The New World Order: Paranoia or Reality?

The phrase “New World Order” is so loaded with explosive assumptions and perceptions that its very usage has become a kind of journalistic landmine.  Many analysts (some in the mainstream) have attempted to write about and discuss this very real sociopolitical ideology in a plain and exploratory manner, using a fair hand and supporting data, only to be attacked, ridiculed, or completely ignored before they get a chance to put forward their work.  The reason is quite simple; much of the general public has been mentally inoculated against even the whisper of the terminology.  That is to say, they have been conditioned to exhibit a negative reaction to such discussion instinctively without even knowing why.

Some of this conditioning is accomplished through the stereotyping of New World Order researchers as “conspiracy theorists” (another term for loony) grasping at fantasies in a desperate bid for “attention”, or, as confused individuals who attempt to apply creative logic to a mad chaotic world swirling on the periphery of a great void of coincidence and chance.  I know this because I used to be one amongst the naive herd of “rationalists”, and I and many I knew used the same shallow arguments to dismiss every cold hard fact on the NWO that we happened upon.  After seeing the conspiracy crowd made iconic and ridiculous in hundreds if not thousands of books, movies, TV shows, commercials, and news specials, it becomes difficult for many to enter into the topic without a severe bias already implanted in their heads.

Another circumstance that leads to the immediate dismissal of NWO research is, ironically, the lack of open discussion on the subject.  Yes, it’s a chicken and egg sort of thing.  If more people were less afraid to shine a floodlight on the truth of the matter, more people, in turn, would be more willing to absorb it.  And, if more unaware people were willing to listen to the information with an open mind, more people with knowledge would be willing to share it.  The psychological barrier to the information, therefore, is not based on any legitimate argument against the existence of the NWO.  Instead, people refuse to listen because they fear to embrace concepts personally that they believe are not yet embraced by the majority.

It is a sad fact of society that most men and women gravitate towards the life of the follower, and not of the leader.  Only through great hardship and trauma do some plant their feet solidly in the Earth, and find the strength to break free from the collectivist mindset.

Elitist think-tanks and propaganda machines like the Southern Poverty Law Center take full advantage of the hive mentality by attacking Liberty Movement proponents and NWO researchers in light of the populace’s lack of background knowledge.  A perfect example of this was the SPLC’s latest hit-piece on an Oath Keepers article dealing with the exposure of a Department of Defense program designed to import and train Russian soldiers on U.S. soil.  Because the article dares to mention the “NWO”, the SPLC jumps to the vapid conclusion that Oath Keepers are “paranoid”:

http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/04/27/the-russians-are-coming-patriot-paranoia-run-amok/

The poorly written diatribe is little more than an Ad Hominem stab by an ankle biting author, but I felt it did hold a certain value as a test case of the strategic exploitation of uneducated mass opinion.  Without the ignorance of a sizable portion of the American public, yellow journalism like the kind peddled by the SPLC would be relegated to the great dustbin of history…

If a man is able to get past his negative preconceptions on the matter, the next step is to ask a relatively straightforward question; what is the New World Order?  What is the foundation of the philosophy that drives it?  What are its origins?  This is something mainstream pundits never explore.  They simply take for granted that we in the Liberty Movement somehow made the whole thing up for our own entertainment.  In reality, the phrase New World Order made its public debut early in the 20th Century, and it was expounded by numerous political and business elites decades before there was such a thing as “conspiracy theorists”.

The Liberty Movement has always defined the NWO as a concerted effort by elitist organizations using political manipulation, economic subversion, and even war, to centralize global power into the hands of an unelected and unaccountable governing body.  The goal; to one day completely dismantle individual, state, and national sovereignty.  However, what I and many others hold as fact on the New World Order is not enough.  We must examine the original source and how we came to our mutual conclusions.

I have in numerous articles outlined the irrefutable data surrounding the directed efforts of corporate globalization and the deliberate strategies of central banks in the co-option of financial control over nations.  But, to solidify our understanding of what the most financially and politically powerful men on Earth and their cheerleaders believe the NWO is, why not go straight to the horse’s mouth:

“It is the system of nationalist individualism that has to go….We are living in the end of the sovereign states….In the great struggle to evoke a Westernized World Socialism, contemporary governments may vanish….Countless people…will hate the new world order….and will die protesting against it.” H.G. Wells, in his book, “The New World Order”, 1940

“Some even believe we (the Rockefeller family) are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as ‘internationalists’ and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure – one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it.”
- David Rockefeller, Memoirs, page 405

“In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn’t such a great idea after all.”
- Strobe Talbot, President Clinton’s Deputy Secretary of State, Time Magazine, July 20th, 1992

“There does exist, and has existed for a generation, an international anglophile network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical Right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the communists, or any other group, and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments … I have objected both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies … but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known … The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) … the American Branch of a society which originated in England … believes national boundaries should be obliterated and [a] one-world rule established.”
Prof. Carroll Quigley, mentor to Bill Clinton, from his book ‘Tragedy and Hope‘

“Ultimately, our objective is to welcome the Soviet Union back into the world order. Perhaps the world order of the future will truly be a family of nations.” 
President George Bush at Texas A&M University 1989

“We will succeed in the Gulf. And when we do, the world community will have sent an enduring warning to any dictator or despot, present or future, who contemplates outlaw aggression. The world can therefore seize this opportunity to fufill the long-held promise of a new world order – where brutality will go unrewarded, and aggression will meet collective resistance.” 
President George Bush State of the Union Address 1991

“The Final Act of the Uruguay Round, marking the conclusion of the most ambitious trade negotiation of our century, will give birth – in Morocco – to the World Trade Organization, the third pillar of the New World Order, along with the United Nations and the International Monetary Fund.” 
Part of full-page advertisement by the government of Morocco in The New York Times (April 1994)

“To keep global resource use within prudent limits while the poor raise their living standards, affluent societies need to consume less.  Population, consumption, technology, development, and the environment are linked in complex relationships that bear closely on human welfare in the global neighborhood. Their effective and equitable management calls for a systemic, long-term, global approach guided by the principle of sustainable development, which has been the central lesson from the mounting ecological dangers of recent times. Its universal application is a priority among the tasks of global governance.” 
United Nations Our Global Neighborhood 1995

“What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system…a first step toward a new world order.”
Henry Kissinger on NAFTA, Los Angeles Times

“All these new challenges are bringing together about the biggest restructuring we’ve ever seen not just of the global economy but global order as a whole. And two hundred years ago, a famous British foreign secretary said that the new world had been called into existence to address the balance of the old. In 1989 another world war ended dominated by the cold war and people talked then in 1990 of the new world order. What they meant then was a new political order. And what was not foreseen then but is obvious now, from everything that we see and do, what we experience every day of our life is the sheer scale and speed and scope of globalization…”
Prime Minister Gordon Brown, CBI Speech 2007

“The New World Order will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down…but in the end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece will accomplish much more than the old fashioned frontal assault.”
CFR member Richard Gardner, writing in the April 1974 issue of the CFR’s journal, Foreign Affairs

As we can see quite clearly from the direct quotes above, the New World Order, and its pursuit of global government, is not some “delusion” built upon exaggerated claims or impractical fears.  It is, in fact, a very OPEN and freely admitted sociopolitical ideology held by a select and decidedly influential group of people.  To label it “conspiracy theory” is absurd.

Are capitalist and socialist organizations “conspiracy theory”?  Are political parties “conspiracy theories”?  Is Greenpeace a paranoid figment of our imagination?  What about corporate lobbyists?  Was the purge of Stalinist Russia a fable?  Did the Nazi party not actually seek to rule the world?  Obviously, these have all been substantial forces in the making of our current era.

Throughout history, very real organizations of people with specific and directed beliefs have sought to guide the course of our cultural progression according to their personal values, sometimes using coordinated and underhanded means.  The New World Order is no different in this regard.  Its uniqueness lay only in the insidious nature of its methods and the complexity of its structure.  In fact, I would have to question the sanity of anyone who DOESN’T believe that conspiracies are a constant and concrete reality.  Secretive groups of men have always sought power over others and have always cloaked their thirst in the auspices of patriotism and rationalism.

Another issue which average Americans stumble over is the fraudulent notion of the left/right paradigm.  For those within the ranks of the New World Order, “left” and “right”, Democrat and Republican, are ultimately meaningless terms.  This is undeniable after one realizes that the leadership on both sides of the aisle exhibit almost identical policy initiatives and voting records.  When the two primary political entities of a system differ only in rhetoric but not in action, one has to question whether they are separate parties at all:

When a liberty minded network like Oath Keepers points out the underlying New World Order-ness of a DoD program to train Russian soldiers on U.S. soil, they are referring to the centralizing nature of the procedure, and they are quite correct.  The problem is that those without any context or background knowledge are completely unequipped to understand the significance of the danger.  If only they knew about programs like the Security and Prosperity Partnership agreement between Canada, the U.S., and Mexico, constructed to dissolve sovereign military and economic functions between the three countries:

http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/HudsonNegotiatingNorthAmericaadvanceproof2.pdf

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/story.html?id=403d90d6-7a61-41ac-8cef-902a1d14879d

What is to stop this trend of military homogenization with neighboring foreign countries from spreading around the world, enabling corrupt governments stocked with proponents of globalism to use not only a country’s own troops domestically, but the troops of other nations?

As the SPLC points out in an attempt to be clever; this intermingling has been going on for quite some time.  What they fail to mention is the terrible track record these operations have amassed.  The ‘School Of The Americas’, for example, used the same rhetoric of “international cooperation” and the spreading of “democracy” as a fair trade when training foreign troops on U.S. soil, yet, all the school seemed to produce were tyrannical despots and mass murderers:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2097124,00.html 

Or, how about the recent training of the Iranian dissident group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) at a secretive Department of Energy site in Nevada:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2012/04/mek.html

Are we supposed to believe that the training of Russian troops within our border will produce better results?

These activities on the part of our government, in the end, do not serve the best interests of the American people in the slightest, but what they do serve, are the ideological addictions of the global elite.  That is to say, they further the interests of the New World Order.

As researchers and web journalists, we are supposed to be afraid to mention the NWO.  We are supposed to refrain from using certain vocabulary exactly because portions of the public are unfamiliar with it.  To be honest, I have to laugh at this dynamic.  I think it far better to embrace the truth of a matter, along with its dialogue.  To be unashamed and unabashed in the exposition of the facts regardless of the ignorance of those around us.  The New World Order is a definable and quantifiable political movement.  Elitists who praise it in public are showered with accolades while citizens who oppose it in public are accused of paranoid ramblings.  The less we care about what others might think, the more dedicated we can be to the truth.  At bottom, when it comes to matters of survival and principle, it is a far better thing to be “crazy” and right, than “sane” and wrong.

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

On Marine Le Pen And Populism

Marine Le Pen and The French’s Front National are the big winners in the French elections yesterday. France’s Front National scored the best ever presidential campaign first-round result (18% of the votes).

As elsewhere in Europe, the French far right is dealing with matters other political parties prefer to avoid or shove under the carpet. Yesterday results proves that many French are primarily concerned with issues to do with immigration and ‘identity loss’. While the so called ‘far Right’ engages with these matters, the Left and the Centre parties perform an escapist attitude – they prefer to vet the discussion via different means such as political correctness and even legislation. The media, would also shy away from the subject and would prefer to gate-keep any attempt to deal with the ‘unpopular’ topic.

Le Pen’s victory is clearly an alarm call. As the financial turmoil starts to bite, it becomes clear that we are dealing with a ticking bomb. The way to defuse the situation is to launch a free and open discussion on maters to do with ‘belonging’, ‘identity’ and ‘culture’. The Left has been confused about it all for decades. European Left is riddled with contradiction, it would, for instance, support national movement around the world but never at home. The Left would adorably support Palestinian nationalism in Gaza and the West Bank but it would oppose similar English or French patriotism at home. How do we explain or justify such an unprincipled political attitude?

The Guardian refereed to Le Pen today as a ‘populist appeal’. It obviously missed the point once again. Le Pen is popular because she touches some (unpopular) issues no one else, (including the Guardian) dares to touch. It is in fact the Guardian and other media outlets that present a populist approach maintaining some delusional notions of correctness that appear to be detached from the reality in which we are living in.

