(My update to the Declaration of Independence follows.)
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God [ed. There is no God] entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation…The history of the present King of Great [America] is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states…To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
He [The Real King of Great America, or the Far-Right Corporate Billionaires Of The United States] has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his [GOP] governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance [like campaign and health care reform, civil rights protections for women, children, and the LGBT communities, critical environmental protections], unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only [see: dismantling of collective bargaining, union, and abortion rights, voter suppression laws].
He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people [see: pulling campaign contributions away from GOP lawmakers who veer in any way from corporate interests].
He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands [see: anti-immigrant laws].
He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries [see: the current Supreme Court majority who voted to allow unlimited political campaign spending by both domestic and international corporations, allowed corporate “personhood,” refused to allow a class action suit against Wal-Mart’s long history of discrimination towards women because “it was too big.”].
He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance [see: political & religious spamming now allowed at the workplace, proliferation of ignorant, loud-mouthed, sound-bite focused GOP Tea Party goons to inflame and unite an ignorant, loud-mouthed, sound-bite focused, racist, hateful American minority into a political beast].
For imposing taxes on us without our consent [see: massive tax breaks for the wealthiest mean more financial burden for everyone else -- there is no "trickle down."].
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people [see: the BP Gulf oil spill and thousands of other corporate-caused environmental disasters, push for legislation to allow for even-more-dangerous and destructive mining and drilling methods and regulatory laxity on current environmental protections].
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince [or King, or power-mad, greed-fueled Maxi-Capitalist], whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have we been wanting in attention to our [corporate] brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.
Signed,
Marianne
July 4, 2011
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman