One Utah

An Open Letter to the Senate and the House of Representatives
From a Grandmother in Utah

Sent to:
Senator Patrick Leahy
Representative Ron Paul
Senator Harry Reid
Representative Nancy Pelosi
Senator Orrin Hatch

Senator Leahy and Representative Paul of the House, thank you. I am a 71 year old grandmother living in a quiet suburban village, Holladay, nestled in the foothills near Salt Lake City, Utah. Being a Mormon mother of eight wonderful children and thirteen beautiful grandchildren ages 3 to 25, I write with deep concern about our country. I have been a conservative voter, a woman and mother who has been active in the community all of my life, and a person of some serious intent. I believe it is time for grandmothers like me to unite and speak.

My children and grandchildren, your children, and the world’s children are in danger. We have the obligation to protect and defend them. Their lives are in our hands, in our homes, in the continuance of this land of freedom, and, consequently, in the sacred offices you hold.

My grandmotherly question is simple and profound: Will they have a life twenty years from now worth living? Will their lives be blessed with the natural liberties of your youth, or will they live as mere machines in the tyranny of an empire now equipped with technology for total control, an economic empire that tragically follows the path of those before, and becomes buried in the dust of another millennium? This is my question to you. This, I believe, is the most important question you will ever answer.

Let me say it another way: this is the most important question you will ever face, and the answer will be shaped by you.

For decades we have lived with economic- and political-control creep, eating up our natural liberties: the safety of our food and water, our homes, our communities, and now our government, line by line, freedom by freedom. There are deep and important truths, and trusts, that have been kidnapped in recent years. We mothers, fathers, leaders, children all have a basic right – no, THE NEED – to know the most salient truths about the past and future agenda of American policy. Surely the most influential decisions require the most transparent discussion.

Without doubt, vital information is being kept from the American public, and laws are being violated routinely with impunity. We The People – especially we grandmothers – demand an investigation and, hopefully, removal of those who hide and perpetrate lawless acts behind their privileged offices. It is either cowardice or deception of a serious order that prevents the transparency demanded of public officers. The arrogance and obscene entitlement we are witnessing by this administration on a daily basis is shocking. Further, it is informing: there is another agenda operating that, I believe, portends tyrannical control if it is not stopped now.

I support your stand and encourage you to follow through. The seats of power must be seats of honesty, integrity, transparency and humility, or we lose the gift of liberty our Fathers fought so hard to bequeath to us. The obvious and disgusting corruption and deception, manipulation of process, contempt for the Constitution and its intent, and usurpation of power for selfish gain and empire-building must stop, now. Every day is critical, as dark clouds of a political hurricane gather over this nation. What is done here and now will shape the world for centuries to come. Never before has this awareness had more meaning or relevance. We will be either the Light or the Darkness by example for a world of sovereign nations now coming to possess powers similar to those of this great country. We are now asked to fear terrorism at home and abroad, but it is the terrorism within our own political and economic system that will destroy the lives of my grandchildren, if men like you do not employ the power we have given you. You must use the Constitutional sword created by the Founding Fathers to protect the people, the nation, the “city on a hill”, which you are honored to represent. The truth shall always make and keep us free.

I represent millions of mothers all over the world, mothers who are weeping because the beautiful young lives they have brought forth are dying. They are dying of poverty of mind and wallet, war, disease and starvation. They are dying because of the spiritual – not necessarily religious – emptiness of their lives, having been sold out for so many years to the most nefarious, or merely the richest, ignorant bidder. The political environment we have created is more toxic to their future than the warming air we breathe and polluted water we drink. The latter cannot be solved before the former. There is deception and corruption at the highest levels of the most powerful government in the world. It is not unique to the United States, but the effects of such behavior are multiplied by the forces of its cannons and coffers. Wolves in sheep’s clothing… in a world of wolves.

A long-planned blueprint for political-economic action (started decades ago) has been focused, primed, and accelerated to change the constitutional landscape of all we know in this country and the world. It has ripened, because after the fall of Cold War walls, empire-builders could survive no longer without new fears, forms and powers. As a patriotic citizen, as a mother seeing the future of my children and ALL children and their parents in danger, I draw your attention to these issues in this Open Letter to the Congress of the United States. I had hoped that my own representatives might wake up to this real danger. But as I watched the Gonzales hearing last week, I was shamed by the paltry excuses and side issues deployed by Senator Hatch to provide an escape of responsibility for the Attorney General. It is obvious that Gonzales is the personal shield of President Bush and Vice President Cheney; in no way is he upholding the vital position as defender of the Constitution and the People of the United States to which he was appointed. It is plainly obvious that he was covering for as-yet-undisclosed, more embarrassing, and likely more illegal aspects of NSA surveillance than ‘the president has publicly discussed.’

