When Democrats talk about their party these days, it sounds like a ritual confession. They apologize for being too liberal. They are afraid of being tagged as antimilitarist. They are talking about saying "no" to the large, influential special interest groups that have traditionally been identified with the party.
To do so would be to reject their history and their reason for existing. For more than 150 years, the Democrats have been the party of social and economic justice, representing the interests of small farmers, immigrants, religious and racial minorities, trade union members, poor people, women, and other out - groups.
For the first hundred years, the Democrats were antistatist. Their platforms called for laissez-faire, states rights, and low tariffs.
To Jeffersonians and Jacksonians, the state was a bastion of wealth and privilege, and to be antistatist was to be democratic and egalitarian. However, from Roosevelt's New Deal, the party learned to use federal power to promote economic justice. From the civil rights revolution, the party learned to use federal power to promote social justice. Now the party has to figure out how to keep its commitment to democracy and equality while weaning itself from an excessive reliance on government.
This is no small problem. The Democrats dilemma is a major issue for industrial societies in the twentieth century: Can you advance the cause of social and economic justice without increasing the power of the state to dangerous levels? The serious social democrat will say no, but you can ensure that the power of the state is democratically controlled. The answer won't get you very far in this country, where suspicion of government is a primordial value.
One thing is sure. The Democrats cannot turn their backs on the women, the workers, the blacks, and the peace activists, because without these special interest groups they wouldn't have a party.
As to what happened to my country, I think we know. We are close to becoming an oligarchy. I am ordering Naomi Wolf's "The End of America". I am interested in the tipping points she spoke of and the exponential change in freedoms that occur at the tipping points.
What happened to our country is that those in charge are the here and now, short term profit people, who realize that their lifetime is limited and they have no inclination to provide for the future of mankind, of which their progeny is part of, because it would decrease their here and now existence.
In a single word, its called greed.
Your article gives one pause to consider what can be done to change the course from ultimate destruction to eternal brotherhood.
Yes, if we go back far enough, every human on earth is related to every other human on earth.
Let me share a quote from Albert Einstein:
"If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed."
For a long, long time, we've heard people debate back and forth about whether or not there's a "right to privacy" in the Constitution (and Bill of Rights).
For an excellent lesson on this issue, see a classic article from Harry Browne:
The ninth and tenth amendments were included to make absolutely sure there was no misunderstanding about the limited powers the Constitution grants to the federal government.
Amendment IX:
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Now, where's the right to privacy?
It is clearly in those two amendments.
The government has no power to tell people what to do except in areas specifically authorized in the Constitution.
That means it has no right to tell people whether or not they can engage in homosexual acts; no right to invade our privacy; no right to manage our health-care system; no right to tell us what a marriage is; no right to run our lives; no right to do anything that wasn't specifically authorized in the Constitution.
It's pretty straightforward. There is a right to privacy. Why? Because the government isn't specifically given the power to violate your privacy.
That's what the 10th Amendment is all about - government is strictly limited to doing those activities which are specifically authorized to it by the Constitution.
Everything else is left to "the States, respectively, or to the People."
Since the Congress can apparently change laws and grant permission for crimes retroactively, why should they be pikers? Let's have Congress vote on a bill to abolish everything that has happened since 1775 and declare that we can be ruled absolutely by any despot named "George."
They can make it retroactive to 1775, then dissolve themselves as they will no longer exist, since they never were, under the theory of retroactivity.
King George the Bushy can design some spiffy red coats for the military and we'll be right back where we started.
Then, if we can find a Jefferson, Franklin, Washington, Paine, Madison and Patrick Henry hanging around, we can start all over and try to do a better job of it this time.
Political candidates and parties today offer two options from which people chose and vote. The dominant option is altruistic, in that community interests define our voting choice on the one hand. This is the feeling, heart-generated source of our decision-making. On the other hand, legitimate individual self-interest is the egoistic or rational option, only found in America, and the head is its source.
For the most part, choices in the rest of the world originate more from the heart. It comes from fear, hate, anger and envy of how people see each other, in or out of their own borders. They accept monarchs and dictators of all shades, from all parties, who claim to support their own community interests. They promise to serve communal interests. Misery has always accompanied their programs, however. The heart is proven unreliable in politics.
America began with the values and actions of a few immigrants who landed in New England almost 400 years ago. They had no big government or army to protect them or guide their choices. They had to use their own heads and reason to make choices as free individuals.
It became a habit.
They pursued a course for individual freedom, where individuals could chase their dreams and visions, create, build and do as their interests, skills, talents and aspirations told them. When the time came to vote for people to run essential government services, they did not vote altruistically, from the heart, but from the head for those who would do the job and not meddle in their lives.
Achieving comfort in their freedoms, they got lazy and the heart tended to overcome the head. They began to vote more with the heart, growing a more meddling government to take from those who have to give to those who have not, bypassing all the ordinary charitable inclinations people had shown before.
The source of our voting decisions, then, is the heart, from altruistic feelings toward the needs of community, or the head, to stay the course for individual freedom, the proven source of our prosperity and happiness as a nation.
I think we all agree that the current political system is massively faiiled. Those who vote Repug-Dem are the servile of the massively failed system. Large numbers of them seem to be slowly coming unhinged and are slowly looking for alternatives, but they're still the servile.
IMO, any third party attempting to work inside the current voter base is just another "me too" of, by, and for the corruption machines. I mean, I think we have to assume that no third party can be even microscopically successful unless the system controllers say, "hey, lets get a third party in here to make it appear as though we have healthy dissent".
I know that such thinking gets immediately branded as "way too cynical". However, historically, it is only traditionally controlled political life in these United States. Limited dissent is nothing more, nothing less, than one tool used by the puppet-masters to control deference and resignation -- the two largest and most essential elements of American political life since WW2.
Limited dissent lays at the heart of the massively failed system.
Any political operation outside the system, I think, must start with unlimited dissent.
You can read about how the above is just my agreeing with my guru, Lawrence Goodwyn, in his 1978 book, "The Populist Moment". The approx 17-page "Introduction" in that book should be required reading for every American over the age of 14. (Note that the 1978 book is the abridged version of his 1976 book, "Democratic Promise: The Populist Moment In America". Very different Intros in the two books.)
Steve Osborn's article on NAIS brought back a memory of my participation in Government "Scenario Games" some years back.
Scenario #1: An emergency occurs and our facility has to increase production to X level in Y time.
We had to develop the following: Resources needed and assuming we had to compete for resources on the market, the cost to meet X & Y.
Scenario #2: An emergency occurs and our facility has to increase production to X level ASAP.
We had to develop the following: Resources needed and assuming we had the authority to confiscate everything except labor, the labor cost and the time needed.
Scenario #3: An emergency occurs and our facility has to increase production to X level ASAP.
We had to develop the following: Resources needed and given that we had the authority to confiscate everything including labor, the time needed.
All Scenarios assumed we would have absolute authority to forcefully take need as noted above. The force authority to be one of the resources we would have on demand. Soldiers made available to take into custody any material, equipment, or personnel we named.
Of course because of the nature of our product, we would be going after professionals experienced in our field.
Once named they would have no choice but to comply.
President John F. Kennedy has a special place in the hearts of Americans for many positive reasons but especially because he was assassinated in the middle of his term of office on November 22, 1963. A handsome and charismatic leader, he was a gifted orator whose speeches regularly focused on inspirational themes. He arrived at the White House with no executive experience, a factor that led him into serious difficulties early in his term.
In his campaign for election in 1960, Kennedy attacked the Eisenhower - Nixon administration from the right, accusing it of weakening American security by building too few planes, missiles and other military supplies. After taking power, Kennedy significantly increased U.S. military strength and began using it in Vietnam, increasing the number of US soldiers there from 665 to 16, 000, and sending them into combat in Vietnam for the first time.
Early in his term, Kennedy suffered a serious defeat when he allowed the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba that failed. Then he met in Vienna with Soviet Premier Khrushchev to negotiate rights to Berlin. That also failed, brought the two countries to the brink of war, and inaugurated a period of great tension and confrontation marked by the Soviet erection of the Berlin Wall.
Kennedy did have some minor successes in foreign-policy: establishing the Peace Corps, the Alliance for Progress in Latin America, and the Treaty Banning Nuclear Testing in the Atmosphere. His handling of the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 received mixed reviews: some praised the result that avoided nuclear war, others criticized Kennedy for "brinkmanship."
On domestic matters, Kennedy offered programs for significant reform in many areas, but he was unable to negotiate them through the Democratic Congress. They were either killed or not acted upon. On the civil rights crisis, Kennedy initially asked Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to cancel the 1963 March on Washington but acquiesced when it became inevitable. The Kennedy agenda was adopted by Congress under the leadership of his successor, Lyndon Johnson, who was an experienced manager and negotiator, who knew how to promote, threaten, swap and deal.
Now the powerful Kennedy family has endorsed Barack Obama for president because of his similarity in person, style, and the level of experience to the martyred president. Caroline Kennedy has written that "Obama would be a president like my father." Edward M. Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy, and Ted Sorensen agree with her.
If Obama wins the Democratic nomination and then the presidency, we would hope for his success in managing this complicated country of 300 million people with so many competing interests and negotiating with other nations to protect U.S. interests. In so many ways, Obama does remind of Kennedy; appearance, charisma, eloquence, poise and the emphasis on inspiration, but especially in his lack of executive experience. There is no guarantee that any of the presidential candidates of either party will be able to inspire, lead and manage. Of these abilities the most important is to manage and the career of charismatic John F. Kennedy proves the point.
The Facebook group called "I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush!" will reach one million members very soon, and to help them celebrate this milestone, I'm giving away books!
Digital versions of the two-volume series The Progressives' Handbook: Get the Facts and Make a Difference Now are being offered for the next two weeks, along with hyperlinked excerpts of the books' targeted-activism pages. Both books hit Amazon's political activism Top Ten bestseller list in December 2007, with Volume One going to #1.
Look at their track records and it can't be hard to tell whom is the only choice in 2008. Sure, I like Mike Huckabee, and he says the things that any fiscal conservative would want to hear, but religion has no place in politics, so he's out.
That leaves only Ron Paul.
The man has an entire political and personal history of following the constitution.
Sure, the mainstream media has put him down, even going as far as labling him that although true, but all-to-certain term that spells a death sentance, a "libertarian."
I once ran as a Libertarian Candidate, and I know how much of a political joke the party is, but Ron is the real deal, true to his word, strict to the constitution, and unlike 99.999% of those \paper candidates from the LP, electable.
We just have to get involved in the efforts to elect him and get to the polls ourselves. That's where it matters.
Who cares what Iowa and New Hampshire have said, get to the polls and elect Ron Paul now!!!
I'm writing in response to today's Daytona-Beach News-Journal Article "A Deserter's Story" about local soldier Sgt. Robert Keller who chose to move to Canada and be with his young family rather than deploy to Iraq for a third tour of combat duty as a front line infantryman in an illegal war of aggression. The 1945 Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunals deemed initiating a war of aggression to be the most serious war crime for being the action that spurs all other war crimes.
I would like to remind everyone of another "Deserter's" story ... that of George W. Bush. To this day no one can account for the one year or more of required duty he missed during a time of war in 1972-1973 while other young Americans like Sgt. Keller were serving and dying in Vietnam. Rather than face any punishment, let alone the death penalty, George W. Bush ended up President of the United States.
What's even more obscene is that five years ago this Monday, our Vietnam War "Deserter in Chief" knowingly lied to our troops, our military families, our country and the world about "Iraq seeking Uranium from Africa" so that he could get the support of the people for the Project for a New American Century neocons' pre-planned war on Iraq.
The 16 infamous words of that 2003 State of the Union were previously removed from Bush's speech due to our intelligence agencies not being able to support the claim. Neocon Deputy National Security Advisor Steven Hadley re-inserted the claim into the State of the Union knowing that the claim was false ... and his punishment after being found out was a promotion to our country's top National Security Advisor. Hadley is now making similar unsubstantiated WMD claims about Iran, the country next on the PNAC's September 2000 agenda.
The American people must live up to our role of self-governance by turning off our TV sets, getting involved and demanding accountability through Impeachment hearings as provided for in our Constitution ... the same Constitution that our soldiers swore their oaths of enlistment to "support and defend against all enemies, foreign and domestic".
My Grandson a few years ago asked me, "Papa, Who am I, and Why am I"? I told him he was the result of all that had ever been and the promise of all that will ever be. He demanded an explanation.
Well I explained "You have no control over what preceded you, what environment you were born to, who your parents are, or anything that has shaped realities of your existence to this point, but you are a descendant of those who came before -that's who you were at birth. But since your birth you have been shaping who you have become with what you inherited when you started. As to why you are- The prime directive of the Human race is that they procreate, to assure the potential survival of the human race. Notice I said potential. So why you are here is to be a good steward of the race and help assure its survival. And while you're here- it is your responsibility to prepare a better world for those that follow, those that will inherit what you leave-you're children and theirs."
