The People of the United States v. the Deep State (Part 1): Why We Need a People's Tribunal
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ne7I7YIwIJk]
More follows:
How best can we inform Americans of the dangers posed by the criminal regime that has governed and continues to govern the United States of America? A regime that acts not in the interest of We the People, but in the interests of transnational corporations, neoliberal and neoconservative ideologues, the US Intelligence Community (especially the CIA, FBI and NSA) and the Pentagon and other elements of what Bill Moyers and others have come to call the "Deep State", a term originally coined by spy novelist, John Le Carre.
Obviously, our corporate controlled media has no interest in exposing the the true extent of the corruption of our political system and the crimes committed by corporations, our non-representative government, including most Members of Congress and every US President.
Certainly, Nancy Pelosi, Democratic Speaker of the House, once she obtained the power to impeach President Bush for the war crimes committed by our military that he authorized as part of his self-declared "War in Terror" chose to short circuit even the suggestion the President Bush should be held accountable for the Wars of aggression, illegal detainment, atrocities and torture in violation of International Law. Nor did President Obama, who promised to prosecute Wall Street Banksters for the crimes of fraud and financial theft that crashed the world's economy in 2008, and then went back on his word once he was in power.
Both parties supported the extension of our National Surveillance State, and both explicitly supported the continuation of the Patriot Act and implicitly allowed President Obama to extend the powers of the Executive Branch to wage war without Congressional approval, and to unilaterally invade the privacy rights of Americans by the NSA and the FBI, handing that power over to Donald Trump on his way out the door.
So how do we best get the truth out that our government has been hijacked by criminal corporations such as Exxon Mobile and Goldman Sachs? Our media won;t do the job for us? The Democratic party is deeply implicated in many of these crimes and injustices. We can look for a political solution all we want, whether within the duopoly or by promoting a new Third Party, but first we desperately need an informed public, one that has been made aware of the true history of how our democracy and our economic prosperity was stolen from us in order to serve the needs of organizations and individuals who I consider criminals no better if not worse than rogue states and drug cartel lords.
My vision: A tribunal, based on the model of the Nuremberg trials, in which scholars, lawyers, alternative news journalists such as Glenn Greenwald and Amy Goodman, and witnesses such as Chelsea Manning, Eric Snowden, and others who have knowledge of, or can obtain documentary evidence of, these crimes (Wikileaks and Julian Assange, for example) can testify and present that evidence in an online forum. These people's trials would indict and prosecute the leading individual politicians and corporate managers, and the institutions that have created the political, economic and ecological crises we face, in order to to benefit themselves and their friends and associates.
Though we cannot enforce our judgments to bring true justice, as noted by Kofi Annan, knowledge is power and information is liberating. Without an informed public, the ability to take back power from the One percent is just a pipe dream. A trial process, in which defendants are named publicly, prosecuted in a public forum and provided a defense, is still one of the best ways to present facts and get out the truth that can inform the public about these injustices that have been perpetrated against all of us.
How we can make these people's trials a reality and promote them online is a matter for much discussion. Over the next few weeks, I plan to do more videos suggesting how we might accomplish this, but I welcome your suggestions, comments and ideas.
Thanks,
Steven D
Comments
There stakeholders are the abusers. Who's surprised?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
The tribunal is a good idea.
Can there be several tribunals, though?
It seems more than one would be needed to cover different topics, like the animal abuse mentioned by dkmich.
dfarrah
Yes
The idea is one for each issue, or that's my first take anyway. War Crimes, Climate and Fossil Fuel Industry, Finacialization and Wall Street, Big Ag ... I'm open to a large list.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
League of Women Voters Should Do It.
- the League of Women Voters would be an amazing sponsor/organizer for a tribunal. They actually have an historical axe to grind as well, being so prophetic as to the marketing nature of corporate sponsored "Presidential Debates".
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu
Like it, Steven. Hedges and West did something similar at Occupy
Thought I'd post this as a reference, and also as an example of what this might look like:
From the description on this YouTube entry here's the program:
Oh, what's this? TOP told me OWS was a bourgeois white kid's movement...
