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August 2005
08-10-05 Something You Can Do To Support Cindy Sheehan
So many of us support Cindy Sheehan but we either don't know what to do, or we Want to Go down to Texas but we can't afford to do it because we may not have the money or we can't afford the time off. Well here's an idea.
Go Out And Get Anything That Writes Find A T Shirt Any Shirt
A Piece of Cardboard, Your Car, The Side Of Your House, Anything!!!
Now Write On It
I'M
STANDING WITH
CINDY SHEEHAN
Let's all stand together across the country across the world. Send this idea to as many people that you can to show Cindy that we may not be physically standing by her side in Texas, but we are standing beside her in sprit, and she has our full support.
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Do You Want Answers As To What Is Happening In Our Country's Government Today? I was Listening to Tom Hartmann On Feb 8 and heard a very interesting talk with the founder of http://www.Theocracywatch.org/ Go to there and download the two videos and you will suddenly realize what is happening with the Bush Administration. This is the link to the video page http://www.theocracywatch.org/audio-video.htm . Please send this page and links to everyone you know, time is of the essence to get the word out.
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My truth By Giuliana Sgrena. The story from the Italian News Reporter Herself as published in the il manifesto Click Here or Click here if this link does not work
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Contact List For Democratic Senators
John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Barbara Boxer, Charles Schumer, Daniel Akaka, Max Baucus, Evan Bayth, Joseph Biden, Jeff Bingaman, Robert Byrd, Maria Cantwell, Thomas Carper, Kent Conrad, Jon Corzine, Christopher Dodd, Mark Dayton, Byron Dorgan, Richard Durbin, Russell Feingold, Dianne Feinstein, Tom Harkin, Daniel Inouye, James Jeffords, Tim Johnson, Edward Kennedy, Herb Kohl, Mary Landrieu, Frank Lautenberg, Patrick Leahy, Carl Levin, Joseph Lieberman, Blanche Lincoln, Barbara Mikulski, Patty Murray, Bill Neilson, Ben Neilson, Mark Pryor, Jack Reed, Harry Reid, John Rockefeller, Ken Salazar, Paul Sarbanes, Debbie Stabenow, Ron Widen, And All US Senators.
Find Your US Senator To Speak Out Click Here
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Three Charities To Donate To In Times Of Need
Past Posts of General Information
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08-29-05
At first I did not want to say anything about Pat Robertson because what he said
was so outrageous. But now it gets even worse. Pat Robertson first says 1
We
should kill Hugo Chavez
then he says he didn’t, say it. You decide.
Click
here to listen to the audio
Then
he comes out the next day and says, “I didn’t say assignation I said
quote our special forces should take him out” Take him out, if you
didn’t mean kill him than I guess you meant you want someone to take him out
to diner and a movie?
Now
when that didn’t fly, he says he "spoke in frustration".
Why
is it that when Robertson, a self proclaimed minister of God. I say self because
we cannot ask God if he approves of Pat Robertson, although Robertson tells us
he hears God talking to him, like when God told him the stock market was going
to go up. Funny there's that reference to money again, and oddly enough the
messenger was God? Nonetheless Robertson just
strings a pack of lies together one after the other. He starts out calling Hugo
Chavez a dictator, which he is not. He was elected in a democratic process, and
when a coup, which the US said and did nothing when it started, failed, Hugo
Chavez by popular support regained power. Hugo Chavez did not destroy the
economy it was done by his predecessor concretive economic policies, (much the
way Bush and the republican policies are now doing to America). Then Robertson
advocates killing another person, because it is cheaper than another war, and he
meant cheaper in dollars because he expressly said another 200 billion dollar
war. No mention in the cost of human lives. But he does talk about their Oil as
if it belonged to him. No mention at all about the innocent civilians that will
be killed, nothing about the dead soldiers fighting the war, no just that it
would be cheaper then in dollars…money, you know the stuff that Jesus said
render to “Caser what is Caser…” This really pisses me off, this man is
truly the false prophet (see my previous Editorial The False Prophets Among Us) Jesus
warned us about, in the book that Robertson loudly proclaims he is teaching.
