Imagine Life In A Healthy American Democracy

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA      ) Criminal No.

v.                                                              ) Count 1:  Denial of the Right to Vote

                                                                                                  (United States Constitution,  

THE REPUBLICAN PARTY; THE             )                Amendments XIV and XV;

REPUBLICAN NATIONAL                        )                Civil Rights Act of

COMMITTEE; BUSH CHENEY                  )               1965, as amended;

2000, INC; GEORGE WALKER                  )               Voter Accessibility

BUSH; RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY;       )                for the Elderly and

KARL CHRISTIAN ROVE; BUSH/            )                Disabled Act;

CHENEY 200 FLORIDA, INC.; JOHN       )                National Voter

ELLIS BUSH, also known as “JEB               )                Registration Act;

BUSH”; KATHERINE HARRIS;                 )                Help America Vote

CLAYTON ROBERTS; EMMETT              )                Act; 18 U.S.C.

MITCHELL; 2000 STATE OF FLORIDA   )                section 245; 42 U.S.C.

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTIONS               )                section 1973)

OFFICIALS 1-99; 2000 FLORIDA               )

COUNTY SUPERVISORS OF                     ) Count 2:  Infringement Upon

ELECTIONS, BOARDS OF                         )                 the Right to Vote

ELECTION and OTHER                               )                 (United States Consti-

OFFICIALS in BROWARD, COLLIER,      )                 tution, Amendments

HARDEE, HENDRY, HILLSBOROUGH,  )                 XIV and XV; Civil

MONROE, PALM BEACH and OTHER      )                Rights Act of 1965;

 COUNTIES 1-999; 2000 FLORIDA             )                Act of 1965, as amend-

HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICERS 1-99;       )                ed; 18 U.S.C. section

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA       )                245)

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE;                      )                 

BUSH CHENEY 2004 OHIO, INC.;              ) Count 3:  Altering, Mutilating,

JOHN KENNETH BLACKWELL;                )                and Destroying Voter

KEITH CUNNINGHAM; CAROLE              )                Registration Forms

GARMAN; PAULA HICKS-HUDSON;       )                 (42 U.S.C. section

2004 STATE OF OHIO DEPARTMENT      )                  1974a)

OF ELECTIONS and OTHER STATE          )

OFFICIALS 1-999; 2004 OHIO                      ) Count 4:  Manipulation of

COUNTY BOARDS OF ELECTION            )                 Voting Machine

and OTHER OFFICIALS IN ALLEN,           )                  Vote Counts

ASHLAND, CLERMONT, CUYAHOGA,   )                  (42 U.S.C.

FAIRFIELD, FRANKLIN, HOCKING,        )                   section 1974a)

HOLMES, HURON, LICKING, LUCAS,     )

MAHONING, MEDINA, MONROE,            )

MONTGOMERY, MORGAN,                       )                  

MORROW, PORTAGE, PUTNAM,              )                  

SUMMIT, VINTON, WARREN, and             )                  

WASHINGTON COUNTIES 1-999;              )

2004 OHIO REPUBLICAN PARTY;             )

WARREN O’DELL; BRETT RAPP;             )

DWAYNE RAPP; MICHAEL BARBIAN,    )

JR.; SPROUL AND ASSOCIATES, and        )

NATHAN SPROUL                                        )

INDICTMENT

COUNT ONE

(Denial of the Right to Vote)

THE PLAINTIFF CHARGES:

1.              At times material to this indictment:

Defendants’ Positions and Responsibilities

                  a (1).                     Beginning on or about January 1, 2000, defendant THE REPUBLICAN PARTY was a national organization of citizens and public government officeholders.  REPUBLICAN PARTY MEMBERS included any citizen who declared their party affiliation as REPUBLICAN PARTY on a voter registration form and officeholders in the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives; governors, state legislators and other state officials of the states of the United States of America; county, city, township and other public governments; on the REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE a. (2), a national decision-making board for THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, and state, county and other municipally-sized REPUBLICAN PARTIES, including REPUBLICAN PARTY COMMITTEES at the state and local level.

                 a (3).          BUSH/CHENEY 2000, a national organization comprised entirely or almost entirely of REPUBLICAN PARTY MEMBERS and created to advance and support the REPUBLICAN PARTY presidential and vice presidential candidacies of GEORGE WALKER BUSH a. (4) and RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY a. (5).

