The People Are Governing Themselves.

Most of us think of a people governing themselves as just so much rhetoric. Not true. The last year of the Ron Paul Revolution has proven that using the social networking tools provided by the Internet we can indeed come together to take action that is unprecedented in scope and power. These have been early steps but, in fact, whether or not Ron Paul is inaugurated as President next January, a mass movement of people have created the tools that provide the means to displace the present morass of government. We will change the world.

It was impossible. It happened anyway. Now it will become the new standard for what it means to be a grass roots and the marker that changes the measure of political action. The panic you see in those in power, the threats of martial law, are evidence that they know perfectly well their ploys are not working.

Despite what many say the Ron Paul Revolution is not over and Ron Paul, as the singular icon and spokesman for the movement that bears his name, will continue. We will displace the status quo imposed by government, stop the profits of grid corporations and those who control them. The Revolution will accomplish that not because of any brilliance in the Official Campaign. It has proven itself to be incompetent at the most elementary political tasks. It will happen anyway.

The people are doing it themselves.

Americans are coming together from all imaginable points and so changing the landscape on which the political battles of the near future will be played out. We are set up for a realigning election despite the Vote Stealing Machines and despite the ugliness of those in power.

At the foundation of this change is the Revolution. Hierarchy in its various forms has proven itself to be no match for the hub, the network, where individuals either cooperate or decline to be involved, keeping their money and time for other purposes.

Future historians will, given the time, explain it all as inevitable and they will also explain how Americans regained access to the truth through a media they controlled in the same fashion. That is about to happen; again it will shock the establishment and those who use the tools of the past.

There is power in the Hub and power in the Mesh. The impact of the Hub has hit, the Mesh is about to be felt.

The Hub is the sharing of knowledge to facilitate cooperation. You see that in the Revolution. We share freely. The Mesh takes the Hub one step further into our communities, building the platform for local cooperation that connects to others like a sea of wildflowers in springtime. Getting off the grids has many parts, this is one of them.

The Revolution faces a series of challenges. It will use the same tools to solve those problems that it has used this last year.

Stolen Elections, the Media, the economy, the list seems endless.

Here, the failing economy and the need to survive meet our rising awareness that the present system is irreparably broken.

The first issue is elections and local organizing. Other needs will follow. We will displace the MSM with the truth, reported without being filtered; given to us unmanicured and without being withheld until convenient. The media is now an extension of the PR departments of major corporations. To enact change will enable the people to become their own media.

The people are now poised to take elections back in to their own hands. Over the last months a coalition has been building. Elections will be run at the precinct by committees elected by the people in that precinct; votes will be counted by the same process. The totals will then be placed on line and counted transparently, leaving no doubt as to the outcomes. No longer right and left, there is one agenda.

We will pass model legislation where this is proscribed by law; we will demand our money back from the companies who sold us vote stealing machines. Let them figure out what to do with the things.

The new media coming into existence will tell the truth because it will be run on the same principles that run the Revolution, transparency, cooperation, and individual freedom.

The basic tool is the Mesh Wireless Node. You can buy one for around $500.00 and connect hundreds of homes. CUWiN Community Wireless Solutions. The same system can be used to set up neighborhood barter exchanges, organize emergency preparedness, and food coops, something Americans will need increasingly in the months to come.

It might seem new but it is actually the original American tradition of individual initiative, continued today by such organizations are REACT. The people still govern themselves at the most local level, we have simply not noticed.

REACT links people together and has been doing so since January 23, 1962. They are all volunteers except for one lady, Dora Wilbanks, who runs their office in Maryland. They have focused on emergency situations; the form is local, voluntary, and cooperative. They are routinely asked to help find lost children and provide communications for such disasters as the wild fires that destroyed parts of California in 2003 and 2007. Ed Greany, Executive Vice President of REACT International, said for this article that the technologies for radio and the Internet are converging. Cooperation is not only possible it is natural. Their teams are local, organizing on what is near the precinct, or neighborhood, level.

