6 minutes:
Make no doubt about it – today’s protest is big. It is big in terms of participants. It is also very big in determining the future of this country. Will our direction return to the path of democracy or will we continue on the path toward authoritarianism?
Many people wonder what they would have done had they been in some of the pivotal moments in history. Would they have stood up for their beliefs or would they have shrunk into the shadows and watched from the sidelines. Or would they have opposed the ideals of democracy and self determination.
While today is not a life and death situation, it is a pivotal moment. If enough people stand up We can show those who are abusing the power of the state that Americans will not stand for their unconstitutional crap. Do you think you would have stood up in the past? Well, today is the day to show it.
Someone counted over 50 event in Iowa. IN IOWA FOR GOSH SAKES! And there may be more. I know that West Branch and Tipton are not on the map, but are having events. You can give those towns a helping hand according to Suzan Erem in her substack letter “Post Cards From the Heartland” this week.
Just to give you a little push out the door, here is a voice from the past – The opening paragraphs of the Declaration of Independence. That writing was from a time when the government was out of control and Americans desired to be in charge of their own fate. We are now in a time when an authoritarian and his ilk once again desire to take away the freedom that was won back then:
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 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 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 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. 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. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, 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. 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.
Protest în peace. Wear some yellow if you can to show solidarity.
We need to stop this in America!
Tip of the hat to democraticunderground.com
Thom Hartmann
