Patriots
and Protesters Should Take a Knee for the
Constitution
By John W.
Whitehead
“Seems like in the past 15 years or so the idea
of patriotism has changed some. More polarized,
more tied to political or ideological views.
I’ve never seen patriotism or the flag connected
to either;
I see the flag more as the symbol of a nation
that allows the freedom to express those ideas.
That alone deserves my respect.”— Macy Moore,
U.S. Marine
September
29, 2017 "Information
Clearing House"
- By
all means, let’s talk about patriotism and President
Trump’s call for “respect
for our Country, Flag and National Anthem.”
At a
time when the American flag adorns everything from
men’s boxers and women’s bikinis to beer koozies,
bandannas and advertising billboards (with little
outcry from the American public), and the National
Anthem is sung by
Pepper the Parrot
during the Puppy Bowl, this conveniently timed
outrage over disrespect for the country’s patriotic
symbols rings somewhat hollow, detracts from more
serious conversations that should be taking place
about critical policy matters of state, and further
divides the nation and ensures that “we the people”
will not present a unified front to oppose the
police state.
First off,
let’s tackle this issue of respect or lack thereof
for patriotic symbols.
As the U.S.
Supreme Court has made clear, Americans have a right
to abstain from patriotic demonstrations (West
Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette, 1943)
and/or actively protest that demonstration, for
example, by raising one’s fist during the Pledge of
Allegiance (Holloman ex rel. Holloman v. Harland,
2004). These First Amendment protections also extend
to military uniforms (worn to criticize the
military) and military funeral protests (Snyder
v. Phelps, 2011).
Likewise,
Americans have a First Amendment right to display,
alter or destroy the U.S. flag as acts of symbolic
protest speech.
In
fact, in
Street v. New York
(1969), the Supreme Court held that the government
may not punish a person for uttering words critical
of the flag, writing that “the constitutionally
guaranteed ‘freedom to be intellectually . . .
diverse or even contrary,’ and the ‘right to differ
as to things that touch the heart of the existing
order,’ encompass the freedom to express publicly
one’s opinions about our flag, including those
opinions which are defiant or contemptuous.”
The
case arose after Sidney Street, hearing about the
attempted murder of civil rights leader James
Meredith in Mississippi, burned a 48-star American
flag on a New York City street corner to protest
what he saw as the government’s failure to protect
Meredith. Upon being questioned about the flag,
Street responded, “Yes;
that is my flag; I burned it. If they let that
happen to Meredith, we don’t need an American flag.”
In
Spence v. Washington
(1974), the Court ruled that the right to display
the American flag with any mark or design upon it is
a protected act of expression. The case involved a
college student who had placed a peace symbol on a
three by five foot American flag using removable
black tape and displayed it upside down from his
apartment window.
Finally, in
Texas v. Johnson
(1989), the Court held that flag burning was
protected speech under the First Amendment. The
case arose from a demonstration near the site of the
Republican National Convention in Dallas during
which protesters marched through the streets,
chanted political slogans, staged “die-ins” in front
of several corporate offices to dramatize the
consequences of nuclear war, and burned the flag as
a means of political protest.
In other
words, if freedom means anything, it means that
those exercising their right to protest are showing
the greatest respect for the principles on which
this nation was founded: the right to free speech
and the right to dissent. Clearly, the First
Amendment to the Constitution assures Americans of
the right to speak freely, assemble freely and
protest (petition the government for a redress of
grievances).
Whether
those First Amendment activities take place in a
courtroom or a classroom, on a football field or in
front of the U.S. Supreme Court is not the issue:
what matters is that Americans have a
right—according to the spirit, if not always the
letter, of the law—to voice their concerns without
being penalized for it.
Frankly,
the First Amendment does more than give us a right
to criticize our country: it makes it a civic duty.
Second,
let’s not confuse patriotism (love for or devotion
to one’s country) with blind obedience to the
government’s dictates. That is the first step
towards creating an authoritarian regime.
One
can be patriotic and love one’s country while at the
same time disagreeing with the government or
protesting government misconduct. As journalist
Barbara Ehrenreich recognizes, “Dissent,
rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the
true duty of patriots.”
Indeed, I
would venture to say that if you’re not speaking out
or taking a stand against government wrongdoing—if
you’re marching in lockstep with anything the
government and its agents dole out—and if you’re
prioritizing partisan politics over the principles
enshrined in the Constitution, then you’re not a
true patriot.
Real
patriots care enough to take a stand, speak out,
protest and challenge the government whenever it
steps out of line.
There is
nothing patriotic about the lengths to which
Americans have allowed the government to go in its
efforts to dismantle our constitutional republic and
shift the country into a police state.
It’s not
anti-American to be anti-war or anti-police
misconduct or anti-racial discrimination, but it
is anti-American to be anti-freedom.
I have come
to realize that what many refer to as
polarization—certainly, what the government refers
to as “extremism”—is actually Americans challenging
the status quo, especially the so-called government
elite. Martin Luther King Jr. put it best when,
after being accused of extremism, responded, “The
question is not whether we will be extremists, but
what kind of extremist will you be?”
How many
times over the years have I been criticized for
being anti-American and unpatriotic, reprimanded for
being too negative in my views of the government,
admonished to have “faith” in our leaders, and
ordered to refrain from criticizing our president
because Americans still live in the best country in
the world?
Is this
really what patriotism or loving your country is all
about? If so, then the great freedom fighters of
history would be considered unpatriotic.
Too many
Americans seem to think that faith in the government
and a positive attitude are enough to get you
through the day… that you’re not a good citizen if
you criticize the government… and that being a good
citizen means doing one thing: voting.
The problem
we face today, however, is that America requires
more than voters inclined to pay lip service to a
false sense of patriotism. It requires doers—a
well-informed and very active group of doers—if we
are to have any chance of holding the government
accountable and maintaining our freedoms.
After all,
it was not idle rhetoric that prompted the Framers
of the Constitution to begin with the words “We the
people.” In the words of Supreme Court Chief Justice
Earl Warren, “there is an implicit assumption
[throughout the Constitution and Bill of Rights]
that we, the people, will preserve our democratic
rights by acting responsibly in our enjoyment of
them.”
This
ultimate responsibility for maintaining our freedoms
rests with the people.
Third, we
need to stop acting as if showing “respect” for the
country, flag and national anthem is more important
than the freedoms they represent.
Listen: I served in the Army. I lived through the
Civil Rights era. I came of age during the Sixties,
when activists took to the streets to protest war
and economic and racial injustice. As a
constitutional lawyer, I defend people daily whose
civil liberties are being violated, including high
school students prohibited from wearing American
flag t-shirts to school,
allegedly out of a fear that it might be disruptive.
I
understand the price that must be paid for freedom.
None of the people I served with or marched with or
represented put our lives or our liberties on the
line for a piece of star-spangled cloth or a few
bars of music: we took our stands and made our
sacrifices because we believed we were fighting to
maintain our freedoms and bring about justice for
all Americans.
As such,
responsible citizenship means being outraged at the
loss of others’ freedoms, even when our own are not
directly threatened.
The Framers
of the Constitution knew very well that whenever and
wherever democratic governments had failed, it was
because the people had abdicated their
responsibility as guardians of freedom. They also
knew that whenever in history the people denied this
responsibility, an authoritarian regime arose which
eventually denied the people the right to govern
themselves.
All
governments fall into two classifications: those
with a democratic form and those that are
authoritarian, ruled by an individual or some
oligarchic elite.
Acting
responsibly, however, means that there are certain
responsibilities and duties without which our rights
would become meaningless. Duties of citizenship
extend beyond the act of voting, which is only the
first step in acting responsibly. Citizens must be
willing to stand and fight to protect their
freedoms. And if need be, it will entail criticizing
the government.
This is
true patriotism in action.
What this
means is that we can still be patriotic and love our
country while disagreeing with the government or
going to court to fight for freedom. Responsible
citizenship means being outraged at the loss of
others’ freedoms, even when our own are not directly
threatened. It also means remembering that the prime
function of any free government is to protect the
weak against the strong.
Love of
country will sometimes entail carrying a picket sign
or going to jail or taking a knee, if necessary, to
preserve liberty and challenge injustice. And it
will mean speaking up for those with whom you might
disagree.
Tolerance
for dissent, we must remember, is a vital
characteristic of the citizens of a democratic
society. As Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell
Holmes said, “If there is any principle of the
Constitution that more imperatively calls for
attachment than any other, it is the principle of
free thought--not free thought for those who agree
with us but freedom for the thought that we hate.
Loving your
country does not mean being satisfied with the
status quo or the way government is being
administered. Government invariably, possibly
inevitably, oversteps its authority. As human beings
are not perfect, governments, because they are
constructs of human beings, will necessarily be
imperfect as well.
Love of
country, it must be emphasized, is always
strengthened by both a knowledge of history and of
the Constitution and, when need be, acting on that
knowledge. “If we have no appreciation of the past,”
Justice Warren recognized, “we can have little
understanding of the present or vision for the
future.”
