Now Is The Winter Of Our Discontent — A Liberal’s Calm Before The Storm

Made glorious summer by this sun of Windy City;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried…

…for how long?

For some of us the inauguration of Barack Obama ushered in the potential for an era of liberal progress, of recovery from the dark clouds of George W. Bush… illegal wars, reactionary social policy, and economic destruction.

The republican party nomination process stimulated my presaging fear of tumult as I witnessed enthusiastic applause for the proposed destruction / elimination of women’s’ rights, civil and marriage rights, health care access, criminalized physical expressions of hate, and responsible stewardship of earth’s resources.

While I know that I am not alone in my liberal desires for a more progressive and better nation, it sure feels a lot lonelier.

As I contemplated my sense of alienation and just how far I am away from the American political norm, a battery of political spectrum tests proved that, indeed, I am a Liberal Elite in a right wing, conservative nation…and it is not a good feeling.

For the Liberal Elite contemplating the national mood, it may soon be another kind of Winter…the end (winter) of our contentment…

STAND OUR GROUND: Justice For Trayvon Charity Artwork

From the artist, Tes One:

I created “Stand Our Ground” for people – regardless of race or gender, to stand in solidarity against the injustice this law allows. Adding awareness to the Trayvon Martin tragedy, and aiding his family in their pursuit of justice. All proceeds from the release of “Stand Our Ground” will be donated to the Justice for Trayvon Charity and their advocacy efforts.” – Tes

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Available At: http://1xrun.com/runs/Stand_Our_Ground

I’m A Liberal…

The United States Constitution Has Seen Better Days…

… And It’s Seen Too Many Days

Yes, it’s the nation’s founding document and sacred text. It’s also the oldest written national constitution in the world still in force. However, its influence is waning, and it’s in desperate need of modernization — it’s just too old and outdated a document and not as good at establishing and preserving modern rights as other examples.

At the Constitution’s 1987 bicentennial, Time magazine figured that “of the 170 countries that exist today, more than 160 have written charters modeled directly or indirectly on the U.S. version.”

Twenty-five years on, the picture is quite different: “The U.S. Constitution appears to be losing its appeal as a model for constitutional drafters elsewhere,” according to a new study by David S. Law of Washington University in St. Louis and Mila Versteeg of the University of Virginia.

• Over the 1960s and 1970s, democratic constitutions as a whole became more similar to the U.S. Constitution
• Over the course of the 1980′s and 90′s, this process reversed course
• Then the arrival of the twenty-first century ushered in a steep plunge that continues to today, such that the constitutions of the world’s democracies are overall less similar to the U.S. Constitution than at the end of World War II.

Why the free fall for the U.S. Constitution as the exemplar?

• The United States Constitution is terse and old, but mostly it guarantees relatively few rights.
• Nor does it help that some members of the Supreme Court seem committed to interpreting the Constitution with an 18th century perspective. Moreover, the Constitution’s waning influence may be part of a general decline in American power and prestige.
• Professor Law identified a central reason for the negative trend: the availability of newer, hipper, and more powerful alternatives in the constitutional marketplace… “Nobody wants to copy Windows 3.1,” he said.

In a recent television interview, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed, “I would not look to the United States Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in the year 2012,” she said. Instead, Ginsburg recommended the South African Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, or the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights – my preference (see my previous blog post).

Sanford Levinson wrote in 2006 in “Our Undemocratic Constitution,” “the U.S. Constitution is the most difficult to amend of any constitution currently existing in the world today.” True, the rights guaranteed by the American Constitution are few by international standards, and they are frozen in amber (see my recommended reading list that includes “The Frozen Republic”).

Consider, also, that other nations routinely trade in their constitutions entirely, replacing them on average every 19 years. Coincidentally, Thomas Jefferson, in a 1789 letter to James Madison, once said that every constitution “naturally expires at the end of 19 years” because “the earth belongs always to the living generation.” In today’s modern world, the commonality between the rights most popular around the world and those guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution is minimal.

What’s Up With The Constitution?