The Man Who Should Be President

Today, I am going to do something that I have never done: I am going to devote virtually my entire column to posting another man’s words. That man is the man who should be President of the United States: Congressman Ron Paul of Texas. The following is a written transcript of a speech Dr. Paul gave on the floor of the US House of Representatives back in 2007. Had Congressman Paul been elected President in 2008, the country would be four years into the greatest economic, political, and, yes, spiritual recovery in the history of America. As it is, the US is on the brink of totalitarianism and economic ruin. And you can mark it down, four years from now it won’t matter to a tinker’s dam whether Barack Obama or Mitt Romney was elected President this November. Neither man has the remotest understanding of America’s real problems nor the courage and backbone to do anything about it if they did understand.

Read the following. This is a man who understands the Constitution. This is a man who understands sound economic principles. This is a man who understands liberty and freedom. This is a man who has the guts to tell the truth. This is a man who has put his life and career on the line for the principles of liberty for more than two decades. This is a man who has returned every dollar that he has been paid as a US congressman to the taxpayers. This is the man who should be President of the United States.

[Ron Paul’s speech begins here] For some, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. For others, it means dissent against a government’s abuse of the people’s rights.

I have never met a politician in Washington or any American, for that matter, who chose to be called unpatriotic. Nor have I met anyone who did not believe he wholeheartedly supported our troops, wherever they may be.

What I have heard all too frequently from various individuals are sharp accusations that, because their political opponents disagree with them on the need for foreign military entanglements, they were unpatriotic, un-American evildoers deserving contempt.

The original American patriots were those individuals brave enough to resist with force the oppressive power of King George. I accept the definition of patriotism as that effort to resist oppressive state power.

The true patriot is motivated by a sense of responsibility and out of self-interest for himself, his family, and the future of his country to resist government abuse of power. He rejects the notion that patriotism means obedience to the state. Resistance need not be violent, but the civil disobedience that might be required involves confrontation with the state and invites possible imprisonment.

Peaceful, nonviolent revolutions against tyranny have been every bit as successful as those involving military confrontation. Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., achieved great political successes by practicing nonviolence, and yet they suffered physically at the hands of the state. But whether the resistance against government tyrants is nonviolent or physically violent, the effort to overthrow state oppression qualifies as true patriotism.

True patriotism today has gotten a bad name, at least from the government and the press. Those who now challenge the unconstitutional methods of imposing an income tax on us, or force us to use a monetary system designed to serve the rich at the expense of the poor are routinely condemned. These American patriots are sadly looked down upon by many. They are never praised as champions of liberty as Gandhi and Martin Luther King have been.

Liberals, who withhold their taxes as a protest against war, are vilified as well, especially by conservatives. Unquestioned loyalty to the state is especially demanded in times of war. Lack of support for a war policy is said to be unpatriotic. Arguments against a particular policy that endorses a war, once it is started, are always said to be endangering the troops in the field. This, they blatantly claim, is unpatriotic, and all dissent must stop. Yet, it is dissent from government policies that defines the true patriot and champion of liberty.

It is conveniently ignored that the only authentic way to best support the troops is to keep them out of dangerous undeclared no-win wars that are politically inspired. Sending troops off to war for reasons that are not truly related to national security and, for that matter, may even damage our security, is hardly a way to patriotically support the troops.

Who are the true patriots, those who conform or those who protest against wars without purpose? How can it be said that blind support for a war, no matter how misdirected the policy, is the duty of a patriot?

Randolph Bourne said that, “War is the health of the state.” With war, he argued, the state thrives. Those who believe in the powerful state see war as an opportunity. Those who mistrust the people and the market for solving problems have no trouble promoting a “war psychology” to justify the expansive role of the state. This includes the role the Federal Government plays in our lives, as well as in our economic transactions.

Certainly, the neoconservative belief that we have a moral obligation to spread American values worldwide through force justifies the conditions of war in order to rally support at home for the heavy hand of government. It is through this policy, it should surprise no one, that our liberties are undermined. The economy becomes overextended, and our involvement worldwide becomes prohibited. Out of fear of being labeled unpatriotic, most of the citizens become compliant and accept the argument that some loss of liberty is required to fight the war in order to remain safe.

This is a bad trade-off, in my estimation, especially when done in the name of patriotism. Loyalty to the state and to autocratic leaders is substituted for true patriotism; that is, a willingness to challenge the state and defend the country, the people and the culture. The more difficult the times, the stronger the admonition comes that the leaders be not criticized.

Because the crisis atmosphere of war supports the growth of the state, any problem invites an answer by declaring war, even on social and economic issues. This elicits patriotism in support of various government solutions, while enhancing the power of the state. Faith in government coercion and a lack of understanding of how free societies operate encourages big-government liberals and big-government conservatives to manufacture a war psychology to demand political loyalty for domestic policy just as is required in foreign affairs.

The long-term cost in dollars spent and liberties lost is neglected as immediate needs are emphasized. It is for this reason that we have multiple perpetual wars going on simultaneously. Thus, the war on drugs, the war against gun ownership, the war against poverty, the war against illiteracy, the war against terrorism, as well as our foreign military entanglements are endless.

All this effort promotes the growth of statism at the expense of liberty. A government designed for a free society should do the opposite, prevent the growth of statism and preserve liberty.

Once a war of any sort is declared, the message is sent out not to object or you will be declared unpatriotic. Yet, we must not forget that the true patriot is the one who protests in spite of the consequences. Condemnation or ostracism or even imprisonment may result.

Nonviolent protesters of the Tax Code are frequently imprisoned, whether they are protesting the code’s unconstitutionality or the war that the tax revenues are funding. Resisters to the military draft or even to Selective Service registration are threatened and imprisoned for challenging this threat to liberty.

Statism depends on the idea that the government owns us and citizens must obey. Confiscating the fruits of our labor through the income tax is crucial to the health of the state. The draft, or even the mere existence of the Selective Service, emphasizes that we will march off to war at the state’s pleasure.

A free society rejects all notions of involuntary servitude, whether by draft or the confiscation of the fruits of our labor through the personal income tax. A more sophisticated and less well-known technique for enhancing the state is the manipulation and transfer of wealth through the fiat monetary system operated by the secretive Federal Reserve.

Protesters against this unconstitutional system of paper money are considered unpatriotic criminals and at times are imprisoned for their beliefs. The fact that, according to the Constitution, only gold and silver are legal tender and paper money outlawed matters little. The principle of patriotism is turned on its head. Whether it’s with regard to the defense of welfare spending at home, confiscatory income tax, or an immoral monetary system or support for a war fought under false pretense without a legal declaration, the defenders of liberty and the Constitution are portrayed as unpatriotic, while those who support these programs are seen as the patriots.

If there is a war going on, supporting the state’s effort to win the war is expected at all costs, no dissent. The real problem is that those who love the state too often advocate policies that lead to military action. At home, they are quite willing to produce a crisis atmosphere and claim a war is needed to solve the problem. Under these conditions, the people are more willing to bear the burden of paying for the war and to carelessly sacrifice liberties, which they are told is necessary.

The last 6 years have been quite beneficial to the health of the state, which comes at the expense of personal liberty. Every enhanced unconstitutional power of the state can only be achieved at the expense of individual liberty. Even though in every war in which we have been engaged civil liberties have suffered, some have been restored after the war ended, but never completely. That has resulted in a steady erosion of our liberties over the past 200 years. Our government was originally designed to protect our liberties, but it has now, instead, become the usurper of those liberties.

We currently live in the most difficult of times for guarding against an expanding central government with a steady erosion of our freedoms. We are continually being reminded that 9/11 has changed everything.

Unfortunately, the policy that needed most to be changed, that is, our policy of foreign interventionism, has only been expanded. There is no pretense any longer that a policy of humility in foreign affairs, without being the world’s policemen and engaging in nation building, is worthy of consideration.

We now live in a post-9/11 America where our government is going to make us safe no matter what it takes. We are expected to grin and bear it and adjust to every loss of our liberties in the name of patriotism and security.

Though the majority of Americans initially welcomed the declared effort to make us safe, and we are willing to sacrifice for the cause, more and more Americans are now becoming concerned about civil liberties being needlessly and dangerously sacrificed.

The problem is that the Iraq war continues to drag on, and a real danger of it spreading exists. There is no evidence that a truce will soon be signed in Iraq or in the war on terror or the war on drugs. Victory is not even definable. If Congress is incapable of declaring an official war, it is impossible to know when it will end. We have been fully forewarned that the world conflict in which we are now engaged will last a long, long time.

The war mentality and the pervasive fear of an unidentified enemy allows for a steady erosion of our liberties, and, with this, our respect for self-reliance and confidence is lost. Just think of the self-sacrifice and the humiliation we go through at the airport screening process on a routine basis. Though there is no scientific evidence of any likelihood of liquids and gels being mixed on an airplane to make a bomb, billions of dollars are wasted throwing away toothpaste and hair spray, and searching old women in wheelchairs.

Our enemies say boo, and we jump, we panic, and then we punish ourselves. We are worse than a child being afraid of the dark. But in a way, the fear of indefinable terrorism is based on our inability to admit the truth about why there is a desire by a small number of angry radical Islamists to kill Americans. It is certainly not because they are jealous of our wealth and freedoms.

We fail to realize that the extremists, willing to sacrifice their own lives to kill their enemies, do so out of a sense of weakness and desperation over real and perceived attacks on their way of life, their religion, their country, and their natural resources. Without the conventional diplomatic or military means to retaliate against these attacks, and an unwillingness of their own government to address the issue, they resort to the desperation tactic of suicide terrorism. Their anger toward their own governments, which they believe are coconspirators with the American Government, is equal to or greater than that directed toward us.

These errors in judgment in understanding the motive of the enemy and the constant fear that is generated have brought us to this crisis where our civil liberties and privacy are being steadily eroded in the name of preserving national security.

We may be the economic and the military giant of the world, but the effort to stop this war on our liberties here at home in the name of patriotism is being lost.

The erosion of our personal liberties started long before 9/11, but 9/11 accelerated the process. There are many things that motivate those who pursue this course, both well-intentioned and malevolent, but it would not happen if the people remained vigilant, understood the importance of individual rights, and were unpersuaded that a need for security justifies the sacrifice for liberty, even if it is just now and then.

The true patriot challenges the state when the state embarks on enhancing its power at the expense of the individual. Without a better understanding and a greater determination to rein in the state, the rights of Americans that resulted from the revolutionary break from the British and the writing of the Constitution will disappear.

The record since September 11th is dismal. Respect for liberty has rapidly deteriorated. Many of the new laws passed after 9/11 had, in fact, been proposed long before that attack. The political atmosphere after that attack simply made it more possible to pass such legislation. The fear generated by 9/11 became an opportunity for those seeking to promote the power of the state domestically, just as it served to falsely justify the long-planned invasion of Iraq.

The war mentality was generated by the Iraq war in combination with the constant drumbeat of fear at home. Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, who is now likely residing in Pakistan, our supposed ally, are ignored, as our troops fight and die in Iraq and are made easier targets for the terrorists in their backyard. While our leaders constantly use the mess we created to further justify the erosion of our constitutional rights here at home, we forget about our own borders and support the inexorable move toward global government, hardly a good plan for America.

The accelerated attacks on liberty started quickly after 9/11. Within weeks, the PATRIOT Act was overwhelmingly passed by Congress. Though the final version was unavailable up to a few hours before the vote, no Member had sufficient time to study it. Political fear of not doing something, even something harmful, drove the Members of Congress to not question the contents, and just voted for it. A little less freedom for a little more perceived safety was considered a fair trade-off, and the majority of Americans applauded.

The PATRIOT Act, though, severely eroded the system of checks and balances by giving the government the power to spy on law-abiding citizens without judicial supervision. The several provisions that undermine the liberties of all Americans include sneak-and-peek searches, a broadened and more vague definition of domestic terrorism, allowing the FBI access to library and bookstore records without search warrants or probable cause, easier FBI initiation of wiretaps and searches, as well as roving wiretaps, easier access to information on American citizens’ use of the Internet, and easier access to e-mail and financial records of all American citizens.

