Citizen or Subject?

Until 234 years ago, the American People were subjects of His Majesty, the King of England. They were governed by His Majesty’s Government, far away and caring little for its distant subjects except for the money which could be extorted from them. Laws were piled on laws, taxes upon taxes. This caused much unrest, except for the very wealthy who had connections to His Majesty’s Government.

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in which he said “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

“He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

“He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and, when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

“He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only.

“He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

“He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people...

“He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

“He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

“He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

“He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power.

“He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

“For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

“For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

“For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

“For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

“For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

“For transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses;

“For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

“For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

“For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

“He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.”

This is but a portion of the grievances the American People had against the King and his government. However, as subjects of the King, we had no independent power, even for the redress of grievances.

As you read the above, did certain similarities suggest themselves to you with modern America?

After a long and bloody war, the American People won their freedom and became Citizens of the United States of America. With the memory of being subject to a king fresh in their minds, the Congress wrote a document, the Constitution of the United States, and appended the first ten amendments to it, commonly known as the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights does not enumerate the rights of the American Citizen, it forbids the government from interfering with those rights. As a matter of fact, the Tenth Amendment states "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the People." It established the means whereby the three branches of government were to be a system of checks and balances to prevent any one of the three gaining too much power, and thereby, to avoid a dictatorship.

It was not foreseen that the three branches of the government would become the paid agents of the wealthy, cooperating to control the people and curtail the Bill of Rights, and, in fact, most of the Constitution.

We are once again under the control of an effective dictatorship where the Rights of Man are ignored or circumvented by illegal and unconstitutional laws. Our so called “representatives” ignore We the People, listening only to the wealthy corporations and cartels which the Supreme Court has designated “persons.”

A huge agency has been created, “Homeland Security,” which has been given the right to overrule the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, to pry into every citizen’s home, business, communications. There are ever growing lists compiled; no-fly lists, border crossing lists, dossiers compiled on anyone who protests what is happening to our nation. Minorities are again coming under the eye of the government and discrimination is running rampant. We have the highest per capita percentage of people in prison of any nation. Exposes have been made of collusion between judges, law enforcement, and the private owners of prisons to be sure the population continues to increase, to the profit of the owners.

Business such as the oil companies are granted immunity for their crimes, and the government agencies that are supposed to be safeguarding us and regulating them are run by industry managers of the same industries, appointed by “our” government.

Reread the complaints above from the Declaration of Independence. Better yet, read the whole document. Look at the position of the average American, today. Then, tell me, are we Citizens of the Constitutional Republic of the United States, or or just Subjects of the American Empire?

Anchor of Liberty

We've all grown up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance; every morning at school, in offices and at assemblies. How much thought do we give to that pledge and its meaning?

I pledge allegiance to the flag... What is a flag? Webster’s describes it as a piece of cloth or bunting with distinctive colors, patterns or symbolic devices used as a state symbol. In general it is an easily recognized symbol of a nation or group. Our flag has gone through many incarnations from the Grand Union flag of the revolution through an ever increasing number of stars as states were added to the Union. The flag of the United States, “Old Glory,” has flown proudly as the ensign on ships protecting our shipping from both the British, and Barbary pirates, in the 1800'’s, from the crest of Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima in World War II to the moon and beyond, as painted on Voyager, now on its way to the stars. Sadly, it has flown just as proudly at Wounded Knee, Manzanar, Mai Lai and Fallujah.

Of the United States of America... What is the United States of America? It is a vast country, bounded on the East and West by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, by Canada to the North and Mexico to the South, not to mention Alaska and Hawaii beyond those boundaries. It is the home of diverse people and cultures and has every extreme of climate and geology.

