Lamar W. Hankins : Football for Jesus

Image from The Gospel According to Hate.
They're at it again:
Football for Jesus

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / August 30, 2911

I can’t quite smell football in the air, probably because of our wilting temperatures and prolonged drought, but a look at the calendar tells me that it’s time for the high school football season to begin. In many, if not most, Texas public schools, this means that the names of God and Jesus will be invoked to show that football is a divinely-approved activity and that all the players will be watched over so they don’t get hurt.

Of course, that last statement is complete nonsense. Data from five years ago shows that we have more than a half-million high school football injuries each year. Either God doesn’t care about football injuries or those injured must not be living righteous lives. I don’t actually believe either conclusion, but the only other reasonable conclusion is that prayer doesn’t work the way many mortals seem to believe.

Aside from that discussion, which usually goes nowhere, there is the question of the appropriateness of prayers at public high school football games, both prayers over the public address system as well as prayers uttered by the football players themselves in a group either in the locker room or before or after the game on the field.

Most people seem unaware that this issue has been settled law for over a decade. In summary, in 2000, the U.S. Supreme court decided whether the Santa Fe ISD (located between Houston and Galveston) could have prayer before each football game. The court ruled against prayer by a chaplain and prayer by someone chosen by the students. It decided that having “nonsectarian, nonproselytizing” prayer is also prohibited by the U.S. Constitution’s Establishment Clause. This decision came nine years after the court had found that prayer at public high school graduations is a violation of that same provision in the constitution: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”

To explain the court’s reasoning, it might help to refer to a few lines of the opinion in Santa Fe, which was adopted by six of the nine Supreme Court Justices. Pregame prayer delivered

on school property, at school-sponsored events, over the school's public address system, by a speaker representing the student body, under the supervision of school faculty, and pursuant to a school policy that explicitly and implicitly encourages public prayer

is not private, but public speech.

Regardless of the listener's support for, or objection to, the message, an objective Santa Fe High School student will unquestionably perceive the inevitable pregame prayer as stamped with her school's seal of approval.

Under the Constitution, governments in the U.S., and that includes public schools, are not free to promote religion, especially when school-aged children are involved.

I have tried to understand the arguments of those who favor such prayers. Some of them want the acknowledgement of their religious views in a public forum. Such acknowledgement is certainly permissible if the forum is not a government-sponsored activity. If the Lion’s Club sponsors a junior rodeo, they can pray before, after, and during every event at will. The Lion’s Club is not a government entity. It is a private organization. But when the government sponsors religious activity, which prayer is, the Court has other concerns.

It considers school-sponsored prayer a

serious constitutional injury that occurs when a student is forced to participate in an act of religious worship because she chooses to attend a school event. But the Constitution also requires that the Court keep in mind the myriad, subtle ways in which Establishment Clause values can be eroded, ... and guard against other different, yet equally important, constitutional injuries. One is the mere passage by the District of a policy that has the purpose and perception of government establishment of religion.

Those who believe in the efficacy of prayer to protect players against injury can pray along the entire game if they choose. Is prayer effective only if it is uttered over the loudspeaker system at the beginning of the game? The group Americans United for Separation of Church and State has explained the important distinction between the right to pray and the prohibition against government sponsorship of prayer:

There is a critical difference between private individual speech and speech promoted by the government. Consider this analogy: A group of people can go to a public park and exercise their free speech. They can even get on "soapboxes" and share their speech with others. But once the state decides to help broadcast one person's speech to everyone in the park because it is popular, it becomes state-sponsored speech.

Whether a student chooses to pray at a football game is entirely up to him or her, as it should be. But it becomes state-sponsored when the school broadcasts the popular prayer to an entire audience in attendance for a football game. Public schools must be neutral on religion to protect the rights of everyone. Students should not be pressured to pray, whether it's at football games, in the classroom or anywhere else.

I not only oppose government-sponsored prayer, but I also have a different view of football than others may have. I played six years in junior high and high school in what was referred to as a “football town” -- Port Arthur, Texas. I was an above-average athlete, but not exceptional. I was well-coordinated and muscular, weighing about 205-210 during high school, and standing six feet, one-and-one-half inches tall.

My coaches believed that what prevented me from being exceptional was that I was not mean enough. We were encouraged to take off the heads of our opponents, to tackle and hit hard, and punish those we played against. In those days, we were taught to use our helmets as a weapon, something that is not permitted today because of the great chance of injury.

