Ten Steps for Radical Revolution in USA

By Bill Quigley.  Bill is a human rights lawyer who teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and works with the Center for Constitutional Rights.  You can reach him at quigley77@gmail.com  

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.”  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  1967

One.  Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously.  Every single person is entitled to dignity and human rights.  No application needed.  No exclusions at all.  This is our highest priority.

Two.  We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy.  Current systems are deeply corrupt and not responsive to the needs of people.   Representatives chosen by money and influence govern by money and influence.  This is unacceptable.  Direct democracy by the people is now technologically possible and should be the rule.  Communities must be protected whenever they advocate for self-determination, self-development and human rights.  Dissent is essential to democracy; we pledge to help it flourish.

Three.  Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights.   Amend the US Constitution so it is clear corporations do not have constitutional or human rights.   We the people must cut them down to size and so democracy can regulate their size, scope and actions.

Four.  Leave the rest of the world alone.  Cut US military spending by 75 percent and bring all troops outside the US home now.  Defense of the US is a human right.  Global offense and global police force by US military are not.  Eliminate all nuclear and chemical and biological weapons.  Stop allowing scare tactics to build up the national security forces at home.  Stop the myth that the US is somehow special or exceptional and is entitled to act differently than all other nations.  The US must re-join the global family of nations as a respectful partner.  USA is one of many nations in the world.  We must start acting like it.

Five.  Property rights, privilege, and money-making are not as important as human rights.  When current property and privilege arrangements are not just they must yield to the demands of human rights.  Money-making can only be allowed when human rights are respected.  Exploitation is unacceptable.  There are national and global poverty lines.  We must establish national and global excess lines so that people and businesses with extra houses, cars, luxuries, and incomes share much more to help everyone else be able to exercise their basic human rights to shelter, food, education and healthcare.  If that disrupts current property, privilege and money-making, so be it.

Six.  Defend our earth.  Stop pollution, stop pipelines, stop new interstates, and stop destroying the land, sea, and air by extracting resources from them.  Rebuild what we have destroyed.  If corporations will not stop voluntarily, people must stop them.  The very existence of life is at stake.

Seven.  Dramatically expand public spaces and reverse the privatization of public services.  Quality public education, health and safety for all must be provided by transparent accountable public systems.  Starving the state is a recipe for destroying social and economic human rights for everyone but the rich.

Eight.  Pull the criminal legal prison system up and out by its roots and start over.  Cease the criminalization of drugs, immigrants, poor people and people of color.  We are all entitled to be safe but the current system makes us less so and ruins millions of lives.  Start over.

Nine.  The US was created based on two original crimes that must be confessed and made right.  Reparations are owed to Native Americans because their land was stolen and they were uprooted and slaughtered.   Reparations are owed to African Americans because they were kidnapped, enslaved and abused.  The US has profited widely from these injustices and must make amends.

Ten.  Everyone who wants to work should have the right to work and earn a living wage.  Any workers who want to organize and advocate for change in solidarity with others must be absolutely protected from recriminations from their employer and from their government.

Finally, if those in government and those in power do not help the people do what is right, people seeking change must together exercise our human rights and bring about these changes directly.  Dr. King and millions of others lived and worked for a radical revolution of values.  We will as well.  We respect the human rights and human dignity of others and work for a world where love and wisdom and solidarity and respect prevail.  We expect those for whom the current unjust system works just fine will object and oppose and accuse people seeking dramatic change of being divisive and worse.  That is to be expected because that is what happens to all groups which work for serious social change.  Despite that, people will continue to go forward with determination and purpose to bring about a radical revolution of values in the USA. 

The Inhumanity of Those Who Make Wars

Friends,

It should come as no surprise that those in power who send men and women off to fight their wars think of them (and treat them) as no more than commodities.  That they are human beings with feelings, families, and have faces means nothing in a very real sense.  They cannot truly look them in the face, because then they would have to confront their own lack of humanity and question the morality of their actions.