Which by the way it has made him a billionaire. As I recall Jesus gave
everything he had to the poor, and everyone he met. Robertson says he is trying
to spread the word of Jesus is the biggest hypocrite of them all. He advocates
killing, he then lies about it, and made and kept billions of dollars, rather
the giving it all back to his parishioners
Now today The Venezuelan Government has now called for the extradition of Pat Robertson to stand trial in Venezuelan For calling for the assignation of their President Hugo Chavez.
1
ROBERTSON:
There was a popular coup that overthrew him [Chavez]. And what did the
United States State Department do about it? Virtually nothing. And as a result,
within about 48 hours that coup was broken; Chavez was back in power, but we had
a chance to move in. He has destroyed the Venezuelan economy, and he's going to
make that a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism all
over the continent.
You
know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're
trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.
It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil
shipments will stop. But this man is a terrific danger and the United ... This
is in our sphere of influence, so we can't let this happen. We have the Monroe
Doctrine, we have other doctrines that we have announced. And without question,
this is a dangerous enemy to our south, controlling a huge pool of oil, that
could hurt us very badly. We have the ability to take him out, and I think
the time has come that we exercise that ability. We don't need another $200
billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It's a whole lot
easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over
with. Source: http://mediamatters.org/items/200508220006
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8-14-05 I have decided to take it to the next level.
I have not only made up signs for my car, I have made up t-shirts with a marker, I have called Talk shows with the idea, I have decided to create a forum where everyone that wants to do the same and have a place to post their pictures so all including Cindy can see them.
I have created a new web "I'm Standing With Cindy Sheehan" in support of Cindy Sheehan and it is at http://www.imstandingwithcindysheehan.com We are posting pictures of people holding sign or pictures of sign saying "I'm standing with Cindy Sheehan". Please visit this site and email it to anyone who you think would like to be part of this effort to tell Cindy that you are standing with her. Time is of the essence
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Click Here to down load a ready made Sign or Right click and choose save as to save file to use again or send to a friend.
When printing it out set your printer to the "Landscape" option
you can also choose to use t shirt transfer paper to make an Iron On by setting your printer to "Landscape" and choosing the paper option as Iron On or transfer.
Click Here For Just A jpg Image To Resize And Use As You Like Or Right Click and Choose "Save Image" or "Save Picture as" to save Image.
For Those Of You That Want A Ready Made Product Click Here To Help Support This Site and www.imstandingwithcindysheehan.com
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08-09-05
Cindy
Sheehan is bravely demanding Bush explain why her son died fighting in Iraq.
"Mr. President...don't spill our country's precious lifeblood."
Cindy and
Amy Branham in front of the VFP
Impeachment tour Bus
Story,
Photos and Supporter Comments
Donate to the
Crawford Peace house
Ways to
support Cindy and Gold Star Families for Peace:
*Donate to the Crawford Peace House, Military Families Speak Out or GSFP
*Join us in Crawford Texas
*Contact you representatives in Congress and demand they support the Resolution
of Inquiry into the Downing Street Memo
*Work for Peace everyday be patient.
If you have recently e-mailed us thank you for your support. We will try and
answer all e-mails as soon as possible.
Gold Star Families For Peace Web Site Of which Cindy Is a Founding Member. http://www.gsfp.org/
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08-09-05 Bush On Propaganda CLICK HERE
If Your Sound is turned off Please turn it on then click here to get the full effect.
08-03-05 From Thom Hartmann To Bill To Randi To Howard Dean.
Yesterday I Found out that Howard Dean was appearing on Air America with Randi Rhodes and she was having people write in or call her show and what ever questions came up most often
she would ask Howard Dean.
