[Mb-civic] Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy Sheehan

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

Jefferson Would Have Stood With Cindy 
Sheehan 
by Thom Hartmann 
Nationally, it was clearly a phenomenon when several truckers called 
into my radio show on Sirius Satellite to say that they were interrupting 
trips through central parts of the USA to head to Crawford, Texas. One 
even reported live as he experienced a (friendly) reception by the local 
sheriff, who helped him find a place to park his rig. Locally here in 
Oregon, it's not unusual to see cars with signs taped to their rear 
windows - printed in inch-high letters on an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of paper 
- that say variations on: "We're With Cindy!" or "Answer Her 
Questions!" 
Ambassador Joe Wilson represented a political threat to Bush by 
credibly exposing part of Bush's lie and its methodology, and so Wilson 
had to be taken out by destroying his wife's career. Cindy Sheehan 
now represents a similar political threat, and for this job right-wing hate 
radio, Drudge, and extremist bloggers have zeroed in on her. 
Meanwhile, thousands of patriotic Americans, tired of being lied to by 
the Bush regime, are heading to Crawford, or visiting 
www.meetwithcindy.comor www.crawfordpeacehouse.org . 
Often history tells us how the future may turn out: Bush Junior isn't the 
first president to have lied to us about foreign affairs and war, or to use 
lies to justify eviscerating the Constitution. For example, Lyndon 
Johnson lied about a non-existent attack on the US warship Maddox in 
the Vietnamese Gulf of Tonkin. William McKinley (the presidency after 
which Karl Rove has said he's modeling the Bush presidency) lied 
about an attack on the USS Maine to get us into the Spanish-American 
war in The Philippines and Cuba. 
But most relevant to today's situation were John Adams' version of 
Bush's Saddam stories when Adams sent three emissaries to France 
and criminals soliciting bribes approached them late one evening. 
Adams referred to these three unidentified Frenchmen as "Mr. X, Mr. 
Y, and Mr. Z," and made them out to represent such an insult and a 
threat against America that it may presage war. 
Adams' use of "The XYZ Affair" to gain political capital nearly led us to 
war with France and helped him carve a large (although temporary) 
hole in the Constitution. Similarly, much like Bush's corralling of 
protesters at gunpoint into so-called "Free Speech Zones," and saying 
he has the power to lock up Americans (like Jose Padilla) without 
charges and without access to a lawyer, John Adams jailed newspaper 
editors and average citizens alike who spoke out against him and his 
policies. 
At that time in the late 1790s, Adams was President and Jefferson was 
Vice President. Adams led the Federalist Party (which today could be 
said to have reincarnated as the Republican Party - thus the attempts 
by Republican historians to rehabilitate Adams' legacy and trash 
Jefferson), and Jefferson had just brought together two Anti-Federalist 
parties - the Democrats and the Republicans - into one party called 
The Democratic Republicans. (Today they're known as the Democratic 
Party, the longest-lasting political party in history. They dropped 
"Republican" from their name in the 1820-1830 era). 
Adams and his Federalist cronies, using war hysteria with France as a 
wedge issue, were pushing the Alien & Sedition Acts through 
Congress, and even threw into prison Democratic Congressman 
Matthew Lyon of Vermont for speaking out against the Federalists on 
the floor of the House of Representatives. Adams was leading the 
United States in the direction of a fascistic state with a spectacularly 
successful strategy of vilifying Jefferson and his Party as anti- 
American and pro-French. Adams rhetoric was described as "manly" 
by the Federalist newspapers, which admiringly published dozens of 
his threatening rants against France, suggesting that Jefferson's 
Democratic Republicans were less than patriots and perhaps even 
traitors because of their opposition to the unnecessary war with France 
that Adams was simultaneously trying to gin up and saying he was 
working to avoid. 
On June 1, 1798 - two weeks before the Alien & Sedition Acts passed 
Congress by a single vote - Jefferson wrote a thoughtful letter to his 
old friend John Taylor. 
"This is not new," Jefferson said. "It is the old practice of despots; to 
use a part of the people to keep the rest in order. And those who have 
once got an ascendancy and possessed themselves of all the 
resources of the nation, their revenues and offices, have immense 
means for retaining their advantage. 
"But," he added, "our present situation is not a natural one." Jefferson 
knew that Adams' Federalists did not represent the true heart and soul 
of America, and commented to Taylor about how Adams had been 
using divide-and-conquer politics, and fear-mongering about war with 
France (the "XYZ Affair") with some success. 
"But still I repeat it," he wrote again to Taylor, "this is not the natural 
state." 
Jefferson did everything he could to stop that generation's version of 
the PATRIOT Act, but Adams had the Federalists in control of both the 
House of Representatives and the Senate, and pushed through the 
Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson left town the day they were signed in 
protest. 
Jefferson later wrote in his diary, "Their usurpations and violations of 
