News from the Front #54:  

Speech at the Klamath Falls Headgates:  The Revolution Starts Here

Note:  This speech was actually given on August 4, 2001, from somewhat incomplete notes which I have polished up for this printed version:

In 1818, many years after the American Revolution, our second President, John Adams, would write

"The Revolution was effected before the war commenced.  The  Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people... This  radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people was the real American Revolution."

This month marks the tenth year of my life I have devoted to trying to make a radical change in the minds of the people of the Pacific Northwest.   For ten years, I have watched as the federal government has crept into every creek and gully of the Pacific Northwest, and taken control in the most rapid expansion of federal authority since Reconstruction.

And I have watched as the institutions I thought I believed in, the law and science, have collapsed entirely under the weight of the ever-growing cancer of federal power and control.  One reason I keep fighting the fight is because I am a student of history, and I see the darkest parallels between the direction this country is going and the great civilizations that have collapsed in the past. 

I want to read you a quotation from President Theodore Roosevelt, who could see the problem coming nearly 100 years ago:

"The Roman Republic fell, not because of the ambition of Caesar or Augustus, but because it had already long ceased to be in any real sense a republic at all.  When the sturdy Roman plebian, who lived by his own labor, who voted without reward according to his own convictions, and who with his fellows joined in war the terrible Roman legion, [when that fellow] had been changed into an idle creature who craved nothing in life save the gratification of a thirst for vapid excitement, who was fed by the state, and who directly or indirectly sold his vote to the highest bidder, then the end of the republic was at hand, and nothing could save it.  The laws were the same as they had been, but the people behind the laws had changed, and so the laws counted for nothing."

I want to start off by talking about the nature of our federal government, and how the laws have counted for nothing.  And I want to talk about the tactics and organization that can lead us to a Promised Land free from federal interference.  And when I say a Promised Land, I mean that land that was promised to us by the founders of this great country, who knew with the certainty of prophets that the greatest threat this country would ever face would come from within, from a government that broke free from the bonds of the Constitution, and became a tyranny.  

They could never have imagined that the limited federal government they created would assert the right to reach across a continent, and tell farmers in the remote outposts of the far West whether or not they could grow crops.  They would be horrified at the monster they have created, but they would know, as President Roosevelt did, that it was not their fault, it was our own fault, for letting the very idea of limited government fade away, as we slowly become a nation of whiners who expect a national government, and soon a world government, to pamper our every need.

Understanding What the Federal Government Should Be

 In 1765, the year the English Parliament passed the Stamp Acts, John Adams wrote. 

 "Government is a plain, simple, intelligent thing, founded in nature and reason, quite comprehensible by common sense . . .  The true source of our suffering has been our timidity.  We have been afraid to think . . .  Let us dare to read, think, speak and write . . . ."            [John Adams, A Dissertation on the Canon and Feudal Law (1765) ]

So let us ask, where did the federal government get its authority to come into this community and take water away from the farmers?  In the beginning, of course, the federal government got it from us, the people.  The Declaration of Independence explains:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. "

So we instituted a federal government, and the blueprint for that government is set forth in the Constitution of the United States of America.  And as we begin to imitate the fall of Rome, the Constitution, like the Bible, is one of those documents full of words that are losing their meaning, as the people lose all interest in them.

But let us look in the Constitution, to see where we find the source of federal authority.  I want to talk about two little pieces of it, that have come to be the source of all your troubles.

 First, Article 1, Section 8, lists the specific powers of Congress, and includes:

 "To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes"

Back when the Constitution was formed, there were three great fields of human endeavor:  agriculture, manufacture, and commerce.  And no one ever dreamed the national government would get involved in anything but the movement of goods between states.  You won't find anything in the Constitution about fish or wildlife or water.

The whole idea of the Constitution was that the federal government was a government of limited powers.  Indeed, they weren't sure that was clear enough from the git-go, so they added on the Tenth Amendment to the the Bill of Rights, which says:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

Now Congress could and did legitimately regulate interstate commerce in salmon.  And when I first began my campaign to dispel The Great Salmon Hoax, I read that Congress had exercised the commerce power in the Endangered Species Act, because it flatly declared that it was unlawful to "sell or offer for sale in interstate or foreign commerce any [endangered] species".  And I thought to myself, I'll fix those fisherman who are out suing everybody in sight; they all have federal permits to catch salmon for sale, including endangered salmon.  And when I went to Court, the United States Department of Justice showed up and said, well, um, we can't really tell the endangered salmon from the ones that aren't endangered, so it's impossible to enforce the law.  And we even took an appeal to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, and their eyes glazed over, and they said, in substance, well, whatever the government wants is ok with us.  And that is why salmon are the only endangered species you can buy in the store and eat, and their most important protection in the law, and the only truly Constitutional one, is a nullity.

Other parts of the Endangered Species Act don't regulate commerce at all, of course, and many people think that those parts of the Endangered Species Act are unconstitutional.  What they don't realize is that the nowadays, the Commerce Clause has become the "federal government can do whatever it wants to" Clause.  

Let me give you an example.  Down in California is some sort of sand-loving fly, and it exists in maybe six square miles of desert.  And there was a hospital there, and people wanted to expand it, for some purpose that we now regard as trivial compared to saving endangered species -- saving human lives.  And your friends at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said no, you can't build the new hospital wing. 

Now the builders still believed that the Constitution was alive, so they went to Court.  And I want you to listen very carefully to what the Court told them:    

"To allow even a single species whose value is not currently apparent to become extinct therefore deprives the economy of the option value of that species.  Because our current knowledge of each species and its possible uses is limited, it is impossible to calculate the exact impact that the loss of the option value of a single species might have on interstate commerce.  In the aggregate, however, we can be certain that the extinction of species and the attendant decline in biodiversity will have a real and predictable effect on interstate commerce.”  [National Association of Homebuilders v. Babbitt (D.C. Cir. 1997) ]

In other words, if everything on earth died, there would be less commerce.  And because killing any animals is a step towards killing all of them, the federal government can regulate anything that kills animals.  In these words, we see the very death of any concept of limited government.  

This cancer of "the federal government can do anything it wants" is not just in the area of natural resource regulation.  It's everywhere. Oregon's Senator Smith may be a nice guy, but listen to what he thinks the Commerce Clause means, and I'll read from this "hate crimes" bill he is sponsoring now, Senate Bill 625.  Section 2 of the bill says:

"Congress makes the following findings:  

"violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, or disability of the victim . . . substantially affects interstate commerce in many ways, including --

(A) by impeding the movement of members of targeted groups and forcing such members to move across State lines to escape the incidence or risk of such violence;  and 

(B) by preventing members of targeted groups from purchasing goods and services, obtaining or sustaining employment, or participating in other commercial activity.

Now of course this isn't true.  No one really believes you can even measure the "substantial" effect of hate crimes on interstate commerce.  But even if you could, again, what Senator Smith is saying that is the federal government can regulate anything that affects commerce, not just regulate commerce itself.  And so the federal government begins to take over criminal prosecutions long recognized as the proper duties of the States, because regulating the magic words of hate is regulating commerce. 

Any ordinary citizen can tell this is nuts, but that's only because they haven't had "legal training" designed to desensitize them to this sort of nonsense.  And those who would divide America by race, and pit the races against each other for their own power and aggrandizement get ahold of these new laws and abuse them, and thus we find, that after the huge anti-white riots in Cincinnati, the only person prosecuted for a hate crime is a white cop.

And now, pursuant to the Commerce Clause, four members of the United States Supreme Court even assert that the federal government could dictate the curriculum of schools all across the nation, because students who do not learn the right things, they say, will not get as good jobs, and then commerce will be affected.  So now the national powers can begin to teach away the very Constitution itself, as in the new textbooks that say the Second Amendment doesn't really mean that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed, but merely that militias can have arms, to the extent the federal government deems it necessary.  But I could go on for hours with examples of the death of the Constitution.  The real point is that the Constitution is the same as it ever was, but until there is a Revolution in the minds of the people interpreting it, it will be useless to prevent the federal government from expanding at will. 

Let me turn to the second Constitutional grant of power that is the germ of your misfortune.  It is found in Article II, Section 2, which lists the specific powers of the President, and declares:

"He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur."

Let's talk about the Treaty power.  Frankly, this is an area where the Founders failed to put express limits on federal power, because they never imagined that the President would start to make treaties on fish and wildlife and land use.  But the Treaty power is precisely how the federal government got into the the fish and wildlife field.

And the evil ones, who seek to expand the power of the federal government to every nook and cranny of our lives, know this.  Some of you may have heard, for example, of John Turner, who was the former Director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service under Presidents Bush Sr. and Clinton. His "accomplishments" include promoting the lie that the Northern Spotted Owl is an endangered species that can only live in old-growth forest, reintroducing wolves into farming and ranching areas, and spending more and more and more and more money buying more land for the Government.  And like all the environmentalists, he's a big hypocrite:  after his Fish and Wildlife Service forced a family out of their island home in Maine because it was bird habitat, and then allowed government agents to purchase and occupy that same home as a summer retreat!  And then he became President of the Conservation Fund, whose newsletters repeatedly published "hit lists" of Republicans targeted for defeat by the Sierra Club and other leftwing groups. 

And do you want to know where the Bush Administration is putting him?  He's going to either the Commerce Department or the State Department to do "international environmental work", which means he is going to figure out new ways for the President to abuse the Treaty power, and expand the role of the federal government even farther.  That's why people are beginning to get all fired up about the United Nations.  

Now in addition to making all kinds of new, dangerous treaties with foreign powers, the Federal government also made treaties with the Indian Tribes it conquered.  And those treaties, because they were made back when people still understood the Constitution, don't really give the Federal government big new powers. So the federal courts have had to step in and make the new powers. 

Take the Treaty with the Klamath Tribe, for example.  It says the Tribe can hunt and fish on the Reservation lands up above Upper Klamath Lake.  And then when the Government bought back the Reservation back by Act of Congress, and the idiots in Congress left these hunting and rights on the land the Tribe used to own.  And then the Justice Department marched into Court and said, well, there has to be some water to make sure there is fish and game for the Tribes to hunt, and the Court said ok, whatever the government wants.  And the Government has poured millions of dollars into junk science to pretend that the Tribe has water rights have to be so big that they swallow up everyone else's rights.

Imagine you went into Court and said to your neighbor, surprise, I've just found out that my great, great, great, great grandfather promised to pay your great, great, great, great grandfather $100, and now, with interest, you owe me $10 million.  And he'd laugh at you.  What about the statute of limitations?  Well it doesn't apply to the Indians.  Just like the Commerce Clause is the "do whatever you want Clause", the Treaties have become "give them whatever they want Treaties".

Now it's not just the Constitution that has become completely twisted, but the laws passed pursuant to the Constitution.  Let's take the Endangered Species Act.  Section 7, the part that the feds are relying upon to screw you says:

"Each Federal agency shall, in consultation with and with the assistance of the Secretary, insure that any action authorized, funded, or carried out by such agency (hereinafter in this section referred to as an "agency action") is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species "

Now does the Bureau of Reclamation authorize farmers to water their crops?  Of course not.  Does the Bureau fund the farmers to water their crops?  I don't think so.  I think it's the other way around.  You all are still paying for water you don't even get.  Does the Bureau carry out the water deliveries?  Not really.  The irrigation districts do.  

So really, if we interpreted section 7 of the Endangered Species Act according to common sense, with an eye toward protecting citizens, there wouldn't be any reason for it to apply to this situation at all.  Unless somebody found farmers actually killing fish, and launched a prosecution of them, there would be no issue under the Endangered Species Act at all.

