Executive Committee
Bishop John Adams, Chairman
Rev. Carroll Baltimore, 1st Vice Chairman
Art Nicoletti, 2nd Vice Chairman
Dr. Dick Bozian, Secretary
Rev. Daniel Brown Treasurer
Art's Corner (bio)
“If you can keep it”
After examining, evaluating, and researching the drug issue for
some forty years, I am absolutely convinced that the so-called war
on drugs in America is built and based on a total lie - and the
people in whom we have placed our personal and national security,
the elected and appointed officials and members of the media know
this to be a very sad fact.
Oddly, the seeds to my conclusions can be found in the unfulfilled
promise stated within the Declaration of Independence - where it
says in essence, “King George, you’re out and in your stead we will
build a new nation that rest on the consent of the governed.”
This unfulfilled promise, that has lost its importance in all of our
lives, was given to us by our Founding Fathers – now over 230 years
old ago – tells us “ the people will hold the power and authority,
they will freely turn them over to their elected and appointed
officials who in turn will use these powers to do us good – not
bad.”
It is in the absence of this promise that twelve United States
Presidents, liberal and conservative alike, over sixty-five years
(1943 the 2008) have issued and sanctioned regulations, decisions,
policies and laws that have given us the so-called war on drugs as
we know it today. Incredibly, at the same time these decisions and
laws were being set forth and enforced, international drug lords
were (and are) being given the right of passage throughout our land,
homes and local communities.
This arrangement, rooted in a national security plan starting in
1943, has over the years moved from a preventative tactic into a
deliberate, systemic, sustained plan that our officials and media
know routinely results in far reaching catastrophic consequences to
our lives. For the most part, this is how we got where we are; and
where we are - is a very uncertain, dangerous place.
Indeed, it’s a place that does not allow America to be a America, a
free press to be totally free, academic research to be thorough and
true, criminal investigations to run their course, or even safety in
our homes and streets. Worse yet, it’s a place that has taken us
into war, killed our youth and literally prevents us, as a people,
from utilizing the democratic process to its fullest. The hard core
fact is this so-called “national security plan” and democracy in
America can not co-exist.
While there seems to be no way out of this contrived cycle, I think
Ben Franklin may have given us direction to the answer. On September
17, 1787, the day the United States Constitution was ratified, Dr.
Franklin was asked, “What do you think of the Constitution?”
abruptly Franklin answered, “We have given you a republic” and then
pausing, he added more pensively, “if you can keep it.”
(for more details on “how we got where we are” refer to the
Obama Report.