If the lobby-laden politicians have their way, we will soon be totally disarmed. 
 
It's in their best interest!  Not ours!!

They are thoroughly aware of why the Founding Fathers where so apprehensive of disarmament - that a politically corrupted fascist so-called "democracy" would attempt to destroy our liberties and freedom. 

Thus, they provided up front, the Second Amendment so that the people of our Constitutional Republic would not easily be enslaved---again.
 
If you remember not too long ago in the past; Saddam Hussein himself required that all the people of Iraq should own weapons and a supply of ammunition to protect themselves from anyone who might want to harm their families. 

It's amazing how well individual self-defense has worked - even against the most powerful military in history!

by Cliff Carson

Recently on "Book Notes," General Wesley Clark was speaking about his book "A Time to Lead."

During his conversation, he just happened to mention that in 1991 he had a conversation with Wolfowitz, and later with a Pentagon Official where both told him about the plan to shape the Middle East by bringing wars against Iraq, Iran, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan ( I believe that was the seven he mentioned ).  

When asked if Military personnel should refuse to invade countries such as the seven, without a War Declaration by Congress, he answered that the Military should obey the Commander In Chief or resign. 

Very Interesting.

by John Graham

Congressional Hearings recently refocused national attention on the Federal "Watch List" --  names of people "who are, or are suspected of being, threats to national security and/or civil aviation." The Watch List is just one element of a pattern of assaults the Bush Administration has mounted on the civil liberties of United States citizens, in the name of its "War on Terror."

NPR, in its coverage of the hearings, used an interview with me to highlight the experience of being Listed. If you missed it on "All Things Considered" you can find it here.

I've been on the Watch List for 30 months. It's quite possible that, like the four-year old children and 89-year-old nuns who are also on the List, it might be a case of mistaken identity. Then again, as President of the Giraffe Heroes Project, author of Stick Your Neck Out, and vocal critic of the Iraq war, I may be exactly the person the Feds mean to hassle.

The inconvenience to me of extra screening at airports has been trivial.  What bothers me is the assault on civil liberties. Despite strenuous efforts, I can't find out what I'm accused of or why, can't defend myself or clear my name - and can't get off the List.

You can find my own account at
http://www.giraffe.org/1speeches_watchlist.html

Congress finally seems to have woken up to the dangers posed by a Watch List of public enemies that has reportedly grown to over 750,000 names! It's encouraging that this is not a partisan issue: many Republicans and libertarians are also upset by the civil liberties implications of the Watch List.

Please follow this issue in the news, and make your views known to your elected representatives as they consider ways to find a better balance between civil liberties and legitimate security concerns.

P.S. I have no faith that the List does any good anyway. Last time I drove back to Seattle from Canada, the US border guard checked her computer - they waved me through.

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by Steve Osborn

It's funny, I've written my alleged Representatives perhaps a hundred times telling them that We the People want our Constitution and Bill of Rights, intact and functioning, in the Halls of Government. I have never received an answer to this subject, nor even an acknowledgment of it.

I've occasionally gotten form letters back on other subjects where I've put the plea in, but no answer to the above request. I personally think that that is the one thing that the politicians, all of them, regardless of party, do not want to see; the Constitution and Bill of rights, intact and functioning, in the Halls of Government.

Without them, there is little or no limit to their governing.

With it, they must follow a rule and guide that is not necessarily a guarantee of an increased bottom line for them and their supporters.

by Fred Flanagan

Religion is a set of personal beliefs. Many religions are based on an institutional system grounded in values and practices with trust in a spiritual leader. Many religions believe in a supernatural power regarded as the creator of the universe.

Morality is the quality of being in accord with standards of good conduct. A personal system of ideas of right and wrong is morality.

Many highly moral people don't follow any formal religious organization or practice.

Morality for many people is apparently very subjective on many specific social issues. How can you be "right to life" and in favor of the death penalty or a war of choice? Oh! Exceptions!

Throughout history, some religions have even condoned killing in the name of their God. Was "thou shall not kill" an optional law?

How can Congressional leaders claim to be the moral champions of family values after voting for their own $33,000.00 pay raise and failing to address the dismal minimum wage?

We have many political leaders claiming great faith and religious beliefs while selling out to big business and special interest groups for campaign contributions. Morality?

Is voting for new banking laws that hurt the neediest of our citizens moral? Is failing to secure our borders in favor of cheap labor moral? Is exploiting foreign workers for cheap labor moral? Is voting for trade agreements without protections for American workers moral? Is removing requirements for fair wages in the clean up effort of Hurricane Katrina moral?

Far too many elected leaders need a new understanding of morality. Political rhetoric on religious faith and morality without a real commitment on moral values and proven action is meaningless. Campaign promises without follow through and measured results are an exercise in disingenuous hyperbole.