The first requirement for an honest media is the means of transmission and the people to give you the truth. The list of needs in neighborhoods includes those now provided by REACT. We can help each other. We have the technologies and the people, now we need to bring them together.

Our new media will use the same principles and organization that gives the Revolution its power. We need the truth, not cheesy anchorpersons whose eyes are firmly on their next gig. We do not need another Times – Warner or another Faux News; corporations have been the problem. The Revolution is not about turning a profit. It is not glamorous. It is people coming together to enact freedom. If we wanted glamor and a more lavish life style we would go into acting, not activism.

The tool you use determines the outcome you get. We want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We want to restore power at the local level so that we can govern ourselves. We will become the solution.

It will be different, friendlier, better for families and us as individuals.

Given the content of the news today that is a good thing The new media will give you control of what you hear about and you will not have to worry so much about unpleasant surprises because transparency and going local means that surprises are not as likely to be unpleasant. Locally, you know who is to be trusted with your lawnmower, experience tells you that.

You will not remember next year which new cell phone you had but you will remember the things that really matter. Your local news will be what matters most.

“Frank Truehearted got a record number of strawberries from his garden yesterday. See him if you want to trade. He says he would like some asparagus. Kelly Morganstern has started her own lemonade stand at the corner of Harp and Philo Streets. You can buy cups and cookies for Local Exchange or for script, your choice. The Chocolate Chip Cookies are to die for.

And now for the National News.

The new Congress has voted to make the president's salary dependent on how much he can bring in using the White House as a B & B. Call the President for reservations or make yours online.”

We are heading for a different world. Buy the cookies, they are open source so you can get the recipe.

Get off the Grids, Organize Locally, Build Coalition

Be the Revolution

Freedom Warriors continue the Battle for the Constitution and the Soul of America

Ernie Kicks Butt in Arizona: Mark Kicks Butt in Oklahoma

We need to defeat the Real ID and we have only until May 11^th of this year to keep the states out of participation. Despite what you have heard little has been done until recently to ensure that states pass the legislation that stops the Real ID for their citizens. Now, that effort is in fast forward.

The impact of the Real ID is worse than anything you ever heard and billions in profits to the most corrupt corporations in America are riding on its implementation using biometrics. Your DNA, your eye scan, your finger prints and your medical records will become, effectively, the property of not just one government agency but all agencies, American and global. More, they will be sold to corporations. Go to the site for Stop the Real ID Coalition . This is a threat Americans need to understand.

You did not hear about this for the same reason Congress didn't. The details were buried in the footnotes.

The fast forward for stopping the Real ID comes in the form of a very small group of determined individuals.

Mark Lerner, the founder of Real ID Coalition, is doing a great job getting states to pass the needed legislation barring their participation. We need 20 states to ensure it cannot be carried out. Mark is now working his way through the state legislatures and they are finally finding out the truth and passing the needed legislation. Mark and the coalition people are straight ahead kind of folks and their information is right on and factual. Homeland Insecurity hates that.

You can help. The first way is to donate, and we really need the money first just to keep Mark on the road and second to pay for security. You will see why in a moment. You can also replicate the actions of Freedom Man himself, Ernie Hancock who, as always, took his own kind of action.

Ernie had tickets for not properly recycling printed up. These looked like the real thing; lots of check off boxes with the infractions of the recipient clearly noted. But the phone number went to a newspaper in Phoenix. 40 of the tickets were placed on trashcans. That paper changed its phone number. The url on the ticket took you to a very special and entirely accurate site, Arizona Tip Hotline. Ernie wonders what would have happened if they had used more than 40 of the tickets. He has thousands and Ernie has not yet begun to make the powers that be in Arizona unhappy.

The phones at city hall lit up and have stayed lit. The people are starting to understand the Real ID. Now we need to get the model legislation written by Mark to those in the Arizona legislature. We also need to get Mark there to hammer home the message in the language legislators best understand.

Ernie gets the attention of the public and the establishment; Mark bats clean up, pulling the state back from the edge of fascism towards freedom.