I remember one game in 1961 against a team whose star player was a small, but fast, halfback. One of our assistant coaches offered a reward to any lineman who could take him out of the game. That occurred in the second quarter when one of our tackles had an opportunity to tackle the halfback in a way that hurt him. The halfback did not play for the rest of the game and our team won easily.

That assistant coach went on to coach in college, including a stint as an assistant at the University of Texas. I told my parents about this incident, but they were not ones to make waves, especially against the football program in a place where football was a second religion.

Often, football was coached in junior high and high school in the 1950s and 1960s as a brutal game, the purpose of which was to hurt and punish opponents and make them not want to get up off the ground after they were put there by a ferocious hit. I’m not sure where prayer fit into this scheme, except to make people feel good about themselves for enjoying the violent spectacle that is football, though it could and can be enjoyed for its occasional choreographed precision.

Another related use of prayer is by the team itself. Almost always initiated by coaches, whether directly or indirectly, football team prayer is meant to create solidarity, camaraderie, and team cohesiveness. As a psychological tool, it may achieve these results. Of course, for Jewish players or atheists or agnostics, prayers offered in Jesus’ name may have the opposite effect.

Prayer at football games and by football teams has been going on perhaps as long as we have had football, though I suspect it may have had its origin during the McCarthy era when most of U.S. society reacted to "godless communism" by promoting religious activity by adding “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance and adopting “In God We Trust” as our national motto.

Nevertheless, school-sponsored prayer at football games is prevalent today. In recent weeks, I have read about complaints against such practices raised in schools in DeSoto County in Mississippi and Bell County in Kentucky. In both cases, interventions by the Freedom From Religion Foundation have stopped such unconstitutional practices.

Nearly 250 years into our constitutional republic experiment is as good a time as any to honor our Constitution by following its clear prohibitions against government sponsorship and promotion of religion. As both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison reminded us, the intermingling of government and religion harms both institutions.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Lamar W. Hankins : San Marcos, Texas, and the Separation of Church and State

Thomas Jefferson and the separation of church and state. Sculpture outside the Northshire Bookstore, Manchester, Vermont. Image from Artsology.
Thomas Jefferson,
the San Marcos City Council,
and the municipal promotion of prayer

It is a feeble and flaccid religion that needs the imprimatur of government to find its relevance.

By Lamar W. Hankins / The Rag Blog / May 17, 2011

SAN MARCOS, Texas -- City councils have no jurisdiction over religion, yet throughout Texas and the rest of the country, they promote it, sometimes fervently. While city councils have no power to deal with religion, they love to use religion’s reflected glory to enhance their own status.

When government officials meddle in religion, they lose all perspective and begin to see themselves as righteous and doers of God’s will, even in every zoning change they approve, every no-parking zone they create, and every pothole they order filled.

These council members reject Thomas Jefferson’s view that it is not in the “interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrine." Ignoring this view, city councils are sponsoring prayer at the beginning of their meetings as though they have some ecclesiastical mandate to promote such religious exercise.

They quarrel regularly with the author of the First Amendment, James Madison, who stated, “There is not a shadow of right in the general government to intermeddle with religion. Its least interference with it would be a most flagrant violation."

When President Andrew Jackson was asked to proclaim a national day of prayer and fasting, he said he could not do so “...without transcending the limits prescribed by the Constitution for the President and without feeling that I might in some degree disturb the security which religion nowadays enjoys in this country in its complete separation from the political concerns of the General Government."

Many mayors and city council members don’t believe that they should have such limits.

Historian R. Freeman Butts reports, "Virtually every state as it came into the Union in the nineteenth century adopted the principles that the state guaranteed freedom of religious conscience and that the state would not use public funds to aid or support any churches or their schools."

But city councils in all parts of the country regularly use their offices, public property, public employees, and public resources to promote religious activity–namely, prayer.

Dozens of cities over the last few years have been challenged regarding their sponsorship of prayers, especially Christian prayers. The best advice many of these city councils have received is to adopt policies that establish only non-sectarian prayers. The City of San Marcos, Texas, in 2009, was challenged about its prayer policy by Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the ACLU of Texas. In response, the city council adopted a policy that approved only prayers that do “not advance any one religion, disparage any other religion,” or are used to proselytize.

