November 11, 2006
by John De Herrera

Last week I left work early to hear Scott Ritter at a book-signing. Remember him? A U.S. Marine and nuclear weapons inspector? The eve of war and everyone was incredulous, the Bush Administration was going to invade Iraq. And we had inspectors on the ground, and Richard Perle and the Neocons were frightening everyone into the idea that we better take care of business or wake up to a mushroom cloud.  Back then Scott had declared there were no WMDs in Iraq. Now he's got a new book out about Iran. Besides wanting to hear what he was going to say about the new book, I had a question for him.

Scott Ritter is one of those people you're happy to be around. A gentle giant who is intelligent, has a sense of humor, and actually some artistic talent too. A tradition at the that little bookstore there on the coast in California, is to have the author sign an album and draw a picture of themselves next to their comments. He drew a decent picture of himself.

I had seen him on C-SPAN in his staged appearance with Seymor Hersh before the New York Society for Ethics. What struck me peculiar was a moment in the broadcast where Ritter was responding to Hersh and he said what the U.S. ought to be doing is talking with the Ayatollah and Iran's main council of clerics. That Ahmadinejad was just a fringe kook somehow getting a bunch of media coverage and making the situation a mess. Ritter said we ought to be dealing with the Iranians who actually have a say in the matter, and that in fact they already attempted to establish diplomatic ties with the Bush Administration but had been rebuffed.

What happened at that moment in the interview was interesting. It was how Hersh told Scott to back up in that "wait-a-minute buddy" kind of way saying that Ahmadinejad was dangerous. Hersh, in what was an admonishment, told Ritter that we must pay attention to what Ahmadinejad says because much of the Arab world was behind him. Hersh really seemed to go out of his way to try and establish that.

Driving down to the book signing I wondered what Scott's opinion about the electoral system was, and what he thought about reports of e-voting and the danger of it. He may be an expert on matters concerning fissile nuclear materials, but he's also an American. And being a former Marine, someone who has taken an oath, he understands the concept of protecting the country from enemies foreign or domestic. Which is what e-voting and the issue of source code is: the crucible as to whether or not this generation of Americans is going to lose the vote to special interests forevermore. There is a very simple solution to the political catastrophe caused by $3.8 billion worth of corporate voting machines: the 28th Amendment. The work of securing the vote in the age of e-voting requires the political weight of an amendment to the Constitution. No amount of legislation coming out of the 110th Congress is going to do it. Make no mistake, nothing short of a constitutional amendment is going to secure the vote.

I got to the bookstore in time and Scott started out by saying he likes facts. He likes to know what the facts are. Based on the facts he knows it was his opinion that the Bush Administration is going to scare up some reason it needs to bomb Iran, the MSM will facilitate it, Congress will comply, and a strike will occur. According to his calculations the earliest is March, the latest, June. It will take at least until March to get all necessary logistics in place in order to carry it out.

During the Q&A I asked what his thoughts were about the electoral process, and he said he's for a paper ballot. Then I pressed and asked if he was aware that more than half the votes will be cast electronically. And that the media has everyone focused on the need for a paper trail, but what is more important is the source code which instructs the computer how to tally votes. I asked if that issue should be placed before that of the Bush Administration because if the issue of source code gets away from us, we may lose the ability to vote change into existence. If the 110th Congress does not propose an amendment concerned with electoral reform, Americans have a limited window of opportunity to effect the change now required. Unless it is done, from here on we'll have private corporations telling us who won an election or what initiative passed.

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Then everyone got their books signed, and there was a handful left, and we all got a kick out of watching Scott draw the picture of himself. During his talk he never stated it directly, but just about everything discussed pointed to the problem of our legislative branch being controlled by special interests. He even mentioned the U.S. Constitution a few times, so I told him about a federal suit showing all the states had applied for a convention and Congress was failing to issue the call. That the evidence in the suit is the Congressional Record which shows 567 applications. But by law, the convention call is peremptory and based on a simple numeric count--a fact that is indisputable. Walker v. Members of Congress is the first suit in American history concerned with the convention clause found in Article V. The exact phrase being, "Congress shall call a convention."

While it's true Congress has ignored the Constitution in lesser ways, Walker shows how it is doing so to the most important part, the mechanism for change: Congress or Convention. At issue is the single principle which not only provides the basis for our entire republic, but indeed who we claim to be ourselves when we say we are American.

We're down to the nitty-gritty now and the next six months will tell the tale. Based on the facts, and backed up by recent history and the emergence of electronic voting, as an American today, you either want to keep this country or you do not think it's worth a sacrifice. We are about to lose America to the source code of special interests. In other words, the recent election may be the last true election we ever have if electoral reform does not take place. As of now, it appears the MSM and politicians will go through the motions and not discuss or act on it in any meaningful way.

We already know marches and protests don't work in Post 9/11 America. They didn't work in the lead-up to invasion, and they didn't work in the 2004 recount effort in Ohio. If you are about to lose your country to special interests, you are going to need a group of Americans who are willing to risk their life for their country: a hunger strike. We need a group of Americans to risk their life for their country until the special interests which control it relinquish the formal process by which to propose change to the federal government.

If you want to consider yourself living an authentic life as an American, whether you are Democrat, Republican, or some other party affiliation, as an American you must at last become cognizant that the final threat is upon us: losing the vote to proprietary source code tallying votes. If the country is woken up, there isn't a thing any politician or any MSM corporation can do about it. And what better way to wake up the country than by formally obeying the U.S. Constitution and holding an Article V Convention? Which is not the same as a constitutional convention. It can only propose ideas and it is there that a 28th Amendment will emerge which standardizes and secures the vote from private interests. Of all the state delegates who attend one of them will propose such, guaranteed. And then we'll be able to have another election.

If the 110th Congress does not act immediately to secure the vote from private interests, a hunger strike comprised of 100 Americans should be staged in the Capitol. Because of the importance of symbolism as part of the overall strategy, each striker must be a viable candidate for delegate position at a national convention. It would be a staged event, where the strikers would wear a uniform, a thick coverall. A medical doctor, web-builders to maintain ArticleV.org, and others would be needed to volunteer services. This would be an event orchestrated in a non-violent way to secure liberty from corporate interests. Just because Brian Williams and Tim Russert are not paid to tell Americans about losing America to computer source code doesn't mean it's not about to happen. The strike will end as soon as the Congress issues the call.

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John De Herrera [send him email] is an activist, writer, and proponent of an Article V Constitutional Convention.  Find more of John's work at http://www.article5.org/ and http://www.cc2.org/