The attack on privacy has not relented over the past 6 years. The Military Commissions Act is a particularly egregious piece of legislation and, if not repealed, will change America for the worse as the powers unconstitutionally granted to the executive branch are used and abused. This act grants excessive authority to use secretive military commissions outside of places where active hostilities are going on. The Military Commissions Act permits torture, arbitrary detention of American citizens as unlawful enemy combatants at the full discretion of the President and without the right of habeas corpus, and warrantless searches by the NSA. It also gives to the President the power to imprison individuals based on secret testimony.

Since 9/11, Presidential signing statements designating portions of legislation that the President does not intend to follow, though not legal under the Constitution, have enormously multiplied. Unconstitutional Executive Orders are numerous and mischievous and need to be curtailed.

Extraordinary rendition to secret prisons around the world have been widely engaged in, though obviously extralegal.

A growing concern in the post-9/11 environment is the Federal Government’s list of potential terrorists based on secret evidence. Mistakes are made, and sometimes it is virtually impossible to get one’s name removed even though the accused is totally innocent of any wrongdoing.

A national ID card is now in the process of being implemented. It is called the REAL ID card, and it is tied to our Social Security numbers and our State driver’s license. If REAL ID is not stopped, it will become a national driver’s license ID for all Americans. We will be required to carry our papers.

Some of the least-noticed and least-discussed changes in the law were the changes made to the Insurrection Act of 1807 and to posse comitatus by the Defense Authorization Act of 2007. These changes pose a threat to the survival of our Republic by giving the President the power to declare martial law for as little reason as to restore public order. The 1807 act severely restricted the President in his use of the military within the United States borders, and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 strengthened these restrictions with strict oversight by Congress. The new law allows the President to circumvent the restrictions of both laws. The Insurrection Act has now become the “Enforcement of the Laws to Restore Public Order Act.” This is hardly a title that suggests that the authors cared about or understood the nature of a constitutional Republic.

Now, martial law can be declared not just for insurrection, but also for natural disasters, public health reasons, terrorist attacks or incidents, or for the vague reason called “other conditions.” The President can call up the National Guard without congressional approval or the Governors’ approval, and even send these State Guard troops into other States.

The American Republic is in remnant status. The stage is set for our country eventually devolving into a military dictatorship, and few seem to care. These precedent-setting changes in the law are extremely dangerous and will change American jurisprudence forever if not revised. The beneficial results of our revolt against the King’s abuses are about to be eliminated, and few Members of Congress and few Americans are aware of the seriousness of the situation. Complacency and fear drive our legislation without any serious objection by our elected leaders. Sadly, though, those few who do object to this self-evident trend away from personal liberty and empire-building overseas are portrayed as unpatriotic and uncaring.

Though welfare and socialism always fails, opponents of them are said to lack compassion. Though opposition to totally unnecessary war should be the only moral position, the rhetoric is twisted to claim that patriots who oppose the war are not supporting the troops. The cliché “Support the Troops” is incessantly used as a substitute for the unacceptable notion of supporting the policy, no matter how flawed it may be.

Unsound policy can never help the troops. Keeping the troops out of harm’s way and out of wars unrelated to our national security is the only real way of protecting the troops. With this understanding, just who can claim the title of “patriot”?

Before the war in the Middle East spreads and becomes a world conflict for which we will be held responsible, or the liberties of all Americans become so suppressed we can no longer resist, much has to be done. Time is short, but our course of action should be clear. Resistance to illegal and unconstitutional usurpation of our rights is required. Each of us must choose which course of action we should take: education, conventional political action, or even peaceful civil disobedience to bring about necessary changes.

But let it not be said that we did nothing. Let not those who love the power of the welfare/warfare state label the dissenters of authoritarianism as unpatriotic or uncaring. Patriotism is more closely linked to dissent than it is to conformity and a blind desire for safety and security. Understanding the magnificent rewards of a free society makes us unbashful in its promotion, fully realizing that maximum wealth is created and the greatest chance for peace comes from a society respectful of individual liberty. [Ron Paul’s speech ends here]

There it is. The speech Dr. Paul gave in 2007 seems even more relevant today than it did then. Don’t you think?

You want to elect a real American statesman? You want to elect a man who would preserve liberty and freedom in America? You want to elect a man who would resist the devilish New World Order? You want to elect a man who would reestablish sound economic principles? If so, you will vote to elect Ron Paul as President of the United States. (And, no, no one has paid me a penny to post his speech or make this endorsement.)

Forget all the smoke and mirrors and the dog and pony shows that you see and hear from the other Presidential candidates. The issues that Dr. Paul addressed in this speech are the issues that are going to determine our country’s future. Again, this is the man who should be President of the United States.

Power Without Blessing

A Conversation of Tyranny…

The “Daily Bell” is a Libertarian internet site that provides news and commentary.  Anthony Wile is editor and the page has an impressive list of Libertarian advisors.  DB is a foundation that solicits donations.

Libertarian Pages like “Freedom Phoenix”, “Lou Rockwell”, “The Daily Bell” and others provide sources for monitoring the advancement of tyranny in America and throughout the world.  I am a Christian, I am not a Libertarian, but the common quest for truth often brings us together.

Some of the DB editorials are marked “Staff report” and although they speak for the site are not signed by a particular writer.  DB frequently presents their opinion on the Jewish phenomenon; one article was entitled “The Conversation of Freedom is Not Jewish”.

The writer takes issue with Henry Makow’s opinion that Libertarianism has a Jewish character.  DB gives the Philosophy an umbrella that would cover Ayn Rand at one end and Gary North at the other.  The DB model is described with a small “L”, different from the formal Libertarian Party.  To the accusation that Libertarians eschew social justice DB sites a previous article where they recommended a return to private justice where “people avenge their own via duels, feuds and the like” and “organize around various forms of private theology”.  It goes on to chide the antediluvian nature of some of the Jewish conspiracy theories.

However, DB makes a huge error at the outset by labeling Jewish conspiracy theories as “anti-Semitic”.  The a-S label squelches all attempts to bring veracity to the Jewish phenomenon allowing the truth to remain hidden.  If we allow the a-S label to censor truth we fertilize the common contemporary practice of allowing fantasy to pose as reality.  Attempts to squelch free speech by refusing to acknowledge truth creates insoluble problems by making proper understanding impossible.

That said consider this:  Jews are a very small minority in the United States.  They make up less than 3 percent of our population.  However, if I shop at Home Depot I am shopping at a Jewish owned store; if I go to Lowes it is also Jewish owned; Walgreens is Jewish owned as is CVS; every department store carries several product lines that are Jewish owned; Google was a Jewish brainchild; Facebook was developed by a Jewish Harvard student; Jewish interests control money worldwide; education, particularly higher education, has been co-opted by Jewish intellectuals; from the beginning of the Twentieth Century to the present every U. S. president has been surrounded by Jewish advisors; congressmen cannot get elected without supporting Israel and Jewish interests; T. V. commentators, movie actors, producers, consultants etc. are predominately Jewish; book reviews on C-Span are mostly by Jewish authors; the book publishing industry is controlled by Jews; the media – newspapers, movies, TV, radio, and records – are under Jewish control; and, the intellectual base for classic Libertarianism is Jewish,  Rothbard, Mises, and Rand were all Jewish and Mise’s student, Hayek, had Jewish blood through the Wittgensteins. According to one source 87 percent of Jewish children attend college while the United States average is about 40 percent.  A third or more of the students at Harvard are Jewish and in my current favorite TV drama the two major characters are played by Jewish actors and all positions of power are held by Blacks or women or both.  The facts are astounding – only severe myopia could obscure them.    Read more here.

Dr. Stephen Steinlight a respected Jewish thinker has been pilloried by militant Jewish partisans for attempting to ameliorate the immigration debate.  In one of his monographs he describes his upbringing: “I’ll confess it, at least: like thousands of other typical Jewish kids of my generation, I was reared as a Jewish nationalist, even a quasi-separatist. Every summer for two months for 10 formative years during my childhood and adolescence I attended Jewish summer camp. There, each morning, I saluted a foreign flag, dressed in a uniform reflecting its colors, sang a foreign national anthem, learned a foreign language, learned foreign folk songs and dances, and was taught that Israel was the true homeland. Emigration to Israel was considered the highest virtue, and, like many other Jewish teens of my generation, I spent two summers working in Israel on a collective farm while I contemplated that possibility. More tacitly and subconsciously, I was taught the superiority of my people to the gentiles who had oppressed us. We were taught to view non-Jews as untrustworthy outsiders, people from whom sudden gusts of hatred might be anticipated, people less sensitive, intelligent, and moral than ourselves. We were also taught that the lesson of our dark history is that we could rely on no one.”

Part of the problem is that many Jews among us tend to think of themselves this way: “I am not anAmerican citizen of the Jewish faith, I am a Jew. I have been an American for sixty-three sixty-fourths ofmy life, but I have been a Jew for 4000 years.”  Quote from Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, speaking before a rally in New York in 1938.

In our Jewish dominated society complicity with Jewish interests is often a successful business strategy.  World Net Daily has become popular and successful supporting Zionism while truthtellers Pat Buchanan and the team of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have dropped from prominence.  The erstwhile anti-Zionist publication “Spotlight”, assiduously exposed Jewish shenanigans. It was forced into bankruptcy and silenced.  There is tremendous pressure from powerful Jewish quarters to suppress the truth.

Wealth and power are usually products of consistent work to obtain knowledge and to conduct ones affairs in an orderly and profitable manner.  Jews have worked hard to get where they are.  There is diversity in their ranks but there is also cohesion.  They have extensive control of the world’s money supply.  From outsiders they extract interest but to their fellow Jews loans are free.  Individually they are knowledgeable and interesting to know and claim as friends.  If they vested their power in the One True God and were obedience to His Commandments the world would be a far better place.  But instead there is a huge downside to their astounding racial success.

Dr. Kevin MacDonald, Professor of Psychology at California State University–Long Beach, is a prolific author who has suffered some nasty episodes for carefully compiling a trilogy of books on the Jewish phenomenon.  For anyone interested in studying Jewish history his books are excellent.  The Webpage is here.  In “The Culture of Critique” MacDonald quotes Walter Kerr, “The literate American mind has come in some measure to think Jewishly.  It has been taught to, and it was ready to.  After the entertainers and novelists came the Jewish critics, politicians, and theologians.  Critics and politicians and theologians are by profession molders: they form ways of seeing.” MacDonald goes on to describe Jews as being ambitious, persistent, cohesive, and group oriented; he cites their “dazzling verbal skills”, their high level of energy, and their strength of conviction, claiming “these traits have been central to Judaism as a group evolutionary strategy throughout history”.

Henry Makow’s use of the word “Illuminate” is an apt description but is meaningless to most Americans.  Evangelical Christians imbued with the cultish Dispensational theology consider Jews to be God’s Chosen People.  With gossamer piety they proclaim the Second Coming using the man-made nation of Israel as an impetus.  With no understanding of Judaism and a tiny, often distorted, knowledge of the Bible they frantically support the theology Jesus condemned.  It is the Talmud (Satanic theology) with its hate for the Goyum, its Jewish racial superiority, its promotion of deception, and its gross immorality that guides Zionist leadership.

The impact of Jewish hegemony is not overtly evident in the everyday life of American citizens.  It is not understood that the agendas for the major segments of our society are always set by the Jewish mind. No one seems upset that we are never exposed of the genocide of neo-Israel’s Palestinian captives. We have been so thoroughly brain washed that our sympathies automatically go to the Holocaust and the suffering inflicted on Jews by the Third Reich.  While neo-Israel steals their land, imprisons them in a gulag, and kills them at will, most Americans believe it is the Palestinians that are culpable.

The brain washing has been so successful that we are not aware that more Christians than Jews were murdered during WWII.  There is no lament for the millions of Christians murdered by a mostly Jewish cadre in Russian and by Hitler’s regime in Germany.  No movies have been made about the suffering of Christians and few, if any, books have been published on this subject.  The emphasis has always been on the Jews.  Movies have been presented, a museum has been erected, and a constant bombardment of propaganda has accompanied the Holocaust while Christians and Russian Jewish involvement in their murder has been completely erased from the minds of the public and removed from current history.