Today in Oklahoma Mark finished his presentation to various state senators and left. Fifteen minutes later an outraged representative of Homeland Insecurity, reportedly very highly placed, whatever that means, raged into the office of the senator who is sponsoring the bill and demanded that it be defeated and that the Real ID be accepted. Or Else. It seems that the powers that be really, really, want to Real ID. The guy probably bought stock in biometrics.

So tomorrow morning Mark will be meeting this same puffed up bureaucrat for the best two falls out of three before he addresses the whole Senate at 9am. It is amazing how important these adherents to the Uniform Fascism Theory think they are. Stay tuned for more developments.

Ernie said he would be delighted to have you use the full content of his innovative and informative site for your state. This is especially effective in the capitol in the weeks before Mark arrives. This is cheap and will get the panties of the Federal Homeland Insecurity establishment in a knot. Nothing flusters Mark, he is determined.

Ernie is sending me the jpeg for the ticket and I will send it on after this email so you have all that is necessary. I will also post it on my blogsite, How the NeoCons Stole Freedom.

The authorities know exactly who Ernie is and they just groan. Even Homeland Insecurity is scared of Ernie. You could get that kind of reputation, too. Sometimes the Revolution is more fun than is legal today and this is one of those times.

Get Revolutionary. Stop the Real ID in your state!

Lessons on the Road to Liberty

The examples of how they steal elections are now thick upon the ground. Now, the most credulous and trusting have to see that elections are easily fixed. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and now the swath of states that comprise Super Tuesday, the number of elections stolen is mind boggling. We can still elect Ron president but elections are a problem we need to solve.

That is one issue. More follow.

Today, February 6^th, is the first day of the real Revolution, the final phase of the First American Revolution of 1776. This is the moment that will take us to the destination of an America where the people govern themselves. Do you want to be free? Do you understand that freedom has nothing to do with life style? You thought you were free but instead have been a slave shackled by an illusion of prosperity. To be a revolutionary you need to lose your illusions.

Like the issue of stolen elections the truth is less comfortable but only the truth allows you to fight effectively. There are problems but those can be solved if we have the facts. Hierarchies intentionally begin limiting what people know because, 'they know better.'

We are facing a multi-front war that demands the open and rapid sharing of information and creates the solution by producing the alternative that will displace the concentration of power that begot the problem originally. This can only happen through dispersed action from multiple sources, a guerrilla war fought out peacefully using the tools we already possess.

No matter what, a hammer remains a hammer and you cannot use it to remove the splinter from your finger. Your chosen tool matters; it determines your ultimate outcome in advance. Forms of human organization are tools. Centralizing authority and power creates an attractive nuisance that will eventually destroy freedom because the least ethical will have it at all costs.

In the 1970s the Libertarian Party was formed to work for the freedom that was then clearly slipping though the fingers of Americans. Many of its founders had experienced the disappointment of the failed Goldwater Revolution. In case you did not know the LP was founded on a mailing list made up from Goldwater activists and its founder had been the head of Young Republicans for Goldwater at MIT.

By 1971 the level of frustration with the War in Vietnam and US economic policy was mounting. Nixon, a Republican, had delivered us up yet again to the corporations and the continuation of war that enriched them. You can read more about the specifics in the chapter I wrote on the subject, Libertarian History.

The Libertarian Party started out as a decentralized hub, a grassroots organization run by activists. Our assumption was that we could do it ourselves. We believed and we worked. Then, there was no professional or want-to-be professional cadre; people from all walks of life came together. The beginning of the end of our revolution began with the election of Edward H. Crane, III as its national chairman in 1974 at the Dallas Convention.

Crane immediately asserted control in all directions. He tried but failed to control the candidacy of Roger MacBride for President; Roger was then producing 'Little House on the Prairie.” He did not miss in 1980.

Roger had made one critical mistake. He introduced Crane to Charles and David Koch, the owners of Koch Industries. Koch Industries is probably the largest privately owned oil company in the world. It was Koch money that started Cato Institute; the Kochs are intimately connected to the Bush White House.