Who are we as Americans? And what is our responsibility to all future Americans? Well as I told my grandson-As Americans we are the result of what has been American and we are Americans today to provide a future for those Americans who follow.
This year of 2008 we face a tipping point in what we will leave our future Americans to inherit.
Who should we elect to be our leaders? How will they shape our destiny? Where are we on our route to the future? And if we are off course, what caused it?
The most important knowledge we need is how to get back on course. I submit that when we select our future leaders we look at their Morality and Fidelity. Would a moral person refuse to obey the law of the land - our Constitution?
When our President and our elected leaders take the oath of office, to a person they swear to protect and uphold our Constitution from its enemies both foreign and domestic. Any leader not doing so is not only a lawbreaker, they have dismissed their Fidelity to us the electorate.
Is there any Candidate running that advocates a return to Constitutional law? Shouldn't we turn away from any and all who would either not protect our Constitution and from any that would enable others to ignore the rule of law?
If we actually do this, who would be left in Congress, or in The White House? And by the way, Judges and other officials not elected can be subjected to impeachment. Should we elect any candidate who ignores the First Amendment or any part of it?
Remember, the First Amendment promises the right of redress. Just today I noticed that the Supreme Court recently ruled that no one held in Gitmo has the right of Redress against the Defense Department. I didn't see any statement that only guilty people couldn't get redress, no, what I read is that no one is to be afforded redress.
That is not obeying our Constitution.
Well so whom should we elect? I submit that if we elect a candidate that will uphold the Constitution, return our country to rule by law - the Constitution, we will be getting back to the proper route to freedom.
That means we have to quit being a party first voter, we have to set aside our prejudices, we must look for the one bedrock qualification - a Candidate who believes in the Rule of Law - the Constitution.
This person will possess Morality and Fidelity for you and me.
We have witnessed several caucases and primaries, where those planning to vote have mentioned that they were undecided ... even up to the point of entering the voting booth! These were not simply Independent voters, but also included Democrats and Republicans. They couldn't make up their minds, which were apparently unable to decipher the kaliedescope of information and deliberate misinformation spewed out by party machinery.
What does one do when s/he is overwhelmed by political sensory overload? Walk away, and say: "A plague on all of you!" Vow never to waste your time listening to political mumbo-jumbo? Listen to your 7-year old first-grader and vote the way s/he says?
One potential alternative is to write a name in when you vote in a primary Write in Donald Duck, or Humpty Dumpty or Ronnie Paulie. If enough would write-in a name, perhaps the Party would realize the degree of disenchantment there is with all of their candidates.
Is that better, or worse, than being ambivalent and going into the voting booth to pick a name out of the air?
Eventually, of course, the day of the general election comes. If you still haven't made up your mind, and are too lazy to write-in the name of your desired candidate(S) .. Then Stay Home.
A democracy is defined as a government by the people, exercised either directly or through elected representatives. The common people are considered as the primary source of political power.
When our Democracy was established, the Founding Fathers did not have in mind a government of the elite, by the elite and for the elite.
Today, we have elected officials who show contempt for the very people who elected them to office. When the Citizens of a Democracy can't rely on those they elect to represent them, the people have the option to remove their leaders in the voting booth.
With almost half of the American people failing to participate in their democracy, we have some responsibility for the current culture of corruption in government.
We can make a difference in the direction of government polices - it requires citizen involvement to affect change. Voting is one responsibility that can not be taken lightly and, we can be heard by writing to our Senators and Representatives. Speak-out!
Regardless of your political views, a Democracy can only survive with citizen involvement. Our great Nation was built on the backs of the American majority.
Our government policies and the policies of corporate America have become one and the same. Carte Blanche for big business and special interest groups could be the down fall of our Democracy as we know it. We are becoming an American Oligarchy!
Congress is indebted to big business special-interest groups. The votes for NAFTA and CAFTA are examples of minority rule. The American majority raised serious concerns over the unfair trade agreements responsible for the accelerated out-sourcing of American jobs and technology.
Citizens' concerns over exploding trade deficits, the failure to secure our borders, and foreign policy failures are being ignored by our elected leaders.
I believe with pressure from the people we can repair our floundering Democracy. The American people must participate in the political process.
If we want honest leaders, we need to elect honest people to serve in government. When we see corruption in government and failures to act in the best interest of all the American people, we need to send many in our government home. Vote!
This is the instant coffee, fast-food generation. We cannot wait for the expected Messiah or Mahdi to show up and straighten out the world, so we focus more on the coming election that will bring us a new leader. We want a messiah for President, pure and simple. Save us, we cry. Save us from the ravages of freedom.
Be our guide, our mentor, our leader in all we are to do. We cry for you. We love you. Give us more! However, to give they gotta take! Take from what others have earned. Share the contents of each pantry with us, your loyal servants. We bow down to your great wisdom and intelligence.
Say what? Are you kidding? I don't think so!
Follow the little bouncing ball. The rhetoric of Clinton, Obama and Edwards is ripe with the emotional slogans that appeal to the weak, the greedy, the envious and angry among our citizens, which these messianic-types, crying out from the barricades, want to lead an army into every private bank account. The Republicans are beginning to pick it up as well.
Now, this is not how America was founded and structured. The last thing our Founders wanted was a messiah or mahdi, king or queen at the head of our government. The way our nation was structured is that each of us seeks, or should follow, our own messiah or mahdi with no involvement by government. Government is simply an organization that delivers those things we need and cannot do for ourselves, such as agreed upon rules of behavior, police, courts, prisons, forts and post roads.
That is not enough, so say many who see government as the great momma or poppa. That is part of human transition. When leaving the comfort and security of family into the cold, cold world where we need a replacement for the family, we look to government.
Our Founders helped organize, from the traditions established 150 years before the break with Britain, a nation where, once we leave our families, we could strike out on our own and do what humans are supposed to do, survive, strive and prosper. No one gave us a life jacket! We were expected to swim on own, perhaps help each other swim for the beach, but without a life jacket. The best life jacket is aspirations, knowledge and experience, not a hand from some do-gooder.
Nevertheless, this is the era in America where we need a messiah, and there will always be willing candidates for the job. Their only requirement is an ability to fool most of the people all of the time with their emotion-pulling words.
If that were the only requirement for the job, how will that messiah deal with all the forces lined up in opposition to America's continued existence? Can being a smooth and attractive speaker be all that is needed to operate the growing, overweight, oppressive organization of government?
Up to about a year ago, I had been registered and voted Democrat. But I am now convinced that our so-called "Democracy" is actually an "Oligarchy", and that no matter which political party wins ... those who financed their campaign will come-a-callin!
Since I am registered as Unaligned (U) in Pennsylvania, I am not entitled to vote in primaries. This is somewhat disconcerting, but the whole process seems like a farce anyway; i.e. until the political conventions are held.
I don't expect Ron Paul to win the Republican candidacy for president, but I do hope that he will take the opportunity to lead a "write-in" vote in the general election. I do not expect him to run on a "third-party" ticket, but I will write his name in for president.
Whomever he selects for vice-president is whom I was likely vote for; regardless what political party they belong to. Hopefully, Dr. Paul will be elected and he will have a chance to create a cabinet comprised of the best and the brightest persons capable of overseeing performance of their respective areas of responsibility.
We do have an ideal opportunity to redress the polarized political enviornment in Washington and restore the federal government to something more akin to what our forefathers intended when they created the US constitution.
Think that a good reason to not impeach is that it won't succeed? That is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't support it because it cannot pass, not only are you guaranteeing that, but you are reducing the record of support for the position.
It is a constitutional issue, dammit. Sadly, you people in Congress are the only ones who can take back our Constitution and you are dogging it.
The Patriot Act tossed out the most important part of the Bill of Rights and the next Patriot Act amendments for 2003 pretty much put the final nail in our coffin.
The Bush Imperium is systematically taking away the rights of the American Citizen, and Congress and the Supreme Court are letting it, if not abetting it.
I am sure that, somewhere in the bowels of the White House, at an undisclosed location, the slogan is, "Today America, tomorrow the world."
By allowing the Executive to erode our rights as citizens, our so-called representatives are clearing the way for a new version of Imperial Rome. They had their moment of glory, but remember what happened to them. They finally overreached themselves. The barbarians just kept coming, and coming, and coming. Eventually Rome fell, with enormous losses to the people.
John Edwards has pledged to fight the overweening influence of big corporations over our government. I believe that this is the main source of our current troubles - policies are driven by the interests of the wealthy few, rather than by the good of all the people.
Edwards would roll back the tax cuts that have been given to the rich, and make them pay their fair share. He also has a strong plan to combat global warming - something that the triumph of greed over sanity has prevented up to now.
He would negotiate international disputes, instead of rushing heedlessly into war, and he would get us out of Iraq.
I believe that John Edwards would make an excellent President of the United States.
John McCain, the "straight-talk express." (STE) The guy who tells it "like it is." He'd rather say something bad, than act like a politician...right?
Wrong.
McCain is as political as they come. And, this guy is totally clueless about the economy too.
According to McCain himself, the STE is "very well versed in economics." Well, that's how he answered a Tim Russert question in last night's debate.
But, when Ron Paul asked him a question about the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, McCain acted like a 2nd-grader who didn't do his homework.
Watch it:
Obviously, the STE had absolutely no idea what Ron Paul was talking about. But, if he was such a "straight-talker" wouldn't he have admitted that fact?
McCain wants more sunshine. Sure.
I'd like to see more sunshine too. Shining the light on the fact that McCain is a clueless warmonger - and the name "straight talk express" couldn't be further from the truth.
My article on What laws Bush has to obey gets too long if I go into what the people of Germany did for him when he had a 90+% approval rating with them.
"All he asked for" was a little freedom from "constraints" of their constitution so that he could protect the Deutschland from its enemies.
As they say the rest is history. Hitler came to power on a campaign of peace and prosperity thru hard work in civil works.
I have a whole chapter on this in my book I'm writing.
He got rid of Habeas Corpus, then began spying on citizens, opened secret prisons, legalized torture, raised a huge army - do you see the similarity? Of course his cohorts were tried and executed for their complicity of in these war crimes.
I support Ron Paul's bid for the presidency because of his strong views on limiting government interference in our lives, on restoring Constitutional controls on the powers of the Federal bureaucracy. In particular, he has demonstrated the will to take lobbies and the bureaucracy, particularly the FDA.
He has demonstrated integrity, and the ability to turn his back on power, keeping his promise to be a member of Congress for a limited time, then return to private life. He then returned to Congress because of how totally screwed up it was, with a mission to try to help clean up the mess.
As a doctor and a taxpayer, he knows well the difficulties in bringing order out of the chaos of health care, and firmly believes in peoples' choices over government control in this important area.
The Bush regime, or I suppose I should say administration, has hijacked the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights and stolen them from the American People.
Shouldn't the Supreme Court be ruling on the Constitutionality of virtually canceling the Constitution? As I read it, the prime purpose of the Supremes is to uphold the Constitution. Is the reason this is not being brought before them the fact that they are too right wing to remember their own obligation?
They spent millions on trying to get Clinton impeached for getting a BJ in the oval office. Surely some time and effort can be spent on getting these pirates under control.
Clinton got jacked off, but We the People are on the verge of going down in the most oppressive and invasive police state the world has ever seen and we are just supposed to wait patiently until the next election?
What ever happened to international law? Common decency? Sanctity of treaties? The UN was formed to prevent nations attacking other nations. Now, one tin pot dictator with all the marbles can just declare all that work irrelevant and cancel it out?
We have over three thousand MIRV missiles that can be launched in minutes and targeted anywhere on the globe. We have Chemical and Bioweapons labs, in violation of treaties.
The whole world is holding its collective breath waiting to see who next displeases Bush and becomes the next target. My God, if this doesn't look like a replay of 1930's Europe, I don't know what does, but the real threat to the world has never been some two bit asshole in the Iraqi Desert.
John Edwards has my vote for 2008. Watching his debates has convinced me that he is truly a sincere and compassionate american.
He has vowed to NOT take monies from PACs and special interest groups. He has vowed to return our troops from this senseless invasion and merciless killing of innocent people in Iraq. He has vowed to do what he can to end this corporate greed that runs our system. He has vowed to promote a universal healthcare system.
Truly a candidate for the people and "A new America!"
Turning this nation around so that it deserves the respect of its people and others will be an undaunting task that can not be done by one man. We must all do our part.
Look in the mirror... "If you're not part of the solution...you're part of the problem"
How many lies did the Bush Administration tell to push this country into war with Iraq? Hmmm, WMD's, Saddam and Al Qaeda, mushroom clouds. Ok, how about a few dozen to continue those claims?
