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A War on Voting Rights.

A War on Women.

A War on Reproductive Rights.

A Digital War, a Cyber War…

A War on Democracy itself. 

 

War is expensive. War destroys LIVES. War may attempt to secure access to LAND, but this is the 21st Century. Unless we’re talking about Antarctica… just about every piece of land has been spoken for, and it’s been that way for quite a while.

War is the enemy of a Civil People. War is the enemy of a Prosperous Nation.

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The People of the United States do not seek war, but that should not be seen as a statement of cowardice. We will fight to secure PEACE. Whatever the cost.

Twenty years of aggression has left its mark on this Nation. We are not the same as we once were. Let us bear our SCARS… the scars that we’ve given to ourselves. Let them STAND as Our Testimony, so that others might see them and learn from our example.

A smoking gun. A mushroom cloud. Yellowcake Uranium and Mobile Processing Sites… all LIES. A fabrication. Created to justify that which they could NOT. What happens when we go to War for a LIE?

Twenty years later those leaders are NO LONGER our leaders… war is detrimental to the future of anyone who wishes to secure influence or power.

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https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/politics-news/donald-trump-campaign-offered-actors-803161/

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Boldness, in the face of hatred and oppression will secure our future… INACTION will not. The victors will always be standing on the side of PEACE.

Defend, but do not advance. Secure, but do not attack. We know for what it is that we stand… do they? If they do not, then let there be NO DOUBT. Whatever the outcome, whatever the cost… we will stand for PEACE. We will stand in defense of those who would also stand for PEACE.

The American People will defend PEACE… because we cannot stomach the cost of WAR.

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https://www.forbes.com/sites/hanktucker/2021/08/16/the-war-in-afghanistan-cost-america-300-million-per-day-for-20-years-with-big-bills-yet-to-come/?sh=28e70f697f8d

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https://www.defense.gov/casualty.pdf

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Maybe it’s time for us to take our medicine.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/16/world/europe/russia-ukraine-invasion.html

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War is anathema to everything this Nation desires. It doesn’t secure wealth. It doesn’t secure life. It doesn’t secure status or stature either… as we revere those who ended our wars more so, than those who started them.

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We curse the war and celebrate the PEACE that follows, because everyday we continue to fight is another day stolen from our future. Another day we could be rebuilding, but instead… we continue to destroy. And we know we do not stand alone.

War breeds distrust. War breeds resentment and anger. War is the mother of Vengeance, fathered by Misery and Greed. Burdens shouldered, by those who had nothing to do with starting the endeavor… they pick up the broken pieces of what’s left, long after those who gave the orders have surrendered.

War will not solve the problems of the PAST; war only creates new problems.

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May our future endeavors always be JUST, and may we never again fight a war for Vengeance… as a method that seeks to correct mistakes of the past. Instead of responding to anger with anger, let us first ask WHY. 

Those mistakes… those actions… they were not OURS. Our Forefathers, our predecessors… we live with their mistakes. With their guidance, may their past inform us TODAY. 

Let us HONOR their memory, by ensuring we don’t make the same mistakes.

 

-JC

 

I held on to HOPE that day after the Towers fell, that someone might still be alive… and truly, the hands of Divinity reached out and delivered.

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https://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/2003/n_9189/

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The story of their survival is amazing. As we witnessed tragedy playing out before us, at such a pivotal moment in TIME… someone made it out ALIVE. I remember asking anyone with news if anyone else had made it out… there would be time for anger and Justice another day… the Human Need in that moment was like a mental anchor, keeping me from drifting too far downstream.

Is there anything I could be doing to help save a LIFE?

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It was soon apparent, as emergency triage centers filled with doctors and nurses… there were no patients. There were no casualties. The destruction was total. We would soon be honoring memories.

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(At 5:40 in the video) “The building collapsed to dust.” -Joe Casaliggi

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Though we live one thousand miles away with no physical connection to any of those SOULS, every one of us here in the Great State of Kansas knew what we were witnessing. Every one of us knew what this meant. My girlfriend at the time… my ‘high school sweetheart’… was an MP in the United States Army. She shipped out shortly after 9/11. We knew the uncertainty that lie ahead, and we parted ways as good friends.

It’s been twenty years since I last saw her. She served, got married, started a family… as we all do. twenty years…

In that moment, our reactions were almost instinctual. We knew War had come. Whatever sacrifices were to be asked of us… whatever it was we could do to HONOR those families and ensure this could NEVER happen again… the fight was JUST. The objective was CLEAR.

And then we INVADED IRAQ.

Our President LIED to us about yellowcake uranium. Our Secretary of State LIED to the United Nations about Mobile Processing Sites. Our Secretary of Defense LIED about how we would be greeted by the Iraqi People… and all but a notable FEW of our Elected Officials SUPPORTED those lies. Knowingly.

