alias Bruce.

What the SCLC Needs to Hear.

In my July 11 post, I urged people to email and boycott the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (at president@sclcnational.org) over its repugnant and ironically bigoted attempt to fire the head of its Los Angeles chapter for his support of gay marriage rights. One of those who did was my old friend Rob Levy, who I have known since high school. I think his letter captures everything that needs to be said to a so-called civil rights organization that has betrayed its own legacy.

Here is his letter:

To: Mr. Byron Clay, Interim President
Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Dear Mr. Clay,
 
I am glad to hear about the upcoming SCLC convention, its rededication to the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and of the emphasis on fighting poverty, wherever and however it may manifest. I love the motto, "a global vision in which ALL people can share in the wealth of the earth."
 
In 1967, when I was eleven years old I wrote a report on Dr. Martin Luther King, then a controversial civil rights leader. Like many of my generation, I can recall the moment on one year later when I saw Dr. King’s face on the morning news. I dedicated my life then to doing whatever I could to carry Dr. King's work forward. Aside from marching and speaking for school integration, reaching across the racial divide to get to know Black people, and occasionally finding the courage to speak when whites around me assumed I shared their racist beliefs, my contributions are humble compared to those I admire.

Today however, I do have a bi-racial family, something perhaps not possible without the work of the SCLC and others. My partner of 13 years and I are white, and our adopted son is African-American. We and our son’s birth family feel blessed to know one another. Never have they been concerned that we are gay, they say, “as long as there is love.” Someday soon, we will seal our commitment in marriage, and gain the roughly 200 rights currently denied us.

Imagine how shocked I am to have learned that the national board of the SCLC has threatened to fire Los Angeles SCLC chapter president Reverend Eric P. Lee for his work against the passage of California Proposition 8. Proposition 8 is only the most recent example of a majority trampling minority rights. Recall that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was not, and would not have been passed by majority vote.
 
I always hesitate to make comparisons between the struggle for gay rights and that of African Americans. The privileges I enjoy as a white male, and the invisibility -- should I choose -- as a gay man protect me from anything approaching the indignities and torture visited upon Black Americans throughout American history.
 
Perhaps a better spokesperson than I would be Bayard Rustin, one of the founders of the SCLC and Dr. King's main advisor from Montgomery to Washington. A review of Mr. Rustin's biography reveals numerous and immense acts of courage on behalf of African Americans. Many people know Rustin as one of the key organizers of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Fewer know of  Rustin’s plans to organize a March on Washington in 1941, the threat of which resulted in the passage of the Fair Employment Act, nor of the Journey of Reconciliation in 1947 protesting segregation in interstate transport, a prototype for the Freedom Riders for which he served 30 days on a chain gang in North Carolina. Rustin was arrested numerous times for, among other things, refusing to join the armed forces, and for being homosexual. How ironic that today he would be simply be refused membership in the armed forces!
 
In 1986 Rustin no doubt created some controversy when he stated:
 "The barometer of where one is on human rights questions is no longer the black community, it's the gay community. Because it is the community which is most easily mistreated."
 
That was twenty-three years ago, and today one of our nation's premier civil rights organizations doesn't seem to get it:  We are one people. A denial of rights to one is a denial of rights to all. 

I have many African American friends who are gay and lesbian. Most are in committed relationships, and many are raising children. Most have faced the pain of being called out and thrown out by the churches they once called home.  By opposing legislation that would protect their families and mine, you are putting your organization on the wrong side of history. Today you are joining forces with the diminishing ranks of those who use the pulpit to sanctify segregation. Today I am ashamed to be a supporter of your famous and fine organization. Good luck with your convention. I know that if he were alive, Bayard Rustin would be speaking out against your act of intolerance and bigotry. 
 
Sincerely,
Robert K. Levy

Henry Louis Gates [3].

As the schlumpy protagonist in Brickman's old "The Small Society" newspaper cartoon used to say: Hoo-Boy.

Or, in the words of President Obama amid the spectacle of GatesGate, "I don't know if you've noticed, but nobody has been paying much attention to health care."

