It is time for a new public outcry — based on civil liberties and collective rights, beyond left and right, beyond ideology. It is time for all Obama supporters who once passionately stood up against the abuses of the Bush II administration to stand up once again. It is time for those who are afraid to speak out against an overzealous national security apparatus to begin to raise our voices together. In the face of the naked persecution of two prominent whistleblowers Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks activist Julian Assange, as well as dozens of other people trying to shine a light on the wrongdoing of unaccountable government forces, it is time to take the security establishment up on its suggestion to SAY SOMETHING upon seeing something.

I believe that President Obama crossed a line on his recent appearance on Charlie Rose, spewing outright lies in an effort to protect his administration from growing criticism:

On behalf of all Americans who seek a new direction, who yearn for a new birth of freedom to build the just society, who see justice as the great work of human beings on Earth, who understand that community and human fulfillment are mutually reinforcing, who respect the urgent necessity to wage peace, to protect the environment, to end poverty and to preserve values of the spirit for future generations, who wish to build a deep democracy by working hard for a regenerative progressive politics, as if people mattered – to all these citizens and the Green vanguard, I welcome and am honored to accept the Green Party nomination for President of the United States.

–Ralph Nader’s acceptance statement, June, 2000

Despite “pwogressive” criticisms from William Kaufman and Mitchel Cohen in CounterPunch, I think the Green Shadow Cabinet launched earlier this year represents the single most-inspired initiative from Greens in the past decade. Running for office is a boilerplate third-party tactic — critical for building a credible and independent political party, but tired, temporary, constricting, and, too often, distracting. And while Ralph Nader made the case for the Green Party as a vehicle for an independent progressive force in American politics for a few years starting in the late nineties, he quickly changed his tune, muddling his message in the process. What vehicle were we left to organize around, for genuine grassroots democracy? His campaign? His non-profits that had been forced to distance themselves from Nader-the-politician? In his 2000 campaign, Nader made the point that politics — and power — isn’t about what happens on election day, but what happens in between elections, what happens in our communities day in and day out.

There can be no daily democracy without daily citizenship toward ‘a new birth of freedom.’ – Ralph Nader

by Howard Zinn

Published on June 2, 1976 in the Boston Globe (from the Zinn Reader)

Memorial Day will be celebrated … by the usual betrayal of the dead, by the hypocritical patriotism of the politicians and contractors preparing for more wars, more graves to receive more flowers on future Memorial Days. The memory of the dead deserves a different dedication. To peace, to defiance of governments.

In 1974, I was invited by Tom Winship, the editor of the Boston Globe, who had been bold enough in 1971 to print part of the top secret Pentagon Papers on the history of the Vietnam War, to write a bi-weekly column for the op-ed page of the newspaper. I did that for about a year and a half. The column below appeared June 2, 1976, in connection with that year’s Memorial Day. After it appeared, my column was canceled.

* * * * *

Memorial Day will be celebrated as usual, by high-speed collisions of automobiles and bodies strewn on highways and the sound of ambulance sirens throughout the land.

It will also be celebrated by the display of flags, the sound of bugles and drums, by parades and speeches and unthinking applause.

It will be celebrated by giant corporations, which make guns, bombs, fighter planes, aircraft carriers and an endless assortment of military junk and which await the $100 billion in contracts to be approved soon by Congress and the President.