Our universities have experienced a similar Jewish brain washing.  Multiculturalism, racial factions, sexual liberation, feminism, homosexuality, socialist politics, and politically correct speech have become part of University life.  Free speech and freedom of association have been curtailed disallowing the discussion of forbidden subjects.  Brain washing in colleges has resulted in a politically correct environment that distorts justice, vies with reality, and fails to provide a full orbed education. MacDonald writes that John Dewey, who was a major influence in forming the American educational system, was “promoted by Jewish intellectuals” and helped establish the New School of Social Research and the America Civil Liberties Union “both essentially Jewish organizations”.

The Christian Church has been the bulls eye of the Jewish target in America. Since the Church forsook its duty to censor the products of Hollywood motion pictures have become progressively more immoral and attacks on Christianity more frequent and severe.   Practices forbidden in the Bible are favorably depicted on movie screens; adultery, fornication, infidelity, divorce, and homosexuality are routine. Christian ministers are shown as lustful charlatans, wimps, or fools while secular characters are compassionate, long suffering, and altruistic.  The legal attack on the Church has been devastating. Christianity and all of its symbols have been banned from the public square and shoved into captivity behind church walls.  One Jewish atheist can destroy Christian traditions that have existed for centuries.

The United States is not the first nation to be overcome by Jewish power.  Before WWII Jews were a powerful faction in Germany.  Dr. MacDonald quotes I. Deak: “Jews were responsible for a great part of the German culture.  The owners of three of Germany’s greatest newspaper publishing houses; the editors of the “Vossische Zeitung” and the Berliner Tageblatt; most book publishers; the owners and editors of the Neue Rundschau and other distinguished literary magazines; the owners of Germany’s greatest art galleries were all Jews.  Jews played a major part in theater and in the film industry as producers, directors, and actors.  Many of Germany’s best composers, musicians, artists, sculptors, and architects were Jews.  Their participation in literary criticism and in literature was enormous: practically all of the great critics and many novelists, poets, dramatists, essayists of Weimar Germany were Jews.  A recent American study has shown that thirty-one of the sixty-five leading German ‘expressionists’ and “neo-objectivists’ were Jews.”

The Russian writer Igor Shafarevich writes “that Jews were critically involved in actions that destroyed traditional Russian institutions, particularly in their role of dominating the secret police and the OGPU (Unified State Political Directorate).  He stresses the Jewish role in liquidating Russian nationalists and undermining Russian patriotism, murdering the Czar and his family, dispossessing the kulaks, and destroying the Orthodox Church.”  Kevin MacDonald says of Shafarevich, “He views Jewish ‘Russophobia’ not as a unique phenomenon, but as resulting from traditional Jewish hostility towards the Gentile world considered as “tref” (unclean) and toward Gentiles themselves considered as sub-human and as worthy of destruction —.”

It is not difficult to relate the results of Jewish domination in Russia and Germany with what is happening in the United States.  The arts and the media is under complete Jewish domination and our culture is being decimated with multiculturalism and massive immigration both promoted by Jewish intellectuals and the organizations they have created.  Jews control our government and foreign policies as well as the Federal Reserve which is swimming in profits while our nation faces bankruptcy. America’s moral columns have been destroyed with the banning of social Christianity and the enforced legal status for abortion, homosexuality, and gay marriage.  Jews have decimated America!

In 2002 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published his last major work “Two Hundred Years Together”.   It has been translated and published in Europe but has been blocked by Jewish partisans in America. Solzhenitsyn was a hero.  He died in 2008 but during his life he was an ardent seeker and purveyor of truth.  I suspect his book would corroborate the work of Dr. MacDonald.

Americans tend to think these highly talented people are close to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, The One True God, and to think of them as intrinsic in His plans for His creation.  Evangelical Christians provide Jews with substantial monetary and spiritual support.

Michael Hoffman’s book “Judaism’s Strange Gods” shatters this illusion by delving deeply into the beliefs that are promoted by the Rabbis.  It liberates “the reader from the accumulated shackles of decades of misinformation and shows that Judaism’s god is not the God of Israel, but the strange gods of Talmud and Kabbalah, and the racial self-worship they inculcate”; in the process it shatters the DB opinion that the Talmud and Kabbalah are paper tigers.

Keeping these facts under wrap and destroying honest critiques is not good for our nation nor is it good for Jews.  Vishal Mangalwadi, an East Indian Christian, has written a book entitled “Truth and Transformation”, a “Manifesto for Ailing Nations”.  His examples of the contagious nature of dishonesty and the devastating results of institutionalized theft on the prosperity of societies breaks new ground in support of God’s overarching moral code.  The moral code God gave to those who enjoyed His first love should be their gift to His creation but instead it has been forsaken and replaced with the clandestine cloak of Devilish, Talmudic lies.

Vishal Mangalwadi begins his book by relating a story about his own experience with honesty. Someone told him that a particular country was a good place to do business because its people trusted each other.  At first he did not understand why trust was important but later, in Holland, a friend took him to a dairy farm where milk was sold on the honor system with the customer trusted to put the required cost into a bowl;  there was not attendant.   Vishal said to his friend  “if you were an Indian, you would take the milk and the money”.  Later Vishal told this story at a meeting in Indonesia where and Egyptian gentleman laughed and said, “We are cleverer than Indians.  We would take the milk, the money, and the cows.”

Vishal then began to understand that if people took the milk and the money the owner would need to hire an attendant and the cost of the milk would then go up to cover the cost of the attendant.  Further, he concluded “if customers are dishonest, why should the supplier be honest?  He would add water to the milk to increase the volume.  Being an activist, I would protest that the milk was adulterated; the government must appoint milk inspectors.  But who would pay for the inspectors?  Me, the taxpayer.”

“If the consumer and the suppliers are dishonest, why would the inspectors be honest?  They would extract bribes from the suppliers.  If they didn’t get the bribes, they would use one law or another to make sure the sales is delayed enough to make the nonrefrigerated milk curdle.  Who would pay for the bribes?  Initially the supplier, but ultimately the consumer.”

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.” – attributed to Abraham Lincoln, a hero for many Jews.  The historic results of Jewish illegitimate hegemony, subterfuge, manipulation, apartheid, and racial arrogance have always been disastrous.  It would be a great blessing to world Jewry as well as to Gentiles if Jewish leaders would squelch the self pity, learn humility, and begin to use their considerable talents to bring the world peace, justice, and personal freedom by obeying the Commandments of the God that created them and without Whom they would never have existed as a people. It was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that fulfilled His promise to make them a great nation and it was the same long suffering and merciful God that scattered them at the Diaspora because of their disobedience.  Obedience would bring reconciliation, the Talmud and the Kabbalah will not.

DB is right the conversation of freedom is not Jewish; however, it is often tyrannical.

“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes the laws.”

Mayer Amschel Rothschild   Does DB understand who controls the money and the results of that control?

Political Dissent in the Land of the Sheeple

The long and sometime turbulent drama of political dissent in America is a continued theme in history of the country. Born out of a revolution and based on social principles of self-determination, the nation rustles with the internal conflict between individual liberty and the power of tyrannical elites. This struggle is the natural condition in any nation. How a society treats dissenters is a primary test for any government. Most states fail this assessment miserably. America’s tolerance for peaceful dissent is in jeopardy, not solely from the current despotic regime in power, but from the flock of hungry government parasites that graze upon the public benefit programs that herd citizens into a crowd controlled environment.

The liberal left adopts a mindset that is deficient in understanding of this most important reality. When people become dependent on government, the effective ability for meaningful dissent diminishes. Progressives are innately believers in the “Good Society”. Their assessment that government improves the plight of citizens is a false conclusion. The greatest degree of suffering and despotism comes directly from the chambers of the State. Yet, the Democratic sentiments that echoes the welfare role of central government, causes the apathy and acquiescence that allows for even more consolidation among the oligarchs.

However, there is a more comprehensive description of this circumstance; an “Ineptocracy“.

(in-ep-toc’-ra-cy) – a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.

 

By this definition, the advocates for more inclusive government practice the very elements that make the situation worse. Watch the video VOICES OF DISSENT: ACTIVISM & AMERICAN DEMOCRACY and observe this disconnect that leftist dissenters often express.

Movements like Occupy Wall Street become co-opted over time in a like manner as the Tea Party organizations that adopt mainstream Republican sentiments. Encouraging are instances when ordinary people pressure the corrupt political class. Notwithstanding, heightened activism, there must be a rational basis for a practical alternative. Sadly, in most instances, no matter how many demands petitioners make to restore immutable civil liberties, the establishment refuses to relinquish their tyrannical dictates.

This fact keeps the vast majority in self-induced incarceration. Nearly half of potential voters never cast a ballot. It is reasonable to conclude the tired old cliché that it does not matter to vote because there is no a difference between the parties, is accurate. Nonetheless, dissent is far more profound than being a duped victim to a rigged voting system. Dissent requires total emersion into the entire political process.

Lobbying officials and confrontation with bureaucracies are necessary elements that every citizen has a duty to engage. Yet, the lesson of history is that only the few ever risk being burned by challenging the status quo. Well, that kind of resignation will never defeat a coercive political dynasty bent on expanding an ever-greater diabolical regime.

The Sheeple mentality produces walking zombies. You know the type. They are your neighbors and relatives. They come from ever kind of background or employment. Most just are afraid to get involved. They are the first to wave the flag, but will never attend a government public hearing, much less express their discontent. Their motto, “go along to get along” symbolizes the decay of the nation.

Add in the legions of public employees with their union entitlement extortion demands and you have a formula for a terminable society.

Our natural tendency is to trust authority provides a feeble excuse into the dysfunctional Sheeple DNA. Only the conclusion ”Our tendency to trust authority is allowing mentally incompetent people to remain as leaders in government, universities, business, and news reporting“ provides the accurate insight.

One reason we resist improving our world is that we resist facing the possibility that our leaders are corrupt or incompetent. Our natural tendency is to trust people in positions of authority; to assume they are protecting us and providing guidance to us.

Children offer the most extreme example of this. The natural tendency of a child is to assume his parents are wonderful people. A child will trust his life with his parents, and he will resist accusations that his parents are bad people.

This tendency to trust authority persists even in adults. In fact, some people have noticed that simply by pretending that they are important they can get people to regard them as an authority. People who are promoted to management positions are sometimes advised by other managers to put on an aura of being a leader. The reason is simply because we don’t judge a leader by his ability to lead. Rather, like an animal, and like a child, we judge a leader by his visual appearance, posture, tone of voice, and — most important — according to whether other people consider him to be a leader.

Another viewpoint expands upon the true motives of the “Leaders” that reaches the fundamental lesson.

So you ask why Operation condition the sheeple the title to this article, because many are being manipulated by those that would control the masses for their own greedy purposes. The elite of this country and the World are simple unwilling to share their knowledge and are afraid of the ever awakening populace and rightfully so!So by keeping the populace of the one remaining Super Power left in the World in the dark, distracted with electronic entertainment and tracked by the very same devices, The Powers That Be have put themselves in a position to Condition the Sheeple in anyway they see fit.

You know in your heart the system conditions the public to become mindless obedient serfs. Every act of obeying institutional corruption and rationalizing, that you are a good citizen for conforming to the subliminal conditioning, is the response of a mentally disturbed person.

 

Leave it to Alex Jones to crystallize the plight of a submissive country in the video It’s Time for The Sheeple to Wake The Hell Up!!. Does this analysis conflict with the Ineptocracy definition? While this concept describes the compliant public, do not dismiss the malicious nature of the manipulators that actually control the phony political process and create the environment that fosters a brain dead society.Denial is not a defense for abdicating your civic responsibility. If you are one of the avid cheerleaders of State adoration and practice the ritual sentiment – “America Love It or Leave It“, you are a prime Sheeple follower.

Because there are so many docile disciples ready to forgo their natural rights in order to gain a perceived favor from the jackboot thugs who chime the slogan “rally around the flag boys”, the country deteriorates.

Dissent is necessary for any chance of survival. You know this to be true. But where will the opposition appear or around what issues will they gain critical mass? Under the Amerika Empire, foreign involvement and unremitting war is always a prime target for a mass movement resistance. Just where is the anti-war opposition? There is no monopoly of the left that objects to permanent warfare.