The new policy, adopted in August 2009, was based on the leading Supreme Court decision on the subject, Marsh v. Chambers. In following the Marsh decision, in 2004, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals held that any sectarian invocations of deities in legislative prayer demonstrate affiliating the government with a particular sect or creed and/or advancing a particular faith or belief: “Marsh does not permit legislators to... engage, as part of public business and for the citizenry as a whole, in prayers that contain explicit references to a deity in whose divinity only those of one faith believe.”

This decision effectively prohibited sectarian prayers, yet the City Council of San Marcos continues to promote mostly Christian prayers offered as invocations.

One flaw in the San Marcos scheme is that it establishes the City Council as the purveyor of a privilege to practice religion in its chambers as a part of official government business, a notion that eats at the heart of the First Amendment's prohibition against an establishment of religion.

In addition, the policy limits invocation participants to “clergy,” though this provision is ignored at the will of the council or its mayor or city clerk, who is given the responsibility to implement the prayer scheme. For example, several non-clergy associated with one religion or another have been allowed to offer invocations.

But the policy limits participation to those who represent a “faith tradition,” effectively excluding others who are not part of a faith tradition, but who are capable of giving an invocation, which is nothing more than a petition for help or support. This provision makes clear that the city council is promoting religion over non-religion.

Since the adoption of this new invocation scheme in San Marcos and through February of this year, there were 37 invocations at regular City Council meetings. All but four of those prayers were directed to the Judeo-Christian God (at least two prayers were arguably addressed to some other deity, or a generic deity), and two of those invocations -- both nonsectarian -- were offered by a member and a minister, respectively, of the San Marcos Unitarian Universalist Fellowship.

Twenty-one of the prayers specifically invoked the name of Jesus, with phrases like “In the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior,” “In Jesus’ name we pray,” “in Jesus’ precious name,” “in the name of Jesus as the Christ,” and similar phrases. One of the prayers included a recitation of “The Lord’s Prayer,” recognized as the prayer uttered by Jesus, according to some Gospel accounts. Many of the prayers were fawning and jingoistic, suggesting the righteousness of City Council members, the city, and the country.

At least 33 of the invocations given since the change in the invocation policy before the San Marcos City council were sectarian prayers -- acts of religious worship to the Judeo-Christian God. They were done at a time when the chamber was full of citizens who came to participate in the governance of the city. Frequently, visitors and citizens in attendance when the prayers were introduced were directed to behave in a certain manner, e.g., stand and bow their heads, “pray with me,” “let us pray” -- clearly religious practices.

Visitors and citizens in attendance were referred to in many of the prayers, if not all of them, as in the use of the inclusive "we" in reference to speaking to God for all in attendance. A new practice introduced by Mayor Daniel Guerrero this past February is to invite an elementary school child to lead those in attendance in the Pledge of Allegiance immediately after the prayer, subjecting the young child to the practice of government-sponsored prayer, something not allowed under the Constitution in our public schools.

The public broadcast of the prayers over the internet and cable television provides the City Council a way to religiously exhort those of its citizens who watch via those media. And the invocation is difficult to avoid if one wants to do so: The agenda is not followed in the order posted; or the actual time the prayer will be given cannot be determined except through guesswork, making it difficult to know when the invocation will be called for.

The invocation is never placed at the beginning of a meeting, but posted often as the fourth, fifth or sixth item, and may be done after a workshop, an executive session, public comments, and after proclamations are issued, so city council members, officials, administrators, and staff, as well as visitors present at the meeting, cannot easily avoid participation by being absent during the prayer.

One of the clergy who regularly offers prayers before the San Marcos City Council asserted before one of his invocations that “it can’t hurt to have a prayer.” On the contrary, the freedom of religion guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment necessarily carries with it the right to be free from religion imposed by the government, just as the freedom of speech does not permit the government to require me to speak, nor does the freedom of association require me to associate with those the government wants me to associate with.

When the government uses the religious practice of prayer while carrying out its civic functions, it compels all citizens who want to participate in our civic life or observe the government in action to partake of that religious exercise.

One of my favorite quotes about government sponsorship of religious practices is by the late Republican Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona:

Can any of us refute the wisdom of Madison and the other framers? Can anyone look at the carnage in Iran, the bloodshed in Northern Ireland or the bombs bursting in Lebanon and yet question the dangers of injecting religious issues into the affairs of state?... By maintaining the separation of church and state, the United States has avoided the intolerance which has so divided the rest of the world with religious wars. Throughout our two hundred plus years, public policy debate has focused on political and economic issues, on which there can be compromise...