                a (4).          GEORGE WALKER BUSH, REPUBLICAN PARTY governor of Texas and 2000 REPUBLICAN PARTY candidate for President of the United States of America.

                 a. (5)          RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY, REPUBLICAN PARTY member and  2000 REPUBLICAN PARTY 2000 candidate for vice president of the United States of America.

                 a (7).          KARL CHRISTIAN ROVE, BUSH/CHENEY 2000 director of polling and media planning; director of strategic planning and policy affairs and deputy chief of staff for President GEORGE WALKER BUSH.

                 a (8).          BUSH CHENEY 2000 FLORIDA, INC., a statewide organization created by REPUBLICAN PARTY MEMBERS to actively support the presidential and vice presidential candidates of GEORGE WALKER BUSH and RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY, respectively.

                 a (8).          JOHN ELLIS BUSH, also known as “JEB BUSH,” REPUBLICAN PARTY Governor of Florida.  As chief executive of the state of Florida, JEB BUSH was the top state official responsible for the faithful execution of voting laws in the state of Florida in the 2000 national election.

                  a (9).          KATHERINE HARRIS (REPUBLICAN PARTY) Secretary of State of State of Florida in 2000 and a Florida State co-chairperson for BUSH/CHENEY 2000.  As Secretary of State for the State of Florida HARRIS was responsible for the faithful execution of election laws in the State of Florida in the 2000 national election.

a (10).          CLAYTON ROBERTS, 2000 State of Florida Division of Elections Director.  Responsible for the faithful execution of election laws in the State of Florida in the 2000 national election.

                 a (11).          EMMETT MITCHELL, 2000 State of Florida Division of Elections Assistant General Counsel.  Responsible for legal counsel to the Division of Elections in the state of Florida during the 2000 national election year.

                 a (12).          2000 STATE OF FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF ELECTIONS AND OTHER STATE OFFICIALS 1-999.  Responsible for the faithful execution of election laws in the State of Florida in 2000.

                 a (13).          2000 FLORIDA COUNTY SUPERVISORS OF ELECTIONS, BOARDS OF ELECTIONS AND OTHER STATE OFFICIALS IN BROWARD, COLLIER, HARDEE, HENDRY, HILLSBOROUGH, MONROE AND PALM BEACH COUNTIES 1-999.  Responsible for the faithful execution of election laws in the State of Florida in 2000.

                 a (14).          2000 FLORIDA HIGHWAY PATROL OFFICERS 1-99, responsible for the faithful enforcement of the rule of law in the State of Florida in 2000.

                a. (15).          THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, the presidential cabinet-level department of the federal government of The United States of America created to fulfill The Constitution’s preamble mandate to “establish justice.”

        

                 a (16).          BUSH/CHENEY 2004, a national organization comprised almost entirely of REPUBLICAN PARTY MEMBERS created to advance and support the

REPUBLICAN PARTY presidential and vice presidential candidacies of President GEORGE WALKER BUSH and Vice President RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY.

                 a. (17)          BUSH CHENEY 2004 OHIO, INC., a statewide organization comprised entirely or almost entirely of REPUBLICAN PARTY MEMBERS created to actively support the presidential and vice presidential candidacies of GEORGE WALKER BUSH and RICHARD BRUCE CHENEY, respectively.

                 

                 a (18).          JOHN KENNETH BLACKWELL (REPUBLICAN PARTY), 2004 State of Ohio Secretary of State and a 2004 State of Ohio co-chairperson for BUSH/CHENEY 2004.  Responsible for the faithful execution of election laws in the State of Ohio in 2004 and for the conduct of the OHIO BUSH/CHENEY 2004, INC., campaign.

                  a (19).          KEITH CUNNINGHAM, 2004 Allen County (OH) Board of Elections Director.  Responsible for the faithful execution of election laws in Allen County in 2004.

                  a (20).           CAROLE GARMAN, 2004 Greene County (OH) Board of Elections Director.  Responsible for the faithful execution of election laws in Greene County in 2004.

                  a (21).          PAULA HICKS-HUDSON, 2004 Lucas County (OH) Board of Elections Director.  Responsible for the faithful execution of election laws in Lucas County in 2004.

                  a (22).          2004 STATE OF OHIO DEPARTMENT OF ELECTIONS OFFICIALS and OTHER STATE OFFICIALS 1-999.  Responsible for the faithful execution of election law in the State of Ohio in 2004.