Well I was unable to write in so I called the show and asked the question based on the time when I called in to talk to Thom. At the end of my conversation, Thom said that he thought the DNC should Fund
National exit polls.
When I called the show to talk to Randi I asked by the screener what I wanted to say I said
that I was unable to log in to the Blog but I had a Question for Howard Dean, and I said "Has the DNC
considered funding nation wide exit polls"? I was put on hold then a few minutes later someone came back to me and wanted me to repeat the question.
Well later on during the interview Randi Rhodes Asked Howard Dean that very
question. Howard Deans response was "That's a good point" and
they haven't done that because they are incredible expensive, then Randi Rhodes
then said to Dean "start a fund and I will contribute $1,000.00 to
it". Click
here for the clip from the Interview.
Thank You, Thom Hartmann, and Randi Rhodes Message Delivered To Howard Dean.
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08-1-02 First Came This
Then
This 
To the press
Then The Second After Congressional Recess
Bush appoints
Bolton 
Now This To The Entire World
Then Bush Embarks On His 50th Vacation
in 5 Years With No Set Time To Return. Make that 5
Weeks.
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Editorials
By: William A. Peary,
Founder
and Editor Of Founding Freedoms.com
Published 08-09-05
The Bush Administration
has decided to change the name of the war on terror because people are tired of
the war in Iraq. The new name will be, The Global Struggle against Terrorism.
Now the only problem with that is that's the third time this administration has
blundered with name for this conflict that was unjust, uncalled for, and the
occupation of an unarmed country. The First name if you remember was called Operation
Iraqi Liberation. That did not last to long because as we now know
it really was about OIL. Next came the fact that they were to mount a Crusade
against the terrorist. Let's see now, what could possibly be wrong with using
the word Crusade, Oh that's right that was when the Catholic Church wanted to
lay claim to the Holy Land and embarked on a war that lasted 100 years. Well the
new when it is translated into Arabic is very interesting. You see in Arabic the
word for struggle is Jihad,
so now this Administration is now calling for a Jihad. Is this just poor
planning or a Freudian slip? Oh and one more thing in German it translates into
"kampf", sound familiar heard that before how about Mein
Kamph?
Moving on, the vote in
Ohio last week where the Iraqi vet was ahead all day by 4 points then suddenly
at 11:00 PM they found 4,000 votes. Now strangely enough they found enough votes
that were needed not only to cause him to loose but it was enough votes to stop
triggering a recount. well the mystery is solved, the glitch that cause the
mysterious missing 4,000 votes to disappear then appear just in the nick of time
was caused...now get this... it was caused by the humidity. Yes the HUMIDITY!
Some how I don't thing that this should cause us any concerns and we should
continue to use these voting machines, after all only about ALL of the country
is in a HUMID environment!!!
Today more then any other
time we keep hearing the cost of the war in BILLIONS of dollars, The Tax Cut for
the wealth in Billions of dollars, so much so that we are becoming numb to the
figure. Well a Advertising firm came up with a means to put it in perspective.
1,000,000,000,000
(Billion) seconds ago it was 1959.
1,000,000,000,000
(Billion) minutes ago Jesus was alive
1,000,000,000,000
(Billion) days ago Dinosaurs ruled the planet
$1,000,000,000,000.00
ago was 81/2 hours ago.
Last week Bob Novak used
some rather off color langue and walked off the set of CNN, and was suspended
for an indefinite amount of time. Now see what you think Click
Here. It really did not seem quite like something that would cause him to
loose it to me. What I think is that it now became time for Novak to "Fall
On His Sword For Rove & Bush". Bush and Rove tried to change the
subject away from them with nominating Roberts, Then they took Rove out of the
public eye , you know the old trick "out of sight out of mind", after
all it worked for Rummy and Delay. But somehow it was not working quite like
they planned because every time people turned on CNN there was Novak the other
half of the Rove scandal team. So what else could they do? Novak stages a reason
to not be in the public eye so now out of sight out of mind for Rove, Novak, and
Bush (on his 50th vacation for 5 weeks). So hopefully that should be enough time
to let it all fade away. Then to add to the mix Fitzgerald, you know
Fitzgerald is the special prosecutor looking into Rove involvement with the
outing of Valerie Plame, well his boss is going to be replaced with a former
classmate of Bush, and a Fellow member of "The Skull and Bones" Can
you smell it, I sure can and it stinks, the question is can Fitzgerald get the
goods on Bush and Rove before they bring the hammer down on him? Can you say
Nixon?
