Glimpses of Freedom - The Weblog of Lance Brown

Glimpses of Freedom
Weblog of Lance Brown, Candidate for President

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posted 1.11.02 |/\| 10:25 PM

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posted 12.17.01 |/\| 12:50 AM

Some disturbing news has cropped up from 40 years ago. Check out this article at ABC News about "Operation Northwoods."

Just when we thought it was safe to begin trusting our government again (ha ha), something like this shows up and lets us know how naïve that would be. If you're too lazy to click over and read the article (which you really should do if you haven't heard about this), here's the brief: In the early 60's our country's top military leaders hatched a plan to start a war with Cuba by attacking us and blaming it on Cuba. The plan went so far as to get approval from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was presented to the Secretary of Defense.

So there's another one to add to the list when someone asks you why you distrust government so much. Gives some food for thought for our current crisis as well. I mean, in 1962 we had a liberal president, so liberal that he was considered pro-communist by many others in the government at the time. So, when a plan was presented to incite war against Castro through devious and horrific misdeeds, it's not surprising that the plan would be rejected.

But what if such a plan were to be presented to a more conservative, war-friendly president? What if he could be convinced that faith in government had sunk so low after Election 2000, that the populace was at risk of falling out of the grip of the established parties, and the establishment itself? What if he could be convinced that the U.S. needed a new enemy, a new "cold war" of sorts? And what if he could be convinced that this couldn't be a normal "quickie" war, but instead needed to be a lasting conflict, just like the cold war? A new world quest, to replace the quest to end communism. Hmmmm...

A lot of people (people who might be considered "fringe" by the majority) have implied or claimed that the Bush Administration had advance knowledge of the September 11th attacks. There are many different variations on the theme, but they all stem from that sense of immense distrust that comes from reading about stuff like "Operation Northwoods." If one set of leaders would decide it was wise to attack our own population in order to foment war, isn't it reasonable to conclude that another set of leaders might do the same?

I hate to be cynical...I really do. I wish that I could find a rational way to trust our leaders, but history has shown over and over again that when people get too much power, and too much ability to hide what they do, heavy duty corruption is the result. And I don't mean dirty-deals-corruption, I mean moral corruption— corruption of the soul, if you prefer. No system of human interaction can succeed for long if bad people are able to wield too much control over others.

Our system was designed to prevent that, by creating a government that must answer to the people— one that we could hold accountable, by voting, through the courts, through a free press, the right to demonstrate, the right to defend ourselves from intrusion, and any other of a number of ways. The problem is, too many of the controls have been consolidated in the hands of too few, largely due to the actions of the U.S. Government in the past 100 years or so, combined with the citizenry's apathy and disinterest. We've asked government to control virtually everything— it shouldn't be much of a surprise when our leaders start feeling like they are kings of the world.

That set of Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 must have believed that they were doing right. Somehow they had reached a way of thinking where they thought it was morally permissible to purposely instigate a war through such devious and disgusting means. They thought everyone was so misguided that they needed to devise a twisted secret plan to regain control of things. Brew up a war, and whammo, 80% of the American people will jump up in unison in support of their government, and against the bad guy. It sounds so simple, and it really does work, so I can understand how the seed of that idea came to be. A similar idea has been played out in the movies "Wag the Dog" (where the administration fakes a war) and "Canadian Bacon" (where the administration does just what the Operation Northwoods schemers had planned, except with Canada as the enemy.)

Like I said, I hate to be cynical. And I hate to be living in a time and place where there is substantial cause to distrust our national leaders. But I can't be blind to what our leaders have done in the past, or or live in denial of what they could do, and may be doing.

However, as cynical as the facts force me to be, I am optimistic as well. People who are morally corrupt are flawed, and weak in the most important way. People who are that corrupted inside are bound to screw up, and in the end, truth, freedom, and the vigilance of those good people who are willing to bother will pay off, and the opportunity will come to take their power away from them, and give it back to its original owner— the people. Or, more properly, the individuals.

People should not have the power to rule the lives of others— but that's exactly what we've given to our government. We have got to be ready to take it back...if we ever get a chance.

Oh, and sorry it's been so long since my last post. I have been very busy, and one of my pets was injured, which was a major disruption in my life for a while.

On a positive note, my local paper, The Union, published an op-ed of mine this past Saturday, Bill of Rights Day. Check it out!

