Richard Grossman - in memorian

          The news came that Richard Grossman, the long time advocate for justice and true democracy, had died two evenings before Thanksgiving of 2011.  In the email, Jack Ossont referred to Richard as an unlawyer and historian.

          I first met Richard many years ago at a weekend session of the early version of the Daniel Pennock Democracy School, the two and one half days retreat that taught us so much about the U.S.A. never having been a democracy nor was the original intent for the country to be a true democracy.  Also there to teach and converse with us in the Deposit, NY countryside at a place run by nuns was Tom Linzey.  
          Richard and Tom, both lawyers, set out the excruciating details of the evidence from statutes, case law, and essays put together in a thick manual, which I still have. As a teacher myself and with a law degree, I appreciated the dedication, time and energy it took the organizers and leaders of the Democracy School to connect the dots, put on this two and a half day retreat and the manual itself.  Looking back, I am especially grateful to have Richard as one of the guides through the thicket of centuries of deception.
          The weekend carved open my mind to release the illusions I had been fed.  The pain, outrage and betrayal was almost overwhelming especially when truly understanding the disgusting immorality of using the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, passed to acknowledge the inherent free state of enslaved peoples, to install the fiction of corporate person-hood. From the questions some people asked, it was clear that it took and takes time for the average person to realize we all have been fooled.
          Much as the U.S. Thanksgiving holiday is really a day of mourning for the genocide that the Europeans perpetrated upon the indigenous people already living on the land, I gives thanks for Richard's life and his work. Richard is and was, as Jack noted, a lion.  The update in Wikipedia notes his birthday as August 10, squarely in the center of Leo, for what it's worth. 
          The last time I saw Richard was at the workshop on criminalizing hydrofracking held at the Green Fest NY/ U.S. Greens annual meeting in August of 2011.  He seemed to me then a gentle lion.  He urged that we there at the workshop hold a trust building retreat soon as we were in for a long fight.  From previous fights against entrenched power, he knew the need to build trust amongst allies. Some time later I emailed him about that idea.  He thanked me for liking the idea.  
I suggest we hold that retreat in his memory.