Against Discouragement
By Howard Zinn

[In 1963, historian Howard Zinn was fired from Spelman College, where he
was chair of the History Department, because of his civil rights
activities. This year, he was invited back to give the commencement
address. Here is the text of that speech, given on May 15, 2005.]

I am deeply honored to be invited back to Spelman after 42 years. I
would like to thank the faculty and trustees who voted to invite me, and
especially your president, Dr. Beverly Tatum. And it is a special
privilege to be here with Diahann Carroll and Virginia Davis Floyd.

But this is your day — the students graduating today. It’s a happy day
for you and your families. I know you have your own hopes for the
future, so it may be a little presumptuous for me to tell you what hopes
I have for you, but they are exactly the same ones that I have for my
grandchildren.

My first hope is that you will not be too discouraged by the way the
world looks at this moment. It is easy to be discouraged, because our
nation is at war — STILL ANOTHER WAR, WAR AFTER WAR — and our
government seems DETERMINED TO EXPAND ITS EMPIRE EVEN IF IT COSTS THE
LIVES OF TENS OF THOUSANDS OF HUMAN BEINGS. There is poverty in this
country, and homelessness, and people without health care, and crowded
classrooms, but OUR GOVERNMENT, which has trillions of dollars to spend,
IS SPENDING ITS WEALTH ON WAR.

There are a billion people in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the
Middle East who need clean water and medicine to deal with malaria and
tuberculosis and AIDS, but OUR GOVERNMENT, WHICH HAS THOUSANDS OF
NUCLEAR WEAPONS, IS EXPERIMENTING WITH EVEN MORE DEADLY NUCLEAR WEAPONS.

Yes, it is easy to be discouraged by all that. But let me tell you why,
in spite of what I have just described, you
must not be discouraged.

I want to remind you that, 50 years ago, racial segregation here in the
South was entrenched as tightly as was apartheid in South Africa. The
national government, even with liberal presidents like Kennedy and
Johnson in office, was looking the other way while black people were
beaten and killed and denied the opportunity to vote.

So black people in the South decided they had to do something by
themselves. They boycotted and sat in and picketed and demonstrated, and
were beaten and jailed, and some were killed, but their cries for
freedom were soon heard all over the nation and around the world, and
the President and Congress finally did what they had previously failed
to do — enforce the 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. Many
people had said: The South will never change.

But it did change. It changed because ordinary people organized and took
risks and challenged the system and would not give up. That’s when
democracy came alive. I want to remind you also that when the war in
Vietnam was going on, and young Americans were dying and coming home
paralyzed, and our government was bombing the villages of Vietnam –
bombing schools and hospitals and killing ordinary people in huge
numbers — it looked hopeless to try to stop the war.

But just as in the Southern movement, people began to protest and soon
it caught on. It was a national movement. Soldiers were coming back and
denouncing the war, and young people were refusing to join the military,
and the war had to end. The lesson of that history is that you must not
despair, that IF YOU ARE RIGHT, AND YOU PERSIST, THINGS WILL CHANGE.

The government may try to deceive the people, and the newspapers and
television may do the same, but THE TRUTH HAS A WAY OF COMING OUT.

The truth has a power greater than a hundred lies. I know you have
practical things to do — to get jobs and get married and have children.
You may become prosperous and be considered a success in the way our
society defines success, by wealth and standing and prestige. But that
is not enough for a good life.

Remember Tolstoy’s story, “The Death of Ivan Illych.” A man on his
deathbed reflects on his life, how he has done everything right, obeyed
the rules, become a judge, married, had children, and is looked upon as
a success. Yet, in his last hours, he wonders why he feels a failure.
After becoming a famous novelist, Tolstoy himself had decided that this
was not enough, that he must speak out against the treatment of the
Russian peasants, that he must write against war and militarism.

My hope is that whatever you do to make a good life for yourself –
whether you become a teacher, or social worker, or business person, or
lawyer, or poet, or scientist — you will devote part of your life to
making this a better world for your children, for all children. My hope
is that YOUR GENERATION WILL DEMAND AN END TO WAR, that your generation
will do something that has not yet been done in history and wipe out the
national boundaries that separate us from other human beings on this
earth.

Recently I saw a photo on the front page of the New York Times which I
cannot get out of my mind. It showed ordinary Americans sitting on
chairs on the southern border of Arizona, facing Mexico. They were
holding guns and they were looking for Mexicans who might be trying to
cross the border into the United States. This was horrifying to me –
the realization that, in this twenty-first century of what we call
“civilization,” we have carved up what we claim is one world into two
hundred artificially created entities we call “nations” and are ready to
kill anyone who crosses a boundary.

Is NOT nationalism — that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary, so
fierce it leads to murder — one of the great evils of our time, along
with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking,
cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on, have been useful
to those in power, deadly for those out of power.

Here in the United States, we are brought up to believe that our nation
is different from others, an exception in the world, uniquely moral;
that we expand into other lands in order to bring civilization, liberty,
democracy.

But if you know some history you know that’s NOT true. If you know some
history, you know we massacred Indians on this continent, invaded
Mexico, sent armies into Cuba, and the Philippines. WE KILLED HUGE
NUMBERS OF PEOPLE, AND WE DID NOT BRING THEM DEMOCRACY OR LIBERTY. We
did not go into Vietnam to bring democracy; we did not invade Panama to
stop the drug trade; we did not invade Afghanistan and Iraq to stop
terrorism. Our aims were the aims of all the other empires of world
history — more profit for corporations, more power for politicians.