                  a (23).          2004 OHIO COUNTY BOARDS OF ELECTION OFFICIALS AND OTHER COUNTY AND LOCAL OFFICIALS IN ALLEN, ASHLAND, CLERMONT, CUYAHOGA, FAIRFIELD, FRANKLIN, HOCKING, HOLMES, HURON, LICKING, LUCAS, MAHONING, MEDINA, MONROE, MONTGOMERY, MORGAN, MORROW, PORTAGE, PUTNAM, SUMMIT, VINTON, WARREN AND WASHINGTON COUNTIES.  Responsible for the faithful execution of elections laws in their respective counties in 2004.

                  a (24).          2004 OHIO REPUBLICAN PARTY.  A statewide organization of citizens and public government officeholders consisting of REPUBLICAN PARTY MEMBERS.

                  a (25).          WARREN O’DELL.  Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Diebold, an electronic voting machine company, and a member of the OHIO REPUBLICAN PARTY state committee.

                  a (26).          BRETT RAPP.  President of Triad Corporation, an electronic voting machine company responsible for voting machines used in 41 counties in Ohio in the 2004 national election.

                  a (27).          DWAYNE RAPP.              Vice President of Triad Corporation.

                  a (28).          MICHAEL BARBIAN, JR.   Triad GSI Corporation field representative.  On-site technician for Triad GSI Corporation in Ohio during the 2004 national election and state recount.

                  a (29).          SPROUL AND ASSOCIATES, a private business created by NATHAN SPROUL a (30)., a REPUBLICAN PARTY MEMBER.

Events Leading up to Election Day 2000

(The evidence supporting the four counts is taken almost entirely from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights 2001 report “Voting Irregularities in Florida During the 2000 Presidential Election” and the 2005 House Democratic Judiciary Committee Status Report of the Democratic Staff “Preserving Democracy:  What Went Wrong In Ohio.”)

Devil Dog: The Amazing True Story of The Man Who Saved America

Devil Dog:  The Amazing True Story of The Man Who Saved America is a biography of Smedley Darlington Butler, one of just nineteen American military men to be awarded the Medal of Honor twice for "conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his or her life above and beyond the call of duty while engaged in an action against an enemy of the United States."

Born into a family of Philadelphia “bluebloods”—both grandfathers were prominent bankers, his father was a powerful United State congressman—Smedley Butler served 34 years in the United States Marine Corps.  His personal story mirrors his country’s transition from a republic to an imperial power.  Devil Dog should be required reading for every American citizen.  This “Amazing True Story of The Man who Saved America” is as pertinent to the American scene today as it was one hundred years ago.  A major difference between now and then is that American society does not at this time have such a savior.

All Americans should know the story of Smedley Butler and the rise of the American empire at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, but most, of course, do not.  Published in 2010 by Simon and Schuster, Devil Dog should have enjoyed many weeks of topping nonfiction bestseller lists.  Instead, 2010’s top selling books included political tomes by the likes of Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Laura Ingraham, David Limbaugh and George W. Bush—all of whom would have been dubbed as “conservative hatchet men and women” by the straight-talking Major General Butler.

There are myriad ways to measure the difference between a healthy democracy and a democracy, such as ours, where the word democrat is spoken with a sneer.  The sales figures of Devil Dog and of the above hucksters in 2010 is but one of too many.  For no American—not Palin, Romney, Ingraham, Limbaugh and Bush—could claim to be more patriotic than Butler.  Consider:

--In 1900, at 18 years of age, U. S. Marine Corps Lieutenant Smedley Butler commanded a company of 45 enlisted men who fought in China during the infamous Boxer Rebellion.  Spurred on by imperial-minded politicians and a hysterical mass media, Austria, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia and the United States all sent military troops into China in order to capture Chinese treasure.  Butler and his American troops were the first to fight their way to the very walls of the “Forbidden City”—the center of Chinese political power in Peking.  Ready to enter, the Americans were told to “stand down” from their final assault because their allies wanted to make sure that they would share in the plunder.

--Twelve years later, Major Smedley Butler found himself at the forefront of a U.S. effort to squash a burgeoning democracy in Nicaragua.  Major Butler secured the success of the American campaign by singlehandedly convincing the leader of the Nicaraguan resistance movement to surrender.  In a portent of the future, Butler experienced mixed feelings about his own “heroism”:  Nicaraguan General Luis Mena had been a major shareholder of La Luz, the country’s most prominent mining company that was controlled by United States business interests.  Mena’s love for his country came to override the personal pleasure he had gained from being in the American pocket.  Butler respected Mena, but now he had to help destroy him and the Nicaraguan resistance under the guise of "American democracy.”

