Special Report Citizens group seeks to convene Continental Congress—part 2

By Susan Johnson

Copy Editor

Editor’s note: Part 1 of this series appeared in the Sept. 30-Oct. 6, 2009, issue.

We The People Foundation, an independent citizens group that wants to reclaim the U.S. government for its citizens, held an informational town hall discussion at 7 p.m., Thursday, Sept. 24, at Veterans Memorial Hall in Rockford. The panel discussion continues:

Ray Swenson, a history professor at Rock Valley College, said:
When the Constitution was ratified by Congress and sent to the states, the states got [angry], saying, ‘Where are our rights? We fought for them; now we want to keep them.’ It took another two years, but we finally got the Bill of Rights… This is where you get the living Constitution because each generation reads the rules and understands them differently. Regrettably, many of the people we have today are arguing the definition of the word is. Let’s become orthodox Americans and follow the rules the way they were established and then act accordingly. Too many people are behind the scenes—the bureaucrats who interpret the rules and cause most of the problems. We also have 535 people who listen to the bureaucrats.

Rick Wos, an appliance technician and teacher from the Chicago area, had started studying the law about 15 years ago and noted that the principles of law have been completely turned around 180 degrees.
Very little of the Constitution is being followed,

he said. “All three branches of government are disregarding the Constitution. The first paragraph tells us, ‘we the people’ ordain this Constitution; it was ‘we the people’ who put it together… The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties—it tells the government to leave people alone, and none of that is being followed.

He said this happens on every level—federal, state, local—and
when you bring this up, you are hit with fines, reprimands, or your case is dismissed. The citizens are being raped, and government is taking over. But we do have a solution.

Kurt Kallenbach, who has a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, felt he was the least educated of the group and brought a library of books with him to consult if necessary. He was the man who did the walk to Washington, D.C., accompanied by his wife. He asked,
How far would you walk to save your children or grandchildren—or your own life? That is where we are right now. Ultimately, I believe that the Constitution doesn’t even exist at this point. It was nullified at least as late as 1913 with the income tax act. It is a contract written with the people, and the contract has been broken, so it is void.

We have a rogue government. I refer back to the Declaration of Independence because… [it] tells us that we have a Creator who created the people, and the people then institute some form of government and decide how they want to be governed. Our founding fathers wrote a contract… That contract was the consent of the people, and that is the only consent the people have given… The fact that this consent no longer exists means we no longer have a legitimate government. We need to go back to where the ultimate authority is—the people…and if they decide to terminate this government, it is a decision. We need to clean house and get rid of all the anti-American cancer… [not] the document; the Constitution is already there.

Winnebago County Coordinator Jonathan Cobb, the moderator, said that one of the issues that turned him into an activist or
right-wing extremist

was the bailout last fall. He watched it on C-SPAN.
Last September,

recalled Cobb,
in defense of the Constitution, a man named Bob Schulz sued Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to prevent the flow of public funds to AIG until they found where in the Constitution the authorization is granted to give or lend public funds or credit to a private party for a decidedly and definitively private purpose. Soon after, he also sued the leaders of the U.S. Executive and Legislative branches and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke to prevent the flow of public funds under the $700 billion bailout bill (the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008) until they identified where in the Constitution they found the authority granted by the people to give or lend public funds or credit to a private party for a decidedly and definitively private purpose.

The Federal District Court dismissed the case on the basis that Schulz lacked standing to bring the constitutional challenge, and therefore the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case.

From the October 7-13, 2009 issue