In Response To Phil Restino’s Most Recent Article, P&M
Received The Following Letter…
To whom it may concern As a friend and suppporter of Mr. Phil Restino in his efforts
for peace and for good government, I highly recommend that you
publish his letter to the editor on patriotism. His focus is
on the true spirit of American democracy and on the values on
which our nation was founded. Mr. Restino is more than an academic
thinker; he is an activist for the values of which he writes.
He has spent countless hours on street corners demonstrating his
belief in the USA and its highest standards of ethics. He has
spoken directly to the officials who represent us in Washingon,
D.C. I am proud of my association with Phil Restino and grateful
that he takes his stand, expressing the values which will keep our
nation strong and free. Sincerely, s/Stanley Howard Schwartz STANLEY HOWARD SCHWARTZ Chaplain (MAJ) US Army, Retired AB, BHL, MAHL, Rabbi (Reform), DD (Ordained at the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, Cincinnati, Ohio, June 1969; Doctorate awarded there in March 1994) 109 Powderhorn Court Daytona Beach, FL 32119-1464 Rabbi, Temple Israel of Deland, FL Chaplain, VITAS Innovative Hospice, Ormond Beach, FL 386-671-2792 VITAS office
A Loyalist Or A Patriot?…
Veterans For Peace, Inc.
Central Florida / Central Florida East
P.O. Box 9012, Daytona Beach, FL 32120-9012
Ph: (386) 255-7441; Fax: (386) 255-7442
Email: CentralFlaVFP@aol.com
www.cflveteransforpeace.org
“To stand in silence when they should be protesting
makes cowards out of men.” – President Abraham Lincoln
November 14, 2006
A patriot, a loyalist, or worse yet?
By Philip C. Restino
The recent passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006
eliminated Habeas Corpus, a detainee’s right to know the charges
for his detainment and his right to defend himself against those
charges in a Court of Law. The Act not only allows information
coerced by means of torture to be incriminating, but it also
retroactively changes the law so as to protect anyone in the Bush
Administration and under their command from prosecution for
war crimes dating back to September 11, 2001. Habeas Corpus
originated in the year 1215 and was shamelessly removed from
the American way of life by President Bush “The Decider” on
October 17, 2006. The vague language of the Military Commissions
Act also allows the President to decide what qualifies one as an
“enemy combatant” and to whom that qualification applies, to include
American citizens. All to protect us from terrorism.
The Military Commissions Act of 2006 is eerily similar to Germany’s
Enabling Act of 1933, the passage of which followed Germany’s own
“9/11″ in the burning of its Parliament building, the Reichstag, on
February 27, 1933. The 1933 Enabling Act allowed Germany’s own
“Decider” Adolf Hitler to take that country from one of a people’s
parliamentary government into one of a fascist dictatorship and into
the horrors of Nazism that spread throughout Europe for the next 12
years. The rationale given to the German people in 1933 for the removal
of their liberties was that dictatorial powers were necessary to protect
them from terrorism. Our own liberties have been removed for the
very same reason. Shouldn’t we be paying attention here?
The Reichstag Fire was blamed on a Communist “terrorist”,
Marinis Vanderlubbe, who was quickly tried in a show trial,
similar to the ones provided for in the language of the Military
Commissions Act of 2006 which our so-called “representatives”
in Congress voted for and which “The Decider” ceremoniously
signed into law on October 17th. It was after World War II during
the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials of 1945, that strong evidence
emerged indicating that German SS operatives had set the
Reichstag fire. Also at Nuremberg, Nazi Reich Marshall Hermann
Goering made the following statement that can easily be attributed
to the Bush Administration’s strategy for control over the past five
years, and that was “The people can always be brought to the
bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them
they are being attacked and denounce the peacemakers for lack
of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the
same in any country.”
I encourage the reader to turn off your television set and learn
about the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Patriot Acts,
the John Warner National Defense Authorization Act of 2007
which now allows for our “Decider” to declare Martial Law without
States’ consent, and then take a few minutes to read the Bill of
Rights, if not the entire U.S. Constitution. For those of you who
refuse to listen to anything unless it’s from a member of the “Party
of Lincoln”, consider the following from President Lincoln himself:
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter
and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
And to those of you sycophants masquerading as “love it or leave it”
Americans living in our “land of the free and home of the brave”,
Lincoln had this to say: “To stand in silence when they should be
protesting makes cowards out of men.”
A patriot is defined as a person who loves his or her country.
Waving the flag and blindly submitting oneself as an unquestioning
loyalist to individuals who have taken charge of the government,
in our case a government “of, by and for the people” as President
Lincoln described on the bloody fields of Gettysburg, does not make
one a patriot. Being a loyalist is easy. Being a patriot takes the courage
to speak out in protest, albeit courage that any one of us can muster.
Mark Twain wrote, “In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a
scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause
succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.”
During these very troubling times in our country’s history when our
basic liberties are under attack, will you choose to be a patriot, a
loyalist or worse yet, will you continue to sit it out?
For those of you choosing to continue to “sit it out”, consider
German Pastor Martin Niemöller’s reflections on the rise of the
Nazi’s under Adolf Hitler in the 1930’s. He wrote, “In Germany
they came first for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up
because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came
for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t
a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t
speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.”
Note: Restino is co-chair and a founding member of the Central
Florida chapter of Veterans For Peace and a member of Military
Families Speak Out – Florida. He lives in Daytona Beach.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or
that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only
unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American
public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or anyone
else.” – President Theodore Roosevelt