--In 1917, following the U.S. military takeover of Haiti, Major Butler was the military overlord of an American puppet Haiti government.  Initially dismissive of the Haitian people’s ability to govern themselves, in time Butler ultimately decided that he wanted “to make Haiti a first-class black man’s country.”  But his military superiors would rotate Butler out of the country in 1918.  He never rose above the symbol of America’s occupation force that would rule Haiti for nearly twenty years—and doom the country to a century and more of political and spiritual impoverishment.

--In World War I, Butler commanded the U.S. Marines’ 13th Regiment.  After a nightmarish trip across the Atlantic Ocean, the “Hoodoo Regiment” arrived at Camp Pontanezen, where 65,000 soldiers were crammed into a camp built for 1,500.   12,000 soldiers were sick with flu.  Hundreds more were dying each day.

After being appointed commander of the camp at a time when it was about to be recognized in the States as an international scandal, Commander Butler—though sick himself—blew past protocol and quickly transformed Camp Pontanezen into a model military facility.  As a result of his Herculean lifesaving effort, Butler was awarded both the U.S. Army’s and Navy’s Distinguished Service Medals and was promoted to the position of brigadier general.  He was 37 years old, the youngest brigadier general in marine history.

Brigadier General Butler went on to become a crusading crime fighter in Philadelphia during Prohibition, a leading spokesman for American World War I veterans who were betrayed by their country in the darkest hours of the Depression, and a coveted front man for a joint Wall Street-military coup intent on overthrowing first-term President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Smedley Butler’s life story reads like the most outlandish of Hollywood’s mythmaking scripts.


In the end, what did this most celebrated military man of his age learn from his life’s experiences?  Butler gave many speeches and wrote his own book, War Is a Racket. Much of what he had to say has been preserved for posterity.  Perhaps the best summary of his life as a military man is this—

I spent 33 years and four months in active military
service and during that period I spent most of my
time as a high class muscle man for big business,
for Wall Street and the bankers.  In short I was a
racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

  I helped make Mexico . . . safe for American oil
  interests.  I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent
  place for the National City Bank boys to collect
  revenues in.  I helped in the raping of a dozen Central
  American republics for the benefit of Wall Street.  I
  helped pacify Nicaragua for the International Banking
  House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912.  I brought
  light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar
  interests in 1916.  I helped make Honduras right for the
  American fruit companies in 1903.  In China in 1927,
  I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went on its way
  unmolested.
 
  . . .  Looking back on it, I feel I might have given Al
  Capone a few hints.  The best he could do was to
  operate in three city districts.  We Marines operated
  on three continents.

We, the people of The United States of America, continue to operate in much the same way in every populated continent on this Earth.  We need another Smedley Butler to make us understand the error of our ways.  We live instead in a land of inhumane babble.

In memory of Martin Luther King, Junior and Patrice Lumumba

It seemed more than fitting to learn on this twenty-fifth Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend that Sunday, January 16, 2011, was the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, Congo’s first democratically-elected Prime Minister.  

Reverend King and President Lumumba represented the hopes and dreams of their people.  Both men were dynamic speakers who excelled at “speaking truth to power.” And despite the unexpected election of Barack Obama to the American presidency in 2008, the social aspirations of far too many African Americans and the Congolese people as a whole have been retarded as a result of their untimely deaths.  Patrice Lumumba was thirty-five when his life was cut short, King thirty-nine.

Patrice Lumumba and Martin Luther King, Jr. share one other historical tie: Both King and Lumumba were targeted for assassination by the federal government of The United States of America.

The spoils of victory

Drifting in and out of codeine dreams he sees George H. W. Bush going mad.

The President stands at a podium on a stage in front of thousands.  The shouts of hecklers rise from the crowd, their words waver in a fierce wind.  “Iran-Contra haunts you!  Iran-Contra haunts you!” the noisy protesters chant.

Iran, Iran-Contra, The Iran-Contra Affair:  one thread of a democracy unraveling.

Bush’s grin widens maniacally, his arms flail wildly, he shoots out his left hand in defiance.  “You know, I wish, I wish those draft dodgers out there would go back to, to CANADA where they came from," The Commander in Chief stutters in that Yankee Texan twang of his.