Bush finally got his
energy bill he has cried of for the last 4 years and guess what? Not one single
thing that will help you or me, unless someone reading this is the owner of a
oil company or a nuclear power plant, it contains 14.5 billion dollars to the
oil and gas industry. It does not raise the standard of the miles per gallon
cars get either. Speaking of cars get this while GM has offered their
"Employee discount" program and allowed everyone to buy cars at the
employee discount, GM
is selling minivans in China for $5,000. and they get 43 miles per gallon. I
guess China must qualify for a lot more then the employee discount to only pay
$5,000 for a minivan. Why is it GM can produce a car in China that gets 45
MPG?
In regards to the number
of trained Iraqi troops. First we were told that it would take one year to train
250,000 troops. Then by the end of the year we were told it would take a little
longer and there was less then 100,000 trained troops. During Bush's speech back
in June 05 he claimed that 160,000 troops were trained, and now we again find
that it is far less. Well consider this. On December 1 1941 we had a combined
troop strength of 1,684,403 By March 1942 we had 2,387,746. In 3 Months we
trained 703,343 troops. Now consider this, we are in Iraq longer then we took to
fight World War II, and by the end of that war we had 8,266,373
troops trained in the 1*combined
forces with a increase of 6,581,970. If we could train and field over 6 million
troops in 1941 to 1945 why can't we train even 100,000 troops in the same amount
of time? Oddly enough though we are now told the one reason is desertion,
could we be training and arming the insurgency, by way of desertions, because
that strength of the insurgency is growing and now estimated to be from 250,000
to 300,000 strong. Funny That's the number of troops we were told that would be
trained by now, except They were to be supporting America Troops...Not The
insurgency!
One last item. Bush now says that he will bring down the troop numbers starting next year (again), but he now is saying that he will be increasing the number or troops for elections in November and December. Keep this in mind that 138,000 troops are there now the question is how many will be there after he jacks up the number to later lower the number and do it just in time for the 2006 mid term elections.
1*During
WWII the military had combined forces or Army Air corp., Navy Air corps., etc
all of the branches had not yet divided into each separate branch.
By: William A.
Peary 08-09-05
Founder and Editor Of Founding Freedoms.com
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Letters
08-30-05 George W. Bush's Noble Cause - 'Political Capital'Cindy Sheehan continues to ask George W. Bush what the "Noble Cause" was for which her son died in Iraq, and why Bush's daughters haven't enlisted in this Cause.
While Bush talked to us about WMDs, an imminent "mushroom cloud," and tried to link Saddam and Iraq to 9/11 (when it was 14 Saudis who hit the World Trade Center), those all fell apart and were exposed (by no less than Paul Wolfowitz) as intentional lies. When Bush shifted his Noble Cause to invading Iraq to bring democracy to the Iraqi people, the Downing Street Memo told another story. And now, also, so does Bush's first biographer.
It's becoming increasingly clear that the way Bush lied us into invading Iraq, particularly the timing of it all (ginning it up just before the 2002 midterm elections), was done largely so Republicans could win take back the Senate in 2002 after losing it because of Jim Jeffords' defection, and so Bush could win the White House in the election of 2004.
It's apparently just that simple, just that banal, and ultimately just that traitorous to the traditional ideals of America.
This is why the greatest political threat that Cindy Sheehan represents to George W. Bush and his Republican Party is in her ability to point this out.