The poets and artists among us seem to have a clearer understanding of
the disease of nationalism. Perhaps the black poets especially are less
enthralled with the virtues of American “liberty” and “democracy,” their
people having enjoyed so little of it. The great African-American poet
Langston Hughes addressed his country as follows:

You really haven’t been a virgin for so long.
It’s ludicrous to keep up the pretextŠ
You’ve slept with all the big powers
In military uniforms,
And you’ve taken the sweet life
Of all the little brown fellowsŠ
Being one of the world’s big vampires,
Why don’t you come on out and say so
Like Japan, and England, and France,
And all the other nymphomaniacs of power.

I am a veteran of the Second World War. That was considered a “good
war,” but I have come to the conclusion that WAR SOLVES NO FUNDAMENTAL
PROBLEMS AND ONLY LEADS TO MORE WARS. War poisons the minds of soldiers,
leads them to kill and torture, and poisons the soul of the nation.

My hope is that your generation will demand that your children be
brought up in a world without war. It we want a world in which the
people of all countries are brothers and sisters, if the children all
over the world are considered as our children, then WAR — in which
children are always the greatest casualties — CANNOT BE ACCEPTED AS A
WAY OF SOLVING PROBLEMS.

I was on the faculty of Spelman College for seven years, from 1956 to
1963. It was a heartwarming time, because the friends we made in those
years have remained our friends all these years. My wife Roslyn and I
and our two children lived on campus. Sometimes when we went into town,
white people would ask: How is it to be living in the black community?
It was hard to explain. But we knew this — that in downtown Atlanta, we
felt as if we were in alien territory, and when we came back to the
Spelman campus, we felt that we were at home.

Those years at Spelman were the most exciting of my life, the most
educational certainly. I learned more from my students than they learned
from me. Those were the years of the great movement in the South against
racial segregation, and I became involved in that in Atlanta, in Albany,
Georgia, in Selma, Alabama, in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and Greenwood
and Itta Bena and Jackson.

I learned something about DEMOCRACY: that it does not come from the
government, from on high, it COMES FROM PEOPLE GETTING TOGETHER AND
STRUGGLING FOR JUSTICE.

I learned about race. I learned something that any intelligent person
realizes at a certain point — that race is a manufactured thing, an
artificial thing, and while race does matter (as Cornel West has
written), it only matters because certain people want it to matter, just
as nationalism is something artificial.

I learned that what really matters is that all of us — of whatever
so-called race and so-called nationality — are human beings and should
cherish one another.

I was lucky to be at Spelman at a time when I could watch a marvelous
transformation in my students, who were so polite, so quiet, and then
suddenly they were leaving the campus and going into town, and sitting
in, and being arrested, and then coming out of jail full of fire and
rebellion.

You can read all about that in Harry Lefever’s book “Undaunted by the
Fight.” One day Marian Wright (now Marian Wright Edelman), who was my
student at Spelman, and was one of the first arrested in the Atlanta
sit-ins, came to our house on campus to show us a petition she was about
to put on the bulletin board of her dormitory. The heading on the
petition epitomized the transformation taking place at Spelman College.
Marian had written on top of the petition: “Young Ladies Who Can Picket,
Please Sign Below.”

My hope is that you will not be content just to be successful in the way
that our society measures success; that you will not obey the rules,
when the rules are unjust; that you will act out the courage that I know
is in you. There are wonderful people, black and white, who are models.
I DON’T mean African- Americans like Condoleezza Rice, or Colin Powell,
or Clarence Thomas, who have become servants of the rich and powerful.

I mean W.E.B. DuBois and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Marian
Wright Edelman, and James Baldwin and Josephine Baker and good white
folk, too, who defied the Establishment to work for peace and justice.

Another of my students at Spelman, Alice Walker, who, like Marian, has
remained our friend all these years, came from a tenant farmer’s family
in Eatonton, Georgia, and became a famous writer. In one of her first
published poems, she wrote:

It is true –
I’ve always loved
the daring ones
Like the black young
man
Who tried
to crash
All barriers
at once,
wanted to
swim
At a white
beach (in Alabama)
Nude.

I am not suggesting you go that far, but you can help to break down
barriers, of race certainly, but also of nationalism; that you do what
you can — you don’t have to do something heroic, just something, to
join with millions of others who will just do something, because all of
those somethings, at certain points in history, come together, and make
the world better.

That marvelous African-American writer Zora Neale Hurston, who wouldn’t
do what white people wanted her to do, who wouldn’t do what black people
wanted her to do, who insisted on being herself, said that her mother
advised her: Leap for the sun — you may not reach it, but at least you
will get off the ground.

By being here today, you are already standing on your toes, ready to
leap. My hope for you is a good life.
——————————————
Howard Zinn is the author with Anthony Arnove of the just published
Voices of A People’s History of the United States
(Seven Stories Press) and of the international best-selling A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.)

Copyright 2005 Howard Zinn

The Bush Decade – Ten Worst Things;
Or, the Rise of the New Oligarchs

A great article about the worst of the Bush years. Here are a few highlights. For more, read the whole article as it appeared on the NewsTrust.net website:

• 10. Stagnating worker wages and the emergence of a new monied aristocracy. Of all the income growth of the entire country of the United States in the Bush years, the richest 1 percent of the working population, about 1.3 million persons, grabbed up over two-thirds of it. The Reagan and Bush cuts in tax rates on the wealthy have created a dangerous little alien inside our supposedly democratic society, of the super-rich, with their legions of camp followers (sometimes referred to as ‘analysts’ or ‘economists’ or ‘journalists’). The new lords and ladies are the Dick and Liz Cheneys and the people for whom they shill. They are the Rupert Murdochs and the Richard Mellon Scaifes, and they are guaranteed to own more and more of the country as long as more progressive taxation (i.e. pre-Reagan, not pre-Bush) is not restored. They are the ones who didn’t want a public universal health option, did not want the wars abroad to end abruptly, did not want the Copenhagen Climate convention to succeed. They are driven by pure greed and narrow profit-seeking for themselves. They always get their way, and they always will as long as you poor stupid bastards buy the line that when the government raises their taxes, it is taking something away from you.
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 9. Health and food insecurity increased for ordinary Americans. Health care costs skyrocketed. Most Americans in the work force who have health care are covered via their employers. ‘From 1999 to 2009 health insurance premiums increased 132%” for the companies paying most of the costs of coverage to their employees. Euromonitor adds, “Average private health insurance premiums for a family of four in 1999 were US$5,485 per annum or 7.2% of household disposable income. 2008 premiums were estimated at US$12,973 per annum or 14.8% of average household disposable income.” By Bush’s last year in office, food insecurity among American families was at a 14-year high. About 49 million Americans, one in six of us, worried about having enough food to eat at some points in that year, and resorted to soup lines, food stamps, or dietary shortcuts. Some 16 million, according to the NYT, suffered from ‘“very low food security,” meaning lack of money forced members to skip meals, cut portions or otherwise forgo food at some point in the year.’
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 8. The environment became more polluted. The Bush administration was the worst on record on environmental issues. Carbon emissions grew unchecked, and the threat of climate change accelerated. In fact, Bush muzzled government climate scientists and had their reports rewritten by lawyers from Big Oil.
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 7. The imperial presidency was ensconced in ways it will be difficult to pare back. But note that its powers were never used against the oligarchs (unlike the case in Putin’s Russia), but rather deployed to ensure the continued destruction of the labor movement and the political bargaining power of workers and the middle class, and to harass and disrupt peace, rights and environmental movements. A part of this process was the abrogation of fourth amendment protections against arbitrary search, seizure and snooping into people’s mail and effects, and of other key constitutional rights…
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 6. The Katrina flood and the destruction of much of historic African-American New Orleans, and the massive failure of the Bush administration to come to the aid of one of America’s great cities.
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 5. The Bush administration’s post-2002 mishandling of Afghanistan, where the Taliban had been overthrown successfully in 2001 and were universally despised. The Bush administration’s attempt to assert itself with a big troop presence in the Pashtun provinces, its use of search and destroy tactics and missile strikes, its neglect of civilian reconstruction, and its failure to finish off al-Qaeda, allowed an insurgency gradually to grow…
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 4. The Iraq War, in which the US illegally launched a war of aggression that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, displaced 4 million (over a million abroad), destroyed entire cities such as Fallujah, set off a Sunni-Shiite civil war, allowed Baghdad to be ethnically cleansed of its Sunnis, practiced systematic and widespread torture before the eyes of the Muslim Middle East and the world, and immeasurably strengthened Iran’s hand in the Middle East. All this on false pretexts such as ‘weapons of mass destruction’ or ‘democratization,’ for the sake of opening the Iraqi oil markets to US hydrocarbon firms– a significant faction of the oligarchic class.
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 3. The great $12 trillion Bank Robberry, in which unscrupulous bankers and financiers were deregulated and given free rein to create worthless derivatives, sell impossible mortgages to uninformed marks who could not understand their complicated terms, and then to roll this garbage up into securities re-sold like the
  Cheshire cat, with a big visible smile of asserted value hanging in the air even as their actual worth disappeared into thin air.
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 2. The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington by al-Qaeda, an organization that stemmed from the Reagan administration’s anti-Soviet jihad in the 1980s and which decided that, having defeated one superpower, it could take down the other. Al-Qaeda’s largely Arab volunteer fighters had confronted the Soviets over their occupation of a major Muslim country, Afghanistan. Bin Laden was himself a Neoliberal Oligarch, but he broke with the Gulf consensus of seeking a US security umbrella, thus creating a fissure within his powerful social class. Al-Qaeda viewed the US as only a slightly less objectionable occupier, though they were willing to make an atliance of convenience in the 1980s. But they were increasingly enraged and galvanized to strike, they said, by the post-Gulf-War sanctions on Iraq that killed 500,000 children, the debilitating Israeli occupation of the Palestinians, and the establishment of US bases in the holy Arabian Peninsula (with its oil riches that Bin Laden believed were being looted for pennies by the West, aided by a supine and corrupt Saudi dynasty).
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.
• 1. The constitutional coup of 2000, in which Bush was declared the winner of an election he had lost, with the deployment of the most ugly racial and other low tricks in the ballot counting and the intervention of a partisan and far right-wing Supreme Court (itself drawn from or serving the oligarchs), and which gave us the worst president in the history of the union, who proceeded to drive the country off a cliff for the succeeding 8 years. And that is because he was not our president, but theirs. Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here…
  Read the entire article 10 worst things about the Bush years here.

