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August 21, 2007
I'll Pass this One On to You
I received today an intriguing email regarding a new political party - the American Social Justice Party - and because I agree with its author about the very serious situation in which we find ourselves as a nation, I have decided to post his letter here in its entirety so you can read it and act as you will.
Dear Members of the Progressive Blogging Community,I am writing to invite you to be involved at the inception of a new political movement in America.
This is no joke.
The developments of the past six years have led me to finally conclude that the United States of America as we have long known it is dangerously close to existing no more.The Bush administration, while bearing much of the blame, does not bear it all. Both the Republicans and the Democrats have sold out the American people in order to line their own campaign pockets and to insure business as usual. While this has been the case for a number of years, it has become much worse in the past six. Only with George W. Bush has such a blatant contempt for the United States Constitution been demonstrated, and the entire Congress has been complicit in the deprivation of our rights as citizens. The most recent example, the Democratic folding on the issue of electronic surveillance, has made it quite clear to me that the Democrats are far too concerned with their own political stakes to worry about the stakes of the average citizen.
Anyone reading this, even an American citizen, can have their conversations listened to by intelligence agents... no lawfully-issued warrant necessary. The contents of those conversations can then be used to fabricate charges and you can be taken off the street tomorrow, declared an enemy combatant of the United States. Because of this status, even U.S. citizens would be unable to assert their right of Habeus Corpus, and the ability to get into a courtroom to prove one's citizenship is meaningless. You can then be held in whatever conditions the government cares to provide, for whatever period of time it deems necessary. You can be tortured and, given the track record of our civilian and military torturers, even killed. No one will know.
And Congress has approved all of this.
Enough is enough. I had sincerely hoped Al Gore would run for the presidency because I felt that he would be the one person who could restore sanity to our government. But I have heard his words clearly; even the best candidates for 2008 are caught up in a fundamentally flawed process.He is quite right. No one person can make the difference. The two parties have banded together to insure their own survival. And to hell with the American citizens that placed them in power.
To re-use the now famous quote, the government should be afraid of its people; the people should not fear their government.
The only solution, as I and a few others see it, is to restore the average person's voice in governing. The dominance of the two party system must be broken, and I have come to realize that I wait in vain if I am waiting for someone else to take on this task.
Yes, there are other parties. But none of these parties has ever been able to truly influence American politics. Even the Reform Party has vanished into the woodwork. The Green Party is establishing some success, but has been labeled by many as the extreme wing of the liberal base. Someone needs to appeal to the people in the progressive mainstream. Moreover, someone needs to be dedicated, not to attaining their own power, but to providing a forum by which American citizens can again have their voices and wishes considered in the governing of our nation.
Thus, I invite you to visit the website of the newly formed American Social Justice Party. Our goal is not to develop our own power, but to collectively bring to bear the voices of the American people on a government that until now has avoided the will of its people. We are a group dedicated to restoring the people's voice in government, to restoring the emphasis of government on the individual rather than the corporation, and to demanding the accountability of our elected and appointed officials.
If you like any of what you read on our website, I invite you to join us in our conversations. I also invite you to share this information and our site with the blogging community if you are so inclined.
www.americansocialjusticeparty.org
Thank you for your consideration.
Very truly,
Richard T. (Rick) Olshak
Chair
American Social Justice Party
Posted by Becky at August 21, 2007 01:38 PM