Letter to President Obama

President Barack Obama
The White House
Washington, D. C.

Dear Mr. President,

The Declaration of independence states the basic purpose of government, "That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men,...; securing the rights of The People. National Security therefore should mean to secure liberty and civil rights to the nations citizens. The "just powers" to carry out this purpose are derived "from the consent of the governed". But how can The People consent to what is kept secret? How can the powers of the government be controlled if the People do not have the opportunity to consent or decline? In a republic, representatives exist to represent citizens. I was struck by the last line in the movie Killing Them Softly when it concluded that "the United States is a business"...similar to a conclusion which I have over time come to: that "the national interests" are synonymous with "business interests". This corruption of representation has degraded the essential element of representation of its ordinary citizens, replacing it with Fascism. It follows that we no longer have a republic.

You know from my letter of October 28, 2009 that I voted and campaigned for you in '08. I hesitatingly voted for your second election. However my support and lack of support is tempered by your own challenge that we who elected you hold you accountable. Since both your elections, I have been disappointed. The basis of my disappointment is contained the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, and eighth amendments to the Constitution. You, federal, state, and local governments are "infringing" on our civil rights. The purpose of government according to the Declaration of Independence , is to secure that cloud of inalienable rights. When government fails in this duty, The People have a right to change it. But how can the common citizens change the government in the face of literally billions of dollars of power injected by the multinational  corporations while SCOTUS backs their power grab? The only hope appears to be some form of revolution. A violent revolution is not an option because during such an event the citizens would be slaughtered. It therefore appears that system is beyond our reach and growing more sequestered. President Lincoln reiterated this right saying the Citizen has the right to "...rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better..." But the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, and the suppression of civil rights is turning our country into an Orwellian police state. The corporations buy anything they want...auctioned off to the highest bidder. John Q. Citizen has 0% political power. Many Americans are very dissatisfied with this state of affairs. I among them feel that you are leading us deeper into this bad dream, when you should be leading us out of it. Sir, to these actions of government I do not consent.

The American people have not had the opportunity to consent to the present status of government surveillance which infringes on our privacy. A photo of every piece of mail! Really? The fourth amendment is being violated. As you have said,  we need to have that dialogue. Many in government seem to think that the people are too ignorant to have a discussion before a government action. We seem to do so when there's a leak which reveals some of the truth. I recently read Legacy of Ashes, a well documented account of on the record information showing how our foreign policy for 60 years has operated outside international law and US law...that is if we could expect the CIA to operate within its Charter. Billions of tax dollars and illegal dollars to do what? Promote democracy and human rights? No! The "national business interests"! The cold war was advertized as a fight for democracy vs. communism, but was it? It was a fight to make sure our multinational corporations could continue their corporate Colonialism. We removed democratically elected governments and leaders in foreign countries beginning with Iran in 1953, installing dictators who would provide stability for capitalism, "free markets". We do not promote democracy internationally, we promote "free markets". Everyone and everything is bought. In '08 you said you would change this. That's why you won the election! You said you would "change how Washington works". You have let us down! You doubled down on serving the big corporations. The People have no Voice! You had a mandate! You know the Constitution. It was your oath to defend it! What a glorious administration yours would have been had you done what the People elected you to do because they are tired of big bank Republican government, big money, global government. It is past time for someone to defend the Constitution not the corporation! I do not consent!

