Allison Bricker

During the remaining weeks of 2008 amidst the front page news about the worsening economic situation and the ever growing line of companies looking to stick their faux-Capitalist hands into the T.A.R.P. money, what seemed to be a sudden rash of violent crimes perpetrated against the queer community, commonly abbreviated as LGBT, began to make headlines.

• In San Francisco on December 12th, a woman was brutally gang raped by four men and left naked in the street. News reports stated, that the two adults and two teens began approaching her shouting anti-gay epithets after spotting the rainbow flag sticker on her car.¹




• In Memphis on December 23rd, a transsexual prostitute was shot at point bank range in the face and critically wounded as she attempted to exit the vehicle of her john. She is currently in critical condition.²




• In Indianapolis on December 26th, a transwoman and her partner were shot to death in their home while they slept. Police reports indicate that after several internet chats with the suspect in custody, he was invited over to the couple’s home for an as of yet undisclosed reason.³




• In New Orleans on December 29th, two men and a transgendered individual all originally from Mississippi were gunned down in their 7th Ward home by several suspects which police have thus far been unable to apprehend.⁴

The aforementioned crimes are each horrific for the utter disregard for human life and liberty. Moreover, these perpetrators all need to be held accountable for their crimes, and thus brought to justice by law enforcement. However, adding insult to injury of these horrific crimes, are those charlatans, hacks, and shills who claim to be LGBT activists and allies solely seeking to push their political agenda and their own self-aggrandizing interest by calling for additional “Hate” crime legislation.

It has been ten years since Matthew Shepard was beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die in rural Wyoming. Since then thirty-two states have added penalties for crimes motivated by sexual orientation and eleven of the thirty-two have also added criminal penalties for crimes motivated by a person’s gender-identity. Yet in California alone which has had a statute regarding crimes motivated by a sexual-orientation since 1989, crimes against homosexuals have increased 680% over the last ten years.⁵

It is obvious, that these legislatively granted protections do little to nothing in keeping us safer from those biased against us anymore so than the death penalty has prevented murder in general. Furthermore, as a lesbian, can someone please tell me how the gang rape of of a straight woman would be somehow less traumatic to her simply due to her sexuality not being a factor? It is a brutal crime regardless of motivation as are all crimes committed against another person.

Additionally, words on paper offer absolutely no protection to the victim during the actual commission of the crime. While concurrently, our over worked and underpaid law enforcement officers more often show up after the fact to begin the investigation, take statements, and pursue the suspect or suspects.

This violence is indeed a hateful act, but it is a hateful act regardless of motivation. Victims of crimes are individuals, they have a name, a family, a life. The crime is committed against them, not the loose collective of which they share some character trait. Furthermore, and most importantly, Americans already have the best defense against becoming a victim of a violent crime. This ability is not granted by law, it is ours from the moment we are born; our inherent right to self-defense. There is an immutable truth to the statement, “Armed Gays Don’t Get Bashed”. Moreover, armed individuals don’t get bashed.

Yet socialists and the media have done their best to make us fear guns and to label self-defense as an untenable option, again solely for their political agenda. A study conducted by the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy subsequently published in the New York Times⁶, showed that higher gun ownership in European countries equated to far lower rates of violent crimes. Secondly, ask yourself this, when was the last time you heard of someone attempting to shoot up a gun show. Fact is random mass shootings are always perpetrated against populations known to be completely disarmed such as in a school.

It baffles my mind, why those of us who do indeed find kinship within the LGBT community would turn to the state for our protection? The state; the same entity with such a long history of egregious crimes against us that after years of beatings, imprisonment, harassment, and draconian confinement in mental institutions led to the community rising up in the Stonewall⁷ and Compton Cafeteria Riots⁸. Yet now we turn to this same entity and beg like chattle for protection from their snake-oil pens and empty promises?

Source(s): ¹Daily News “Arrests made in gang rape of San Francisco lesbian” • ² ABC News 27 - Memphis “Transgendered Woman Shot in the Face” • ³ Bilerico “Transwoman and Her Boyfriend Murdered in Indianapolis” • ⁴ Out In New Orleans “Three Black Gay Men Murdered in New Orleans, Police Hunt for Suspects” • ⁵ Hate Crimes in California - 2007 • ⁶ Harvard Journal of Law and Public Police/New York Times “Murder and Guns” • ⁷ Stonewall and Byond: Lesbian and Gay Culture • ⁸ Screaming Queens - The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria

Joseph Marohl

I’ve been stumped ever since the United States decided to defeat terrorism by using “shock and awe.”

