Getting back the constitutional government and improving it will take a long time. And I think if we don’t get started now, it won’t be started under the next administration. Getting out of Iraq will take a long time. Averting Iran and averting a further coup in the face of a 9/11, another attack, is for right now, it can’t be put off. It will take a kind of political and moral courage of which we have seen very little ... Daniel Ellsberg, Remarks Delivered at American University, 9-20-07
Hard Rain Journal 9-28-07: Ellsberg Says It, "A Coup Has Occured."
By Richard Power
Daniel Ellsberg is a hero of the Evolution, and he recently delivered another important speech
Indeed, this particular speech may be one of the most important ones anyone has made, or will make, concerning the events of the last several years.
There is something terribly wrong in Beltwayistan.
It is not as simple as cravenness, ineptitude or political cowardice. There is something worse going on.
I have articulated this in many ways over the past few years, and with renewed concern since the Democratic Party took control (at least conceptually) of both houses of Congress in January 20007.
In Hard Rain Journal 8-5-07: Lessons from Soviet-Style Show Trail of Don Siegelman -- Learned or Unlearned?, I wrote: But there is another dimension to all of this disappointment that needs to be factored into our ruminations; there is another bitter truth that must be acknowledged. Perhaps there are threats on the table. Perhaps the situation is much worse than most people realize. Consider the fate of Don Siegelman, former Governor of Alabama, arguably the most popular Democratic political leader in state history. Could impeachment be off the table because there are threats on the table? If a political leader as popular and as successful as Siegelman can be sent to federal prison on such trumped up charges, who is safe?
In Hard Rain Journal 9-23-07: MoveOn is My Party Now, I wrote: Meanwhile, something is terribly wrong in the U.S. Senate. Perhaps something much worse than political cowardice or the unsavory influence of lobbyist cash. Is this a hostage situation? Are we looking at Stockholm syndrome? Is the "coup of December 2000" more than just a metaphor?
Well, this concern is in many minds.
At an American University symposium on 9/20/07, Daniel Ellsberg said: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It’s not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9/11. That’s the next coup, that completes the first. The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution ...
Here are some excerpts from Ellsberg's remarks, with links to the full text at Consortium News (one of the great bastions of the Internet Information Rebellion)
Please read Ellsberg's remarks, and share them with your friends, your loved ones and your colleagues.
I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state. ...
If there’s another 9/11 under this regime ... it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.
Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? ... They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they’re not now they will be after another 9/11.
And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran – an escalation – which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps. ...
This is an unusual gang, even for Republicans. [But] I think that the successors to this regime are not likely to roll back the assault on the Constitution. They will take advantage of it, they will exploit it. ...
Let me simplify this and not just to be rhetorical: A coup has occurred. I woke up the other day realizing, coming out of sleep, that a coup has occurred. It’s not just a question that a coup lies ahead with the next 9/11. That’s the next coup, that completes the first.
The last five years have seen a steady assault on every fundamental of our Constitution, … what the rest of the world looked at for the last 200 years as a model and experiment to the rest of the world – in checks and balances, limited government, Bill of Rights, individual rights protected from majority infringement by the Congress, an independent judiciary, the possibility of impeachment. ...
We have a really unusual concentration here and in this audience, of people who have in fact changed their lives, changed their position, lost their friends to a large extent, risked and experienced being called terrible names, “traitor,” “weak on terrorism” – names that politicians will do anything to avoid being called.
How do we get more people in the government and in the public at large to change their lives now in a crisis in a critical way? How do we get Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid for example? What kinds of pressures, what kinds of influences can be brought to bear to get Congress to do their jobs? It isn’t just doing their jobs. Getting them to obey their oaths of office.
I took an oath many times, an oath of office as a Marine lieutenant, as an official in the Defense Department, as an official in the State Department as a Foreign Service officer. A number of times I took an oath of office which is the same oath office taken by every member of Congress and every official in the United States and every officer in the United States armed services.
And that oath is not to a Commander in Chief, which is not mentioned. It is not to a fuehrer. It is not even to superior officers. The oath is precisely to protect and uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Now that is an oath I violated every day for years in the Defense Department without realizing it when I kept my mouth shut when I knew the public was being lied into a war as they were lied into Iraq, as they are being lied into war in Iran. ... Daniel Ellsberg, A Coup Has Occured, Remarks Delivered at American University on 9-20-07, Posted on Consortium News, 9-26-07
Click here for a Words of Power Archive of posts on 9/11, Terrorism, Etc.
September 11th, Don Siegelman, Daniel Ellsberg, 9/11, Cheney, Bush, Iran, Terrorism,9/11, US Constitution, MoveOn.org, Richard Power, Words of Power