And to the Republic for which it stands... What is a Republic? “It is a state or nation in which the supreme power rests in all the citizens entitled to vote (the electorate) and is exercised by representatives elected directly or indirectly by them and responsible to them.” What is it that makes our republic so unique in the annals of history? It is the three documents bequeathed to us by the founders of our nation, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. The founders of this nation had had their fill of autocratic government, unresponsive to the needs and wishes of its citizens. The Declaration of Independence spelled out that every person had the inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Inalienable means that it cannot be taken away or abridged. It also declared that every man had the right to rebel against those rights being infringed. After a long and bitter campaign, the United States of America was born. A Constitutional Convention was held in which the framework of government was hammered out. When completed, it was a remarkably brief document consisting of seven articles which concisely spelled out the rights, privileges and obligations of all three branches of government and how each of the three should provide a system of checks and balances on the others so that no branch of the government could assume dictatorial power or infringe upon the rights of the people. Included was the process by which the Constitution could be amended. When the Constitutional Convention had drafted the document, almost as an afterthought it was decided that there should be an enumeration of simple acknowledged principles of the rights of man. The list of an American citizen’s rights was to be an absolute barrier to infringement by the government upon the citizenry. (An interesting fact; If you carefully read the Bill of Rights, you will note that it does not enumerate our rights, it forbids the government from interfering with or taking away these rights. The rights are inherent.) These were added as the first ten amendments to the Constitution and called the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the irrevocable law of the land, the nation’s ultimate guarantee of human dignity for every American.

One Nation, under God, indivisible...The First Amendment declares the separation of church and state, but nowhere does it state that belief in a Supreme Being is something that cannot be professed publicly or shown in public places. Neither does it ban prayer in public. Rather, the separation of church and state was to guard against the growth of any sort of ruling theocracy such as had been seen throughout much of human history, where the church ruled and dictated human behavior according to its particular beliefs. Indivisible because since the civil war, we have hung together as one nation despite our differences.

With Liberty and Justice for all. Those ten amendments are that guarantee. They cannot be abridged regardless of expediency. Nowhere else in the world does a citizen enjoy the enumerated rights and benefits guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The President takes an oath to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, as do the Senate and the House. The Supreme Court is to enforce those Constitutional guarantees and see that neither of the other two branches of government violates or tries to set aside those rights. It is the duty of every citizen to see that the Constitution and Bill of Rights is protected. Without them, the United States of America is nothing special, just another big country ruling its people any way it sees fit. And the people become no more than servants of the state.

I would urge everyone to obtain a copy of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution including the Bill of Rights and study them carefully. It is only by knowledge that we can acquire wisdom and only by informed wisdom that we can maintain our unique and inalienable rights and freedoms.

Our Schools, No Child Left un-Brainwashed?

Ignatius Loyola said, “Give me a child for his first seven years and I'll give you the man.”

Goebbels said, “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

And, he wrote, “The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over.”

In Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia and Fascist Italy, the children were not taught to think, they were fed propaganda until it came out of their ears. The result was millions of obedient robots who would do what they were told, follow orders without question, turn on any student who showed independence and report him to the authorities.

In due time, they became good obedient cannon-fodder, concentration camp guards, knowing that, in following orders, they were doing the will of their leaders.

At one time, the US had an envied educational system. All children had an opportunity for an early education. Those with abilities could continue on to college. They were taught to think, to evaluate, to discover, to create. The system was very successful in creating an educated populace that could think for itself. It could see errors in government and try to correct them. It had enough talent to select leaders who likewise felt an obligation to leave the planet, or at least their office, better than they found it.

The Oligarchy and the Pentagon made use of its stable of “lone crazed assassins” to get rid of most of our leaders. As the Oligarchy slowly gained control, they stayed in the shadows, always acquiring more power. They bought politicians, jurists, the Media, and others of influence, until they gained control. Meanwhile, they attacked the school system, dragging it down, dumbing it down, until it produced few thinkers, few critics. Schools are now reduced, for the most part, to indoctrination centers where children are taught to memorize the party line and regurgitate it on command.