Some of the accusations which the Declaration hurled at King George III can now be leveled at our own governments, federal, state, and local. "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power"..."For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us"..."For depriving us in many cases of the benefits of trial by jury". Sir, state, federal, and local police engage in enforcement of criminal, and regulator laws with armed squads in riot gear, weapons drawn and overwhelming force. The People have not consented to the present police state atmosphere where law enforcement across the nation line up with weapons and tear gas against peaceable assemblies where citizens protest and air their grievances as is their right. The nation is criminalizing dissent! Why did you not protect the citizens exercising their First Amendment Rights during the Occupy Movement? On this issue you seem to have lined up on the side of the Orwellian-like state, not on the side of The People.You seem to ignore their expressions of outrage at the felonious activities of the banking industry and the abuses of giant corporations. You have carried on the Bush era Republican big bank policy of "non-prosecution" of Wall Street's felons with "deferred prosecution agreements", while you are determined to fight the ignominious War on Drugs against the common citizen. It is the right of The People to expect that the words of the pledge, "...with liberty and justice for all" be true not false, that the 1% abide by the laws of the land like the 99%, and be prosecuted with the same vigor as the poor! It appears that there has arisen a two tiered system of justice, one protecting the elite from prosecution from their felonies and another going hard after the poorest of the nation. The People resent this!Officials in the present government are unwilling to "do justice", they just want to talk justice. We hear a lot of that on the Fourth of July. Perhaps the speech of Fredrick Douglas on July 4 1852 should be repeated annually. Speaking of the nation he said, "I shall feel myself discharging the duty of a true patriot: for he is a lover of his country who rebukes and does not excuse its sins". He stated, "...the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced." But we prosecute the whistle blowers who expose criminals rather than the government criminals, the war criminals and the banking criminals, letting the real criminals go free. I do not consent to these actions of government! How can The People in this course of human events, make a new Declaration of Independence from this tyranny?

I confess that I have succumbed to some form of American radicalization which was mentioned in your Drone speech. I think many on the left of the political spectrum have drifted in that direction.In the days of the Cold War, George Kennan was perhaps considered a radical because he voiced his opinion that our foreign policy should be the political containment of communism not exclusively military containment. He said that the foreign policies we carried out actually created much of the hostility and the threat which we blamed on the Russians. We are doing the same thing today. Creating 100 terrorists when we kill 10. While you are concerned about the radicalization of Americans, many Americans are immensely concerned about the radicalization of the government. Our "democratic" government is terrorizing its own citizens! Many are afraid of the government. I have some fear that there could be some form of reprisals against me because I am expressing my honest opinions of what our government has gradually become. Americans are tired of government secrecy, of attacks on dissent, and on Freedom of the Press, the last line of defense against government corruption and criminality. We cannot trust the government to police its own behavior , or the banks and corporations to monitor themselves to abide by the law. They write our legislation because the Legislative Branch of government is too busy soliciting re-election money. Mr. President, why are you attacking whistle blowers and journalists? Who will expose the white collar criminals, government criminals and war criminals if journalists fear they will be prosecuted for exposing criminal behavior? You are terrorizing journalists!Why does the Constitution guarantee freedom of the press? When government classifies massive amounts of information, who will hold individuals or the government accountable? We are tired of the perpetual wars and the Orwellian-like "war atmosphere". Big Brother knows best saying, "we can't reveal our government secrets...trust us". Richard Nixon is known to have said, "If its secret, its legal". The Founding Fathers did not trust government in any form. They would be repulsed and horrified by our militarism, our police state atmosphere, this retreat behind classified information hidden from the scrutiny of the American People. Why should government have total access to all the information of our lives but we are not permitted to know enough about what the government does to give or withhold the consent  of a democratic people. Sir I do not consent to these policies of government.

I am specifically very displeased that you signed the NDAA into law on Dec. 31, 2012 with the provision of indefinite detention of US citizens by the United States military. I am equally dissatisfied that you have failed to close Guantanamo Prison. And I am totally exasperated and appalled that Congress passed both the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act with the violations of Civil Rights contained therein. For these government actions I do not give my consent. With St. Augustine, I must agree that "an unlawful law is no law at all"...especially when it is in conflict with the Constitution and the very principles of the Declaration of Independence. These are basic American ideals! It does not and should not require a law degree to understand their meaning!

The international community became quite disappointed with the United States during the Bush Administration and our "war on terror" with one sordid revelation after another: lies, no WMD, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and a policy of torture. We  regularly place our international activities above international law. We helped create the ICC but refuse to recognize its jurisdiction over our own actions. We have made our military and civilian contractors into mercenaries, exempt from international law. The best soldier is the citizen as Stephen Ambros suggests in Citizen Soldier. The world disapproves of our attempts to be in charge of the globe. That's why so many hate us. It is time we reestablish the precept found in the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, to have "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind...". We should forsake these actions in fact as well as in political speeches. I do not consent to such illegal shame.