“Shock and awe” is the phrase the Bush administration presented to refer to spectacular displays of military force in order to paralyze the will of the enemy. Like terrorism, it relies on spectacle, specifically the spectacle of destruction and violence, to psychologically traumatize (i.e. “terrorize”) an entire population to get the people to capitulate to the will of the aggressors.

The main point of difference between terrorism and shock and awe is the difference between “military”—the defense mechanism of recognized and approved states—and “paramilitary”—an unofficial, criminal, or makeshift military.

One might also question who or what the targets of shock and awe are, vis-à-vis terrorism. Sun Tzu’s The Art of War endorses a strategy of “instant decapitation” of “military and societal” targets. The 1945 bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, large urban centers, which were, apart from their occasional usefulness as army depots, of no strategic military importance, is an example of American use of the strategy to cut short the war with Japan. But, then, can the argument be made that the Pentagon and White House as targets in 2001 were likewise military and societal targets—or, for that matter, the World Trade Center?

Were the American colonial minutemen terrorists? I suppose that depends on whom in the late eighteenth century you asked. Was Geronimo a terrorist? Oliver North?

Zionist paramilitary units were “terrorists,” so called in the early twentieth century—first against the Palestinians who lived on the land the Zionists believed God had given to them alone, and then, following the Second World War, against the British, who attempted to block the immigration of European Jews to Palestine, in principle to protect the balance of Palestinian Jews and Arabs.

With the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, supported by the United Kingdom and the United States, Zionist terrorism became nationalized and, dropping the “para-“ prefix, militarized—and then, for the most part, nobody called it terrorism. Longstanding friction between Jews and Arabs heated up—as, after the post-war influx of European Jews, Palestinian Arabs found themselves minorities on their own land, not unlike white settlers’ encroachment on Native American lands in the nineteenth century—and the heat’s been up ever since.

Hamas or the Islamic Resistance Movement is a paramilitary and political organization that the United States and other Western powers now label as “terrorist.” Like the early Zionists, Hamas believes God gave the land to them alone.

Unfortunately, God has kept mum on the matter while millions of Jews and Arabs have slaughtered each other and each other’s children with the kind of zeal only possible when religion and politics mix. If you can look up to a parent who gives a present to two children and sits by and watches while the kids fight each other to the death over it, have we got the Heavenly Father for you!

In 2006, in response to the demands of the US government, Palestinians held democratic elections and thus empowered the political wing of Hamas, who gained a parliamentary majority. However, the United States refuses to accept the legitimacy of this government and has sought to negate the election that brought it to power.

Hamas displaced a rival group, Fatah, a faction of the Palestinian Liberation Organization founded in 1954 by Yasser Arafat and others, all of whom used to be called “terrorists,” but now the United States and Israel claim Fatah as a friend and ally. Who could have guessed?

And as the US government has embraced torture, too, albeit under the name of “enhanced interrogation,” I think the distinction between what WE do and THEY do has become even blurrier.

Even once Bush is out of office, the “war on terror,” which has proved such a successful manipulative (and pliable) piece of propagandistic cant, can go on indefinitely, since the locus of terrorism shifts with each new change in alliance—and from different points of view.

Quick, tell me: Libya, terrorist or antiterrorist state? Pakistan? Iran? China? Cuba? Forget that the expression “terrorist state” appears to contradict some part of the fundamental definition of terrorism—unless, of course, terrorist state refers to nations who engage in shock and awe or whose civilian intelligence agencies engage in “black ops”—secret political actions outside ethics, law, and agreed-upon conventions of fair and just war.

Is the United States a terrorist state? Who’s asking?

Joseph Marohl

Six days after the inauguration—six days after Pastor Rick Warren, looking like a reupholstered Jerry Falwell, bestows his blessings on America and Barack Obama’s Presidency—the Chinese New Year begins.

It will be the Year of the Ox. Oxen, as you probably know, are castrated bulls.