Most of those who cooperate with city councils to promote prayer do so with noble intentions bereft of an appreciation of how their use of government to advance religion violates the rights of those who have different religious beliefs.

For instance, I do not believe that I should have to participate in another’s religious practice in order to participate in my government, but this is exactly what the San Marcos City Council compels me to do by its sanctioning of official prayer, mostly sectarian, at its meetings.

The early American patriot, abolitionist, and Baptist minister John Leland said,

[W]henever men fly to the law or sword to protect their system of religion and force it upon others, it is evident that they have something in their system that will not bear the light and stand upon the basis of truth.

Another early American patriot and author of “Religion and the Continental Congress, 1774-1789: Contributions to Original Intent,” wrote,

The framers [of the Constitution] sought to divorce religion from government... [T]o make religion dependent upon government was to depreciate true religion; to rely upon government to throw its weight behind religion was to declare God impotent to further his purposes through voluntary means.

While I am encouraged that a long line of American patriots and U.S. presidents from George Washington to Jimmy Carter appreciated the need to keep government out of religion, that history does me no good when no member of the San Marcos City Council will rise to the defense of our forebears and disapprove of government sponsorship of religion in our civic life.

As I have suggested before, one of the greatest ironies of this government prayer promotion is that the most prominent proponents of it are the Christian evangelicals, who believe most literally in the words of the Bible. None of them have ever explained publicly how their behavior can be reconciled with the teachings of Jesus to pray in secret and not in public where they can be seen by others as pious.

It is a feeble and flaccid religion that needs the imprimatur of government to find its relevance. If all who call themselves Christian followed the admonitions of Jesus, we would not have a problem with sectarian prayers at city council meetings throughout the United States.

[Lamar W. Hankins, a former San Marcos, Texas, city attorney, is also a columnist for the San Marcos Mercury. This article © Freethought San Marcos, Lamar W. Hankins. Read more articles by Lamar W. Hankins on The Rag Blog.]

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Ten Ideas for Barack and the Rest of Us to Work On

A Starter Plan for Obama: A Ten-Point Solar Agenda
By Harvey Wasserman / January 20, 2009

Amidst the ecstasy of the Obama Inauguration, there lurks great danger.

Merely with his swearing in, our nation has broken an epic racial barrier. We are losing our worst president and getting one who was actually elected.

But the promise of change is not change itself. Inaugurating a brilliant young leader who speaks in complete sentences can only be good. But it is a fatal delusion to think this means we have gotten where we need to go.

Here are ten early tangibles that will be accomplished ONLY if we push:

1) Revise the Corporation: Corporations have hijacked the electoral process, the legal system, the 14th Amendment, the environment. They have human rights but no human responsibilities. They must be re-chartered and made to serve the public, rather than the other way around.

2) Restore the Bill of Rights: The first ten amendments to the US Constitution comprise a great guide for guaranteeing our basic human rights and liberties. The Constitutional lawyer entering the White House understands the issues; he need to be pushed to make sure these rights are enforced, including equal justice for racial/ethnic minorities and women, and reproductive freedom.

3) US out of Iraq and Afghanistan: These wars must end. The healing---moral, spiritual, economic, and in terms of violence---can only begin when the US leaves these useless battlefields and dismantles its global network of intrusive bases.

4) Slash Military Spending: We cannot continue to spend untold billions on detrimental weaponry. A 75% cut would be a good start; 95% would be a reasonable ultimate target.

5) Rid the World of Nuclear Weapons: Atomic bombs are instruments of mass suicide and of no tangible use. Even their production and maintenance is unsustainable.

6) TOTAL conversion to renewables and efficiency: We have the technology to run this Earth COMPLETELY on Solartopian green energy, with no fossil/nuclear fuels whatsoever. This means restoration of mass transit, and NO public funding, from taxpayers or ratepayers, for new atomic reactors or coal burners.

7) End Hemp/Marijuana Prohibition: This ancient plant holds the key to bio-fuels, as well as to sustainable paper production and much more, and must be restored to full production. And prohibition of a medicinal substance used by tens of millions of citizens makes for a police state. Pot must be legal; control of other substances must shift to treatment. The prison-industrial complex is as unsustainable as is the military.