the Constitution at that period, and their majority in both Houses of 
Congress, were so great, so decided, and so daring, that after 
combating their aggressions, inch by inch, without being able in the 
least to check their career, the [Democratic] Republican leaders 
thought it would be best for them to give up their useless efforts there, 
go home, get into their respective legislatures, embody whatever of 
resistance they could be formed into, and if ineffectual, to perish there 
as in the last ditch." 
Democratic Republican Congressman Albert Gallatin submitted 
legislation that would repeal the Alien & Sedition Acts, and the 
Federalist majority in the House refused to even consider the motion, 
while informing Gallatin that he would be the next to be imprisoned if 
he kept speaking out against "the national security." 
But a new force arose. 
When Adams shut down the Democratic Republican newspapers, 
pamphleteers - like those who had helped stir up the American 
Revolution - went to work, papering towns from New Hampshire to 
Georgia with posters and leaflets decrying Adams' power grab and 
encouraging people to stand tall with Thomas Jefferson. One of the 
best was a short screed by George Nicholas of Kentucky, "Justifying 
the Kentucky Resolution against the Alien & Sedition Laws" and " 
Correcting Certain False Statements, Which Have Been Made in the 
Different States" by Adams' Federalists. 
On February 13, 1799, then-Vice President Jefferson sent a copy of 
Nicholas' pamphlet to his old friend Archibald Stuart (a Virginia 
legislator, fighter in the War of Independence, and leader of 
Jefferson's Democratic Republicans). 
"I avoid writing to my friends because the fidelity of the post office is 
very much doubted," he opened his letter to Stuart, concerned that 
Adams was having his mail inspected because of his anti-war 
activities. Jefferson pointed out that "France is sincerely anxious for 
reconciliation, willing to give us a liberal treaty," and that even with the 
Democratic newspapers shut down by Adams and the Federalist- 
controlled media being unwilling to speak of Adams' war lies, word was 
getting out to the people. 
Jefferson noted, "All these things are working on the public mind. They 
are getting back to the point where they were when the X. Y. Z. story 
was passed off on them. A wonderful and rapid change is taking place 
in Pennsylvania, Jersey, and New York. Congress is daily plied with 
petitions against the alien and sedition laws and standing armies." 
Jefferson then turned to the need for the pamphleteers' materials to be 
widely distributed. "The materials now bearing on the public mind will 
infallibly restore it to its republican soundness in the course of the 
present summer," he wrote, "if the knowledge of facts can only be 
disseminated among the people. Under separate cover you will receive 
some pamphlets written by George Nicholas on the acts of the last 
session. These I would wish you to distribute...." 
The pamphleteer - today he would have been called a blogger - was 
James Bradford, and he reprinted tens of thousands of copies of 
Nicholas' pamphlet and distributed it far and wide. Hand to hand, as 
Jefferson did with his by-courier letter to Stuart - was how what would 
be today's postings to progressive websites were distributed. 
In the face of the pamphleteering and protests, the Federalists fought 
back with startling venom. Vicious personal attacks were launched in 
the Federalist press against Jefferson, Madison, and others, and 
President Adams and Vice President Jefferson were scarcely on 
speaking terms. Adams' goal was nothing short of the complete 
destruction of Jefferson's Democratic Party, and he had scared many 
of them into silence or submission. 
"All [Democratic Republicans], therefore, retired," Jefferson wrote in 
his diary, "leaving Mr. Gallatin alone in the House of Representatives, 
and myself in the Senate, where I then presided as Vice-President. 
Remaining at our posts, and bidding defiance to the brow-beatings and 
insults by which they endeavored to drive us off also, we kept the mass 
of [Democratic] Republicans in phalanx together, until the legislature 
could be brought up to the charge; and nothing on earth is more 
certain, than that if myself particularly, placed by my office of Vice- 
President at the head of the [Democratic] Republicans, had given way 
and withdrawn from my post, the [Democratic] Republicans throughout 
the Union would have given up in despair; and the cause would have 
been lost forever." 
But Jefferson and Gallatin held their posts, and fought back fiercely 
against Adams, thus saving - quite literally - American democracy. 
Jefferson and Madison also secretly helped legislators in Virginia and 
Kentucky submit resolutions in those states' legislatures decrying the 
Alien & Sedition Acts. The bill in Virginia, in particular, gained traction. 
As Jefferson noted in his diary, "By holding on, we obtained time for 
the legislatures to come up with their weight; and those of Virginia and 
Kentucky particularly, but more especially the former, by their 
celebrated resolutions, saved the Constitution at its last gasp. No 
person who was not a witness of the scenes of that gloomy period, can 
form any idea of the afflicting persecutions and personal indignities we 
had to brook. They saved our country however. The spirits of the 
people were so much subdued and reduced to despair by the X Y Z 
imposture, and other stratagems and machinations, that they would 