That would be the President Obama who last Wednesday declared that the Cambridge, Massachusetts police "acted stupidly" in arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates at his home after establishing that he did in fact live there, and who two days later on Friday tried to defuse a national nonviolent race riot by backing off of his previous testament and instead murmuring that "to the extent that my choice of words didn't illuminate but rather contributed to more media frenzy, I think, that was unfortunate."

Obama's original "choice of words" was, in fact, accurate, but proved to be a hefty dose of political kryptonite for a president who, as an elected leader as well as a black man, has tried to make it his signature to outmaneuver conflict and to rise above race. He achieved neither in this case. Those who do not want to hear about racial profiling, and those who do not want to pass serious health care reform or any other mildly progressive initiative, are having a field day with Obama's fumbling.

The president of a Cambridge police union has ripped into Obama for dissing his guy and for questioning police judgment, which one would expect from a police union head in any city, let alone one with Boston's long reputation for racially biased policing and racially toxic neighborhood relations, both of which I witnessed while I lived there. The white cop in question, emboldened by outrage and political cover, has stood in his own defense before the cameras. Obama has made nice with salutes to everyone's better nature and invitations to a sit-down at the White House.

And, most dramatically, a black colleague of the white cop who arrived at the Gates home during the incident has gone public with his declared "100 percent" certainty that the white cop did the right thing and that he himself would have done the same -- thereby serving up a fat one over the plate for those pundits and citizens who have believed all along that Gates was another misbehaving black man playing the race card. You can hear the I-told-you-so's miles away from any AM radio or Fox-tuned television: "A black cop who was at the scene said he would do the same thing!"

This, actually, raises an important point, and one that I have written about before: The culture of racial profiling that has become endemic to police work -- especially since the War On Drugs focused its laser on low-income communities of color -- is a culture that involves police officers of all colors. In the past three decades black, white, and brown police officers alike have been trained to racially profile and rewarded for doing so. This has become standard operating procedure in police departments driven to shore up their budgets by amassing arrest and conviction statistics via sweeps, profiles, and zero-tolerance policies. None of this works as curative policy for crime or drug addiction or trafficking, but it does draw funding for overburdened police departments, and its unwritten racial code is clear: a likely thug looks like this. The risk of trouble with a black suspect is X; the risk with a white suspect is Y. Ask a black driver or, better yet, look at the research. Cops of color are as much a part of this profiling culture as white cops. Whatever the black Cambridge policeman's reasons for backing his white comrade, the fact that any given black or brown cop might carry out racial profiling and racial double-standards is about as newsworthy as milk getting cold in a refrigerator.

I do agree with the President about all of this being "unfortunate." It is unfortunate for the remaining hanging threads of Obama's attempt at health care reform, unfortunate for his political clout, and unfortunate for police work and for the citizens who police are sworn to serve. I have had no private audience with President Obama, but my gut about it is that he, like Professor Gates, spoke truthfully and intemperately in the moment, and he, also like Gates, has suffered the consequences.

Henry Louis Gates [2].

It's good to see the many comments in which people responded to my July 22 post on the Gates spectacle, particularly the ones that reflected thought rather than reflexive vitriol. Overall, though, the general lack of curiosity and understanding re: the nature and impact of racial profiling was saddening to see. If you are white, you have not had a lifetime of this particular experience (no, being mugged by a black man or abused by a throng of black kids does not qualify as racial profiling in the lifelong, pervasive, smugly presumptive and officially-sanctioned way in which it is practiced on people of color). To deny and dismiss this very real lifelong experience with unthinking slogans such as "playing the race card" and "victimhood" blinds you to a major element of American life, and gains you as a white person exactly nothing -- except a nice, fat wedge between you and the people whose experiences you deny. And that's too bad. Because you need we people of color on your side if you are ever going to gain a society with a functional government, a job and retirement you can have any faith in, fair and effective law enforcement, and good health coverage you can actually afford. As a result, you'll find continued denial of the experiences of your potential allies to be a costly enterprise. The good news, though, is that testimony and action on racial profiling will persist. So get used to hearing about it.