Lacking a true gift for superstition, I assign little real importance to this fact. But as horoscopy goes, Chinese astrology has always served me better than the Western version. Under the latter, I am an Aries, therefore, stubborn, egoistic, combative, impulsive to the point of foolhardiness, all moral sense subjugated to raging lust. Fair enough. Under the former, I am a Snake, therefore, carnal, sensuous, intellectual, artistic, unforgiving with a preternaturally long memory for grudges. Bull’s eye.

The United States is in deeper debt to China—$585 billion—than to any other nation, only another reason to believe our collective futures lie in Chinese hands. So let me peer into my weathered, brittle paperbound edition of Theodora Lau’s The Handbook of Chinese Horoscopes, copyright 1980, to see what the new year holds in store.

Lau opens her section on The Year of the Ox with the statement: “We will feel the yoke of responsibility coming down on us this year.” Okay, so after 2008, we could all see this one coming, though Lau pegged it 28 years ago. She follows with “The trials and tribulations the Ox year brings will be mainly on the home front. It is a good time to settle domestic affairs and put your house in order.” Henry Paulson should only have been this prescient.

After stating that the Ox views politics and diplomacy, along with frivolities of every sort, with indifference, Lau begins to sound like my dad: “No work, no pay! … The Spartan influence of the Ox will be a constantly cracking whip over our heads. [T]he year of the Ox favors discipline. … This is no time for tricky shortcuts.”

Just so I get her point, Lau aims a closing shot directly at me: “For the rebels, it may be worthwhile to point out that although the stoical Ox is soft-spoken, he carries a big stick, and this is his year.”

In particular, the year 2009 will be the year of the “Earth” Ox—not a nod to environmentalism, though no doubt cleaning up the mess we’ve made of the planet is part of the work cut out for us. The Earth Ox favors duty over creativity, practicality over idealism, stability over progress, sense over sensibility, endurance over complaint, and determination over cynicism.

On a happier note, children born next year can be expected to whine less (“This child will not be a crybaby”), value privacy more, and exhibit patience, perseverance, and responsibility. Ox-people thrive on discipline and order (Richard Nixon, the Emperor Hirohito and Adolph Hitler were all Ox-people, but, happily, so were Walt Disney, Vincent Van Gogh, and Charlie Chaplin).

Astrology aside, it seems clear to me that we have work to do in the coming year. Given the work’s immense importance—to our pocketbooks, to peace, to justice, to life, to the preservation of what it means to be human—it’s important that we look at the tasks ahead with all the optimism we can humanly muster. We must persevere to survive.

We must not panic, and we must contain our worries and sense of dread. We need to gain or regain a sense of the common good—set aside our private interests, if necessary, even perhaps our high ideals (at least the ones so high we can’t actually see the tops of)—and pitch in to make things better than they are.

Even without lunar insights, I can pretty well assure you that we will not entirely solve the mess we’re in—and are about to slip into deeper—even with God’s and Obama’s help. But we can take a point or two from the stoical Ox, and whine and moan a little less, however Mad Max the world becomes, and temper the cynicism we’ve so carefully cultivated since our freshmen years at college with a little kindness and humane understanding.

One certainty I subscribe to, which all forms of astrology support: Things will change.

Kelly

My Christmas wish this year was an intangible impossibility, to say the least. But, I was feeling a desperation that actually tempted me to long for a pause, like a stop button on a remote control that would allow us to stay hidden in 2008 just a little while longer. Long enough to get our bearings and thoughtfully prepare for the coming year. By prepare, I do not mean writing out my resolutions for 2009. To prepare, in this context, I mean saving enough paychecks to have a food supply that can sustain my family for a few years, or saving enough paychecks to move us to the middle of nowhere in hopes of being safe. Not plausible, and I assure you-I understand that. We have no control over time and the way it thrusts us into week after week. Christmas has come and gone, the way it does every year. And in a few short days 2009 will be upon us.

The reality, it seems, is that we are quite possibly headed for the most difficult times of our lives. And though I would prefer to take the bull by the horns and reign in the new year with a “positive” outlook, squinting through the bleak forecast of economic turmoil has shaped my outlook as anything but positive. In all honesty, it is breathtakingly scary. Breathtaking would describe how we arrived at this point, all of us asleep at the wheel and working for Washington, distracted by playdates and Super Bowls, tivo and the iPhone; there was something for everyone and a credit card or second mortgage to make it happen. Scary is what comes next, as we shift gears away from consumerism and pull the curtain back from an ideology that has trapped us.

