and the Community Environmental Defense Fund, please visit: http://www.celdf.org

For more information about the battle to protect ground water in communities in Maine, please visit: www.soh2o.org . Click on the LEGISLATION tab and go to ORDINANCES to read the important new Shapleigh ordinance.

CONTACT PERSON: Jamilla El-Shafei Save Our Water steering committee member and organizer steering committee member of the Maine Water Allies (state-wide coalition) 603.969.8426 jamillaelshafei@gmail.com

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/40335

If you don't understand what corporate personhood is, then please watch this important documentary... The Corporation
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3203253804055041031&q=the+corporation

The New York Times misses a Monsanto coup over organic farming set in motion by Hillary Clinton

by Linn Cohen-Cole

The New York Times ran on a piece on CSAs doing well despite the economy.

Forgive me, I am so boggled by the ironies that my computer is stuttering.

The New York Times is in New York state which is responsible for the fact that CSAs are actually in terrible trouble and that trouble stems directly from a New York source, Hillary Clinton.  She pushed a centralized Food Safety Department when she ran for president, one that would bring together the USDA and FDA, giving them vastly more power over food.  Both agencies are grossly corrupted by Monsanto so the multiplication of power accrues powerfully to Monsanto.

Senator Clinton is deeply, historically connected to Monsanto. And her and Bill Clinton's association with Monsanto has not been good for the safety of American food and our democracy,and the two are inextricably linked.  Her long time advisor and campaign strategist was Mark Penn, CEO of Burson-Marsteller, one of the world's largest PR firms representing Monsanto (Blackwater, ExxonMobil of the Alaska spill, Union Carbide of the Bhopal disaster, the Argentinian junta ...).

The astounding name of one of the bills is so absurd and totalitarian in both its use of fear and its infinite reach, it should have been rejected outright based solely on that:

H. R. 814 "Tracing and Recalling Agricultural Contamination Everywhere Act of 2009."

In addition, there is HB875 and a Senate bill introduced by Sherrod Brown. The supporters of H. R. 814 were all strong supporters for president (as was Sherrod Brown).

DeLauro is married to prominent Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg, who was President Bill Clinton's chief pollster from 1991 to 1994

Bordallo supported Clinton in Guam

On November 26, 2007, DeGette announced her endorsement of Senator Hillary Clinton for president, and was named national co-chair of Clinton's Health Care Policy Task Force and adviser on stem-cell research.

Nadler endorsed Clinton for president. In essence, the bills entail a hidden takeover and then forced industrialization of small farming - and that would include organic CSAs - by the industrial side.

Here is a farmer's alert to his local anti-NAIS group:

Hello friends, Have you all read federal HB814 and HB875? If not better take a look.  Seems we are looking at NAIS on steroids.

814 is bad, 875 is awful, it creates a new food safety department that seems to take some power from USDA&FDA and who knows what else?

It has language in it that appears to turn our farms into food production facilitys and allows them to decide our feed ratios and types as well as our animal health regime and whether or not and with what we can fertilize our ground, sounds worse than NAIS to me, the wording is vague and probably intentionally so. [My emphasis.]

This is the end of organic farming.

There is no frontal assault, it is done insidiously, through "entering" it and using government regulations and criminal penalties ($500,000 and 10 years in prison) to simply make it industrial.  And for the well-being of Monsanto and industrial agricultural corporations, it will require purchase of agrochemical and pharmaceuticals.

Quite simply, one government required spraying of pesticides and an organic farm, no matter how productive and safe, is finished instantly.

The shell will be "organic" but its insides will be Monsanto.

Under the outrageous threat of "agricultural contamination everywhere" and using "food safety" as a weapon against the farmers actually producing our only safe food, Monsanto has used Hillary Clinton's connections in the state of New York and elsewhere to introduce bills that are literally fascist in their implications and by definition.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

That the New York Times should be reporting the success of CSA just as these destructive bills from its own representatives are being introduced and the brainchild of its ex-Senator, is a glimpse of the extreme disconnect between urban elite and eager organic consumers, and the horrors occurring through the USDA and FDA to ensure that "organic" will be "organic" in name only, its farms and its food content thoroughly industrial.

This is similar to the underhanded move that Bill Clinton made during his administration when he introduced rBGH through an FDA headed by Monsanto and would not label it (farmers were being sued for honest labeling by Monsanto and the FDA didn't stop that). That left only organic food as a last way around unknown danger. But Bill tried to close that escape with new "organic" standards which included the dirty three: genetic engineering of plants/animals, food irradiation, and sewage sludge as fertilizer. The USDA backed down only after a public response 20 times greaterthan to anything before.

"Shortly before the end of the comment period, the nation's biotechnology leader, Monsanto, advised the USDA to back off temporarily on trying to include gene-altered products under the organic label for a three-year period and then to try again."

The plan has been transformed.  After years of suing farmers for honest labeling and trying to establish dishonest ones and pushing laws around the country to ban labeling altogether, a new approach is now being set in motion.  Rather than trying to co-opt the goodness of organic food by hiding the dangers of GMOs under an organic label or no labels, Monsanto is intending to take over all small farms including organic ones, control farmers into non-existence through sadistically inappropriate bureaucracy and regimes applied to a natural system (that is working well), through draconian penalties and fear of prison, and through forced application of industrial chemicals and drugs.

