We have had the solution all along

When I was young my generation was united against the war in Viet Nam. But older generations felt no solidarity with us at all. In Florida, once, while my friend Ed and I, long-haired and a bit ragged, were hitchhiking to Fort Walton Beach, a woman who appeared to be only a few years older than we were rolled down the passenger side window of the car she was riding in and threw an orange at us as hard as she could.

The orange barely missed hitting Ed, but he leaned down and picked it up as the woman's angry face, a three-dimensional, ugly piece of pop art framed in a Buick window, disappeared down the road, along with the sound of her shrill obscenities. We ate that orange, and enjoyed it, despite the emotion with which it came into our lives. We were hungry, and that woman, apparently, had food to throw away.

Maybe the time was not right, back then, for widespread solidarity. Maybe the American people had not yet been pushed quite far enough. Maybe that woman in Florida, and others like her, had not realized, yet, that We the People all share the same enemy.

I laugh, wryly, when I hear politicians and certain unbalanced news commentators and pundits pretending, and hoping to convince anyone who will listen, that the 99 Percent have no message. Speaking only for myself it seems as obvious what they, and we, want as it is obvious what those citizens want who take to the streets in other countries all over the planet, and with whom we also stand in solidarity.

We want our freedom back. We want our power back. We want our country back. Young and old alike, we want what is rightfully ours, but has been taken from us by politicians, lobbyists, big business and financial institutions.

But we face an enormous burden if we try, one more time, to "vote the bums out."

We will face our government's attempt to convince us that computerized voting machines cannot be hacked or compromised. We will face the avalanche of secret funds which can easily destroy a candidate who has his honor and a sincere desire to serve his country, but no connections to the newest government answer to purchased democracy, the Super Pac.

We will face, as on so many other occasions, the fact that even if we replace every single incumbent running, our candidates will be far outnumbered by the politicians who remain. And we have seen how the best intentions of the minority can be overwhelmed by the self-serving intentions of the majority.

If only we had magic words that could make all of the old politicians simply go away and leave us alone, break their spell on those whom they have enchanted, leave their self-serving, thieving cronies without the power of a corrupt government to prop them up, and let the rest of us, who will dance in the streets to see them go, turn immediately to the rebuilding of this nation out of the virtual rubble which politicians and their cronies have nearly succeeded in making of it.

Amazingly, we do have those magic words. We have an answer - a solution to the problem. We have had the answer all along, but the time has never been right to make use of it. Until now.

Now, when 99 percent of us have begun to recognize our common problem, and are prepared to stand united, perhaps the time has come at last. The answer will not require violence. Instead, in this nation of laws, it is the law itself which is the answer.

Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of our Constitution will rise to our defense. We, in turn, each one of the 99 percent of us, must rise to the defense of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, because we can be certain that politicians will do their best to fight it.

They have to fight it, because Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment says, as you can read below, that the vast majority of politicians who waste space in state and federal government, in all branches, executive, legislative, and judicial, regardless of party affiliation, are wasting that space illegitimately, even illegally. It says they have effectively resigned their positions, and that they have to go. Now. Yesterday. They simply have to go away and leave us alone.

Here are the magic words of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment:

                                                                          *****

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

                                                                           *****

The words are fairly self-explanatory, but in case you are reading them closely today for the first time, and cannot believe your eyes, be assured that every single politician in the country, elected or appointed, at state and federal levels, takes that oath to support the Constitution. Military personnel and civilian government employees take the oath as well. That oath is spoken by every government worker at any level, from private to president, before he or she embarks upon government service.

Note carefully that the oath is not to protect and defend the government, not to defend politicians and their cronies, and not even to protect and defend the country.

The oath is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America.

That is how important our Constitution is to this nation's very existence. And Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment, printed there above, says that if someone takes that oath and subsequently attacks the Constitution, he or she cannot "be" in government.

It looks as though the writers of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment did not want to leave room for any misunderstanding, either. Taking no chances they have, apparently, attempted to enumerate each and every possible government position, and then added words like ". . . any office, civil or  military, under the United States, or under any State . . . " to cover anyone who might try to slip through the cracks.