• Sure, we’ve got some truly great protections that I would never want to give up. Americans recognize rights to a speedy and public trial and also prohibits government establishment of religion.
• Importantly, though, the Constitution is out of step with the rest of the world in failing to protect, outright, a right to travel, the presumption of innocence, and entitlement to food, education and health care.
• Though it ticks off the NRA lobby and gun fanatics, only 2 percent of the world’s constitutions protect, as the Second Amendment does, a right to bear arms. Time for us to give up on this one, intended solely as a means to expeditiously raise a militia from an age without a standing professional military (I think we’ve got this one covered pretty well now… too well for my preference).
• Foreign judges are today less likely to cite decisions of the United States Supreme Court, in part because of what they consider its parochialism (provincial, small minded).

“America is in danger, I think, of becoming something of a legal backwater,” Justice Michael Kirby of the High Court of Australia said in a 2001 interview. He said that he looked instead to India, South Africa and New Zealand.

The new study cited above also reveals that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, adopted in 1982, may now be more influential than its American counterpart.

The Canadian Charter is both more expansive and less absolute. It guarantees equal rights for women and disabled people, allows affirmative action and requires that those arrested be informed of their rights. On the other hand, it balances those rights against “such reasonable limits” as “can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

Still, some of our current conservative justices just don’t get it and display a smug attitude — as Justice Antonin Scalia told the Senate Judiciary Committee in October, “Every banana republic in the world has a bill of rights… Whoa, that is wonderful stuff!”

“Of course,” Justice Scalia continued, “it’s just words on paper, what our framers would have called a ‘parchment guarantee.’” That’s correct, and it’s clear Scalia intends to see that — even though it is limited and outdated — the U.S. Constitution should only ever be nothing more than mere words, not actual rights and protections in a modern world.

Presidential Candidates Don’t Understand The Constitution & Seek To Make It Less Protective

During Meet The Press on Sunday morning, David Gregory asked Rick Santorum what he would do if the Supreme Court upholds the ruling made by the Ninth Circuit Court to strike down Prop 8, banning same-sex marriage.

Santorum said he would overturn Roe v. Wade and any Supreme Court ruling that makes same-sex marriage legal.

“I would do the same thing I would with Roe v. Wade, which I would seek to try and overturn it. I think judicial tyranny is a serious issue in this race and this country. And we need judges who respect the people’s voice. Let the people decide with respect to what the constitution says, if in fact they would go through a constitutional amendment process.”

Santorum is unhinged for suggesting that “the people” should be able to decide which specific persons have rights in this country. Last time I checked, the Constitution guarantees American citizens equality under the law, personal liberty, and privacy.

No, Santorum doesn’t get that the courts were partly established to prevent the tyranny of the majority. So, no tea party boy, the fact that people vote for something does not make it right or legal, and the courts are the only way to prevent mob rule and abuse.

Santorum sounds a lot like Newt Gingrich when it comes to usurping the limited protections of the Constitution and the courts. Like Gingrich, Santorum thinks he has the power to overrule Supreme Court decisions with which he takes exception.

The only problem is, the President cannot overrule the Supreme Court. Gesh, oh really?

Only the American people can do that via constitutional amendment. That’s how basic checks and balances work.

It’s embarrassing to hear an American Presidential candidate assume that they have powers that they don’t actually have.

And, maybe that reality and our overall citizens’ tea-party parochialism should make us think about whether it’s better to have an outdated document as a Constitution or risk it becoming even worse! Oy Vey! Such options.

Occupy Wall Street Message? First Declaration Makes Clear

Since the occupation of Wall Street first began on September 17th, the mainstream media criticized the general assembly for lack of a cohesive list of complaints or demands.

On the night of September 29, 2011, Occupy Wall Street participants voted on and approved the first official “Declaration of the Occupation of New York City.”

