Remembering the Reason and Principles of the 4th of July

To many the 4th of July means a day off from work and perhaps a day at the beach or lake and family gatherings and cook outs.  But we need to be mindful of the real reason for the holiday and the words of the Declaration of Independence.  I would also argue that in these days of seemingly constant political turmoil and the incessant batshitery and lies of a president who in some ways bears a resemblance to King George III that we desperately need to refocus our attention on these words: ". . . . 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."  All men, includes EVERYONE. Gays, straights, Christian, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, black, white Hispanic, Asian. Everyone, not just white conservative Christians. The Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution reinforces these principles - principles under daily assault by the current occupant of the White House and most Congressional Republicans. I hope readers will renew their resolve to uphold these principles against all opponents, domestic and foreign.   Here are the words we remember this day:

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.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts:
John Hancock, Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott
New York:
William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
Maryland:
Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
North Carolina:
William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward, Jr., Thomas Lynch, Jr., Arthur Middleton
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton

Are Julian Assange and Wikileaks A Russian Front?

I am all for transparency in government and will concede that in its early days I thought that Wikileaks might be a high minded organization working to expose foul government secrets.  Such thoughts died long ago and now that Julian Assange is hiding out in the Ecuadorian embassy in London rather than face rape charges in his home country, I view the man as little more than a common criminal.  Worse yet, he seems to be using Wikileaks to harm America while going easy of repressive regimes such as those in Russia and/or China.  Indeed, a piece in The Federalist argues that Assange is nothing more than a front for Russia and Vladimir Putin's anti-American efforts.  Here are some column highlights:

Assange, an enemy of the United States whose organization, WikiLeaks, is fronting for the Russian intelligence services.

Hannity, of course, is not only an ignoramus but a hypocrite whose views shifted when WikiLeaks broke into the Democratic National Committee and Hannity’s idol, Donald Trump, applauded the attack on the Democrats. But Hannity is not alone. Various people and groups, from misinformed college kids to far-right and far-left conspiracy theorists, see Assange as some kind of freedom fighter.

No patriotic American should be celebrating the career of Julian Assange. His dissemination of others’ secrets has nothing to do with democracy and transparency, and everything to do with the sordid underworld of international espionage. WikiLeaks is a functional subsidiary of Vladimir Putin’s intelligence services and Assange—hiding in a London embassy rather than face charges as a sexual predator—is on the end of a long but firm Russian string.

Assange’s defenders will complain there is no smoking gun linking WikiLeaks and its cult leader to Moscow. There isn’t, but that’s because in the real world things don’t happen the way they do in the movies. There is no receipt in a desk waiting to be found by an eager journalist. No child prodigy is going to hack a phone in five minutes and find a voicemail from a man with a thick Russian accent explaining the exact location of a dead drop.

For more sensible people, however, the evidence is damning. First and foremost, WikiLeaks—citizens of the world that they are—never seem able to leak anything damaging to the interests of the Russians. They likewise avoid antagonizing the Chinese or any other autocratic regime that might take umbrage or engage in retaliation. Almost every leak of any consequence is aimed squarely at the United States and its allies, and never as assistance to noble activists anywhere else.

Likewise, the involvement of WikiLeaks in the Edward Snowden affair, catalogued ably by authors like John Schindler, Edward Lucas, and others, was so obviously facilitated by the Russians that it should be used as a case study in Espionage School 101. . . . . If you think Assange’s recommendation, Snowden’s arrival, and Harrison’s presence are at all possible without a cozy relationship with the Russian secret services, then you don’t understand how any of this works.

The Russian goal is to give American democracy a black eye in front of the entire world, while undermining the faith of average Americans in their own political arrangements. If Assange and the Russians have a dog in this fight, it is Donald Trump, and only temporarily: like any other stooge, Trump has value only so long as he is useful in attaining Moscow’s larger aims. What Trump gets out of this is anyone’s guess, but then again, it is difficult to determine the motives of emotionally unstable people.

Despite Assange’s fiery posing, he and WikiLeaks exist at the Russians’ sufferance. Think of Vladimir Putin and his intelligence chiefs as something like a board of directors, and Assange as their CEO: while the board may not direct day-to-day operations, Assange and his staff nonetheless know what’s required to keep their funding stream, their freedom of movement, their access to the media, and perhaps even to maintain their own safety. There might be some smaller operations here and there at the enterprise’s discretion, but the single focus is always the same: undermine the United States.

Russian intelligence and their Wikileaks minions are indeed conspiring against them. Conservatives, liberals, libertarians, and “freedom” activists who applaud these kinds of activities, and who wish for Assange’s freedom, are dupes. They are also sympathizing with their own enemies, which also makes them fools.

It even makes them useful idiots, one might even say.