have sunk into apathy and monarchy, as the only form of government 
which could maintain itself." 
The efforts of average people like that century's Cindy Sheehans, and 
fearless politicians like today's Howard Dean, John Conyers, and 
Bernie Sanders, made great gains. As Jefferson noted in a February 
14, 1799 letter to Virginia's Edmund Pendleton, "The violations of the 
Constitution, propensities to war, to expense, and to a particular 
foreign connection, which we have lately seen, are becoming evident 
to the people, and are dispelling that mist which X. Y. Z. had spread 
before their eyes. This State is coming forward with a boldness not yet 
seen. Even the German counties of York and Lancaster, hitherto the 
most devoted [to Adams], have come about, and by petitions with four 
thousand signers remonstrate against the alien and sedition laws, 
standing armies, and discretionary powers in the President." 
Americans were so angry with Adams, Jefferson noted, that the 
challenge was to prevent people from taking up arms against Adams' 
Federalists. 
"New York and Jersey are also getting into great agitation. In this State 
[of Pennsylvania], we fear that the ill-designing may produce 
insurrection. Nothing could be so fatal. Anything like force would check 
the progress of the public opinion and rally them round the 
government. This is not the kind of opposition the American people will 
permit." 
Like Cindy Sheehan, Jefferson knew that peaceful protests had 
greater power than violence or threats. 
"But keep away all show of force," he wrote to Pendleton, "and they will 
bear down the evil propensities of the government, by the 
constitutional means of election and petition. If we can keep quiet, 
therefore, the tide now turning will take a steady and proper direction." 
A week later, February 21, 1799, Jefferson wrote to the great Polish 
general who had fought in the American Revolution, Thaddeus 
Kosciusko, a close friend who was then living in Russia. War was the 
great enemy of democracy, Jefferson noted, and peace was its 
champion. And the American people were increasingly siding with 
peace and rejecting Adams' call for war. 
"The wonderful irritation produced in the minds of our citizens by the X. 
Y. Z. story, has in a great measure subsided," he noted. "They begin to 
suspect and to see it coolly in its true light." 
But Adams was still President, and for him and his Federalist Party war 
would have helped tremendously with the upcoming election of 1800. 
In France some leaders wanted war with America for similar reasons. 
Jefferson continued, "What course the government will pursue, I know 
not. But if we are left in peace, I have no doubt the wonderful turn in 
the public opinion now manifestly taking place and rapidly increasing, 
will, in the course of this' summer, become so universal and so 
weighty, that friendship abroad and freedom at home will be firmly 
established by the influence and constitutional powers of the people at 
large." 
And if Adams' rhetoric led to an attack on America by France? "If we 
are forced into war," Jefferson noted, "we must give up political 
differences of opinion, and unite as one man to defend our country. 
But whether at the close of such a war, we should be as free as we are 
now, God knows." 
The tide was turned, to use Jefferson's phrase, by the election of 1800. 
The abuses of the Federalists were so burned into the people's minds 
when Jefferson's party came to power, and he freed the imprisoned 
newspaper editors so reform-minded newspapers were started back 
up again, that the Federalists disintegrated altogether as a party over 
the next two decades. 
All because average citizens and pamphleteers stood up and 
challenged the lies of a war-mongering president, and politicians of 
principle were willing to lead. Cindy Sheehan is the George Nicholas or 
Rusticus of our age. Jefferson would have stood with her. 
America has been burdened by lying presidents before, and even one 
who tried to destroy our Constitution. But in our era - like in Jefferson's 
- we are fortunate to have radical truth-tellers like Cindy Sheehan and 
Joseph Wilson to warn us of treasonous acts for political gain, and 
bloggers and progressive websites to carry the truth. 
If we stand in solidarity with today's truth-tellers, and politicians step 
forward to take a leadership role, then its entirely possible that with the 
elections of 2006 and 2008 American democracy can once again 
prevail. 

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored 
Award-winning best-selling author, and host of a nationally syndicated 
daily progressive talk show and a morning progressive talk show on 
KPOJ  in Portland, Oregon. www.thomhartmann.com  His most recent 
books are " The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight ," " Unequal Protection 
," " We The People ," " The Edison Gene ", and " What Would 
Jefferson Do? "



-- 
You are currently on Mha Atma's Earth Action Network email list, 
option D (up to 3 emails/day).  To be removed, or to switch options 
(option A - 1x/week, option B - 3/wk, option C - up to 1x/day, option D - 
up to 3x/day) please reply and let us know!  If someone forwarded you 
this email and you want to be on our list, send an email to 
ean at sbcglobal.net and tell us which option you'd like.


"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
   ---   George Orwell


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050815/41a8cc8b/attachment.htm