Dan DeWalt, a frequent contributor to these pages and one of the founders of this newspaper, writes that if he didn’t love his country, he “wouldn’t spend so much time trying to get it to live up to its purported principles.” He was arrested for trespassing at Citizens Bank on April 26 and directed to appear in Windham Superior Court Criminal Division. He intended to make these remarks to the court, but learned on June 2 that the state’s attorney declined the case. Also arrested was Tim Kipp, whose remarks also appear in this issue.
NEWFANE-Your honor, due to corrupt and criminal conduct, blatant contempt for and defiance to the judicial system, our current federal government has lost all legitimacy.
Internationally, we are randomly blowing up boats in the ocean; we have enacted an oil blockade against Cuba, an internationally recognized act of war; we have kidnapped another country’s ruler; we have launched an unprovoked war against Iran; and we continue to aid and abet Israel in an ongoing genocide against Palestinians in their own homeland.
Here at home, legal residents of the United States who have committed no crimes are being kidnapped and imprisoned in concentration camps where they are deprived of adequate food and water, sexually abused, physically assaulted, and denied legal rights afforded to them in our Constitution. Federal operatives are operating outside of the law, spreading violence and fear throughout the land.
The Justice Department has been transformed into a lawless organization with a mission to deliver retribution and violence to any and all perceived enemies of the head of state.
We the people have been told ad nauseam that “our vote is our choice,” but a venal political class, with the assistance of a ideologically driven Supreme Court, is busy gerrymandering our congressional districts so that only their favored voters have a voice and that those not aligned with the party in power have no voice at all.
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Americans who feel compelled to defend our Constitution and preserve our republican form of government are thus forced to look to other actions to defend our precarious democracy.
While the government engages in violence to achieve their aims of overthrowing our republic, citizens are using peaceful, nonviolent actions to try to save it and to promote the rule of law and moral decency.
The concentration camps that serve ICE in their pogrom of kidnapping and terror would not be in existence were it not for funding that finances their construction and implementation. Citizens Bank is one of the few banks that continues to provide funds to the private contractors that build these prison camps and who profit from the misery and violence therein.
Citizens Bank has a branch location in Brattleboro. Concerned citizens met with the local bank officials, informing them of the conduct of their corporate bosses and asked that they join us to resist the banks financing of terror. The bank management was unwilling to challenge their corporate masters and made no changes in their conduct that would address the financial crimes of their corporation.
Therefore, we took it upon ourselves to respectfully meet bank customers as they were entering the bank and inform them of what Citizens Bank was doing with their money and encouraging them to consider taking their money elsewhere.
For this action, we were arrested and now face arraignment for illegal trespass.
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It is ironic that as we approach the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence — where we celebrate and venerate those who chose to defy the law and violently overthrow their rulers to replace the rule of a king with the democratic rule of the people — we are now being prosecuted for our peaceful attempts to maintain the rule of the people and to prevent the country from once again falling into the hands of a despot “king.”
The true criminals in this situation are the federal officials who have chosen to do the bidding of a deranged buffoon megalomaniac.
Our supposed crime is an act of love for our country. I will not plead guilty to anything more than trying to save our republic.
This Voices Viewpoint was submitted to The Commons.
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