In my humble opinion, our elected leaders need to spend more time thinking about social equality. It is time for many political leaders to stop simply talking of morality and start acting moral. Religion and morality aren't synonymous!

by Cliff Carson

The Arkansas Daily Gazette Voices page was full of good letters recently (11-19).  Some points I agree with, some I don't.   One, in particular, definitely needed a response.

To Robert Byrd Jr:  There are those who think that Limbaugh is the epitome of truth.  My retort?  Ha! 

But, I do have a fact you can check out just by counting on your fingers:  Reports are that the Iraq War cost has now risen over $1 Trillion (a fact that I predicted in a Voices letter a year or two ago) $1.6 Trillion to be precise. 

Thought I would see how this impacts Senior Citizens since I am one. I went to the Internet, found America's current population of 65 and older and divided this into $1.6 Trillion to find out how much per.  Seems to be $45,714.29 each.

That's enough to pay my Medicare premiums for the next 43 years, would pay my Prescription Drug premiums for the next 83 years, and pay my No Deduction, No Co-pay Medi-Pak premiums for the next 28 years. 

And just to think some elderly people have to make a decision on whether to get their medical needs attended to or to get something to eat. 

Yep, we Senior Citizens are involved, whether we agree with this unnecessary, immoral, war or not. 

A recent article in The Australian revealed that more veterans are commiting suicide than are killed on the battlefield.

To whom do we assess the "blow-back"of the sacrificed and sacred blood of our sons and daughters?
 
1. Saddam Hussein's murdering of the people of Iraq?

Note: It is now estimated that we American people through our Republican and Democrat politicians have killed more of the Iraqi people than Saddam did using the poison gas given to him by our military industrial complex.  Question: at whose expense was this lethal weapon manufactured? At whose direction was this gas given to him (or) was it given to him?

2. Saddam's announcement that Iraqi oil would not be exchanged for:"federal"reserve notes?

Now, even though he has been destroyed by hanging(at the encouragement of our politicals)the killing of the Iraqi people has intensified!! Why?  At whose expense and in whose name are these people being killed?
 
Are the suicide deaths of our sons and daughters on the battle-fields attributable to the unanswered questions of why we are killing thousands if not millions of other human beings?  Is there any hope of reversing our plummeting fall into this continued mayhem and the vortex of despair? 

Then, it seems that out of no where, an obscure Congressmen that only a very few people had ever heard of miraculously appears on the national scene and announces that he is going to run for President.   
 
Millions of us have examined the voting records of Doctor Ron Paul and have concluded that he is the only one that has the will and the testicles to put everything on the line in exchange for the restoration of our Constitutional Republic.

by Cliff Carson

The article "The West's Deal with the Devil" written by Eric Margolis is an essential read. 

I purchased Margolis' book "War at the Top of the World" a few years ago and read it with interest.  And this article from Lew Rockwell brought back memories of that book.  It is very interesting in light of the current happenings in Pakistan. 

This essay, about the murderous regime of Stalin, also reminded me of my youth when I started to read about the Holocaust, although it was not called that at the time.  When I first read of the German prison camps and the huge deaths, I was reminded of my visits to the Internment camps for Japanese in Arkansas.  I went their with my Aunt and Uncle who were in the Army and Air Force.  Although just a child not yet a teenager, I wondered what those people could have done to be herded into fenced in camps and guarded by armed guards.

So I went to the Library to read up on the war and peoples of Europe and Japan.  As I recall, the 1939 Almanac I read stated the Jewish Population of Germany at about 1.5 million.  At the time current records were naming a figure of up to 400,000 Jews who had died in the camps.  When Nuremberg was formed to investigate the atrocities, I believe that the Jewish League was claiming that possibly as many as 4 million Jews has been killed or could not be located. 

They presented such a paper to Nuremberg and asked for investigation.  As time went by that figure steadily increased until today the published figure in now 12 million.  I'm not sure how long it will take for it to reach twenty million.  I think you get the point.

Neo-Con interference in the societies of countries around the world have lead to deaths of many millions also.  I think those numbers might approach the Stalin figures.  My personal opinion is that this is the truly forgotten assault on mankind. 

I think the article was super and could not have come at a better time.  It is an issue that our World needs to become extremely aware of.

The following is a letter to the editor of the LA Times in regards to their recent opinion piece, "Fiscal foolishness," by Robert Kuttner on Nov. 12.

Here's an excerpt of Kuttner's position on government, regulation, and the economy:

We have just had a full field test of free-market ideology, and once again it failed.