But whenever and wherever the powers of government comes to bear on economic activity, the courts fall all over themselves trying to extend government power to its maximum.  So if they even bothered to think about it in this case, they would say, well, the Bureau has a contract, and rights under the contract to demand such and such, and so we have to force them to exert their contractual powers to the max.

And then the Bureau runs around and tells a bunch of lies to make people think their power is even greater.  Bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken says:  "We've never before had to call in a federal law enforcement agency to prevent destruction of our property. . .".  And it turns out, of course, that the federal government doesn't own this property at all.  It's owned by PacifiCorp.  And you know what?  We were supposed to be having a picnic on the other side of that fence tonight, on PacifiCorp's property.  Barbara Martin got a permit from PacifiCorp.  But then the feds found out about it, and called PacifiCorp, and somehow made them withdraw the permit.  Because PacifiCorp, like everyone else nowadays, lives in fear of the federal government, because the federal government has so many ways to injure them.

Let me give you another example of how government power is extended beyond all reason.  Some of you have heard about the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, haven't you?  Long ago, Congress passed the Antiquities Act, and I'll read you exactly what it says:  

"That the President of the United States is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments, and may reserve as a part thereof parcels of land, the limits of which in all cases shall be confined to the smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected"

And out comes an Executive Order saying, well, we've got a few interesting rocks and plants, so lets take 52,000 acres.  Now I suppose we should be happy, because we're not getting a real monumental screwing like the folks over in Utah got so that Clinton's corrupt Indonesian buddies could sell more coal over here.

Nobody who can read the plain language of the law would believe that 52,000 acres was the "smallest area compatible with proper care and management of the objects to be protected".  And nobody would believe that the Executive Order could lawfully declare:  "There is hereby reserved, as of the date of this proclamation and subject to valid existing rights, a quantity of water sufficient to fulfill the purposes for which this monument is established."

But all the evildoers rush around to defend these lies.  Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber was saying last week, let's all have some consensus and win-win dialog about how to manage our new monument.  You all know who Hayduke is?  He's a fictional character whose goal in life was to blow up Glen Canyon Dam.  You what bumper sticker Government Kitzhaber used to have on his car?  "Hayduke Lives!"

All across the country people are fighting the same battle, and they don't even know it:  the battle against a government that is out of control.  People have forgotten what George Washington told us:  "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." And that is why I am blabbing on and on about this, because unless and until we have a  Revolution in thinking about government power, things are going to get worse and worse.  We need to start asking questions like wait a minute, do we really need to have local and state and federal governments all fighting about the same things?  Why can't we confine the federal government to its limited, Constitutional powers, and let the States solve these things? 

Which Side Are You On?  

Now the Revolution I'm talking about is many years away.  The Revolution has to start from the bottom up.  It is a Revolution that begins by making sure the right people are in our school boards and city council offices, and serve as mayors and county commissioners.  And as far as I can tell, you all have a lot of work to do right here at home before you can think about getting any Acts of Congress passed.  

I know that's true, because I know that Officer Redfield is now suspended from his job, barred from City property, and has to go hire an attorney to protect himself.  I want to talk about Officer Redfield a little bit, because he is not only a hero, he is a prophet.  He looks at this crisis, and sees the direction the future is taking for the Klamath Basin, and for the whole country.  Officer Redfield says the groundwater is next: 

 "I am also one of the fortunate few who irrigates from a well (for the time being), but there is no doubt that the so-called environmentalists will be initiating an effort to control or stop irrigation from ground water in the near future. "

And I know that up in Washington State, the green gang has brought litigation to force the state to meter well usage, which is the first step in tightening the grip of government control.