The issue central to how the Revolution will operate is hierarchy vs. networked hub. You determine the outcome when you choose.

The decentralized hub is a network that freely shares information and resources. In the Ron Paul Revolution the decision of which projects to support is made by people either volunteering or not, donating or not. That is a direct application of the power of individual choice. Individual choices, made with clear knowledge.

Organizational tools can also be proprietary, effectively owned by its management. Those who want to participate then know the limitations they accept. We see this with most of the Ron Paul Projects, from the Toolbar to the Granny Warriors. They offer a project; others support or decline to support, their choice. That has worked well, too. The information is available going in and no one presumes to speak for others who have not authorized that on their behalf. It is transparent, consensual, and cooperative.

For freedom to work, as the universal principle enabling human action, we must all have the truth and the freedom to act. The truth allows us to make the right choices; centrists want to control information and become a priesthood who decides for you. They take from us the essential tools of autonomy. When the people have the truth they can govern themselves and that is what you have been doing in the Ron Paul Revolution. It has been glorious to experience, affirming the power to each of us.

Freedom, respect for others, and truth are therefore linked tools.

A Knowledge Commons is the Open Source for information. The Internet has moved us far in that direction but there are many fronts on which this 2^nd Revolution must be fought out. We need to see those and make sure that each battle is won.

All now see why clean elections are essential.

We also need to get Ron Paul on the ballot in every state, despite the corporate political structure. In parallel, we must ensure those votes are honestly counted.

To get Ron on the ballot in all 50 states we have many options. One is the Libertarian Party. Most LPers support Ron now.

Today the Libertarian Party is foundering and the reasons are clear. Having passed through central regime after central regime it is still controlled by individuals who are wedded to the tool of hierarchy. They could change that, save the organization, and elect Ron. It could do so by become the hub that we need. It could, after more than 30 years of existence, become itself the best tool for advancing freedom.

We need to take our tools seriously; we need to understand that the tools determine the outcome. As a political party it has ballot status in many states. It can reach out to other political parties by example, making Ron the candidate of many parties. It would not be acting like a political party and that would be the example that Americans need to see.

Ideas were the first human tools. Before any ancestor used a flint blade the idea of cutting was present. Tools define the frame of our world. The tool you are using determines the outcome you will achieve. If you use a hierarchy you will end up with a centralized power that limits access to knowledge so that someone can maximize their power and profits.

If you convert a hierarchy into a network you are proving it can be done.

I spent many years in the LP. I never noticed that local people running their own local organizations could not solve their problems using cooperation; I noticed that those who sought 'higher' office tended to have a further agenda.

It could have been different; it still can be.

When the National Office allowed it, sharing information planted seeds of new success across the country, but far too often that did not happen because of internal 'political' considerations. The issue was using the organization itself for personal profit, not to affirm autonomy for all individuals and so strengthen local community.

The problem can be solved. Close the National Office and create an online service hub that simply makes resources available through sharing. Build a place on line where projects, graphics, videos and literature can be shared and where each can get and give advice. Having it be peer to peer makes it a community itself. Use Chip-ins to fund projects that deserve support but make it specific to project. The problem of lagging fund raising would be solved and along with the constant internecine warfare that accomplishes nothing.

Power should remain always at the community level, exercised by the individuals whose time and money will be used by them for their own purposes. It is that simple.

Today we are facing a complete meltdown of the US economy and ever more problems. But those threats come from allowing the centralization of power in government, in corporations, and by our own organizations. The LP can begin that process and make history.

In this way the LP can fulfill its original purpose and become a tool that makes freedom bloom in the hearts and minds of everyone who sees it. Seeing that happen would be, itself, a powerful statement.

You have already proven that if it needs doing it can be done from a network. If we had relied on the Official Campaign Ron would have ended his campaign nearly a year ago. Today a Revolution has begin, all founded on cooperation and networking. Occasionally you will hear people say in the Ron Paul Revolution as they once did in the LP that, “they need the authority.” Now you will know what they are really saying. Those speaking want power.