Traditional PaleoConservatives detest NeoCon and NeoLib internationalists. Patriots from all ideologies are alive and eager to stop the madness. So what is the excuse for indifference or lack of coordination? As World War III approaches, what will it take for a national response against the lunacy that guarantees massive human suffering?

The despotism that advances daily will not cease by passing additional repressive laws. National security begins in the minds and souls of the people and ends in the coercive dictates of a police state. Protest and resistance is the true patriotism.

If you are content to be a mere animal subservient to a cruel master, the Sheeple mentality resonates within your defective psyche. PsyOps are at the core of suppression and government education. The normal behavior for the average supporter of the tyrannical system requires condemnation for any dissent that seeks to restore a genuine Republic. If you oppose corruption and advocate accountability, the government flunkies and proponents will label you a domestic terrorist.

It comes as no surprise that the welfare state is now viewed as a right, while the Bill of Rights is trampled into the trash heap of a previous age. Political evolution, for the Sheeple is seen as lowing your head for the clipper that wants to shear your hair. Dissent for creatures absent of courage relegates the society to a fundamental split and confrontation.

Only fidelity to principle and bravery of spirit will transform this disturbed society into a nation worthy of allegiance. Until that day arrives, join the proud legacy of peaceful dissent and civil disobedience. Leadership is different from imposition. Gather the fortitude of risking public ridicule and fight for your country. Start with open resistance to any unlawful or immoral dictate. There is no where left to hide. Become a Patriot in the Patrick Henry tradition.

No Apocalypse Yet

“Moscow” — The anticipated apocalypse did not come to pass. The presidential election in Russia ran its course, Putin was duly elected, and to the great astonishment of the opposition, multimillion crowds demanding the blood of the tyrant did not materialize. Only some 15,000 protesters gathered in central Moscow and dispersed peacefully within two hours. Only a remaining hundred hardcore activists were resolved “to stay until Putin goes” in the frozen city fountain. They were removed by police, charged and released. What a flop!

An inspired spokesperson of the Whites, a returnee from New York Masha Gessen, self-described “Jewish Lesbian, a sworn enemy of the Putin regime”, a blogger for the NY Times, “extremely influential”, according to Newsweek, who has just published with Riverhead a book prophesying the swift fall of Putin, predicted (or called for) 200,000 angry Russians tearing down the walls of Kremlin and washing with blood the streets on March 5. Rarely has a forecast failed so profoundly.

The last rally had its funny moments. The radicals came with quite obscene slogans against Putin and against his electorate. They booed down almost everybody including the billionaire oligarch Mr Prokhorov who tried his luck with them. It was rather cold, almost 20 degrees F (-6°C), and the call of Udaltsov and Navalny to stay put was met with visible disbelief. Navalny looked extremely unhappy; he spoke of the need to build a movement from scratch. The police behaved very well; even the participants lauded its polite and respectful attitude. US cops could take a lesson from Moscow riot police how to be cool.

Until it happened, nobody was sure of the outcome. Opposition leaders I asked privately told me that they didn’t know; the government wasn’t sure and brought in thousands of troops and riot police, menacingly located in the backyards, happily remaining uncalled for. City hall permitted all the rallies applied for, at the time and place they asked; there were no logistic problems, the location of the main opposition demo was in Pushkin square, the Moscow equivalent of Times Square in New York. All in vain: people did not come.

They were sobered by the vote. Some 40,000 observers drafted from all walks of life were stationed at the booths; there were web-cameras checking every corner near the booths for possible fraud. Relatively open-minded observers had had a chance to see that in transparent elections people did vote for Putin. Not overwhelmingly (64 per cent is not a North Korean kind of result), but convincingly. A few liberal bloggers had a change of heart and sobbingly admitted that they had witnessed fair elections and heard vox populi. For this reason, calls by Navalny, Yashin, Udaltsov and other White leaders to declare the vote “illegitimate” fell on deaf ears.

Only a few hardcore activists kept claiming that the vote was fraudulent; other Whites lamented that they had to share this planet with such a rabble. The deputy chief editor of the main White broadcaster Echo Moskvy, Vladimir Varfolomeev, wrote in his blog that “the social base of Putin regime, 40 to 50 million Russians, has to be eliminated” for democracy to win. This remark was widely interpreted as a call for genocide. Other Whites disparagingly called the Putin electorate “sprats” and other endearing terms; one or two declared their intention to emigrate to Israel. They plan for more rallies, but the feeling is that the orange bubble has burst.

The activists are heart-broken, dashed in their expectations. Their cause, that of fair elections, is dead. Demonization of Putin did not work; to the contrary, it pushed many stubborn Russians back into the fold. Now they look for a new cause, and it seems they have chosen confrontation with the church. After the failure, their first action was in support of four punk-rockers who made a nuisance of themselves in a Moscow cathedral. This is not likely to endear them to the broad masses, as the Russians are quite devout to their national church.

The communists did rather well, but their tactics in the aftermath of the elections were confusing and lacklustre. Mr Zuganov chose neither to recognize nor congratulate Mr Putin; the Party called for a rally but did not mobilize its cadres and it flopped, for the ordinary Communists did not understand the message. Probably a new person at the helm of the party instead of tired Mr Zuganov will be able to change things in time for the next elections.

Moscow is different

Analysis of the election results shows that Moscow voted differently from the rest of the country. Russia’s social disparity was translated into electoral numbers very neatly. Elsewhere, second place was taken by the Communist contender Mr Gennady Zuganov (18 per cent); in Moscow it was ceded by the Communists in favour of the bon-vivant oligarch Mr Mikhail Prokhorov who received a very robust 20 per cent as opposed to 7 per cent in Russia generally.

Even more revealing were the results in separate electoral districts: the more well-to-do neighborhoods of Moscow voted handsomely for Prokhorov, in the best and most expensive areas he got up to 40 per cent of the vote. Prokhorov and his people called for a neoliberal agenda, less taxation for business, longer working hours, dismantling of the remnants of social protection including central heating that makes Russian homes so warm in the winter. Naturally he could not hope to win the average Russian heart, but the well-heeled voted for him, though they made their fortunes under Putin.

Putin brought this result upon himself: he allowed Moscow to become the vortex of money flows. More money comes and stays in Moscow than in the rest of Russia. Once, Moscow had a big working class population, many factories, good conditions for workers, for the workers were the mainstay of the Soviet regime. But for last 20 years Moscow has been deindustrialised, factories closed, the working class shrunk, while the locals made a killing renting out their state-provided apartments.

The results of elections in Moscow could have been even worse for Putin but for the bussing of voters from industrial townships. The bussed voters were also citizens of Russia and the bussing did not change the overall results; it changed the results for separate districts, and so it obscured the dangerous disparity between Moscow and the rest of the country. In some expensive areas of Moscow where little if any bussing took place, Prokhorov gathered almost as many votes as Putin. In London and Tel Aviv, where many Russian citizens voted, Prokhorov won hands down, and Putin was nowhere.

If Putin wants to remain in power, he must do something about Moscow. The disparity between Moscow and the country has to be equalized. The capital city and its inhabitants are hated by the country folk, and this feeling could allow Putin to shift resources away from this too-rich city.

His bigger problem is with the oligarchs. Will he try to fit their agenda? This is a distinct possibility. Though at the time of upsurge and hate-Putin rallies, he appealed to the patriotism of activists and intellectuals, and they saved him by the miracle at the Poklonnaya Mount, they are far from certain that he will not forget them in the time of his victory. Ditto Mr Rogozin, the fiery nationalist, who was brought home from honorary exile in Brussels. People wonder whether Putin will keep him now.

However, there is a possibility that he will do what the oligarchs fear, namely deal with offshoring and the dishonest dealing of the super-rich. John Helmer, an oldtimer journalist in Moscow with Asia Times, wrote enthusiastically of Putin’s directive VP-P13-9308 of December 28, 2011 available here; he described it “the oligarch killer”. Putin has demanded from CEOs and managers of the state-owned giants that they disclose, in Helmer’s words:

“networks of affiliation between officials and beneficiaries; wives, children and other family members or nominees who have been placed in concealed trusts and bag-holding positions; and chains of offshore cashflows. The state companies include Rosatom, the uranium mining and uranium fuel holding company; Inter RAO UES, the electricity holding company; RusdHydro, the hydroelectric power producer; Irkutskenergo, a southeast regional supplier of electricity; Gazprom; Transneft, the oil pipeline company; Sovcomflot, the state shipping company; Russian Railways; Aeroflot; Rostelecom; and the three state banks – Sberbank, VTB and Vnesheconombank.”

Surprisingly little was written about this in the media before the elections, though any sign of an attack on oligarchs would have brought in extra millions of voters to Putin. There were a couple of reports on TV, and then the matter disappeared from public view. Will Putin continue this struggle against the CEOs who deal with state property in the interests of their families? It is hard to predict whether in the end Putin will dare to fight the oligarchs or will prefer to accommodate them.

If he wants to survive politically, he will have to implement the national agenda, confront the oligarchs, curb the creative class, provide support to those who supported him. But Putin is a master of compromise; he takes decisive action only if necessary. He will be encumbered with Mr Dmitri Medvedev as his prime minister, an extremely inauspicious appointment he could not escape. Though loyal to Putin personally, he is not a good executive. Still it would be difficult to drop him unless he really makes a mess of things.

Russia faces fateful years. There is the danger of an Israeli-American war against Iran; and Iran is Russia’s neighbour and a friend. Syria, though in much better shape after the taking of Homs, is still in trouble, and Syria is the Russian foothold in the Middle East. The future of the Euro and the EC is doubtful, while Europe is Russia’s biggest trading partner. The US is in a presidential election year , a time when its politicians vie with each other to be tougher to the world – and to Russia. In a way, it’s a relief that this important country is in Mr Putin’s hands.

AIPAC Works For The 1 Percent

The battle for justice in the Middle East is our battle. It is part of the vast, global battle against the 1 percent. It is about living rather than dying. It is about communicating rather than killing. It is about love rather than hate. It is part of the great battle against the corporate forces of death that reign over us—the fossil fuel industry, the weapons manufacturers, the security and surveillance state, the speculators on Wall Street, the oligarchic elites who assault our poor, our working men and women, our children, one in four of whom depend on food stamps to eat, the elites who are destroying our ecosystem with its trees, its air and its water and throwing into doubt our survival as a species.

What is being done in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison, is a pale reflection of what is slowly happening to the rest of us. It is a window into the rise of the global security state, our new governing system that the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls “inverted totalitarianism.” It is a reflection of a world where the powerful are not bound by law, either on Wall Street or in the shattered remains of the countries we invade and occupy, including Iraq with its hundreds of thousands of dead. And one of the greatest purveyors of this demented ideology of violence for the sake of violence, this flagrant disregard for the rule of domestic and international law, is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.

I spent seven years in the Middle East. I was the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times. I lived for two of those seven years in Jerusalem. AIPAC does not speak for Jews or for Israel. It is a mouthpiece for right-wing ideologues, some of whom hold power in Israel and some of whom hold power in Washington, who believe that because they have the capacity to war wage they have a right to wage war, whose loyalty, in the end, is not to the citizens of Israel or Palestine or the United States but the corporate elites, the defense contractors, those who make war a business, those who have turned ordinary Palestinians, Israelis and Americans, along with hundreds of millions of the world’s poor, into commodities to exploit, repress and control.

We have not brought freedom, democracy and the virtues of Western civilization to the Muslim world. We have brought state terrorism, massive destruction, war and death. There is no moral distinction between a drone strike and the explosion of the improvised explosive device, between a suicide bombing and a targeted assassination. We have used the iron fist of the American military to implant our oil companies in Iraq, occupy Afghanistan and ensure that the Muslim world remains submissive and compliant. We have supported a government in Israel that has carried out egregious war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza and is daily stealing larger and larger portions of Palestinian land. We have established a network of military bases, some the size of small cities, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Kuwait, and we have secured basing rights in the Gulf states of Bahrain, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates. We have expanded our military operations to Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Egypt, Algeria and Yemen. And no one believes, except perhaps us, that we have any intention of leaving.

