Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel marches with other civil rights leaders — from left, John Lewis, an unidentified nun, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Bunche, Heschel and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth — from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on March 21, 1965. Credit: Courtesy of Susannah Heschel
Today, We the People are stepping up our Resistance. Events will no longer go unanswered, unchecked. Events that continue to swirl around and rain down upon us, their toxic intent and acidic fallout inciting division, fomenting civil war, encouraging hatred, bigotry, racism, and genocide, will no longer be tolerated.
As Hurricane Harvey batters Texas, an area weakened intentionally through vacant disaster preparedness positions and reduced funding, our hearts ache for the loss of life and property. At the same time we empathize with the victims of horrendous atrocities now pardoned, our senses reel as more lies upon lies surface, and our productivity suffers as the threat of cataclysmic nuclear war render our nights sleepless.
Enough. People are gathering in Charlottesville to march to Washington, DC. This act of strategic nonviolence will move across Virginia step by step to arrive in DC ten days later on September 6, and become a sustained protest: once we arrive in DC the intent is to stay until our demands are met.
We the People have united to confront white supremacy. Six words that seek to change the world. An elite white male minority seeks to dominate worldwide so that its greed, pursuit of and lust for oil, minerals and riches can continue unfettered. Democracy is in their way, with all its regulations in place for the protection of the people, their rights and their environment. Their efforts represent an ongoing threat internal and external to our national security.
The reins of government here in the United States are currently in their hands. They seek to destroy our Constitution, to dismantle our democracy and democracies worldwide. Do not doubt that this coup is a global effort that knows no boundaries, literally and figuratively.
Pure power has been and is being obtained through illegitimate means, elsewhere in the world through invasions and annexations, here in the US through years of gerrymandering, voter repression, hacked voter machines, espionage, treason, cyberwarfare, foreign influence in our elections. Much of what has happened here to facilitate this consolidation of power is still being uncovered. All will eventually come to light, all those complicit will be prosecuted. The penalties are severe, treason yet carries the death sentence.
America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves. — Abraham Lincoln
The foundation for our nation’s government for, by, and of the people is spelled out in the Constitution. It is rock solid, has stood the test of time and will continue do so, IF and only if its spirit is defended.
In our Constitution there does exist a path to recover the reins to our government. It is as plain as a new day dawning; Article II, Section 1, Clause 6:
6: In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office,9 the Same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by Law provide for the Case of Removal, Death, Resignation or Inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what Officer shall then act as President, and such Officer shall act accordingly, until the Disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
Where there is a will there is a way. We must ask ourselves, why are we being told there exists no path, no mechanism in the Constitution to address the need for a new election? Lack of precedent? Or because here is no will to do so as the ruling party, the Republican Party, in their silence at least, in their participation at worst, is complicit in this coup, this illegal consolidation of power that has occurred? They do not want to relinquish that power. Pressure on all our elected officials to honor their oath to uphold the Constitution has been and is being applied daily via calls, letters, emails, tweets, and town halls confrontations.
Today we begin to march to our nation’s capital to apply even more pressure on our elected officials: honor your oath, remove this threat to our national security, restore our democracy.
Determine that the thing can and shall be done, and then we shall find the way. — Abraham Lincoln, speaking to the House of Representatives.
There exists many ways to remove the President and Vice President by law; the 25th amendment expands upon those means and establishes the Line of Succession. However, it does not change what is to happen once a caretaker “Officer” is appointed, and once that appointment has occurred therein lies the path to a new election: should the Offices of the Presidency and Vice Presidency both be vacated for whatever reason, Congress is to appoint a caretaker “Officer” until the disability is removed...or a President shall be elected. There is no time frame, no specifications inherent in “a President shall be elected”. In order to be elected, there must be an election. There can and should be a special election, once the offices of President and Vice President are vacated.
...we should be unfaithful to ourselves if we should ever lose sight of the danger to our liberties if anything partial or extraneous should infect the purity of our free, fair, virtuous, and independent elections.
John Adams, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1797
We the People are marching to DC. We must make a stand and demand the resignation of the President and Vice President, to make way for a caretaker “Officer” and a new election. We must demand sweeping reform be enacted to ensure that our Democracy will never again be allowed to slide towards authoritarianism. We must ensure that we will not go down in history as a failed attempt to establish a representative government that had at its heart all the people’s interests.
The March from Charlottesville to DC will swell to massive proportions, as will the numbers who will peacefully occupy our capital. People across the nation are more than ready to recover the reins of their democracy. We the People want to continue to serve as that Beacon that shines across the waters for others to find their way to democracy, peace and freedom. We will extinguish any torch that illuminates the face of hate in the night.
Rise like lions after slumber
In unfathomable number
Shake your chains to earth like dew
That in sleep have fallen on you
Ye are many, they are few. — excerpt from “The Mask of Anarchy” Percy Bysshe Shelley
The immediate demands of the March from Charlottesville to DC are the removal of the President. As time passes and more people answer this call and rise to the defense of the nation, it is my opinion that those demands need to and will expand as people are yet waking to the reality of the scope and depth and severity of this threat to our way of life.
Government is instituted for the common good; for the protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness of the people; and not for profit, honor, or private interest of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, the people alone have an incontestable, unalienable, and indefeasible right to institute government; and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection, safety, prosperity, and happiness require it.
John Adams, Thoughts on Government, 1776
In general we will not have recovered anything resembling the path to a true Representative Democratic Government that ends white male minority rule until all of the following is accomplished:
- ALL complicit in this effort to undermine our government have resigned, or have been removed from office, including and especially the President and the Vice President;
- An independent bypartisan commission is established, headed by Robert Mueller, to pursue his investigation unfettered, unobstructed with all the time and resources required to complete its work that is most critical to the re-establishment of the rule of law;
- Sweeping election reform is enacted, including a secured vote on a paper ballot, the removal of the influence of money in government through campaign donations, gerrymandering, all forms of voter repression; and
- A new election is held.
August 28, 2017, a day to celebrate the beginning of the end of our national nightmare. America is awake and on the move, honoring and furthering the beautiful dream of Martin Luther King, Jr., outlined in his famous speech “I Have a Dream” delivered on this same day, 54 years ago, August 28, 1963:
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
— “I Have a Dream Speech” Martin Luther King, Jr.
See you in DC.
We are the ones we have been waiting for. — Barack Obama, Alice Walker, June Jordon, Hopi Prophecy
I am that person who sees the way to a higher road, but I cannot walk.
I am that person who walks the path towards equality, but I cannot speak.
I am that person who speaks to truth and justice for all, but I cannot see.
Let us walk together and lead all who can see, can speak, can walk,
Let us together lead all who desire all that is just and fair,
Let us together use good and light to dispel hate and abolish despair.
We are here! We will save us!
We are our own heroines,
We are our own heroes,
We will defeat the villainous.
We are our own warriors victorious!
"It is often when night looks darkest, it is often before the fever breaks that one senses the gathering momentum for change, when one feels that resurrection of hope in the midst of despair and apathy." — Hillary Rodham Clinton addressing the NAACP
Cherry Trees in bloom, Washington, DC
[Note — edited 8/29/17, added “in my opinion” and “end white male minority rule”]