Networking and cooperation are the essential tools of Revolution. Using those we can change the world. We can carry the Revolution to the enemy. It may seem impossible. It is not.

Above are the straightforward political issues. Those issues, as large as they might be, are only a small part of what must be accomplished.

If we only elect Ron Paul without beginning to fight the other fronts we will still lose. The wealth and capital of America is flooding off of our shores like a tidal wave that will leave us dry and worse, in debt we cannot clear.

We need to save ourselves and at the same time strike a blow against the supply lines to the corporations.

We need to get off the grids of greed that have allowed us to be plundered and begin to turn the lights out in Dubai, where right now the Bush Faction of the Corporate Globals are building their new capitol with the clear intention of using it to begin plundering the rest of the world.

Right now they are spending your grandchildren's lives right there on what was bare sand in 1990. They have seven star hotels, a snow mountain in the desert, and the first underwater hotel. If we succeed in ten years they will be back to breeding camels.

Failing will destroy not only our own lives but lives not yet begun. Failure is not an option.

We need to stop their agenda for control here and rebuild our own local economies. These two different fronts are defensive and then offensive. Both are necessary.

We can do this. We are still Americans, the most productive and inventive people on the face of the Earth.

These are the problems we face immediately.

Educating Americans

The educational program needs to be community based. It needs to show the young and their parents how the Constitution was intended to work. For an excellent example go to Ron Paul Road Show. Student Voter Registration. This turns students into experts on the Constitution.

On the Information Hub we will be adding to resources, though I hope the LP, or someone else, takes this over.

Defensive Agenda - Legislative

Stop the Real ID in those states that have failed to take action as of yet. This is critical because on May 11^th of this year the biometrics of their program swing into play. See Stop the Real ID for more information. They will own your most intimate information and you will not be able to stop them from selling it.

Laws are now being passed to nail us to the grids. The first of these will be laws that charge a surtax for getting off the electric grids. Get on the notification list at Off the Grid. We need to deliver the message to each state legislature and ensure it does not happen. There will be more, the corporations pay people to think of ways to suck us dry.

There are ways of challenging the corporations that have been in bed with government for so long, their clear intention to leave us homeless. We need to keep all capital here in the hands of individuals. Anyone who says that it is alright for corporations to lie, change the terms, suborn the courts, and still collect is simply not hitting on all pistons. It is a principle of law that the more powerful party must be the most, not the least, scrupulous.

The Offensive Agenda

We need to begin immediately to take back our counties. Clean Elections at the county level are essential to this. I say, again, build working coalition.

The Ron Paul Revolution should focus at the precinct level and many sites are doing that now. Get elected precinct captain, get elected to local office, network in your community. Share knowledge globally, act locally. This provides the local tools to extend the revolution and save people at risk who are threatened legally or financially.

We need to ensure that each sheriff in each county is ready and willing to kick the Feds out when our Constitutional rights are violated. Sheriff Richard Mack, one of the two proponents for the Mack – Printz Decision that overturned the Brady Bill, is already active on this issue. His book will be out soon but don't wait, sign up and schedule a workshop for your area by visiting his website, Constitutional Law Enforcement Association. When it is spelled out to your local sheriff he will develop a backbone.

You can also leave the Corporate State. Read the Red Amendment. It can be done, thousands have done it already. The Lakota chose one exit, this is another. There are many solutions. Comparing them and choosing what works for us works best.

This will give us the ability to both change government locally, establish common law courts, and rebuild the local economy. We can and will go off the dollar. We will have to, they planned the introduction of the Amero to hit when we could not afford to say no.

Each of these fronts is a part in the 2^nd American Revolution. Each is essential. Each demands from us a full commitment and most importantly to know what is happening so that we can begin to enact change in our own communities. Those changes include starting businesses that turn off the flow of money to the grid corporations; they include changing the framing for ourselves and others in our communities who are hurting but do not understand the causes. People will act to ensure their financial wellbeing without being persuaded for political reasons.