8) National Health Care: Appropriate prevention and treatment is a basic human right. We must find the way to provide it.

9) Universal Hand-Counted Paper Ballots: Electronic voting machines are the nukes of the electoral process. Universal automatic registration, handcounted paper ballots (on recycled hemp paper) and workable campaign finance regulations are essential to the future of democracy.

10) Universal Free Education: In an information age, education through a college degree is essential to a sustainable society. Our public schools from K to the BA must be funded on a level now wasted on the military.

There is of course much more. But the greatness of this moment will be measured in history only by the extent to which we actually win on tangible issues.

This brief wish list should get us going. Send us more! But above all: remember that even with Barack Obama in the White House (and George Bush OUT of it) none of them will come without our hard---hopefully joyful---work.

[Harvey Wasserman, a co-founder of Musicians United for Safe Energy, is editing the nukefree.org web site. He is the author of SOLARTOPIA! Our Green-Powered Earth, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org. He can be reached at: Windhw@aol.com.]

Source / CounterPunch

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Constitutional Conventions: The Power to Reform Government to Eliminate Corruption

Illinois Citizens Deserve Corrupt Government
By Joel Hirschhorn / December 12, 2008

Public Corruption Runs Rampant Because Americans Do Not Seek Genuine Political Reforms

The current Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, recently charged with crimes by the federal government, just follows in the footsteps of previous convicted Illinois governors and a huge number of other Illinois officials convicted of crimes. What is remarkable is that in the 2008 election Illinois voters had the opportunity to recognize that they needed to use their constitutional convention opportunity to reform state government. They voted not to use it.

Which raises the question: How stupid or brainwashed are most Illinois citizens?

Here is the story behind the headlines. According to the Illinois state constitution, voters must be given the opportunity every twenty years to vote for or against having a state constitutional convention that can be used to amend the constitution or rewrite it altogether. Considering an incredibly long history of public corruption you would think that Illinois voters would be inclined to give serious thought to how they could improve their government by means of a state constitutional convention. Many prominent people and groups worked hard to educate citizens why they should vote in favor of a constitutional convention.

In November, two-thirds voted against having a convention. Twenty years earlier they also voted against one. But even with twenty more years of public corruption, Illinois citizens could not be convinced to pursue a path to political reform free from the chains of their corrupt state government. The last convention was in 1970.

Those advocating passage of the convention measure included: Lieutenant Governor Pat Quinn, the Chicago Tribune, the Springfield State Journal Register, state representatives Mike Boland and Jack Franks, former state treasurer Judy Baar Topinka, political journalists Rich Miller and Scott Reeder, and several groups with websites.

Back in January 2008 this is what John Bambenek, who wrote a book supporting the convention, had the good sense to say: "Gov. Rod Blagojevich has done something remarkable in Illinois. He has managed to unite people across the political spectrum to create consensus that he absolutely stinks as a governor. Illinois deserves better than Rod Blagojevich. Because of his low approval in both parties and the budget fiasco of last year, legislators (even those in his own party) are talking about amending the constitution to allow recall votes of sitting politicians. The timing for such talk is opportune because on the November ballot this year there will be a question on whether to have a constitutional convention for Illinois to rewrite or amend the state constitution." Like other pro-convention advocates, Bambenek wanted to return power to Illinois citizens. Most of them did not listen.

A key argument in favor of convention was that the cost of a no-frills convention (around $23 million) would surely be repaid by the savings to taxpayers of constitutional amendments that could get the state out of the lobbyist-run budget crisis it was in. Not to mention the possibility of an amendment that could make it easier to get rid of corrupt governors and other officials by, for example, recall by citizens. How sensible, considering that even before the charges against the current governor three previous Illinois governors had been convicted of crimes.

Otto Kerner (D) governor 1961-1968 was convicted on 17 counts of bribery, conspiracy, perjury, and related charges. He was sentenced to three years in federal prison and fined $50,000. Daniel Walker (D) governor 1973-1977 was convicted of improprieties related to a savings and loan association. He reportedly received over a million dollars in fraudulent loans for his business and repairs on his yacht. He pleaded out to three felonies and was freed after 17 months in prison because he was supposedly frail and chronically ill, but is still living 20 years later and living near the ocean in Mexico. And George Ryan (R) governor 1999-2003 was convicted on 20 federal counts that included racketeering, bribery, and extortion

And consider this amazing statistic: From 1995 to 2004, 469 politicians from the federal district of Northern Illinois were found guilty of corruption.

