Identity Crisis

Two Nations At War

There are two nations at war in America. One has its founding holiday on July 4th, in memory of the declaration, in Congress assembled of 13 United States. It is a nation that is often at odds with itself, contentious, pressing interest against interest, faction against faction - as it was meant to do, in order to preserve the freedoms of all from the tyranny of a passing majority.

The other nation is not America, and it has as its founding national holiday September 11th. For it is on that day that it was able to turn a bare majority in the House of Representatives, a questionable election for the Presidency, and a tie in the Senate, into an overwhelming mandate to remake the country. That effort centered around invading Iraq, and then demanding personal fealty to the military from all US citizens.

That attempt has failed, which is why this second nation now urges war against the constitution. As the core of support for the ill considered, and indeed illegal and unconstitutional policies pursued has grown weaker, the movement for this other nation has grown more naked in its hatred of the Bill of Rights...

We have reached a near complete reversal of the 1960's. In the 1960's the left was the source of the most extreme groups. To some extent there were social causes, including discrimination against African Americans, and a war which claimed as many dead in a month as Iraq has in 3 years. However, as importantly, the members of the extreme parts of the left, and here I speak of organizations such as the Red Brigade in Europe, did not recognize the value of civil society. This was echoed in rhetoric by others, and was used as a broad brush to paint all of the left.

For the last 20 years, the pendulum has swung in the other direction. It has not been the left which has advocated violence, but the right. There have been bombings against clinics, there have been militia movements, there was the Oklahoma city bombing, which is still the worst act of domestic terrorism in the United States since the Civil War.

The right has increasingly placed an eliminationist and liquidationist rhetoric at the center of its political stance.

To understand how far we have come, let me recount a story from 1992. I was working at the American Legion in San Francisco, at 2 am in the morning, a member called up and said "David Duke is a pig fucker. I want you to know that." Well, now someone who is as extreme as David Duke heads that organization, and has joined the select company of those who engage in ovine fornication...

Exactly how does the NeoKKKon nation declare war on the Constitution?

Stirling talks about that here:

Any means necessary

The delegates vowed to use whatever means necessary to "ensure the united backing of the American people to support our troops and the global war on terrorism."

If anyone has any doubt that events are spiralling out of control, this should squash them. The American Legion has declared war on American Freedoms, it is shameful, dangerous and hateful. Deciding policy is the right and duty of all Americans, and they will take it away from me when the pry it from my cold dead fingers. This is militarism - the danger that flows from standing armies, oft warned by the founders against them, we have seen necessity force on upon us. But it can never be allowed to threat violence against civilians, nor can it be allowed to become a political faction.

In the United States, the military exists to serve the public, and not the other way around. If members of the military cannot uphold their oath to protect and defend the constitution, then they should resign immediately. If the troops can't fight knowing the truth about an illegal war, then we should withdraw them.

That's what's necessary. Let's see if they have the balls to do it.

Personally I doubt it, I also doubt that any official has the courage to do what is right, and arrest Cadmus for agitating for violent suppression of others civil rights. We are coming dangerously close to civil violence, simply because no one has the courage to stop the far right purveyors of it.

The American Legion members now have the ball in their court, if the can't repudiate the extremist and unAmerican statements of Cadmus, they will have dishonoured a proud organization, and they will have show that they have forgotten what it is they fought for.

An American always has the right to dissent. If we cease to have that right, we cease to be Americans.

We will always have that right as human beings, but we may not always have a nation that grants those rights inalienable.