Ashley Joppa-Hagemann, whose husband Jarod Hagemann recently committed suicide before what would have been his 8th or 9th deployment, confronted Donald Rumsfeld the other day about her husband's suicide and Rumsfeld showed that he is one of those cold, calculating scoundrels who are more than willing to treat those who serve our nation in the armed forces as mere commodities to be manipulated into serving their twisted purposes through carefully deception.

There is ample evidence that this is exactly what Rumsfeld and others in the Bush administration did in the days following 9/11 and in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq.  And now Rumdsfeld shows his true colors when a war widow hands him the memorial bulletin for her husband and confronts him about how her husband joined the Army because of the lies he told, and all he can say is, "Oh yeah, I heard about that."   As Ashley say's in the following interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, Rumsfeld didn't say "him" or "Jared".  No, he could only say "that," as if Jared was only a thing to him.  He probably couldn't even (or didn't bother to) look at Jared's face on the bulletin.  The heartless core of the warmaker.

Watch the Democracy Now video interview with Ashley or read the transcript following it .  Besides the obvious issue of how we treat our men and women in the armed forces as they attempt to grapple with the psychological effects of war, there is a far deeper issue of how we allow people like Donald Rumsfeld to get away with sending them off to wars of deception in the first place.  It is time for the people to speak out: "No More Wars!!!"

Peace,

Leonard

Army Ranger Widow Confronts Rumsfeld over His Lies that Convinced Her Husband to Join the Military (from Democracy Now, August 30, 2011)

We speak with the widow of a U.S. Army Ranger who confronted former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about her husband’s suicide on Saturday. Ashley Joppa-Hagemann introduced herself to Rumsfeld during a book signing by handing him a copy of her husband’s funeral program at a base south of Tacoma, Washington. She says Rumsfeld inspired her husband to join the Army after 9/11, but he later became disillusioned with the reasons for the war. Her husband, 25-year-old Staff Sergeant Jared Hagemann, killed himself ahead of what his wife says was his eighth deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. His body was found on June 28, 2011, at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State. More than 18,000 soldiers returned to the Joint Base Lewis-McChord from combat tours last year. And while the Army says it is trying to shore up mental health services there, Joppa-Hagemann questions its success. "I want to confront the man whose lies led my husband to join the military, and so many other soldiers," says Joppa-Hagemann. "That’s what I wanted to do, and that’s what I did." [includes rush transcript]

Guest:

Ashley Joppa-Hagemann, the widow of 25-year-old Staff Sgt. Jared Hagemann, who committed suicide on June 28, 2011, ahead of his eighth redeployment to Iraq & Afghanistan. She confronted former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday about his role in inspiring her husband to enlist after 9/11.

Jorge Gonzalez, executive director of Coffee Strong, a veteran-owned, veteran-operated GI coffeehouse just outside of Ft. Lewis, Washington. He’s a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

Related Links:
•Coffee Strong: Veteran-owned and veteran-operated GI coffee houses
•Democracy Now!’s news archive of our reports on the Iraq War

AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to the widow of a U.S. Army Ranger who on Saturday confronted former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld about her husband’s suicide. Ashley Joppa-Hagemann introduced herself to Rumsfeld during a book signing by handing him a copy of her husband’s funeral program at a base south of Tacoma, Washington. She says Rumsfeld inspired her husband to join the Army after 9/11, but he later became disillusioned with the reason for the war.

Her husband was 25-year-old Staff Sergeant Jared Hagemann. He killed himself ahead of what his wife says was his ninth deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan. His body was found June 28th at the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State.

More than 18,000 soldiers returned to Fort Lewis from combat tours last year. And while the Army says it’s trying to shore up mental health services there, Ashley Joppa-Hagemann questions its success. She joins us now from Seattle, Washington, to talk about her husband, Jared.

We also called an official from the Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington to join us on the show, but they were unable to accommodate our request.

Ashley, our condolences on the death of your husband, first off. Thank you very much for being with us.

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: Thank you for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about what you did with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld? Explain the scene this weekend.

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: I just had information that Donald would be here on Fort Lewis doing a book signing. And it was someone’s idea to actually go and see him at the book signing, and I was excited, and I agreed. I was like, "Yeah, let’s go. Let’s do this. I want to confront the man whose lies led my husband to join the military, and so many other soldiers." And that’s what I wanted to do, and that’s what I did. And for me, that was a really exciting moment, for me. For my husband, I know it was, too.

