A CALL TO CAMELOT |
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20
Jan 2001 Saturday Day
1 of the Occupation “In the depths of winter I finally
learned there was in me an invincible summer.” …Albert Camus Why are you here? What are you fighting for? When your friends, your family, your neighbors are not, why are you here? What do you see that they do not? What are you fighting for? I think we come from
very different backgrounds and very different interests, some of us are
old, and some are young, some Democrats and Republicans and some are
independents, some are Asian and some are Black and some are White. Some
are loud and some are quiet, some are children of peace, and some are
quickly becoming dogs of war; but I think despite our differences, our
agendas, we come here for the same basic reason, heeding the same basic
call, fighting for the same basic idea… freedom. Freedom. We are here because we have all become aware to varying degrees that this nation of the people, by the people, and for the people is increasingly being run by a few people. That our government is increasingly becoming our owner, and our democracy increasingly becoming our tyranny. Here at the true
start of the 21st century, the beginning of the next thousand
years, instead of moving forward, there are men in power and men in place,
determined to move us back. Move us into well traveled roads of poverty,
and desperation and dissolution. Move us back into an odious age of baron
and serf, king and commoner, prince and pauper. Move us into an age when
the mass of humanity suffers, while a few thrive, wallow in wealth.
Rockefeller years. Move us into grave
positions, indefensible positions, exploitable positions. One such Man is George W. Bush and his path to the White House, to our house, shows the truth of these words. He is entering public office, the largest office in the land, over the will of the American people, over our concepts and convictions, over our human rights, over even our long held belief in liberty. George W. Bush about
to be anointed the “so-called” leader of the greatest democratic
nation in the world, and he did it by putting aside democracy.
It is a situation that cannot stand. Too many have fought,
too many have bled, too many have died; to allow a man who lost the
popular vote, to steal and suppress our popular ideals. Ideals of duty,
family, country, democracy, and the pursuit of happiness. We cannot allow a man
who less than 20% of the American people voted for, (only 50million out of
a country of 270million) and overwhelming evidence indicates lost even the
Electoral vote, we cannot allow this man to take our nation. Is this what all the talk of freedom and Independence and liberty was about, all the wars and bloodshed, and hate and love commingled, all the striving toward and racing away, all the standing up and all the falling down, all the blood, all those cities of dead young and dead old, giving their lives to forge a better world, for what? So that one man, one family, can forge a worse one. I think not. I think we owe much
more to those who came before, whose blood soaks deep into every inch of
ground we walk on, whose lives, whose moments of pride and moments of
pain… put us here, we owe it to them, to show that this space they
carved for us was not in vain, that we have learned, that we have bloody
learned, from their wisdom and from their folly, we owe it to them, those
millions dead that we might live, not to walk again their walk, and talk
again their talk. We owe it to them, to move forward, to make their lives
and their deaths have meaning. And I think we owe just as much to those proud generations to come, to follow us in this great game. We owe it to these our children, our inheritors, not just a world as good as we remember it, but better than we have dreamed of it. This is the duty of every parent, of every man of God, all Gods, whatever God you pray to, we have a duty and an obligation to make a great world, a better world for those to come. It is a duty we have
of late, failed miserably at. We have served our
children poorly, we have raised them in a world, of talk shows, and
tyrants, and terror, and expect them to be anything but mad. We have
raised them in a world where companies value policy more than people, and
they are fed from morning to midnight on lies and the lithany of liars. We have of late
served our children poorly. We have let our nation get away from us, our
rights taken from us, our morality stripped from us, and our fight… our
fight beaten from us. No more. I had asked at the
beginning what we are here for? What we are fighting for? We are here to draw a
line in the sand and say no more! No more! This far no further! We are
here to let them know that this is a nation of the people by the people
for the people, and you George W. Bush, cannot have it. You cannot steal
it, you cannot buy it, and you cannot own it. And though a thousand
inaugurations come and go, George W. Bush shall never be our president.
For where does a president truly live if not in the hearts and minds of
the people. And until such time as we have a full and complete count of
the Florida votes, and a rightfully elected successor to President
Clinton, for the first time in the history of our nation the office of the
President of the United States will be vacant. And in place of a
president, we are in the hands of a tyrant, America has for all intents
and purposes been overthrown, and today is the first day of the
occupation. We have already
seen the bias inherent in the courts, with the very ruling by the Supreme
Court that allowed this coup. The tyrant Bush with his allies in place
controls all three branches of the government, the Electoral, the
Legislative, and the Judicial, he has sewn up all governmental opposition
to him. So the normal channels, checks and balances, that were set up to
stop exactly what Bush has done in this country, no longer exist. Government is a chess
game, and Bush and the GOP are several moves ahead. Four years from
now, if he gets away with this unchallenged, unpushed, untaxed, it’s
very doubtful whether we’ll even have an election. Nothing more than some token displays for the television while at the
conventions, the real decisions are made, and the tyrant for the next four
years chosen. I know it’s a bleak picture I paint. And an
unbelievable picture, but these are unbelievable times. Perhaps if someone
had painted this bleak picture before the election, we could have avoided
this madness. But the time for
could haves and should haves is passed. What do we do? 1/ OBSERVING-We
must understand the game, see the big picture. Begin to understand our
enemy, what they are doing, what they are prepared to do. Hopefully this
letter has served a little bit in making you aware of the problems, the
scope, and where we stand in the game. 2/ EVALUATING-Do
not Believe the media, judge for yourself right and wrong, enemy
and friend-Once we understand, that in a very real way America, her
government and her values; has been invaded from within, we can look at
George W. Bush and his supporters for what they truly are, enemies of the
state. Tyrants. As Americans we have a long history of not suffering
tyrants easily or well. We have to get the word out that this isn’t
about republican or democrat, us versus them, it’s about right vs.