EVIDENCE, gathered after the fact. The outing of an undercover Intelligence Officer. In order to cover up their LIES… and they thumbed their noses as they held their heads HIGH. Hypocrisy… on full display! And to think, some people even had the nerve to claim, that Our President knew about the attacks in advance…

But that’s just crazy-talk right there.

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https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB116/pdb8-6-2001.pdf

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“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”

Maybe that sentence would have had a greater IMPACT on someone like Al Gore, than it obviously did on George W. Bush.

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https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/exactly-12-years-later-msna75220

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Conspiracy Theories exist. It does us no good to remain ignorant to their claims. The fanciful, the distraught, the horribly misinformed, the self-serving and the ideologically driven. All of them, sprinkled with verifiably provable facts. To bolster their position or add credibility to an obscure concept… one that often hides a racially charged or anti-Semitic agenda at its core.

Every one of their ideas are easily deconstructed in the LIGHT. We don’t need Conspiracy Theories to understand what truly happened that day. We have FACTS. We know WHY this happened.

The intelligence was there. The lights were all FLASHING RED… critical pieces weren’t passed up the chain. Oversight was lax…

HUMAN ERROR 

That’s what allowed this to happen. In essence… it was an inside job.

In those early months of a new Administration, with their transition period stunted by prolonged legal challenges. Was there something that they missed… was there something MORE they could have done to prevent this from happening in the first place?

We may never know… they were too busy figuring out how to INVADE IRAQ.

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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/12/leadup-iraq-war-timeline/

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“Go find me a way to do this.”

-POTUS, January 2001.

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And even upon this Hallowed Day, still…

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We all know what the problem is. An unpopular President elevated with only a MINORITY of support. Faced with a LIFE-THREATENING crisis, the Administration was too pre-occupied with their own agendas to be prepared in advance… and the American People are stuck holding the the check when the balance comes due.

Some things NEVER CHANGE… and that’s precisely what needs to change.

It doesn’t matter how many countries we invade. How many TRILLIONS of dollars we spend on securing the Homeland. If we do not address the cause of this problem… it will happen again. No matter how healthy the chicken is, if it doesn’t have its HEAD screwed on correctly, it’s only a matter of TIME.

We’ve spent the last twenty years trying to build something beautiful out of the ruins that were made. For our security, as well as theirs. We believed it could be done. We were told it could be done… it seems, in this we’ve found COMMON GROUND with the People of Afghanistan:

Elected Officials take positions that stand opposed to the Will of The People, because of the influence that MONEY has on their decision making processes.

We did everything we could possibly think of so it would never happen again, but we never addressed the UNDERLYING CAUSE of our problem. Twice now, in less than twenty years… 

We must fulfill our promise and ensure it can never happen again.

-JC

I had the honor of touring the traveling Auschwitz Museum exhibition here in Kansas City, before it departs for Europe later this year; and I must say… it left an impression on me. While I expected to see dramatic artifacts, I didn’t expect the impact… the historical CONTEXT provided with the pieces on display.

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#ItStartedWithWords pic.twitter.com/IACFmYFgDf

— Jack Charbonneau (@MrJLCharbonneau) July 27, 2021

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I am thankful I have no idea what it was like, and my children as well. For the last 76 years we’ve enjoyed PEACE. Intermittent peace, granted… but it has been long sustained. Because we’ve worked toward expanding the concept of Equal Justice Under Law and not contracting it. Because they TOLD us what it was like, with the hope that it would NEVER happen again. 

History repeats itself. Temporal echoes abound. What once was a TREND will come back in-style once again. And I was taught that the only way THIS does not happen again is by SPEAKING OUT. No one can remain SILENT, because in the end… the mob comes for us ALL. 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_… 

 

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That’s how it begins- SILENCE. 

 

It doesn’t matter who you are or what your political affiliation is, when you defend the rights of OTHERS you defend those rights for YOURSELF. And when you STAND UP and SPEAK OUT, the MAJORITY stands with you. 

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Let’s assume for a moment that the “Stop the Steal” crowd was wrong, and that there was no wide-spread voter fraud in 2020. A bit of a stretch for some people I know, but… 

They have envisioned a scenario that could one day play out in our elections. A wide-spread, mass-effort to swing the count in a particular county, within a particular demographic; changing the outcome in a large enough city… thereby changing the outcome of an entire State. 

Could our current election process withstand a coordinated effort on that scale? If someone with deep enough POCKETS wanted to find out, could we stop them… would we even know before it was TOO LATE? 

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https://twitter.com/mrjlcharbonneau/status/1147997914679189504?s=21 

 

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Once upon a time our Founders wrestled with this problem, and they believed they had an answer. It required that we ALL swear an oath to an IDEAL. 

 

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We must RISE UP and defend the Will of the MAJORITY, no matter where we STAND. Our ideals transcend any political party, because the heart of our Democracy lies within that Universal Truth… that we are ALL created EQUAL. 

