Back in 1970 Howard Zinn, an American historian, proposed the need for a 'Declaration of Interdependence'. You can see Matt Damon reciting the speech here: http://vimeo.com/48834336
The speech addresses the following:
- That the wrong people are in jail, and that the wrong people are out of jail
- That the wrong people are in power, and the the wrong people are out of power
- That the wealth in the world is distributed in such a way as to not require small reform, but as to require a drastic reallocation of wealth
- Civil disobedience is not our problem, our problem is civil obedience
- History abounds with examples of obedience leading to horror, under the pretense of the rule of law
- The rule of law is the darling of the leaders, and the plague of the people, which should be a clue to its real purpose
- We have to transcend national boundaries in our thinking
- Seemingly disparate world leaders have more in common with each other than they do with us. They continually work on securing their own ends, namely power
- As such we need to get back to the aims and spirit of the Declaration of Independence. This spirit is resistance to illegitimate authority, especially emphasizing the right to abolish government
- To preserve this spirit will require going outside the law, to redistribute wealth, to put those in jail who need to be there, and take those out who do not
- People in all countries need the spirit of disobedience to the state. Therefore we need a Declaration of Interdependence
So I got to thinking about what this would say, given the need to address the dilemmas of our time.
It was incredible how little of the language I had to change from the original document, written over 230 years ago.
When in the Course of human events, it
becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have
connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the
separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God
entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of humanity requires that they
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all people 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
Us, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That
whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,
laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such
form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be
changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath
shown, that we are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to
right ourselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when
a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object
evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it
is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for
their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of the common
people, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their
former Systems of Government. The history of the present world leaders is a
history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the
establishment of an absolute Tyranny over our collective humanity. To prove
this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
They have refused his Assent to Laws,
the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
They have forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation plutocratic Assent should be obtained;
and when so suspended, have utterly neglected to attend to them.
They have refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts
of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in
the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
They have passed legislation at places unusual, secret, and distant without
knowledge of the governed, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into
compliance with his measures.
They have dissolved legitimate governments repeatedly, for opposing with firmness
their invasions on the rights of the people.
They have refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to
be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have
returned to the People at large for their exercise; the people remaining in the
meantime exposed to all the dangers of theft from without, and abuse within.
They have endeavored to prevent the population from freedom of movement;
refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations.
They have obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to
Laws for establishing Just Representation.
They have made Judges dependent on their alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
They have erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harass us, and eat our substance.
They have kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies and carried out
surveillance upon their own people without the Consent of the people.
They have affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the
Civil power.
They have combined with others to subject us to an illegitimate authority
foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving their
Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Maintaining large numbers of corporate criminals among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which
they should commit on the Inhabitants of all countries:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in some cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For abolishing the free System of Laws, establishing therein an Arbitrary
government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render the people powerless
and to serve fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into all
parts of the globe:
For taking away our Freedoms, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering
fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our rights to Privacy, and declaring themselves invested with
power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
They have abdicated Government, by declaring us out of their Protection while waging War against us.
They have plundered our seas, ravaged our land, burnt our resources, and
destroyed our environment.
They are at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to
complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Heads of any civilized nation.
They have constrained our fellow Citizens to expatriate and become criminals to
preserve our Fundamental Rights, to become separated from friends and Kin, or
to fall themselves at the Tyrant’s hands.
In every stage of these Oppressions We
have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions
have been answered only by repeated injury. These Leaders whose character is
thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, are unfit to be the ruler
of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions
to the Tyrants of other nations. We have warned them from time to time of
attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us.
We have reminded them of the circumstances of our means of habitation here. We
have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured
them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. These leaders too have
been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore,
acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Revolution, and hold them, as
we hold the rest of civilization, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of
the united peoples of earth, in General Congress, appealing to the Supreme
Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by
Authority of the good People, solemnly publish and declare, That these Nations are,
and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved
from all Allegiance to proclaimed Plutocratic Leaders in any State, and that
all political connection between them and these Oppressors, is and ought to be
totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full
Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and
to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And
for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of
divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and
our sacred Honor.
