Announcing: Strangebedfellows!
I wrote last week that the Democratic Party is far from a lost cause for freedom lovers in America. Not the corrupt establishment leadership of the party, of course-- those people are lost forever. Nancy Pelosi should always be remembered for her "impeachment is off the table" comment regarding George Bush, and Steny Hoyer (Democratic House Majority Leader) has now become the driving force behind a bogus "compromise" on a Republican sponsored bill that would create vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers in the President and grant amnesty to lawbreaking telecom companies. These people-- the Pelosis and Hoyers of the world-- are beyond saving, but there's a new movement growing in the Democratic Party among online bloggers and freedom lovers who stand strongly in favor of constitutional rights and civil liberties. Check out Glenn Greenwald's piece today at www.Salon.com entitled "Targeting Steny Hoyer For His Contempt of the Rule of Law." Glenn Greenwald-- a Democrat-- announcing "a major new campaign beginning today aimed at Hoyer and a handful of other key members of Congress who enable telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping." Greenwald and other major bloggers on the left (Matt Stoller of www.openleft.com and Jane Hamscher of www.firedoglake.com, among several others) have joined issue in a big way against Hoyer and his ilk in the fight for constitutional liberty. As stated by Greenwald in Salon today: "we are working to create an alliance with numerous organizations and factions across the ideological spectrum which oppose civil liberties erosions, as well as with as many blogs as possible (modeled vaguely after the the ideologically diverse alliance that has arisen in Britain in opposition to the sprawling and lawless surveillance state there.)"
Trevor Lyman and I are pleased to advise that BreakTheMatrix is taking up this issue of warrantless wiretapping and the surveillance state in conjunction with our friends and colleagues from the left. Announcing: "Strangebedfellows"-- a strategic alliance of BreakTheMatrix, the ACLU, and the leading online leftist bloggers coming together for the purpose of standing for constitutional rights and freedom online. We oppose this runaway surveillance state that George Bush and the establishment Democrats are trying to enhance (yet again) in the form of a bipartisan "compromise" on warrantless eavesdropping and telecom immunity measures contained in a pending overhaul of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Our new alliance-- Strangebedfellows-- will be the subject of a press release tomorrow from Washington DC, but in the meantime, Glenn Greenwald in an Update II blog entry in Salon has advised his leftist readers: "A broad alliance is now forming to raise money for and support this specific campaign [against the FISA "compromise"], with the intent to work together on an ongoing basis on all civil liberties, constitutional rights and rule of law issues. It now includes the ACLU, as well as the faction that masterminded the online moneybombs for the Ron Paul presidential campaign, represented by BreakTheMatrix, Rick Williams and Trevor Lyman."
As a "for profit" company, BreakTheMatrix will not be contributing to candidates for political office, but we'll be waging the fight for civil liberties in other ways through Strangebedfellows. We're joining with the left to stand for constitutional rights, so who says the Democratic Party is dead where freedom is concerned? Not us.
Stay tuned; there's much more to follow. Strangebedfellows is the alliance from hell for our bipartisan political establishment of the Republocrat duopoly party. It all starts right here.
For more information:
http://www.thestrangebedfellows.com
http://www.breakthematrix.com/node/10780
http://fearistyranny.wordpress.com/2008/02/12/breaking-the-matrix/
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/06/17/hoyer/index.html
http://www.theseminal.com/2008/06/18/say-no-to-fisa-compromises/
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2008/06/jaccuse-steny-hoyer-has-betr...
https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&id=975&page=User...
http://www.aclu.org/fisa
- Rick Williams's blog
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Great idea! Downsize DC would be an excellent sohbet organization to partner with.
I humbly suggest if you are still practicing - and need CLE's, to attend NORML's annual Key West Legal Seminar. It is superb. Some of my sohbet personal hero's in the freedom movement attend every year. Plus, its a blast.