When we are finished we will have brought into existence the unfulfilled promise of America. Instead of remaining a dim vision the reality will come alive in our communities. It will fulfill the promise of freedom, make real and tangible the shining point on a horizon for which all humanity has hungered through untold generations. That is the point of the Revolution.

When you choose your fight make sure you also choose the right weapon. When you fight, make sure you will win the future.

What Happened to Freedom? A Story You Need to Hear.

Roger MacBride, Libertarian Presidential Candidate, 1976



It was an electric experience, heady, powerful, filled with joy and individual empowerment. People from all parts of society came together to work on the election. They made signs and waved them over freeway bridges; they printed their own literature because they could not get it fast enough. They wrote what was needed, did the graphics, printed it. They used their own money to get the job done. Every dollar they spent they saw as moving them closer to the shining vision on which America was founded. There was friendship, happiness and trust.

You may think I am talking about the Ron Paul Revolution. Actually, that was the early days of the Libertarian Party. The Presidential Campaign that incited us was that of Roger MacBride in 1976.

You would not know today. I still have many Libertarian friends but the Libertarian Party is very different. You need to know what happened and why.

We lived those heady days; We stood on the bridges holding up signs in all weather. We were well on the way to creating a real grassroots organization. What stopped us was people who decided we, 'needed to get organized.' You know about one of those people. That is Edward H. Crane, III of Cato Institute. Others of like mind followed.

If you are a Ron Paul Activist, working on the Revolution, you are working for something that matters much more than electing Ron Paul as President, as important as that is. You are working on creating a new form through which the people can govern themselves. That is the revolutionary part.

The people must govern themselves.

Ron Paul signed up to roll back the Federal Government. The rest of the job, most of it, truthfully, will remain to be carried out from our communities by us as individuals who live there. You will encounter many people who want to 'organize' you. Ignore them and keep doing it exactly like you are doing it now. Using the tools they offer you will result in the creation of yet another Reform Party, another 'not for profit' that makes lots of money for those who are at the top. The idea that there is a top should be enough to tell you this is the wrong direction.

Instead you need to continue to use the hub system that you have been using. That was what I recommended to the Libertarian Party in 1999. Instead of a National Office that 'coordinated' the grassroots I proposed that they close the office in DC and provide services to activists. Those were to include putting on a National Convention with speakers and a newsletter that simply let people share their experiences, successful and unsuccessful, with local projects. There, literature could also be shared, made available via the Internet with local people adding and using it as needed.

Naturally, no one listened. They were firmly entrenched in the 'structure' of a political party and busy jockeying for positions that would augment egos and income.

Here and there across the country local LP organizations continued to use the networking forms you would recognize. San Diego is one of those.

San Diego declined to be part of the centralization of the LP. Instead of central committees voting on how to spend money they came together (this spanned the time before the Internet) to hear people talk about their ideas for projects. Activists then decided how to spend their own time and money. That is what the Ron Paul Revolution has been doing online. That is the essence of networking, each deciding for themselves where they will participate.

That is the story of the past. It was easier for us then in many ways. We did not have the Internet but we also faced less immediate threats.

Today one of the most critical issues we face is the present use of the still unpassed Home Grown Terrorism Act.

It is already being used. Following their usual strategies the NeoCons did not wait for Congress. The idea of Constitutionalists as Terrorists is part of the training being given to local police and has been for a while now. I heard that straight from the horse's mouth last September at a National Federation of Republican Women's Luncheon. The guest speaker was a local law enforcement officer who lumped Constitutionalists together with gang members. In the terms of the man speaking I am a terrorist. None of the other ladies present questioned him on that. I did.

We are facing immediate danger and we need to take action. Increasingly, those of us involved on issues will be targeted because we are threatening the corporate establishment. There is no reason to make it easier for them and more dangerous for ourselves.

The solution is even more networking and increased communication between those of us working on specific issues.