I couldn't have been more wrong. The Center for Public Integrity just released a new report documenting literally hundreds of lies. 935 to be exact. Here's what they sent out in an email announcing the report:
The Center's founder, Chuck Lewis, and researchers at the Fund for Independence in Journalism have painstakingly detailed 935 false statements by Bush administration officials about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. This exhaustive examination shows that these officials were part of a calculated campaign to galvanize public opinion that ultimately led to the war in Iraq under false pretenses.
The statements, made over two years starting with September 11, 2001, were made by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other top administration officials. Not surprisingly, the officials with the most opportunities to make speeches, grant media interviews, and otherwise frame the public debate also made the most false statements, according to this first-ever comprehensive analysis of the entire body of prewar rhetoric.
The Center's first report of 2008 lays out the facts behind the Bush administration's march to war. In addition, the fully searchable online database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis.
Do you know what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King's dream was when he was assassinated in 1968?
An article by Associated Press writer Deepti Hajela that ran in newspapers around the country offered an answer to that question. This is from the article --
"'Everyone knows -- even the smallest kid knows about Martin Luther King -- can say his most famous moment was that ?I have a dream' speech,' said Henry Louis Taylor Jr., professor of urban and regional planning at the University of Buffalo. 'No one can go further than one sentence. All we know is that this guy had a dream. We don't know what that dream was.'
"King was working on anti-poverty and anti-war issues at the time of his death. He had spoken out against the Vietnam War and was in Memphis when he was killed in April 1968 in support of striking sanitation workers.
"King had come a long way from the crowds who cheered him at the 1963 March on Washington, when he was introduced as 'the moral leader of our nation' -- and when he pronounced 'I have a dream' on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. [1]
"By taking on issues outside segregation, he had lost the support of many newspapers and magazines, and his relationship with the White House had suffered, said Harvard Sitkoff, a professor of history at the University of New Hampshire, who has written a recently published book on King.
"'He was considered by many to be a pariah,' Sitkoff said.
"But he took on issues of poverty and militarism because he considered them vital 'to make equality something real and not just racial brotherhood -- but equality in fact,' Sitkoff said." [2]
In case you haven't noticed, the country has had two dreamers on its collective mind in recent days.
George Bush has a dream that he talked about on January 17, 2007 -- an economic stimulus package to avert the recession that appears already to be underway, a federal tax rebate to put cash into the hands of people, especially those with low and moderate incomes, in hopes of boosting the rapidly going-south U.S. economy. [3] Many Democrats have criticized the supposed plan that would send money only to taxpayers, leaving out the poorest Americans, those who pay no tax. The latter include the elderly poor on fixed incomes and the working poor with families, people who could most use a windfall.
There's no economist writing these words, but it seems from here that a great deal or most of the projected $145-150 billion stimulus package is likely to be used by its recipients to pay down debt -- of which Americans have an awfully lot -- making the banks and credit card companies happy, and not be used to lift the economic boat with consumer spending. Besides, inflation is fast reducing how high any amount spent would lift the boat.
And then there's the question of whose economic boat would get lifted by stimulated consumer spending, since such a huge percentage of consumer products sold in the U.S. are not made by Americans in the U.S. And how about the stimulus package also stimulating the federal deficit, thereby stimulating inflation, not to mention stimulating the further devaluation of the dollar, thereby also stimulating inflation, all of which will stimulate decreased purchasing power of the bucks to be handed out?
Besides, it sure seems that changes in federal fiscal and trade and economic and domestic policies that would result in more good-paying jobs for Americans and less dependency on foreign-made products and services, thereby having a long-term positive effect on the economy, would be better than an election-year tax rebate of dubious value.
Chalmers Johnson, author of "Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic," and, in my opinion, one of the world's foremost experts on American foreign policy, has written an excellent article discussing the destructive domestic effects of empire.
Here's an excerpt:
It is virtually impossible to overstate the profligacy of what our government spends on the military. The Department of Defense's planned expenditures for fiscal year 2008 are larger than all other nations' military budgets combined. The supplementary budget to pay for the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not part of the official defense budget, is itself larger than the combined military budgets of Russia and China. Defense-related spending for fiscal 2008 will exceed $1 trillion for the first time in history. The United States has become the largest single salesman of arms and munitions to other nations on Earth. Leaving out of account President Bush's two on-going wars, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s. The defense budget for fiscal 2008 is the largest since World War II.
Before we try to break down and analyze this gargantuan sum, there is one important caveat. Figures on defense spending are notoriously unreliable. The numbers released by the Congressional Reference Service and the Congressional Budget Office do not agree with each other. Robert Higgs, senior fellow for political economy at the Independent Institute, says: "A well-founded rule of thumb is to take the Pentagon's (always well publicized) basic budget total and double it." Even a cursory reading of newspaper articles about the Department of Defense will turn up major differences in statistics about its expenses. Some 30-40% of the defense budget is "black," meaning that these sections contain hidden expenditures for classified projects. There is no possible way to know what they include or whether their total amounts are accurate.
Last year, I went to see Mr Johnson give a presentation. One thing that stood out - and seems to be prevalent in this current article, is a simple principle: "Things that can't go on forever...don't"
We can't continue this policy of empire forever. Period. We can't afford it, the world opposes it, and more and more people here are getting completely fed up. Sooner or later, this house of cards is going to collapse.
The goal, of course, should be to change these policies before we're forced to.
Mr Johnson's recommendations:
reversing Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for the wealthy
beginning to liquidate our global empire of over 800 military bases
cutting from the defense budget all projects that bear no relationship to the national security of the United States
ceasing to use the defense budget as a Keynesian jobs program.
He ends with this stark warning:
If we do these things we have a chance of squeaking by. If we don't, we face probable national insolvency and a long depression.
All of the current Republican candidates for president regularly and repeatedly invoke the name and the spirit of Ronald Reagan as the patron saint of the party, hoping to bless themselves by adoration of his life and work. Even one Democrat, Barack Obama has used the spirit of Reagan as an endorsement of change saying to a Nevada newspaper that Reagan offered a "sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."
Reagan did change American politics by assembling a coalition composed of social conservatives, national security hawks, pro-business advocates, anti-tax activists, and religious fundamentalists. To the social conservatives, Reagan attacked the federal welfare system using manufactured stories of welfare mothers driving in pink Cadillacs to pick up their checks. To the national security hawks, he got tough with the Soviet Union, threatening the "evil empire" with nuclear annihilation. To the pro-business advocates, he relaxed antitrust enforcement and listened to corporate lobbyists. To anti-tax activists, he dramatically reduced the tax rate, demeaned the Internal Revenue Service; Eisenhower's top rate was 91%, Kennedy reduced it to 70%, Reagan and GOP successors cut it again by half.
But Reagan's unique contribution was to motivate the religious fundamentalists into serious political activity. At a political function in 1971, for example, he revealed a belief and familiarity in religious millennialism: "Everything is falling into place. It can't be too long now. Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies of God's people. That must mean they'll be destroyed by nuclear weapons. They exist now and they never did in the past." Then Reagan pointed out that Gog, the enemy of God and Israel is Russia, which "has set itself against God." This echoes what the Rev Pat Robertson had been preaching and writing, that the invention of nuclear weapons should be welcomed as a sign of the immediacy of the Second Coming.
Reagan's notoriety and popularity increased as an icon of entertainment, bolstered by his acting career, his hosting of television programs, his work as spokesman for General Electric, and most importantly his electoral success in California. Some regarded him, however, as a washed up actor, an ignoramus and a tool of the rabid right. He suffered much of the same criticism of his intellectual capacity as George W. Bush.
Reagan did change America, as Bill Clinton said in 1991, while running for president,by exalting "private gain over public obligation, special interests over the common good, wealth and fame over work and family." The great failure of the Clinton administration was that it failed to change the Reagan scenario. Now, the Democrats will have another opportunity but the campaigns so far have not spelled out the changes in foreign and domestic policy that will steer the nation away from Reaganism.
As my politics are generally progressive, my opting for Ron Paul would seem out of character. And frankly I find some of his political stances objectionable.
Even so, from the very beginning of Bush's presidency and his Justice Department's attacks on the Bill of Rights and personal privacy, Dr. Paul has remained steadfastly and publicly pro-constitution and pro-personal freedom.
In my opinion, his angry public outcry that congress hadn't been granted sufficient time to even read the Patriot Act, was a defining moment; as was his condemnation of the administration's public statement that any lawmaker who voted against it was acting treasonously.
Paul's also been against the Iraq war right from the very beginning. And he's strongly against any armed conflict with Iran.
Most importantly, during the Bush years, in acts largely unrecognized for what they really are, the White House and congress have reversed practically all the primary principles of human liberty achieved by the American Revolution and established as our highest law in the Constitution. The worst portions of all this 'legal' machination has been upheld as 'constitutional' by the courts.
Dr. Paul offers the best hopes for reversing what exists as a successful domestic coup. He also has party cross-over appeal and exists as a legitimate populist option.
Sadly, though, as long as computerized voting machines hold sway this is all an exercise in venting gas anyway. The question is, will the gross lawlessness of obviously stealing elections have any effect on a somnolent majority?
From the "you've got to be kidding me" file, Mitt Romney made some - well, jaw-dropping - comments at a Martin Luther King day parade in Jacksonville, FL yesterday
As he posed for a picture with a group of young people, the typically old-fashioned Romney was relaxed enough to quote from a popular hit single from a few years back.
"Who let the dogs out?" he called out, as he stood there beaming in his shirt and tie. "Who! Who!"
But wait, there's more:
He took pictures with many in the crowd and greeted one baby wearing a necklace saying, "Hey buddy! How's it going? What's happening? You got some bling bling here!"
I know you are busy and all but I wrote asking you to vote against specific proposed legislation. You didn't mention what I asked about. Instead you sent me a form letter. Are you listening to your electorate?
This country is in serious condition. You might be someone who could help us get out of our plight. You could also be one of the enablers who have corrupted our government and took us to where we are.
Which are you? No form letters please. What have you done specifically to stop the corruption in Washington and to restore our civil rights lost in the last eight years? That's all I want to know. That answer and the proven record will determine whether I vote for you or campaign against you.
I asked Jay Dickey when he last ran for office while he was making a speech advocating caps on malpractice suits against health providers , "Jay you keep talking about the horrific cost of malpractice insurance-will you also advocate placing a cap on what doctors can earn and Hospitals can charge".
I asked in front of the crowd: "What percent of a Doctors income is consumed by malpractice insurance and is that cost a deductible cost in the Business Tax return, i. e. does he charge the patient enough to cover the extra cost" He didn't know the cost and therefore he didn't know what he was advocating.
Do you charge a person the full co-pay for a Drug even if the amount that you would accept from the Prescription Drug Insurance company is less than the Co-Pay?. I've seen that happen as a matter of business practice. Is that not immoral if not illegal?
Just some simple answers to let me know what type person you are. If I don't know I'll certainly not vote for you.
Carrying a pocket-sized copy of the Constitution, Dennis Kucinich has continually spoken against and voted against the Military Commissions Act, the Patriot Act, and the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Act, the Iran Freedom and Support Act, as well as other stepping stones towards the losses of freedoms and promotion of war.
He's also criticized the foreign policy of President Bush, including the 2003 invasion of Iraq and what appears to many to be building American hostility towards Iran. He also hopes to instill a cabinet-level "Department of Peace"when elected.
In regards to the realms of teen pregnancy issues, he has shown to support elimination of the non-working "abstinence only" education in preference to full education, in the hopes that there would be no need for abortion issues in the future.
Although in personal favor of pro life, he noted the direction that Congress has taken, increasingly, is to make it impossible for women to be able to have an abortion if they need to protect their health.
I support Dennis Kucinich, and I urge you to do your own research in the candidates' various voting histories and backgrounds, to determine your vote; turn off the speeches and look at the others' actual voting histories.
We should really nuke the entire election process and start over.
Wealthy individuals are in control of our country and many are not even us citizens. The federal reserve is a stifling burden and illegal. Corporations are out of control. The medical industry is killing us. The insurance companies are stealing from us.
We are all in debt and losing our homes. We can't afford education. Oil companies have us at war. Our infrastructures are falling apart. We don't have clean water or enough of it. Lobbyists are bribing our politicians. Our food and products are not made here anymore and they are killing us. and on, and on, and on.
Ron Paul is the only candidate that comes close to addressing this nightmare we have.
President Ronald Reagan said that nuclear weapons are "totally irrational, totally inhumane, good for nothing but killing, possibly destructive of life on earth and civilization." On March 23, 1983, President Reagan's proposed to "eliminate the weapons themselves." In 1985, at their Geneva Summit Conference, President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev made their joint statement that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought."
In January 2007, a conference on nuclear weapons was held at the very conservative Hoover Institution at Stanford University. Four of the participants produced an article "A world free of nuclear weapons" that appeared in the Wall Street Journal: Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State under President Nixon, George Shultz, Secretary of State under President Reagan, William Perry, Secretary of Defense under President Clinton, and former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia. All were conservatives; two were Republicans, two Democrats. All knew a lot about nuclear weapons. They quoted Reagan and spoke from experience, urging implementation of the neglected goal of worldwide nuclear arsenal reductions, negotiated in full embrace of the ideal of abolition.