The faithful roar in Pavlovian response. 

What is this, he thinks haltingly, Campaign ’68 or just another grotesguery of the mind?

In the middle of the night he senses what must surely be:  In his desperation to retain the Presidency, Bush has fallen into frenzy, and he’s taking the country down with him.  He lies awake and wonders if others sense this to be true.  Although it is a cool night, his bed sheets are damp with sweat.

He turns on the television, to CNN.  Lost in a drugged fog, he sees blurred talking heads mouthing disjointed, Felliniesque sound bites:  Watch out for that ozone man . . . My dog Millie knows more than those bozos . . .  Pundits opine the President has found his stride as he heads into the homestretch.   


A plane flies through gray skies trailing a tattered white banner reading GEORGE BUSH, IRAN-CONTRA HAUNTS YOU.

Iran-Contra haunts you once again.

He is awakened by the sound of the early morning newspaper bouncing off of the hollow front door.  Unable to escape back into sleep, he eases carefully out of bed. 

He hobbles to the hall and looks down the darkened stairway, uncertain whether to descend.  Deciding to do so, he stops after each step, trying to control his response to the pain.

He twists open the two deadbolts and the front door’s brass knob.  The courtyard is brightly lit.  An emergency vehicle’s siren pulses somewhere in the distance.  A spent moon shines through an oak.

He folds down onto his hands and knees to pick up the banded paper and crawls halfway outside.  He sniffs the barely cool air.  He feels a kinship with the animals that prowl through the night when he’s forced to assume their position.  He reaches for the paper and withdraws back into his own human shell.

Seeing the date on the masthead of the paper, he realizes he’s lost many days.  He looks at the lead headline—BUSH, CLINTON IN VIRTUAL TIE—and shudders involuntarily in response.

It’s not that he’s a fan of the Arkansas Governor’s:  Bill Clinton seems too much a part of the Corrupted Wing of the Democratic Party, Federal Government Division.  But, unlike the sitting President, Clinton hasn’t had a chance yet to wreak havoc at home and abroad.  Cream rises to the top only in dairy products, he thinks.  What rises to the top in American politics is something else altogether.

“But who cares what you think?” he asks himself savagely.  He feels the words reverberate in the room.  He crawls to the couch as another damning consideration dies into a mutter.  He climbs onto the couch.  


He looks at the plaster swirl marks on the ceiling, searches for patterns, feels the weight of the newspaper on his chest.  Must you immerse yourself again in the sordid details of this all-too-animal human planet in the midst of your own going under?

He hears no response.  He closes his eyes and sighs—what he wants to do most is stop thinking.  He dams welling tears with his knuckles and whispers, “Be still, be still, be still.”

In that moment before sleep, when the body often jolts, a final question shakes him:  what has happened to my country, and to me, as a result of “winning” the Cold War?

Democracy and democracy II

We, the people of the United States of America, have created a nation whose society has been both the envy and great evil for many throughout the world.  The amount of human progress due to American creativity and technological advancement is almost beyond measure.  The goodwill that the United States accumulated with the rest of the world in joining the Allied cause during World War II, and in helping to rebuild Europe with The Marshall Plan in the aftermath of the war, appeared to validate America as the legitimate “Leader of the Free World.”  But the antidemocratic contradictions which existed from the outset of our republic—slavery, allowing propertied males only to vote in political elections—have evolved in ways which have continued to cripple the American people’s understanding of the liberating promise of democratic philosophy. 

Although a civil rights movement toppled legalized segregation a century after The Civil War ended human slavery in The United States, many of the movement’s beneficiaries remained mired in poverty--and targets of Americans who resented the change.  


The tragic imperial mindset that begat the American colonization of the Philippine Islands at the end of the Nineteenth Century led to a Pandora’s Box of Twentieth Century American nightmares:  the overthrow of democratically elected governments in Iran, Guatemala and Chile; the destabilization of other democratic movements worldwide; our Southeast Asia war; Ronald Reagan’s Central America Wars and “The Iran Contra Affair.”  The spirit of “Iran Contra” begat the lies of the George W. Bush administration that led us in 2003 into war in Iraq.  


Imperial America’s rejection of the liberating promise of democracy that its Founding Fathers made to the world over two centuries ago has resulted in many throughout the world who are fearful or resentful of democracy, American style.  The American news media sugarcoats the bitter fruit of our betrayal of democratic social philosophy with “fair and balanced” reporting that rarely makes mention of inconvenient historical context or foreign opinion. 