Print and spend, tax and spend, stir until slightly lumpy. Throw in a few wars, namely the most recent Iraq War, an unsustainable social security and medicaid program, lace it with NAFTA, CAFTA, and WTO, sprinkle with bureaucrats, while the bankers heat and serve. A recipe for disaster is baking in America’s oven.

It will be the year of the awakening. Unfortunately, our awakening will not come without despair.

Gerald Celente, of the Trends Research Institute and a leading trends forecaster for over twenty years, has had much to say about the coming year(s); warning us that the next Great Depression is underway.

Gearld Celente talks about the last retail Christmas-11/10/2008

Gerald Celente on The Lew Rockwell Show-12/14/2008

Allison Bricker

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) discussing the auto bailout given to the Big 3 by President Bush.

Allison Bricker

Video interview of Peter Schiff on CNN Your Money debating the auto industry bailout.

Joseph Marohl

Perhaps it would be easy to overestimate the importance of Barack Obama’s invitation to Rick Warren to speak at the 2009 Inauguration. Warren is the bestselling author of The Purpose Driven® Life, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California, and outspoken critic of gay rights and same-sex marriage,.

It’s not as if Warren’s been asked to join the President’s Cabinet, after all. And, besides, the Lesbian and Gay Band Association is invited to march in the Presidential Inaugural Parade, having played only on the sidelines for the two Clinton Inaugurations.

Warren compares homosexuality to incest, polygamy, and adultery. He makes false claims, such as that marriage between one man and one woman has been the model of all religions for five thousand years (polygamy, for instance, has routinely reoccurred as an element of religious observance, and revered patriarchs such as Jacob, Moses, and Solomon practiced it, and even today a number of religious groups and Christian denominations accept same-sex marriage).

Still, Rick Warren is not Fred Phelps—Warren, like former governor and current Fox News commentator Mike Huckabee, presents a friendlier, even-tempered, and apple-cheeked face to bigotry.

It’s fairly clear to me what Obama is trying to do—reach out to social conservatives and evangelical Christians who have, as Warren supposedly has, expressed an interest in dialogue with those who do not share their views.

But Warren has not been open to such dialogue, particularly with gays. What Warren wants, like many evangelicals and conservatives, is a platform for criticizing other people’s lifestyles, while claiming to be persecuted if his own life choices and opinions are criticized or even questioned.

What Obama fails to recognize is that sitting down to dialogue is one thing, but it’s something else entirely to give a platform to a man who calls for the continued political disenfranchisement of a small but significant part of Obama’s base. Obama did the same thing back in October 2007, when he led a “gospel tour” on the South Carolina leg of his Presidential campaign, fronted by Donnie McClurkin, who wrapped up every show with a 15-minute “prayer” thanking God for delivering him from the debasement of homosexuality. When GLBT activists objected, Obama’s people used the “dialogue” defense and then told the GLBTs to pipe down and stop being “divisive.” Some dialogue.

Undoubtedly one reason gay people don’t get much respect from political candidates or representatives in government is that we’re a minority—representing perhaps less than the proverbial 10 percent of the total population. On top of that, we are one of the merely two or three minorities (off the top of my head, I can’t think of another one, though) one can safely ridicule and denounce in sweeping blanket generalizations—not to mention find defenders for physically assaulting, even killing. In fact, when gay people simply complain that they are mistreated, they are accused of being politically divisive and small minded, endangering children, and persecuting Christians.

Part of the problem, too, has been sloppy strategizing by gay rights activists. The whole issue of whether gays are born gay or choose to be gay is irrelevant to whether gays deserve the same rights as any other citizen or human being. Did biological determinism do anything really to speed up women’s and blacks’ struggles for justice and equality? If one could choose to be black, would such a choice justify discriminatory practices against that person? Even if God can and does “cure” the habit of gossip or the desire to eat shellfish (both condemned in the Bible), would such miracles justify passing laws and amendments that forbid basic legal privileges to shrimp-loving blabbermouths?

It’s also a bit insensitive for Obama to ask a vocal supporter of California’s Proposition 8 to speak, since, for many lesbians and gays, it rehashes and confirms the conflicted feelings of elation and insult that the November victories of Obama and 8 evoked. If Obama sympathizes with gay people’s struggle for equal treatment under the law, as he claims, why is he insensitive and/or indifferent to their concerns and interests?