And let us not forget that deep inside our secret world of offshore penal colonies, black sites, and torture and interrogation centers, we practice the cruelty and barbarity that always accompanies unchecked imperial power. There were scores of graphic pictures and videos from the prison in Abu Ghraib that were swiftly classified and hidden from public view. And in these videos, as Seymour Hersh reported, mothers who were arrested with their young sons, often children, watched in horror as their boys were repeatedly sodomized. This was filmed. And on the soundtrack you hear the boys shrieking. And the mothers were smuggling notes out to their families saying, “Come and kill us because of what is happening.”

We are the biggest problem in the Middle East. It is we who legitimize the Mahmoud Ahmadinejads, suicide bombers and radical jihadists. The longer we drop iron fragmentation bombs and seize Muslim land, the longer we kill with impunity, the more these monsters, reflections of our own distorted image, will proliferate.

“If you gaze into the abyss,” Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, “the abyss gazes into you.”

I am no friend of the Iranian regime, which helped create and arm Hezbollah, is certainly meddling in Iraq, has persecuted human rights activists, gays, women and religious and ethnic minorities, embraces racism and intolerance, and uses its power to deny popular will. And yes, it is a regime that appears determined to build a nuclear weapon, although I would stress that no one has offered any proof this is occurring. I have spent time in Iranian jails. I was once deported from Tehran in handcuffs. But I do not remember Iran orchestrating a coup in the United States to replace an elected government with a brutal dictator who for decades persecuted, assassinated and imprisoned democracy activists. I do not remember Iran arming and funding a neighboring state to wage war against our country. Iran never shot down one of our passenger jets, as did the USS Vincennes—nicknamed Robocruiser by the crews of other American vessels—when in June 1988 it fired missiles at an Airbus filled with Iranian civilians, killing everyone on board. Iran is not sponsoring terrorist strikes within the United States, as our intelligence services and the Israeli intelligence services currently do in Iran. We have not seen five of our top nuclear scientists since 2007 murdered on American soil. The attacks in Iran include suicide bombings, kidnappings, beheadings, sabotage and “targeted assassinations” of government officials and other Iranian leaders. What would we do if the situation were reversed? How would we react if Iran carried out similar acts of terrorism against us?

We are, and have long been, the primary engine for radicalism in the Middle East. The greatest favor we can do for democracy activists in Iran, as well as in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Gulf and the states that dot North Africa, is to withdraw our troops from the region and begin to speak to Iranians and the rest of the Muslim world in the civilized language of diplomacy, respect and mutual interests. The longer we cling to the doomed doctrine of permanent war the more we give credibility to the extremists who need, indeed yearn for, an enemy that speaks in the same crude slogans of nationalist cant and violence that they do. The louder the Israelis and their idiot allies in Washington call for the bombing of Iran to thwart its nuclear ambitions, the happier are the morally bankrupt clerics who are ordering the beating and murder of demonstrators. We may laugh when crowds supporting [President] Ahmadinejad call us “the Great Satan,” but there is a very palpable reality that informs the terrible algebra of their hatred. And since even the most optimistic scenarios say that any strike on Iranian nuclear installations will at best set back Iran’s alleged weapons program by [only] three or four years, we can be sure that violence will beget violence, just as fanaticism begets fanaticism.

The hypocrisy of this vaunted moral crusade is not lost on those in the Middle East. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pakistan, India and Israel did not and developed nuclear weapons programs in secret. Israel now has an estimated 400 to 600 nuclear weapons. The word “Dimona,” the name of the city where the nuclear facilities are located in Israel, is shorthand in the Muslim world for the deadly Israeli threat to Muslims’ existence.

What lessons did the Iranians learn from our Israeli, Pakistani and Indian allies?

Given that we are actively engaged in an effort to destabilize the Iranian regime, given that we use apocalyptic rhetoric to describe what must be done to the Iranian regime, and given that Israel could obliterate Iran many times over, what do we expect from the Iranians? On top of this, the Iranian regime grasps that the doctrine of permanent war entails making “pre-emptive” and unprovoked strikes. And they know that if Iraq, like North Korea, had had a bomb they would have never suffered American invasion and occupation.

Those in Washington who advocate attacking Iran, knowing as little about the limitations and chaos of war as they do about the Middle East, believe they can cripple nuclear production and neutralize the 850,000-man Iranian army. They should look closely at the 2006 Israeli air campaign in southern Lebanon, which saw Hezbollah victorious and united most Lebanese behind the militant Islamic group. If the massive Israeli bombing of Lebanon failed to pacify 4 million Lebanese, how can we expect to pacify a country of 70 million people? But reality never seems to impinge on the neoconservative universe or the efficacy of its doctrine of permanent war.

I have watched over the years as these neoconservatives have meddled disastrously in the Middle East. The support by neoconservatives of the Israeli right wing—and I covered Yitzhak Rabin’s 1992 campaign for prime minister when prominent AIPAC donors poured money and resources into Likud to defeat Rabin—is not about Israel. It is about advancing this perverted ideology. Rabin detested these neoconservatives. When he made his first visit to Washington after being elected prime minister he dismissed requests from the lobby for a meeting by telling aides: “I don’t speak to scumbags.”

These neoconservatives, who like our own neoconservatives hide behind the rhetoric of patriotism, national security and religious piety, are not wedded to any discernable doctrine other than force. They, like all rabid nationalists, are stunted and deformed individuals, only able to communicate in the language of self-exaltation and violence.

“The nationalist is by definition an ignoramus,” the Yugoslav writer Danilo Kiš wrote. “Nationalism is the line of least resistance, the easy way. The nationalist is untroubled, he knows or thinks he knows what his values are, his, that’s to say national, that’s to say the values of the nation he belongs to, ethical and political; he is not interested in others, they are no concern of his, hell—it’s other people (other nations, another tribe). They don’t even need investigating. The nationalist sees other people in his own images—as nationalists.”

AIPAC does not drive Middle Eastern policy in the United States. I am afraid it is worse than that. AIPAC is one of an array of powerful and well-funded neoconservative institutions that worship force and drive our relations with the rest of the world. These neoconservatives choose an enemy and then our compliant class of journalists, specialists, military analysts, columnists and television commentators line up to serve as giddy cheerleaders for war. Moments like these always make me embarrassed to be a reporter. Our political elite, Republican and Democrat, finds in this ideology a simple, childish allure. This ideology does not require cultural, historical or linguistic literacy. It reduces the world to black and white, good and evil. The drumbeat for war with Iran sounded by AIPAC is part of this broad, sick, binary vision of a world that can be subjugated by force, a world where all will be made to kneel before these corporate and neoconservative elites, where none, including finally us, will be permitted to whisper dissent.

Pre-emptive war, under post-Nuremberg law, is defined as a criminal act of aggression. George W. Bush, whose disregard for the rule of law was legend, went to the U.N. for a resolution to attack Iraq, although his interpretation of the U.N. resolution as justifying the invasion of Iraq had dubious legal merit. But in this current debate over war with Iran, that pretense of legality is ignored. Where is Israel’s U.N. resolution authorizing it to strike Iran? Why isn’t anyone demanding that Israel seek one? Why does the only discussion in the media and among political elites center around the questions of “Will Israel attack Iran?” “Can it successfully carry out an attack?” “What will happen if there is an attack?” The essential question is left unasked. Does Israel have the right to attack Iran? And here the answer is very, very clear. It does not.

These neoconservatives were too blind and too enamored of their own power to see what invading Afghanistan and Iraq would trigger; so too are they unable to comprehend the regional conflagration that would be unleashed by attacking Iran, what it would mean for us, for Israel, for our allies and for tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of innocents.

“Where there is no vision, the people perish,” the Bible warns.

And since our elites have no vision it is up to us. The uprisings from Tunisia to Egypt to Greece to Occupy Wall Street to our gathering outside AIPAC’s doors in Washington are the same primal struggle for sanity, peace and justice, for a world wrenched free from the grip of those who would destroy it. And the abject fawning of our political elite, including Barack Obama, before AIPAC and its bank account is yet another window into the moral bankruptcy of our political class, another sign that the formal mechanisms of power are useless and broken. Civil disobedience is all we have left. It is our patriotic duty. We are called to make the cries of mothers, fathers and children in the squalid refugee camps in Gaza, in the suburbs of Tehran and in the bleak industrial wastelands in Ohio heard. We are called to stand up before these forces of death, the purveyors of violence, those whose hearts have grown cold with hatred. We are called to embrace and defend life with intensity and passion if we are to survive as a species, if we are to save our planet from the ravages of corporate greed and the specter of endless and futile war.

The Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai, in his poem “Rypin,” translated by Peter Cole, examined what power, force and self-worship do to compassion, justice and human decency. Rypin was the Polish town his father escaped from during the pogroms.

These creatures in helmets and khakis,
I say to myself, aren’t Jews,
In the truest sense of the word. A Jew
Doesn’t dress himself up with weapons like jewelry,
Doesn’t believe in the barrel of a gun aimed at a target,
But in the thumb of the child who was shot at—
In the house through which he comes and goes,
Not in the charge that blows it apart.
The coarse soul and iron first
He scorns by nature.
He lifts his eyes not to the officer, or the soldier
With his finger on the trigger—but to justice,
And he cries out for compassion.
Therefore, he won’t steal land from its people
And will not starve them in camps.
The voice calling for expulsion
Is heard from the hoarse throat of the oppressor—
A sure sign that the Jew has entered a foreign country
And, like Umberto Saba, gone into hiding within his own city.
Because of voices like these, father
At age sixteen, with your family, you fled Rypin;
Now here Rypin is your son.

Chris Hedges gave this talk Saturday night in Washington, D.C., at the Occupy AIPAC protest, organized by CODEPINK Women for Peace and other peace, faith and solidarity groups.

Source: Chris Hedges | Truthdig.com

Afghanistan – Failed War From A False Empire

What did the last decade accomplish in the occupation of Afghanistan? Other than streamlining the opium shipment trade, what did this foreign expedition achieve?Wikipedia reports, “As of December 29, 2011, there have been 2,765 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001.” This may seem a small number by recent loss standards, but the excuse of fighting the CIA invention and bogyman, Al Qaeda is the height of hypocrisy.Not much, comfort for the Pat Tillman family or confidence in the inept cover-up mission to silence would be whistleblowers. The convenient idiot Osama bin Laden overstayed his usefulness. Too bad that Seal Team 6 knew too much to risk their loyalty on future escapades. The sick foreign policy that orders the ritual killings of their own military trained assassins offers up their heroes as necessary sacrifices for the New World Order.

The Insider provides several mainstream media references in the article; CIA created al-Qaeda and gave $3 BILLION to Osama bin Laden. “The US government trained, armed, funded and supported Osama bin Laden and his followers in Afghanistan during the cold war. With a huge investment of $3,000,000,000 (three billion US dollars), the CIA effectively created and nurtured bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network using American tax-payers money.”The definitive source in opposition to the Afghanistan debacle, antiwar.com is invaluable. Back in 2009, Philip Giraldi wrote inThe Cost of War:

“Why are these wars so expensive? The main supply route starts in Karachi, Pakistan, and works its way up through the Khyber Pass, at which point the truck convoys are frequently attacked by insurgents. When a convoy is destroyed the US Army assumes the loss as no one will insure such a perilous enterprise. Sometimes the trucking companies pay off the attackers to be left alone, ironically putting US taxpayer-provided money into the hands of those seeking to kill American soldiers.

The Pentagon estimates that the cost of fuel delivered to the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq averages $45 per gallon, including all expenses but excluding legacy costs like interest on borrowing money to buy the fuel in the first place.

A total of one trillion dollars has been spent already in Iraq and in Afghanistan but legacy costs to include paying off the money that was borrowed and medical care for the many thousands of wounded soldiers and marines will drive the total cost of the war past the $5 trillion dollar mark even if the two wars were to end tomorrow.”