Instead of educating themselves as to why their country has lost its position of moral authority in the world, Americans spend as much of their free time as possible in catastrophic mass consumption, immersing themselves in a shallow celebrity culture and watching any number of popular “reality shows” intent on bringing out the worst in people.  Not surprisingly, violent video games have been a booming American market for generations.

All of the generalizations and justifications that we practice in defending “The American Way” of excessive earthly consumption and human exploitation is the best measure of the distance we remain from being a people devoted to the common human good.  Rather than release humanity from our species-long battle between our animal instincts and the enlightened soul within, “we, the people” have instead become the biggest and baddest of all of the animals to be found within the human jungle for as long as we have been able.  So long as we continue to embrace our social status quo, the American people, will have no real appreciation for the promise of democratically elevated human conduct. 

We, the people, must accept responsibility for our country’s tragic and violent rejection of the democratic spirit at home and abroad in order to end our inhumane social behavior. 

Democracy and democracy

Most Americans know that a democratic form of government is one based on individual and national self-rule.  But democracy as a code of human conduct?  Most Americans know as much about democracy the philosophical ideal as they know about speaking ancient Greek.

Go ahead:  Ask any American.  Ask yourself:  What defines democratic philosophy?

There will be many guesses and half-guesses, of course, but it is safe to predict that most will be incorrect.  It is also safe to predict that, once the democratic philosophy is defined, most Americans will not believe that their society’s conduct can be based on such a belief.  Indeed, democracy will sound to most Americans like communism, socialism or that other, still lingering, likeminded “evil”--liberalism.

The American Heritage College Dictionary defines philosophical democracy as principles of social equality and individual rights.  My Illustrated Oxford Dictionary (Revised First Edition, 2003) defines a democratic society as being classless and tolerant.

Well, now:  Just how democratic is the “average” American?

Too many Americans’ knowledge of laudable individual and social conduct becomes stunted at a championing of individual rights only.  Because of such an arrested development, those who most vociferously advocate individual rights as what it means “to be an American” are also those within society most likely to advocate an “America—Love It or Leave It” brand of patriotism.  The democratic principle of social equality becomes code for Marxist Leninism, classlessness is defined as “class warfare” and a notion that Americans aren’t tolerant can be countered with the popular intolerant charge that such a commentator “Hates America.”  Tolerance for anything other than defending a pre-Civil Rights Era, early 1950s version of the American status quo—when most Americans knew their place--is condemned. 

It’s amazing, really, how little most American people know about democracy, and how even less regard most Americans have for democratic philosophy.  “Are you crazy?  What are you--nuts?” is not an uncommon comeback to hear when Americans are told that there’s more to democracy than just a nationalistic “right” to do whatever we damned well please.

So now that you know you’re not a democrat, what are you?  And how is that better than the social philosophy our country’s Founding Fathers held up to the rest of the world in the 1770s as the best hope for Humanity?

The United States of America Crimes Against Humanity 1898-2010

So that we, the people of The United States of America, might begin to correct the antidemocratic errors of our national ways, let us prove first that we are mature enough to do so by acknowledging them: 

1.  The destabilization, destruction and suppression of democracy through the overthrow of democratically elected governments, interference in democratic elections and alignment with antidemocratic military regimes, civil war factions and other social and political forces in the following countries:

Angola
Australia                       
Belau                                                              
Bolivia           

Brazil                                                              
Bulgaria                       
Cambodia                                                      
Chad    

Chile                                                               
Congo                           
Costa Rica                                                     
Dominican Republic

East Timor                                                     
Ecuador                       
El Salvador                                                    
Fiji           

Ghana                                                             
Grenada                       
Greece                                                            
Guatemala

Guyana                                                           
Indonesia                      
Iran                                                                  
Iraq                       

Italy                                                                  
Jamaica                       
Korea                                                              
Laos

Lebanon                                                         
Morocco                       
Nicaragua                                                      
Panama
Peru                                                                
Philippines                   

Portugal                                                          
South Africa

Syria                                                                
Uruguay                       
Vanuatu                                                          
Venezuela

Vietnam                                                          
Zaire

2.  The late- and post-World War II recruitment of Nazi Germans and European Fascists for United States military intelligence operations and weapons development; commercial and federal aerospace research and development, and for illegal use of foreign aliens in domestic lobbying organizations.