Republicans Seek Distance From Trump's Fondness for "Murderer and Thug" Putin

Many in the Republican Party have either (i) held their noses and supported Donald Trump out of (A) fear of retribution from Trump's deranged supporters or (b) shameless self-promotion, and (ii) put their loyalty to the GOP ahead of the best interests of the country.   Now, many are finding out that self-prostitution for whatever motivation can indeed carry a cost as many in the GOP seek ways to try to explain away Trump's bizarre fondness for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin or put distance between themselves and Trump's praise of Putin.  A piece in The Guardian looks at the GOP tap dance to move away from Putin who is suspected of having had political opponents murdered and consorted with Russian Mafia types.  Here are highlights:

One day after Donald Trump reiterated his admiration for Vladimir Putin, saying the Russian president was a better leader than Barack Obama, Republicans on Capitol Hill struggled to explain why their party’s presidential nominee was enamored with a man they have long cast as one of America’s primary foes.

Many Republicans who returned to Washington this week after the summer recess expressed confidence that Trump was improving as a candidate in both tone and message. But on Thursday, they found themselves in the familiar routine of distancing themselves from Trump’s comments – the latest being his praise for Putin in an NBC News national security forum held on Wednesday.

“If you’re running for leader of the free world and you’re expressing admiration for Putin, well then you’re losing me,” Lindsey Graham, a senator from South Carolina and former Republican presidential candidate, told reporters.

“I think Vladimir Putin is a thug, a dictator, an autocratic ruler who has his opposition killed in the streets of Russia. He has dismembered his neighbor.”

“This whole idea of admiring Putin is the biggest misunderstanding of a relationship in a person since Munich,” Graham said.

Marco Rubio, the senator from Florida who made his opposition to Putin a central tenet of his own presidential campaign, similarly disagreed with Trump’s assertion that the Russian president was a better leader than Obama.

“Look, I have tremendous policy disagreements with President Obama, but Vladimir Putin is an authoritarian thug who is accountable to no one,” Rubio told the Guardian.

“I don’t think what Vladimir Putin exhibits is leadership. I think what he exhibits is thuggery … and we should be clear-eyed about that,” he added, noting that Putin controlled the media, the military and often his political opponents were either imprisoned or found dead.

While Trump’s habit of making pro-Russia statements is not new, his refusal to adopt the GOP’s hard line against Putin has become a source of discomfort for Republicans.

But Trump, since becoming the nominee, has both continued to extol Putin’s leadership and even called on the Russian government in July to hack Clinton’s emails. While drafting the GOP platform at the Republican national convention in Cleveland, the Trump campaign also fought to eliminate language around arming Ukraine in its fight with Russia – bringing further scrutiny to the ties between Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager at the time, and pro-Russian interests. (Manafort was let go from the campaign last month.)

The paradox was palpable as many Republicans approached in the hallways of the Senate declined to address Trump’s latest string of pro-Putin comments.

Earlier in the day, the House speaker, Paul Ryan, faced several questions pertaining to Trump’s appearance at the foreign policy town hall. The nation’s top Republican dubbed Putin as “an aggressor who does not share our interests” and suggested Russia was behind state-sponsored cyber-attacks “on what appears to be [the US] political system”.  But Ryan, too, reached his limit while fielding repeated queries about Trump. “I’m not going to stand up here and do a tit-for-tat on what Donald said last night,” he said.

 When looks at those like Paul Ryan and others in the GOP endorsing Trump, the take away is that the nastiest whore has more integrity and moral backbone than most of today's GOP.  If nothing else, the whore is honest in comparison. 

Wahhabism, Saudi Arabia and Islamic Extremism

As Republicans and right wing pundits continue to engage in spittle flecked denunciations of Barack Obama administration over the nuclear weapons deal with Iran, they continue to be silent when it comes to denouncing the largest financier of Islamic terrorism: Saudi Arabia.  The irony of the Republican demagoguery is that Iranian backing of terror and more importantly the religious fanaticism that it needs to thrive pales compared to that of Saudi Arabia.  Would that Americans knew the real truth behind Saudi Arabia's history and the extremism that it is exporting even at this very moment.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at what a poisonous "ally" America has in Saudi Arabia.  Here are excerpts:

The first thing you need to know about Saudi Arabia is that it is not a country but a financial and religious empire with a million poisonous tentacles stretching across both the West and the Muslim world. Its wealth is built upon the dirty oil under its sands, its legitimacy crafted upon an even dirtier political deal with a totalitarian religious cult known as Wahhabism.

The Saudi Royal Family treats the country as its private property. When the House of Saud conquered the territory known as Arabia, they named the country after themselves, hence the Saudi before the Arabia. It is more of a corporation than anything else, except The Family controls Islam's holiest cities and profits handsomely off them.