Now that the Oligarchy has about 98% of the wealth, and has bought a vast majority of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of the government, it is coming out into the open. As Hitler said, when you control the courts, whatever you do is legal, whatever your enemies do is illegal.

We are seeing that in the latest SCOTUS decision to remove restrictions on how much money the Oligarchy can use to buy or bribe legislators. We are watching as the civil rights, obtained at so much sacrifice by We the People, are being slowly eliminated by SCOTUS.

In my article If it was Good Enough for Hitler..., I pointed out the fact that the courts have repeatedly backed the school boards as having the right to fire any teacher who doesn’t toe the line and teach only what the school board tells it to. Teachers in many districts can no longer answer student’s questions except by giving them predigested answers, approved by the school boards, or telling them to ask their parents.

When the case I mentioned in my above article hits the Supremes, we will probably see the death of any independent thought in the school systems.

Then, indeed, Loyola, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Big Brother and the Oligarchs will have won. We will have a generation of brainwashed little robots to do the bidding of the government which, they will be absolutely certain, knows best. They will have been taught to hate foreigners, worship the flag, enlist in the military to help purge any different thought or customs of our “enemies” around the world. And above all, they will have been taught to root out any deviance of thought or action in their friends and neighbors, “enemies of the state.”

When I was a little boy, I only knew one definition of “concentration.” So when I heard of concentration camps, it sounded like a place where you could think. Later, I realized it was a place where they put the thinkers. Bush had KBR build a lot of them here. I’m sure Obama and the Oligarchy will find a use for them.

Remember, NorthCom is training combat brigades in the “suppression of civil dissent,” at the same time that government policies are creating still more homeless, hungry, thirsty, sick people. I fear that when the kettle finally boils over, they will be ready.

Years ago, I read that one of the Founders of this Nation stated that, “We would have freedom as long as these letters remain on this parchment.” I looked at a recent photo of the original document and the ink has faded to near illegibility. Perhaps he was right.

By the way, if you can read this blog, thank a teacher.

If it Was Good Enough for Hitler...

I wrote and published the article below on 27 March, 2006. The incident happened on 10 January, 2003. The case has wound its way through the courts, each time getting even more control over the schools by the school boards and limiting the teaching ability of the teachers. I am reprinting it in reaction to Obama's latest attack on education. i.e., Fire the teachers, close the schools.

Since 2003, the educational situation has steadily worsened, the teachers reduced to teaching their kids to be parrots, memorizing and regurgitating by rote, the answers to the tests demanded by the government. Read this carefully, the situation is more insidious than you think.

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If it Was Good Enough for Hitler...
by
Steve Osborn
28 March 2006

Back in 1950, my wife was fourteen and in the eighth grade. The subject was History or Current Events. The Cold War was in full flower and Joe McCarthy was in his ascendancy. She had been told that Communism was evil and she was scared to death of Stalin, as she and the world had heard many tales of his murdering or imprisoning millions of his own people. The teacher was holding forth on the evils of Communism when Adrienne asked, “What is Communism?”

The teacher hushed the class, went to the intercom and called the Principal’s Office. Then she told Adrienne to go to the Principal’s Office.

“What for,” she asked?

“You’ll find out,” was the answer.

When she got to the office, she was told to wait, that the principal had called her mother to come and get her and take her home. When she arrived, Adrienne and her Mom were taken into the principal’s office. Adrienne and her Mom were told she must never ask that question again. The Principal told her that answering that question could get the teacher fired and the school in trouble. All Adrienne needed to know was that communism was evil and that we had to hate it and fight it. Talking about communism apparently made you a “Pinko.”

Eventually, McCarthy and HUAC overreached themselves and passed into history. People were again free to discuss political systems and philosophy without being pilloried. People remembered the Bill of Rights and freedom of speech.