The Henry Louis Gates Story [Annotated].

Unless you're just back from the deep woods or the open sea, you've already heard: Renowned Harvard scholar and author Henry Louis Gates Jr., arguably the most famous black academic in the nation, was arrested Thursday at his home in a tony section of Cambridge, Massachusetts and charged with disorderly conduct by a white policeman who responded to a call by a white neighbor about what she thought was a burglary. All hell subsequently broke loose. Yesterday, the city and the police department dropped the charges.

Here, with my italicized annotations, is part of the CNN account of what happened:

Charles Ogletree, a professor at Harvard Law School who is Gates' lawyer in this case, told CNN on Tuesday that Gates -- the director of Harvard's W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research -- had returned from China on Thursday to his Cambridge home and discovered his front door jammed. [Gates is 58 years old, walks with a cane, and had just gotten off a plane from the other side of the world. It's safe to say he was tired and in no mood for bullshit.]

He opened his back door with his key and tried unsuccessfully from inside his home to open the front door. Eventually, Gates and his driver forced the door open from the outside, Ogletree said.

The professor was inside for several minutes when a police officer, Sgt. James Crowley, appeared at his steps and asked him to step outside, the lawyer said. [The entire incident could have stopped right there. As in: A tired and blindsided 60-ish famous black scholar in spectacles and a blazer reacts with anger at being treated as a burglary suspect in his own luxurious home. The savvy cop realizes he is likely dealing with an innocent man and a volatile situation, since he knows that most prosperous black men have been racially profiled enough times to react with immediate rage. So the cop goes into defusing mode. He tells Gates he understands how this may be insulting to him, but it's a difficult situation because two men were seen trying to push their way into his house, and if Gates will just help him out by showing ID, he'll have his proof that all is OK and he'll be on his way. An angry Gates protests but shows his ID, while venting his rage at being treated in this way. The cop, trained to deescalate such situations, keeps his cool despite Gates's anger, tells Gates he is very sorry to have bothered him, and leaves. End of story. Maybe Gates later files a complaint; maybe he makes a public issue of what happened; maybe he speaks and writes about it. But the physical incident itself stops there, on his porch. That's the way it could have been handled. But it wasn't.]

According to his lawyer, Gates told the officer he lived there and showed him his Massachusetts driver's license and Harvard University identification card. The officer followed him into his house and said he had received a report of a possible break-in, the lawyer said. Gates grew frustrated that the officer was continuing to question him in his home and asked for the officer's name and badge number, Ogletree said. [Whether it happened exactly this way or not, this is where the cop became outright stupid (or perhaps remained stupid if it is his permanent condition). Getting ID at the front door would be enough evidence for even a meticulous cop, and more than enough of an affront to an innocent homeowner. This is where a cop uses his smarts if he has them, and cuts risks rather than increasing them. This applies even if Gates's account isn't entirely accurate. See below.]

The police report offers a different account of the incident.

Gates refused to step outside to speak with the officer, the police report said, and when Crowley told Gates that he was investigating a possible break-in, Gates opened the front door and exclaimed, "Why, because I'm a black man in America?" the report said. [Okay, so you've got a pissed-off black man in a nice house in a prestigious neighborhood who looks and acts as if he belongs there. It's time to cool your jets, officer, not heat them up. This is where Crowley comes out on the wrong side of the stupidity test.]

"While I was led to believe that Gates was lawfully in the residence, I was quite surprised and confused with the behavior he exhibited toward me," he said, according to the report. [Only a very clueless or very racist police officer would be "surprised and confused" by how Gates reacted. Crowley had already concluded that this was in fact Gates's house. Yet Crowley claimed it never occurred to him that Gates might react with anger. What this shows is that Crowley (if he is telling the truth) has zero understanding of the impact that lifelong racial profiling has on innocent citizens of color. Which, actually, is exactly the state of mind one would expect in an officer for whom racial profiling has become a blindly accepted norm.]