And then there was the famous case of Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D) who was indicted in 1994 on 17 felony charges, including the embezzlement of $695,000 in taxpayer and campaign funds. The longtime powerful House ways and means committee chairman plea-bargained his way down to just two counts of mail fraud and served only 17 months in a minimum-security prison.

So what did the opponents to the convention use to sway voters? And why did they oppose a convention? They lied a whole lot and tried to instill fear, and succeeded. But what they feared was losing political power that they had used for so long to corrupt state government. Opponents included most of the state's influential lobbying organizations: American Insurance Association, Associated Fire Fighters of Illinois, Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, Chicago Urban League, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, Citizen Action/Illinois, Illinois Association of Convenience Stores, Illinois Association of School Administrators, Illinois Business Round Table, Illinois Civil Justice League, Illinois Education Association, Illinois Farm Bureau, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Illinois Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Illinois Manufacturers Association, Illinois Petroleum Marketers Association, Illinois Retail Merchants Association, Illinois Retired Teachers Association, Illinois State AFL-CIO, Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, Illinois State Black Chamber of Commerce, Illinois Trial Lawyers Association, League of Women Voters of Illinois, Lincoln Park Chamber of Commerce, National Federation of Independent Businesses/Illinois, Peoria Area Chamber of Commerce, Police Benevolent and Protective Association of Illinois, SEIU Illinois, State University Annuitants Association, Taxpayers' Federation of Illinois, Tooling and Manufacturing Association, Union League Club of Chicago, Illinois Rifle Association. The convention was also opposed by House Speaker Michael Madigan (D) and former governor Jim Edgar (R) who both represented the corrupt status quo political establishment.

There is an important lesson from what happened in Illinois and several other states, as well as why the US Congress has refused to obey Article V of the federal constitution that prescribes a convention of state delegates to propose constitutional amendments when two-thirds of states ask for one, which has happened long ago. It is this: those with political power fear constitutional conventions that can truly reform our corrupt political system. What Americans need to constantly remember is that "we the people" must use constitutional conventions to improve our government and political system. All constitutions are meant to be revisited and amended if necessary.

We must not depend on electing individuals to public office to truly reform the system. We have a corrupt two-party plutocracy. It is time to stop believing the lies of both Democrats and Republicans. We can keep putting many of them in prison, but all that happens is that more corrupt and dishonest politicians get elected. Just as it has happened for the Illinois governorship.

Finally, you might ask whether Illinois Senator Barack Obama supported the 2008 convention proposal. What do you think? Obama's key advisor, David Axelrod, who crafted his "change" message, shared a multimillion dollar contract provided by opponents to the convention who feared change.

Source / Associated Content

Thanks to Joel Hirschhorn / The Rag Blog

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An Article V Convention Is Long Past Due

Ideal:
Reality:
When the Federal Government Fails the People: Our Constitution Has a Solution
By Joel Hirschhorn / October 14, 2008

The hardest thing for Americans to do right now in this presidential election season is to fight distraction and, instead, focus on the failure of all three branches of the federal government. And also to resist the propaganda masquerading as patriotic obligation that voting will fundamentally fix the federal government. The real lesson of American history is that things have turned so ugly that electing a new president and many new members of Congress will at best provide band-aids when what is needed is nothing less than what Thomas Jefferson wisely said our nation would need periodically: a political revolution.

The basis for this view is that the institutions of the three branches have been so corrupted and perverted that they no longer meet the hopes and aspirations embedded in our Constitution.

It is easy to condemn George W. Bush as the worst president in history. The larger truth is that the presidency has accumulated far too much power over the past half century. This has resulted from the weakening of the Congress that no longer, in any way, has the power of an equal branch of government, not that any recent Congress has shown any commitment or capability to execute its constitutional authorities. Concurrently, we have become accepting of a politicized Supreme Court that has not shown the courage to stop the unconstitutional grabbing of power by the presidency and in 2000 showed its own root failure in choosing to select the new president.

Worst of all, modern history has vividly shown Americans that the federal government has usurped the sovereignty of the "we the people" and of the states, and has even sold out national sovereignty to a set of international organizations and the greed of corporate-crazed globalization.