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posted 10.23.01 |/\| 12:52 PM

Here's an interesting tidbit: IRS agent assaults taxpayer in Vegas. You can get the gist of it from the headline. The brief story is that a man who was at an IRS hearing on whether a lien should be placed on his property or not requested that the prosecuting agent produce the section of IRS code that authorized such a lien. The IRS agent couldn't find that section of the code, and he became enraged and attacked the man with a chair.

Every now and then I read a story about someone who blocks an IRS prosecution by simply asking to see the law that requires them to pay taxes. In the cases I have read, IRS officials have been unable to produce such a law, and people have had their cases indefinitely suspended on that basis. That's pretty wild. I have read a lot of the arguments of the people in that movement, most notably former IRS Criminal Investigations Department Special Agent Joe Banister. He made a (relatively) big media splash when he quit the IRS and made public his claims that there is no law that says U.S. citizens have to pay income tax. He spent a long time investigating the basis for the income tax, and he found a lot of points of concern- the main one being that payment of income tax is voluntary, and the IRS treats it, more often than not, as mandatory. He wrote up a lengthy report on his investigation and submitted it to his superiors, and shortly thereafter was suspended. At that point, he resigned in disgust, and wrote a letter of resignation that is worth reading, if only to see how ugly things can get inside the great bureaucracies of our time.

Joe Banister isn't the first person to make the claims he did, but he is certainly the first formerly-gung-ho IRS agent to do so. Irwin Schiff has been a pay-no-income-tax advocate for a long time, and more recently Bob Schulz and his Give Me Liberty organization has been making major waves—using a hunger strike to force a Congressional hearing on the issue.

To me, the idea that the income tax might really be voluntary blows my mind. To think that the IRS has been seizing homes, businesses, and wages, putting people in jail, and basically ruining thousands of lives, all without the proper authority to do so...well, its just mind blowing, I can't think of a better way to say it.

Suppose that the "Truth In Taxation" hearings actually expose the fact that there is no law requiring payment of income tax. Aside from the repercussions that would have on how many people file their taxes next April, just imagine the lawsuits that might come from such a revelation. All those people who are in jail for "income tax evasion," all the folks whose homes and businesses were seized, all those liened wages...it would be a free-for-all. Now, I'm no big fan of lawsuits, but I am a big fan of penalizing those who cause damage to others. If your actions hurt another person in an objective way that can be proven in court, you should have to answer to that, and be made to repair the damage done if at all possible.

In the case of the IRS, if the income tax is found to be voluntary (and frankly, the evidence supporting that seems to be pretty substantial), there is going to be a lot of payback to be had— potentially enough to bankrupt our government several times over. I don't know how that would get sorted out.

There's another arm of the no-income-tax movement that claims that the Income Tax Amendment itself was never properly ratified, and that the official in charge of recording the votes falsely claimed that enough states had voted yes (a Constitutional Amendment has to be approved by 3/4 of the states). The implications of that one are hard to imagine, and it seems almost in the realm of fantasy to think that something like that could have happened in our country. But then I think of Watergate. And then I think of the practically secret hearings in 1937 where marijuana was made illegal. And I think about our country's long and torrid history of abuses of power and influence.

1913, when the 16th Amendment was "passed," was pre-radio, for all intents and purposes. Most informed Americans got their information from the newspapers, and most Americans probably weren't informed at all. Think about how often it seems that the American public is "asleep at the wheel when it comes to what our government is up to. I'm talking about now, when we have the Internet, and 24-hour news channels, and more radio stations in my extremely rural area than there were in the entire country in 1913.

How hard would it be for someone to pull the wool over the eyes of the public in an environment like that? Not hard is the answer to that question. Not too hard at all.

I try to avoid being a conspiracy theorist, and I lay a skeptical eye on everything I see, but I also think it's important to not allow my vision to be clouded over by such skepticism. I keep my eyes wide open, and I remain skeptical until I see proof. That being said, I am very much looking forward to the Truth In Taxation hearings.

1/3 of eligible taxpayers already don't file their taxes each year. I expect that number to rise with each year to come.

Sorry to violate the "everything must connect to terror attacks" rule of political commentary. ;) I'll try to get back on topic next entry.

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posted 10.16.01 |/\| 11:55 AM

I've been delinquent in making new entries to the weblog. I got caught up in various things at home, and I just haven't found the moments of inspiration to write anything very useful here. I have written a couple other things in the meantime, just not weblog entries. I apologize for the delay.