Today, Sunday March 30, on the Downsize DC Conference Call, Libertarian Jim Babka’s two-hour radio show, will air at at 3:06 PM Eastern (2:06 PM Central, 1:06 PM Mountain, and 12:06 PM Pacific). The focus of today’s show will be about the Real ID Act.

Not only does Mr. Babka contend that Real ID is not good for America, but he also believes it is anti-American. He is not alone. He’ll provide a great many details about what’s going on in the fight because we’re now at the point where we need to turn up the pressure at a national level. This will be a show featuring some good news.

For the last two years the battle has shifted to the states on this issue and he wants to hear from the activists working in the states. What’s happening in your state?

Please let him know at CALL at DOWNSIZEDC dot ORG (we ask that you type that address in as it sounds because if we provide a hyperlink, spam harvesting programs will snag the address, and make a headache out of it).

To call-in during the show the toll-free number is 1-800-259-9231.

And, by the way, if you want to send a message to Congress asking them to repeal the Real ID Act, you can do so at the website, DownsizeDC.org.

The best way to hear the program is on the Genesis Communications Network website.

And previous episodes are available as mp3 “attachments” to posts on our DownsizeDC.org blog.

Make the “Protect America Act” Go Away Forever

To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal – would bring terrible retribution.

Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941)
US Supreme Court Justice

We need to keep hitting Congress on the “Protect America Act” (PAA).

The “Protect America Act” — which legalizes warrantless spying on Americans — will sunset out of existence on February 1 unless Congress either agrees to a replacement bill, or votes to extend the sunset deadline. The Senate is having a hard time reaching an agreement on a replacement bill, so the main opportunity and threat is the deadline extension.

We must tell both the Senate and the House to let the PAA expire, and to oppose any replacement bill.

We also asked you to do this last Friday, but there were problems with the campaign that took us a while to fix. But the problems are now fixed, so you can go forth and pound Congress with confidence that they will get your message. PAA will either die or be extended in the next couple of weeks, so the time to act is now.

Thank your for being a part of the growing Downsize DC Army.

Perry Willis
Communications Director
DownsizeDC.org, Inc.

D o w n s i z e r – D i s p a t c h

is the official email list of DownsizeDC.org, Inc. & Downsize DC Foundation

CONTRIBUTE to the Electronic Lobbyist project

http://www.DownsizeDC.org is sponsored by DownsizeDC.org, Inc. — a non-profit educational organization promoting the ideas of individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets, and small government.

KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!

(prepared by the National Lawyers Guild)

What rights do I have?

The Right to Advocate for Change.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of groups and individuals who advocate changes in laws, government practices, and even the form of government.

The Right to Remain Silent.

The Fifth Amendment of the Constitution provides that every person has the right to remain silent in the face of questions posed by any police officer or government agent.

The Right to be Free from "Unreasonable Searches and Seizures."

The Fourth Amendment is supposed to protect your privacy. Without a warrant, no government agent is allowed to search your home or office and you can refuse to let them in. Know, however, that it is easy for the government to monitor your telephone calls, conversations in your office, home, car, or meeting place, as well as mail. E-mail is particularly insecure. The government has already begun stepping up its monitoring of e-mails.

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS CANNOT BE SUSPENDED
EVEN DURING A STATE OF EMERGENCY
OR WARTIME.

What should I do if agents come to question me?

1. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO TALK TO THE POLICE, FBI, INS, OR ANY OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENT OR INVESTIGATOR. Other than providing your name and address to a police officer who is investigating a crime, you are not legally obligated to talk to anyone: on the street, at your home or office, if you’ve been arrested, or even if you’re in jail. Only a judge has the legal authority to order you to answer questions.
2. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LET POLICE OR OTHER LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENTS INTO YOUR HOME OR OFFICE UNLESS THEY HAVE A SEARCH WARRANT OR ARREST WARRANT. Demand to see the warrant. The warrant must specifically describe the place to be searched and the things to be seized. If they have a warrant, you cannot stop them from entering and searching, but you should still tell them that you do not consent to a search. This will limit them to the scope of the search authorized by the warrant.
3. IF THEY DO PRESENT A WARRANT, YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO MONITOR THEIR SEARCH AND ACTIVITIES. You have the right to observe what they do. You have the right to ask them for their names and titles. Take written notes including their names, badge numbers, and what agency they are from. Have your friends who are present act as witnesses. Give this information to your lawyer. A warrant does not give the government the right to question, nor does it obligate you to answer questions.
4. IF THE POLICE OR FBI OR INS OR ANYONE ELSE TRIES TO QUESTION YOU OR TRIES TO ENTER YOUR HOME WITHOUT A WARRANT, JUST SAY NO! Police and other law enforcement agents are very skilled at getting information from people. Many people are afraid that if they refuse to cooperate, it will appear as if they have something to hide. Don’t be fooled. The police are allowed to (and do) lie to you. Although agents may seem nice and pretend to be on your side, they are likely to be intent on learning about the habits, opinions, and affiliations of people not suspected of wrongdoing, with the end goal of stopping political activity with which the government disagrees. Trying to answer agents’ questions, or trying to "educate them" about your cause can be very dangerous. You can never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information that you give them might be used and misconstrued to hurt you or someone else. And keep in mind that lying to a federal agent is a crime.
5. IF YOU ARE STOPPED ON THE STREET, ASK IF YOU ARE FREE TO GO. If you are stopped by the police, ask them why. If they do not have a good reason for stopping you, or if you find yourself chatting for more than about a minute, ask "Am I under arrest, or am I free to go." If they do not state that you are under arrest, tell them that you do not wish to continue speaking with them and that you are going to go about your business. Then do so.
6. ANYTHING YOU SAY TO THE POLICE, FBI, INS, ETC. WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU AND OTHERS. Once you’ve been arrested, you cannot talk your way out of it! Don’t try to engage the cops in dialogue or respond to their accusations.
7. THE FBI MAY THREATEN YOU WITH A GRAND JURY SUBPOENA IF YOU DON’T TALK TO THEM. They may give you a subpoena anyway, so anything you tell them may permit them to ask you more detailed questions later. You may also have legal grounds to refuse to answer questions before a grand jury. If you are given a grand jury subpoena, you should call a lawyer immediately (see contact information at the end). Tell your friends and movement groups about the subpoena and discuss how to respond. Do not try to deal with this alone.
8. IF YOU ARE NERVOUS ABOUT SIMPLY REFUSING TO TALK, TELL THEM TO CONTACT YOUR LAWYER. They should stop trying to question you once you announce your desire to consult a lawyer. You do not have to already have one. Remember to get the name, agency, and telephone number of any investigator who visits you, and contact the National Lawyers Guild for help getting a lawyer.