Politicians, of course, will try to remind us that the words of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment were aimed at those who had participated in secession, and fought against the Union in the Civil War. But that doesn't mean the words are limited in their application only to the Civil War. That doesn't mean the words aren't still in the Constitution, more than a century after the Civil War, as security that no one in government will ever commit insurrection or rebellion against any part of the Constitution again, in whatever manner.

And one commits insurrection or rebellion against the Supreme Law of the Land by weakening it, disregarding it, breaking it, and failing to support it. If politicians try to convince us that the things they are doing to the Constitution somehow do not rise to the level of insurrection or rebellion, we will know, from their words, just how little their oath to defend the Constitution means to them.

Politicians might also argue that the last line, "But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability," provides the back door through which they can escape the fate stated in the first lines of Section Three.

If you have already opened your own copy of the Constitution and seen that last line, and if it sent a chill down your spine, you need have no fear. The line does not mean that Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment no longer has power. 

In fact, Congress took advantage of the last line of Section Three on various occasions, in the years following its adoption, to forgive, on a case-by-case basis, the occasional statesman whom they deemed worthy of exemption. And at one time Congress even declared a blanket exemption.

But that was in the Nineteenth Century, and applied to politicians of that day and time who had dishonored the Constitution. It was not meant to remove the teeth of Section Three for all eternity, because not only would that have meant that Congress in the Nineteenth Century did not believe that politicians would ever again dishonor the Constitution, it would also mean that Congress had the power to repeal part of the Constitution.

And Congress did not, and does not, have that power. Only We the People do.

Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment is still in the Constitution, in its entirety, and We the People are very fortunate that it is.

Granted, the senators and representatives of the Twenty First Century would likely remove the disability again, for themselves, if they could, but, as it turns out, they are no longer legally members of Congress! At least there are likely nowhere near two-thirds of them who can still make that claim. They resigned the moment that, having taken an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, they failed to do so.

It will be our newly-elected Congress that will have the power to decide, on a case by case basis, whether or not to exempt the occasional statesman its members might deem worthy of exemption. I cannot imagine that they will be able to find many such statesmen.

If you have ever wondered why the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land, is hardly taught at all in government-funded public schools; or if you have ever wondered why politicians insist that the document is too difficult for We the People to understand, and that it must be interpreted for our pitiful little minds by lawyers, judges, justices, and other politicians rather than by common sense, Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment might very well be one of the reasons.

The other reason, those of you will find who might not have read the entire document before, is that the writers of the Constitution, well aware of how self serving, haughty, patronizing, overreaching, uncaring and even dangerous governments could become, wrote the document to prevent this country's government from becoming any or all of those things.

The writers of the Constitution had lived through times when governments passed laws enabling criminally invasive powers, for example, or simply granted themselves the power without laws, to do such things as send their enforcers to break down the doors of citizens' homes, terrify those inside, kill those who resisted, and steal the citizens' homes, cash, property, and private papers with no trial.

They had lived through times when governments would rather allow citizens to be thrown out into the street than help them survive hardships the government itself had caused, or had at least allowed, through careless negligence, to occur.

They had lived through times when government officials sold favors to the highest bribers, and paid little attention to those whose wealth those officials had already leeched away.

They had lived through times when governments assumed that most of the wealth and riches of the nation, along with steady salaries and the best health care, should belong to the members of government and their cronies, and that those whose labor and taxes helped create the wealth and riches could do without.

They had lived through times when governments thought nothing of lying to their citizens, and who imprisoned those who brought those lies to light.

The writers of the Constitution were well aware of how hideously ugly governments could become.

So the writers of the Constitution wrote a simple, straightforward document that would limit the powers of this country's government to specific actions; and within that same simple, straightforward document they gave the people of this country almost unlimited freedom and power. The Constitution was written to protect the people from government. It is full of magic words.

Politicians don't want us to know that particular truth. They want us to believe the Constitution is dry, boring, and irrelevant, so we will never all realize that truth at the same time. They love the power they have fooled us into believing is theirs, and not ours. Governments are like that. The writers of the Constitution understood that.