Officer Redfield uses strong language, like "domestic terrorism".  I do not doubt that there are people within a crow's flight of here who are in terror about their future, and they should be.  Indeed, you find strong language in what I think is the most controversial part of what he said:

 "their frustration will undoubtedly escalate to the point of boiling over. It won't take much from Andy Kerr or Wendell Wood or their like to spark an extremely violent response. I am talking about rioting, homicides and destruction of property like dams that hold the precious water from the agricultural community"

And you know he's right, and that's why the environmentalists didn't sue to block the trickle of water the federal government has now deigned to let flow—because they feared the righteous wrath of the people.   Nobody could misinterpret Officer Redfield as telling people to go out and kill people or blow things up. 

But we had some hysterical people calling in the FBI to investigate Office Redfield.  These are the same sort of nuts who if they see an 8-year-old boy peck a girl’s cheek on the playground, haul him into court for sexual harassment.  It would almost be funny if these nuts did not exercise the authority of government.

Now some people say Officer Redfield should have taken off his uniform.  He took off his hat, and put on a rancher's hat.  Can anybody think of a better way to signify that he was speaking as a rancher?  Of course not.

Some people say he shouldn't have read the letter while he was on duty.  But nobody objected to his coming down there to deliver the meat, and no one would have objected if he had just farted out some hot air like all the politicians that come down here and give speeches.  

Let's not be fooled here:  the people who are making noises about Officer Redfield are people who don't like what he said.  And anybody who feels the need to object to what Officer Redfield said is not on your side.   That's what it all comes down to, in the end.  Which side are you on?  Are you on the side of those who oppose illegitimate federal authority, the product of lies about the law and lies about the science, or are you on the side of dumbing down and trusting an ever-growing government that is less and less and less accountable to anyone.  As time goes on, Officer Redfield's prophesies will become truer and truer, and every citizen of this country will have to make a choice. 

And we already know how they will choose.  The ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tsu said one-third are followers of life, one-third are followers of death, and one-third are just following.  During the American Revolution, it was said that one-third were Tories, one-third were timid, and one-third were true blue patriots.  Now there are always places where those proportions vary, and they are the cradles of Liberty.  And just as New England was such a cradle of Liberty in the American Revolution, I hope and pray that Klamath Falls is a cradle of Liberty in this new Revolution in the hearts and minds of the American people.

But Klamath Falls cannot be a cradle of Liberty until its leaders, those who hold its local offices, are truly committed to this struggle.  Put another way, how can you expect to defeat the federal government, if you can't even keep your own city government from doing crazy, stupid things like suspending Officer Redfield?  

And there is nothing that stops you from doing that but apathy and disorganization.  Unlike the early patriots, all you need to do is show up at the ballot box.  You don't have to resort to guns because you still have the right to vote.  Let me say a few words about guns and violence.  There are people watching Klamath Falls who want the very things to happen that Officer Redfield fears.  When they think about Revolution, they don't think about revolutionary changes in the attitudes of Americans, they think about killing them.  

These people just aren't realistic.  Even back in the last half of the seventeenth century, a bunch of farmers couldn't defeat the Redcoats; General Washington had to retreat from New York in ignominious defeat, and tell the Continental Congress he needed a professional army.  Now the deadly force of the federal government is truly overwhelming.  They have sharpshooters who can hit a half inch target from the top of that hill over there, and have no compunction about shooting down unarmed Americans—Ruby Ridge proved that.   In the face of such overwhelming firepower, the strategy is simple:  to use the power of the ballot box where you can, and to resort to civil disobedience where you can't.  You need an army, but the army does not fight with guns.  Its gun is the truth, and its bullets are the letters to the editor, signs, posters, sound-bites on TV, and above all, masses of citizens organizing to show up and take control over every local office that they can.  

I am going to say this again and again:  you can't expect to defeat the federal government until you get organized enough to defeat the enemies within.  Now it is hard to tell the one-third that are timid from the one-third that are your enemies and beyond redemption.  But you can't expect to defeat the federal government until you can go to Chief of Police Tofell and City Manager Ball and say quit harassing Officer Redfield, or we will make sure that you don't serve us, the people, any longer.  These are the times where we separate the timid from the enemies, and by organizing to make rightful demands, you will find out who your friends really are.  