The four conservative gurus had a political plan-to insert into the presidentential campaign a serious discussion of the most important issue facing the United States and the world. Their conservative backgrounds would allow their ideas about nuclear security to be accepted as a framework for a national colloquy, bypassing the prejudice against liberals and peaceniks in imperial America.
However, it did not happen. The Republican candidates simply ignored the issue. The Democrats acknowledged the dangers, but chose to focus their campaigns on Iraq, healthcare, immigration, personality and electability. For the media and the organizers of the repetitious and boring debates, nuclear weapons abolition was ignored.
But the real failure must be assigned to the voters who have not demanded answers from the candidates. They know that the arsenals of the U.S. and Russia are powerful enough to irradiate the entire planet, to threaten the existence of the human species, to destroy civilization. They must realize that if North Korea, Iran and Pakistan can manufacture nuclear weapons, that capability is within the range of dozens of other countries, that nuclear weapons are the great equalizers reducing the great powers' ability to use conventional force. And nuclear terrorism may be just around the corner.
It is only a few minutes before midnight on the atomic clock. Time for a wakeup and time to prepare for abolition by adopting: A declaration of no first use of nuclear weapons A universal policy of taking all nukes off hair trigger alert An international plan to secure all nuclear materials A ban on building new nukes A ban on all nukes in space Ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Reductions in the size of nuclear forces in all states that possess them
Voters of America: ask your favorite candidates for President, Senate, and House of Representatives what they are doing to save the world from nuclear annihilation -- the most important issue of our time.
I heard a story, back during the Jimmy Carter days when inflation reached double digits, about two young men who lived in Germany before the fall of the Weimar Republic. Their father died and left each of them one million marks. One was very frugal, having learned well the virtues of thrift from his late father, and he put his money into the bank to draw interest. The other was somewhat wild, so he put his money into good times, with wine, women and song parties. He had a good time while his brother did not.
When the Republic collapsed, the money became virtually worthless. It took a wheel-barrow full of paper money being rushed to the store just to buy a loaf of bread. The frugal brother could barely feed himself on what he put in the bank, even if he could withdraw it. The playboy brother was much better off, because he could trade the empty bottles. The lesson was clear, that if you hold some commodities in demand, such as silver and gold, you might be able to barter them for what you need.
Money only has value if people will accept it in payment for what you need. If a government is so poorly managed that it allows its money to be undermined, its people will suffer the consequences. Yet, we seem to accept the rapid loss of value of our money and we are looking to repeat it.
Why will this be? Because government wants to satisfy our needs, pay for everything, without our having to earn it ourselves. That is attractive to those who cannot see beyond their immediate needs or care about the results of getting something for nothing. What they cannot see is that something for nothing is worth nothing, and America is heading into that trap.
Government has only to crank up the printing press and make more money, and since it puts it into circulation, it always gets highest value first, until no one will accept it for payment. At that point, government must operate everything and those working must do so as slaves to the state.
The big question now should be to ask; why did America move this far down the road to oblivion? Can we stop it before it is too late? Only if we pay better attention to whom we vote for and why.
Ron Paul is the candidate the Establishment doesn't want us to consider. If you like the status quo, vote for any of the others. You can have a female one or a black one or an evangelical one, even a Mormon one, but they all miss the major issues of our time.
Only Ron Paul will end the wars immediately. Only he understands that we are bankrupting our nation by trying to maintain a global military/commercial empire. Only he sees the folly of playing "Whack-a-Mole" with terrorists in every country on the globe.
Why not try peace as a general policy, rather than bomb the Third World into submission to get our way?
Of all the candidates, only Ron Paul believes in humanity enough to let us make our own mistakes or discover our own genius.
He will stop trying to change human nature by force:
No more Prohibition
no more wars on Poverty
no more gov't interference in marriage decisions
no federal involvement in reproductive choices.
In short - Freedom with Responsibility.
Ron Paul is also the choice of voters all over the world - by far! They know he is the one who can to return America to the principles that made it loved and not feared. He needs our votes. Join us.
With enough support for Ron Paul, the neocons won't dare deny us this election. Non-voters: Speak up - it may be your last chance!
There is no threat, internal or external, to this country that can possibly justify setting aside the Constitution and Bill of Rights. These are what make this country unique. If we had a Supreme Court that didn't seem to think that Hitler was a liberal, the so-called Patriot Act would have been dismissed as unconstitutional as it sets aside seven of the first ten amendments.
Of course the Supreme Court set aside Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution by appointing a president, and Congress set aside Article I Section 8 by giving up its power to declare war to the appointed president.
Maybe you people in Congress no longer care about the Constitution of the United States, but a lot of us do.
Without our Constitutional guarantees, the United States will cease to exist - save in name only. We will be no more than a large, dangerous, banana republic run by a dictator armed with many "weapons of mass destruction."
Remember your oath, "I, AB, 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."
Please live up to it.
--------------------- I sent this letter to my so-called "representatives" in Congress...I hope someone is listening besides Carnivore. If you feel it would do some good to pass it around, please do so.
Codependency of State? Daisy covered chains of dependance? When the disillusionment of a society sinks in to make it reality with no sign of a viable alternative, our freedoms, our choices, our rights have become ensnared in a web of false promises.
This state of being comes, usually willingly, at the cost of freedom and liberty. Society can and will adhere to a government that is separated from the populace, so long as they feel secure and comfortable. Security and comfort come by way of laws and legislation.
When a society allows a government to dictate mores beyond the very basic tenants of human rights, it begins a slow downward spiral into dependancy on the state for moral validation, based on the premise of safety.
As with many things in life, the more we allow an outside force to influence our thoughts and opinions, and thus presumably control us over time, the less we seem to be able to work out societal issues on our own.
On a federal level our government was set up to help aid the state governments, but not much else. The regulations, laws, dictates, etceteras were for the most part set up to regulate the government, not the citizens. It outlined what the government could do, and what the rights of the citizens were, rather than what the citizens couldn't do.
The individual states focused on that aspect, seeing as the states knew better what the needs and requirements of their constituents were. As our government decided to begin mandating laws on a federal level, presumably when our country began to grow at enormous rates, we began to give away our freedoms.
Laws tell citizens what they cannot legally do, but do little to guide citizens as to what they are legally allowed to do. Therefore, when individuals interpret laws they inevitably come to the conclusion that if there isn't a law against an action, it must be alright to do.
Of course, we all know that just because one can do something, it doesn't mean one should. Thus the need for more laws, more legislation, and more restrictions on freedom. The increase of laws also increase the thought process that if it isn't illegal, it's acceptable. And so on and so forth until we eventually find ourselves in a totalitarian state of being, where nothing can be done without the approval of the State.
Citizens can and do become dependent, to the point of being codependent on the rulings of its government, rather than their own common sense and moral judgment. The longer this proceeds, the worse it gets. At which point, and I believe that we are almost there, the general population becomes morally, ethically, and intellectually lazy.
Henceforth the passage into a slavery of sorts.
This is the reason in my opinion, that the founding fathers sought to control the government, and not its people. The elite also become dependent on this style of governance. If they could not enforce or keep it this way, they could not maintain their social positions.
How have we come this far and not realized the potential for an American downfall?
I emphamatically believe that John Edwards is the only candidate who is in the Presidential race that truly represents the American people. He understands the value of having a strong middle-class, which in turn, enables a stronger economy.
Without a stronger economy, all the hope for a better future are mute. Edwards' strength lies in his holding corporate America accountable to the raping of OUR government as OUR interests are sold to the highest bidder.
I believe he will stand up against 'the machine' and restore a semblance of what OUR government once stood for. On every issue facing this nation, from foreign policy to national policy, from healthcare to education, John Edwards has the clarity of vision to move us forward.
John Edwards does not have to wrap up 'change' and 'hope' in a pretty sermon to evoke his beliefs; rather, he is a man who speaks truths, no matter how difficult it is for some to hear. I encourage everyone to step back from the hype that is being force-fed to us all, and really look at what our future would be like without John Edwards as our next President.
Politics depends on lies and divisions. I'm anti-political and pro-peace, therefore against war potential.
Thus, an active military- whether in "war" or not (It's virtual war if nothing else; and recently it's war on dissent or opposition, here and elsewhere) means war potential: that also makes me anti-military.
As far as peace goes, you use politics to try to get it, when that is as anti-peace as it gets.
I study politics but only as a sociologist of sorts, not because I'm for anyone. Even the best president around would get my boo.
There was a good man I knew about- then he became a mayor.
Shackling freedom one person at a time. Shackling freedom one ?terrorist' at a time. Shackling freedom one 'non-terrorist' at a time. Shackling freedom one 'enemy combatant' at a time. Shackling freedom one 'non-enemy combatant' at a time. Shackling one immigrant, one émigré, one designated enemy at a time. Shackling freedom one non-person at a time.
Shackling freedom one color at a time. Shackling freedom one gender at a time. Shackling freedom one belief at a time. Shackling freedom one city, one country, one world at a time.
Feel the fear. Feel the pain. Feel the sadness. Feel the anger.
Stop the excuses. Stop the lies. Stop the shackling.
Free the bodies. Free the minds. Free the hearts. Free the thoughts. Free the feelings. Free the lives. Free the truth. Free the love. Free the hope. Free the world.
I'm for Ron Paul because with the word "change" seeming to be the buzzword for this election, he is the only candidate that I see bringing real change to the table. I don't agree with every single one of his positions, but he's closer to my views about what needs to happen in this country in order to get us away from the direction we have been heading in than anyone else.
It seems to me that the Republicans can lead the country, but persist in leading us in the wrong direction, witness the Iraq debacle.
Meanwhile, the Democrats just don't have enough organization and unity amongst themselves to even lead us at all.
They consistently get hamstrung by the Republicans who have been very successful (with the help of the mainstream media) in portraying all Democratic party members as being liberals who want only to raise taxes for social program giveaways.
In such a political scenario Ron Paul would be a breath of fresh air which this country desperately needs.
During WWII, the Korean War, and to a large extent during the Vietnam War and the Cold War, it was natural to consider American influence as something benevolent.
Few people in the world hold this view any longer.
Some of the main reasons:
The US starts a war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, and probably everything to do with oil and GB junior wanting to go one better than his dad. In general: The US not acting like a friendly world policeman, but more like the neighborhood bully.
Deterioriation of civil rights in the US, deterioration in US respect for international law
US dismissal of climate change, claiming the right to burn the world's resources for its own good.
The US pushing religion - why should religious US leaders be considered any different from Muslim or other non-reality oriented leaders?
Dennis Kucinich is a six term member of Congress who has devoted his career to fighting for poor and middle Americans. When he was Mayor of Cleveland he acted courageously by protecting Muny Light from privatization even though it led to him being blamed for the city filing for bankruptcy.
He has served in all three branches of government and at both Local, State and Federal levels. Kucinich is the only Presidential candidate who voted against the Iraq War resolution and since then has consistently voted against war funding.
Kucinich has a plan to begin the immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and to give reparations to the Iraqi people for the damage caused by the U.S. invasion and occupation.
Kucinich will cut wasteful military spending and use the money to strengthen Social Security, rebuild our infrastructure, and and provide health care for all Americans.
Kucinich will also cancel U.S. participation in NAFTA and other trade agreements which cause high paying jobs to be moved overseas.
These are just a few reasons why I support Dennis Kucinich!
Of all the many real and faux change candidates John Edwards clearly has the best and most intense populist rhetoric. Considering his priority to attack the corrupt forces in government and address eonomic inequality and anxiety, anyone committed to voting and wanting serious political change should support him.
But, clearly his populist message has not worked in Iowa and New Hampshire. He is losing because of the soft qualities of Obama, namely his better speaking ability and more positive, fluff rhetoric.
If Obama had not run this time, Edwards would have been a clearer and more effective change alternative to Clinton.
It isn't often that you can find a man who consistently stands behind his word after being in office for over 10 years. Ron Paul is that man.
He is a strict constitutionalist, and has proven it with every vote he casts as a Representatve.(see 600 articles he has written if you doubt his belief system and veracity)
Frequently, when it is some politically popular issue, he is the only one who will vote according to the Bill of Rights and the Constitution.
He is the only candidate that will immediately begin removing troops from the war zones and all occupied areas.
He will not borrow billions of dollars to aid other countries and cause us to pay huge interest to China from tax payer dollars.
He would work to finally end the treacherous IRS and Federal Reserve.
Both the IRS and the Fed rob the people of their money and their peace of mind. We cannot print endless streams of dollars without huge inflation (which we already have)and a resounding crash in the near future. This gives the favored few the opportunity to swoop in and buy up everything for pennies on the dollar like during the last depression.