Number of people killed as a result of above U.S. conduct:  Approximately 5,000,000.

Number of people injured, maimed, orphaned and tortured as a result of above U.S. conduct: An as yet undetermined multitude.

The Age of American Antidemocracy

I can still feel the shock that jolted me to my all-too-human core when I learned for the first time that my country, The United States of America, has acted in grievously antidemocratic ways.  It was mid-November 1979.  I was a student at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB).  I sat reading in a library.

Days earlier, Iranian revolutionaries had overrun the United States embassy in Teheran.  Fifty-three Americans were being held hostage inside.  National and international news media focused upon masses of angry Iranians assembled in their nation’s capitol expressing an all-consuming rage against my country.  Americans had responded in kind.  Middle Eastern Americans and Middle Eastern students attending colleges in the United States, including my own, were attacked physically and verbally in the days and weeks following the audacious Iranian action.

A few months before, I had taken to heart the libertarian philosophy: Every person has the right to lead the life they choose so long as they do not infringe upon the same right of others.  Libertarianism reminded me of the Do unto others as you would have them do unto you and Love thy neighbor as you would love thyself rules of conduct that I had come to accept during my childhood.  (I would soon realize libertarianism’s primary deficiency—a lack of any social consciousness other than an ideological devotion to unfettered capitalism.)  So I started a chapter of Students for a Libertarian Society at UCSB shortly after the 1979 academic year had begun.  From a folding table set up in front of the school’s student union center, I engaged my fellow academics in conversations about our country and the world.

By mid-November student groups—my own included--began to organize public debates and demonstrations on campus in response to the Iranian seizure.  I thought it prudent to learn more about my country’s history of relations with Iran before I dared to speak publicly on the subject. So I began to study.

I came across a brief history of U.S.-Iran relations--in Time Magazine, I believe.  I read that in 1954, my country had participated in a military coup in Iran that had successfully overthrown Mohammed Mossadeq, the country’s democratically elected president.   

My country? I remember asking myself after the shock of this revelation jerked me into an upright position.  The United States of America, the leader of the Free World, played a role in the overthrow of another democratically elected government?  Wasn’t that, I sputtered internally, . . . impossible?

Sadly, I learned that it was not.  That same Time article may also have

mentioned The United States’ role in the overthrow of democratically-elected

Guatemala President Jacobo Arbenz in 1955, one year after the coup in Teheran. 

I sat immobilized, pondering the implications of this discovery.  After three decades of life under a U.S.-backed “benevolent” dictatorship, the Iranian people had finally commanded the attention of the American public.  Iranians were now demanding that The United States of America answer for the crime against democracy that it had committed in their country a quarter of a century earlier. 

If I or any other American had lived in the U.S. in the 1950s, and Iran had helped to overthrow our government, how would we hope to respond—as fighters for our own democracy or as enablers of the corruption?  I knew then that if I began to make excuses for my country’s tragic misconduct, I would no longer be able to espouse in good faith the human principle of democracy to myself or to a single other human being. 

So what was I, an idealistic and patriotic American citizen, to do?  I dropped out of school, moved to Washington, D.C., and became a professional political activist.  I tried to change my country’s misbegotten ways with every nonviolent resource I could muster.

As the Twentieth Christian Century has transitioned into the Twenty First, I have watched the people of my country continue to contribute to humanity’s suffering to an apocalyptic degree.  Such a democracy is a disgrace to its good name.  The Age of Antidemocracy in The United States of America must come to a long overdue and yet well-considered end.

How best to liberate the American people from the fear and loathing of other human beings that have been instilled in us by our own imperfect society?  How best to awaken the spirit of humanity in a people seemingly democratic by virtue of their national form of government only?  Such questions have troubled me throughout my adult life.

Although I left the world of political activism long ago, I have continued to research the past and present conduct of my country.  The result of such labor has been, at times, altogether too bitter.  But my resolve to accept responsibility for all of my country’s actions, and my desire to change those with which I disagree, has never wavered.

democracy vs. The United States of America

I have made a decision.

I will no longer remain silent while voices of educated evil and inhumane ignorance are allowed to pass for civilized discourse in my country.

I will no longer remain passive as antidemocratic social forces are free to wreak havoc not just in these Disunited States of Babel but also throughout a world of humanity in which the liberating promise of democracy has been betrayed by its American torchbearer.