The report said Gates initially refused to show the officer identification, but eventually produced a Harvard identification card, prompting Crowley to radio for Harvard University Police. [So, according to Crowley's own account, he finally gets a Harvard ID from this very professorial occupant of the house, and what does he do? He challenges it by calling the Harvard University Police. Oy. As a friend of mine likes to say, Crowley just keeps making things worser and worser.]

Gates followed the officer outside and continued to accuse him of racial bias, the report said. After Crowley warned the professor twice that he was becoming disorderly, the officer wrote he arrested Gates for "loud and tumultuous behavior in a public space." [Thanks in no small part to Crowley's dumb, belligerent, racially reckless handling of this incident.]

Ogletree said the professor was "very frustrated" but never touched or pointed at the officer.

He was released from police custody Thursday evening after spending four hours at the police station, Ogletree said.

So a world-famous scholar and public intellectual is humiliated and jailed for no good reason. The City of Cambridge and its police department have, wisely, dropped the charges against Gates, no doubt aware that a ham-fisted buffoon of a cop botched the entire encounter. What Gates will now do in response to the incident remains to be seen.

If you read the entire CNN story, I suggest you also peruse the reader comments that follow. They will give you a good idea of why this incident happened in the first place. For many whites, racial profiling is nothing but a distant rumor, a black claim contemptuously debunked every day on radio and television by thundering white commentators who listeners want to believe. Many of our white brothers and sisters are thoroughly ignorant of the fact of racial profiling because it does not happen to them. This crosses over into willful ignorance when whites simply cannot bear the moral itch of acknowledging the kind of lifelong vulnerability to abuse they are spared by virtue of the color of their skin. It is more than many whites can stand, this admission of their own unrequested and undeserved privilege. And so they get up on their hind legs and they frantically and preemptively deny. They lash out at blacks "always playing the race card" and they mock black "paranoia" and "victimhood" and they smirk at "typical liberals" who give consideration to black grievances. And they remain clueless, belligerent, and self-justifying.

Just like a certain police officer in Cambridge.

I am a Harvard grad who studied in Gates's department before he arrived, so I take this whole episode kind of personally. And the fact is, this sort of thing (minus the arrest and media drama) has happened to me more times than I have room here to tell you. One example: Years ago, I stored my (very nice) motorcycle in a garage I rented in a prosperous nearly all-white neighborhood in Baltimore. One afternoon I unlocked the garage door as usual, started up my bike, and was preparing to take a ride when, to my surprise, a policeman showed up in the doorway. He happened to be a black cop. He explained that a nearby resident (as I recall, he said it was a woman) had called in to report a possible break-in and theft of a motorcycle -- that being a reference to me and my motorcycle. I let him know I was angry. I showed him my license and registration for the bike. He apologized, gave me a brother-to-brother look of understanding, and then went on his way to, no doubt, inform a scared white woman that the black man she had seen was the legal renter of the garage and the legal owner of the fancy motorcycle.

If you wonder why some of we successful black men are angry at the scrutiny we come under, now you know one of the reasons.

"Racism is Dead."

Rebuttal # 11,471:
The Valley Swim Club in Huntingdon Valley, Pennsylvania, canceled its contract with the Creative Steps day care center without explanation after the first day on which the center's black and Hispanic children showed up to swim. The children reported overhearing white club members asking what these black kids were doing there, and expressing fear that the center kids "might do something" to their white children. Valley Club President John Duesler told reporters that the day care center's children had changed "the complexion" and "atmosphere" of the club. He later expressed regret at what he called his poor choice of words, and he declared that overcrowding, not race, was the sole issue, using as support the club's cancellation of contracts with other centers. Question: if you were in Vegas, what odds would you lay that 1.) the black and Hispanic children lied about what they overheard; 2.) "complexion" and "atmosphere" were purely coincidental word choices on Duesler's part that reflected no racial element whatsoever at the club; and 3.) a club founded in 1954, at precisely the time when such private white swimming establishments sprang up nationwide in response to pressure to desegregate public pools, does not have a thread of racial bigotry in its membership culture.

