Rejecting the Big Lie

Mike & Friends Blog

Dan DeWalt

Dan DeWalt is the founder of Patriotic Response to Renegade Government, an organization based on the free association of like minded souls, without the organization part.

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November 3rd, 2011 3:53 PM

By Dan DeWalt

By now it should be clear to everyone why Barack Obama refused to prosecute the Bush/Cheney administration for their crimes and unConstitutional actions; he had every intention of continuing their tradition of lawbreaking by Executive fiat and didn't want to set any precedent that could restrain his own actions.

Is there a Presidential phone booth where candidates enter a la Clark Kent, emerging not as super heros, but merely as President, corrupt, jaded and power hungry? Think of George W Bush, who shed his compassionate conservatism, and emerging in his codpiece, became the swaggering half-bright cowboy from Texas, forcing his brand of militarism on the world?

Candidate Obama spoke in reverential tones about the value and power of the Constitution, and promised that his administration would be one that followed the laws of the land. But President Obama could be more aptly described as Predator O'drona, teeming with Hellfire missiles, summarily executing Arabs and American citizens alike if he has deemed them “bad guys”. A particularly heinous “triumph” recently touted by his administration was the execution by drone missile of a sixteen year old American citizen. Without the benefit of charges, trial, judge or jury, this boy was sentenced to death and executed. Even though these drone attacks are being carried out over various foreign countries, O'Drona refuses to ask for Congressional authorization, saying that bombings and missile attacks are not acts of war if a soldier isn't physically in the attack vehicle. The people who are getting blown up tend to see the attacks as regular old acts of war, and wonder why an American leader gets to bomb other nations with impunity while other leaders of countries find themselves defeated, killed or exiled when they engage in similar activities.

Particularly rich recently were the condemnations of Arab leaders issued by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as well as the Predator in Chief. They admonished those leaders to listen to their people and allow them to protest peacefully without harassment or attack. Simultaneous with these stern rejoinders to the other world bullies, Obama was turning a blind eye to the ever more frantic efforts by cities in America to shut down the peaceful exercise of first amendment rights of the Occupy Wall Street movement. Police in Boston beat and injured Veterans who passively stood to protect the Occupiers from arrest. Police in Oakland fired tear gas canisters at close range, aiming directly at the faces of peaceful protesters. Now a twenty three year old veteran who survived two tours of duty in the war zone of Iraq lies in a hospital in critical condition, attacked by his government for exercising the free speech rights that he thought he had fought to protect. Presidents' disdain for the law is just an extreme extension of the general disdain that the very wealthy and powerful have always felt for our laws. As Ms Helmesly famously pointed out, they are only for “the little people”.

We may have been taught that the Watergate impeachment hearings and Nixon's resignation restored the rule of law and ended Executive branch over-reach, but it has never gone away. It just changes style with each new administration. Instead of continuing to use impeachment to keep criminal Executive Branches in check, Congress has been cowed by national security rhetoric and now acquiesces routinely to Presidential criminality.

So it should be with special disdain and mistrust that we react to the mainstream murmuring that it will soon be time to arrest or disperse these Occupying protesters because they are violating curfew or health sanitation laws. The elite has shown us very convincingly that not all laws are enforced. We have learned that if a bank forges signatures on foreclosure notices in order to rob someone of their house, its not really forgery, its just a careless practice that they should change. If you or I were to try a similar trick, we'd discover that it was forgery after all and we'd spend some time in prison.
We have learned that torture as defined by the US military is not really torture if the President orders it. (It reverts to being torture if ordered by anyone other than our President.) We've learned that if you are black or latino, you stand an excellent chance of being framed by cops who have to meet arrest quotas or face reprimands.

Now however, we are also realizing that we can wrest the first amendment back from the corporate powers that are trying to monopolize the conversation. We see that that the powerful are actually a little afraid of us now and are cognizant that if we fully expose their misuse of power, they will have a lot more to fear. We are beginning to actually understand the potential power of the 99%.

Its a daunting task to chart a moral and just course for yourself if your nation's political and justice systems no longer function fairly. It is difficult to turn your back on Presidents, Senators and Congress members and trust that you know better than they what is just and right. But when a Nobel Peace Prize President receives his prize by giving a speech extolling the necessity of war, its a sign that UP is now officially DOWN and we all had better shed our cherished prejudices and start to assess our civil society with fresh eyes.

This is not a task that we each must do alone. Perhaps the best way that we can turn the current tide of lawlessness and injustice that prevails in our country is to trust in each other to establish relationships based not on lobbied laws passed in order to help the few control the many, but based on mutual trust and shared interests. Let's take care that those in power don't succeed when they try to turn us against each other in the name of peace and order. George Orwell prepared to recognize the big Lie. We recognize and we reject it. Now we need to turn to each other to ascertain some sort of workable truth.