I was recently put in contact with a Libertarian candidate for Governor of Iowa, who I think is going to become a great ally. His name is Clyde Cleveland, and he appears to be making great strides in forming alliances with other third parties, including the Greens and the Natural Law Party. He has a website called Green and Free, which has a similar mission as my project GreenLiberty.org. I have persuaded him (it was really easy) to contribute some writing to GreenLiberty, since he has a strong interest in the subject. I very much look forward to working with Clyde— he seems like a really active and inspired guy.

I came upon an interesting 9/11-related piece that I want to share. It comes from Peace Times, which I can't find a website for (I got it in an e-mail). It's got sort of an e.e. cummings feel to it, but it's pretty compelling writing I think:

"First Writing Since"
by Suheir Hammad (a New Yorker)

1. there have been no words.
i have not written one word.
no poetry in the ashes south of canal street.
no prose in the refrigerated trucks driving debris and dna.
not one word.

today is a week, and seven is of heavens, G-ds, science.
evident out my kitchen window is an abstract reality.
sky where once was steel.
smoke where once was flesh.

fire in the city air and i feared for my sister's life in a way never
before. and then, and now, i fear for the rest of us.

first, please G-d, let it be a mistake, the pilot's heart failed, the
plane's engine died.
then please G-d, let it be a nightmare, wake me now.
please G-d, after the second plane, please, don't let it be anyone
who looks like my brothers.

i do not know how bad a life has to break in order to kill.
i have never been so hungry that i willed hunger
i have never been so angry as to want to control a gun over a pen.
not really.
even as a woman, as a palestinian, as a broken human being.
never this broken.

more than ever, i believe there is no difference.
the most privileged nation, most americans do not know the difference
between indians, afghanis, syrians, muslims, sikhs, hindus.
more than ever, there is no difference.

2. thank you korea for kimchi and bibim bob, and corn tea and the
genteel smiles of the wait staff at wonjo the smiles never revealing
the heat of the food or how tired they must be working long midtown
shifts. thank you korea, for the belly craving that brought me into
the city late the night before and diverted my daily train ride into
the world trade center.

there are plenty of thank yous in ny right now. thank you for my
lazy procrastinating late ass. thank you to the germs that had me
call in sick. thank you, my attitude, you had me fired the week
before. thank you for the train that never came, the rude ny'er who
stole my cab going downtown. thank you for the sense my mama gave me
to run. thank you for my legs, my eyes, my life.

3. the dead are called lost and their families hold up shaky
printouts in front of us through screens smoked up.

we are looking for iris, mother of three. please call with any
information. we are searching for priti, last seen on the 103rd
floor. she was talking to her husband on the phone and the line
went. please help us find george, also known as adel. his family is
waiting for him with his favorite meal. i am looking for my son, who
was delivering coffee. i am looking for my sister girl, she started
her job on monday.

i am looking for peace. i am looking for mercy. i am looking for
evidence of compassion. any evidence of life. i am looking for
life.

4. ricardo on the radio said in his accent thick as yuca, "i will
feel so much better when the first bombs drop over there. and my
friends feel the same way."
on my block, a woman was crying in a car parked and stranded in hurt.
i offered comfort, extended a hand she did not see before she said,
"we"re gonna burn them so bad, i swear, so bad." my hand went to my
head and my head went to the numbers within it of the dead iraqi
children, the dead in nicaragua. the dead in rwanda who had to vie
with fake sport wrestling for america's attention.

yet when people sent emails saying, this was bound to happen, lets
not forget u.s. transgressions, for half a second i felt resentful.
hold up with that, cause i live here, these are my friends and fam,
and it could have been me in those buildings, and we're not bad
people, do not support america's bullying. can i just have a half
second to feel bad?

if i can find through this exhaust people who were left behind to
mourn and to resist mass murder, i might be all right.

thank you to the woman who saw me brinking my cool and blinking back
tears. she opened her arms before she asked "do you want a hug?" a
big white woman, and her embrace was the kind only people with the
warmth of flesh can offer. i wasn't about to say no to any comfort.
"my brother's in the navy," i said. "and we're arabs". "wow, you
got double trouble." word.