How should I respond to threatening letters or calls?

If your home or office is broken into, or threats have been made against you, your organization, or someone you work with, share this information with everyone affected. Take immediate steps to increase personal and office security. You should discuss with your organization and with a lawyer whether and how to report such incidents to the police and the advisability of taking other legal action. If you decide to make a report, do not do so without a lawyer present.

What if I suspect surveillance?

Prudence is the best course, no matter who you suspect, or what the basis of your suspicion. Do not hesitate to confront suspected agents politely, in public, with at least one other person present, and inquire about their business. If the suspect declines to answer, he or she at least now knows that you are aware of the surveillance. If you suspect government agents are monitoring you, or are harassing you, report this to the National Lawyers Guild.

What if I am not a citizen?

1. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO REVEAL YOUR IMMIGRATION STATUS. We cannot count on the police to honor local sanctuary ordinances, and the fact that the INS obtained your name in violation of a sanctuary ordinance will NOT prevent you from being deported.
2. FOREIGN NATIONALS WHO ARE ARRESTED IN THE U.S. HAVE THE RIGHT TO CALL YOUR CONSULATE or to have the police inform your consulate of your arrest. The police must allow your consul to visit or speak with you. Your consul might assist you in finding a lawyer or offer other help, such as contacting your family. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.
3. DO NOT TALK TO THE INS, EVEN ON THE PHONE, before talking to an immigration lawyer. Many INS officers view "enforcement," meaning deporting people, as their primary job. They do not believe that explaining immigration options is part of their job, and most will readily admit this. (Noncitizens who are victims of domestic abuse should speak with an expert in both immigration law and domestic violence.) A noncitizen should always speak with an immigration law expert before speaking to the INS either in person or by telephone.
4. KNOW AND ASSERT YOUR RIGHTS! All noncitizens have the following rights, regardless of your immigration status: a. The right to speak to an attorney before answering any questions or signing any documents; b. The right to a hearing with an Immigration Judge; c. The right to have an attorney at that hearing and in any interview with INS (however you do not have the right to a free, government-paid lawyer); and d. The right to request release from detention, by paying a bond if necessary. Noncitizens must assert these rights. If you do not demand these rights, you can be deported without seeing either an attorney or a judge. Leaving the U.S. in this way may have serious consequences for your ability to later enter or to gain legal immigration status in the U.S.
5. TALK TO AN IMMIGRATION LAWYER BEFORE LEAVING THE U.S. Anyone not a U.S. citizen may be barred from coming back to the U.S. if they fall into certain categories of people barred from entering. This includes some lawful permanent residents and applicants for green cards. Some noncitizens that have been in the U.S. without INS permission may be permanently barred from re-entering. In addition, some noncitizens that leave the US and return with INS permission may be swiftly removed from the U.S. if they end up in immigration proceedings.

CONTACT INFORMATION

• National Lawyers Guild National office: (212) 627-2656, www.nlg.org
• National Immigration Project: (617) 227-9727
• Immigration Law Center (Immigration law information is available on www.nilc.org)

A country in which people cannot make airline reservations without the government’s permission is not a free country.

Paul Craig Roberts

Bush Regime Preaches Democracy, Proposes Tyranny

By Paul Craig Roberts

US citizens had best rethink the “war on terror” while they still have the liberty to do so. For all of President Bush’s blah-blah talk about bringing democracy to the world, the Bush administration has proved that it is no friend of liberty at home.