Rebuttal # 11,472:
A sampling of the comments posted on the Free Republic blog, a national hub for right-wing chatter, after 11-year-old Malia Obama appeared in a photograph wearing a peace-symbol T-shirt, according to the Vancouver Sun:

"A typical street whore."
"A bunch of ghetto thugs."
"Ghetto street trash."
"Wonder when she will get her first abortion."
"Could you imagine what world leaders must be thinking seeing this kind of street trash and that we paid for this kind of street ghetto trash to go over there?"
"They make me sick .... The whole family... mammy, pappy, the free loadin' mammy-in-law, the misguided chillin', and especially 'lil cuz... This is not the America I want representin' my peeps."
"DIRTBAGS! All of them. Our [White House] is now a joke to the rest of the world. We have no respect and this is not going to turn out well, mark my words. We will be hit, and much worse than last time. We are now seen as weak and vulnerable. Ghetto and Chicago thugs have taken over."
"This disgusting display makes me more and more eager for the revolution."
"I never actually wnated [sic] to be a pistol before but..."

On the site, a photo of Michelle Obama talking to Malia was accompanied by the caption, "To entertain her daughter, Michelle Obama loves to make monkey sounds."

According to the Sun, the blog left the comments intact for nearly 24 hours, removing them only after a writer doing research on conservative politics made a complaint.

These online graffiti-scribblers are folks who almost certainly supported that paragon of classy personal behavior and cultivated knowledge, George W. Bush, and his elegant and well-behaved daughters.

Behold the power of racism: one of the most effective agents for debilitating the gray matter of millions of white Americans.

Thanks to David for the tip.

Read This.

If you want to know why private for-profit health insurance is a fatally corrupted enterprise in this country, read what former Cigna spokesman Wendell Potter recently told the Senate Commerce Committee about how his industry cheated customers and made a virtual science of ducking valid payouts to policyholders -- and how he lied to put a good public face on the business until he couldn't live with himself any more.

No need to argue til you're blue in the face about the need for transparent publicly-funded health care. Potter makes the entire case. Read it. Then share it.

Rallying for Health Care.

There's nothing like exercising your rights to peacefully assemble and to seek redress of grievances.

Last Thursday, about 30 to 40 of us gathered in downtown Baltimore in one of more than 100 rallies called nationally by MoveOn.org to demand a public option for health care. We spend most of the event huddled in conversation/polite argument/inquiry with Maryland Senator Ben Cardin's statewide director, Bailey Fine, who, smartly, met with us to present us with Cardin's position and to handle our questions and challenges, of which there were plenty. A handout from Cardin's office tepidly expressed his support for a public health care option, leading to a stream of questions from we demonstrators to Fine about whether the senator was willing to actually fight for a public plan or not. (To me, the answer is still unclear; a letter that Fine said Cardin would send to me "clarifying" his position has not yet arrived.)

Afterward, in the absence of any organized leadership to actually rally at this ostensible rally, about 10 of us took ourselves to the curb and held up signs promoting public health care. We got a few good honks and thumbs-up from passing drivers, a lot of bored looks, and a few outright hostile scowls and smirks, which, interestingly, appeared to me to come from drivers of large cars and SUVs. You can draw your own conclusion about my impression.

Another interesting thing about the rally was the absence of any actual MoveOn members. Those of us who showed up responded to MoveOn emails but are not formally part of the organization. The person billed by MoveOn as the "host" and organizer of the rally told me, angrily, that MoveOn broke its promise to have MoveOn organizers present, misled her about what would happen at the rally, and hung her out to dry with no guidance or support in an activity with which she had no previous experience. She has now sworn off MoveOn.org and says she'll have nothing more to do with them. Not exactly the desired outcome for a self-defined grassroots organization. My email to MoveOn about this is, to date, unanswered.

The good news is that we rallied, that MoveOn's health care rallies nationwide attracted attention and some media coverage, and that some of we Baltimore health care rally-ers are now in touch with one another via email.

Thanks to Dave Nolley, who took the above photos at the Baltimore rally.

Email the SCLC.

(I also sent out this post as an email to many readers.)

