A FOLLOW UP INTERVIEW WITH MR. GERRY DONALDSON
by John Charlton
- Texans Rally for Sovereignty or Succession
As a follow up to my first interview with Mr. Gerry Donaldson, of drawaline.org, regarding his grass roots activism in preparation for the rally in Austin, Texas, on Aug. 29th, Mr. Donaldson has graciously agreed to a second interview, and provided a wealth of information on the event.
Mr. Donaldson is an Enterprise Solutions Architect, designing and implementing large data warehouses for Fortune 500 companies; a scholar of Constitutional, Common and Biblical Law a musician; and past publisher of the newsletter “Awaken America”, founder of the Constitutional Review Committee. He is currently occupied as the Central Texas Director of Grassfire.org’s “Patriotic Resistance” at www.resistnet.com where he directs 8 Congressional Districts covering over one quarter of Texas.
What follows is an exact transcription of the interview, with some photographs supplied by Mr. Donaldson.
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MR. CHARLTON: How did things go in Austin on Saturday?
MR. DONALDSON: Mr. Charlton,I believe things went well. Some people didn’t like hearing others talking so plainly about secession, but the consensus that we have an out of control government came across perfectly clear.
MR. CHARLTON: What kind of turn out did you have?
MR. DONALDSON: Based on people we had roaming the crowd, I can conservatively state we had at least 1,500 attend. They were packed in an area about 50 yards wide and 75 yards deep.
MR. CHARLTON: From your view of the crowd, was the make up pretty representative of the Texan on the street?
MR. DONALDSON: Our crowd was a fair cross-section of Texans from a broad spectrum of the socio-economic scale. Many drove hours to get to this event on our Capital steps.
MR. CHARLTON: Have any politicians in the State issued statements about the rally or in response to the presented petition?
MR. DONALDSON: Representatives Leo Berman and Brandon Creighton, authors of the HCR 50 Sovereignty Bill have both advocated what we are doing. We had two candidates for Governor speak, Debra Medina and Larry Kilgore, in addition to Joe Petronis, candidate for U.S. House. All spoke out for Texas sovereignty and the need to stop the hand of an oppressive federal government.
MR. CHARLTON: Did Obama send his brownshirts to molest the peaceful American citizenry?
MR. DONALDSON: The MoveOn.org people were outnumbered (at least at first) by 15-to-1. Our crowd, then, dwindled as they’d been in the 100 degree heat for a few hours.
MR. CHARLTON: Was there any violence or confrontation between the two groups?
MR. DONALDSON: There was only one instance, thank God, and it was a MoveOn.org protestor that struck a young man in the back of the head with a sign. There was no damage done, but the MoveOn protestor was arrested. We later found out that the young man hit was a Texas National Guard member who’d gotten leave to attend the rally. I believe that says something.
- Mr. Donaldson emcee’s Texan Style
MR. CHARLTON: What was your role at the rally?
MR. DONALDSON: I emceed the event and started off with a brief talk on the values, morals, and ethics our founding fathers embedded into our Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights.
MR. CHARLTON: What kind of response did you get to the rally at Draw A Line.org?
MR. DONALDSON: The feedback we’ve had coming in yesterday and today was all positive with the exception of gubernatorial candidate, Larry Kilgore’s comment about hating the American flag above our state capital. He’s run for governor and U.S. Senator before on a secessionist ticket, so it was not unexpected.
MR. CHARLTON: What’s your position on Texas Succession?
MR. DONALDSON: Most of my radio show listeners and all the conservative groups I am a part of would much prefer that we restore our sovereignty and God-given unalienable rights than to be forced to secede. However, with the state of the world heading the direction it is, I’ll leave it to God to determine if we should have to secede or not.
MR. CHARLTON: What kind of media coverage did you get?
MR. DONALDSON: We had a French TV reporter fly in, Olivier Ponthus, working for the press agency CAPA (www.capatv.com). This was for a program called “L’effet papillon” on Canal+ (one of the main TV channels in France). They do 8-9 minute long reports almost always on international issues. I was also interviewed for KLBJ radio in Austin, the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Post, and the Austin American Statesman. Then, last night, I was interviewed on Fox’s Alan Colmes Show.
MR. CHARLTON: Can you summarize your final speech to the crowd gathered at Austin?
MR. DONALDSON: What many do not understand is that demanding our individual and state sovereignty is equivalent to demanding accountability from our public servants. Therefore, we have Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Constitution Party, and Independents all showing up to speak out for principled values and a willingness to accept personal responsibility. Unfortunately, we have neglected to hold our public servants accountable to their Oath of Office for a very long time.
It is time that we place them back in the boundaries of the Constitution and reverse all legislation that is without Constitutional authority or infringes upon our God-given, inalienable rights. According to our Declaration of Independence, the purpose of government is to protect our God-given, unalienable rights. It continued to say that, if the government should violate those rights, it is our duty to “alter” our government (demand Sovereignty). If the government should refuse to be altered, then we are left with the duty to “abolish” our government and create a new one that will protect our rights. This, of course, is secession.
Most of us are proud Americans and do not wish to abolish the government, we wish to restore it. However, we recognize that it is possible that they will not comply with this demand, and we will have to secede in order to protect the lives and future of not only ourselves, but our children, and our posterity.
MR. CHARLTON: If readers want more information, where can they go on the web?
MR. DONALDSON: I’ve attached a few pics for you and you can get a short synopsis from the website at www.drawaline.org.
MR. CHARLTON: Thank you once again, Mr. Donaldson, for your time and availability to the readers of The Post & Email.