We suffer the national disgrace of our government's incompetent response to hurricane Katrina, the obscene spectacle of thieves who stole our tax dollars and failed to provide promised relief for people left homeless in that disaster.
When Bush and Cheney took office in 2001, our national debt was $1.6-trillion. When they leave office, our debt will be over $9-trillion. The results of this incompetence and corruption are forcing more Americans into a lower standard of living and many into poverty. The number of foreclosed mortgages and people become homeless is at record levels. More people have no health insurance.
There’s a prospect that as the economy “underperforms” and collapses, our treasury will be so bankrupt we will confront a time when our country’s president will tell us both social security and medicare must end because there's no money to pay for them.
Today, two million Americans are in prison — the highest rate of imprisonment on the planet — and racism pervades our judicial system.
We believe there is indisputable evidence that the last two presidential elections were stolen by criminal actions, and that a significant number of other elections were stolen in the last seven years. On this account alone, it cannot be said our country is a functioning democracy.
We believe the Help America Vote Act is incompetent to the restoration and protection of democracy in our country. The evidence that no voting machine is safe from corruption and false vote counts is overwhelming and indisputable.
We call on all Americans to demand that our country adopt a national standard providing for the most reliable and honest exercise of democracy, paper-only voting counted by people, not machines, with oversight by all political parties and independent monitoring agencies. Democracy is more than a principle guaranteed by our Constitution. It is the birthright of every human being. We urge all citizens to call representatives and senators in Washington, representatives in the state legislatures and governors, and tell them there’s no place for stolen elections in the United States, and that the people want paper-only voting, hand-counted by people, not machines. We support a Voters’ Bill of Rights to protect democracy forever.
We believe justice and the future of our United States compel action now. We ask all Americans to stand up for our commonwealth and join the campaign to save our country.
The function of government is to serve peoples’ needs, to enhance the potential for every citizen to fulfill her promise as a human being. Government is supposed to be not a force of punishment sticking its nose into the private lives of citizens; a democratic government is supposed to be an institution of life, for the good of all. Today we suffer a government that is an institution of death and oppression, a government that promotes suspicion, hate and barbarity. Our government is un-American.
Despite all the evidence of this severe crisis, despite the strong indications from voters who demand change, we have a legislative branch that is not responsible to the people who elected it to serve us.
What is to be done?
Accordingly, we call on all citizens to organize their neighborhoods, their towns, cities and states, to join in An American Peoples’ Congress to enforce that justice be restored and democracy be reclaimed in our nation, and that tells our legislators
— Representatives and Senators who don’t support the withdrawal of all American combat service people from Iraq, by no later than April 2008, will be replaced by candidates who do the will of the people. This is more than enough time to engage the United Nations to assume the role of overseeing the policing of Iraq by a multinational force composed of people who are more acceptable to the Iraqi people. The United States can and should provide material and financial support for the effort, but no American combat personnel shall participate militarily on the ground in Iraq.
— All Representatives and Senators who refuse to support impeachment proceedings against George Bush, Richard Cheney, and all civil officers of the United States who have violated our laws as stipulated in Article Two, Section Four of our Constitution, will be replaced by candidates who insist on holding all those who commit criminal actions to account.
— The crisis is so severe we can’t have nothing doing. We must act, and we call on our citizens to exercise sacrifice for our country by committing to purchasing minimally during the holiday shopping season from November through New Year’s day. The politicians don’t respect the millions of votes and letters and phone calls telling them to change course. It’s time for us to act now, and boycotting the retail consumer sector sends a message of tremendous power that the politicians can't ignore. Because we’re in a state of crisis, we aim to get millions of Americans to
“Just say NO to business as usual.”
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