Do we really stand for liberty and what stands between the public and freedom?

It's no secret that both political parties share my disdain for their irresponsible and reckless spending, endless war mongering and caviler attitude toward trading our individual rights and civil liberties for corporate benefits.

They are helped in the effort by a corporate media that is no longer bound to truthful reporting nor limited by secret financing of elections.

With Romney and Obama as the two choices yesterday there was no candidate that represents me or accurately reflects what their speeches capture as core American values. 

Of course there were differences between them, but their similarities are more.  It is those things that leave many of us with the certainty Washington does not speak for us and it is reflected in the 10% approval rating for Congress.

But there were contests on a smaller scale that spoke volumes about our power as voters and Americans to see beyond well financed propaganda and manipulation to support individual freedoms above slick PR and special interests.

There was a Senate victory for Sherrod Brown in Ohio who has challenged the transfer of power from Sovereign States to bureaucratic entities like the WTO and World Bank since his years in the House a decade ago.

Despite all the battleground banter about Ohio electoral votes for the White House it was a more important and less noted struggle.  The Ohio voters won in electing a genuine public servant over well funded corporate shill with $30 million in outside money for attack ads.

In other places thought of as swing States where Democrats prevailed the victory was more about rejecting the GoP attacks on assorted freedoms.  Voters cast ballots for women's rights to choose what reproductive and health care they want for themselves and to reject Tea Party PAC powers of Koch Brothers and Rovian secret interests far more than an endorsement of Democrats beyond being the only alternative.

Individual liberty also had wins on referendums for Marriage Equality that reaffirm a civil contract entered by consenting adults should not be limited by religious tradition or a fringe perception of morality, but instead support the American ideal that equal means everybody.  Maine, Maryland and Minnesota official joined in support of equality for two adults of any gender to be committed to one another as legal partners.

The victory for LGBT grassroots efforts with an increasingly educated electorate, who are able to understand that the ability to perform an administrative job is not tied to who you love or what's tucked in your undies. 

Tammy Baldwin became the first openly gay Senator.  Baldwin was elected by Wisconsin voters who have been fighting tooth and nail against ravages of Koch brothers Tea Party Governor dismantling public sector employee unions and playing other games with State funds.  Those collective assaults on individual rights has turned a silent majority into a participatory force to be reconed with in Wisconsin.

Another victory for individual liberties came in the area of marijuana reforms where Colorado and Washington voters approved legalization and Massachusetts passed medicinal use on Election day. 

In a Nation that has a booming prescription drug industry and can advertize on television for us to try pharma concoctions that may cause death and other ghastly effects it seems like common sense to take weed off the list of criminal offenses but it took individual voters not political officials to make it happen.

In California the Prop37 effort to get gmo foods labeled lost by a small margin due in part to $45 million spent by Monsanto and others on a misleading and sometimes deceptive campaign against them.  But it was an historic grass roots effort to get the measure on the ballot and educate citizens that such a thing exists in our food supply and we have an issue to decide was epic.

In the face of 15 years of media censorship and a blitz of industry PR, scaring economically strapped consumers into believing Prop37 was about elite foodies endorsing a higher costs at the grocery store, almost winning the first attempt is a huge victory for individual rights and awareness.

What we saw win was a spirit and tradition that supports freedom when the opportunity and information are there.  The challenge going forward is to try to grow the numbers of informed voters and localized or grass roots campaigns to stop the greater threats to our freedoms that were not served by most of the people elected to serve us yesterday.

This is a critical time for American freedoms and like the issue of gmo food that was new to most consumers in California there are many threats we need to make broadly known to give people the opportunity to step up and defend them.

We need to embrace the whistleblowers and hold our public servants accountable for truth and transparency.  We know who will be serving as our representatives for the next four years now let's commit to making them tell the truth and stand up for our rights. 

We know Americans embrace freedoms when given a choice, we just need to share the facts so they have the chance.  We cannot allow telling the truth to be prosecuted as a crime of treason, nor stand by as corporate media quietly allows covert powers to strip us of them either.

1.  Do the American people deserve to know the truth regarding the ongoing war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen?

2.  Could a larger question be: how can an Army Private gain access to so much secret material?

3.  Why is the hostility mostly directed at Assange, the publisher, and not our government's failure to protect classified information?

4.  Are we getting our money's worth from the $80 billion per year we spend on our intelligence agencies?

5.  Which has resulted in the greatest number of deaths; lying us into war, or WikiLeaks' revelations or the release of the Pentagon Papers?

6.  If Assange can be convicted of a crime for publishing information, that he did not steal, what does this say about the future of the First Amendment and the independence of the internet?

7.  Could it be that the real reason for the near universal attacks on WikiLeaks is more about secretly maintaining a seriously flawed foreign policy of empire than it is about national security?

8.  Is there not a huge difference between releasing secret information to help the enemy in the time of a declared war—which is treason—and the releasing of information to expose our government lies that promote secret wars, death, and corruption?

9.  Was it not once considered patriotic to stand up to our government when it's wrong?

Thomas Jefferson had it right when he advised:  "Let the eyes of vigilance never be closed."

http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20121106/NEWS0106/311060120/Sherrod-Brown-keeps-U-S-Senate-seat

http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/blogs/bostonspirit/2012/11/recap_a_historic_night_for_the.html

http://dailycaller.com/2012/11/07/election-day-votes-likely-signal-the-end-of-cannabis-prohibition/