Whether one is Republican, Libertarian, or Populist, it does not matter, because he is for the people and our personal liberties and rights. There is so much more that could be said, but it is easy to find information about Ron Paul that speaks for itself.
Even when they try to defame him with lies, his record alone verifies that he is a man of honor and decency. He is sincere, honest, and a true statesman. Everyone of us must back him in every way possible, or we will pay a devasting price by the final destruction of our wonderful country and her fine people.
A reader sent me this article from Portland. When you couple this with Bush's Executive Order that allows the government to seize the assets of anyone who questions or interferes with government policy, such as Iraq, or going to war with Iran, and further, can seize the assets of anyone who aids a person or family who's assets have been seized, and this "Commission" can do the defining, I think we are running out of options.
It is foreseeable Government could use S.1959 "Commission Reports" to show that an individual or organization's members were "idealistically based toward Violence" or supported Violent Radicalization as a reason to deny a Citizen their right to own a Firearm.
In the name of National Security - government can allege their "New Government Commission" has identified Citizens and organization members' that should be prohibited from owning guns because they are "idealistically based toward Violence and "could" support "Violent Radicalization or Home Grown Terrorism." No doubt the "S.1959 Commission" will provide government with a large list of U.S. Citizens and immigrants. Government has called lawful anti war protestors potential terrorists and a threat to National Security.
I am for Mr. Dennis Kucinich because of his unwavering stance on the impeachment of the current leaders of our country. In my opinion, the demise of true Democracy in our country, the very real threat to our constitution and Bill of Rights is so great that to vote or elect anyone else is similar to condoning these action's.
Dennis Kucinich is the only candidate that is not in lock-step with the other "professional politicians". He is the only candidate that I trust to do the right thing's for our country. He is the only candidate that I believe that will really represent the average American and protect the average American from threats external as well as internal.
I know that many people have stated he is not electable and no one knows who he is, but I have hope that people will soon start hearing his message of hope and determination; to help America return to being the country that I can be proud to be a citizen of.
I do not agree with everything that Dennis Kucinich is for, but I would much rather have him as my president than someone else that has no interest in my welfare or my neighbors' welfare. I think that our country must have drastic changes to help turn it around. If not, I fear what our future will be like not only in the near future, but for my children as well.
When the United States became the United States it was done so as a revolutionary act against tyranny and oppression. The newly formed government was designed to remove the constraining and domineering ties of the Monarchy. Liberty, freedom, and most important of all, representation were the key words of the infant country.
Democracy was nothing new. The Greeks upheld highly moral and liberating ideals which we have modeled our own government on. Democracy had a tempestuous ride throughout history, coming and going like an idea that comes to one in the middle of the night. It was, in most cases, fleeting, constantly being replaced by Feudalism, or Monarchy, or barbarianism and Tyranny.
It was in the newly formed United States, however - that the notion was solidified. The democracy here has outlasted all but the strongest of her predecessors. The question however, is one of great import. Is our form of democracy now obsolete?
Like many before, democracy has fallen to the wills of dictators and slave makers. The economic growth, upward mobility, and active participation in the government has been the stalwart mark of a democratic society, and the reason for it's success.
No democracy however, has withstood the economic growth, upward mobility, and the boundless growth of population that we experience today, including our own which has evolved into the most current form of corruption and negligence. The argument that needs to be addressed is the ideology of an antiquated government.
In the years to follow the revolution the founders of this new government saw fit to adapt certain laws, regulations and rights almost wholly concerned with those governing rather than those being governed. They simply did not posses the foresight however, to envision the country that we have become. Therein lies the whole of the problem. When first brought to light, in foreign history and in America the design of democracy worked fairly well because communities were much smaller, the world much larger, and the country itself operated on an incredibly smaller scale.
Our new strand of politics has disintegrated into the meaningless, wasteful, yet all encompassing chess game that inevitably determines the outcome of the human condition. Our representatives no longer reside among the communities they supposedly represent. They no longer struggle for betterment as their constituents do. They live like the aristocracy of old, securing their power and wealth through vast elite networks ripe with corruption.
They have become "Career Politicians" a relatively new breed of democratic leadership that ensure they will never return to their humble upbringings, if they have ever experienced such a life in the first place. They will retire when they feel like it, with enough wealth and political prowess to keep them at arms length from the everyday endeavors of the unsavory strain of social strata.
The caste of citizens who are affected most will be invisible to their eyes, non-existent in their world. They will never know life without health care, money, or proper education. They will not return to crime ridden urban areas to join in the fight for the liberation and mobility of our poorest citizens. In this sense, politicians - and certainly our government - have removed themselves and nearly the entirety of the process from the outstretched arms of the very people they are charged to represent.
Democracy has slid into aristocracy, liberty into daisy covered chains of dependency. For at one time the governing body of our country depended on the people it represented as much, if not more, than the people depended on the government. Now the people depend on the government, and the government acts of its own accord, separately indeed almost in disdain for the people. It is for this reason that our democracy no longer functions as a democracy.
I support John Edwards because he understands what is like to be an average working American, as that was how he grew up in the Carolinas. He also knows and acknowledges America is divided into the have's and the rest of us, and while he may not have all of Bill Richardson's qualifications, of all the democrats left standing (other than Dennis Kucinich, whom I suspect won't last much longer, but I could be wrong), he is the one I believe could pull America back together again.
I suppose if I absolutely have to support one of those media darling celebrities, I'll just puke and continue the march. I supported John Edwards for Vice President when he ran with Kerry, who decided to support one of the celebrity darlings, but at least Edwards got a bigger applause than Kerry whenever they spoke.
His platform issues may not fit the party's planks to a "T," but they're probably close enough for government work.
This isn't the country I defended for so many years and I want the old one back!
Have you been following the Gulf of Tonkin, er Hormuz incident? There are a number of articles on GlobalResearch.CA on the subject. However, what I find quite interesting is that there was an article right after it happened. An interview with, I believe, an Admiral, by British press, I think.
He said there was no threat, it was just a routine ID pass. Happens all the time. Five or six boats come out and one makes a pass to record the ship's numbers. He said the bridge communications is just like city band. They all use it, both sides, to crack jokes, trade insults, and exchange information.
He said there were no threats, and no mysterious boxes dropped in the water, no tension. He said the boats, if armed, are armed with a machine gun. Not much threat against a cruiser.
I wish I'd hard copied it as it seems to be gone now, and the Navy is jumping on the attack threat bandwagon.
I wonder what Bush is going to promise the Saudis to get them to jump on the train. Maybe he'll deed them Yosemite and Yellowstone for a new brace of amusement parks for jaded Arabs.
They can shoot grizzly and buffalo from choppers to their heart's content.
Unfortunately, there is a coalition of enablers made up of incumbent congresspeople, Religious Right zealots, Republican Firsters, and just straight dumb-ass "Our Government wouldn't do that to us" enablers to present a formidable force for the end of our Democracy ( Republican form of Government, actually ).
What to do about it.
1. Absolutely don't vote for any incumbent or any advocate of the surrendering of our rights.
2. Educate, educate, educate, the public.
3. It's too late to form our own coalition for 2008, what next?
I am in total agreement with the excellent article "Arrogance Abounds", by Robert Fantina, which was forwarded to me by my equally disgruntled cousin in CA. In turn, I forwarded it to like-minded folks.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that the traditional, outdated two-party political system is now useless in this volatile world situation. In the past 7 years, the U.S. has replaced former Russia as the bully of the world.
We keep in close contact with my husband's Papa in the much-vilified country of France, as well as friends in various European countries. Contrary to what the neo-cons would have us believe, the people of Europe do NOT hate the American people; rather, it is the current administration that they despise.
Needless to say, we need a major overhaul in Washington.
I think most Americans realize that pushing democracy on a country doesn't work. They don't need to be told so. However, it's the morons in the White House that don't understand the concept.
Steve, your comments on "thought crime" are spot on. It sounds like the same justification they gave us for invading Iraq - well, at least one of the reasons - "evil" intent.
When the government starts acting on possible intent, you know you're moving towards full tyranny.
Think about it - we know there's murders that are going to happen - should we start allowing the government to randomly arrest or kill people who'd be likely to commit such crimes in the future?
I share Mr. Grossman's reservations about our government's commitment to ending the war in Iraq. Of course, what could one expect when a country commences hostilities against another using the most scantily clad reasons. (Can you say Poland, 1938?)
To many, the Persian Gulf War in 1991 was a just cause. Then President George H W Bush got it right. He built a "real" coalition, fulfilled the UN mandate and got out of Dodge. He knew the American War Machine was designed to go in, take real estate, get a surrender, then a group hug.
When asked why he didn't go to Bagdad and take out Saddam, he rightly predicted that it would create instability both in and out of Iraq and then American forces would be bogged down there forever. (Hey Dubya, ya shoulda listened to yer ol'man!)
If this current President Bush would have spent his time in the military serving in Viet Nam instead of going AWOL from Air National Guard duty, he might have had an appreciation of what a debacle a military foreign incursion would be! We are told by our illustrious leadership in Washington that we will stay in Iraq until "Victory is achieved". (?)
Ok, I'll ask..."Teacher, how do we know when we ...won?" Are we going to expect to see al Qaida sitting at the table in Versailles or onboard the USS Missouri signing surrender documents?
I want tickets for that.
All that is happening and all that is going to happen is this administration continuing to sacrifice America's young men and women to buy time long enough to get out of office before this house of cards falls. President Bush knows it's a failed policy but he don't want to be the one to say it.
If he doesn't comprehend what's going on, he should turn to his Yale history book under chapter...SAIGON - 1965/1975...TO GET A CLUE! Unfortunately, some unlucky president is eventually going to have to pull a Gerald Ford and yank all the troops out irregardless of the political consequences.
A political suicide...but a very courageous one at that.
The dominant issue in the fight for the Democratic nomination for president in 2007 was the war in Iraq: illegal, fraudulent and imperial that wasted thousands of lives and billions of dollars. Senators Biden, Clinton, Dodd and Edwards, all candidates for president, voted in October 2002 to authorize this unnecessary and brutal travesty. Barack Obama, then an obscure State Senator in Illinois opposed the war, achieving special distinction in the presidential field. At the Democratic National Convention in 2004, the party nominee, John Kerry, who also voted for the war, gave Obama the opportunity to express his opposition to the war, something that Kerry was afraid to do himself. The Iraq war plus Obama's remarkable rhetorical gifts and personality propelled him to front runner status.
In 2008, Iraq is no longer the dominant issue for Democrats or the nation. The war continues with obscene death and destruction, Americans want it ended, but Iraq is now on the inside pages, part of the daily news, intensity of feeling diminished, the occupation likely to continue for a generation. Bread and butter issues affecting many more Americans are challenging the confidence of the country in a way that Saddam Hussein could not.
Recession, economic decline and even a depression are confronting the United States and the voters of New Hampshire were the first to sense the dangers. Perhaps that is why the voters defied the polls and gave Hillary the victory. The political effects of this new round of voter concern are fairly obvious. Hillary's wrong vote on the Iraq war has become less important. Her experience in government becomes more important. She can cite the prosperity of the nation under the Bill Clinton presidency and promise to install the same economic team that brought full employment. Hillary can offer an economic package with a degree of credibility. Her age and experience become an advantage over Obama's attractiveness and inexperience.
In this new situation, Obama's inspiring call for hope, unity and change may appear less relevant and lacking in specificity. The voters will want to know what the candidates will do to save their jobs, their homes, their financial futures. Worrying voters will have little patience with rhetoric no matter how brilliant. Even charisma and personality will be downgraded as assets. Abraham Lincoln and FDR became icons only after they solved the problems of their eras, not before.
There will be, indeed there are now different and strongly held views about solving the current economic crisis. The Republicans, led by President Bush, will want to extend the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 that favor the investors, eliminate estate taxes, cut capital gains tax, lower corporate tax, install investment tax credits, etc. The Democrats will suggest a stimulus package putting money in the hands of lower income people who will spend it quickly: extending unemployment benefits, grants for home heating, suspension of the gas tax, tax rebates to people with low income, etc.
The next president cannot leave the difficult decisions to the experts. They are notoriously divided in their recommendations and affected by their political orientation. Herbert Hoover had plenty of experts. So did George Bush the Father. Both were slow and indecisive in making economic decisions and paid the price in the next election.
The political question in this time of economic malaise is -- which Democratic candidate can best address the problems, which party can end the recession quickly and effectively. The voters of New Hampshire sensed the problem while the pundits were analyzing nuances. Maybe that is why their answers were Hillary and the Democrats, Hillary because of experience and the Democrats because of their historic attention to the masses. These questions will dominate American politics for the rest of 2008.
South Carolina elections are unconstitutional? How could that be? Surely, no one in our government would conduct any election which violated the Constitution, and if any scheme threatened to undermine the very foundation of our government, our power to elect our leaders, the press would expose it, wouldn't it?