So far, Cindy has only done this once, but it had a powerful impact on those who heard her. Speaking before Congressman John Conyers' investigative commission on the war in Iraq, Sheehan said:
"My son, Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan, was killed in action in Sader City, Baghdad, on 04/04/04. He was in Iraq for only 2 weeks before L. Paul Bremer inflamed the Shiite militia into rebellion, which resulted in the deaths of Casey and six other brave soldiers who were tragically killed in an ambush. My friend Bill Mitchell, the father of Sergeant Mike Mitchell who was one of the other soldiers killed that awful day, is here with us today."This is a picture of my son Casey when he was 7 months old. It's an enlargement of a picture he carried in his wallet until the day he was killed. He loved this picture of himself. It was returned to us with his personal effects from Iraq. He always sucked on those two fingers. When he was born he had a flat face from passing through the birth canal and we called him Edward G., short for Edward G. Robinson.
"How many of you have ever seen your child in his or her premature coffin? It is a shocking and very painful sight. The most heart-breaking aspect of seeing Casey lying in his casket for me was that his face was flat again because he had no muscle tone. He looked like he did when he was a baby laying in his bassinet.
"The most tragic irony is that if the Downing Street Memo proves to be true, Casey and thousands of people should still be alive.
"I believe our leaders invaded Iraq in March 2003 -- I believe before our leaders Iraq in March 2003, and I am even more convinced now, that this aggression on Iraq was based on a lie of historic proportions and was blatantly unnecessary.
"The so-called Downing Street Memo dated 23 July 2002, only confirms what I already suspected, the leadership of his country rushed us into an illegal invasion of another sovereign country on prefabricated and cherry-picked intelligence. Iraq was no threat to the United States of America, and the devastating sanctions and bombing against the Iraq were working.
"As a matter of fact, in interviews in 1999 with respected journalist and long-time Bush family friend, Mickey Herskowitz, then Governor George Bush stated, 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as commander in chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade, if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency.'
"It looks like George Bush was ready to lead this country into an avoidable war even before he became President.
"From the expose of the Downing Street Memo and the conversations with George Bush from 1999, it seems like the invasion of Iraq and the deaths of so many innocent people were preordained.
"It appears that my boy Casey was given a death sentence even before he joined the Army in May 2000."
Mickey Herskowitz - a Texan and longtime friend of the Bush family - had been hired to write the first draft of Bush's autobiography, now in print under the title "A Charge To Keep." In citing Bush's determination to invade Iraq to gain "political capital" even before he was appointed to the Presidency in 2001, Sheehan was quoting an article by Russ Baker, who extensively interviewed Herskowitz. Baker noted:
Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. 'Suddenly, he's at 91 percent in the polls, and he'd barely crawled out of the bunker.'"
Oil, to the Bushies, would be a nice bonus. So was the possibility of greater security for Israel and other allies in the region, and a staging ground for possible future military action in Iran and Saudi Arabia. And let's not forget those profits for Halliburton and other big Republican contributors.
But the main reason Bush invaded Iraq, it turns out, was so Republicans could take back the US Senate in the election of 2002, and Bush could finally win an election in 2004.
As Bush himself said two days after the election, in a press conference on November 4, 2004:
"And it's one of the wonderful -- it's like earning capital. You asked, do I feel free. Let me put it to you this way: I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style. That's what happened in the -- after the 2000 election, I earned some capital. I've earned capital in this election -- and I'm going to spend it..."
In the mind of George W. Bush, accumulating political power -- political capital -- is a Noble Cause. Whether America's veterans and grieving families will agree is another matter entirely.
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection," "We The People," "The Edison Gene", and "What Would Jefferson Do?"
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08-15-05 Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy SheehanNationally, it was clearly a phenomenon when several truckers called into my radio show on Sirius Satellite to say that they were interrupting trips through central parts of the USA to head to Crawford, Texas. One even reported live as he experienced a (friendly) reception by the local sheriff, who helped him find a place to park his rig. Locally here in Oregon, it's not unusual to see cars with signs taped to their rear windows - printed in inch-high letters on an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper - that say variations on: "We're With Cindy!" or "Answer Her Questions!"
