Because I love America: Reagan's Assistant General Counsel Speaks Out

Mikey Weinstein served as Assistant General Counsel for Ronald Reagan.  He founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to ensure the continued separation of Church and State, as essential principle of  America's Constitution.

When I began asking questions about what I saw going on at Colorado Springs in 2004 I never expected that the inquiry would lead me to the horrifying conclusion that our country had been taken over by people who have used our own freedoms to enslave us. But that is what happened. When I began I, like most people, was focused on the personal. I believed that what was happening at the United States Air Force Academy, the harassment of cadets and staff with unwanted evangelism, was limited in scope. As the months passed, however, I found myself forced to constantly reassess my basic assumptions. The logic of events was stark and undeniable. Promises of an open inquiry were ignored; decent and courageous people like former Air Force Chaplin MeLinda Morton were intentionally muzzled to ensure the truth would not be heard and the wrongs righted.

As a Republican and an Academy graduate I find myself in head on conflict with my own oath to protect the Constitution. As a Jew I confronted a situation through ears that still hear the cries of my people walking silently into the brick buildings that would reduce them to ash. I cannot stand still and let that happen to my country.

You know about the law suit we filed; that suit took on the issue directly, based on the1st Amendment Right of members of the military to choose their own spiritual paths, unhampered by those placed in positions of authority and on the basis of the Establishment Clause and Clause Three of Article Six, which prohibit the existence of a national religion. That is what has happened. America now has a national religion whose tenets extend to a foreign policy that sees war in the Middle East as the fulfillment of its core mission . The power block responsible for the take over are now, effectively, in charge of the mightiest weapon the world has ever known, the United States Military.

My law suit was one element in the larger battle to take back America. That might seem excessive or alarmist; I only wish that was the case.

I undertook this campaign to oppose those who were violating the principle of separation of Church and State head on and to make the public aware. I now understand that to undo the damage done Americans must come together to organize the dispersed elements opposing these forces that have gone so far in converting America into a theocracy that substitutes one parochial world view of the Bible as law, displacing the democratic foundation of our nationhood.

Every American should be awake to the real and present threat that the take over of America's military poses to our national security and to each of us personally. America is poised today on the brink of a disaster of global proportions. This situation has been moving towards its own logical conclusion while nearly all of us overlooked the clear and present danger signs posed by the coalition of unlikely forces who have come together in a voracious grab for power. Even those of us who have understood some parts of the larger problem have failed to see the connections. That is the past. Today we need to take action.

Those who have carried out this stealth operation, an imperious fascistic contagion growing for the last 30 years, have an agenda. That agenda demanded their patience. They have been. We must not be patient as we fight back. We must act now.

In late 2005 I founded the Military Religious Freedom Foundation . As I studied what was happening I began to hear from our own noble and honorable sailors, soldiers, marines and airmen from all religious traditions at military bases in the US and all over the world. They all told the same horrifying story; my concerns grew.

Here is what we face.

First, the corporate interests: These for profit businesses have worked to ensure their streams of income, focusing on augmenting their own profits and avoiding liability for the damage they well understood they inflicted on America and to people around the world. To accomplish those ends they developed a collation of think tanks and not-for-profits that justified their actions, using ideas cauterized to make their actions seem plausible.

They knew they needed to change the institutions and expectations of Americans to ensure they would keep control. To that end they employed political operatives to build up the facade of respectability those ideas needed. Think of the Heritage Foundation and the words of such as Ann Coulter, John Fund, and Robert Novak. That facade is what we today know as the NeoConservatives or “NeoCons.” You can think of it as the public relations firm presently employed by those rapacious corporations which work through our government.

The third element, funded in large part by the corporate interests but acting from their own agenda, are those who are now coming out of the shadows. As their power grows their need to remain unseen diminishes. Paul Krugman and others identify these as the Theocons. It was the action of the Theocratic agenda that awakened me to what is happening. These elements are the broad strokes that bring into the light the behind the scenes action that is destroying our nation and the hope for peace and prosperity that has always been so present for Americans.

It is not simple until you understand who and why it has happened. The corporations wanted power and money; the NeoCons were willing to make it happen for power and money. The Theocons, a tool made up of elements from a formerly marginalized and unrespected segment of the Christian community, were able to realize their dreams of power and money by becoming the tool that made the whole possible.

Today the man with his finger on the button, those who will receive the order to strike; many of those who will then be expected to put their lives on the line to carry out American policy; have been molded by the influences of these elements. A power conversion has taken place that has nothing to do with freedom or religion. Many thinkers and writers saw the potential for such a threat over the last several generations. But it is our generation and those who follow who now have no choice but to take action.

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