The Bush administration has violated constitutional principles, US law, and the Geneva Conventions as no previous administration has done. Here is a short list of the Bush administration’s crimes:

• Spying without court warrants on Americans in violation of both the US Constitution and the FISA statute.
• The denial of habeas corpus, attorney-client privilege, due process, and Geneva Conventions protections to those, American or foreign, designated without evidence as terrorists or enemy combatants.
• The justification and use of torture to coerce confessions and the kidnapping of foreign nationals who are sent to be tortured in foreign prisons.
• The initiation of military aggression against states based on intentional deception by the Bush administration of the US public and the United Nations, and the intentional fabrication of “evidence” to justify unprovoked aggression against sovereign states, which is a war crime under the Nuremberg standard established by the US.
• Violation of the oath of office to defend the US Constitution by practically every member of the Bush administration and Congress.
• Bush has assaulted the separation of powers and the rule of law with “signing statements” and “executive orders” that President Nixon’s White House Counsel John Dean says are commands that treat the co-equal branches of government and the electorate as subservient to executive authority. In April 2006, Boston Globe reporter Charlie Savage listed 750 laws “challenged” by the Bush administration. Not even the demonized president of Iran claims to be above the law.
• Genocide against the people of Iraq where one million Iraqis have died as a result of Bush’s invasion and several million Iraqis are displaced persons.
• Massive civilian casualties in Afghanistan, which is a form of genocide in which military force is routinely applied to unarmed noncombatants.
• Massive corruption in which no-bid contracts are issued to Republican corporations in exchange for kickbacks to political campaigns.
• The theft of two national elections as documented in books by Mark Crispin Miller and Greg Palast.

The Bush administration has even conducted Stalinist show trials against innocent Muslim charities as part of its propaganda to make the American people fearful that they are surrounded by hostile terrorists. In December 2001 President Bush declared the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development to be a “terrorist organization” and seized the charity’s assets. Bush put the charities’ officials on trial as terrorists. Six years later on October 22, 2007, after years of investigations and two months of testimony by who but “Israeli intelligence agents” (according to the New York Times), the US government’s case fell apart in the courtroom.

One of the jurors said that the case ” was strung together with macaroni noodles. There was so little evidence.”

Georgetown University professor of constitutional law David D. Cole said the case “suggests the government is really pushing beyond where the law justifies them going.”

While committing these unprecedented crimes, President Bush has claimed the moral high ground despite having lied to the American people and despite devastating two countries in the name of “making the world safe from terrorists.” When people in Iraq and Afghanistan are asked who are the terrorists, they answer that it is the Americans.

The Bush administration has not been held accountable for any of its crimes. By failing to hold government accountable to law, the Constitution, and the American people, the opposition party and the corporate media have abandoned their responsibility to protect freedom and democracy in the United States.

There can be no democracy where there is no government accountability, and there is no government accountability in the United States – except, of course, to the Israel Lobby.

Now the Bush administration wants to take away the American people’s freedom to travel within their own country by airplane. Not content with an 80,000 “no fly” list, a subset of a 500,000–750,000 “watch list,” the Bush administration’s Transport Security Administration has proposed new rules that will require Americans to get government permission 72 hours in advance prior to being allowed to board a domestic flight.

The TSA justifies this extraordinary violation of our constitutional rights on the grounds that 90 to 93 percent of all travel reservations are final by then.

So what?!

And what of the 7 to 10 percent of flights that the TSA estimates are not on the books 72 hours in advance? These are family emergencies and critical business deals. What does the TSA care if a member of your family dies while you await the government’s permission to fly?

Any agency of the government that can propose such a tyrannical regulation should be abolished. The TSA’s mentality shows it to be a far greater threat to Americans than are terrorists.

Even without the “permission to fly” rule, the TSA’s practices are ridiculous and unjustified. The confiscation of tooth paste and unopened bottles of perfume, the harassment of US military officers in uniform, the harassment of old people struggling with their walkers, of mothers struggling with small children – none of this makes any sense except in terms of getting Americans accustomed to harassment as a citizen’s duty to government and to train a cadre to conduct warrantless searches of fellow citizens.

The no-fly list itself is absurd. If a known terrorist were to show up at an airport, he would be arrested, not refused permission to fly. Anyone else who can clear security like other passengers has every right to fly.

Set aside the violation of the Constitution and the Soviet-style tyranny of the loss of the freedom to travel and consider merely the practical aspect of the proposal. What American wants his travel plans dependent on a government bureaucracy capable of putting US Senator Ted Kennedy on the “no fly” list and capable of issuing US visas to two of the alleged 9/11 hijackers six months after they allegedly died in the 9/11 events

If we believe the official story, 9/11 itself reveals a government totally devoid of any competence whatsoever.

The “war on terror” is fraudulent. The cruel war and the deceptive vocabulary that protects it are a cover for expanding US and Israeli hegemony in the Middle East and for constructing a functioning police state at home. A country in which people cannot make airline reservations without the government’s permission is not a free country.
———–
Paul Craig Roberts wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholarly journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury’s Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.

They Thought They Were Free, The Germans, 1938-45

“What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap between the government and the people. And it became always wider… the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting, it provided an excuse not to think… for people who did not want to think anyway gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about… and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated… by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us…

“Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’… must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing… Each act is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next.

“You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone… you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes.

“That’s the difficulty. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves, when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed.

“You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things your father… could never have imagined.”

Milton Mayer
They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 (Phoenix Books)

(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955)

An Open Letter to the New Generation of Military Officers Serving and Protecting Our Nation

Duty, Honor, Country 2007

The Nuremberg Principles says that we in the military have not only the right, but also the DUTY to refuse an illegal order. It was on this basis that we executed Nazi officers who were ‘only carrying out their orders’… The Constitution which we are sworn to uphold says that treaties entered into by the United States are the ‘highest law of the land,’ equivalent to the Constitution itself. Accordingly, we in the military are sworn to uphold treaty law, including the United Nations charter and the Geneva Convention… Based on the above, I contend that should some civilian order you to initiate a nuclear attack on Iran (for example), you are duty-bound to refuse that order. I might also suggest that you should consider whether the circumstances demand that you arrest whoever gave the order as a war criminal.

By Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret., National Commander, The Patriots

Dear Comrades in Arms,

You are facing challenges in 2007 that we of previous generations never dreamed of. I’m just an old fighter pilot (101 combat missions in Vietnam , F-4 Phantom, Phu Cat, 1969-1970) who’s now a disabled veteran with terminal cancer from Agent Orange. Our mailing list (over 22,000) includes veterans from all branches of the service, all political parties, and all parts of the political spectrum. We are Republicans and Democrats, Greens and Libertarians, Constitutionists and Reformers, and a good many Independents. What unites us is our desire for a government that (1) follows the Constitution, (2) honors the truth, and (3) serves the people.

We see our government going down the wrong path, all too often ignoring military advice, and heading us toward great danger. And we look to you who still serve as the best hope for protecting our nation from disaster.

We see the current Iraq War as having been unnecessary, entered into under false pretenses, and horribly mismanaged by the civilian authorities. Thousands of our brave troops have been needlessly sacrificed in a futile attempt at occupation of a hostile land. Many more thousands have suffered wounds which will change their lives forever. Tens of thousands have severe psychological problems because of what they have seen and what they have done. Potentially hundreds of thousands could be poisoned by depleted uranium, with symptoms appearing years later, just as happened to us exposed to Agent Orange. The military services are depleted and demoralized. The VA system is under-funded and overwhelmed. The National Guard and Reserves have been subjected to tour after tour, disrupting lives for even the lucky ones who return intact. Jobs have been lost, marriages have been destroyed, homes have been foreclosed, and children have been estranged. And for what? We have lost allies, made new enemies, and created thousands of new terrorists, further endangering the American people.

But you know all this. I’m sure you also see the enormous danger in a possible attack on Iran , possibly with nuclear weapons. Such an event, seriously contemplated by the Cheney faction of the Bush administration, would make enemies of Russia and China and turn us into the number one rogue nation on earth. The effect on our long-term national security would be devastating.

Some of us had hoped that the new Democratic Congress would end the occupation of Iraq and take firm steps to prevent an attack on Iran , perhaps by impeaching Bush and Cheney. These hopes have been dashed. The lily-livered Democrats have caved in, turning their backs on those few (like Congressman Jack Murtha) who understand the situation. Many of us have personally walked the halls of Congress, to no avail.

The official story of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It’s impossible. High levels of our government don’t want us to know what happened and who’s responsible.

Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.,
National Commander, The Patriots

This is where you come in.

We know that many of you share our concern and our determination to protect our republic from an arrogant, out-of-control, imperial presidency and a compliant, namby-pamby Congress (both of which are unduly influenced by the oil companies and other big-money interests). We know that you (like us) wouldn’t have pursued a military career unless you were idealistic and devoted to our nation and its people. (None of us do it for the pay and working conditions!) But we also recognize that you may not see how you can influence these events. We in the military have always had a historic subservience to civilian authority.

Perhaps I can help with whatever wisdom I’ve gathered from age (I retired in 1978, so I am ancient indeed).

Our oath of office is to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Might I suggest that this includes a rogue president and vice-president? Certainly we are bound to carry out the legal orders of our superiors. But the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) which binds all of us enshrines the Nuremberg Principles which this country established after World War II (which you are too young to remember). One of those Nuremberg Principles says that we in the military have not only the right, but also the DUTY to refuse an illegal order. It was on this basis that we executed Nazi officers who were “only carrying out their orders.”

The Constitution which we are sworn to uphold says that treaties entered into by the United States are the “highest law of the land,” equivalent to the Constitution itself. Accordingly, we in the military are sworn to uphold treaty law, including the United Nations charter and the Geneva Convention.

Based on the above, I contend that should some civilian order you to initiate a nuclear attack on Iran (for example), you are duty-bound to refuse that order. I might also suggest that you should consider whether the circumstances demand that you arrest whoever gave the order as a war criminal.

I know for a fact that in recent history (once under Nixon and once under Reagan), the military nuclear chain of command in the White House discussed these things and were prepared to refuse an order to “nuke Russia .” In effect they took the (non-existent) “button” out of the hands of the President.. We were thus never quite as close to World War III as many feared, no matter how irrational any president might have become. They determined that the proper response to any such order was, “Why, sir?” Unless there was (in their words) a “damn good answer,” nothing was going to happen.

I suggest that if you in this generation have not had such a discussion, perhaps it is time you do. In hindsight, it’s too bad such a discussion did not take place prior to the preemptive “shock and awe” attack on Baghdad . Many of us at the time spoke out vehemently that such an attack would be an impeachable offense, a war crime against the people of Iraq , and treason against the United States of America . But our voices were drowned out and never reached the ears of the generals in 2003. I now regret that I never sent a letter such as this at that time, but depended on the corporate media to carry my message. I must not make that mistake again.

Also in hindsight, President Bush could be court-martialed for abuse of power as Commander-in-Chief. Vice President Cheney could probably be court-martialed for his performance as Acting Commander-in-Chief in the White House bunker the morning of September 11, 2001.