Ambassador Joe Wilson represented a political threat to Bush by credibly exposing part of Bush's lie and its methodology, and so Wilson had to be taken out by destroying his wife's career. Cindy Sheehan now represents a similar political threat, and for this job right-wing hate radio, Drudge, and extremist bloggers have zeroed in on her. Meanwhile, thousands of patriotic Americans, tired of being lied to by the Bush regime, are heading to Crawford, or visiting www.meetwithcindy.com or www.crawfordpeacehouse.org.
Often history tells us how the future may turn out: Bush Junior isn't the first president to have lied to us about foreign affairs and war, or to use lies to justify eviscerating the Constitution. For example, Lyndon Johnson lied about a non-existent attack on the US warship Maddox in the Vietnamese Gulf of Tonkin. William McKinley (the presidency after which Karl Rove has said he's modeling the Bush presidency) lied about an attack on the USS Maine to get us into the Spanish-American war in The Philippines and Cuba.
But most relevant to today's situation were John Adams' version of Bush's Saddam stories when Adams sent three emissaries to France and criminals soliciting bribes approached them late one evening. Adams referred to these three unidentified Frenchmen as "Mr. X, Mr. Y, and Mr. Z," and made them out to represent such an insult and a threat against America that it may presage war.
Adams' use of "The XYZ Affair" to gain political capital nearly led us to war with France and helped him carve a large (although temporary) hole in the Constitution. Similarly, much like Bush's corralling of protesters at gunpoint into so-called "Free Speech Zones," and saying he has the power to lock up Americans (like Jose Padilla) without charges and without access to a lawyer, John Adams jailed newspaper editors and average citizens alike who spoke out against him and his policies.
At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was Vice President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be said to have reincarnated as the Republican Party - thus the attempts by Republican historians to rehabilitate Adams' legacy and trash Jefferson), and Jefferson had just brought together two Anti-Federalist parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - into one party called The Democratic Republicans. (Today they're known as the Democratic Party, the longest-lasting political party in history. They dropped "Republican" from their name in the 1820-1830 era).
Adams and his Federalist cronies, using war hysteria with France as a wedge issue, were pushing the Alien & Sedition Acts through Congress, and even threw into prison Democratic Congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont for speaking out against the Federalists on the floor of the House of Representatives. Adams was leading the United States in the direction of a fascistic state with a spectacularly successful strategy of vilifying Jefferson and his Party as anti-American and pro-French. Adams rhetoric was described as "manly" by the Federalist newspapers, which admiringly published dozens of his threatening rants against France, suggesting that Jefferson's Democratic Republicans were less than patriots and perhaps even traitors because of their opposition to the unnecessary war with France that Adams was simultaneously trying to gin up and saying he was working to avoid.
On June 1, 1798 - two weeks before the Alien & Sedition Acts passed Congress by a single vote - Jefferson wrote a thoughtful letter to his old friend John Taylor.
"This is not new," Jefferson said. "It is the old practice of despots; to use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have once got an ascendancy and possessed themselves of all the resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense means for retaining their advantage.
"But," he added, "our present situation is not a natural one." Jefferson knew that Adams' Federalists did not represent the true heart and soul of America, and commented to Taylor about how Adams had been using divide-and-conquer politics, and fear-mongering about war with France (the "XYZ Affair") with some success.
"But still I repeat it," he wrote again to Taylor, "this is not the natural state."
Jefferson did everything he could to stop that generation's version of the PATRIOT Act, but Adams had the Federalists in control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and pushed through the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson left town the day they were signed in protest.