AMY GOODMAN: You handed him the funeral program of Jared, of your husband, Staff Sergeant Hagemann?

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: Yes, I did. I told him that I wanted him to see my husband, and so he would know—he could put a face with at least one of the soldiers that had lost their lives because of his lies from the 9/11.

AMY GOODMAN: And what was his response?

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: All I remember is him saying, "Oh, I heard about that." And after that, all I remember is being bombarded with security personnel and being pushed out and told not to return. It would have been maybe not so difficult, if maybe he had actually made my husband feel—or made it sound like my husband was an actual person. But to call him and say "that" rather, not "I heard about him" or "heard about, you know, Jared," that was a blow. That one really hurt. But it just proves that our soldiers don’t mean anything to anybody who’s in power.

AMY GOODMAN: Were you actually taken away from the former secretary of defense, from Rumsfeld?

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: Yes. They grabbed us by our arms and pushed us along. And on the way out, I had stopped, because Jorge had gone with me, and I had stopped to try and see where he was at, because I didn’t know where he was, because we had so much security around us, and they just kept, like, pushing me along. And he just said, "Keep moving." And we were peaceful, we were calm. And so, I just kept doing what he said.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about Jared. How many tours of duty did he serve in Iraq and Afghanistan? He was an Army Ranger, like Pat Tillman.

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: Yes. He was just an amazing person. He was so charming and so—he loved life. He loved—he had so much respect and love for everybody, and he put everyone before him. And he was just—he was an amazing person.

AMY GOODMAN: How many—

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: I mean, when I first met him—I’m sorry?

AMY GOODMAN: How many tours of duty did he serve?
ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: Like I said before, possibly—you know, around eight or nine. I’m thinking it’s more around the eight mark, but it’s, yeah, eight or nine, this would have been.

AMY GOODMAN: And he was in Patrick—he was in Pat Tillman’s battalion?

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: Second of the 75th Ranger Regiment, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Did he know him?

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: No, I don’t believe so.

AMY GOODMAN: What was it about Donald Rumsfeld that inspired Jared to go into the military?

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: Pretty much the whole Bush administration and their lies about, you know, WMDs. And my husband was the kind of person who stood up for what he believed in, and he loved this country. And he thought he was doing what needed to be done. And over the years, he found out the truth. And it—every tour just ruined him. It took a part of him every time.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about whether Jared sought help? Talk about his suffering through the continued tours.

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: After the first few tours, he didn’t—he changed. He was cold. He didn’t want to talk. It was really rough. And I’d have to say, in '09, when he finally came back from maybe his fourth deployment—I'm not sure—he actually tried to tell—he told the Rangers that he quit. He didn’t want nothing to do with them. And he admitted himself to Five North, and they gave him counseling for his drinking. And after a while, they told him that he had to do it on his own time. It was interfering with his work. They put him in the S-5 shop in order to accommodate his counseling. And a few times, they had given him some antidepressants, some sleeping pills, which only made it worse, because it was like a 30-day supply. Then, as soon as it ran out, he had to go through the process all over again to get anything. So, it was just more of a hassle than anything.

AMY GOODMAN: Ashley, your husband was not alone. At Fort Lewis, July saw a peak of suicides—five in one month. There were nine in 2009, nine in 2010, five in just July alone. Yet the military is not calling your husband’s suicide a suicide, though they are saying it’s a self-inflicted wound?

ASHLEY JOPPA-HAGEMANN: There are suicides at JBLM every month. Whether or not they report them as suicides, I don’t—I can’t comment on that. I don’t know. So I wouldn’t say it spiked. I would say that it’s probably pretty—pretty high every month. It’s not anything new. And yes, it was self-inflicted. Whether or not that they had any—not thing, but any take or part in my husband taking his life, that’s what the investigation is investigating.

AMY GOODMAN: Ashley, we have to leave it there, but we’re going to do an interview and put it online at democracynow.org. Thanks so much for joining us.