I never thought the day would come when I would ask you to email in protest against the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the organization that, led by Rev. Martin Luther King, stood and fought for so many years, in the face of outright brutality, for civil rights and equal opportunity.

But now the SCLC, in a cowardly betrayal of its legacy, is seeking to fire the head of its Los Angeles chapter, Rev. Eric P. Lee, for his support of same-sex marriage. The SCLC is pandering to a deep thread of homophobia in many black communities, where stigmatizing gays plays roughly the same role that stigmatizing blacks played among insecure whites in the days of Jim Crow.

What a horrific irony that the SCLC would now choose, in 2009, a path of moral cowardice and bigotry equivalent to the banning of interracial marriage in the 1950s.

If you oppose the SCLC's bigoted perversion of its own alleged mission of civil rights, please email SCLC President Byron Clay at president@sclcnational.org or from the SCLC website at http://www.sclcnational.org . I have done so (my email is below). Please send your own. The SCLC needs to hear that we Americans who truly support civil rights will not stand for this.

__________________________________

    From:       racemanners@earthlink.net
    Subject:     Betrayal
    Date:     July 11, 2009 11:45:38 AM EDT
    To:       president@sclcnational.org

Dear President Clay,

As an African American whose parents fought for my right to live where I like and marry who I like, I am appalled to learn of the SCLC's betrayal of the civll rights of our gay brothers and sisters, in part through your attempt to remove the president of the Los Angeles chapter for his support of gay marriage.

My disgust at your pandering to bigotry -- in the name of Christianity, no less -- is almost beyond description. If anyone should understand the evil of scapegoating others in response to one's own suffering, it should be you. Our predecessors fought and died for human rights and for equal opportunity. And now here you are, acting like the equivalent of a Jim Crow racist mob.

As long as you persist in this backward and hypocritical position, I will never consider supporting the SCLC in any way, and I will tell every progressive person I know -- and I know a lot of progressives -- to withhold their support or approval of any SCLC efforts.

You bring shame to the SCLC, shame to your alleged mission of "beloved community," and shame to the civil rights movement you purport to lead.

Your moral failure is repulsive.

Sincerely,

Bruce A. Jacobs
Baltimore, MD

Quitters, Crybabies, and Ninnies.

So the governor of Alaska (I won't say her name because the fewer Google hits she gets, the better) has suddenly quit midway through the first term of the only substantial political position she has ever held -- in order to show us that she is not a quitter.

Partisan manufacturers of excuses are hard at work with quickly-concocted explanations: she is freeing herself for a barnstorming tour to impress and inspire Americans (yeah, bailing on your elected duty and ditching your already-sparse on-the-job training in governance is a great way to wow Americans with your leadership skills); she is a "maverick" who does the unexpected (well, the guy on the street who shrieks at manhole covers does the unexpected, too, but I'm not voting for him in 2012); and, my favorite: the meanies in the liberal media, with their hostile coverage and unkind political cartoons, have tormented the poor governor into jumping ship and striking out on her own (this accusation comes from a right wing that has made a booming industry of nonstop lies, personal abuse, and character assassination of its countless targets in the mainstream and on the left).

At this point, it is pretty much a law of American political zoology that the saber-toothed right wing can dish it out but can't take it.

This trait is not unique. It is a distinguishing feature of insecure bullies of all kinds, including those who abuse their spouses or kick their kids around.

And so now we have a mob of paleo-right hit men and women crying crocodile tears for the poor soon-to-be ex-governor of Alaska, who -- the outrage! -- isn't even allowed to make a hypocritical mockery of herself and her "family values" family without being skeptically scrutinized by the national media. Why, it's a wonder the tortured governor hasn't yet felt driven to fill her waders with water and end it all with an agonized plunge off of her fishing boat.

The governor is, of course, a joke as a political figure, albeit one that is not funny, and her base is the most weak-minded and ignorant segment of the American electorate. The extent to which her current cut-and-run fake-populist act gains any traction is a measure of just how brain-impaired a cadre of voters can become when security as they know it begins to dissolve.