It will be interesting to see what politicians will do, when the knowledge of this truth becomes widespread enough to alarm them. Will they try to deny that they have attacked or weakened the Constitution? It will be laughably simple to find examples of such attacks.

 Or will they claim that the words in Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment don't really mean what they say? If so, we must stand united to reclaim our Constitution, and to trust the evidence of our own eyes, our own minds, over anyone who might, for any reason, have a vested interest in deceiving us.

The bottom line is that the vast majority of politicians simply no longer hold their positions. And the numbers are staggering, because politicians break their oath to protect the Constitution on a daily basis, and they are so confident we will never realize, much less enforce, the consequences of breaking that oath that they don't even try to keep it a secret.

They actually brag about their "end runs around the Constitution." They commit mean-spirited acts, like seizing the car of a woman whose husband used it to be with a prostitute, and then ruling that seizure of the property of innocent citizens has been going on for so long that it is now considered Constitutional. (Bennis v. Michigan, 1996)!

They eavesdrop and record the private conversations of American citizens; they assassinate American citizens, and justify it by saying those citizens were a threat to the country, or even that those citizens were resisting arrest; they order their enforcers to attack citizens who are exercising their right peaceably to assemble; they interpret the Constitution by spewing forth such inanities as, "Corporations are people," or, "We can't tax the job creators!"

Do they think we don't know that the jobs are all being created overseas? Do they think we can't interpret their doublespeak? We can. Here it is: "These corporations are paying us a LOT of money, based mostly on our agreeing to put their wishes into law, and allowing them to avoid paying their fair share of taxes."

Politicians in the judicial branch rule that torture is perfectly legal, but that a moment of silence within public schools is not. They rule that the government actually has the right to control our bodies. Our bodies, for the love of God! And we have let them get away with this for decades.

And politicians in the legislative and executive branches love to pretend that such rulings are beyond their power to change. Politicians have a very real interest in pretending that the judicial branch of government is untouchable, and not simply a part of the system of checks and balances. Once the judicial politicians say that search and seizure without a trial is Constitutional, the rest of the politicians can just shrug, claim that their hands are tied, and keep searching and seizing. It's a tough job, but politicians will make sure that someone does it.

Politicians know that if We the People ever realized how blatantly they all are undermining the Constitution, we might demand, at the very least, restitution for all of the unconscionable wrongs they have committed.

But for now, all we demand, of the vast majority of our politicians, elected and appointed, executive, legislative and judicial, state and federal, cabinet secretaries, czars, heads of bureaus, on the left and on the right, is that they accept the fact that they no longer work for us, if they ever did. They effectively resigned at the very moment they made, or allowed to be made, that very first "end run" around our Constitution.

They must, literally, vacate the halls of government, go home, and never run for another state or federal office again. Because Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment does not say that politicians who have failed to defend the Constitution must leave at the end of their terms, or that they can apologize and say they will never do it again, or that they can go home for a year and then run again. It says they cannot be in government. Period. We couldn't allow them to stay even if we wanted to.

Allowing them to stay would be unconstitutional.

Continuing to pay them would be unthinkable.

In fact, I wonder whether we might ask that they pay us back all of the money they took from us under false pretenses, for all those years, and all of the money they took to give themselves the excellent health insurance and retirement plans they claimed to deserve, while behaving as if the American people did not deserve them. Perhaps the money they return to us, its rightful owners, might help extract us from the debt into which their, dare I say, almost criminally negligent administration, has plummeted the nation.

Right now I do not advocate forcing them to repay the money, although perhaps our new government will feel differently. We are not, after all, arresting them for a crime at this time. We are simply accepting their resignations. Retroactively, in many cases. For there are politicians who have long since retired, or been voted out of office, whose pensions and health insurance payments will hereby cease, right along with the salaries and benefits we have been paying the current crop.

The vast majority of current and former politicians have not earned those salaries or benefits. And they cannot even claim, like those whose pensions politicians and large corporations so casually choose to dishonor these days, that they upheld their end of a contract. Because most politicians did not uphold their contracts.