I want you to imagine with me for a minute that the City Council of the City of Klamath Falls were composed of that one-third of true blue patriots.  Do you know what they would do?  They would do what the towns of New England did during the American Revolution, and exercise the authority of their power to pass formal resolutions against this federal madness.  That's what happened in the wake of the Stamp Acts; over forty New England towns passed resolutions against them, and England withdrew the Acts.

So I ask, where is the City Councilor who will say:

WHEREAS federal agents have falsely claimed ownership of land and irrigation facilities in Klamath County; and

WHEREAS the federal government has no more than contractual rights with our people, and its conduct has irrevocably breached the obligation of good faith and fair dealing present in every contract; and

 WHEREAS federal officials falsely claim to act for certain Tribes, protecting their hunting and fishing rights by killing the very animals those Indians would hunt, and 

WHEREAS federal officials falsely claiming to protect fish have failed for year upon year to install the fish screens they say are necessary, and

 WHEREAS no honest farmer drawing water from the Klamath Project could ever stand convicted of any crime against the United States by a jury of his peers by so doing, 

WE THE CITY OF KLAMATH FALLS DEMAND THAT

That no federal agent bearing arms may enter the City of Klamath Falls , for there is no federal interest that supports the use of armed force against our citizens.

That the United States Bureau of Reclamation cease its illegitimate and unlawful intermeddling in the affairs of our irrigation districts.

That henceforth, all resources of the City of Klamath Falls will be devoted to expelling this federal presence from our midst, and restoring the benefits of properity to all our citizens.

Today, right here, right now, are the people who can organize to pass pass such resolutions in the City of Klamath Falls, and the Town of Merrill, and the Town of Keno and all the other towns in the Klamath Basin.  And right here, right now, are the people with the energy and determination to send true blue patriots to the halls of the Legislatures in Salem and Sacramento, so that they might make their walls ring with the denunciation of this federal misconduct.

And if you start thinking more broadly than just suckerfish, you'll begin to find more and more allies who are all suffering from crazy decisions of the federal government, for the federal government's tentacles are reaching into every small town across our land, and the benefits that government brings haven't exceeded its costs for decades.

The Promised Land  

And long before we win the Revolution in the hearts and minds of the entire country, including all the corrupt cities, we can achieve the Promised Land here in Klamath Falls.  We can remove this pernicious and oppressive federal influence.  Your County Commissioners, who I think have yet to reveal whether not they are true blue, are at least working toward one-half of the solution:  getting the United States Bureau of Reclamation out of the Klamath Basin.  Back when the Little Klamath Ditch Company and the Van Brimmer Ditch Company and the Merrill Mutual Canal Company and all the other pioneers were beginning to irrigate this area, there were those who said, we don't need the federal government, we can do it ourselves.  Now is the time to recognize that they were right, and take back control of the Klamath Project from the federal government.

And there is another half to the promised land, and that is making peace with the Indian Tribes.  I think that the you all should stand with the Klamath Tribe to help them get their reservation back, because you all will be a lot better off with land under tribal management than land under federal management.  And I don't mean the present leaders of the Tribe, who as far as I can tell are little meat puppets with the strings being controlled from Washington, D.C.  One of them even admitted that they don't care about the suckerfish at all, what they really want is their Reservation back.  

I think it would be in your best interest to work with the members of the Tribe to help them get their reservation back.  The Klamath Tribe will look at forest land and say sustainability means cutting trees as fast as they grow.  The morons in D.C. will say that sustainability means no cutting trees at all.

And I don't think that anyone around who thinks that the farmers would be entitled to suck all the life out of the old reservation lands and turn them into a desert, but I tell you what, the Dark Forces in D.C. don't see anything wrong with sucking the water out of the farmers land, dumping the water down the river, and then telling a bunch of foolish fishermen and Indians that they are doing it all for them.