We in the U.S. military would never consider a military coup, removing an elected president and installing one of our own. But following our oath of office, obeying the Nuremberg Principles, and preventing a rogue president from committing a war crime is not a military coup. If it requires the detention of executive branch officials, we will not impose a military dictatorship. We will let the Constitutional succession take place. This is what we are sworn to. This is protecting the Constitution, our highest obligation. In 2007, this is what is meant by “Duty, Honor, Country.”

Thank you all for your service to this nation. May God bless America , and sustain us in this difficult time. And thanks for listening to the musings of an old junior officer.

Respectfully,

Robert M. Bowman, PhD, Lt. Col., USAF, ret.

Police State Premonition:
Child Skateboarder Uprising Squashed by Police

A Police officer in Hot Springs Arkansas goes nuts while attempting to apprehend a group of teen skateboarders.

Until recently, I had family who lived in Hot Springs, Arkansas. Lovely place. I miss visiting and I wish they had never moved out. I know the main street quite well. The skateboarders there never, ever bothered me. Not in the least… Now, to watch this video, it not only breaks my heart, but it angers me to no end.

So, this is the preferred method to “taking care” of the “skateboarder problem”? By unleashing your pit-bull mentality, testosterone driven, out of control police force to forcibly take down these children on skateboards?

Indeed, police state coming

Damn politics, let’s dance

By Pepe Escobar

Forget Ohio. Forget the mathematics. Forget all the lawyers. By any measure, in terms of direct – not indirect, Electoral College democracy – George W Bush has won this referendum. A president who was never above a 50% approval rate in the past few months, who lost all three debates with challenger Senator John Kerry, but now has a majority of almost 4 million in the popular vote, has in fact won the referendum on himself.

Fasten your seat belts: it’s going to be a bumpy ride. Control of the presidency, Senate, House. A popular mandate. Four more years. Possibly four more wars. In a nutshell, chief strategist Karl Rove got the evangelicals out in force. According to a series of Gallup polls, 42% of Americans declare themselves evangelicals or born-again Christians. Bush always had a head start of 42%.

The widely sung-and-danced-to youth vote never materialized. The 18-to-29 generation voted in exactly the same numbers as in 2000: first-time voters – a pro-Kerry majority, worried about the economy and the war on Iraq – were only 10% of the electorate. The 30-to-44 group was even more scarce. So much for great expectations. An army of Democrats, an army of pollsters and even a few Republicans made fools of themselves. The youth vote meant, in essence, “damn politics, let’s dance”.

The exit polls were all horribly wrong. The blogosphere was basically calling a Kerry victory as soon as the polls closed. A Harris poll was also predicting Kerry. The exits had Kerry leading Bush among men by 51%-49%, and among women by 53%-47%. The final exits for Ohio had Kerry winning 52%-48%. Blogger Kevin Drum was saying that “in a way it’s the ultimate in navel gazing. The bloggers all read the media and the media call bloggers to find out what they’re reading.”

Then the blogosphere went dead for an hour, an hour and a half, two hours – as if the virtual world was trying to absorb the avalanche of red states and the news from Florida and the nail-biting Ohio crawl. There was widespread talk that the Republicans were trying everything to steal the election in the courts, trying to get the courts to stop
voting while people were already in line when the polls closed, trying for a ruling against provisional ballots.

Desperate Democrats started spinning that provisional ballots in Ohio would decide everything. It would take at least 11 days, according to the Ohio state secretary. All this while Bush’s lead in Ohio was increasing.

PNAC’s program

The United States may have gone to the polls as a divided, uncertain, paralyzed-by-fear nation. Today it’s still a divided, uncertain, paralyzed-by-fear nation, but now with a clear mandate for the state really to rock the geopolitical boat.

The “most important election of a lifetime” has sent a clear message to the whole world: the face of America in the next four years – barring a Richard Nixon-style impeachment – will be of unilateralism, the “war on terror” possibly progressively escalating into a clash of civilizations. And pay attention to the “axis of evil” hit list – the official and the bootleg. Bush II will attack what it defines as “state terrorism” – Iran, Syria – instead of the global jihadi network. It will continue to rely on Pakistan to “decapitate” the odd “high-value al-Qaeda”. It won’t engage in diplomacy to address the political causes of terrorism. It won’t engage in a cultural and ideological effort to try to counteract the global jihad – especially now that Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri have changed the rules of the asymmetrical game from a religious clash to a political struggle against imperialism.

Total concentration of right-wing power – legitimized by the popular vote: this is the new neo-conservative dream turned reality. So the road ahead is to flatten the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah in Iraq, bomb Iran because of its supposed nuclear aspirations, depose President Hafez Assad in Syria, crush the Palestinian resistance, and remodel the Middle East by “precision strike” democracy.

There will be serious blowback. A new pan-Islamic nationalism, for example, featuring Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani’s Shi’ite masses allied with the Sunni triangle to kick out the Americans from Iraq, eventually supported by both Iran and Saudi Arabia. Iraq crisscrossed by guerrillas and Iran penetrated by US intelligence, both leading – plus Shi’ite eastern Saudi Arabia, where the oil is – to a new, catastrophic oil shock.

And then the neo-conservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) – which virtually took over the US government – will create a major confrontation with China. Asia, beware:

http://www.newamericancentury.org

The faith-based, apocalyptic evangelicals have won this battle against the “reality community”. Bush won despite Tora Bora, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib. The crusade continues. In God we trust – and also in Osama bin Laden. He got exactly what he wanted.

Copyright 2004 Asia Times