So, all of you professional mockers in the conservative media circus, start getting used to public and journalistic ridicule of your latest big-top attraction. Stop being such sensitive ninnies and suck it up already. You've earned the mockery, and so has she.

The Declaration of Independence [ANNOTATED].

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people [THE ARISTOCRATS AMONG EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS WHO WISHED TO RULE THEIR OWN REPUBLIC IN THE NEW WORLD RATHER THAN SERVE THE BRITISH MONARCHY] to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God [NOTE THE NONDENOMINATIONAL MENTION OF GOD AND THE EXPRESSED PRIMACY OF NATURE AS AN AUTHORITY] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men [i.e., WHITE MEN, AS OPPOSED TO WOMEN AND NONWHITES] are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness [WOULD TODAY'S DEMOCRATIC AND REPUBLICAN PARTIES SIGN OFF ON THIS CLAUSE?]. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed [SOUNDS CYNICAL, BUT IT WAS TRUE THEN AND IS TRUE NOW, NO?]. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism [SUBSTITUTE THE CORPORATE SECTOR FOR THE KING, AND IT IS INTERESTING HOW WELL THE TERM "DESPOTISM" FITS AS A DESCRIPTION FOR DICTATING THE UNDERLYING RULES OF MODERN LIFE AND GOVERNMENT], it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government [A NICE EUPHEMISM FOR REVOLUTION]. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good [THINK UNIVERSAL GOVERNMENT-SUPPORTED HEALTH CARE, LONG PREFERRED IN VOTER OPINION POLLS].

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them [THINK THE UNFUNDED MANDATE STRAITJACKET OF NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND INTO WHICH CASH-DRAINED STATES HAVE BEEN FORCED, AND THE FEDERAL NULLIFYING OF GUN CONTROL LEGISLATION VOTED INTO PLACE BY RESIDENTS OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA FOR THEIR OWN VIOLENCE-RAVAGED JURISDICTION].

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. [THINK ELECTORAL REPRESENTATION FOR THE MOSTLY-BLACK, HEAVILY-POOR DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA].

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures [FROM A PUBLIC POINT OF VIEW, THINK CLOSED-DOOR WHITE HOUSE MEETINGS WITH INDUSTRY TO DRAFT POLICY THAT CITIZENS WILL TIREDLY RESIGN THEMSELVES TO ACCEPTING].

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. [THINK AGGRESSIVE CORPORATE LOBBYING, IMPLICIT BLACKMAIL VIA THE DANGLING OF CORPORATE CAMPAIGN DONATIONS, AND EXPLICIT LOBBYIST AUTHORING OF THE ACTUAL TEXT OF LEGISLATIVE BILLS, ALL OF WHICH EFFECTIVELY DISSOLVE THE MEANING OF REPRESENTATION].

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected [THINK THE 2000 ELECTION], whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise [THINK THE ANGER IN 2000 AND 2004, AND THE CYNICISM OF AN ELECTORATE THAT HAS LONG VOTED AT A 50% RATE, HAVING ACCEPTED THE BITTER REALITY OF LARGELY NON-REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT]; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within [THINK THE SQUANDERING OF AMERICAN MILITARY RESOURCES IN FOOLISH WAR, AND THE NEGLECT OF OUR UNDER-REGULATED ECONOMY UNTIL IT CRUMBLED].

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands [THINK ANTI-IMMIGRATION POLITICS AND FEAR OF THE NEW NONWHITE MAJORITY].

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers [THINK RESISTANCE TO COURT AUTHORITY OVER MATTERS OF TORTURE].

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. [THINK CHANNELING FEDERAL JUDICIAL APPOINTMENTS TO JUDGES WHO DRINK THE IDEOLOGICAL KOOL-AID].

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. [THINK THE COERCIVE POLITICAL THEATER OF "HOMELAND SECURITY" AND THE SECRET PERMISSION TO SPY ON AMERICANS, TO INTIMIDATE COMPANIES TO INVADE THE PRIVACY OF CUSTOMERS' PERSONAL DATA, AND TO DETAIN AND "EXTRAORDINARILY RENDER" PERSONS TO OTHER NATIONS TO BE TORTURED].