The
problems facing our generation are numerous and are
becoming incredibly complex.
Technology,
which has developed at a rapid pace, offers those in
power more invasive and awesome possibilities than
ever before. Never in American history has there
been a more pressing need to maintain the barriers
in the Constitution erected by our Founders to check
governmental power and abuse.
As I
make clear in my book
Battlefield America: The War on the American
People, we’re
at a very crucial crossroads in American history. We
have to be well-informed, not only about current
events but well-versed in the basics of our rights
and duties as citizens. If not, in perceived times
of crisis, we may very well find ourselves in the
clutches of a governmental system that is alien to
everything for which America stands. And make no
mistake about it, the mass of citizens will continue
to be misinformed, and as astute political leaders
have recognized in the past, they can be easily led.
Therein is
the menace to our freedoms.
Stop
falling for the distractions. Stop allowing yourself
to be fooled by propaganda and partisan politics.
Stop acting as if the only thing worth getting
outraged about is whether a bunch of
football players stand or kneel for the National
Anthem.
Stop being
armchair patriots and start acting like foot
soldiers for the Constitution.
Remember,
it’s all a game, a ruse, a dance intended to keep
you in line and marching to the government’s tune
instead of freedom’s call. In this age of spin
doctors and manipulation, those who question the
motives of government provide a necessary
counterpoint to those who would blindly follow where
politicians choose to lead.
Past
regimes understood well how to manipulate and
maneuver. As Hermann Goering, one of Hitler’s top
military leaders, remarked during the Nuremberg
trials:
It is
always a simple matter to drag the people along,
whether it is a democracy, or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders.
That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them
they are being attacked, and denounce the
pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing
the country to danger. It works the same in any
country.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead
is founder and president of The
Rutherford Institute.
His new book Battlefield
America: The War on the American People (SelectBooks,
2015) is available online at www.amazon.com.
Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
More Thoughts on Trump’s UN Declaration of War Against Iran and North Korea
More Thoughts on Trump’s UN Declaration of War Against Iran and North Korea
Paul Craig Roberts
Trump’s UN speech makes it clear that Trump’s presidency, in terms of
his campaign promise to remove Washington from the “policeman of the
world” role, exit the Middle East, and repair the damaged relations with
Russia, is over. The CIA and the military/security complex are in full
control of the US government. Trump has accepted his captivity and his
assigned role as the enforcer of Washington’s hegemony over every other
country. Washington uber alles is the only foreign policy that Washington pursues.
At the UN Trump actually threatened to wipe North Korea off of the
face of the earth. He added to this threat threats against Venezuela (http://stephenlendman.org/2017/09/trump-threatens-venezuela/)
and Iran. He demonized these countries as “rogue states,” but it is
Washington that is playing that role. Washington has destroyed in whole
or part eight countries in the young 21st century and has 3 to 5 more
in its crosshairs.
One question is: why did not the UN audience shout Trump down, a man
standing before them telling obvious lies? The answer, of course, is
money. The US taxpayers pay roughly one-quarter of the UN’s annual
budget, leaving the other 130+ countries a light load. Washington is
succeeding in driving the world to Armageddon, because the world’s
leaders prefer money to truth, to justice, to survival. The UN
diplomats see in their cooperation with Washington the opportunity to
make money by sharing in the West’s exploitation of their own countries.
Washington, absorbed in its effort to destroy Syria, left it to its
Saudi Arabian puppet to destroy Yemen. The Saudi autocracy, a major
sponsor with the US of terrorism, has done a good job, thanks to US
supplying the weapons and to the US refueling the Saudi attack
airplanes. This totally gratuitous war has helped to maximize the
profits of the American military/security complex, a collection of evil
never before present on the face of the earth. UNICEF reports that one
million Yemeni children will be the victims of “American compassion” of
which Trump bragged in the CIA’s UN speech.
One wonders if the Russians and Chinese are so absorbed in getting
rich like America’s One Percent that they are unaware that they are on
the list of countries to be eliminated for not accepting Washington’s
hegemony. Really, where was the Russian government when Washington
overthrew the Ukranian government? It was at a sports event. And I call
Americans insouciant. Where was the Russian government? How could it
have not known?
To be frank. The point is this. Unless Russia and China can take
out the US, the US will take out Russia and China. The only question is
who strikes first. The only way to avoid this is for Russia and China
to surrender and accept Washington’s hegemony. This is the firm
undeviating path on which the neoconservatives, the CIA, and the
military/security complex have set the United States. The entire point
of North Korea is US nuclear missiles on China’s border. The entire
point of Iran is US nuclear missiles on Russia’s border.
