Magna Carta: 800 Years of Human Rights

So, tomorrow June 15 2015 marks the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta Libertatum (the Great Charter of the Liberties), the document which forms the basis of law around which democratic rights have been understood since the middle ages.

Note: A readable version of this image (6Mb, by zooming) can be found in the Wikipedia link in the above paragraph.

I am proud of the fact that one of only four known original copies (if that’s not an oxymoron) of this important document lays protected within the ancient castle walls of my home town of Lincoln, UK (a place of once far greater importance than it currently enjoys).  I was privileged to show this document, on display within the castle, to my daughter Naomi when she accompanied me on what I subsequently determined to be my last trip overseas from Australia in 2010.

Sadly, the rights embodied in that document have all but been forgotten and trodden underfoot by modern so-called democratic governments which more resemble tyrannical states these days.  I want to draw attention to this article by Paul Craig Roberts which has some interesting and controversial things to say about the subject.  Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

I want to highlight some of what I consider to be important point that Dr. Roberts makes:

“Beginning with the Clinton Administration and rapidly accelerating with the George W. Bush and Obama regimes and Tony Blair in England, the US and UK governments have run roughshod over their accountability to law.”

“Both the US and UK in the 21st century have gone to numerous wars illegally under the Nuremberg Standard established by the US and UK following Germany’s defeat in WWII and used to execute Germans for war crimes. The US and UK claim that unlike Germany they are immune to the very international law that they themselves established in order to punish the defeated Germans. Washington and London can bomb and murder at will, but not Germany.”

“Western capitalism is a looting mechanism. It loots labor. It loots the environment, and with the transpacific and transatlantic “partnerships” it will loot the sovereign law of countries. For example, France’s laws against GMOs become “restraints on trade” and subjects France to punitive law suits by Monsanto. If France doesn’t pay Monsanto the damages Monsanto claims, France is subject to punitive sanctions like Washington applies to Russia when Russia doesn’t do what Washington wants.”

“Eight hundred years of reform is being overturned as Washington and its vassals invade, bomb, and overthrow governments that are out of step with Washington’s agenda. Formerly self-sufficient agricultural communities are becoming wage slaves for international agribusiness corporations. Everywhere privilege is rising above law and justice is being lost.”

“The demise of the rule of law has stripped ordinary people of security and dignity. Peoples of the world must protect themselves by acting in defense of the Great Charter’s principle that governments are accountable to law. Governments unaccountable to law are tyrannies whatever they might call themselves, no matter how exceptional and indispensable they declare themselves to be.”

“Monday in Westminster in London, the International Tribunal for Natural Justice is forming. If my understanding of this work of Humanitad is correct, we have a cause for hope. Perhaps the Tribunal will try the criminals of our time, almost all of which are “leaders” of Western governments, on the Internet with juries and prosecutors so that populations everywhere can witness the evil that every Western government represents.

“Once the West is perceived as the evil force that it is, it will have to reform and again embrace Edward Coke’s vision of the Great Charter or become an unimportant backwater while the rest of the world goes on to better things. The world is saved once the world ceases to bow down to the American Caesar.”  (emphasis is mine)

I should add that although this article speaks specifically of the US and UK, it could just as easily have included all of the english speaking nations, the exclusive so-called ‘five-eyes’ club including US lapdog Australia and the belatedly rejoined New Zealand, in its justifiable condemnations.

This period of our history will itself go down in history (if in fact there is anyone left to write and subsequently read it) as a second Dark Age in the annals of mankind.  I fervently hope that it is soon brought to an early end and that we may rebuild on the ashes of our present civilisation a restored era of liberty, equality and global fraternity.  I further hope that we are given the opportunity or chance to make that happen, but I also know that there are further and even darker times for us to endure before that can take place, if in fact it does.