A SOLDIER SPEAKS OUT

I am Joseph Barber and I aprrove this message HOOAH “They’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in their wars, die for their causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect them. They’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout their unending greed. We are slaves to their corporations, zombies to their airwaves, servants to their decadence. They’ve stolen our elec tions, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. They own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. They’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. They’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit… we are bleeding… but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and they will witness our (R)Evolution!” Every politician in office today, Democrat and Republican alike, accepts corporate bribes and is therefore corrupt. Their election is perverse evidence that they groveled before corporate lords and do not serve the will of the people. We know this because on January 21, 2010, the US Supreme Court told us who runs the nation by granting corporations the freedom to donate unlimited amounts of money to political candidates. As it is already an established statistical fact that the candidate who spends the most money wins in 9 out of 10 races, it is undeniable that we live in an era where anyone genuinely opposed to the corporate takeover of America, and unwilling to compromise, will never be elected. That makes the government a dangerous enterprise that is a hazard to individual freedom. The police have shown they will always collude against the people with the powerful and will smash the people for the benefit of those who sign their police paychecks. All police need is to be given $60,000 per year salary and a preferred status in a higher caste system and they will lie, torture, and murder for the state. Since when hasn’t a government existed that didn’t nurture and reward these qualities in its minions or lacked for dupes displaying authoritarian traits? The police are the essence of the state and as such are enemies of the people. The people have the ability to protect themselves from petty criminals. But, the police seek to keep people dependant on them and act as if the surrender of all the peoples’ rights and liberties is a needed and worthy exchange for security or the illusion thereof. The people are increasingly conditioned to believe that the loss of justice and basic human rights to the onslaught of state power is a good bargain never realizing that governments are responsible for killing 260 million people in wars and another 300 million in non-combat democide. Everywhere we look there are signs of moral decay, political corruption and fascistic tendencies. However, activists have not been passive. For decades, since the end of democracy in America first became undeniable, we have tried every tactic to avert catastrophe. We have voted, written letters, donated money, held signs, protested in marches, clicked links, signed petitions, tweeted websites, written books, taught classes, knitted sweaters, learned how to farm, turned off the television, programmed apps, engaged in direct action, committed petty vandalism … All this has been for naught. Popular revolution remains the only reasonably viable tactic remaining. In the 18th century, America’s founding fathers were in the same situation as we are today. They also sought justification to start a rebellion against a despotic empire that claimed to be their rightful government. They knew that what they intended to do was illegal from the king’s perspective, but they found solace in a higher law, a universal law that takes priority over temporal authority. The thirteen colonies made the case for insurrection in the Declaration of Independence of the United States and thereby permanently enshrined as inalienable “the Right of the People to alter or abolish” the government. The precedent of our own history grants us the right to revolt. Further, the seriousness of corporate America’s threat to the world puts us under obligation to act. Now we will sweep the parasites out of power and reinstate the rule of the people. Why government? So, why do we need government then? Why not simply do away with kings, princes, princesses, presidents, parliaments, congresses, bureaucracies, and the like? (Stop cheering!) Because as Jefferson points out in the Declaration, governments are necessary to secure the exercise of the fundamental rights of man. Secure it from what? From violent, anti-social people who would deny other people their rights to live their lives as they choose. In other words, suppose there is a society of peaceful people, all of whom are engaging in free enterprise, entering into trades with one another, and accumulating wealth. Standards of living are slowly increasing for everyone in society. So far, no problems. But all of a sudden, along comes a person who murders someone and steals his property. How does society protect itself from the murderers, rapists, robbers, trespassers, and other violent people? Government is instituted for the primary purpose of protecting people from those who would initiate force against others. What happens, however, if government itself becomes more destructive than what the situation would be in the absence of government? In other words, let’s say that in the absence of government, thieves would steal about 10 percent of people’s property and murderers would kill 1 percent of the populace. What happens if a corrupt element takes control over the reins of government and uses governmental force to steal 40 percent of people’s property and kill 2 percent of the populace? Jefferson provided the answer to this problem in the Declaration of Independence. He said that when this happens, it is the right of people to alter or abolish their government, even if force is necessary, and institute new government designed to protect, not destroy, the preexisting rights of the people. Here are the exact words that Thomas Jefferson used to express these revolutionary thoughts in the Declaration of Independence: We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness — That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Eleven years later, after the Revolution had been won by the colonists, the revolutionary principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence were the backdrop for the formation of the most radical political experiment in history — the Constitution of the United States of America.