The current economic and financial sector meltdown is just another symptom of deep seated, cancerous disease of government that has sold out the public because of the moneyed influence of the corporate and wealthy classes of special interests. The serious disease is a long festering unraveling of the constitutional design of our government. Each of the three branches of the federal government is totally unequal to each other and completely incapable of ensuring the constitutional functioning of each other. Checks and balances have become a fiction.

These sad historic realities have been produced because of an all too powerful and corrupt two-party political machine that has prevented true political competition and real choices for voters. This two-party system has thrived because of corruption from money provided for Democrats and Republicans to maintain the status quo that is the ruination of our constitutional Republic.

Yet the hidden genius of the Founders and Framers was to anticipate how the Republic would most likely unravel under the pressures of money and corruption. Unknown to nearly all Americans is a part of the Constitution that all established political forces have worked hard to denigrate over our entire history. They fear using what is provided as a kind of escape clause in the Constitution, something to use when the three branches of the federal government fail their constitutional responsibilities. What is this ultimate solution that those who love and respect our Constitution should be clamoring for?

It is the provision in Article V to create a temporary fourth branch of the government - in the form of a convention of state delegates - that operates outside the control of Congress, the President and the Supreme Court, and that has only one single function: to consider proposals for constitutional amendments, just like Congress has done over our history, but that must also be ratified by three-quarters of the states. One of the most perplexing questions in American history that has received too little attention is simple: Why have we never had an Article V convention?

One possible answer might be that what the Constitution requires to launch a convention has never been satisfied. But this is not the case. The one and only requirement is that two-thirds of state legislatures apply to Congress for a convention. With over 600 such state applications from all 50 states that single requirement has long been satisfied. So why no convention?

Because Congress has refused to honor the exact constitutional mandate that it "shall" call a convention when that requirement has been met. Simply put, Congress has long broken the supreme law of the land by not calling a convention, and virtually every political force on the left and right likes it that way. Why? Because they have learned to corrupt the government and fear an independent convention of state delegates that could propose serious constitutional amendments that would truly reform our government and political system to remove the power of special interests and compel all three branches to follow the letter and spirit of the Constitution.

With great irony, the public has been brainwashed to fear an Article V convention despite many hundreds of state constitutional conventions that have never wrecked state governments, and that in countless cases have provided much needed forms of direct democracy that have empowered citizens and limited powers of state governments.

There is only one national, nonpartisan organization with the single mission of educating the public about the Article V convention option and building demand for Congress to convene a convention. It is the Friends of the Article V Convention group that has done something that neither the government nor any other group has ever done; it has been collecting all the hundreds of state applications for a convention and making them available to the public at www.foavc.org.

With a new president and many new members of Congress, now is the ideal time for Americans that see the need for obeying the Constitution and seek root reforms to rally behind this mission of obtaining the nation's first Article V convention. The new Congress in 2009 should give the public what the Constitution says we have a right to have and what Congress has a legal obligation to provide. Always remember that the convention cannot by itself change the Constitution, but operating in the public limelight it could revitalize what has become our delusional and fake democracy. The main thing to fear is not a convention, but continuation of the two-party plutocracy status quo. Sadly, no presidential candidate, not even third-party ones, has spoken out in support of Congress obeying the Constitution and giving us the first Article V convention.

Joel S. Hirschhorn is a co-founder of Friends of the Article V Convention and can be reached through www.foavc.org.

Source / Associated Content

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Go Sign On to Something You Believe In Today

The Land of the Silent and the Home of the Fearful
By Dave Lindorff / August 28, 2008

I was a speaker last night at an anti-war event sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Monmouth County, Progressive Democrats of America and Democrats For America in Lincroft, NJ, near the shore. It was a great group of activist Americans who want to see this country end the Iraq War, turn away from war as a primary instrument of policy, and start dealing with the pressing human needs of the country and the world.

Yet even in this group of committed people, one woman stood up during the question-and-answer session and said, "I want to get involved in writing emails to members of Congress urging them to cut off funding for the war and other things, but if I do that won't I end up getting put on a 'watch list' or something?"

I told her the short answer was yes, she probably would. In George Bush's and Dick Cheney's America, no one is safe from such spying, and even from harassment, as witness Tom Feeley, the man behind the website Information Clearing House, who had armed men invade his house at night and threaten his wife complaining about his First Amendment-protected effort to publicize important stories on the Internet.