Thank you for standing straight and tall and daring to delve into the atrocities committed against the Constitution by this administration in the name, and by the abuse, of our patriotism. Year after year since 9/11 I have been hoping, expecting that the Congress would wake up and assert its power to stop this racing Bush-Cheney train from reaching its pre-determined destination, a destination many of us can see very clearly: a self-appointed empire under other names. I say Bush-Cheney, not Republican, because the Republican Party has been a victim along with every other institution touched by this malevolent manipulation. In fact, age-old Republican values of smaller government, balanced budgets, sovereign authority, privacy and Constitutional purity have been turned upside down by this administration. This has been an administration ruling by fiat, a power grab so apparent and appalling that it boggles the mind as to why it has been allowed to continue unabated.

The manipulation of “The People” began many years and struggles ago. At the latest starting in 1991 under Bush Sr. and his appointees – Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Scooter Libby, and assorted others – a cabal began in earnest the drafting of a blueprint of their vision of a new America with emphasis on military expansion and global control: The Project for a New American Century, PNAC. A ‘benevolent empire’ was the theme, with a beefed-up military supporting worldwide control of resources and politics. Even the budget needed in the projected first four years was articulated, about $700 billion. The draft of the report was finished in 1997 before the campaign, before the election, before the court battle, and before the inauguration.

As they stated in black and white in the original PNAC blueprint, however, their vision could not come to rapid fruition without a “new Pearl Harbor”. But then, almost on cue, 9/11 enabled them to place their newly empowered hands into the geopolitical boxing gloves they had sought and designed.

In the maelstrom of fury and fog (and anthrax), deep questions about how 9/11 happened remained unanswered, and remain so to this day. Questions unanswered by the 9/11 Commission abound, and I shall mention them only by attachment, enclosed. I hope you will explore them; I hope you will pull on that thread no matter where it may lead.

Since 9/11, the Administration has been marching under the flag of Congressional authorizations for use of force and the Patriot Act, the latter drafted and passed unbelievably just weeks afterwards, with no real reading possible. Then all that followed – speech by speech, Executive Order by Executive Order and Directive upon Directive – began to slice up the Constitution by disemboweling the Congress of the United States of America, by emasculating the Bill of Rights, and by simply ignoring other amendments including the 10th and 14th (states rights, equal protection and due process rights), all to pave the way for an unholy alliance with industry/banking/military and foreign entities. In merely a few months, the trillion-dollar-per-year global war industry was given a new 50-year lease on life, newly empowered even to stretch itself to control “the new international commons” of space and cyberspace. The PNAC manifesto identified Iraq as a necessary target for regime change, not because of supposed WMDs, but because of its strategic position and resources in the Middle East. With such a vast plan, it certainly would have been deemed necessary to somehow bring the Congress of the Unites States and the people in on such a pervasive and all encompassing agenda.

Representatives and Senators from both parties! For the sake – indeed for the very viability of our grandchildren – we cannot hide from blunt exposition of these facts.

Please, connect the dots. It seems a cliche to say follow the money trail, to see who benefits from a crime. It is true in politics as well – see who benefits, where the power and control grow. Our personal and our national security depend upon your courage and diligence. George Washington, Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers were willing to take lead bullets to their brains and die for the birth of this nation. Are you willing merely to speak truth to power to save its life?

I need not enumerate the high crimes and misdemeanors of this administration: destruction of effective, decades-old apolitical departments and agencies serving vital public needs; negligence, at best, in the face of threats prior to 9/11; squandering of historic international goodwill with cowboy diplomacy; creation of secret detention centers that practice torture and violate international law and basic human morals; blatant deception leading to pre-emptive war; illegal surveillance of American citizens; outsourcing of vital military and intelligence functions to commercial entities whose stockholders DEMAND constant growth, yielding economic reward for war without accountability; concealment from Congress of information essential to its oversight mandate; suppression of science unfavorable to its policies; selective leaking of sensitive national security information; politicization of prosecution of justice; back-room creation of new international arrangements like The North American Union and its supporting agreement – The Security Prosperity Partnership – that could undermine the political and economic sovereignty of this nation; and, most hobbling of all to the primary organ of our government – Congress – the construction of monarchical power justified under the euphemism of the “unitary executive”.

This last obscenity has yielded the invocation of “executive privilege” to conceal crime. If ever executive privilege may legally be used to conceal crime in the Executive Branch, then our system of government is effectively dead. Thomas Jefferson is turning in his grave at the assertion that the Congress of the United States should be prevented from seeing ANY document in the Executive Branch holding information vital to questions of high crimes and misdemeanors. Think of it: one man can obstruct the investigative will – and need – to know by over 300 million citizens whether high crimes and misdemeanors are being perpetrated in their names? These are not political ‘right or left’ questions. I am a conservative in some ways, and a liberal in others; many people are. And I am furious at the hijacking of honored principles in the name of patriotism and religion.