Saudi Arabia should have made more news last week than it did. For starters, it was the anniversary of 9/11, and Saudi Arabia played at least an indirect role in Al Qaeda's attacks on Washington and New York.

Dallah Albaraka Group was a named defendant in a lawsuit brought by the families of 9/11 victims. . . . . Many of these suits were eventually dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, but a suit against Dallah Avco, a subsidiary of Dallah Albaraka Group, is currently in the discovery stage. Dallah Avco is an aviation company with ties to the Saudi Air Force . . . . Dallah Avco employed a man named Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi citizen who held a do-nothing job with the company while he was befriending and helping two of the 9/11 hijackers. 

The Dallah AlBaraka Group and Abdullah Kamel undoubtedly operate with the blessings of the Saudi Royal Family, whose role in the 9/11 attacks is finally starting to be exposed. Earlier this year, the "20th hijacker," Zacarious Moussaoui, directly accused the Saudi Royal Family of knowing about the 9/11 attacks in advance and funding al Qaeda's plot. The Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 redacted 28 crucial pages dealing with alleged Saudi involvement in the planning and execution of the attacks. Bob Graham, former senator and ex-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, has said in sworn statements that the Saudi government assisted the 9/11 terrorists. 

The Saudi Royal Family . . . They have paid for fundamentalist imams in American prisons. From California to India, they have erected a mammoth infrastructure of Wahhabist madrassas which indoctrinate impressionable young men to the virtues of their cause.

In this last charge alone, the Saudi Royal Family's dollars are drenched in blood. The House of Saud came to power in the 1700s by making a deal with a fanatical preacher named Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who taught that Islam had to be stripped down to its puritan essence. All later adaptations were eliminated because they were seen as sinful. A Muslim had to adhere to the Wahhabists' literal interpretation of scripture or risk being deemed an apostate, and thus, liable to be murdered.

Because Wahhab and his gang claimed to be defending Islam, their violence was legitimated as jihad. Homosexuals and blasphemers were to be put to death. Adulterers were to be stoned. Thieves were to have their hands amputated. 

In the Saudi-Wahhab deal, Wahhab pledged to "support the ruler, supplying him with glory and power" if Ibn Saud made Wahhabist doctrine his official dogma. In the early 1800s, the Saudis took over Makkah and destroyed the monuments built to the Prophet Muhammad's family. The Prophet's tomb itself was just barely saved. They destroyed the cemetery where members of the Prophet's family were buried. They ransacked the holy Shia city of Karbala in Iraq, mass-murdered women and children, and pillaged the tomb of Husain, the Prophet's nephew and the spiritual leader of the world's Shia. 

In more modern times, the Saudis have spent upwards of $100 billion building madrassas around the world. In Pakistan, once a relatively liberal country, the number of Saudi-funded fundamentalist madrassas went from 900 to 32,000 in over a decade. These madrassas did not produce engineers and doctors but religious fanatics. Some of the students in these madrassas became leaders of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Simply put: You do not get today's Sunni-Shia war without the Saudi Royal Family exporting Wahhabism, an ideology with conflict and plunder inherent in its core.

Over 98% of Arabia's religious heritage sites, and thus Islamic history, have been destroyed. If all of this sounds eerily like ISIS it is because ISIS and Saudi Arabia share the exact same ideology.

The study of Islamic civilization is desperately needed in the West. The writings of ancient Greek philosophers were translated and preserved by Muslim philosophers and scientists in the great libraries of Baghdad. Our numerical system is owed to Persian and Arab mathematicians. Much of our current understanding in physics, calculus, philosophy, political economy, medicine, indeed, the scientific method itself, is owed at least in part to Islam's golden age. Try and get to the Renaissance and Enlightenment without Islam's discoveries and you will find yourself stuck in the Dark Ages. Islamic civilization was open, tolerant, diverse. Wahhabism and the Saudi Royal Family inverted all of that, built a sectarian empire, and with their oil money, bought off those who could be bought, and imposed themselves on everyone else. 

Saudi money should not be funding any more programs in the United States or elsewhere because the money is stained with both blood and oil. It was extracted from the ground, but the extractors got to where they are by stomping upon the bones of their fellow Muslims. Let justice be done, though the heavens fall, goes the ancient quote, but justice will never be done if this organized crime family continued to buy our loyalty.  

 How do we defeat this extremist threat?  One way is to push for American energy independence, and not just by way of more domestic oil and gas drilling.  Alternate and renewable energy sources  need to be pursued with a vengeance.  And if one is really an American patriot, one will stop driving gas guzzling pickup trucks and SUV's.  Sadly, I doubt we will see many of the right's "real Americans" taking such steps.