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures [THINK SECRET DOMESTIC DETENTIONS AND SECRET PRISONS ABROAD].

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power. [THINK SECRET PRISONS AND ATTEMPTED MILITARY AND SECURITY TRUMPING OF CIVIL LIBERTIES].

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation [THINK PRESUMED EXECUTIVE RIGHT TO VIOLATE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS]:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us [THINK THE "WAR ON DRUGS," THE GENERAL MILITARIZATION OF URBAN POLICE ACTIONS AND ATTITUDES, AND THE UBIQUITOUS DOMESTIC PRESENCE OF ARMED SOLDIERS BOUND FOR ILL-CONCEIVED WAR OR SERVING A DUBIOUS OPERATION OF "HOMELAND SECURITY"]:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States [THINK AMERICAN REJECTION OF THE INTERNATIONAL AUTHORITY OF THE WORLD COURT OVER ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY AMERICAN SOLDIERS. THINK AMERICAN VOIDING OF HABEUS CORPUS FOR THOSE DEFINED WITHOUT EXPLANATION AS ENEMIES OF THE STATE]:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world [THINK CUBA AND OTHER POTENTIAL TRADE PARTNERS CUT OFF FOR POLITICAL REASONS THAT ARE OFTEN HYPOCRITICAL, e.g., CLAIMS OF HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN CUBA WHILE THE UNITED STATES CONTINUALLY DOES BUSINESS WITH PROVEN HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATORS SUCH AS CHINA, COLOMBIA, ISRAEL AND OTHERS]:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent [THINK WHAT YOU PERSONALLY PAID THIS YEAR FOR THE IRAQ WAR]:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury [THINK DRASTICALLY UNDERFUNDED PUBLIC DEFENDERS' OFFICES, AND DEATH PENALTY TRIALS WITHOUT COMPETENT DEFENSE COUNSEL]:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences [THINK INTERNATIONAL KIDNAPPINGS, SECRET PRISONS ABROAD, AND EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION]:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies [THINK THE SPREADING STATE-BY-STATE HEGEMONY OF CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS]

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments [THINK SIGNING STATEMENTS, PROTECTING EXECUTIVE BRANCH SECRECY, AND IGNORING SUBPOENAS]:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever [THINK EXPANSION OF THE POWERS OF THE EXECUTIVE BRANCH].

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us [THINK HEALTH CARE AND THE POWER OF PROFIT-DRIVEN PRIVATE INSURERS TO DICTATE LIFE AND DEATH] .

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people [THINK ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND THE LACK THEREOF].

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation [THINK BLACKWATER, AND HALLIBURTON'S NO-BID IRAQ CONTRACT].

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands [THINK RECKLESSLY DESPERATE "INFORMERS" AND COERCED "CONFESSIONS" IN THE "WAR ON TERROR."].

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions. [THINK WHITE MAINSTREAM HYSTERICALLY RACIST FEARS AND COMMON PROFILING AND ATTEMPTED CONTAINMENT OF POOR PEOPLES OF COLOR].

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. [THINK POPULAR FRUSTRATION REFLECTED IN DECLINING VOTING RATES OVER THE DECADES]. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. [FOR BLACK AMERICANS, THINK THE RIOTS OF THE 1960s]. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. [THINK REPARATIONS FOR THE SLAUGHTER, OUTRIGHT THEFT OF LAND, AND BETRAYAL OF TREATIES REGARDING NATIVE AMERICANS; AND FOR THE CARNAGE AND MASSIVE WEALTH GENERATED BY BLACK SLAVERY]. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. [THINK THE CIVIL AND HUMAN RIGHTS MOVEMENTS OF NATIVE AMERICANS, BLACKS, WOMEN, AND GAYS]. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. [THINK WHAT IT MIGHT REQUIRE TO GAIN A GOVERNMENT RESPONSIVE TO THE EXPRESSED NEEDS AND INTERESTS OF THE PUBLIC IN THE UNITED STATES IN 2009 AND BEYOND].