wrong. We have no time for such idiotic divisions, Bush is counting on
division, on the media, on the schools, on the worsening economic
conditions to generate division. In times of division Tyrants can
flourish, Bush is aware of this. At least his backers are. So his time in
office will be spent, pushing all the buttons, initiating all the little
fires that we run around putting out, while he gets stronger, his
corporate cronies richer, and the bulk of America poorer and more
desperate. Desperate people will accept anything, even a tyrant. Bush
knows this as well. 3/ REPRISALS-make
a list, in a notebook or something that you keep close to you, and every
time something ticks you off, or some reporter says something stupid,
or some judge or cop or senator or company gets away with murder, write
it down. WRITE THEIR NAMES DOWN. People, the media, politicians, count
on you having a short memory, count on you not remembering who stood with
democracy or against it. We must change that perception. We must begin to
hold those who disrespect us, deny us, disenfranchise us, we must begin
holding them accountable. We must begin to name names. Bush is at the
top of a pyramid, the base of his support is corporate America, big
business. Who, what
business, what are their agendas, who are their owners. You want
Bush to hear you, you must speak in the only language that corporate
America understands, dollars. We have to begin fighting an economic war.
We have to start sanctioning American companies, boycotting them on a
massive scale, we have to research, uncover the companies funding Bush,
and company by company, tell them in dollars and cents your mad as hell
and not going to take it anymore. When companies realize the
American public will no longer be deaf and dumb, but will begin holding
them accountable, will no longer be dependent on them, when we hold them
accountable for the actions of their attack rock Bush, then you will see
Bush willing to take a conciliatory stance. Corporate America
controls our government, they say jump, our politicians say how high. Our
corporations have gotten greedy in the last twenty years and see the time
right for exploiting the American working class, in a very real sense they
see a perfect opportunity to reduce the bulk of Americans to nothing more
than slaves for no other reason to increase their profit margins and fill
their already sizeable pockets. We’re talking Mexico levels of poverty
across the United States, the gradual disintegration of the middle class
into the working poor. Bush and the Courts are doing what corporate
America wants them to do. We must take the war
to Corporate America. We must name names, we must shame these millionaire
murderers into the light, into doing the right thing. If we can begin
slowly steadily doing those three things we can win back America from her
invaders. We can win back our nation, if we will but take the time to
fight for her. To help start doing
this I want to continue this dialogue we have going, all of you have shown
your concern and your compassion for America. All of you are soldiers and
will be needed. We need to be able to communicate, and pass info and news
back and forth, a round table if you will, where we can meet and share
information from the various disparate battlegrounds of our war. A place
not controlled by the media, or by special interests. A last bastion
of American resistance, where all the last patriots and revolutionaries in
this silent and undeclared war can meet, can talk, can share, can learn. A
place where jobs are found, services traded, information swapped, meetings
planned and freedom fought for. A round table. An
electronic round table. With your help we
can begin building it, this round table. This day is about networking, it
is about the idea of defiance, the idea of change, and the idea of
freedom. Today is the easy day, where we determine where we are, and where
we want to go. Tomorrow, tomorrow is the hard day, when we are back in our
lives, back in our problems, back in our bills, back in our doubts, and
back in our isolation. Tomorrow is the day when we must start working
toward our more perfect union.
I want to hear from each one of you every week, if it’s only to say hi,
or your bunions hurt, or your birthday sucked, whatever. Doesn’t have to
be about life and death, this is about building something America has
lost, not just Democracy and freedom, but building common joys and common
laughter, building decency and compassion, this is about building culture
and community, so it doesn’t have to be about life and death. It can be
just about life. Next weekend we have the Conference on Organized resistance meeting here in DC, hope to see everyone back up here again for that. Please feel free to email for details, and stop by the website and help me build this round table. Thankyou and God
bless. And remember we want to hear from you every week, tell me about
that apple pie recipe, or that great american novel, or school, or work,
or life. We are here because we love America, we love this cultured hell
that tests our youth. We are here because going forward can get us more
than going back, we are here because we have the wholly irrational idea
that it matters, it matters what you do to the least of us, we are here
because we believe every life wasted diminishes us all, and every life
stolen robs us all. We are here ultimately because we care. And the caring, if we
are lucky and God is kind, the caring just might save us all. Grendelswar GrendelsWar https://members.tripod.com/grendelswar/ “The sum of all our answer is but this: We would
not seek a battle, as we are; But as we are, we say we will not shun it;” ..HENRY V: Act III Sc V |