As a child I really wanted to be a lawyer, everyone told me I'd be good at it and I thought there isn't another job I'd like. Then I grew enough to understand that my neighbor who molested his daughter, my friend, is free because he had a good lawyer. I knew he was guilty, everyone knew, the jury didn't and the lawyer took care of that.
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Asbestos Lawsuits
.......................... http://alternativeconservative.com/caucus http://mrxfromplanetx.com/naomi-wolf http://inflationtax.blogspot.com .......................................................................................................
This is a great partnership. I believe we need to work at educating people on how to get bad politicians off the ballot. It doesn't matter if they are Republicans or Democrats.
The real power is voting on who gets on the ballot in the first place. We need to educate every Constitutional person in the country on how this process works.
As Naomi Wolf has pointed out, most schools haven't required civics anymore. People just don't know. I only learned about this over the past year.
That's why I keep pushing http://alternativeconservative.com/caucus (How our Political System Really works). A delegate vote is generally 400 to 500 times more powerful than the vote of an average citizen.
If we can take this process over, we can get people like Orrin Hatch and Nanci Pelosi off the ballot. We won't have to wait for November elections.
I think groups like Rock The Vote are a little deceptive because they encourage people to go vote in November after someone else has already determined who's on the ballot for them to vote for.
I would suggest that another organization that Break The Matrix should partner with is Downsize DC.
http://www.downsizedc.org
Great idea! Downsize DC would be an excellent organization to partner with.
Hi Rick. I run Pruning Shears, a site advocating restraint on the part of the executive branch. I'm glad to hear about this new partnership and would be happy to help any way I can. Send an email or a comment on my site if you'd like to get in touch.
I used to follow Greenwald's writing before his Salon days at his blog Unclaimed Territory. I have since kinda tapered off, but Glenn, like the fine folks here at break the matrix, has spent considerable time showcasing the failure of the MSM and he often does it in devastating fashion. Especially since joining Salon.
I have also read his book How would a Patriot Act? Defending American Values From a President Run Amok. It is a good read; although many of it is dire warnings are not news to many of us.
From the preface of the book, written sometime in 2005:
"Over the past five years, a creeping extremism has taken hold of our federal government, and it is threatening to radically alter our system of government and who we are as a nation. This extremism is neither conservative nor liberal in nature, but is instead driven by theories of unlimited presidential power that are wholly alien, and antithetical, to the core political values that have governned this country since its founding."
- - - - - -
"Our country is at a profound crossroads. We must decide whether we want to adhere to the values and principles that have made our country free, strong, and great for the 217 years since our Constitution was ratified, or whether we will relinquish those values and fundamentally change who we are, all in the name of seeking protection from terrorism. I genuinely believe that we are extremely lucky to be the beneficiaries of a system of government that uniquely protects our individual liberties and allows us a life free from tyranny and oppression. It is incumbent upon all Americans who believe in that system, bequeathed to us by the founders, to defend it when it is under assault and in jeopardy. And today it is."
Ya, I think this new alliance will work out just fine.
Glenn's a lawyer; you; me-- if this part of the freedom trend keeps building much longer, who are people going to have left to make jokes about? (Not that our profession doesn't deserve it most of the time.) R
and I believe Mr Greenwald was a constitutional law (1st amendment?) litigator in NYC before his new stint as blogger and author - i practice criminal defense work. Let me tell ya Rick, if you want people who are passionate about Liberty, never ever forget the criminal defense bar. We may be the red headed step children of the legal profession - but we deal with liberty issues everyday. And not in the abstract. In the - my client is in jail and I need to get them out of jail - type liberty situations.
I humbly suggest if you are still practicing - and need CLE's, to attend NORML's annual Key West Legal Seminar. It is superb. Some of my personal hero's in the freedom movement attend every year. Plus, its a blast.
We can always make fun of the lawyers who really F everybody and deserve our scorn and ridicule- most of them are sitting in Congress in D.C. or in the various legislatures of the 50 states :)