The Tree of Peace

For over two centuries Americans have prided themselves over the document that serves as the basis of our nation's republic; the Constitution of the United States of America.  Conceived in wake of the initiation of the greatest social contract in the history of Western society, America's founding principle is that each of us (certainly it has taken a while to fully define the "us," but that's another post) possesses the unalienable human right to liberty; the freedom to live one's life as they see fit, provided that the individual does not trod upon the liberty and rights of another individual.  It was, and is like nothing ever conceived...by Western society.  Here in North America there exists the longest standing participatory democracy on earth, but it is not the United States.  It is the Six Nation Confederacy of the Haudenesaunee (you know it as the Iroquois Confederacy).

At least 200 years before the Declaration of Independence was written and signed, this confederacy was created for the mutual defense and peace of its members.  The Seneca, Oneida, Onondaga, Mohawk, and Cayuga comprised the original confederacy founded sometime in the 1570's (by the estimates of European calendars), with the Tuscarora migrating to what is now New York State in the 1700's.  The final Tuscarora migration ended in 1803.

It was the Great Peacemaker, Deganawida, who brought the nations together under the Gayanashagowa, the Great Law of Peace, the Haudenesaunee constitution symbolized by the White Tree of Peace.  Many legends are told, but it is commonly held that his first disciple was Hiawatha.  His vision that peace would come through a uniting of the nations drove him to bring the confederacy together.  Essentially the premise of the Confederacy's structure is that each nation remained autonomous in its own local affairs, with a great council holding sway over the affairs pertaining to the Confederacy as a whole; to put it in familiar terms to, "...establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare..."  I would argue that in many ways the Haudenesaunee Confederacy is more closely related to the Articles of Confederation in that the Articles clearly held up the states as totally autonomous entities, but there is no doubt that the Confederacy structure played a part in the creation of the Articles, as well as the Constitution.  It also seems that they have formed a more perfect union.  I believe there are two central reasons for this.  Firstly, it is a participatory democracy, whereas ours is a representative democracy.  Secondly, from the outset the governing structure of the Confederacy was egalitarian.

There is no Chief Executive, but a Great Council of Sachems.  There are 50 Sachems, each equal in power.  The Sachems and the Chiefs of their respective tribes comprise the tribal councils. Unlike our Congress,  the Great Council cannot even convene itself.  It is convened by the Councils of individual tribes, and unanimity holds sway over all decisions.  Each tribe has the ability to veto the others.  A General Council is open to all to address, with the final decisions being made by the Great Council.

From the outset, women of the Confederacy held real power.  It is the women who hold the power to approve or reject a declaration of war.  Clans are matrilineal.  It is also the clan mothers who choose the members of the Great Council of Sachems.  Any leader who does not abide by the wishes of the women, and the Great Law of Peace, can be removed by the clan mothers.  In other words, LISTEN TO THE WOMEN!

Their democracy hears the voice of all the people.  Their democracy endures.

Here in the United States the Supreme Court has struck down the 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals decision compelling the Ohio Secretary of State to identify 200,000 voter registrations that might not be in compliance, or completely fraudulent to the state's 88 counties.  Protecting the voter registration/voter fraud scheme of the Obama campaign through its grassroots surrogates at ACORN, the Supreme Court, one of the three branches of our government as created by our nation's constitution, has failed to protect and defend that constitution.  The Constitution protects the rights of legal citizens to vote, not Mickey Mouse.

Federal Justices swear two oaths when they assume office:

 I, (state your name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as ^^^  under the Constitution and laws of the United States.  So help me God.

I, (state your name), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.

When the Supreme Court of the United States allows a state official to conceal possible voter registration/voter fraud I say that it is acting in violation of that oath.

To whom now do we turn to protect our rights?  The Executive Branch that is currently overseeing a regime of warrantless wire tapping?  The Congress that voted to sanction said regime while simultaneously granting retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that allowed the government to execute the scheme, or the Supreme Court that is going to allow the Democrat Party in Ohio to violate the sanctity of the franchise of the citizens of Ohio?

My friends, at this moment we are without a legitimate constitutional body of governance.  In Lockian terms, the government of the United States has violated the social contract between itself and the citizens of the United States.  Perhaps the time has come at last for the convening of a Constitutional Convention to democratically dissolve the current Legislature, Executive, and Judicial branches and fill these posts with Americans who take their oath of office seriously or, if need be, construct a new body of governance that is more participatory, and egalitarian than that which we have now, and will more ethically and democratically ensure our Safety and Happiness.

I love this country.  It took in my family in the early half of the 20th century, sheltering us from the persecution of government sanctioned anti-semitism, allowing us to stake our claim to the American dream.  We are doctors, lawyers, teachers, entrepreneurs, and caring citizens.  We have served in the military at home and abroad, as well as the Civilian Defense Corps during World War II.  We have been active participants in this democracy.  We cherish it, and the freedom it represents.

Is our society perfect?  Far from it.  Look at the vast array of abuses its power brokers engage in, from political parties that subvert democracy, to rabid socialists that would steal the very personal freedoms on which this country was founded in the name of enforced equity.  If you're reading this Messrs Ayers, Rathke, and Obama; I don't trust you to redistribute the wealth equitably any more than I trust Tony Rezko to properly maintain a low income housing development.  My incredulity at the thought of well healed residents of Hyde Park overseeing economic justice in America knows no bounds.  We've seen what people like you have brought; a dictatorship of the proletariat that simply becomes dictatorship without end. 

Your pathetic first attempt at revolution failed.  It will fail again.  The desire for freedom trumps all.  Do we all want a more just society?  I think you might be surprised at how many people will say yes.  Instead of attempting to force it on us with Alinsky tactics, why not live by real example?  Oh wait, that would mean operating under some kind of system of morality which you feel you do not need to possess because "the man" is so evil.

Mr. Ayers, I've heard tell that you have a picture of Malcolm X on your door.  How sad and pathetic that you were too stoned in the 60's to understand his evolution.  You are a sad little man who wants revolution for the sole purpose of leading it.  You don't care about economic or social justice.  If you did you wouldn't be backing a man like Obama who has never stood for justice in his life.  Just ask the residents of his contributors' rat hole developments in Chicago that he claims he knew nothing about.  You just want to be the new generation of pigs that slop at the trough.  We have enough problems with the ones that are already there.  We don't need to be feeding you and your pigs too.

My friends we are facing a constitutional crisis as we do not have a government that operates in accordance with the social contract laid out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.  I do not doubt that the Haudenesaunee Confederacy and Constitution will continue to endure as it has for more than four centuries. I wish I could say the same for ours.