Sometimes I have to wonder whether Democrats choose to be hypocrites or whether they’re just born that way.

Allison Bricker

The impetus behind our founders warning government to keep its hands off the press comes not from a love of newspapers per se, but rather the necessity of free and uncensored mass communication. Newspapers just happened to be the only form of mass communication at the time.

Prior to the American Revolution, journalists who dissented against the royal governments, its decrees or public office holders often found themselves imprisoned and their equipment destroyed. One of the most famous trials of a journalist falsely charged is that of John Peter Zenger.

Mr. Zenger published criticisms of New York’s “Royal” Governor, William Crosby. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Zenger found himself imprisoned and charged with libel. His attorney, Philadelphia lawyer, Andrew Hamilton successfully argued that one could not commit libel merely by publishing opinion or fact.¹

It is my opinion that the The first Amendment to our Federal Constitution is too narrowly interpreted. Thus, had the internet, television, or radio, been present during the drafting of our Constitution, it is clear that the Founding Fathers would have extended government prohibitions on censorship to these mediums as well. However, the FEC has already attempted to sidestep the 1st Amendment and censor blogs under the auspices of McCain-Feingold.² Now the FCC is set to rule on the creation of a free nationwide filtered internet under the guise of “protecting the children”.³

It is also obvious by a candid reading of the uncensored historical record, that the plutocrats made massive inroads in their attempt to centralize Federal power from the beginning of the 20th Century. After the passage of the 16th and 17th Amendments, we then see a massive encroachment upon our unalienable rights with the passage of the “Espionage Act of 1917″⁴ and “The Sedition Act of 1918″⁵. The Espionage Act was passed at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson who felt that dissent during war could jeopardize our potential for victory. His flawed logic still exists today and is echoed by hacks like Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT). This belief is a stark contrast to the Founding Fathers who were all too familiar with the oppressive hand of government censorship.

The best known victim of prosecution under the “Espionage Act of 1917″ is Eugene Debs. Mr. Debs had previously run for President as the Socialist Party’s candidate and publicly denounced the U.S. involvement in World War I. He was charged with “obstructing military recruiting” after a speech in 1918. Mr. Debs was found guilty of sedition and sentenced to 10 years in prison. After serving three years, he was pardoned by President Harding and released.⁶ It is immaterial to me that I would vehemently debate and ultimately disagree with Mr. Deb’s socialist philosophy. His imprisonment merely demonstrates the lengths politicians will go to in order to silence opposition.

We the People, have failed to be vigilant as the guardians of our own liberties and we must bear some of the burden. In addition to the Espionage and Sedition Acts, by allowing the FCC to declare the airwaves publicly owned and therefore subject to regulation we do ourselves a massive disservice in pursuit of the truth. The consequences of this massive failure, was to allow the creation of broadcast licensing. By allowing the dissemination of information to be controlled by an ever decreasing amount of individual corporations via licensing we lose our ability to make proper judgments on matters of national importance, such as the invasion of Iraq or the disgusting pursuit of legalized torture by the Executive Branch.

Tyrants and their sycophant sympathizers love to claim that the FCC grants licenses to those who “serve the public interest”. However, the historical record contradicts this altruistic pursuit and in the end it merely grants licenses to those who serve to swell the bank accounts of both the bureaucrats and politicians.⁷

Fellow readers, the internet has allowed for the greatest expanse of news, opinions, and knowledge humanity has ever known. Abuse by some in the form of unsourced or libelous news reports does not justify statements by the traitor to the Constitution known as Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman, who in a letter to Google regarding YouTube videos wrote:

“In other words, Islamist terrorist organizations use YouTube to disseminate their propaganda, enlist followers, and provide weapons training - activities that are all essential to terrorist activity. According to testimony received by our Committee, the online content produced by al-Qaeda and other Islamist terrorist organizations can play a significant role in the process of radicalization, the end point of which is the planning and execution of a terrorist attack.”⁸

There is indeed great danger in the notion that a hack Senator and two-time loser such as Joe Lieberman should be telling a private corporation what should be censored for the sake of national security. The biggest dangers to national security are the power-hungry ambitions of terrorist politicians like Joe Lieberman and his insurgent bureaucratic operatives who seek to wage their personal jihad on the 1st Amendment and our inherent liberties.