And this goes for the highest ranking military officers as well, those who have participated in the practice of discrimination against gay military members, thereby attacking and weakening those parts of the Constitution which provide for the equality of all American citizens. We no longer have to bite our tongues with rage while they tell us that their precious wars are proceeding wonderfully, and morale has never been higher, while keeping from us for years the burgeoning rates of suicides among their ranks. We no longer have to subsidize those who have participated in the imprisonment or endangerment of even one person who attempted to shine a light on the corruption of the government.

How insidiously does such imprisonment attack the Constitutional rights of free speech and press?

If anyone should ask how we will get along without our politicians and certain high-ranking military and civilians, I would say that I, of course, have struggled with the possibility that everything could go terribly wrong.

But how can we live with ourselves if we let the corruption continue? How can we even consider allowing these politicians to remain in charge of us, our country, our future, when we know their real intentions, and have the means to deal with them? We have to stand firm, or we are as guilty as the corrupt.

This might well be the very first time that this entire nation has been united in the common understanding that politicians and their cronies are our common enemy. If we can't repair the damage they have done now, if we can't stand united in our determination to bring our nation back to the way it is meant to be, then I can't imagine that we ever will do so. And the pitiful remnant of what was once the proudest land in the world will be our children's heritage. How will we explain to them that we had this shining opportunity, and we let it slip away?

I watched the news footage of Occupy Oakland members standing up against the violence of those who would sully that organization's message, or discourage its messengers. And I believe that this is the time for all of us who want this transition to be peaceful and productive to stand up and do the same.

And we must remember that the possibility exists that there are some legislators who did not, for example, vote to pass the Patriot Act, or executives who did not choose to allow it to continue as law. There might even be some judicial politicians whose interpretations, rulings, and advice have not been a slap in the face of logic, reason, and Constitutionality.

Our upstanding press conglomerates rarely report on such politicians, but there are non-partisan watchdog groups whose very passion and pride lies not only in keeping track of the wrongs done by the majority of politicians, but also in finding any honorable men and women who might have managed to remain that way. If any can be found, perhaps those specific politicians can remain in our employ, and we will be glad to have them, to help us through this transition.

I also know that there are thousands of unsung heroes in government offices who keep the wheels turning, thousands of enlisted men and women who have proved their heroism, loyalty and valor in wars from which we can now bring them home immediately.

These unsung heroes, military and civilian, keep the wheels turning with no fanfare, and they do so in spite of having to deal with the most ridiculous, counterproductive and unfathomable regulations, and with the lies of a government which is willing to dishonor the contracts, civilian as well as military, those unsung heroes signed in good faith.

Without the presence of "upper management," I have faith that those in the trenches will come shining through. Because they, too, have taken that oath to protect the Constitution. Given the power to make decisions, I believe they will proudly honor that oath. Because they represent us. They are us. They are part of the 99 percent of us who have, for too long, been told we have no power.

Gradually, over a period of time, we will elect new politicians, managers for a country which has been seriously neglected and badly run for too long by its former managers. They will come, this time, from the ranks of We the People. They will not need vast riches to campaign, and since they will not, they also will need no secret funds, and no nefarious relationships with corporations and lobbyists.

They will be able to do the will of the People, because they will not have sold their souls for "campaign funds."

Perhaps the dismantling of the system of secret funds, lobbyists and "campaign contributions" might be one of our first priorities. Surely such dismantling of our outgoing politicians' latest insulting interpretation of our Constitution, "Free speech belongs to those who can afford it," deserves immediate action.

So many things can finally change, once these politicians accept that their days of bleeding this country dry are over.

Candidates, even those who are struggling financially, can publish their intention to run for office, and their views and ideas, on the internet without spending millions of dollars to do so.  They can debate with others on public access channels. They can collect signatures instead of money. Candidates for president will not need to travel in person to every single state, because we can let the Electoral College process die a long-overdue death. All candidates can be elected by the long, tedious process of paper ballots, the only safe way to have elections until we can know, with certainty, that they are not being compromised.

With the solidarity which is finally arising in the cities and streets all over this nation, we can do all of these things, and make logical, elegant decisions for our nation, because at last we can throw all of the bums out at once.

Inside the pages of the Constitution we have the solution to the biggest problem we face as we attempt to reclaim and repair our nation.

In Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of that incredible document, we have had the solution all along.