See why those who walk the halls of power in South Carolina have been sweating all weekend. Read the article here.
Spread the word like Paul Revere! It's time to demand an end to the unconstitutional practice of counting our votes in secret! It's time to restore our ability to control our government by returning to hand counted paper ballots which are counted in public at each precinct on election night! It's time to throw everyone out of office who fails to abide by the Constitution!
OpEd News gives you the ability to send a statement to your government leaders and the local press. Please use it. The article has links for you to use to send your demand to those who may do something to restore Constitutional elections.
Please let them know what you want them to do. Now is the time to act!
This is a rather sad article. Is there no end to man's inhumanity to man? From GlobalResearch.ca:
Soldiers of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have repeatedly used Afghan children to detect land-mines in war-ravaged country, said a former German ISAF officer in Berlin on Thursday.
Unveiling his new book titled 'Final Station', Achim Wohlgetan pointed out that children were misused by ISAF forces to find land- mines in the Kabul region in 2002.
ISAF soldiers threw apples on an area and then waited to see what would happen. If the children were to run to pick up the apples, and there was no explosion, the area was declared safe, according to Wohlgetan.
A German Defense Ministry spokesperson voiced serious questions over some of the claims which Wohlgetan made in his book.
He alleged that German soldiers had operated outside the mandated area of ISAF in Afghanistan in 2002.
Speaking at a routine government press briefing in Berlin on Wednesday, Christian Dienst expressed strong doubts over claims made by Wohlgetan who said that several troops had knowingly violated the ISAF zone.
The 41-year-old ex-German soldier quit military service in 2006 as a lower ranking officer.
According to Dienst, Wohlgetan lacked an overview of all aspects of the security structure.
What is freedom and democracy anyway? Isn't it done by allowing the people of a nation free will to choose a system of government that works for them?
I love my country, the Constitution and the principles it stands for. But just because Jeffersonian-style democracy works for me, doesn't give me carte blanche to try to cram it down some other nation's throat!
We had it right in Europe after World War II when, through the Marshall Plan, we gave the Europeans the resources to rebuild their economies. By showing what a democratic, free-market society can do, we had more influence over the hearts and minds of Europeans than Josef Stalin's communist propaganda.
But look what happened in Viet Nam. An Asian agrarian society could not have cared less about a democratic, centralized government. They couldn't conceptualize it. All they wanted was to grow their rice and live in their villages - like they've done for centuries. That was their idea of freedom.
Same thing is happening in the Middle East. These people's first alliance is to their religious sect and their tribe. The Afghanis derisively refer to their president, Hamid Karzai, "The Mayor of Kabul"! Saddam knew it also. As long as he had all the guns, the Iraqis could live together. Now that he's gone, so is the Genie out of that bottle. There is a lot of people, with a lot of guns, with a lot of scores to settle.
How does the US expect a "democracy" from a people with hatreds extending centuries? Better ask the Yugoslavs about that...that one went over well, eh?
America should get out of the democracy-pushing business and get back to our own business. The billions of dollars wasted on this Quixotic pursuit of cloning democracies could be better spent on rebuilding our own failing institutions and once again make America the nation other countries would love to follow.
Let us assume Hillary Clinton wins in 2008 and Bill fills the balance of her Senate term. If both lived to retire, they would get two Presidential retirement checks, two Senate retirement checks, and a retirement check from the State of Arkansas. About the only thing they may not get is a Social Security check. I understand ole Bill has earned $40,000,000 in the past six years, because of his Presidency and the influence he can offer foreign nations.
Just think what she can do to add to that.
Hillary, as a Senator from New York State, comes under the Congressional Retirement and Staffing Plan, which means that even if she is never reelected, she continues to receive her Congressional salary until she dies. How is that for a few years of being there?
If Bill outlives her, he then inherits her salary until he dies. He is already getting his Presidential salary until he dies, and will probably add that of Senator to it. If Hillary outlives Bill, she also gets his salary until she dies. Who pays for that? The taxpayer pays.
Before running for the Senate, they both established New York residency, by purchasing a million dollar-plus house in upscale Chappaqua, New York. They are also entitled to Secret Service protection for life. The mortgage payments are estimated to be around $10,000 per month. However, an extra residence had to be built within the acreage to house the Secret Service agents.
The Clintons, it is assumed, charge the Federal government $10,000 monthly rent for the use of that extra residence, which is about equal to their mortgage payment. This means that we, the taxpayers, are paying the Clinton's salary, mortgage, transportation, safety and security, as well as the salaries for their 12 man staff. This is legal! It demonstrates that politics pays.
The Clintons had nothing before politics and acquired great power and wealth resulting from politics, not creating and operating a large enterprise serving the consumer. Along with Lyndon Johnson and scores of Senators and congressional representatives, they have proven politics pays better than hard work, creativity or crime, although some might insinuate politics and crime are related. Is there any reason to doubt why entering the field of politics, through a party, is not one of the best paying careers?
This accounts for the Democrats being the professional politicians whose recruits start at the city and county level, make connections, move to the state, and, if doing as they are told, will be sponsored into the Federal level for civil service or elected positions. When they tow the party line, they too can tap into the great wealth taken from the pool of money sent in by the taxpayers.
Comments on the release the new book, Sit Down Young Stranger, and other thoughts from John Graham, President of the Giraffe Heroes Project, and Unwilling Member of the Federal Government's No Fly/Watch List.
Sit Down Young Stranger is an often intense, sometimes funny, always honest exploration of the most important questions for any of us-what is the path to a meaningful life?
How do I find the courage and skill to walk it?
The book is the story of one life-and of the challenges facing every life.
You know, the Republicans are pretty good at making their presidents assassination proof.
Bush 1 had a vice president that was a complete, semi-literate, ignorant idiot. Everybody worried about Bush's health because the level of incompetence would increase exponentially should Quayle become president.
Now, in Bush 2, we have a president that is a complete, semi-literate, ignorant idiot. To protect him, we have a vice president that is a homicidal maniac who swears by torture and the "unitary executive."
Our Speaker of the House is bought and paid for by the Military-Industrial-Oil Complex. We all know that if something should happen to Bush, we would be at war with the entire Middle East in minutes and the Halliburton concentration camps would quickly be filled to bursting.
The paradox of American policy in the Middle East - and in other regions - is that almost everywhere there are free elections, the side supported by the Americans tends to lose. According to The New York Times, one reformer in Saudi Arabia said "It's the kiss of death, The minute you are counted on or backed by Americans. Kiss it goodbye, you will never win."
The Palestinians voted for Hamas. The Iraqis voted for a government sympathetic to Iran. The Egyptians have voted in increasing numbers for the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. Hezbollah won a significant number of seats in the Lebanon election. President Musharraf is hanging on to his office in Pakistan, but just barely.
Western values revere democracy, but when forced upon a people it can raise serious questions about independence, sovereignty and freedom, even leading to violence and civil war. Bribery of the elites to accept the form if not the substance of democracy will not win elections when the voters are fully involved.
American policies around the world are so focused on military power, 737 military bases in 130 countries, manned by 500,000 soldiers, that we have forgotten how to influence political decisions. In the 2006 elections in the Palestinian Territories, the U.S. could have prodded it's ally Israel to make concessions before the balloting, such as releasing part of the Palestinian import tax funds the Israelis were holding, or easing some of the checkpoints in the West Bank that inhibit Palestinian travel . Hamas won the election with the argument that only a hard-line can achieve concessions from the Israelis. After the election, Israeli policy did ease somewhat, but too late, Hamas had won.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah benefited in a similar fashion. The centrist government implored the U.S. and Israel for military equipment and financial help, but little was forthcoming - until Hezbollah made significant gains and achieved political power. Now, there is big help for the Siniora government, but too late, Hezbollah is already politically powerful.
The politics of Iraq have been a disaster. The original American plan was to install as leader an Iraqi émigré based in Washington D.C. When that failed, we turned to a strongman who also failed, then a Shi'ite who had spent 20 years in Iran. After World War II, MacArthur in Japan and the U.S. generals in Germany knew how to use military power to shape and control those nations. The Bush administration does not know how to use the power it has. At the same time, the immoral and illegal invasion has so badly damaged the US militarily and politically around the world that we suffer the worst of both worlds.
This is a familiar pattern, not exclusive to President Bush. Virtually every president has embraced the spreading of the American form of democracy abroad. For example, the Clinton administration conducted several military interventions, which they called humanitarian interventions, with the stated aim of establishing democracy. However, in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and Kosovo, American-style democracy failed to take root and the reputation of the U.S. has suffered because of the military interventions.
We are learning that there are limits to the power of the superpower, that the military can gain victories, but not always acquiescence.
A lifelong non-voter, the 2008 election campaign has compelled me to action. I couldn't imagine our country in a worse state; two undeclared and immoral wars, a dollar that's more and more worthless every day, a government that lies to us and spies on us, habeas corpus suspended, prisoners tortured, and on, and on....and on.
But, my love of liberty has seen a glimmer of hope - and that's in the message of Ron Paul. Initial thoughts on his campaign remind me of the words of Murray Rothbard:
...short-run optimism, being unrealistic, leads straightway to disillusion and then to long-run pessimism; just as, on the other side of the coin, long-run pessimism leads to exclusive and self-defeating concentration on immediate and short-run issues....
We've been virtually trained from birth to rely on our politicians for not only our safety, but most everything else.
And they haven't done too well, either.
Turning this country around from the grip of the centralized two-party beast is not going to be easy, and it's not going to come fast.
So Rothbard hit the nail on the head - we can neither expect too much too soon, nor give up hope for the future. Both will give us the same result. Tyranny.
In the past century, how many politicians have had the moral principle and the courage to talk about ending the income tax, shutting down our overseas military empire, and stopping the brutal drug war? This movement that some are calling the "Ron Paul Revolution" is merely the beginning of a long struggle for our freedom.
I don't know how long it will take, but we're definitely on our way.
John Adams clearly understood this concept when he commented on what he felt was the true meaning of the American Revolution:
The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.
What does all this mean?
In determining our future, we have a clear choice. Should we continue down the path we are on today? Should we continue on this path of empire, with massive standing armies, hundreds of overseas bases, foreign wars and sanctions? Should we continue our foreign policy which creates hatred in millions and millions of people; thus making you a target of their retaliation? Should we continue down the path of ever-growing taxes and regulations, as well as the endless loss of liberty that always comes with empire?
Or, should we change direction? Should we create a society where government is strictly limited from invading our rights and other nations too? Should we build a society where freedom and prosperity reigns?
I, for one, choose the path to liberty, and Ron Paul's campaign makes it clear that I'm not alone.
This is not a stutterer's attempt to say victory. It is an acronym to remember if you are looking for acceptance from people. In any encounter with other people, to get the best possible first impression, it is necessary to have good VVV. This is something everyone needs to know to improve his or her initial acceptance by others. It certainly holds true in political campaigning.
It stands for Visual, Vocal and Verbal in that order. It means most of the impression starts and builds on how they first see you approaching. Then, what they hear from you as voice quality, how you sound is important. The third is verbal, your choice of words and phrases. This takes ten seconds or less.
How you dress to suit the occasion is most important. You must fit the perception you hope to have formed by dress, grooming and manner of carrying yourself. If you are the sheriff of a rowdy town, you look official, with badge and gun at the ready, and a controlling manner as you approach those you plan to manage. If you appear as a week dandy to them, they will not take you seriously. When they hear your voice, and it is deep, loud and controlling, their impressions of facing a tough guy are being quickly formed. This all occurs in the matter of seconds to form the impression. Then, the choice of words finishes off the image sought.
Someone running for political office had better look the part and create a vision that is appropriate to the position sought. We have all heard about the Hollywood transition from silent to sound movies, where some of the screen idols did not sound the part, had weak or squeaky voices that caused people to laugh. A woman running for a public office may appear confident and commanding, but speaks with a shrill tone, like a man's wife demanding he take out the garbage, then the impression quickly changes for the worst. Assuming the candidate looks the part and tonal voice quality is appropriate, it then comes down to choice of words. If one's words indicate uncertainty and deception, this will spoil the positive impressions gained with the first two V's.
If a candidate hopes to be accepted by all, then VVV is important to deliver the right image. The best VVV is one that is natural and needs no manufacturing. Body language comes from the subjective mind, is difficult to mask, and will soon expose any put-on or masquerade. When evaluating a person as a candidate for any position, check out the VVV and watch and listen when they do not know you are observing.
Under stressful questioning, the body language may also expose the fraud.
Yahoo News today ran a news story today reporting that a review of recently declassified NSA records shows that the so-called "Gulf of Tonkin Incident" never happened.
The author of the report "demonstrates that not only is it not true, as (then US) secretary of defense Robert McNamara told Congress, that the evidence of an attack was 'unimpeachable,' but that to the contrary, a review of the classified signals intelligence proves that 'no attack happened that night,'" FAS said in a statement.