The first declaration from Occupy Wall Street, is reprinted in its entirety (Seems to be a very clear message):

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

• They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.
• They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.
• They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.
• They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.
• They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.
• They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.
• They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.
• They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.
• They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.
• They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.
• They have sold our privacy as a commodity.
• They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.
• They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.
• They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.
• They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.
• They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.
• They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.
• They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.
• They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.
• They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.
• They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.
• They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.
• They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

YES! President Clinton…

European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights

In Order To Form A More Perfect Union… would that it were for the U.S., but Europe is the example:

In December 2009, with the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights was given binding legal effect equal to the Treaties, themselves. To this end, the Charter was amended and proclaimed December 2007.

This Charter is the end-result of a special procedure without precedent in the history of the European Union and enshrines the highest ideals of Citizens’ Rights so as to obtain the highest Quality of Life for All.

The European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights sets out in a single text, for the first time in the European Union’s history, the whole range of civil, political, economic and social rights of European citizens and all persons resident in the EU.

Enforcement of these rights is, first line, through the national courts of european member states and ultimately, if unresolved, at the EU levels of the European Court of Justice or the European Court of Human Rights.

While not written with the elegant prose nor hand scribed on the beautiful handmade parchment of the United States Constitution, the European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights codifies european citizens’ Rights, Dignities and Quality Of Life uncontemplated, unaddressed, and often utterly rejected by the United States’ inferior and flawed document.

So, first, let’s just look at a summary of what the Charter covers. Then, we’ll look at the actual Charter and make some comparisons to the U.S. Constitution so as to establish a baseline for some of our document’s deficiencies.

Check it out!

The Charter of Fundamental Rights contains a preamble and 54 Articles, grouped in seven chapters:

• chapter I: dignity (human dignity, the right to life, the right to the integrity of the person, prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, prohibition of slavery and forced labour);
• chapter II: freedoms (the right to liberty and security, respect for private and family life, protection of personal data, the right to marry and found a family, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of expression and information, freedom of assembly and association, freedom of the arts and sciences, the right to education, freedom to choose an occupation and the right to engage in work, freedom to conduct a business, the right to property, the right to asylum, protection in the event of removal, expulsion or extradition);
• chapter III: equality (equality before the law, non-discrimination, cultural, religious and linguistic diversity, equality between men and women, the rights of the child, the rights of the elderly, integration of persons with disabilities);
• chapter IV: solidarity (workers’ right to information and consultation within the undertaking, the right of collective bargaining and action, the right of access to placement services, protection in the event of unjustified dismissal, fair and just working conditions, prohibition of child labour and protection of young people at work, family and professional life, social security and social assistance, health care, access to services of general economic interest, environmental protection, consumer protection);
• chapter V: citizens’ rights (the right to vote and stand as a candidate at elections to the European Parliament and at municipal elections, the right to good administration, the right of access to documents, European Ombudsman, the right to petition, freedom of movement and residence, diplomatic and consular protection);
• chapter VI: justice (the right to an effective remedy and a fair trial, presumption of innocence and the right of defence, principles of legality and proportionality of criminal offences and penalties, the right not to be tried or punished twice in criminal proceedings for the same criminal offence);
• chapter VII: general provisions.

These documented and guaranteed rights are based, in particular, on the fundamental rights and freedoms recognized by the European Convention on Human Rights, the constitutional traditions of the EU Member States, the Council of Europe’s Social Charter, the Community Charter of Fundamental Social Rights of Workers and other international conventions to which the European Union or its Member States are parties.

In comparison, the Constitution of the United States is a deeply flawed document that allows rights to come and go based upon lack of specificity and fluctuating general interpretation of vague statements of rights.

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Perhaps someday, the United States will address our Constitution’s oversights… But then we must worry about our conservatives, republicans, tea partiers, and libertarians taking away the few rights we still do maintain… UGH!

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Sharing A Peaceful Future Based On Common Values: The Charter of Fundamental Rights

IMAGINE PEACE 2011 by Yoko Ono Lennon

IMAGINE PEACE 2011

Yoko Ono Lennon

18 February 2011

Dear Friends,

Today, February 18th, 2011, I am 78.