 

Over two years ago, a video entitled, Afghanistan War Is a Failure provided a visual account of the “so called” progress on the ground. The NeoCon “chicken hawks” will dismiss the losses as regrettable but necessary. That is the basic issue. What is essential about keeping foreign legions on distant soils when the cause for such deployment is based upon a false premise? As long as the phony war on terror is used to wage aggressive warfare and maintain a permanent garrison presence, victory will never bring national security.The conflict between using military combat forces and private contractors for implementing search and destroy operations poses a serious issue. While both are voluntary participants, the public would want to deny that each is a mercenary. Separated by the pay scale may seem harsh to many, but the patriotic enlistee is often in training to become a Blackwater thug. Burning Koran’s is just learning the drill before graduating to work for the corporate elite.

Now the Uniform Code of Military Justice is certainly a welcome standard for conduct, but pirate Xe Services armies, are restrained only by their own demons. Such reliance on using private black bag enforcers is hardly consistent with the illusive notion of nation building. Endemic corruption is inevitable when money and brute force controls the border. Paying tribute in order to wage war exemplifies the absurdity of the military machine. Their only fear is the ending of the campaign.

 

The You Tube Blackwater / Xe May Get $1 Billion Afghanistan Training Contract Despite Failure with Border Police video illustrates this sentiment.Aspiring Rambo’s fighting the next Charlie Wilson’s exploit lacks the self-defense excuse of being the victim of First Blood. The Taliban that was shipped stinger missiles to defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were the product of a policy gone awry. Selig Harrisonfrom the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars states,

“The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan.” The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan’s demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.”

The consequences of this legacy are devastating. The covert army that operates in Afghanistan to engage in Obama’s Wars is a well-known fact. Author of Watergate fame, Bob Woodward reveals in his book, that the C.I.A. has a 3,000 man “covert army” in Afghanistan counterterrorism pursuit teams

Called, “C.T.P.T., mostly Afghans who capture and kill Taliban fighters and seek support in tribal areas. Past news accounts have reported that the C.I.A. has a number of militias, including one trained on one of its compounds, but nothing the size of the covert army.

Mr. Woodward reveals the code name for the C.I.A.’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, Sylvan Magnolia, and writes that the White House was so enamored of the program that Mr. Emanuel would regularly call the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, asking, “Who did we get today?”

 

The video 3,000 CIA-trained Afghan assassins in Afghanistan and Pakistan, expands on this operation. Roaming goon squads inflicting increased levels of atrocities is a demented extension of an evil empire.Historically, Afghanistan is probably one of the least desirable locations to carry on maneuvers. However, the imperialist empire must demonstrate its ability to project and drone anyone to death. It seems that all the hard-learned lessons of Viet Nam are lost. The memory banks of the officers that direct and carry out the dictates of a civilian authority, who love to play soldier, pervert their command. Playing video games is not entertainment when human body parts explode from bombs that rain down from the sky.

Standing down and rejecting unlawful orders are the supreme duty that escapes most military careerists. The fear of Courts Martial proceedings 10 U.S.C. § 502 and 5 U.S.C. § 3331 keep the system shouting gung-ho.
 

“It seems appropriate that military members swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States rather than simply swearing to support and defend the United States simpliciter. This is significant. It means that military members are more than just neutral tools of the political party in power. This oath places an affirmative responsibility on military members to read and understand the Constitution, to recognize the source and limits of the authority they have, and to uphold the specific system of government that the Constitution sets forth.”

The Afghanistan adventure, in now the longest imperium war, that even the mass media laments. ABC news observes,

“Vietnam and Afghanistan do have this much in common: they are distant, profoundly complex, and ill-understood campaigns. Not surprisingly, then, they defy easy resolutions. And, in their own ways, these two wars have tested the mettle and patience of a nation.”

The “mettle and patience” of the military is the real concern. As long as there is no draft, crisis of conscience are confined to those who succumb to obeying illegal orders for trumped up assignments. The American empire is a prime cause and reason for the destruction of the nation. The government is not the country nor is it legitimate when it acts as a belligerent.

The War on Terror is a pseudo fraud. Claims of an existential threat to America are bogus. The despotic War Party regime that fosters continuous international intervention wants a perpetual state of war. The hysteria that keeps citizens in a self-delusional trance pushes the military into uninterrupted carnage.

Alexander the Great discovered the limits of the Macedonian empire in Afghanistan. The English also discovered the hard way. Rudyard Kipling’s poem THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER sums up well.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Go, go, go like a soldier,

Go, go, go like a soldier,

Go, go, go like a soldier,

So-oldier ~of~ the Queen!

A CIA report concludes that the lessons learned from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan indicate: “There is no single piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier . . . no single military problem that has arisen and not been solved, and yet there is still no result.” Unfortunately, the most prolific attribute of American foreign policy is stupidity. The palpable explanation is that the best interests of the country are suppressed for the benefits of the ruling global elite. It is time to recognize that ill-placed patriotism is a guarantee for destruction.

Inverted Totalitarianism And The Corporate State

Stricken with a terminal disease, the decline of traditional society is unavoidable. For decades, the political institutions that fostered a Republic based upon individual liberty and responsibility fade into fond memory. Defenders of all that made America a shining example of human freedom are attacked and ridiculed for holding onto a moral and ethical system that is based upon the dignity of every individual. Most will blame the failure of this decay on the politicians that willfully pander to the masses with the next generation of social welfare programs. While defining a politician as a scoundrel, deserving damnation, seems obvious; the underlying source of the decay that eats away the culture comes from various directions.

The trends toward despotism are visible for all to see. Most prefer their blinded vision because accepting the lethal condition might require some proactive response. The idea that a single dictator will seize power and rule as a tyranny seems foreign to many plebeians. Yet, the daily news that flows from the corporate mass media build upon the absence of real reporting and fundamental truth that ignores, denies and substitutes meaningless stories for earth shattering events.

Therefore, the significance of the concept, inverted totalitarianism, as defined by Sheldon S. Wolin deserves examination.

“It is all politics all of the time but a politics largely untempered by the political. Party squabbles are occasionally on public display, and there is a frantic and continuous politics among factions of the party, interest groups, competing corporate powers, and rival media concerns. And there is, of course, the culminating moment of national elections when the attention of the nation is required to make a choice of personalities rather than a choice between alternatives. What is absent is the political, the commitment to finding where the common good lies amidst the welter of well-financed, highly organized, single-minded interests rabidly seeking governmental favors and overwhelming the practices of representative government and public administration by a sea of cash.”

 

Watch the Sheldon Wolin You Tube interview for a summary of his viewpoint.

For an in-depth study of Mr. Wolin’s ideas, review Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. He asks the following questions:

“Does a demos have a future in the age of globalization, instant communication networks, and fluid borders? Is the notion of “a” demos as asingle, compact body with a “will” and an identity that persists overtime at all possible or even a coherent notion in the age of the political bloggers? Is there time for a more authentic politics, more reflective of the pluralistic character of reality?”

He defines democracy as,

“Democracy is about the conditions that make it possible for ordinary people to better their lives by becoming political beings and by making power responsive to their hopes and needs. What is at stake in democratic politics is whether ordinary men and women can recognize that their concerns are best protected and cultivated under a regime whose actions are governed by principles of commonality, equality, and fairness, a regime in which taking part in politics becomes a way of staking out and sharing in a common life and its forms of self-fulfillment. Democracy is not about bowling together but about managing together those powers that immediately and significantly affect the lives and circumstances of others and one’s self.”

The power influence of the transnational corporation dampens any idealistic notion that democracy is coming from the voices of the people. Momentous influence comes through the propagandist media message. The corporate economy dictates the parameters of the public debate. Trivia replaces the profound. Spending drives a lust for meaningless ingestion of poisonous consumption. The shaping of the popular culture is meant not just to dumb down the public but also to confer a normalcy for accepting the mundane. Rejecting the historic dialogue of the nature of man and the role of a just government is replaced with a diet of manufactured “dependency rights” and “entitlements”.

From Fugitive Democracy: Sheldon Wolin and contemplating the local, the following quote offers an insight on the nature of political apathy that relegates one to accept a mad culture which is devoid from reality.

“In the emerging political economy, Wolin discerns an “anti-political” movement that coordinates the corporation and the state in a drive toward Superpower—that is, “an expansive system of power that accepts no limits other than those it chooses to impose on itself” (p. xvi). As this ‘postmodern’ political economy tends toward Superpower, those in positions of authority demand a new form of citizen: the imperial citizen. Sheldon Wolin reminds us of American president George W. Bush during the tense moments after September 11th, 2001, who exhorted the people to show their citizenship through consumption: “unite, spend, and fly” (590). This pastoral concern by the president emblemizes the postmodern power of the political economy as it reconstitutes “civic culture” as a flattened plane detached from the dynamic structures of Superpower’s soveriegn handle of world affairs. The best thing citizens can do is prove their patriotism by submitting to the authority of the established powers without a word of protest or difference (thus the encouragement to “unite”). Rather than spending unnecessary time and energy worrying about the changing shape of common life—of the networks that bind us to near and distant neighbors—the postmodern citizen faces the multiplicity of demands and choices available at the local Starbucks as she scrolls through the latest bids on ebay while listening to music on her iPod as she waits for the latest iTunes song to upload on her iBook. With so much to do, why worry ourselves with what our representatives are paid to do? This is the imperial citizen according to Superpower—a free-floating, apolitical subject, moved by the television pulse from the security of home to the perpetual satisfaction of shopping malls. “Superpower needs an imperial citizen,” writes Wolin, “one who accepts the necessarily remote relationship between the concerns of the citizen and those of the power-holders, who welcomes being relieved of participatory obligations, and who is fervently patriotic.” (565).”

The imperial citizen is truly a fool. The imperium that surrounds the disengaged participant in the latest escalation of self-imposed slavery, is the ultimate result of the corporate/state.

 

Progressive author and pundit, Chris Hedges adds his vantage point in the video, Inverted Totalitarianism: Brand Obama and the Corporate State.

Hedges’ talent for ripping apart the corporate state in all its horror is well established. However, his clarion voice goes unheard in the corridors of real power. The economy dictates the marketplace that is available for sale. The advertisement is the message that is acceptable to believe. And the limits upon one’s ability to think and act rationally is controlled by the inverted totalitarianism that is of our own making.

Blaming external forces for all the ills of circumstances begs the issue. As long as passive individuals accept their subservient plight, the tyrants of the establishment culture will exploit the sheeple at every turn. Our unique existence justifies resistance to every form of tyranny that comes our way. Notwithstanding, this basic human and natural right; most citizens succumb to the mind meld of limited expectations.

The frightful consequences on the totalitarian society rest upon the shoulders of each person who refuses to challenge the system. Resisting immoral authority is your primary civic duty. Our avowed responsibility is to abolish the corporate/sate and global governance that enslaves the planet.

A disconnect of left leaning progressives, from the historic context of natural law principles, is a core reason why a coalition of anti establishment advocates fails. Common dreams must become practical beliefs. As long as the utopians refuse to accept the lessons and validity of genuine conservative philosophy, the divide and conqueror tactics of the despotic New World Order will continue.

The economic implosion of the last few years is undeniable. The consolidation of power marches on because ordinary people obey repressive authority. Sadly, the indifference towards one’s own self-respect is the prime result of the sick popular culture. The abandonment of Western Civilization is almost complete, but is not final. Totalitarianism is a crime against humanity. It is up to you to do your civil disobedient duty.

“The privatization of public services and functions manifests the steady evolution of corporate power into a political form, into an integral, even dominant partner with the state.” — Sheldon S. Wolin

Let Your Life Be A Friction To Stop The Machine

Transcript

Let Your Life Be a Friction to Stop the Machine…

Nightmare and insanity are akin: mysterious and involuntary states that skew and distort objective reality. One wakens from nightmare; from insanity there is no awakening.

Whether Americans live in the one state or the other is the paramount question of this era.

For two hundred years Americans have been indoctrinated with a mythology created, imposed and sustained by a manipulating cabal: the financial elite that built its absolute control on the muscle and blood, good will, ignorance and credulity, of its citizenry.

America began with the invasion of a populated continent and the genocide of its native people. Once solidly established, it grafted enslavement of another race onto that base.

With those two pillars of state firmly in place it declared itself an independent nation in a document that nobly proclaimed the equality of all mankind.

In that act of monumental hypocrisy America’s myth had its beginning.

