[Sosfbay-discuss] opener for the General Assembly, March 6-7?

[Jim Stauffer]

OK, Spencer. Let's see, we want an opening ceremony that's welcoming, 
uplifting and energizing. I'm not sure a 4-minute diatribe on how the 
Declaration of Independence is mostly marketing hype would quite get the 
effect we're after.

But it's a fun read.

Jim




On 2/7/2010 12:06 PM, spencerg wrote:
> Hello:
>
>
> The Santa Clara Green meeting last Wednesday included a request for
> suggestions for a 3-5 minute opening performance for the General Assembly,
> March 6-7. If you don't find something better, I can volunteer to read a
> piece I just drafted on "Liberty and Justice for All"; copied below. I just
> timed it at 4:23. (I can also send it to you in MS Word or Adobe Acrobat
> PDF format, with footnote.)
>
>
> Comments?
>
>
> Best Wishes, Spencer
>
> ###############################
>
> Liberty and Justice for All
>
>
> Spencer Graves
>
>
>
> /I pledge allegiance to /
>
> /liberty and justice for all./
>
>
>
> The US Pledge of Allegiance is these 9 words of commitment with 22 words of
> Marketing hype: “the flag of the United States of America and to the
> republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with”
> Marketing hype.
>
> The primary opponents of liberty and justice for all are elites whose power
> and status is threatened by limits on their use of terror to oppress the
> bottom 99 percent of humanity. I know of no enemies of the United States
> other than ones we have earned by opposing liberty and justice for all. If
> you know an exception, I want to see your evidence and compare is with
> other sources such as identified in footnotes to this essay.
>
> We can win the “War on Terror” almost overnight by making “liberty and
> justice for all” the primary feature of US foreign policy, terminating US
> support for state terror.
>
> For example, without US troops in Saudi Arabia, the suicide mass murders of
> September 11, 2001, would almost certainly not have occurred. We know this
> from multiple sources. First, 15 of the 19 suicide mass murderers of
> September 11, 2001 were Saudis, and the other 4 were from neighboring
> Islamic countries.^1<#sdfootnote1sym>  Second, Al Qaeda listed US troops in
> Saudi Arabia with US support of Israel as its primary complaints.^2
> <#sdfootnote2sym>  Third, the best available research on suicide terror in
> different countries with different religions has identified three elements
> common to the vast majority of suicide terror attacks: (1) a foreign
> occupation (2) by a democracy (3) of a different religion.^3
> <#sdfootnote3sym>
>
> The US currently has an appallingly weak and counterproductive foreign
> policy and approach to fighting terrorism: Our refusal to support liberty
> and justice for all is manufacturing enemies faster than we can neutralize
> them.^4<#sdfootnote4sym>
>
> Just say “No” to state terror. Remove US troops from Saudi Arabia, Iraq,
> Afghanistan, Pakistan and every other nation where people are not free to
> express themselves and assemble peacefully. Declassify all US government
> secrets concerning US support for police and military supplies, training,
> and covert action in opposition to democracy.
>
> We must deal with the world as it is, not as the advocates of “political
> realism” pretend. US foreign policy since its founding has primarily
> supported US international business interests. There is no other
> substantive domestic constituency for foreign policy,^5 <#sdfootnote5sym>
> and official misconduct in this area is routinely unreported or distorted
> to paint the black white and the white black.^6 <#sdfootnote6sym>
>
> There are no non-state terrorist organizations capable of threatening the
> internal security of the US. The only way Al Qaeda or any similar
> organization can win is if we manufacture recruits for them by denying
> liberty and justice for all, as Britain did for Washington during the
> American Revolution. During the Cold War, the USSR was big and capable of
> seriously damaging the US if they chose to attack. That's not currently
> true of non-state terrorist organizations.
>
>
> Why are we afraid of mice?
>
>
> The next time you stand in a security screening line, remember that the US
> is no longer the land of the brave and the home of the free but the land of
> the fearful and cowardly.
>
> We should just say “No” to state terror and commit ourselves to liberty and
> justice for all, not just as Marketing hype.
>
>
>
> www.prodsyse.com
>
> 1
> <#sdfootnote1anc>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks#Attackers_and_their_motivation
>
>  2<#sdfootnote2anc>ibid.
>
> 3<#sdfootnote3anc>Robert A. Pape (2005) /Dying to Win /(Random House). See
> also Mia Bloom (2005) /Dying to Kill /(Columbia U. Pr.).
>
> 4<#sdfootnote4anc>Chalmers Johnson (2000) /Blowback /(Henry Holt) virtually
> predicted 9/11 as the consequences of US support for state terror around
> the world, though did not identify Al Qaeda. The “War on Terror” is merely
> the latest Marketing wrapper for US support for state terror
> internationally, which dates in US history at least President Washington's
> decision to send US tax money to slave owners in Haiti, then St. Domingue
> to suppress a 1791 slave rebellion (www.iacenter.org/haiti/ impact.htm).
> Its continuation from the late 19th century to the present is documented in
> Chalmers Johnson (2004) /The Sorrows of Empire /(Metropolitan) and William
> Blum (2004) /Killing Hope/, updated ed. (Common Courage Pr.).
>
> 5<#sdfootnote5anc>Robert Kagan (2006) /Dangerous Nation /(Knopf). An
> exception of foreign policy supporting primarily the wealthy was policy
> towards Native Americans before their land was incorporated into the US.
>
> 6<#sdfootnote6anc>Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky (1988) /Manufacturing
> Consent /(Pantheon), esp. ch. 2, which document show the murder of one
> Polish priest in 1984 received the same volume of coverage in the US media
> as the murders of 100 church people in Latin America, whose repressive
> governments received security supplies and training from the US.
>