And as this Revolution spreads farther and farther, to all the other towns and byways across this great Nation that are under siege from bogus federal authority, we can have a future where the only endangered species are the few animals that are really about to disappear from the face of the earth.  We can have a future where the United States government resumes its role as leader of the Free World, instead of being the agent for a corrupt and vile United Nations.  

Some Remarks on Organization

Now last time I came down here, I was preaching the virtues of civil disobedience, and I think I was proven right.  I think that unless those brave farmers who seized the headgates again and again had done so, the faceless bureaucrats in D.C. would have slept on, because they just wouldn't have had to pay attention to the problem.  And I understand you have an opportunity coming up, in a couple of weeks, to make them pay attention to you again.

But tonight I want to talk about something more important, the next step.  I want to finish up tonight with some remarks about organization.  The reason the Leftists keep winning, over and over again, is not because they are right, or even because a majority of Americans believe the crazy things they believe, but because they are better organized.  They reward their friends, and they punish their enemies.  I like to say that the Demoncrats run their party like the Mafia, and the Republican'ts run their party like a bunch of old men on the country club steering committee.  Guess which side wins.

The very independence that is the strength and beauty of you people is a great weakness when it comes to organization.  Somehow, some way, you have got to get everyone into one room, one giant Town Meeting, and pick a Council of War, or a Board of Directors, or whatever you want to call it.  And every group in this community that you are already paying to represent you, like the irrigation districts and the Klamath Water Users Association, and the County Commissioners and the City Councils and your state representatives and state senators, they have got to step forward and come to this meeting and accept the need for some coordinated, joint effort here, and move forward in one organized plan to defeat this federal madness.  

Because unless you people get your act together, the handwriting is on the wall.  You have been declared "unsustainable", and you will be removed.  Slowly but surely, the federal government and the evil carpetbaggers the federal government has brought to town will take over more and more land, and make the few that remain more and more dependent on the federal government, and the forces of evil will win.

Now if your leaders don't see the need to get more organized, and put aside their petty concerns in the service of a larger Movement, well, then, we know what they are, don't we?  They are part of the problem, and you are going to have to get rid of them if you want to win.

So that's my closing recommendation.  You start with the oldest form of true democracy called the Town Meeting, just like in old New England.  You sit down one Saturday morning in a very big room and you listen to people talk for a couple of hours.  If people talk too long, you catcall them off the mike.  There isn't time to listen to crazy people now.  

And then you pick your Council of War, by a show of hands or open acclamation.  And then the Council of War identifies the goal you people are shooting for, and I hope it is the Promised Land, and identifies the strategies it is going to execute to get there.  And there is room for every kind of tactic, whether it is battles in the media, on the Internet -- the last refuge of truth on public policy -- or battles on the ground where we are standing now.

If you can scrap up the bucks for the plane ticket, I'd be honored to come down and moderate that meeting for you.   But I can't tell you what do do.   You are going to have to listen to the alternatives, and trust yourself to make up your own mind.  I trust you, and you should trust yourself.

Conclusion

This is it.  If you let this one go, you pass a death sentence on your community.  And maybe you can stick it out for a while, but you kill the dreams of your children, and your children's children, and their children's children.   

Now since I am headed over the Shakespeare festival tomorrow, I want to leave you with the immortal words of the Bard:

Right here, right now, you can make a commitment to join the Army of the Revolution.  Right here, right now, you can make a commitment not to cooperate with this growing  evil.    Right here, right now, you can begin to work toward that Promised Land, where your children, and their children, and their children's children, can go on living in this wonderful place in freedom and dignity.

Thank you.  

               © James Buchal, August 7, 2001

You have permission to reprint this article, and are encouraged to do so. The sooner people figure out what's going on, the quicker we'll have more fish in the rivers.