Jefferson later wrote in his diary, "Their usurpations and violations of the Constitution at that period, and their majority in both Houses of Congress, were so great, so decided, and so daring, that after combating their aggressions, inch by inch, without being able in the least to check their career, the [Democratic] Republican leaders thought it would be best for them to give up their useless efforts there, go home, get into their respective legislatures, embody whatever of resistance they could be formed into, and if ineffectual, to perish there as in the last ditch."
Democratic Republican Congressman Albert Gallatin submitted legislation that would repeal the Alien & Sedition Acts, and the Federalist majority in the House refused to even consider the motion, while informing Gallatin that he would be the next to be imprisoned if he kept speaking out against "the national security."
But a new force arose.
When Adams shut down the Democratic Republican newspapers, pamphleteers - like those who had helped stir up the American Revolution - went to work, papering towns from New Hampshire to Georgia with posters and leaflets decrying Adams' power grab and encouraging people to stand tall with Thomas Jefferson. One of the best was a short screed by George Nicholas of Kentucky, "Justifying the Kentucky Resolution against the Alien & Sedition Laws" and " Correcting Certain False Statements, Which Have Been Made in the Different States" by Adams' Federalists.
On February 13, 1799, then-Vice President Jefferson sent a copy of Nicholas' pamphlet to his old friend Archibald Stuart (a Virginia legislator, fighter in the War of Independence, and leader of Jefferson's Democratic Republicans).
"I avoid writing to my friends because the fidelity of the post office is very much doubted," he opened his letter to Stuart, concerned that Adams was having his mail inspected because of his anti-war activities. Jefferson pointed out that "France is sincerely anxious for reconciliation, willing to give us a liberal treaty," and that even with the Democratic newspapers shut down by Adams and the Federalist-controlled media being unwilling to speak of Adams' war lies, word was getting out to the people.
Jefferson noted, "All these things are working on the public mind. They are getting back to the point where they were when the X. Y. Z. story was passed off on them. A wonderful and rapid change is taking place in Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York. Congress is daily plied with petitions against the alien and sedition laws and standing armies."
Jefferson then turned to the need for the pamphleteers' materials to be widely distributed. "The materials now bearing on the public mind will infallibly restore it to its republican soundness in the course of the present summer," he wrote, "if the knowledge of facts can only be disseminated among the people. Under separate cover you will receive some pamphlets written by George Nicholas on the acts of the last session. These I would wish you to distribute...."
The pamphleteer - today he would have been called a blogger - was James Bradford, and he reprinted tens of thousands of copies of Nicholas' pamphlet and distributed it far and wide. Hand to hand, as Jefferson did with his by-courier letter to Stuart - was how what would be today's postings to progressive websites were distributed.
In the face of the pamphleteering and protests, the Federalists fought back with startling venom. Vicious personal attacks were launched in the Federalist press against Jefferson, Madison, and others, and President Adams and Vice President Jefferson were scarcely on speaking terms. Adams' goal was nothing short of the complete destruction of Jefferson's Democratic Party, and he had scared many of them into silence or submission.
"All [Democratic Republicans], therefore, retired," Jefferson wrote in his diary, "leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Representatives, and myself in the Senate, where I then presided as Vice-President. Remaining at our posts, and bidding defiance to the brow-beatings and insults by which they endeavored to drive us off also, we kept the mass of [Democratic] Republicans in phalanx together, until the legislature could be brought up to the charge; and nothing on earth is more certain, than that if myself particularly, placed by my office of Vice-President at the head of the [Democratic] Republicans, had given way and withdrawn from my post, the [Democratic] Republicans throughout the Union would have given up in despair; and the cause would have been lost forever."
But Jefferson and Gallatin held their posts, and fought back fiercely against Adams, thus saving - quite literally - American democracy. Jefferson and Madison also secretly helped legislators in Virginia and Kentucky submit resolutions in those states' legislatures decrying the Alien & Sedition Acts. The bill in Virginia, in particular, gained traction.