It's a better plan.  It either gets rid of the competition entirely (without confronting it directly) or it forces it to become a captive to Monsanto products.

One must give them credit for brilliance.  This is no open battle - tiger against newborn kitten - but a take over of the kitten's body by massive tapeworm.

This is whatNAISis about (utter take-over of functions and the weakening and death that will cause) and now the tapeworm is spreading out into all aspects of farming - vegetables, trees, ... everything normal is set to labeled, digitally fed into massive centralized data banks controlled by the government/Monsanto, and every thing will have to be recorded in minute detail. What seed of what variety from what company after what testing was planted on what day under which conditions on what row recorded where by GPS tracking, and received what chemicals in what amount from what company and how often and with what results and ....

This is fascism applied to farming.

Have any of you gone out to plant seeds, taking the seed packets from last year and some from this year, and put a few here and few there and home made marker to help you remember, enjoying being outside away from computers and paperwork and television and bills and all that things that produce stress? Just you and a few seeds and hope of what will happen.

That is freedom.  That is being in nature and it belongs to you, just as it did when you were little and enjoyed playing outside and getting dirty and being a normal child. That freedom and that love of nature is why farmers farm. It is hard work, it is incredibly hard work, but only they and nature control their time.  They look out after a hard winter and see the ground has thawed and there is break in the weather, know they need to spend the day planting seeds before it rains. All plans for other things must be put aside.  It's a deep companion thing between them and nature.

It is not an industrial thing. It is not a Monsanto thing.

Wonderful, real, caring hard-working farming groups around the country have been fighting for survival against NAIS - on no money, doing legal work themselves, doing documentaries themselves, working (one said) 23 hours a day for years now, while trying to run farms and raise families. You have no idea how brutal this has been for them.

These bill would turn our farmers into Monsanto controlled laborers on their own property, while mandating they purchase their products through federal law.

The industrial side is making us sick and responsible for contamination that spreads through out the food system - pesticides, hormones, antibiotics, steroids, heavy metals. But through Clinton's idea and the bills introduced by her friends, Monsanto and the rest of Big Ag (Cargill, ADM and the rest) are about to get away with the most astounding coup of American farming - using government to actually impose their sickness making industrial system on small farmers who are the ones producing the only health food we have.

This is why Vilsack, Monsanto's crony, was put in.  2009 is the date for locking things up.

They would not only be taking over the food supply but eliminating everything diverse and healthy through massive regulating of every single thing happening on farms - while they, the industrial side, is not even inspected and plays game with all labeling for themselves.  They are running the show and Monsanto is dragging down the whole economy and blocking any chance of a local, vibrant organic farming movement to exist.

As the New York Time article intimated, this is the change Obama talked about - and they are green jobs - being eliminated behind the scenes by Clinton, Vilsack and Monsanto.

A whole class of once free people are being taken over and made servants to the industrial system and even trapped sources of funds for it, controlling everything they do.

Here's what they do in all its hard work, love, wonder and ... freedom:

Here a 8 year old proudly helps to dry his new doeling that he chose to name MilkNHoney Allison. By being involved through the entire process from conception to weaning, this child might choose to stay in either livestock or farming. He gains valuable knowledge throughout the 5 month process to help him be a Goat breeder someday."

The New York Times has never written a single article on the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). The only story on NAIS they have written is a review of French movie by that name. And CSAs they just reported on would be fine and help lead this country out of a massive depression if all the bills out of New York and Ohio were trashed outright.

No, President Clinton, there is no "we."  Farmers know the government caused a human disaster (your "free trade" and opening India to Monsanto and the rest has been followed by 180,000 suicides by Indian farmers over the last ten years - but, oh, the profits to Monsanto). What farmers want is for government to stay out of small farming altogether.

Your words sound so contrite - admitting to a colossal blunder and talking about a more environmentally responsible, sustainable form of agriculture." But Monsanto is now using those same words "environmentally responsible," and "sustainable" and in a New Yorker ad, no less, and your "we" is just on to the next massive trick.

Just leave small farmers alone.  They know how to farm.  And customers are incredibly grateful for their good food.

Those regulations are fine. They are just insanely misapplied to the safest, least centralized, least dangerous part of farming - small local farmers.  But they are, though, absolutely perfect for Monsanto and industrial agriculture, multinational corporations which NEED to be massively re-regulated and tracked every minute of every day, and particularly including who their lobbyists visit in government.

But for our small farmers who we are losing the rate of 1000 a month, get the government the hell off their farms.  Get them the hell out from under all USDA regulations that in any way at all allow their own corporately corrupted government - now backed up by Homeland Security "surge capacity" strike forces - to threaten, control, register, track, seize, trespass, slaughter, or destroy anything that is theirs.

Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Remove small farming from NAIS and all federal regulations to do with contamination and food safety. Leave them to farm and simply pass tests by local INDEPENDENT labs.

Click here to see the most recent messages sent to congressional reps and local newspapers

I'm a mother and grandmother. There is no way I can leave my family or anyone else's children with things as they are now.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-New-York-Times-misses-by-Linn-Cohen-Cole-090216-971.html