Tuesday, March 25, 2003

Declaration of Independence

This was something I wrote after the war in Iraq began. I was so furious that my country, my government, could invade another country, after so much protest, that I became revolutionary with my perspective and wrote this.

Declaration of Independence

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for the world to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with tyranny, and to assume an international system that reflects the dignity and wishes of all, a decent respect to the opinions of humankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to revolt.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men, womyn and trans-gendered persons, regardless of ethnicity, creed or sexual orientation, are equal. They deserve certain unalienable rights. That among these rights is life, liberty, food, healthcare, education and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments were instituted among men, deriving their powers from the consent of the governed.

However, it is now apparent that any and all forms of government are destructive to these ends. Therefore it is the right of the people to abolish them, and to institute a new system, 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 systems long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown 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 system, and to provide new systems for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the world in the current crises; and such is now the necessity, which constrains them to abolish their former systems of government and trade.

The history of the present King of America, and the system he rules, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over the world. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has stolen an election, which was full of corruption stemming from multi-national corporations influencing the ability and success of candidate’s campaigns, ignoring legitimate votes, and using family connections to get his position of power.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, laws that would provide more focus on education, healthcare, and the environment. He has forbidden this by wasting that money on creating and maintaining an empire.

He has called foreign legislative bodies to his side only by bribing and bullying them, for the sole purpose of invading a sovereign nation, bombing civilians and creating “allies” to use as political cover. He has done this regardless of the overwhelming number of citizens in those states against such an invasion, thus undermining democracy in those countries.

He plans on occupying Iraq, and other nations who don’t follow orders from him, with a military puppet government, effectively turning whole nations into colonies of the Empire.

He has continued to support war criminals in avoiding trial for their crimes. War criminals such as Henry Kissinger and Ronald Reagan are allowed to live in comfort.

He has destabilized the world, thus encouraging fundamentalists such as Jerry Falwell, Bin Laden, and Ariel Sharon to gain legitimacy.

He has shown nothing but utter contempt for grassroots democracy and nothing but service and goodwill to his administrations business connections, particularly oil connections.

He has rendered the military of the Empire independent of and superior to civil doubt and questioning.

He has drafted our fellow brothers and sisters to bear arms against the people of the world, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to be executed by their brethren.

He has erected a multitude of new offices that undermine human dignity such as: the office of homeland security, the office of misinformation and the total information awareness program. These programs have sent hither swarms of officers to harass people, lie to them and frighten them to achieve political goals such as supporting the Empire.

He has continued the prohibition on marijuana.

He has continued to use the death penalty despite evidence that it is inhumane and can allow innocent people to die.

His administration has excused their actions with intentions that are complete lies. They have repeatedly called Saddam Hussein a tyrant, overlooking the fact that they supported him when he was at his worst. Therefore, the invasion is not humanitarian in nature. Rather it is based on oil, as well as regional and global superiority for the Empire.

His administration has repeatedly lied to the public, alleging ties between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, forging documents about Iraq’s nuclear weapons program, and indicating that the world supports this invasion.

His administration, and preceding administrations, supported and continues to support dictators around the world as long as it benefits their own greedy ends. A short list of such leaders: Saddam Hussein, Pinochet, Osama Bin Laden, the Shah, Ariel Sharon, Suharto, and many others.

His administration has waged a war on civil liberties on its own nation. They have done this by repealing the protection of dissent, creating a mood not favorable to critical thinking, and encouraging racist scapegoating.

He rules a system that is destroying our seas, ravaging our coasts, polluting our air, and aiding the destruction of the life of our environment and fragile eco-system.

He rules over a system that encourages media to be docile and not question the legitimacy of authority or the legitimacy of the actions authority takes.

He rules a system known only as wage slavery that creates a class system based on economics which forces people to compete on unfriendly terms in order to survive.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to the constitution, and unacknowledged by any domestic or international law:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops in foreign nations who do not want them:

For protecting those troops, by threat of invasion, from punishment for any violations of international law and consensus which they should commit and be tried for at the international court of justice:

For encouraging free and unfair trade instead of global justice with all parts of the world:

For invading Iraq without the world’s consent:

For depriving many of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting many beyond seas to be detained for offenses that have not been proven in a civil trial:

For taking away our rights, abolishing our most valuable laws, and damaging the fundamental forms of democracy:

For suspending our own legislatures, by declaring that anything they say or do which is contrary to his wishes, to be scornable and punishable.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. We have voted for opposition parties, we have held rallies, performed civil disobedience and direct action. We have written letters, prayed, and tried diplomacy. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. Any system whose character every act is thus marked by characteristics that define fascism, is unfit to rule. No one is fit to rule free people except free people themselves.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to support our worldly brethren’s humble petitions for redress. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by the Empires legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over them. We had joined them in solidarity around the globe to protest the invasion of Iraq. We had encouraged a French veto in the UN. We cheered at the victory for democracy in Turkey when their parliament actually followed the will of its citizens. We also continue to support our comrades around the world in Colombia, Korea, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Palestine, Iran, and every other target of the Empire. We must, therefore, continue to stand together with each other, all the people of the world, and hold the whole of humankind, as friends.

We, therefore, the consensus of the world, in this moment of crises, assemble, appealing only to each other the for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of the world, solemnly publish and declare, that the people of this planet are, and of right ought to be free and independent of any governing body; that they are absolved from any and all allegiance to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, the United Nations, any multinational corporation, any trade treaty, any form of currency, any state and any empire. All connections between hieratical and/or authoritarian systems and the people of the world are and ought to be totally dissolved. As free and independent human beings, the world has full power to wage peace, assemble speak and dissent freely, believe and worship whatever they want or do not want to, create beautiful things, live life, have an equal voice in issues that affect the world community, eat, drink, live free from all forms of tyranny and be merry.

For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of each other, we mutually pledge to each other our solidarity, our lives and our mutual freedom.








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