Early last year Jeff Schwilk, Founder of the San Diego Minutemen was targeted by local police. They used a sealed warrant to arrest him. After months of trauma and much money he managed to get the warrant unsealed. The causes were manufactured. Today another man in the same area has been sitting in jail for over a month, waiting to make $600,000 bail. His crime? Posting a comment on the ACLU that was something like, “they should die and go away.” The site was Save Our State, one that focuses on ending illegal immigration.
We can expect to be targeted on issues that are critical to corporate interests. Those include clean elections and immigration and the North American Union and the Real ID.

We need to continue working to get Ron elected but also be more aware of the specific issues that his candidacy brings into focus. Those involved in those organizations need to be especially careful.

Staying decentralized while using networks for support and communication, reduces our exposure. Our networking must include providing support when the harassment and arrests, inevitably, come. If when activists are targeted and arrested they become the immediate focus of more effective activism then the long planned NeoCon strategy of suppression will fail. Many have already been dealing with harassment and found ways to handle it.

You should think about this for yourself. We need to respond rapidly and effectively. One thing we can all do is ensure harassment or arrest will be noticed immediately. That strategy is an early warning system that lets us know who is being targeted and what must be done to keep us and our families safe.

We call it the Ron Paul Revolution, and it is exactly that, a change in the form we use to govern ourselves, moving us from hierarchy to hubs and networks. Extend your personal network to protect yourself and your fellow Revolutionaries.

Coordination and cooperation are good. Control is not

Revolution. Be the solution. Stay Local.

Why America Needs Coalition – Clean Elections and Freedom

There is an immediate need to take back the vote. For longer than it is comfortable to contemplate the vote has been controlled by those who sign the contracts with the corporations who provide 'voting machines.'

The Left has been talking about that for a long time now; they noticed first because in the beginning it was their ox being gored. On the Right we were lulled into the belief that it was just sour grapes. Part of that came from the media, other elements on which we built up our smug house of cards came from such books as, “Stealing Elections,” by John Fund. You may not be aware that a book with a similar title that actually outed the NeoCons was published earlier. The author died mysteriously. When you intend to steal elections it makes perfect sense to inject disinformation at the outset. Fund was late producing his book, it was originally planned in 2000, but he did write it and it has proven to be very useful in creating the impression that election fraud either did not exist or was more likely to be the tool of the Left than a clever idea raised to new levels of profit and complexity by his own friends.

The Campaign of the Voting Machines was designed to steal elections as an adjunct of the NeoCon political strategy for gaining absolute control over government. This gave them control over enormous wealth to be parceled out to their friends. Using that strategy they stole the rhetoric of peace, prosperity, individual Rights and freedom, converting the meanings to war (for us), grinding poverty (for us), and absolute slavery for us and our posterity.

The divisions between the Right and Left worked. It is time to come together since, to borrow a phrase from a previous generation, if we don't hang together we will all hang separately. Many on the Left doubt that rapid change is possible. Their skepticism is based on many years of experience with trying to change the present system. They have been diligent, methodical, and focused. Yet the system is still under the control of those who purchase voting machines both to profit their friends and to control elections.

The most vocal and active presence in politics today is the Ron Paul Revolution. The questions we need to ask ourselves is if we care enough about electing Ron to ensure that our efforts to secure the votes needed to elect him will count. To do that we need to ensure that the elections are honest. Without knowing that the elections are honest there is little reason to continue.

Therefore we should begin with the issue of taking back elections.

After Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina we need to assume that any given election has been stolen unless this is the procedure followed. Those who work for the government have a vested interest in ignoring the fact that wittingly or unwittingly, they are part of the problem. We cannot afford to trust them. Here is what we must install, controlled by voters at the precinct level.

What we need:

1. Voters go to their precinct, marking paper ballots under the eagle eyes of local people from all parties.

2. The ballots are counted by hand at the precinct immediately after the polls close by stalwarts elected by those in the precinct for that purpose. Everyone can watch, staying six feet from the table where the count is taking place.

3. Finally, the double, triple checked results are posted at the precinct (polling site), as well as directly and transparently to the Internet Right up where everyone can tally themselves getting it exactly Right.