Since the appointment of der Bush as President by the Supreme Court, the Constitution and Bill of Rights have been under increasingly heavy fire. The fraudulent election of 2004 has increased the pressure. The revised PATRIOT ACT has further eclipsed the founding documents of our country. Unfortunately, little attention is paid to the Constitution and Bill of Rights in school classrooms today, so most people don’t know what they are having stolen from them.

Today, an article by Matthew Rothschild in the Progressive Magazine published on Monday, March 27, 2006 by the Progressive caught my eye.

Judge Rules Teachers Have No Free Speech Rights in Class

On January 10, 2003, a teacher of fourth, fifth and sixth graders at Clear Creek Elementary School in Bloomington Indiana was leading a class discussion on an issue of Time Magazine’s “Time for Kids.” This was a regular routine and part of the school’s curriculum. Some of the articles related to the imminent Iraq war and one mentioned a peace march.

One of the children asked the teacher if she would attend a peace parch. She answered that she usually honked her horn when she went by a local demonstration that said “honk for peace.” She said she felt it was important to seek peaceful solutions before resorting to war and that was why they trained the kids to mediate disputes on the playground, to seek peaceful solutions to their own problems.

According to the records, apparently a student mentioned the conversation to a parent, who complained to the school that her teacher had advocated “peace.” The teacher was told never to discuss the war, or “peace “ in her classroom again.

At the end of that day, Principal Rogers circulated a memo, entitled “Peace at Clear Creek,” that said: “We absolutely do not, as a school, promote any particular view on foreign policy related to the situation in Iraq.” And she canceled the annual “peace month” that the school had been holding.

The case has now been tried with the above verdict. The ostensible reason for her termination was a poor work evaluation, though the evaluation before the incident had been effusive in its praise of her as a teacher. The poor evaluation was written and entered into the court records two years later, long after her dismissal.

On March 10, Judge Sarah Evans Barker dismissed Mayer’s case, granting summary judgment to the defendants.

The judge said the school district was within its rights to terminate Mayer because of various complaints it received from parents about her teaching performance.

But beyond that, Judge Barker ruled that “teachers, including Ms. Mayer, do not have a right under the First Amendment to express their opinions with their students during the instructional period.”

The judge ruled that “school officials are free to adopt regulations prohibiting classroom discussion of the war,” and that “the fact that Ms. Mayer’s January 10, 2003, comments were made prior to any prohibitions by school officials does not establish that she had a First Amendment right to make those comments in the first place.” The judge also implied that Mayer, by making her comments, was attempting to “arrogate control of the curricula.”

And the judge gave enormous leeway to school districts to limit teachers’ speech in the classroom.

“Whatever the school board adopts as policy regarding what teachers are permitted to express in terms of their opinions on current events during the instructional period, that policy controls, and there is no First Amendment right permitting teachers to do otherwise,” Judge Barker wrote

So, it is now official. Teachers can teach only the approved party line, with no interpretation, discussion or opinions expressed.

Hitler said the same thing to the teachers in the Third Reich and I'm sure Kindly Uncle Joe Stalin made the same thing clear to his teachers in the CCCP. We can hope that this will be reversed by a higher court, but when I read the article to my wife, who is a retired teacher, she said, "I would never have believed this could happen again in the United States."

Every little thing that can be done to chip away at the Constitution and Bill of Rights is being done by the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislature. If the children are now to be taught only the approved curriculum, to be accepted without comment, we may wind up with the equivalent of a Hitler Jugend or a Soviet Young Pioneers here in the United States.

It is way past time to Wake Up, America or lose what has made the United States great, and respected, throughout most of the world. If der Bush and his gang can stifle independent thought and discussion even in our schools than we are truly lost. As Adrienne has said since 2001, Bush and his gang are like the bullies on the school playground that all the teachers hate and the children fear.

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As I mentioned above, each hearing has upheld the school board's rights and restricted the teacher's right to teach, and by inference, the student's right to learn.

If this ever hits the Supreme Court, we know how it is going to go, don't we?