Hello to you listening in Thornton, Colorado!

Coming to you from Whidbey Island, Washington this is Stories From Women Who Walk with 60 Seconds (and a bit more) for Motivate Your Monday and your host, Diane Wyzga.

Evildoing, like coercive power, depends on the cooperation, obedience, support, assent or at least passive tolerance of many people.  

If you passively tolerate evildoing - or turn your face away - you are as much involved in it as the ones who perpetrate it. When you tolerate evildoing without protesting, you are cooperating, you are an accomplice.

One who chose not to cooperate was Daniel Ellsberg, American military analyst and whistleblower, who saw clearly what had been going on with the 40 years of war in Vietnam. He chose to copy and then release over 7,000 pages of what became known as The Pentagon Papers. He exposed the long-running scandalous history of the United States' political and military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1968 and secretly expanding its involvement with the bombing of  Cambodia and Laos.

In 1971 then President Nixon filed suit to stop the NY Times and the Los Angeles Times from publishing the papers. He failed. The papers were published. Ellsberg himself was criminally indicted but charges were later dismissed.    

“As Judge Byrne in Los Angles was issuing his dismissal of the indictment against Daniel Ellsberg, Nixon expressed his outrage and sense of betrayal: “ ..., on this national security thing, we have the rocky situation where the sonofabitch thief is made a national hero and is going to get off on a mistrial. And the New York Times gets a Pulitzer Prize for stealing documents ....They’re trying to get at us with thieves. What in the name of God have we come to?” [SECRETS - A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, pub. 2002, pp. 456 to 457]    

What we had come back to was a democratic republic - not an elected monarchy - a government under law, with Congress, the courts, and the press functioning to curtail executive abuses, as our Constitution envisioned. Moreover, for the first time in this or any country the legislature was casting its whole vote against an ongoing presidential war. It was reclaiming, through its control of the purse, the war power it had fecklessly delegated nine years earlier. Congress was stopping the bombing, and the war was going to end.” [SECRETS - A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg, pub. 2002, pp. 456 to 457]        

40 years of war ends - and Watergate is not far behind - scuttling Nixon’s presidency.

Individuals who choose to call evildoing what it is, who choose to withdraw their cooperation, ignite organized non-cooperation. That is where we are. We the People - an Army of Ordinary People - have ignited organized non-cooperation. We the People are fighting back and we’re bringing our friends to topple the evildoing in the White House.    

Thank you for listening and fighting alongside us for democracy! 

Click HERE to access a pdf copy of Secrets - A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers

Click HERE to access VOICES: UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Daniel Ellsberg & SECRETS - Vietnam & the Pentagon Papers (October 25, 2002) 

You're always welcome: "Come for the stories - Stay for the magic!" Speaking of magic, I hope you’ll subscribe, share a 5-star rating and nice review on your social media or podcast channel of choice, bring your friends and rellies, and join us! You will have wonderful company as we continue to walk our lives together. Be sure to stop by my Quarter Moon Story Arts website, check out the Story Services I offer, arrange a free, no-obligation Discovery Call, and stay current with me as "Wyzga on Words" on Substack.

Stories From Women Who Walk Production Team

Podcaster: Diane F Wyzga & Quarter Moon Story Arts

Music: Mer’s Waltz from Crossing the Waters by Steve Schuch & Night Heron Music

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