We are at a point in human history when we have to wake up and realize that the only people who can save the world are us.

Every hour that goes by without us doing anything about it affects us, and affects the world that we love so much.


In his State of the Union Speech, President Obama said we should do “big things.” Well, we are already doing the biggest thing anybody in the human history could ever hope for.

Together, we are creating a world of Peace, Love and Freedom, all while the negative forces try their hardest to stop us.

With their power, they want to control the whole world. But we will not let them.

That’s big.


The way we are doing it is by being conscious of the “Power of Togetherness.”

The negative forces do not have that. They are an elitist minority, dipping their heads in arrogant madness.

They always play the same game – using violence, changing laws for their convenience, and seducing us with words to get what they want.

They say if we do things their way, we will all be rich. Well, that’s not happening. It never will. Once there is great wealth, they will want to keep it for themselves.

They also use fear tactics, saying the world will be in a great mess if we don’t do it their way. Well, the world is already in a mess. Why? Because we followed them.


It’s Time for Action. It’s Time for Change.

We, the people of the world, are not dumb. We understand what the “Blue Meanies” are trying to do. We just don’t know how to stop it. And wonder if we can at all.

But we can!

We are doing it.

IMAGINE PEACE is a powerful, universal mantra that we should all meditate on.

With it, we will achieve the impossible. Hopefully, without bloodshed.

Look at all the courageous people who are now being hurt in marches and thrown in prisons for no other reason except for carrying “Peace, Love and Freedom” in their hearts and voicing it.

I don’t want you to get hurt. You shouldn’t have to.

7 billion of us, people of the world, have the birthright to live with a healthy mind and body at all times.

You should not even get one scratch on you, and you won’t, if you don’t allow it.


So keep IMAGINE PEACE in your head.

Have a clear picture of where we stand, what we are doing, and where we want to be.

Know that we are connected in our hearts and minds.

War Is Over, if you want it!

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“Imagine all the people living life in peace”
John Lennon

“A dream you dream alone is only a dream.
A dream you dream together is reality”
Yoko Ono Lennon

No Signs Of Intelligent Life: Texas To Allow Concealed Weapons on Campus

Texas is poised to give college students and teachers the right to pack heat on campus, reports AP.

More than half of the state’s House of Representatives have signed onto the measure permitting concealed weapons at universities. The senate, which backed a similar bill in 2009, is expected to support the House’s legislation.

Sen. Jeff Wentworth of San Antonio said that at the moment, students are “sitting ducks” if someone opens fire in a classroom.

OMG! Really? Dude… never mind, you’re an idiot.

“The only option now is to hide behind their desks or play dead,” said a spokesman for Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.

OK… Can’t stop myself… fella, maybe if the mentally ill and nut-cases (well, which is most of Texas) of the country weren’t allowed ownership of guns… and if NO ONE were allowed ownership of high-capacity, automatic weapons… your feigned fear would be allayed.

The bill already has the support of Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who occasionally takes his pistol on his morning runs. Utah has already passed a similar law, while Colorado gives universities the option of allowing concealed handguns.

Victims of the Virginia Tech massacre have traveled to Texas to oppose the bill — AND FOR GOOD REASON: they know they would not have been attacked if…

1. crazy dudes were not allowed guns and
2. if no one were allowed high-capacity, automatic weaponry.

Colin Goddard, who survived the 2007 shooting spree by pretending he was dead, said: It was the craziest day of my life with one person walking around with two guns. I can’t even imagine what it would have been like with multiple students and multiple guns.”

Sure you can imagine it, Colin… It would be like the brutish, uncivilized western world of the old American frontier. What you can’t imagine is that modern Americans can romanticize that past and regress back to it.

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According to the most recent statistics, 50 children are killed in the U.S. every week by gunfire (over 3,000 children a year). What can be done about child shooting deaths? In your view, how big a problem is the death of children by firearms in this country? What do you think is the primary cause of this problem? Could it be too few civilized citizens and too many guns in their irresponsible hands? Um, yes.