I am a woman of 71 years. I have lived through many events through these years, the wars (as a nine year old, I sat on the porch step and cried when the announcement came over our little radio that World War II was over, and again when my brother came home, struggling with what Korea had done to him), the murder of our President and other profound leaders, the impeachment proceedings, the scandals, recessions, and on and on. Never have we so dismantled the authority of the Constitution and severed the balance of powers’ binding protection not only of essential checks on the branches of government laterally, but the states vis-a-vis the federal government. The Founding Fathers knew the possibility of this circumstance well, for they fought with death in mind to escape it, and the Constitution IS their statement. The impeachment clause was the protective weapon of greatest importance given to the Congress.

My former husband and I worked tirelessly for many years in Utah to bring about public awareness of the terrible danger of MX missile placement in our state (MX also a savage brainchild advocated by Rumsfeld and Cheney), of proliferation of nuclear weapons, and all the national security issues attendant to that battle, back when there were only two nations involved in the race. We see now – as we prophesied then – potential Armageddon facing us squarely with so many nation-states and rogue groups now inching toward that ‘preemptive strike’ button. Under Bush/Cheney we have, unbelievably, led the way in granting moral authority for nations to return to the use of those words – “preemptive strike” reviving horrible fear and sadness in our souls. With the same cold inhumanity displayed then, we today describe as “collateral damage” the killing fields we are culturing around the world, projecting them, as Bush has said, for generations to come.

During these fifty-plus years of parenting we have tried to teach our children principles and values that would guide them to successful and honorable adulthood; that honesty is critical to character and truth is to be sought and cherished; that work is honorable and being involved in good causes is important. By example we have taught that broad education is important for growth and that taking part in community is a responsibility; that our voices and opinions matter; that through political discussion we honor democracy; that the Constitution is a remarkable milestone in the long history of humanity and that it is capable of producing and protecting honest and trustworthy government. Through our faith and home life we have taught that deeper values are paramount especially in the crunch; that prayer leads us not only to God, but to congruity of our external lives with our inner souls. Over all of our years we have worked with others to build community, to support efforts we deemed worthy, ultimately knowing that we are not only happy but fulfilled when we love and protect each other. That is what is truly required, now, of the family of nations.

How, today, do I wrap my grandchildren in hope and faith and trust in their future, if we don’t sustain these values ourselves now? How do I explain why those freedoms were sliced away, piece by piece, compromise by compromise? Freedom is everyone’s task, not just those housed in Washington. What will we give our children? What will the Dream of America be when they come of age? How do I explain the context of this letter to my grandchildren, and my great great grandchildren soon to come?

What will the mission of the United States be tomorrow? To lift a lamp, the Light of Liberty beside ‘the golden door’? Or to lead the world down a path to self-destruction, as the world’s moral and intellectual standard crumbles beyond the point of repair?

This grandmother believes that a cleansing is mandatory if we are to continue even through the next 18 months. The Presidency must be cleansed to be held in respect and honor once again, and this charade must be brought into the light for all to see, and it must be done by us, not by other nations, or else all Americans will inherit the stain of the deeds of this administration. It is not remotely enough for just a few cabinet officers and staffers to take the hit tragically again and again, making the sacrifice to save conniving and despotic leaders. An investigation MUST be opened up to cleanse the putrid rot that is eating at the soul of our beloved country. The perpetrators and their agendas must be recognized and removed through the Constitutional process designed to do so.

This is the moment to prove that our Constitution is real, is rugged, and deserves to be the model for the rest of the world. It is the moment to prove ourselves worthy of those who crafted it. If we do so, the moral authority we will reestablish will likely shine more brightly than it has since the birth of this nation. The Islamic world might just realize, finally, that the people of the United States walk the talk of their Constitution.

These beautiful, hopeful children, yours and mine, all children on the Earth, deserve no less. They deserve to live to teach another generation about their beautiful Earth – their still-natural home – living in a nation that continues to sing the song of freedom loud and clear from sea to shining sea.

It is in our hands and our will to sing that song now – loud and clear – so that generations yet to come will remember, and sing it to their children.

Thank you for your dedication and for your attention in reading this lengthy letter from an old woman cradling many children in her heart.

With gratitude,

Gloria Paramore Firmage

This entry was posted Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 9:52 am and is filed under Civil liberties Infringement, Crimes, Democracy, Dick Cheney, Disaster, George W. Bush, Impeachment, Mormon LDS, Neocons, Political Corruption, Salt Lake City, Utah Politics, War Crimes. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.