As Jefferson noted in his diary, "By holding on, we obtained time for the legislatures to come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and Kentucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their celebrated resolutions, saved the Constitution at its last gasp. No person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy period, can form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we had to brook. They saved our country however. The spirits of the people were so much subdued and reduced to despair by the X Y Z imposture, and other stratagems and machinations, that they would have sunk into apathy and monarchy, as the only form of government which could maintain itself."
The efforts of average people like that century's Cindy Sheehans, and fearless politicians like today's Howard Dean, John Conyers, and Bernie Sanders, made great gains. As Jefferson noted in a February 14, 1799 letter to Virginia's Edmund Pendleton, "The violations of the Constitution, propensities to war, to expense, and to a particular foreign connection, which we have lately seen, are becoming evident to the people, and are dispelling that mist which X. Y. Z. had spread before their eyes. This State is coming forward with a boldness not yet seen. Even the German counties of York and Lancaster, hitherto the most devoted [to Adams], have come about, and by petitions with four thousand signers remonstrate against the alien and sedition laws, standing armies, and discretionary powers in the President."
Americans were so angry with Adams, Jefferson noted, that the challenge was to prevent people from taking up arms against Adams' Federalists.
"New York and Jersey are also getting into great agitation. In this State [of Pennsylvania], we fear that the ill-designing may produce insurrection. Nothing could be so fatal. Anything like force would check the progress of the public opinion and rally them round the government. This is not the kind of opposition the American people will permit."
Like Cindy Sheehan, Jefferson knew that peaceful protests had greater power than violence or threats.
"But keep away all show of force," he wrote to Pendleton, "and they will bear down the evil propensities of the government, by the constitutional means of election and petition. If we can keep quiet, therefore, the tide now turning will take a steady and proper direction."
A week later, February 21, 1799, Jefferson wrote to the great Polish general who had fought in the American Revolution, Thaddeus Kosciusko, a close friend who was then living in Russia. War was the great enemy of democracy, Jefferson noted, and peace was its champion. And the American people were increasingly siding with peace and rejecting Adams' call for war.
"The wonderful irritation produced in the minds of our citizens by the X. Y. Z. story, has in a great measure subsided," he noted. "They begin to suspect and to see it coolly in its true light."
But Adams was still President, and for him and his Federalist Party war would have helped tremendously with the upcoming election of 1800. In France some leaders wanted war with America for similar reasons.
Jefferson continued, "What course the government will pursue, I know not. But if we are left in peace, I have no doubt the wonderful turn in the public opinion now manifestly taking place and rapidly increasing, will, in the course of this' summer, become so universal and so weighty, that friendship abroad and freedom at home will be firmly established by the influence and constitutional powers of the people at large."
And if Adams' rhetoric led to an attack on America by France? "If we are forced into war," Jefferson noted, "we must give up political differences of opinion, and unite as one man to defend our country. But whether at the close of such a war, we should be as free as we are now, God knows."
The tide was turned, to use Jefferson's phrase, by the election of 1800. The abuses of the Federalists were so burned into the people's minds when Jefferson's party came to power, and he freed the imprisoned newspaper editors so reform-minded newspapers were started back up again, that the Federalists disintegrated altogether as a party over the next two decades.
All because average citizens and pamphleteers stood up and challenged the lies of a war-mongering president, and politicians of principle were willing to lead. Cindy Sheehan is the George Nicholas or Rusticus of our age. Jefferson would have stood with her.
America has been burdened by lying presidents before, and even one who tried to destroy our Constitution. But in our era - like in Jefferson's - we are fortunate to have radical truth-tellers like Cindy Sheehan and Joseph Wilson to warn us of treasonous acts for political gain, and bloggers and progressive websites to carry the truth.
If we stand in solidarity with today's truth-tellers, and
politicians step forward to take a leadership role, then its entirely possible
that with the elections of 2006 and 2008 American democracy can once again
prevail.
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show and a morning progressive talk show on KPOJ in Portland, Oregon. www.thomhartmann.com His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection," "We The People," "The Edison Gene", and "What Would Jefferson Do?"
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