As far as I can ascertain, hardly anyone is aware that Armageddon is
just around the corner. There is no protest from the Western
presstitutes, a collection of whores. In the US the only protests are
against ancient “civil war” statues, which the ignorant rabble say are
symbols of black slavery. There is no peace movement and no peace
marches. In London the transgendered and the radical feminists are
protesting one another, engaging in fist fights in Hyde Park. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4891484/Fists-fly-politically-correct-rally.html No one seems to have any awareness.
In US online propaganda websites such as Americans for Limited
Government—funded by who? serving who?—endorse Trump’s destabilizing UN
speech as a non-threat to world peace:
“President Trump has provided a cogent and inspiring defense of
America and the American constitutional system of governance to the
world not as imposition but an example to be followed, while at the same
time respecting the sovereignty of other nations. However, the
President also made it clear to those nations that threaten humanity
with nuclear destruction [which Washington has done to N. Korea and
Iran] that the United States will not be held hostage, and continuing
down their current paths guarantees their annihilation. While many will
focus on Trump’s threat to North Korea and Iran, the real focus of his
speech is that it is a call to all nations to embrace their own
sovereignty without threatening world peace.”
I have never in my long life read such a misrepresentation of a
speech. The United States has become the complete propaganda state. No
truth ever emerges.
It is only the US government, which is not a government of the
people, that has ever threatened another country with total destruction
as Trump did to North Korea in the CIA’s UN speech.
This is a first. It trumps Adolf Hitler. The US has become the 4th
Reich. It is doubtful that the world will survive the foreign policy of
the United States of America.
Will special counsel Mueller examine the DNC server, source of the great Russiagate caper?
Former federal prosecutor George Parry read the report by the
association of Veteran Intelligence Professionals. which conclusively
proves that there was no hacking of the DNC computer and that the
information was downloaded from within the DNC and then used to
orchestrate a fake Russian hacking of the election. Parry explains how
it was done and the implications.
Philadelphia Inquirer
August 29, 2017
Will special counsel Mueller examine the DNC server, source of the great Russiagate caper?
By George Parry
George Parry is a former state and federal prosecutor practicing law in Philadelphia.
On June 12, 2016, WikiLeaks announced that it would soon release
stolen computer files that pertained to Hillary Clinton’s presidential
campaign.
Two days later, CrowdStrike, a computer security company working for
the Democratic National Committee, announced that it had detected
Russian malware on the DNC’s computer server. The next day, a
self-described Romanian hacker, Guccifer 2.0, claimed he was a WikiLeaks
source and had hacked the DNC’s server. He then posted online DNC
computer files that contained metadata that indicated Russian
involvement in the hack.
Much to the embarrassment of Hillary Clinton, the released files
showed that the DNC had secretly collaborated with her campaign to
promote her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination over
that of Bernie Sanders. Clearly, the Clinton campaign needed to lessen
the political damage. Jennifer Palmieri, Clinton’s public relations
chief, said in a Washington Post essay in March that she worked
assiduously during the Democratic nominating convention to “get the
press to focus on … the prospect that Russia had not only hacked and
stolen emails from the DNC, but that it had done so to help Donald Trump
and hurt Hillary.”
Thus was laid the cornerstone of the Trump-Russia-collusion conspiracy theory.
Since then, the mainstream media have created a climate of hysteria
in which this unsubstantiated theory has been conjured into accepted
truth. This has resulted in investigations by Congress and a special
counsel into President Trump, his family, and his campaign staff for
supposed collusion with the Russians.
But in their frenzied coverage, the media have downplayed the very
odd behavior of the DNC, the putative target of the alleged hack. For,
when the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI learned of the
hacking claim, they asked to examine the server. The DNC refused.
Without explanation, it continues to deny law enforcement access to its
server.
Why would the purported victim of a crime refuse to cooperate with
law enforcement in solving that crime? Is it hiding something? Is it
afraid the server’s contents will discredit the Russia-hacking story?
The answers to those questions are beginning to emerge thanks to an
exacting forensic examination of the available evidence by the Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), an organization of former
CIA, FBI, National Security Agency, and military intelligence officers,
technical experts, and analysts.
By way of background, VIPS has a well-established record of debunking
questionable intelligence assessments that have been slanted to serve
political purposes. For example, in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq,
VIPS courageously and correctly challenged the accuracy and veracity of
the CIA’s intelligence estimates that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons
of mass destruction and that he posed a threat to the United States.