And man, how much does this pain you to see just how far this guy has fallen? Ugh...
I was standing just behind them for this. One of so many amazing moments to be witness of, of a movement whose ramifications are reverberating around the world.
"All Day All Week,
Occupy Wall St"
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
These would be good things to do
packaged with a variety of actions. As with anything, how to get the information to more people is the hard part.
Maybe we could take over the lottery system and use the winnings to fund the revolution.
That was my thought
We know the facts but how to package them into anarrative that people will watch and understand.
Trials make for great theater, at least when done in this fashion. Imagine seeing someone question Chelsea Manning about why she leaked the stuff she did, or testimony from Snowden about what the NSA is doing? And all the videos we have out there. Interview people who's homes were wrongly foreclosed because of robo-signing fraud, e.g. Get someone to testify about the banks that laundered billions of drug cartel money. Play videos of the Bushes and Obama and Clinton making promises than have testimony about how they betrayed the people by going back on their word. Remember Rummy shaking Saddam's hand in the 80's while we gave him the components to make chemical weapons? Or that Alan Greenspan "mea culpa" admission that damn, trickle down, let the banks regulate themselves approach didn't work as well as he thought it would? Play that after one where he keeps saying the economy was doing so great. There's so many ways to "build your case" as they say that would be riveting if done correctly.
It's not the full answer, obviously, but if you can people to click and share the videos of such trials it would do a lot to get around the "stenographer reporting" and "sorry, we don't do nuance, only insider baseball" horse manure we see from corporate fake news outlets like CNN. Might help get some people to wean themselves from the divisive, "pit one side against the media shit sandwiches" that we get served daily, that sow hate among folks who should be natural allies, and get them to focus on "who the real enemy is," to paraphrase the Hunger Games.
"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott
It's up to the people, we can do it
globalization, neoliberalism, capitalism is failing
and tptb are overreaching everywhere
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/ap/article-4191192/Romania-government-m...
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
My Concerns About This Proposal
First, revealing your strategy on the Internet is a sure-fire way to find yourself on a Homeland Security arrest list should any unrest occur. The Trump government is already taking its cues from the Third Reich, and to Hell With Godwin! That lily-livered Obama left behind enough draconian laws for Trump to abuse, including the "right" of the government to declare you a terrorist, to keep you imprisoned indefinitely without trial in the name of "National Security".
Second, one has to be able to disseminate the news to the people. The coming assault on Net Neutrality will severely hamper the efforts of those tasked with spreading the word, and as a result, could be interfered with via "fake news"and alternate facts. How can anything be trusted when nothing is?
I feel the need to examine the practices of the Committees of Correspondence used to keep the various Colonial Assemblies informed of the actions of the others. It could literally mean the complete abandonment of modern electronic technology to keep from handing one's head to the corporatist fascists now in control of the entire Federal Government.
Lastly, the only realistic way for We the People to fight back is to stop participating in their economy as much as we possibly can. That is the only strategy which has recently shown any promise in affecting those who afflict us.
Vowing To Oppose Everything Trump Attempts.
I had thought about this too
with several thoughts about how it might work:
1) people are fascinated by trials, so being able to do one on line would give most people the chance to read about it and discuss it.
2) it should not go quickly. http://www.iraqtribunal.org/ had two days of hearing testimony. But it should have been drug out for months with various aspects of the war put on trial. The reason for this is the need to build up the people's education. We have been mushrooms for so long we have to be able to sort out what is bullsh*t and what is true nourishment.
3) since we cannot compel people to testify, we should have a team of folks working on both the pro and the con to pull out public utterances to allow us to simulate the person or persons on the hook. And similarly there should be a defense team that works to protect the folks we intend to pummel so that there is again an educational aspect to this. Lawyers or lawyer wanna bees should be honored regardless of the side they take because they are fulfilling what should have been the law in action.
glitterscale