Wolf: He said that?
Kall: He said that... BUT then he totally talked about Iran and Iraq and Afghanistan – he was just talking about military engagement.
Wolf: Oh. You mean we should go ahead and pursue those? He didn’t talk about the Constitution?
Kall: No. His whole idea of defending liberty was military exercises, military strength, things like that. And it’s fascinating, because you got all these chapters that talk about fake patriotism and fake democracy... there one on fake liberty? (laughs)
Wolf: Well, it sounds like he could... it’s very disappointing. It does sound like he’s defining liberty in a pretty fake way and to the rubric of what I call fake patriotism, you’re absolutely right – it’s very, very depressing. It does fit in with what I’ve been telling people. You know, people keep asking me about the election and I keep saying again and again, whoever is elected, we’re not out of the woods. I mean, we’re in very serious trouble if McCain/Palin get in, or if the election is stolen, of course, but if by some miracle, and in a transparent, accountable election, Barack Obama becomes President, we are not done with our work by any means.
We’re still in serious trouble without a very committed citizen’s... trans-partisan citizen’s movement to restore the Constitution. ‘Cause here’s why: These laws are on the books, they’re there. He caved on FISA, because of pressure from... and people have to understand it’s not his... it’s not anyone’s wish, it’s this gigantic – well, it’s some people’s wish – but there’s gigantic pressure from the telecommunications industry, from the defense contractors, who are now profiting from a police state in the United States because they’ve moved into surveillance and security technologies, and it’s only mobilized the movement of people that can push back against that.
And there’s still going to be laws on the books that would let him wire tap his opponents, which would let him arrest journalists under the Espionage Act that would let him put Matt Drudge in prison for three years in solitary confinement, without easy access to a lawyer. The founders knew that any leader is going to be tempted by these things, no matter how well-intentioned they are, any leader is going to abuse these powers. So it really is up to us to push it, to hold his feet to the fire if he is the President.
Kall: Absolutely. That’s what I believe is going to be the main job of what I do at OpEdNews. (http://www.opednews.com). Are you familiar with OpEdNews, by the way?
Wolf: I am! I get them often in my inbox and I admire them so much, so many of them have been so right on. And you guys also address many issues I’m sorry to say the mainstream media has been ignoring and neglecting. You raise them in a very rigorous way. Actually, OpEdNews is very much aligned with what I’ve been calling for lately. I just wrote a column about this, as a syndicate that goes around the globe, a syndicated monthly column, and I was saying that we need not just blogging, but a kind of rigorous citizen journalism in which there’s training for ordinary citizens to get the basics of accountable journalism, so that they can back things up, use good documentation, understand how to use quotes and sources. What I love about OpEdNews is that it’s rigorous op ed’s, but sort of liberated from the constraints of conventional media.
Kall: Well, thank you. What I wanted to do tonight was kind of get an overview of your book, the mission of the book and the vision of it, and then talk about what you said in a recent video that you did where you talked about a coup that took place on October 1st. I wanted to kind of pick up where that left off, but... so, how’s that sound?
Wolf: That sounds great, sure. You want me to start with Give Me Liberty?
Kall: Absolutely.
Wolf: OK, sure thing. So...
Kall: Let me kind of start it off here. I’m going to read a little bit from it that I underlined. You say that a paper coup has taken place. And then you say that history shows that when an army of citizens supported by even a vestige of civil society believes in liberty, in the psychological space that is America, no power on Earth can ultimately suppress them.
But go ahead; tell us about where you came from in this book, the different phases of it. It’s a wonderful, exciting book that is... it takes the idea of revolution and puts it into being, not something that you start in a country, but something that you maintain in a country. I love that idea!
Wolf: Me, too. Well, it’s not my idea, it’s turns out the founding generation, these ordinary people, not just well-known founders who are captivated by liberty, really defined America in a way that is so different from how we... from the fake patriotism that we are taught. They really defined the American... they defined America as a state of mind, a process of justice, a process of confrontation with oppression, not a place or even a system of government.
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