Further, President-Elect Obama has selected Eric Holder as Attorney General. The Plutocratic fundamentalist, Eric Holder has also spoken publicly about his desire to censor the internet and further erode the 1st Amendment via his interpretation of “reasonable regulation”.

The time is now upon us, to beat back the ever encroaching hand of government and amend the Constitution to expand the scope of the 1st Amendment, thus ensuring all forms of communication both current and those not yet fathomed are protected from those who seek to stifle the free exchange of ideas and expression.

In closing, my only regret is that I have but one life to blog for my Republic.
Don’t Tread on Me!

Source(s): ¹University of Missouri Kansas City School of Law • ² FEC Agenda Document Number 05-16 • ³ CNET - “FCC Cancels Meeting for Free Interent Vote” • ⁴ Espionage Act of 1917 • ⁵ Sedition Act of 1918 • ⁶ DEBS v UNITED STATES of AMERICA No. 714 • ⁷ McCain Denies Pushing FCC on Paxson Behalf • ⁸ Dialogue with Senator Lieberman on Terrorism Videos

Allison Bricker

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18th, 1787, as Mr. Benjamin Franklin emerged from “Independence Hall”, a Mrs. Powell approached and asked, “Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Dr. Franklin quickly replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”

Unfortunately fellow readers, we did not heed Dr. Franklin’s warning, and in the distracted haste of modern life, we lost our beloved Republic to the plutocratic oligarchs and their brand of corporatist democracy.

It is not difficult to look around and conclude that we are living through some very strange and troubling times. We have become a nation that allowed President Bush & Company to successfully legalize torture¹. A nation which gave little to no pause as the Federal government expanded the surveillance apparatus, wholly gutting the remnants of the 4th Amendment². Moreover, by abdicating our responsibility to demand both a Declaration of War, and justification thereof, we have become a nation willing to embrace the perverse notion of preemptive war vis-a-vi, the Bush Doctrine³.

With every opening bell on Wall Street, we see a continuous line of failed pseudo-capitalists all too eager to stick their corrupt slime ridden hands into the T.A.R.P. bailout money. Money coerced from the paychecks of ‘We the People’, doled out as corporate welfare to the politically connected. We are bearing witness to the dawn of another economic depression, caused wholly by mismanagement of monetary policy and governance by the central planners of state.

However, even with the hand of oppression attempting to asphyxiate the natural sustenance of liberty, the answer my fellow readers is not anarchy. Both tyranny and anarchy are extreme belief structures residing on opposite ends of the political spectrum. Whereby tyrannical oligarchs demand absolute rule and control over every aspect of the people, anarchy proves to be no less tyrannical in its end result. Throughout history the ensuing chaos brought on by revolutionary anarchists always leads to the emergence of a new tyrant.

For example, immediately following the French Revolution, the lawlessness that ensued birthed what became to be known as “The Reign of Terror”. During this time between 20,000 and 40,000 French citizens were executed as “enemies of the revolution”. The bulk of the executions were exacted upon the working class, with many found guilty of hoarding food and supplies.⁴

As a secondary example, we can look to the Russian Revolutions of 1917. The first began in March of 1917, which saw Czar Nicolas the II resign after massive civil unrest. Shortly thereafter anarchy ensued, but by Summer the anarchists had formed factions and in turn set up a provisional government. However being self-appointed, power struggles between the factions led to continued violence. By October of the same year, the Bolshevik faction called for an open revolt, and again violence spread across Russia. The Bolsheviks emerged as the successful faction and with Lenin as their leader, immediately began implementing their philosophy of socialist communism on all of the people of Russia.⁵

It could also be said, that our own Republic, had it not been under the wise guidance of the Founding Fathers, could have easily disintegrated into anarchy following the Revolution. The debate which took place in Philadelphia during the sweltering Summer of 1787 resulted in the creation of a system of delicate checks and balances. A system of governance divided amongst a weak central authority and the constituent political units, i.e. the several states. The Founders knew all too well the natural tendency of government was to gain and encroach upon liberty, but they also knew that leaving the tenuous union under the sole guidance of the Articles of Confederation, would lead to disparate factions. Which in the end stood the good chance of wholly squandering the principles of the American Revolution.