Then, the election will be honest.

This leads us immediately to the question of how to achieve the simple and direct scenario above. This will be far easier with all of us working together. That is the sticking point. Working together the Left and Right could have the resources, people and expertise, to give America clean elections. But can they do that? There are many organizations and many people working on different approaches. Can the tendency of people to divide themselves be overcome?

The time, money, and thought spent by people across the country on how to return control to the people has been monumental. That investment has mostly come from the Left. Those of us who only recently recognized the problem should remember to be grateful for what has been done already.

When Ross Perot got on the ballot in 50 states it happened because of the expertise of ballot access knowledge that came from such individuals as Richard Winger of Ballot Access News. Perot was using the compiled wisdom that was created by the driving need of Libertarians, Richard's efforts started there but then he made that information available to everyone because it was the right thing.

There are many organizations but only one goal. Clean Elections run by those at the precinct level as outlined above. In that way we take back control of how government is run and at the same time, if we come together to accomplish that goal, we make even more important changes possible.

While it is essential that the people control the vote it is far from the only thing we should control.

Asked why he robbed banks Willie Sutton, career criminal, said, “Because that is where the money is.” Sutton had noticed that it was more profitable to rob banks than the little old lady down the street; more return for time invested.

That explains exactly why centralized control did not, could not work. Remember the concept of an attractive nuisance? Large pots of money motivate those least ethical individuals to lie, cheat, and finagle their way into power so they can grab the cash. In comparison, robbing banks is honest.

The other principle we need to keep in mind while mulling these naturally occurring impulses on the part of humanity is the economic principle of, “bad money drives out good.” This is equally true of ethics. There are many things good people will not do to be elected; nothing bad people will not do to get themselves in the seats of power.

It is a lot of trouble to defend those large caches of power and money. It is exhausting, aggravating, and, eventually, impossible. Many on the Left are now realizing this, sitting there exhausted and bereft of money while the candidates they worked for join the million dollar club through their elected offices.

Concentrations of power and money inevitably result in the kind of free-for-all that we are now witnessing among corporations that have worked to use government and a government that feeds off corporations.

I repeat the H. L. Menckenism, “Elections are Futures Markets in Stolen Property.” If power and money is concentrated the inevitable will occur.

Therefore control needs to be returned to where it always should have been, to individuals at the most local level. Retail stealing is easier to catch and less likely to be appealing to habitual criminals and politicians.

Many on the Left will realize that this is where they wanted to go anyway; many on the Right will be chagrined at their long misspent romance with the power of corporations. We all make mistakes.

We need to assert a rigid and unbending accountability. That is why the election integrity advocates on the Left have been calling for elections with transparency and accountability. We need transparency in all parts of our lives. With transparency cheating becomes impossible.

Naturally, those with greed in their hearts and minds did all possible to reduce the risk they would be held accountable for their predatory behavior. They were well aware of the hazard of accountability. Our laws on racketeering and the abuse of power deal with these questions as a stronger and larger movement including Left and Right continues the Revolution.

That is why Bush keeps trying to sneak a pardon into bills under consideration by Congress. Even he knows he is liable. That also accounts for the posh Bushland built on the 100,000 acres in Paraguay. No extradition. He and many of his friends have caches of money parked in the basement or off shore so they can make their get-away.

So in addition to ensuring that elections are localized and controlled by the people we need to ensure the following:

The power of government is returned to the people at the most local level. We all know, through sad experience, that the states also engage in the same kind of corruption of power and money. Fortuitously, they are also bankrupt and will be grateful for the funds we can return to the state level by asserting accountability at the federal level.

Corporations are stripped of the power that makes it possible for them to evade accountability.

To ensure that future generations of wishful Willie Suttons understand we mean it, we sue those guilty of preying on us into a poverty so complete that in five generations their descendants, if they have any, will still be naked and whimpering.

Together, anything is possible.

Get off the Grids – Organize Locally – Build Coalition