Similarly, VIPS has condemned the use of “enhanced interrogation
techniques” on suspected terrorists. In short, VIPS can hardly be
described as either a right-wing cabal or as carrying water for the
Republican Party.
In its ongoing analysis of the purported DNC hack, VIPS has brought
to bear the impressive talents of more than a dozen experienced,
well-credentialed experts, including William Binney, a former NSA
technical director and cofounder of the NSA’s Signals Intelligence
Automation Research Center; Edward Loomis, former NSA technical director
for the Office of Signals Processing; and Skip Folden, former manager
of IBM’s information technology. As the French would say, these are
l’hommes serieux, as are the other computer-system designers, program
architects, and analysts with whom they are investigating the
Clinton-DNC hack story.
Recently, VIPS released its initial investigative findings, and they are stunning.
First, VIPS has concluded that the DNC data were not hacked by the
Russians or anyone else accessing the server over the internet. Instead,
they were downloaded by means of a thumb drive or similar portable
storage device physically attached to the DNC server.
How was this determined? The time stamps contained in the released
computer files’ metadata establish that, at 6:45 p.m. July 5, 2016,
1,976 megabytes of data were downloaded from the DNC’s server. This took
87 seconds, which means the transfer rate was 22.7 megabytes per
second, a speed, according to VIPS, that “is much faster than what is
physically possible with a hack.” Such a speed could be accomplished
only by direct connection of a portable storage device to the server.
Accordingly, VIPS concludes the DNC data theft was an inside job by
someone with physical access to the server.
VIPS also reports that, if there had been a hack, the NSA would have a
record of it that could quickly be retrieved and produced. But no such
evidence has been forthcoming. Can this be because no hack occurred?
Even more remarkable, the experts have determined that files released
by Guccifer 2.0 have been “run, via ordinary cut and paste, through a
template that effectively immersed them in what could plausibly be cast
as Russian fingerprints.” In other words, the files were deliberately
altered to give the false impression that they were hacked by Russian
agents.
Up to this point, Russiagate has been notable as an irrational,
self-levitating media jihad devoid of any material-supporting evidence.
Now, thanks to the VIPS experts, the Russia-hacking story – the very
genesis of the Trump-Russia conspiracy theory – appears to have been
affirmatively and convincingly undercut. And this raises many questions
concerning the purveyors of the Russia hacking story, as well as the
heretofore semicomatose federal investigation of the alleged hack.
After the DNC denied law enforcement access to its server, the FBI –
under James Comey’s flaccid leadership – meekly agreed to accept the
findings of CrowdStrike, the DNC’s private computer security firm, as to
the server’s contents. This was in lieu of the FBI’s using the legal
process to search the server for Russian malware and evidence of
hacking.
Why did Comey and the FBI agree to such an impotent, absurd, and
self-defeating arrangement? And why to this day has this bizarre
situation been allowed to continue?
Special counsel Robert Mueller has been tasked with investigating the
alleged Trump-Russia conspiracy. Unlike the feckless Comey, he has used
a grand jury and at least one search warrant to obtain evidence. May we
expect Mueller to use similar tactics in dealing with the mysteriously
recalcitrant DNC? Will the server at long last be subjected to a
non-DNC-controlled forensic analysis? Will the server and CrowdStrike’s
work product be analyzed to either confirm or disprove the presence of
Russian malware? And, if none is found, will the special counsel
investigate the persons responsible for that deception?
Will the DNC files released by Guccifer 2.0 be analyzed to determine
if they were, as VIPS has concluded, altered to give the false
impression that the Russians had hacked the server? If so, will Mueller
pursue those responsible for the adulteration? If, as appears likely,
the server was not hacked, will Mueller investigate why Hillary Clinton
and the DNC claimed it was? Will he investigate whether the DNC files
were stolen by someone who had direct physical access to the DNC server?
Will he try to determine who at the DNC had a motive to leak the files?
Could it be someone who wanted to make public Clinton and the DNC’s
underhanded treatment of Sanders?
These are but a few of the areas of inquiry that any fair and
competent investigator intent on getting to the truth would pursue. Will
Mueller honestly and vigorously investigate them at the risk of
incurring the anti-Trump media’s wrath and possibly exposing the
Russia-hacking story as a carefully orchestrated falsehood by Clinton
and the DNC?
Or will the unraveling Russiagate fable continue to be a fig leaf for
a one-sided, politically motivated effort by Mueller and his staff of
Hillary Clinton supporters to undo the outcome of the 2016 presidential
election?