We need not reinvent the wheel to save our country. We need not jettison the sacrifices of the Founding generation for utter lawlessness, only to then teeter-totter back into tyrannical despotism.  We need only restore the Constitution to its foundation upon Federalism, in order to set our Republic back onto the path towards a more perfect union.

Thus in conclusion, it can be said that anarchy is simply an antithetic knee jerk reaction to tyrannical oppression; or perhaps a transitional bridge from one dictator to another, but it cannot and should not be said to be a legitimate solution.

Source(s): ¹Working Group Report on Detainee Interrogations in the Global War on Terrorism: Assessment of Legal, Historical, Policy, and Operational Considerations • ² Washington Post “Obama Defends Compromise on New FISA Bill” • ³ New York Times “Editorial Observer; President Bush and the Middle East Axis of Ambiguity” • ⁴ “Reign of Terror - 1793-1794″ by: Wilfred Brenton Kerr (1985) London: Porcupine Press • ⁵ “The Class Struggle” Vol.I, No.4, November-December 1917

Joseph Marohl

I like Caroline Kennedy, daughter of JFK and big sis to John John—two other people I have a soft spot in my heart for, may they rest in peace. On the few times I’ve heard Kennedy speak, I’ve been reasonably impressed, though it’s hard for me (for a lot of Americans) to really hear her and not her family legacy in US politics.

She’s had a remarkable life—surviving every member of her immediate family, escaping death from an IRA bomb, and inspiring a Neil Diamond hit.

Now she’s interested in taking over the Senate seat soon to be vacated by Hillary Rodham Clinton, wife of Bill Clinton and soon to be Secretary of State. But she’s in competition with Andrew Cuomo, son of former NY governor Mario Cuomo and ex to Terry Kennedy, Caroline’s cousin. Ultimately the decision will be made by the current NY governor David Paterson, son of a former NY state senator.

One of the reasons (I had several) I voted for Barack Obama instead of Clinton earlier this year was that, deep down, I feel that the United States of America should not operate like a family business. I could have lived with a Clinton nomination, but I really favored Obama for this reason (and several others, as well). I wanted the Bush-Clinton-Bush chain to end with George W.

I would never vote against a candidate merely because she or he has family ties to politics. But this sort of thing does figure into my thinking at election times. It is a matter of some importance to my concept of a working free democracy.

Now that the royal lines of Europe and Asia have either petered out or lost the powers of governance, is there really any need for America, where everybody is “created equal,” so we hear, to perpetuate dynastic politics past its expiration date?

Of course, the UK still has its Queen—but the governmental chief is the Prime Minister, of whom, recently, Gordon Brown, Tony Blair, John Major, and Margaret Thatcher have had only remote family ties to politics—mostly descending from farmers, grocers, entertainers, educators, and clergy—and came into high office through lives of public service and/or law careers.

Aren’t there enough brainy, capable people in the United States—like Barack Obama or Bill Clinton—to fill top government positions without resorting to nepotism?

Do we really believe that bloodlines confer the know-how to lead a democratic nation? I would not want to impugn Caroline Kennedy’s, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s, or Andrew Cuomo’s political savvy or statesmanship by crediting it to genealogy or genetics. I also don’t mean to demean their individual accomplishments by assuming that everything they have achieved is due to nepotism. And yet what, apart from their names, distinguishes them from other qualified persons with political ambition?

Have Kennedy, Clinton, and Bush become brand names like Pepsi or McDonald’s? Certainly, name recognition is a selling point for politicians campaigning for elected office—but what advantage does it offer for political appointments?

Last month the citizens voted Barack Hussein Obama into the nation’s highest office in spite of his name (which, let’s face it, was no selling point, as the Republicans so often liked to emphasize). Like Bill Clinton, he was the son of a single mother—the paternal namesake being absent for most of his life. In many respects, unlike either Bush 1 or Bush 2, he represents the American dream—of assimilation, of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, of rising without the help of family or family connections.

So now that “change” seems so necessary and, for the first time in decades, so possible, why must we turn to brand names and/or dynasties for leadership?

Good luck to you, Caroline, and if you make it to the Senate next year, I hope it’s because you’re the best person for the job—and not just because of your tragically romantic name.