But I also told her that it didn't matter. She should defend her freedom of speech and her right to petition for redress of grievances, just as she was defending her freedom of assembly by attending last night's event.

The only demonstrably true statement George Bush has made in his sorry eight years in office is that the Constitution is "just a goddamned piece of paper." While it wasn't the point he was making, when he reportedly shouted this at a couple of Republican members of Congress who were questioning the constitutionality of some of his actions, he was right that the nation's founding document is only worth the parchment and ink it's composed of, unless people use it and defend it.

There is a remarkable and palpable fear abroad in this land-not a fear of terrorism, but a fear of speaking up, a fear of being labeled as "different" or as a "troublemaker."

People will lean over and whisper their opinions, if they think they are anti-Establishment, as though someone might be listening. People write me after some of my columns run, praising me for my "courage," though why it should be perceived as requiring courage to merely write something in America is beyond me.

The worst thing is that every time someone says she or he is afraid, or acts afraid to speak or write what she or he is thinking, five more acquaintances become equally scared and silenced.

The corollary, though, is that each time someone forgets or ignores or rejects that fear, five people gain courage the do the same thing.

Now I'm not saying that there aren't people monitoring, and reporting on, what we say. I know our government is busy doing that. I assume that my Internet activities are being monitored by the National Security Agency. I assume my phones are tapped. I assume there was some agent or informant among the fine people at the church last night. But these Stasi wannabes have no power if we don't let them frighten us into silence and inaction.

What I find discouraging is the widespread acceptance, even on the left, of this effort to intimidate us, and the pervasive attitude of fear that has grown up around us. I spent a year and a half living in a truly fascistic society in China, where there are real, concrete threats to life and liberty faced by those who stand up and say what they are thinking, and yet sometimes I think that ordinary people I met in China were braver about stating their minds than many, or even most Americans are. I'm not talking here about saying things like that you think the Post Office is dysfunctional, or that you think federal bureaucrats are corrupt or that taxes are too high. I'm talking about questioning the system, or challenging the war, or protesting military spending. Chinese people would tell me all the time that the Chinese Communist Party was a corrupt gang of thugs or that you could not get justice in a Chinese court. Chinese people are closing down factories that short them on their pay. They have rallied in the thousands and burned down police stations when corrupt police have raped, killed and then covered up the death of a young girl. They have marched in massive impromptu protests at the theft of their homes through eminent domain.

If you want to see where we're headed here in America, check out the workplace. There, we Americans have, through years of collective cowardice and unwillingness to stand together in organized labor unions, allowed our constitutional freedoms to be almost completely erased. Today, an American workplace is more akin to a police state than to a democratic society. Say what you're thinking on the job, and you're liable to lose it. Wear a shirt that says something the boss disagrees with, and you either remove that shirt or you are unemployed. Even that final refuge of free speech, the bumper sticker, can get workers in trouble if the wrong one shows up in the company parking lot. That loss of will and of freedom has in no small way contributed to the loss of jobs and the decline in living standards of American workers.

It's time for all of us to put a stop to this creeping usurpation of our liberties.

The anxious woman who asked her question came up to me after the meeting and said proudly that she would not be afraid, and would start signing on to protest letter-writing and emailing campaigns.

We need lots more like her.

[Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/. ]

Source / Information Clearing House

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Circuit Court Upholds Ruling : Texas Sex Toy Law Unconstitutional

Texas Republican AG Greg Abbott denied appeal
By Karl-Thomas Musselman / August 2, 2008

It looks like the 14th Amendment is going to win out over Texas Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals has rejected a request by Abbott to have the entire circuit court re-evaluate a ruling made earlier this year that found a Texas law banning the marketing and sales of certain sex toys an unconstitutional violation of the right to privacy under the 14th Amendment. Any appeal would now have to be made and accepted by the United States Supreme Court and there is no word from the AG's office if they will seek to do so.

Houston Chronicle: Companies that own Dreamer's and Le Rouge Boutique, which sell the devices in its Austin stores, and the retail distributor Adam & Eve sued in federal court in Austin in 2004 over the constitutionality of the law. They appealed after a federal judge dismissed the suit and said the Constitution did not protect their right to publicly promote such devices.

The appeals court struck down the ban in February, ruling that it violated the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment.

I believe that prior to this ruling, certain toys, if owned, had to be considered "educational or instructional" devices.

Source / Burnt Orange Report

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