Mr. President, I live in the Congressional District of Louie Gohmert and have Ted Cruz and John Cornyn as Congressional and Senatorial "representation". I have no representation! I have consistently voted the Democratic ticket for my entire life. Here in Tyler Texas only the corporations are represented...along with the political and religious fundamentalists. My best friend, an attorney who has had 5 brain surgeries related to Parkinsons  Disease goes out to fight the carbon industry and the Keystone pipe line in East Texas. For my Texas Representatives, big oil is a "slam dunk"...to hell with the environment and anything which carries out one of the stated purposes for writing The Constitution, to "...promote the general welfare".

I realize that this letter seems harsh and negative. But the first step in changing things for the better is facing the facts. God knows I have a broken heart about our sordid past of slavery, racism, genocide of the Native of our land, a foreign policy which focuses more on business "interests" than on basic harmony between nations, a government which has been hijacked by corporate money, and the continued theft of the American Dream by the 1%. Its time for the US government to listen to people like me. In the same way that the Declaration of Independence was an expression of outrage, as it was also recognition of what government ought to be, the Bill of Rights was an expression of general distrust for government, and an attempt to avoid the slippery slope of tyranny. The People must control the government or...the government will control the people. I respect the office of President of The United States and I respect you Mr. President as a gifted man, dedicated, of good intentions, and with a good heart. In '08, we were thrilled beyond measure with optimism and elated in anticipation that finally a man who knows both sides of America will act on the promise we remember so well, "to change how Washington works". Everyone knew then an knows now "how Washington works"...billions of dollars injected into the process of electing public servants. And we know that whomever puts in the most money gets the most "representation". We know that the political power of The People is not on equal footing with the political power of the corporations. We know who Washington listens to. We are still waiting Mr. President ...for that change.

Sincerely yours,


Judson Dennis Malone

Civilizing the Savages

It is a shame that often it takes a lifetime to gain vision into the meaning of human events. One of the most baffling  puzzles has been the treatment by European immigrants of the native tribal human beings of the Western Hemisphere, particularly the Indigenous Natives of North America in the United States.

There has to be some reason for the history of our behavior toward what most everyone calls "Indians", though these unique peoples did not come from India, nor did they live in the "West Indies". Stated in the simplest terms a thoughtful conclusion, after a life time of relishing American History, has raised its ugly head: the "fever", the passion, the "gold rush" for "free land" and the riches produced by that land. Nothing else could make human beings more brutal than the insanity of quick riches. Actually "free land" doesn't describe what happened because of the unspeakable and heavy costs paid by the original inhabitants.

Gradually ingesting the truth of what our ancestors did to get us to where we are as a people steals the pride in America we were taught when young, replacing it with shame. When one visualizes the flag of the United States flying above the Native American village at Sand Creek, Colorado, symbolizing their commitment to the peace treaty they had signed... visualizing the attack by the Colorado Militia on November 29, 1864 resulting in the death of more than 100 natives, two thirds of whom were women and children... makes our proud flag fade, drip in innocent blood, and dissolve into shame. It was only one of many such events. The Cherokee "trail of tears" was the direct results of greed for gold in Georgia, North and South Carolina. The Cherokee had succeeded in mimicking white culture better than any native tribe. They had a written language, a Constitution...they wore white mans clothes, tilled the soil, had fences. But gold was discovered on their land. They resisted. They even won their lawsuit in the United States Supreme Court to no avail. Then Old Hickory, "Indian fighter" Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. They were moved in winter from their ancestral lands in the east to Indian Territory. Ten thousand perished in the move.