This proof of official lying to further involve the U.S. in a senseless war should be kept in mind as we read recent news of supposed Iranian naval provocations in the Persian Gulf.
Since achieving majority control of the Senate and the House of Representatives, the Democrats in Congress have forced 40 votes on bills limiting President Bush's war policy. Only one bill was passed by both bodies and that was vetoed by Bush.
However, every one of the 40 bills contained a special section providing for a residual U.S. military force to remain in Iraq with no time limit to perform the military tasks U.S. forces are now doing. The exact wording is listed below.
While public opinion is dominated by opposition to this military adventure and by desire for withdrawal, few Americans read the fine print that allows continued occupation. Democratic office holders and presidential candidates do not discuss the details and agree on the maintenance of the residual force. And the media do not inform Americans about this key section.
In the meantime, the Wall Street Journal of November 12 writes, "U.S. digs in to guard Iraq oil exports. Long-term presence planned at Persian Gulf terminals viewed as vulnerable. While presidential candidates debate whether to start bringing ground troops home from Iraq, the new construction suggests that one footprint of U.S. military power in Iraq isn't shrinking any time soon."
Bill H.R. 4156, November 13, 2007 Title 1 - Policy on redeployment and conduct of operations in Iraq Section 105 (e)After the conclusion of the reduction in transition of the United States Armed Forces to a limited presence as required by this section, the Secretary of Defense may deploy or maintain members of the Armed Forces in Iraq only for the following missions:
1. Protecting United States diplomatic facilities, United States Armed Forces, and American citizens. 2. Conducting limited training, equipping, and providing logistical and intelligence support to the Iraqi Security forces. 3. Engaging in targeted counterterrorism operations against al- Qaeda, al- Qaeda affiliated groups, and other terrorist organizations in Iraq.
The activities listed in H.R. 4156 section 105 (e) essentially cover the current programs of the U.S. military in Iraq. These programs are now carried out by 162,000 troops. A continuation as specified in the bill would require approximately the same number of troops. Any reductions are likely to be token in size and cosmetic in purpose.
Given the importance to U.S. world hegemony of Middle East oil and gas reserves, protection of U.S. client states (Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and Israel), current construction of the U.S. embassy in Iraq (the largest in the world), the refusal of the leading Democratic candidates for president and the Democratic Congress to commit to full withdrawal, it is most likely that Iraq will have a permanent American garrison of considerable size for the indefinite future.
Today's Excuse for a Leader causes me to recall my life as a heavy Science Fiction reader. I remember a book I once read years ago (don't know the name of it) where this society of the future were great poll-takers, and made decisions based on their "Scientifically Perfected" polling.
Each election cycle they refined their process and decreased the size of the samples in the polls. These results were based on the sample set and that set actually elected the President. Each time the sample became smaller and smaller and finally they were able to identify the "Rational Citizen". So it fell on him to electe the President.
Then, he elected himself.
Not to be upstaged, the "Powers that be" passed a law that stated that the next President would be elected by any citizen who was wily enough to devise a plan, to overthrow, or other, the sitting President. The rationale was that if a citizen was resourceful enough to accomplish the task (since the sitting President would have vast resources at his disposal), and the citizen would have to improvise and organize, when "Joe Citizen" was able to replace the President, then he would deserve the office because of his resourcefulness.
A real work the book was, and I can't even remember the name.
Do you recall the presidential election of 1972 -- or are you at least fairly knowledgeable about it?
Yep. That's the Watergate-scandal election. The one in which Richard Nixon was re-elected to what ended up being a shameful truncated term. The one in which Spiro Agnew was re-elected along with Nixon to an even more truncated shameful term.
The one in which the Democratic candidate, George McGovern, carried only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia and not even his home state of South Dakota, which he served three terms as U.S. senator. In retrospect, the country was danged near as nutsy in 1972 as it was in 2000 and 2004.
As a whole, we Americans sure are slow learners, ain't we?
After winning 11 state primaries in a field of 16 contenders, McGovern received the Democratic presidential nomination. In the general election, the incumbent Nixon overwhelming defeated McGovern. But not long after Agnew resigned over charges of earlier corruption and income-tax evasion, impeachment proceedings arising from the Watergate scandal forced Nixon to become the only U.S. president to resign in disgrace.
At age 85, like other politicians who have been president or been a losing presidential candidate, McGovern has attained elder-statesman status. He is respected by fellow Democrats and by not a few Republicans.
Like former Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater, McGovern is a straight-talking, patriotic elder statesman who may have lost a presidential election, but who has won a place of honor in U.S. history.
In recent years, McGovern has testified before congressional caucuses about how to end George Bush's war in Iraq, delivered distinguished lectures, traveled widely to discuss his books, written for magazines and daily newspapers, and continued his involvement with anti-hunger programs with a former Republican Senate colleague and defeated presidential (1996) and vice presidential (1976) candidate, Bob Dole.
It's been pointed out by political observers that what distinguishes George McGovern from most political elders is his refusal to mince words about the current occupants of the White House. McGovern sounds off like Harry Truman did.
Unminced words from McGovern in the January 6, 2008 edition of the Washington Post - his commentary begins with:
"As we enter the eighth year of the Bush-Cheney administration, I have belatedly and painfully concluded that the only honorable course for me is to urge the impeachment of the president and the vice president."
I support Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna's position (below).
In my opinion this is a good example of an unconstitutional federal imposition upon states' rights. It is the state officers' duty to protect our state and national commonwealth.
01/02/08 - In an effort to defend Washington's tough vehicle emissions standards law, Attorney General Rob McKenna today announced Washington state will join 14 other states in intervening in a California lawsuit filed earlier today.
The lawsuit filed today in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals challenges the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's decision to deny California's request for a waiver to implement its greenhouse gas emissions standards.
"The state of Washington followed California's lead in adopting standards for vehicle emissions with the understanding California's request for a federal pre-emption waiver would be granted in a timely manner," McKenna said. "Now after nearly two years of waiting, EPA has denied the waiver, leaving states frustrated in their ability to address climate change concerns for their residents."
The Clean Air Act generally preempts states from adopting their own vehicle emissions standards with the exception of California because of its efforts to address long-standing air pollution problems. The Clean Air Act allows other states to adopt California's standards as long as those standards are identical to California's.
California adopted landmark vehicle emissions standards in 2005 and filed its waiver request in December 2005. Since then, 16 other states, including Washington, have also adopted or are considering adopting these standards.
None of these state laws may go into effect until California obtains its waiver of preemption from the federal government.
On Dec. 19, 2007, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson notified California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of EPA's decision to deny the state's waiver request. Johnson stated he believed the problem of greenhouse gas emissions extends beyond state boundaries and calls for a national solution. He also found that California's standards were not needed "to meet compelling and extraordinary conditions."
Today's lawsuit, which seeks to reverse the EPA decision, was filed in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The states or state agencies intervening in the suit are: Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
What a winning possibility awaits the GOP, with the resurrection of Bob Dole, moderate senator and veteran, in the form of John McCain, moderate senator and veteran. Facing the winds of change - a new populism of Mike Huckabee, Barack Obama and Ron Paul - the old guard offers up the has-been winning ticket.
The GOP will never learn, and the old party, back room cigar-smoking Democrats fail to get the message as well. The political king, and queen, makers miss the point of what is going on in the streets. Drawing from their old kit bags of ward-heeling special interest placating policies, which consistently leave the interests and views of the voters out of the equation, they are surprised.
The voters are no longer compliant followers in any political party, because the country and the world sit on a sharp precipice of uncertainty.
How will it all shape out as we plow through the primaries? The close-in early primaries were supposed to help Hillary, which is why states arranged them as they are. They were supposed to provide Hillary an out-of-the-box popularity against a known fractioning of the GOP candidates. With the Obama populism, followed closely by the GOP Huckabee populism, all bets are off, and Hillary will never benefit from the new primary schedule, even if she wins enough delegates to be the candidate of her party.
However, even worse for her will be the continued presentation of Republican differences brought out at every primary, up to the GOP convention. The GOP convention may pick their candidate and the world will watch it. Hillary will, having been bruised, finally achieve her party coronation, but the scars will not serve as her stars.
The populism of Obama, Huckabee and Paul centers on the individuals making up the nation and its voters. Each focus on how they will use the power and organization of government to deliver, to individual voters, the services they want and expect from their government.
In the case of Obama, he pledges a caring government at the center of life, to pay for everything, such as health care, school the children, the mortgage and solve the problems we all have to face in life. Huckabee will use government sparingly as needed to satisfy only the compassion of bureaucracy. Paul will tell individuals to take care of themselves, as they have done throughout the growing period of America.
Each speaks to individuals rather than their communities, as do the old guard, as they know only individuals vote. All three have carved out a new political landscape, which disturbs the tranquility and predictability of the old guard, Democrats and Republicans.
Democrat leadership wants Hillary. Republican leadership wants Bob Dole in the form of John McCain.
The people want something different. In the end, what will each of them get?
It is hard to say what this political campaign is really about except that ambition has propelled some admirable and some not so admirable people to run for president. And, as though they all drank the same magical elixir simultaneously, to begin to utter the mystical word, "change."
As a verb, change is transitive, must have an object; for most speakers it is America, but one candidate said, "We can change America, then we can change the world." Where have I heard that before?
Change has become a cliché, somehow signifying that we are on the right track. It sounds dynamic without committing to anything in particular. Candidates and voters can give it any meaning they wish: to the right, to the left, or simply to install new people to pursue the same old policies.
The presidential candidates of real, serious change are Democrat Dennis Kucinich and Republican Ron Paul, not taken seriously by their fellow candidates or many voters. In the ABC television Republican debate in New Hampshire on January 5, the GOP candidates were actually laughing at Ron Paul's exposition of a needed change in U.S. foreign and military policy.
No discussion, no rebuttal, simply disrespect. And Kucinich wasn't even invited to the Democratic debate. On issue after issue the candidates of both parties give the problems a little tweak or a few new words and call it change.
But the exercise makes everyone feel good. Mission accomplished. We have talked about change. Do Americans really want their politicians to change public affairs significantly? The average American, like people everywhere, are accustomed to the status quo and will not accept change until forced by events and we are far from that point.
Social Security and Medicare, for example, are far from perfect, but politicians had better keep their hands off if they wish to stay in power. Furthermore, only about 50% of eligible voters actually go to polls and they are usually richer and older, heavily representative of the most satisfied, therefore the least likely to vote for change.
Besides, significant change never comes from voting. Almost always It is the result of deep and difficult organizing in the community of people who are being hurt by current policies, who become angry, who threaten, who don't put their cause in the hands of politicians. The most important changes in U. S. history were forced upon our greatest presidents.
Abraham Lincoln was pressured to issue the Emancipation Proclamation by the Abolitionists and the need for African - American soldiers in the civil war. Franklin Delano Roosevelt expanded the humanitarian role of the federal government in response to the threats of organized labor and the unemployed.
Real change is forced on the politicians, always has been, always will be.
On January 6, 2008, my State Newspaper, the Arkansas DemocratGazette, in their Editorial Section, published an Editorial endorsing the use of Torture.
I am truly saddened that anyone who would call themselves American could ever endorse such behavior. The article was addressing Waterboarding and the thrust seemed to be that this type torture doesn't kill.
Nowhere in the Editorial did it mention the hundreds of documented cases of detainees being tortured to death, or simply reported as dying during questioning. No, the editorial left the impression that no one had died from torture.
Was whoever wrote the editorial aware that many deaths have occurred from torture meted out by the United States Forces in the Mid-East?
And the editorial went on to say that "many American lives" had been "saved" by the use of torture. This is what "they" say is the benefit of their torture.
Remember this is the same "they" that lied to you about the need to go to war with Iraq, the same bunch that brought you the lie about Private Lynch, and lies about warrantless wiretapping, lies about Iran's Nuclear Program, lies about this, Lies about that, lied about the death of Pat Stillman. Lie after lie on end about countless other things.
And why are they able to get away with Corruption, suspension of citizens rights, and too many other things to mention?
Simply because this paper and countless others like it endorse the shameful Bush Administration out of Party loyalty, not loyalty to America.
Are we bored with what direction we, as a nation, are taking, or are we angry at it, so much that we need change? If we decide we no longer want to drive our cars on the right side of the road, preferring to go left, like most of the Old World, is that the kind of change we seek. Perhaps it is like the fellow who changed the way he combed his hair, parting it from ear to ear instead of front to back. When asked how he liked it, he said it was fine except when people whispered into his nose.
For over sixty years, America has been on a road to change, abandoning its founding principles for something opposite. As we moved further on that road to change, our individual freedoms have vanished, favoring a community-interest based form that gives elected leaders and appointed bureaucrats more decision-making influence on the way we live our lives.
The results have proven dismal.