5. one more person ask me if i knew the hijackers.
one more mother****er ask me what navy my brother is in.
one more person assume no arabs or muslims were killed.
one more person assume they know me, or that i represent a people.
or that a people represent an evil. or that evil is as simple as a
flag and words on a page.

we did not vilify all white men when mcveigh bombed oklahoma.
america did not give out his family's addresses or where he went to
church. or blame the bible or pat robertson.

and when the networks air footage of palestinians dancing in the
street, there is no apology that hungry children are bribed with
sweets that turn their teeth brown. that correspondents edit images.
that archives are there to facilitate lazy and inaccurate
journalism.

and when we talk about holy books and hooded men and death,
why do we never mention the kkk?

if there are any people on earth who understand how new york is
feeling right now, they are in the west bank and the gaza strip.

6. today it is ten days. last night bush waged war on a man once
openly funded by the
cia. i do not know who is responsible. read too many books, know
too many people to believe what i am told. i don't give a **** about
bin laden. his vision of the world does not include me or those i
love. and petitions have been going around for years trying to get
the u.s. sponsored taliban out of power. **** is complicated, and i
don't know what to think.

but i know for sure who will pay.
in the world, it will be women, mostly colored and poor. women will
have to bury children, and support themselves through grief. "either
you are with us, or with the terrorists" - meaning keep your people
under control and your resistance censored. meaning we got the loot
and the nukes.

in america, it will be those amongst us who refuse blanket attacks on
the shivering. those of us who work toward social justice, in
support of civil liberties, in opposition to hateful foreign
policies.

i have never felt less american and more new yorker, particularly
brooklyn, than these past days. the stars and stripes on all these
cars and apartment windows represent the dead as citizens first,
not family members, not lovers.

i feel like my skin is real thin, and that my eyes are only going to
get darker. the future holds little light.

my baby brother is a man now, and on alert, and praying five times a
day that the orders he will take in a few days time are righteous and
will not weigh his soul down from the afterlife he deserves.

both my brothers - my heart stops when i try to pray - not a beat to
disturb my fear. one a rock G-d, the other a sergeant, and both
palestinian, practicing muslim, gentle men. both born in brooklyn
and their faces are of the archetypal arab man, all eyelashes and
nose and beautiful color and stubborn hair.

what will their lives be like now?
over there is over here.

7. all day, across the river, the smell of burning rubber and limbs
floats through. the sirens have stopped now. the advertisers are
back on the air. the rescue workers are traumatized. the skyline is
brought back to human size. no longer taunting the G-ds with its
height.

i have not cried at all while writing this. i cried when i saw those
buildings collapse on themselves like a broken heart. i have never
owned pain that needs to spread like that. and i cry daily that my
brothers return to our mother safe and whole.

there is no poetry in this. there are causes and effects. there are
symbols and ideologies. mad conspiracy here, and information we will
never know. there is death here, and there are promises of more.

there is life here. anyone reading this is breathing, maybe hurting,
but breathing for sure. and if there is any light to come, it will
shine from the eyes of those who look for peace and justice after
the rubble and rhetoric are cleared and the phoenix has risen.

affirm life.
affirm life.
we got to carry each other now.
you are either with life, or against it.
affirm life.

suheir hammad

Suheir is the author of
"Born Palestinian, Born Black"
and other books.

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Thanks to Puanani Rogers and Palolo for forwarding this message.

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Please note:
"G-d" has been substituted for the name of the Creator,
out of respect.
"****" has been substituted for several expletives.

>> (\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/)(\o/) <<

And here's a link to a funny (kind of sad-funny— you'll see what I mean when you read it) comparison between terrorists and the U.S. Government.

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posted 9.28.01 |/\| 6:45 PM

I have been very politically busy since the attacks. I developed a page of freedom and nonviolence action items, which I mentioned in my last entry, and I took two of my recent weblog entries and crafted them into stand-alone commentaries (here and here). And yesterday, I wrote an analysis paper about Carnivore and issued a press release about it.

I've also been doing interviews, all of them about Carnivore, and all of them except one with international media. Three days after the attack, I received a call from Sylvie Lasserre, a writer doing a story on Carnivore for LesEchos.net. The next day, I got a call from Jane Duke Lefebvre, from the English-language radio channel of the Austrian Broadcasting Company, and she taped an interview for the next week. which was broadcast all over Austria and beyond. Just a few days later, I got a request to do an e-mail interview for CORPECE, a technology and electronic commerce e-zine with 35,000 subscribers. And a couple days ago, Steve Tanner from Silicon Valley BizInk called me for a follow-up to an article he published months ago on Carnivore.