We must celebrate our history! No matter how RAW, no matter how painful. We must remember who we are, and for what it is we continue to STAND. Our shared collective knowledge, our Common Cause has given us the answers we seek. 

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We know what becomes of the nation who strays from the TRUTH. This Nation has stood strong against those endeavors for over 200 years… and for the last 158 years, we’ve worked to avoid succumbing to that fate ourselves. 

 

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In this moment we cannot afford to mince words. We must be CLEAR and we must be precise. We have seen this all before… all we have to do now is LISTEN to what they are saying. 

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Selective censorship of the TRUTH unfairly empowers ONE over ANOTHER. We must remember… what we are allowed to SEE pales in comparison to what is KNOWN. 

 

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https://blogs.kent.ac.uk/change-academy/2012/04/30/change-and-the-knowledge-iceberg/# 

 

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As we make our decisions about who’s TRUTH we will believe, we must remember… there are ‘extenuating circumstances’ being elevated by monied interests, who stand to profit off of our confusion and disunity. LEFT or RIGHT. RED or BLUE… we all know what the problem is.💰 

 

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https://www.politico.com/news/2021/07/31/trump-political-groups-82-million-501958 

 

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https://twitter.com/mrjlcharbonneau/status/1146176947598372864?s=21 

 

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Let there be NO DOUBT. 

We must SPEAK OUT every time we see it. 

To be SILENT is to be COMPLICIT. 

 

Of those nations who have fallen from Grace and survived to thrive once again… INACTION was their deepest regret. A reminder, passed down to their descendants as an inheritance. Enshrined and memorialized, so their children would never forget. 

 

We must never forget. 

 

TWO ELECTION CYCLES… that’s all it takes. 

 

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936_German_parliamentary_election_and_referendum 

 

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“I ask myself again and again, what would have happened, if in the year 1933 or 1934—there must have been a possibility—14,000 Protestant pastors and all Protestant communities in Germany had defended the truth until their deaths?” 

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As I walked through the exhibit at Union Station and followed along through all of the important DATES that led up to these events… 1914, 1918, 1920, 1922… in my mind, I couldn’t help but replace the nineteen with a twenty. It’s striking… the loss of LIFE, the global pandemic, the scapegoating and the blame. 

But their numbers KEEP GOING… 1923, 1924, 1929… Their HISTORY has been set.

 

Ours has not. 

 

If we are not vigilant, this too will be OUR history. Now is the time of their regret. We’ve witnessed the exponential speed at which a VIRUS can spread. Now is the opportunity that they never had… because their story had not yet been written. 

 

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What will we leave behind for our children? What relics will they sort through after we’ve gone… what monuments will they have to create. 

We are never that far away from walking down that path again… no matter how much TIME has passed. 

-JC 

 

Are we too afraid to peel back the skin, to see what lies beneath? Are we worried we might find something that gives us PAUSE… causing us to question the entire experiment? Who among us has any doubt in the Infinite Potential of the American Experiment?

Let them SPEAK NOW… let there be NO DOUBT! In an open and honest debate, the best ideas always rise to the TOP. We must always strive to be better, to learn from our mistakes.

Our story is born of REBELLION. Against oppression. Against monarchical tendencies. Born of a desire to be FREE, believing we are ALL created equal… is that still what we believe? Yes, the question of who that statement includes has changed throughout the years, but it has always been at the direction of The People, and it has always bent toward INCLUSION. Simple precedent shows us where we should be heading…

More participation equals Better Governance. 

 

It’s the very reason we are here today! No taxation without representation. Liberty over tyranny. Bow before a KING and be subject to His indiscretions. 

We teach these lessons to our children with the hope that they will prevent them from happening again in the FUTURE. The events that led us to Revolution, the acts of a Tyrant King… and the INACTION of our Congress, that changed the course of our history. 

 

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With context, we gain insight. With knowledge, we see where we went wrong. With humility we can UNDERSTAND, we can see through our own eyes, the experiences of another… if we choose to. If we are strong enough, to embrace the TRUTH carried by another human being and challenge our assumptions… to know if it could happen to ONE of us, then it could happen to us ALL. 

 

No cruel and unusual punishment… yet we imprison detainees indefinitely in a foreign land. All men are created equal… disregarding the rights of HALF of the citizens of this Nation. With Liberty and Justice for ALL… except those we’ve deemed to be only worthy of THREE-FIFTHS. 

This Nation was founded as an Imperfect Union by imperfect men, bearing the scars of oppression and inhumanity carried out upon them. But there’s was just another step in a natural progression inspired centuries before them. An Age of Enlightenment and Renaissance brought KNOWLEDGE to the masses, opening minds and challenging established dogmas. 

Three centuries of accumulated knowledge led humanity to a point where we could truly question what it means to be FREE. A vision of PERFECTION is what they created… subject to the interpretation of imperfect beings. 

 

Our past may define us, but it should never condemn us to who it is we will BE. 

 

-JC