This should be put on the front page of every paper in the world.
Please steal it and pass this around to every one you know.
>> Burning the Law in a Riot of Treason
>> By William Rivers Pitt
>> Monday 27 August 2007
>>
>> As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both
>> instances, there's a twilight where everything remains seemingly
>> unchanged,
>> and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air,
>> however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.
>> - Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
>>
>> The departure of Alberto Gonzales from the Attorney General's Office
>> brings America to a place of definitions, and hanging in the balance is
>> the
>> very idea of the nation itself. The basic concepts and fundamental
>> principles of our republic now stand as the only legitimate
>> considerations
>> going forward, for they have been tested almost to annihilation already,
>> and
>> will not endure much longer if we continue on this path.
>>
>> It is the mythology within the Declaration of Independence we speak
>> of,
>> the fiction that tells us we are endowed with rights, and that those
>> rights
>> are unalienable. This falsehood has been vividly exposed in the last
>> several
>> years, and it has been a harsh lesson indeed. All the rights we hold dear
>> and believe to be our greatest strength are, in fact, only words on old
>> paper with neither force nor power. The next line - "That to secure these
>> rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers
>> from the consent of the governed" - is the muscle behind the myth, the
>> core
>> that has endured a withering assault.
>>
>> Matters are so much worse than our national political dialogue lets
>> on.
>> The resignation of Gonzales has unleashed a torrent of hard words and
>> harsh
>> criticisms aimed at the deplorable nature of his tenure, but the truth of
>> it
>> continues to elude mention. They call Gonzales an incompetent, a crony, a
>> loyalist, a disgrace, leaving off the one word necessary to fully explain
>> who he is, and what he was engaged in before he stepped down.
>>
>> Alberto Gonzales is a traitor. That is the only word to explain it.
>>
>> He is not the only one; there are many more traitors like him in the
>> Bush administration, criminals joined in an act of treason so vast and
>> comprehensive that it beggars comparison. Nothing quite like this has
>> ever
>> before been attempted in America, and if they are allowed to succeed,
>> there
>> will be nothing of what defines America left to be seen.
>>
>> Gonzales and his Bush administration collaborators have committed
>> their
>> treason against the rule of law itself, a crime so absolute that it is
>> technically not illegal. There is no code, ordinance or law specifically
>> forbidding the total ruination of all our rights and protections; the act
>> is
>> neither felony nor misdemeanor, because nobody ever considered the
>> black-letter necessity of making it illegal to destroy the rule of law.
>>
>> But there is no America without that rule of law - no rights, no
>> protections, no Constitution; there is nothing, and if you destroy the
>> rule
>> of law, you destroy the idea that is America itself. The only word for a
>> crime like that is treason, and those who would dare commit it are
>> traitors.
>> Gonzales and his Bush administration collaborators have done more than
>> dare.
>> They have been pursuing it, with deliberation and intent, throughout each
>> moment of their tenure.
>>
>> Their treason is not in the actual crimes they have committed, but in
>> the way they have chosen to avoid accountability for them. Their treason
>> is
>> not their refusal to obey the Freedom of Information Act, but in their
>> insistence that they are above the application of that law. Their treason
>> is
>> not in their refusal to obey subpoenas from Congress, but in their claim
>> that they are above the laws behind those subpoenas. Their treason is not
>> that they fired United States attorneys and then refused to come clean
>> about
>> it, but that they decimated the impartiality of the Department of Justice
>> and turned the rule of law into another partisan weapon. Their treason is
>> not the NSA surveillance of Americans, but their steadfast refusal to
>> submit
>> to the governing laws and the requirement of oversight.
>>
>> When George W. Bush asserted a claim of Executive Privilege that made
>> him and his administration immune to all laws and oversight, that was an
>> act
>> of treason because it shattered the rule of law. When Dick Cheney
>> asserted
>> that the Office of the Vice President was not part of the Executive
>> Branch,
>> because he did not want to obey the laws requiring him to hand over
>> official
>> documents to the Archives, that was an act of treason because it
>> shattered
>> the rule of law. When Alberto Gonzales chose to surrender the
>> independence
>> of the Department of Justice so he could protect those assertions, that
>> was
>> an act of treason because it shattered the rule of law.
>>
>> Americans have only the rights they are able to protect and defend.
>> Our
>> rights are nothing more than ideas; only theory and argument on parchment
>> all too easily burned to ashes. The power of those rights is only found
>> in
>> our collective submission to the rule of law, and submission to that rule
>> of
>> law is all that stands between our freedoms and the conflagration of
>> tyranny. Without the rule of law, there is no America.
>>
>> That is the treason of Alberto Gonzales, and the treason of the Bush
>> administration entire. They have attacked and undercut the rule of law by
>> refusing to submit to it, and in doing so have brought us to the edge of
>> appalling infamy. Theirs is a crime without peer, and we will be
>> fortunate
>> beyond measure if we are able to recover from it.
>>
>> The fact that Alberto Gonzales has left is meaningless in the main,
>> because the treason he participated in continues in his absence. If the
>> damage is to be repaired, he must be replaced by someone who will submit
>> to
>> the main imperative, someone who will submit to the rule of law, someone
>> with real independence and unbending respect for the idea that is
>> America.
>> Gonzales must not be replaced by another crony or yes-man, because
>> Americans
>> have only those rights we can protect and defend, and another traitor in
>> that lofty post is no protection at all.
>>
>> Gonzales was more than a poor steward of this trust. He was a traitor
>> among traitors. If the rule of law is to stand, the treason he helped
>> commit
>> must be ended, and a patriot must take his place.
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally
>> bestselling
>> author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to
>> Know"
>> and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill
>> Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is
>> now
>> available from PoliPointPress.
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