Revisit the financial abuses of the laissez-faire 1920s and you will find different details but the same essentials: deceptive claims about stocks, bonds and balance sheets; conflicts of interest on the part of insiders; excess leverage to finance speculative bets; financial engineering that extracts wealth and does nothing for the real economy. In the '20s, National City Bank turned dubious loans into bonds; in this decade, its successor, Citigroup, did the same in the sub-prime mess.

The regulatory system constructed by the New Deal was intended to limit these temptations. Government mandated extensive disclosures and bank supervision, and it prohibited a broad range of conflicts of interest. Commercial banking was separated from the underwriting and sale of securities.

The problem is that Robert Kuttner advocates the real "failed fantasy" that government intervention in the market is beneficial. He perpetuates the myth that the 1920s bubble leading to the stock market crash and the Depression were due to laissez-faire abuses. However, a growing body of economic theory recognizes that the real cause of the crash and the Depression was the creation of the Federal Reserve system in 1913 and its subsequent credit expansion. 

Kuttner's fantasy is refuted by the Austrian School of Economics, in particular by Murray Rothbard in his analysis of depressions throughout American history. [see particularly Rothbard's book, "America's Great Depression"]

A current presidential candidate, Republican Rep. Ron Paul, knows Austrian economics and has been predicting our economic crisis for decades. Voters would do well to investigate Paul and the Austrian School as a healthy antidote to Kuttner's fantasy.

Stan Warford, Malibu, CA

by Stephen Neitzke

Good Saturday morning Google -- about 11:20 am CST.  Top of the page, search term, "telecom immunity", sorted by date.

The letter below was a comment by Cindy to an article in CommonDreams. So as not to split hairs, since Pelosi said "handwritten," I broke out my little used pen and wrote the request by hand, put it in a hand addressed envelope and sent it off yesterday. 41 cents well spent!

Post cards - are fine.

Pass this all around-from Cindy Sheehan:

House Resolution 333 for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney is off the House floor, and has instead been sent to the Judiciary Committee for "further study." This maneuver, organized by Pelosi and the Democratic leadership, is consistent with their mantra that impeachment is "off the table." But, we are told Nancy Pelosi is reported to have replied to the question of impeachment that if she received 10,000 hand written letters she would proceed with it. What are we waiting for?

Cindy Sheehan wrote this:

Dear Friends,

Instead of sending your impeachment letters for Dick Cheney to Nancy Pelosi's office, send them to my office so we can get an official count.

Please send them to:

Nancy Pelosi
c/o Cindy Sheehan
1260 Mission Blvd
San Francisco, Ca 94103-2706

Please pass this around and have them sent by Friday, November 16th and we will have them delivered to her office in San Francisco before Thanksgiving.

Spread this far and wide so we can take sacks of letters to her.

Don't include anything besides the letter.

---------------------------------------------

Come on, friends, it takes about five minutes to scribble out a request to impeach the Bush Gang, address it and send it. Let's make Pelosi put her money where her mouth is, or be proved a liar. I hope Cindy gets a hundred thousand, a million letters!

Did you notice that the initiator and sponsor of this HR 1955 "Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007" is a Democrat?  You can bet the farm the Demos want to inherit the sweet set up of the Repubs in 2008. 

What concerns me is  -  Who, What, and in what manner is any organized group planning to stop these two groups in 2008?  To defeat this grab of liberties we MUST gain the confidence of the majority of the electorate in 08.  The only way to gain the confidence is to bring into office an Independent Ticket at the Executive level.

I just read an article written in 1996 extolling the virtues of Corporate armies.  He made a statement we all need to etch in our brains:

"Things are not so because our leaders say so, but because we believe they are."

Controlled Media thou art God.  He is speaking of the majority and that is who must be convinced of the need for change.  The Internet is the life blood truth vein for all people.  That is why politicos want to get it under their thumb. 

Immorality and injustice cannot survive a free press.

Observe carefully the photo above. That could soon be Anytown USA, instead of Anytown Iraq. So far, only New Orleans has received the gentle care of Blackwater, but "times they are a changin'."

DownsizeDC.org emailed out an alert to ask everyone to support Ron Paul's American Freedom Agenda Act.  The following is a letter I sent out to my so-called federal government "servants"

************

As I have written over and over (and have been totally ignored by all three of you on the subject), We the People of the United States want our Constitution and Bill of Rights restored to the Halls of Government, intact and functioning.

This should not be a difficult task. At the start of each session of the House and Senate, you take the following oath.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God."

Even the appointed president has twice taken a similar oath, "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

Apparently, since he has referred to the above document as "just a goddamned piece of paper," you all feel that it can be discarded.

We the People of the United States don't feel that way. One way you can assure us that you don't either, is to support and vote for Ron Paul's "American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007" (HR 3835)

Rather than discard our Constitution, we'd do better to discard the current Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches and start all over, using our Constitution as our rule and guide, as we once did.