I have been putting the pressure on recently, to try and do what I can to help build the wave of voices for freedom and nonviolence in this very crucial time. I'm a small fish in a big sea as far as that goes, and groups like the Libertarian Party, the ACLU, EPIC, and many others are in a better position to make the big moves that will hopefully preserve our freedom and safety in the foreseeable future. Still, I recognize that it is not that difficult to do something to help advance the movement, and that without the small fish like me and a zillion other freedom fighters doing little things, it would be hard or impossible for the big fish to lead the charge on our behalf. We are the charge, and if we don't all stand up and do our part to get behind those who would help us be free, then we don't have much we can complain about if our freedoms are lost.

Me, I want to be able to have plenty to complain about if my freedoms are lost. "I spent all that time linking to your action alerts, and you didn't even save my freedoms! I forwarded your e-mails, and you fell through! Aaargh! All those interviews!" I'm just kidding— I'm probably just reflecting on my thoughts from an e-mail I got recently, in which the sender was complaining about how the ACLU doesn't do everything he or she wants them to (I think it's a he). He used to be in the ACLU, but now they are all motivated by personal gain, etc. he says.

I don't really have too much time for that kind of cynicism. I got a vibe that this guy used to have a hope that he could be part of a great change, and then got disillusioned somehow and gave up. I think that's a pretty common scenario these days- the whole get-disillusioned-and-give-up thing. I can't identify with it myself. I'm not going to spend my life sitting around thinking how much everything sucks, and how lame it is that there's nothing I can do about it. That's a bunch of hooey, if you'll pardon my language.

The battle is on right now, and I don't mean the battle against terrorism. I mean the battle between the forces of freedom and the forces of control. This is a battle fought almost entirely without weapons— it's a battle for the mind, and it's been going on for centuries. The difference is that now we have a chance to win. Just as the forces of control seek to invoke a world of control, we are equally situated to create a world of freedom.

Information, and the concept of freedom, are both very powerful tools. Most countries and most people are drifting toward those two magnets, and to those who get infected, freedom and information become enormously compelling motivators. They are our movement's strongest assets. Just about every revolution has taken place by stirring the natural desire of people to be free. (Unfortunately, in most cases, the natural desire of some people to take control kicks in soon after.)

We are all a part of this battle for the mind, and its impact will be felt all over the globe, for generations to come (for the rest of human history, when you get right down to it.) By and large, if you're not standing with the forces of freedom, you are a pawn for the forces of control. Now, I'm not saying you should break laws and resist police and arm yourself and such. those are personal decisions that you will have to make if and when you have to make them.

I'm talking solely about your mind, which ultimately can not be arrested without your consent. Freedom is nothing but a concept, a set of ideas arranged in a certain way— and as long as you maintain your devotion to those ideas, you are with the forces of freedom. If you give up on the concept of freedom, give in to the naysayers and doom-evangelists, then you become a property of the forces of control, more likely to "go along to get along," more likely to compromise your liberties, and less likely to defend the freedoms of others when they are challenged.

Don't let that happen. Don't become convinced that freedom is a concept of the past, some sort of fuzzy ideal that can't be achieved—a necessary victim of these troubling times. Don't let yourself be convinced that the ideas of the founding fathers are outdated or irrelevant, or that the Era of Big Government is permanent.

Instead, let yourself be persuaded that individual freedom is the natural destination of civilized society. That the spread of information has been and will continue to be empowering the people of the world, and that it is naturally sparking a desire for personal and community responsibility. That as more and more people realize they can control parts of their own lives, more and more people are demanding the right of free choice and self-determination.

Don't think too much about all the bad outcomes that might occur, or allow yourself to get fixated on some bleak vision of the future. Instead, think of freedom. Hold that simple arrangement of basic ideas near to your heart, and at the forefront of your mind. Wear the concept of freedom as a shield against the iniquities of our day, and with each blow your shield deflects, it will grow stronger, eventually becoming an invisible suit of armor, protecting your individuality and spirit of liberty against all comers.

Heavy talk, I know—but these are heavy times. The forces of control want very much for you and your mind to step in with the crowd, go along to get along, don't make waves, etc. But if the crowd is wrong, and going along won't get you along, then maybe making waves is exactly the thing to do. At the very least, hang onto the concept of freedom in your mind and your heart, and don't give in to the doubts that may try to separate you from that notion. As long as we still believe in freedom, then no amount of new laws will stop it from spreading.

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