Sit down for the Constitution

Frank Ford has sent me a Naomi Wolf article entitled "Taking it to the Streets":

All right: Blackwater and other contractors have four BILLION dollars in US funds and, the New York Times reports today, almost no oversight in Iraq; wildfires are consuming acres of Southern California and many counties have been declared to be in a state of emergency — and nothing at all but a whisper of popular opposition and a prayer — nothing legal — would prevent Bush today from declaring that the National Guard is overstretched and that it is Blackwater’s torturers and murderers, recruited from Salvadoran, Ecuadoran and Nigerian paramilitaries, who will be 'maintaining order' in the 'public emergency' that is Southern California; and Mukasey has informed Congress that he has no idea what waterboarding is — which professed cluelessness alone should disqualify him from service — and that the President does not actually need to obey the law of the United States of America — which alone should alert us that if he is confirmed the game is over. Once Congress confirms someone to decide the law of the land who holds that the President is exempt from the law of the land (which assertion was, notably, an historic tipping point when Hitler asked his Reichstag to confirm a similar position about his powers in regard to the law and the constitution) it is open season on all of us.

It is time to take to the streets.

Many of you have asked about a national strike. This is the next step in a democracy movement. We need to hold monthly strikes — a word that is too scary for some, and we want to be inclusive, so rather we will urge people of all walks of life to participate in mass-action Constitution Days.

I don't know if this is going to work. There needs be a groundswell-type movement behind the idea - not just a suggestion from a few people. But something has got to happen or our constitutional government is going to be rendered a quaint bit of history.