The Western Hemisphere had more than 800 nations when the Europeans came. The native population numbered easily as many as Europe at the time. It was not an uninhabited wilderness. Where we live now belonged to those nations for at least 15,000 years. Our ancestors took it, murdered the majority of its inhabitants because they were "savages"? No, because they wanted "free land", gold and silver. This sort of activity is central to the meaning of "Colonialism". Colonialism was where Europeans exploited land and the indigenous people around the world by means of a superior technology. They marched into countries with superior weapons, took the land, installed European style governments, and called it "civilizing the savages". But the American government was supposed to be different...our documents say it clearly, that all are created equal and have universal rights, number one of which is life itself. Alas.

It seems now impossible to "relish" American History as once was the case, because we have never really rejected the ideas of colonialism. The things which we have been taught and which we believed about America were in themselves momentous. They were events and documents which advance above all else human rights and populous government in place of "the divine right of kings". These events brought a recognition of the fact that the collective wisdom of the common people is superior.

But once again it appears that we are today gripped by a "fever"...the quest for riches, because government is no longer controlled by the population but by wholly commercial interests. The question now arises, who is being trampled and abused by our present "fever"? Who is loosing everything including their lives because of our greed?

Oh where is the dwelling

Oh where is the dwelling I love the most
And what but that one poor place can please
Where the penny I lost and the youth I lost
Lie buried beneath enchanted trees

Oh There is the dwelling I love the most
And thither forever my feet are bound
Where the love I lost and the faith I lost
Lie buried in holy ground

Things Gone Wrong

For this I will revoke my usual third person and use first.

For the last months and weeks I have had scores of topics racing through my mind about which I could express the turmoil which is seething inside. Whether or not I have the right to even experience this moral rage, I cannot answer. Perhaps some wise man could say...I do not know. I do not think that anyone gave me the right to be a judge of my fellow man. ...but I think of it more as a judgement of collective faults and conditions and not necessarily the judgement of individuals. Things do seem to go wrong when human beings team up to carry out the deeds of their worst angels. ... things have gone terribly wrong.

It seems that we have the propensity for the escalation of evil. Temptations seem so easily to out wrestle us. We succumb with little resistance...almost with pleasure, especially when we are enjoined with those who mingle their weaknesses with our own. Things have really gone wrong.

The thing that is so troubling is that hundreds of years of human progress, with democracy functioning for the benefit of all classes of people, has been reversed. There seems to be a propensity for elites to gain control of the state even in a democracy and to use it selfishly for their insatiable appetites and pleasures. The 1% have lives of pleasure and plenty, the 99% are collateral damage who mainly serve the purpose of providing the fodder consumed by the elites. I believed that the right to vote would easily defeat such tyranny...I was wrong. Things have turned for the worse.

This problem is not just one of the rich nation we are, but a problem of how the entire world has adopted the economic model which we have created. In err they have observed our wealth and ease and concluded that our example is to be followed in their own pursuit of happiness. Whats more, the masses of the world have been caught in nothing more than the ideas of the old original European "colonialism" where human beings are just dust under foot, their land to be polluted, their labor to be exploited and their riches taken with out consent into the upper echelons of "the market". Too damn bad if you are at the bottom of the heap! Things have gone from bad to worse.

A ray of hope has arisen. "Occupy Wall Street"...! When you watch the parades of protesters, the crowds, you read the signs, you see in evidence... lives which have been destroyed, jobs, homes have been lost, bankruptcies have occurred! Veterans who gave their essence have come home to a nothingness after having felt they were protecting the homeland with their very lives. You see they have not quite yet given up. They reached inside for the will to make things change. Some faith is still left.

The political power which we all know exists of a people united to a common cause, rests in them and only needs to be awakened. It only needs to be believed. The power is there to make things better and is sublimely dwelling and waiting for the numbers to swell. ...and when the numbers are enough, it becomes a tide...a tsunami! I dream of it's sweep, of it's power to cleanse corruption, to hold accountable the high crimes against the people. A fresh start is possible but it requires "E Pluribus unium".

To Heed or Not To, That is the Question

It is attributed to Santayana that he said, "Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it."