We are openly threatening to punish those who create, invent, build and manufacture things people want and are willing to buy. We tax them and regulate them to discourage them from remaining in America. The idea some work hard, produce and are paid for it is challenged by the envious who are not rewarded for their lesser effort and contribution.
Are the desired changes a more accelerated run onto a conversion back to Old World ways where the few elite rule the many? It would appear this is true, by how politicians are campaigning for change, openly suggesting bigger government and smaller people.
The greatest change in the world was what started in America almost 400 years ago, when individual freedom was established. That change tore the world into two parts, where the majority lived under the few who ruled and the other side, America, lifted into an orbit of individual, family and community prosperity through freedom.
That change, allowed to spread, could have changed the whole world for the better. The side where the few ruled fought back and waged war on America to rid the world of individual freedom. They have succeeded in taking control of the Democrats and even some so-called moderate Republicans, in order to bring about the change they have worked so hard to bring about.
The 2008 elections will be a testimonial to their success at eliminating America's founding principles and individual liberty finally. 2008 will define the change Americans want now.
The best change of all would be getting off the fast track to the left and getting back to the right side, what America alone has proven the best kind of life for all.
That would be a change of direction, but not the change so eagerly sought by those campaigning for President today.
A letter to Congressman Larsen (D-WA) on impeachment, 10/29/05
What does it take to make a high crime and misdemeanor? For Clinton, it was not keeping his pants zipped in the oval office, then being embarrassed to admit it.
For Bush, lying to the American People and Congress, getting us into a quagmire in Iraq, spending billions in tax breaks for his wealthy friends at the expense of the welfare of the American People, assenting to torture of prisoners, unilaterally discarding treaties which are the law of the land. Vacationing while disaster approached, then overwhelmed, the Gulf Coast.
Please explain to me how any of these things are not high crimes and misdemeanors, and how an open fly outranks them.
I found the information about the increase of the Accrued Debt on Page 162 of 182 of the report. The report is online in Adobe - That means that the Adobe page will not be the same as the report page-so you will have to make sure that you are on the report page 162 to find the information. It is General David Walker's assessment and concern of the future of the trend we are on.
Notice that I spoke of the ACCRUED debt. In response to a couple of other articles I had written about the building debt, a few responders have said that I didn't know what I was talking about, that the National Debt is 8-9 $Trillion. And they would be right if they are talking about the Cash Debt. That is why I capitalized the word accrued. This is what Walker is talking about.
The Accrued debt is the totality of all liabilities over the horizon.
But as with any family in America, your debts take on several different applications. There are your daily costs that relate to your day to day needs, there are your monthly payments toward debts you have incurred, and finally there are the totality of debts that you have amassed that will someday have to be paid.
There used to be a song- something about "I now have an easy monthly payment due every day" - that might illustrate it. But you get the picture.
When your totality of debt exceeds you ability to meet even a minimum payment toward and pressures are brought to pay, you can be forced into bankruptcy. This is a concern of General Walker.
I have written about General David Walker and his reports over the last two or three years. I have watched him on C-Span and Googled up info on his reports. I wrote an article about the shift of ownership of assets over the last 25-30 years and spoke of the United States drifting into a Corporatocracy or Plutocracy and I think the danger is very real.
This article from GlobalResearch is long, but well worth the read. It points out, or at least alludes, to a number of things I have written about.
He didn't mention the fact that the production of bio-fuel puts about four times as much carbon in the air as the fuel saves. This is due to coal and oil fired distilleries.
Hence, Big Oil has bought the grain futures and leased the land for the venture, knowing that they will make even more profit from our gullibility, while the world starves.
I'm afraid he may have hit pretty close to the mark.
Hillary Clinton's book, It Takes a Village, gave the village the concern for everyone's lives and choices. The Village cares when care is wanting. Members of the village need not care and should let the village do its job. This is what we are voting for in 2008.
Listen to the candidates and their promises. Cradle to grave care and concern by government, the Village, in all our problems. This belief did not come out of a vacuum, however. The candidates did not create it. It is the answer to a growing feeling that individuals need not be mature in their own thoughts and deeds. Catering to immaturity comes from books, magazines, entertainment and news reporting, as well as schools and careless parenting.
The Village created it and now must provide the answer.
This brings us to the question of the value of maturity. Maturity, for an individual, occurs when he or she is equipped emotionally and educationally to be responsible for personal behavior and the results of their behavior. Immaturity, as applied to children, is not being ready, willing and able to stand on their own two feet. Parents are, as a family, responsible for seeing to it their children mature before being sent into the world.
The village can never be responsible for good or bad behavior. Civil societies, the Village, can only accept, reject or punish behaviors of its members, not form them.
This brings maturity into focus, whether individuals should be concerned for things more important than they are, i.e., other-centered as opposed to self-centered. The elections pivot on the value of maturity in life. We begin our lives as self-centered children who learn values, shape interests, skills, talents and aspirations, with the help of concerned parents. These are all outer-centered facets of a growing and meaningful life.
The careless parents, to make their own lives easier, ignore the development of these outer-centered needs in their children when they leave it all to the Village. Children grow into sustained self-centeredness instead. They focus mainly on satisfying desires, drives and feelings for their own pleasure. They cannot cope easily with disappointment, which leads to alcohol, drugs, obesity, single parenting and suicide.
The Village cannot cope with these growing numbers of social misfits. Political candidates simply offer choices of how the Village shall operate and who pays, even when it cannot work.
America grew prosperous because it took free individuals to make the nation grow. Those were the individuals taught by parents and schools to pursue their own outer-centered dreams and visions to make life better. Now, it is the spineless Village, and the few who care ruling the many that make up the Village.
About two thirds of Americans now regard the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq as a serious mistake. The mistake was planned and organized by President George W. Bush and his administration with the help of too many Democrats who went along with his imperial fantasy. Too many Americans, carried away by superpower imperial glory, expected an easy victory at low cost.
They were wrong. Whether or not military victory will have been achieved at some future time, the costs have been high and far more than the anticipated benefits.
Some of the costs are painfully obvious. About 4,000 U.S. military deaths, about 40,000 U.S. military wounded, Iraqi insurgents and civilians killed and wounded estimated at one million; Iraqis who have fled their homes and their country to foreign lands estimated at two million; cost to the U.S. taxpayer estimated at one or two trillion dollars depending on eventual length of the war; the dramatic decline in U.S. reputation among the 1.3 billion Muslims and most nations, a decline that is harming U.S. business and diplomatic interests.
Some of the costs are less obvious. The power and influence of Iran in the Middle East has been greatly increased. The Sunni regime in Iraq that was a buffer to Iranian expansion was overthrown and succeeded by a Shiite regime friendly to Shiite Iran. If and when the U. S. military leaves Iraq, the new Shiite bloc might threaten traditional U.S. allies, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.
Perhaps the most important costs to the U.S. have been the increase in the price of oil which has doubled since 2002, driven up by the Iraq war to $90-$100 per barrel. As the American consumer increases his insatiable consumption of oil and gasoline, the flow of these liquids is matched by the flow of U.S. dollars to oil suppliers.
When the oil producers were buying U.S. Treasury bonds, the effects were minimal. However, the oil royalty have modified their financial strategy by using their U.S. dollars to buy U.S. assets, taking large positions in Citigroup, News Corp., Procter & Gamble, Hewlett-Packard, Pepsi, Time Warner, and Walt Disney, to name only a few. Land, real estate, and skyscrapers are also targets. And the sophisticated investors have hired prominent American bankers, media experts and Washington lobbyists to protect their interests in the U.S.
This represents an historic transfer of wealth - unprecedented in human history - financial conquest without firing a shot.
I'm glad to see people are finally doing the homework to understand our real fiscal dilemma. However, the attribution of the problem to the Bush administration is misleading.
These costs are embedded in the the varous entitlement programs that any administration, Dem or Rep or Ind, will face. The biggest part of those costs can be attributed to SS, Medicare and Medicaid.
If we do not stop promising more than we can afford we will become a footnote in the history of democracies - and our freedoms will surely suffer.
When, will our people wake-up to the known fact that (with the exception of Doctor Ron Paul); the [R] and the [D] puppets are controlled by the same political puppeteer? They are relying on we-the-people to do as many of us have in the past---to be the pawns in the audience of their private theatrical production.
Our Liberty and Freedoms and our beloved American nation are in an Emergency Room. Only with a trusted physician will we be able to restore our fallen Republic. Contrastingly, we can more-than-likely count on the [D] and [R] politicians to try to make deals for kick-backs with the morticians and crematoriums.
Make no mistake about it; Doctor Paul is relying on us and our ability to examine his constitutional record of performances and NOT on his or our allegiance to a political cartel. We have less than eleven months to get the good doctor into the Emergency Room to restore our fallen nation.
What we as American taxpayers have suffered financially since Bush assumed office is 165% of what the debt was for the previous 200 years of the United States. When Bush took office the debt was $20 Trillion. It is now $53 Trillion.
In a report, "2007 Financial Report of the U. S. Government", released to the Public on the 17th of December 2007, David M. Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States and Head of the GAO, released a statement concerning the Long Term Accrued Debt of the United States. You can find this statement on Page 162 of the 182-page report.
Specifically he states that as of September 30, 2007 the Long Term Accrued debt of the United States Government had grown to $53 Trillion dollars. When George Bush came into office the Long Term Debt stood at $20 Trillion.
This debt currently amounts to about $175,000 for every person alive in the United States. So, that means your long term debt has increased about $109,000 since Bush came into office. That figures to about $18,160 for each year he has been in office. And if you are a parent with two children, you and your wife are now obligated to an accrued debt of approximately $700,000 dollars. You have just three choices:
1) Force this Government into Fiscal responsibility 2) Try to figure some way to increase your taxes enough for the $700,000 to be paid during your lifetime 3) Defer payment to your children and their children to pay
The problem is that if you don't do 1) or 2) your children's debt will continue to grow.
This vicious cycle needs to be brought to an end. What do you propose to do about it?
Gary -- I'm doing what I can to get the national discussion shifted from hand-wringing and clothes-clutching to the remedies and solutions available in the legal arena. Apparently, there are only about six of us among the dissenters nationwide whose lexicons include the terms, 'remedies' and 'solutions'. Everyone else seems lost in clothes-clutching and pie-in-the-sky daydreams of an electoral system that died of pathogenic corruption in 2004.
While you're not one who is talking remedies and solutions, you are a blazing, citizen expert on central banking. We could use your expertise. The unconstitutional passage of the Federal Reserve Act, on the vehicle of inferior statute law, has always been an unconstitutional "anti-law regime", whose continuation results in various felonies and felony conspiracies in each and every application of its unconstitutional statute, including usurous "fractional lending" and its consequent inflationary reduction of the dollar's value.
In the Fed's case, that would be minute-by-minute, every minute, since 1913. The Federal Reserve Act's passage was not a FELONY -- not that I can determine -- in 1913. But it's continuation has been felonious, in violation of 18 USC 241 (conspiracy against rights), since that federal statute's passage in about 1945.
There are felons-in-waiting and accessories-after-the-fact who need to go to prison -- right now, before the fascist thugs in central banking, the govt, and powerful corporations spring the North American Union and its Amero on us.
Per the Constitution, the American people have a right to debt-free currency issued and valued by Congress. Debt-based currency, issued and valued by a federal-statute-defined monopoly of private corporations (the Federal Reserve) violates both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution.
The "letter" of Constitutional law is violated by The Fed's conflict with Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 6. The "spirit" of Constitutional law is violated by the Fed's conflict with the 1935 SCOTUS decision in Schechter Poultry, 295 US 495, which barred Congress from giving away the core powers assigned to it in the Constitution. I'm nowhere near the expert you are on central banking.
But it's clear to me that remedies and soltuions involve making it right with the law. In my world, making central banking right with the law means obliterating central banking as we know it. My first order of business is to describe an institution that can replace the Federal Reserve, starting us with the issuance of debt-free currency.
Do you have any starting places to recommend? Can you recommend a biblio of thinkers and works dedicated to replacing the Fed? Clearly, we can't go on with this steady diet of hand-wringing and clothes-clutching. We're running out of time.
Americans will not continue to take the abuse and lies so typified by the subprime finanacial abominations, the consequent housing market crash, and the zero accountability for those who commit such abuses against the people.
With the safety-valves into change blocked by the governing and corporate elites, and with so many industies carpet-bombing the middle-class with national govt blessings, the next stop seems very likely to be bloody revolution.
Thanks for any consideration you can give -- toward a peaceful revolution.
I wrote my congressman & both of my states' U.S. senators and asked a simple question. The question was:
What besides air is stopping you from ging to the the offices of Dept. of Homeland Security & the US Attorney Generals Office and asking or demanding they enfoce what existing immigration laws that are already on the books?
Needless to say i haven't heard back from any of them. Probably won't.
So much for them and the rest of them representing us. Funny thing - we are still paying them to abuse us like that you know!