Sitting Out The 3rd Economic Revolution To Sit At A Tea Party

The Third Economic Revolution: Is It Boom or Bust for America?

Seems like Congress may be chock-full of able self-described historians, but they fail miserably as futurists and leaders of change.

InsaniTea Party

Sadly, we continue to witness a series of American leaders failing to choose to change and perhaps make progressive history, preferring to remain with the status quo and threatening to turn America’s once-and-future competitiveness into history while attending Mad Hatter Tea Parties.

Our country, joined by the rest of the world, is living through the most profound, the most significant, and the most transformative economic revolution in the history of the world.

But, where • the first economic revolution — the agricultural revolution — took 3,000 years, and • the second — industrial revolution — took 300 years, • this third economic revolution will take only 30 years.

And if we’re not quicker, it will be over before we knew it began.

As President Obama reminded in his 2011 State of the Union address,

“In a single generation, revolutions in technology have transformed the way we live, work, and do business.”

America cannot confront the challenges we’re facing with constituency groups operating in separate silos or like-minded individuals failing to combine their voices. Our country’s failure to break loose from conventional wisdom (which some embrace as “common sense”) and embrace the future serve as the biggest threat to America’s future.

The President spoke out about a 2011 “Sputnik moment.” In 1957, Americans were shocked to discover that the Soviet Union had successfully launched the world’s first satellite into space… and… this country responded to the news with a patriotic effort to join the Soviets in space by launching Explorer I and creating NASA.

It should have actually been that the 2008 Olympics in Beijing served as the other “Sputnik moment” for Americans, when they saw the striking evidence of China’s economic might. Americans had the chance to respond to China’s reality with a plan as quickly and effectively as we did to Sputnik. It would have been the signature test for our generation and a history making moment for the children’s future.

Beijing: Power center of an economic and social dynamic whose middle-class already exceeds the entire population of the United States

We missed that “Aha” moment…

Now, two years after the Beijing Olympics and • in an increasingly global economy, • with workers having endured both a jobless decade and • three decades of virtually no wage growth, • capped off by an economic collapse… America still has no plan to keep the American Dream alive or compete globally in the face of this third economic revolution.

Our Sputnik moment lacks the energy and political cohesion for lift off while China keeps rolling along.

New Congressmen and Tea Partiers pay homage to the free market as their economic cure-all, despite clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.

• Our employer based health care and pensions systems, by putting the cost of benefits on the price of our products, is a drag on American competitiveness, but politicians seem more comfortable designating “Obamacare” as the real root of all evil, while the “Supreme” Court seems stacked against its survival.
• Our competitors’ VAT taxes allow them to tax our exports while we let their imports into our country tax-free.
• While China promotes unions to raise wages, many US elected officials and leaders in our business community want them to disappear.
• Our health care system costs 3 to 7% more of GDP than our competitors, but we continue to brag that it is the best in the world when, in fact, it delivers the worst health outcomes.
• And now the middle class jobs in legal, pharmaceutical research, and medical care, to name a few, are being shipped overseas in a trading system were America obeys the rules and others flout them.
• White collar parents who played by the rules and made sure their children had a college degree are asking this century the same question that was dismissively cast aside when raised by blue collar parents’ last century — where are my kids going to find a job?

President Obama’s 2011 State of the Union address, coupled with his 2008 campaign message, his 2009 New Foundation speech at Georgetown University, and recognition that this is not our father’s or grandfather’s economy establish his futurist credentials.

Yet, most of the political class in Washington mistakenly believe we can drive into the future looking in the rearview mirror of a Ford Pinto — with a Bible in our lap and a gun at our side.

Today, Americans are embroiled in a very different revolution than the one our forefathers engaged while fighting for liberty in 1776. Still, the truth is that this revolution, the third economic one, is the defining contemporary moment for our nation’s greatness.

Team USA needs a 21st century future oriented plan to make this a truly a country that works for everyone and where the dreams of the children still can come true.

Our future is not a matter of chance, but a matter of choice.

And it is time to decide!

Empty your Tea Cup and cast an eye to the reality future!