We homo-sapiens will always live in a struggle between our better natures and our lesser. Today we are fortunate to have had for 200 plus years, documents which contain the rules, and supply the guidelines to experience human liberty and happiness. We are constantly torn by the temptation to stray from them to our own misery and destruction, the same misery we meet out to other peoples. Again and again over the ages our species will be required to decide if we will live by what we have learned, become ignorant of it, or simply ignore what we know to be the right path.

We are at that cross roads again now. Will we have a Republic or an Empire? Will we respect human rights and liberty or will we voluntarily turn those over to the state? If the people of our era are bored with the preservation of liberty our children will have to start from scratch again.

The editorial followed by two other commentaries in the July 18, 2011 of Nation magazine have nimbly given light to these problems. The editorial is EMPIRE OR REPUBLIC? The commentaries are: COMING OUT FOR CHANGE, and THE WAR ON CIVIL LIBERTIES.

Give it a look.

The American Dream

The dream of America has been trumped by "The American Dream". It started at the beginning when the idea of the "consent of the governed" was superseded by the profit motive and those whose dream of democracy somehow included the free labor of human beings "without their consent". By the time the issue came to an impasse, the American Civil War, there were more than 4 million slaves in these United States, the "land of the free and home of the brave".

The profit motive is still the source of our cultures willingness to give up most all of the ideals we so loudly trumpet on national holidays like Independence Day. All the talk about "inalienable rights", "justice for all", liberty, and republican democratic principles, rings hollow in the face of the rights of big business to trample those ideals under foot.

Alexander Hamilton was indeed a genius. His ability to single handedly form an economic blueprint to make the "private sector" the most powerful economic juggernaut in the history of man is astounding! Almost as astounding as the "trues" presented in Adam Smith's WEALTH OF NATIONS. The myth of "Free Trade" is older than The Constitution and seems to be more successful than the myth of Noah's ark full of animals and insects. ...anyway it's what we are all living by at present...with or without our consent.

High Crimes and Misdemeanors

A most serious national issue of our time is "...justice for all". Our pledge to the flag claiming that our republic provides "...justice for all" is presently a matter of some question. The question is, who is to be prosecuted and who is not...for serious crimes and minor ones.

A vast difference exists between being accused for possession of marijuana and conspiring to create fraudulent financial instruments which we have labeled "sub-prime" loans then packaging and selling them to unsuspecting investors. One is a much worse crime than the other. There is a good reason the latter is worse...because it affects so many people. This fact is why the US Constitution labels impeachable offenses as "high" crimes and misdemeanors, because the actions of an individual of "high" office, like judges, and other elected officials affect millions of other people. So does the actions of big banks.

We are very successful at prosecuting ordinary crime here in the US...with the highest per capita rate of incarceration in the world: 737 persons per 100,000, but white collar crime is not prosecuted so well... or even investigated so well. How many bankers and Wall Street tycoons have been hauled into court over the 2007-2008 sub-prime lending fraud? Was this the perfect crime? We were told the super-banks were "too big to fail". Apparently they were "too big to jail" because they were "too big to prosecute". The Regan era Savings and Loan Scandal resulted in more than 1,000 prosecutions. The 2007 Sub-prime: zero.

Failure to prosecute criminal activity by corporations is a new policy of the Department of Justice since about 2003. It is called "deferred prosecution agreements". The guilty company agrees to "do better", pay a big fine(which has been included in previous plans as a part of doing business), and the criminal charges are dropped or amnesty or immunity are granted. No one has to stand trial or go to jail. The policy is to bolster investor confidence. It's great for business since criminal indictments and trials are potential death sentences for corporations. They can continue on with "business as usual".

Theodore Roosevelt said, "This country has nothing to fear from the crooked man who fails. We put him in jail. It is the crooked man who succeeds who is a threat..."

If we are OK with the idea of crime without punishment, where is our "justice for all"? Should not all Americans be equal before the law? Rich or Poor? Mighty or humble? In November 1956 President Eisenhower said, "...we cannot subscribe to one law for the weak, another law for the strong...there can be only one law..."