November 15th, 2007
To: The Institute for Justice, The Nebraska ACLU, US Senator Hagel and US Senator Ben Nelson
Glenn Beck, on CNN Headline News November 12th, says "While our foreign enemies are the obvious ones, the physical threat may be developing domestically" and says Ron Paul's 'Revolution' and his record setting $4.3 million 'money bomb' from November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day --referring to the movie, "V is for Vendetta", when the people took back control of their government -- is tied in "with a historical terrorist attack". "if fringe elements take that disenfranchisement and turn it into violence, we endanger the freedoms we`re supposedly all fighting for."
David Horowitz said, "There`s a strain of isolationism and anarchy in the American tradition which Ron Paul is tapping into. I think it`s very significant that he chose Guy Fawkes as an image."
"There are plenty of, unfortunately, libertarian Web sites which are indistinguishable from the anti-American left these days. LewRockwell.com and others like that. Totally in bed with the Islamofascists and have turned against this country."
Lew Rockwell's site, LewRockwell.com, was thus identified by name and slandered.
Beck finishes this segment with, "The Ron Paul revolution, I think it`s meant to be a catchy slogan, but I fear some of his fringe supporters are taking the word "revolution" too literally."
Ron Paul's 'Revolution' is a non-violent attempt to change foreign policy, fix the monetary system and return control of our government to the people, the majority of whom are opposed to our war in Iraq and very skeptical of our interventionist foreign policy.
Rockwell and Paul are public figures, possibly immune from slander, but their supporters are not.
When Lew Rockwell's site's non-profit status was challenged early in the 2008 campaign as clearly supporting Ron Paul's candidacy, Rockwell gave up his non-profit status and requested private donations although no longer eligible as tax deductions. Hitting the alternative minimum anyway in 2007, I sent him $200 and on November 5th, I sent my second $100 to Ron Paul's campaign. The results of Paul's November 5th fund raising forced the main stream media to cover the Ron Paul campaign -- necessary for success.
But did I put myself, my liberty and my personal assets at risk? If, as Beck and Horowitz implied, LewRockwell.com and November 5th donors support an implied threat of domestic terrorism, am I not then guilty of supporting a suspected terrorist organization? Can my computer files be searched without warrant? Is the same true for all the tens of thousands of small Ron Paul 'money bomb' donors on November 5th? Will all their names end up on the no-fly list?
Is there an action that can be taken against CNN Headline News, naming Beck and Horowitz, for allowing slander on a national television broadcast and putting private citizens, such as myself, civil rights at risk -- based only on my political associations?
Name, address, etcPlease contact me and let me know my options for preserving my good name as a patriot. My Swiss ancestry makes me think that Switzerland's non-interventionist policies work much better than ours.
paper copy to Senator Ben Nelson
Here is my background.My opposition to our covert foreign policy goes back to 1975. An Afghan woman, married to an assistant attorney general of Afghanistan and related to the king (still in power), lived with our family for a year while attending UNO. She was a delightful woman often making Kabul chicken, teaching us to eat with our fingers as we sat on the floor, and making elephant ear pastries for my little girls. The cultural exchange of information was rewarding for all involved.
My husband's contract at Offutt often took him to the home office in McLean, Virginia. While there, agents of our government took him to visit with the Afghan ambassador and the agents discussed the US sending trucks with large electronic equipment on top into northern Afghanistan to provide state of the art medical attention by broadcasting operations. My husband, now deceased unfortunately, is not here to clarify what happened that day. I do recall we laughed about the trucks and their equipment as more likely to be used in some covert activities on the southern border of the USSR. Little did we realize roads built in that area would allow access for tanks to eventually roll into Kabul.
Things have gotten much worse for the Afghan people since 1975 with the invasion by the USSR and the infestation of radicalism that followed, brought by not only the ISI in Pakistan but the Wahhabis from Saudi.
Eventually, I became a libertarian.
Harry Browne once said, paraphrasing, if a close friend smokes, you tell him 'quit smoking or you'll get cancer'. Browne was convinced terrorism would surely come to the USA based on 'poking that stick into the hornet's nest'- as he called the Middle East. Based on what I was hearing and seeing, I agreed. And many of us were very vocal in our concerns. Our policies were making us unsafe - not only here at home from terrorism but when we traveled overseas.
And when your friend comes to you with the news 'I have lung cancer', you do not gloat and say 'I told you so'. In fact, you are devastated by the news and tell them 'we can beat this cancer. We will do everything and anything we can to help'. Watching the towers fall on 9/11, I was devastated, inconsolably so, as were many Americans. I assumed a strike force would be sent immediately to the Afghan and Pakistani camps to capture and kill all involved in that deadly event.
The invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion of Iraq coupled with the billions in aid being poured into Pakistan's dictatorship are not making us safer. Threatening Iran is not making us safer. Passage of legislation like the Patriot Act and the continuing trend of nationalization of local law enforcement by funding measures and Homeland Security (a third defense department after the Pentagon and the covert CIA) doesn't bode well for our personal liberty. Citizens were supposed to police the federal government. The Government wasn't supposed to police us.
When Ron Paul stood up to run for President, I knew I had to do everything I could to get him elected. My grandkids are facing the falling dollar, saddled with the billions and trillions in debt and an aging boomer generation who will bankrupt Social Security and Medicare as we know them today. They are being subjected to 'fear' every day even as schools have adopted 'lock down', a term I learned when I taught classes at the Correctional Center.
My support of Ron Paul is to prevent a violent revolution, not create one. Lew Rockwell and all the libertarians I have ever known do not believe in the initiation of force against anyone -friend or foe. They know that only government agents and criminals initiate the use of force and thus they endeavor to limit the control of government over the individual by legal means.
Herd mentality dominates our politics. My demographics, which I cannot change, label me a woman, elderly (born in 1943) and white, none of which i can change as recorded in the census. We see real, sincere and dangerous anger now. Beck and Maddock aren't wrong but peddling evil and hate. This is not the product of a free people allowed to live independent of government controls with no group treated differently by law; this is a product of Balkanization for political purposes. And who benefits? I contend its the elite 'INs' and 'OUTs' living on our taxes. Some are elected but most are appointed and many are both--Bob Dole and Hillary Clinton and many others own permanent residences in DC. As Dana Priest proved, even the 'INs' have no idea who is in charge.
ReplyDeleteOn 9/11 I saw an opportunity pass us by. Send our congress critters home to telecommute using C-SPAN as a virtual capitol for all but ceremony. Think of the savings in staff and residences and imagine voters meet for coffee instead of K St. lobbyists.
Don't join the herd. Fight for the rights of the individual to be freed from labeling so we can join together in pushing the cart rather than squabbling as we roll off a cliff into whatever '-ism' is popular--because all eventually end in autocratic rule. Reduce top-down DC functions and replace them with bottom-up solutions closer to the voters, like OPPD and MUD. Can it still happen, I hope so.