* * *

A Constitution was written that came to be regarded as American Holy Writ. Its central purposes were to defend private property and suppress mass democracy. It has fulfilled both those mandates beyond the wildest dreams of its creators.

Once the existing oligarchy was secure in law and native people largely exterminated, the ruling class increased its wealth and power fantastically in the 19^th century, using the government as its enabler, exploiting to the limit the device of chartered corporations.

With its phenomenal money power, the financial elite began to use the military to expand its sway beyond the continent. Regions, territories, islands, and whole countries were annexed, invaded, and possessed outright, their peoples crushed, suppressed, and ruled.

Because ordinary Americans, like any people, need to believe that whatever the ruling elite undertakes in their nation’s name must be essentially benevolent, noble in purpose and justified in fact, the myth had to be radically modified for imperial expansion.

The foundational story was that Americans had come to a howling wilderness teeming with godless savages and, through invincible strength of character and purity of purpose, had tamed the land and honorably earned the right to possess their bountiful home.

In the era of extra-territorial expansion that version was polished to justify and ennoble imperialism. The new corollary was that America could not ignore colonialist brutality but was obliged, by the Manifest Destiny that led us to civilize our own continent, to carry our mission into barbaric darkness wherever tyranny created abuse and suffering.

A national myth that absolutely binds the loyalty of a people to its government must be a subtle and powerful elixir that elevates and aggrandizes that people’s self-regard. National policy will then appear to be an extension of its superior citizenry’s inchoate will, and the basis for a justified arrogance toward the lesser world.

The simple, powerful myth of America’s altruistic and heroic benevolence, shaped and maintained by the financial/political power elite, infused Americans with a deep and outrageously hubristic sense of racial superiority that, mobilized behind various imperial enterprises, has given all such adventures the character of a quasi-religious crusade. In this way insatiable imperialism acquires the apparent moral perfection of a syllogism.

* * *

With WWII, the world was reconfigured. American Capitalism emerged supreme from the horror that had virtually wrecked its capitalist partners. The Soviet Union, though, having absorbed by far the greatest devastation from Nazi Germany, had astonishingly risen above its ruin to become the leading challenger to America as a world power.

This challenge was not competitive, it was systemic: Soviet Communism was a direct threat to American hegemony in that it categorically refuted the philosophical basis of Predatory Capitalism. Grounded in Marx and Lenin, it attacked Capitalism’s inherent evils, monstrous inequities and flagrant injustices that, exacerbated by speculation, exploitation and fraud, would destroy it. And it promoted world revolution to that end.

This face-off of giants in the Cold War necessitated further refinement of the American myth. Now, instead of simply intervening in situations where despotism or tyranny required America to forcefully implant our just and ethical democracy, America had to become the shield and bulwark of the sacred capitalist system in which “free enterprise” was magically and increasingly identified with democracy and equally to be defended.

This version prevailed through many surrogate confrontations around the globe in the era of Mutually Assured Destruction and survived even the debacle of Vietnam, lasting until the collapse of the Soviet Union, as the propaganda stream became ever more intense and pervasive. On radio and television Americans were subjected to an unrelenting barrage of hyper-patriotism in which American moral superiority was a given, and America’s self-touted courage, generosity and decency were its unchallengeable proofs.

The implosion of the Soviet Union left America, in its own terminology, the “Sole Superpower in a Unipolar World”. This, however, did not result in diminution of the myth. The practical effect of having no doomsday enemy–China couldn’t plausibly be cast in that role then–was to supercharge it by increasing its element of pure, hubristic ego. America was no longer just called upon to defend the “Free World” from monstrous heresy; it was now, by virtue of its universally acknowledged, beatific “exceptionalism”, required to oversee and police it in the interests, and for the benefit, of lesser nations.

* * *

“Power corrupts”, said Lord Mahan, “and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

When the only rival and counterweight to American power disintegrated there was a sense within the American power elite that the opportunity existed, for the first time in history, for one country to absolutely dominate and effectively control the entire world.

This consensus was expressed in a policy statement composed by a cadre of major right-wing political players representing massive corporate capitalist interests called the Project for a New American Century. This triumphalist manifesto laid out a plan for absolute American access and control of essential resources and raw materials worldwide, to be guaranteed by the military which would enforce Full Spectrum Dominance.

The American Myth, which had seemed to have lost momentum and its animating principle in the totally unexpected so-called Cold War “victory”, was now re-energized with a less defensive and reactive essence, and given the glowing radiance and patina of a true and, for the first time, self-professed and articulated, imperial mission.

The attack on the Towers, an unimaginable provocation, was the trigger mechanism for the explosive launch of the effort to impose that imperial model in practice on the world.

* * *

It has been without question the most spectacular failure in the history of American misadventure. After a decade marked by the waste of trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of American lives, the stunning bankruptcy of our internally burglarized nation, and a consequent recession more fundamentally damaging than the Great One, Imperial America has nothing to show for the botched folly of its arrogant overreach but unequivocal disasters in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, with no end of madness in sight.

An impartial observer would have to say that the hypnotic hold of the American Myth on the loyalty of the people has led only to disgrace and disaster, and set a direct course to inevitable imperial decline and ruin. That would be inarguable on any rational basis, but it entirely mistakes the motive for, and the purpose of, the myth. The American Myth was never intended to serve the interests either of our country or of our people: it was created solely to buttress, shield, and exalt the ruling financial class. It has done that with astonishing and unbroken success that staggers the imagination from our earliest days.

The massive looting of Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan war funding to enrich the Corporate Tyranny—for that is what it has become—is on an unique scale of its own, without anything remotely comparable to its flagrant obscenity in the whole long history of war.

Neither the Pentagon nor any branch of the U.S. government can give any accounting whatever of the many billions of tax-generated dollars that have vanished, evaporated. There is no doubt but that beyond the outrageously inflated, no-bid contracts handed to giant corporate favorites with their preposterous guaranteed profits, much of the money was simply stolen in bulk by, through, or in spite of the military, and distributed among thieves and accomplices, some of it on huge pallets… for convenience, presumably.

* * *

While this wholesale robbery was going on under the oversight of the military abroad, the Corporate Tyranny had evolved a whole set of impenetrably complex devices for the generation of money without any economically productive source or result at home.

The sole driving force and purpose of Capitalism is the realization of profit. According to that calculus, reducing production costs increases profit margin. This leads to the obvious conclusion that as production costs near zero, profit is maximized.

There is no provision for social good in Capitalist theory. Corporations, created to optimize business opportunity through efficient specialization, were originally required to operate for public benefit but that provision was quickly finessed and forgotten.

American law courts have always favored corporate concentrations of wealth since they, like the Congress, exist to serve the moneyed interests. The American Myth was created to provide cover for the financial oligarchy to exploit the country and the citizenry, and the judiciary has consistently cooperated in ruling for corporations against the people.

Indeed, without ever considering the question in law, the Supreme Court long ago endowed corporations with “personhood”, that is with all rights of human beings under our Constitution. The way this travesty occurred–the slipshod by-product of an obliquely related case–shows that the court preferred to incorporate this perversion of the plain intent of the 14^th amendment as an unexamined assumption rather than risk an eventual test which would unquestionably have created violent public outrage.

Given the collusion of Congress and the courts in securing legal invulnerability for the Corporate Tyranny and the principle that the only duty of corporations is maximization of profit, it was not surprising that megabanks, huge brokerage houses, giant insurance conglomerates, gilded hedge funds and the credit agencies pretending to certify their work, all engaged in massive and systemic fraud and deception for just that purpose. The result was the crash of ’08, the recession, and the stunning and unprecedented rescue and bailout of the biggest banks, investment houses, and insurance and credit conglomerates with taxpayer dollars. So much for the hallowed Invisible Hand of the Free Market…

* * *

The last decades have seen two related megatrends in American geopolitical mechanics, both with dire effects on the power of the American Myth. First, what belief the world at large had in it has been shattered by a catastrophic series of imbecile and irretrievable military failures and disasters, which has caused erosion of its efficacy at home. Second, in response to this, the State has made increasingly crude efforts to boost the Myth’s waning power by the imposition of totalitarian methods of surveillance, intimidation and coercion on the American people to a degree unprecedented in scope and scale.

The whole clanking, medieval apparatus of Homeland Security that has sprouted like an enormous poison fungus since 9/11 with its brutal police state mindset; the odious Patriot Act with its flagrant subversions of the Bill of Rights; the endless, fantasy-based terror-peddling of the prostitute corporate media with its clowns and harpies churning irrational fear and anger in the uninformed: all this grim, repressive endeavor is a concerted attempt to distract Americans from the real causes of their injury, abuse, and oppression.

And yet, even with the American Myth now totally and irreparably blown full of holes and exposed demonstrably for the tissue of lies, deceptions and frauds that it has always been, it somehow keeps its phenomenal hold on the great mass of the American people. The tragic reality is that, for the majority, their own identities have been so deeply and thoroughly infused with the myth that to disbelieve it is to disbelieve in themselves.

* * *

So the American Myth is dead, and yet it lives on in its deadness, horribly masking our crapshot economy, our bankrupt debtors prison of a society, our Ghost Dance charade of kabuki democracy, while typhoons of impending social, economic and ecological disaster build their enormous, lightning-charged thunderheads above the dark future before us.

And what is it that the dead Myth still imperfectly obscures for Americans? What is outside and beyond the opaque wall of faltering, failing dishonesty and deception? What is the horror that the shoddy, tattered Myth has so long and so effectively concealed?

It is the world that has suffered unrelieved exploitation by the violence of our imperialist mania. It is the many wrecked and pillaged economies financially looted by our imposed predatory capitalist austerity regimes. It is the teeming hundreds of millions of starved, deprived and dying children sacrificed to Wall Street commodities gaming. It is the multitudes of humble, innocent, ignorant people, barely surviving in absolutist and dictatorial regimes propped up in their barbaric cruelty by our military while our banks siphon off the profits left after arming their brutal police and armies and bribing their ruling Kings, Sheikhs or Generals. It is the millions of dead and maimed in the raped populations of simple tribal people whom our indiscriminately murderous juggernaut has left in its bloody wake in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. It is the appalling legacy of hate and repulsion, disdain and fear, that America has earned with its appalling hegemonist villainy in every corner of the world.

And at home, what is it we Americans have been so complicit in hiding from ourselves in our devotion to the perverse legend that has come to inhabit our souls like a succubus?

It is the millions of us with no work and no hope in middle age whose jobs and homes have been devoured by the heartless fraud machine of Wall Street. It is the trashed and demolished weedlots of our major cities eroding in crumbling, fire-gutted ruin. It is the many towns and cities with industries shut down and factories deserted or dismantled and shipped overseas. It is our decaying, disintegrating public schools, our bankrupt states and counties, our overtaxed, antiquated public transportation systems, our obsolete, dissolving infrastructure, our bloated, irrational prisons complex, our punishing and inadequate health care disaster, and over it all, the repressive mechanism of our police state, armed and empowered, ready for use against the American people themselves.

* * *

This is where we are. The great question now is whether we as a nation can awaken from this long historic nightmare and face the terrifying and exhilarating prospect of living in the full light of reality without the false props and dishonest constructs of a hoodwinked, herded and dishonored people or, whether we have internalized the falsity and disease to such an extent that it has become an organic, overmastering form of insanity?

In 1846, Henry David Thoreau, offended to his soul by the injustice of the American government’s invasion of Mexico, protested it and went to jail for his convictions. Later, in his essay On Civil Disobedience, he said this:

“If injustice is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.”

To attempt to break the hold of the American Myth will be a titanic, daunting challenge. To even begin to openly rebel against the might of the National Security State will require the courage to face much more than official disapproval and denunciation. Imperial America will not respond to even the most peaceful and orderly protest with anything less than hard police repression and the level of punishment will rise in relation to the scope and seriousness of the action undertaken.

Small protests will have no effect and will be meaningless. Organized mass events, when they occur, will draw the whole fiercely and brutally motivated National Security State apparatus down upon themselves. Americans, excepting those of our underclass who have felt it, have no experience with violent police or military repression. Those who commit peaceful civil disobedience, a first and innocent tactic of serious protest, will swiftly find out to their cost how it works. In a National Security State that has excised and eradicated all defensive laws and regulations intended to prevent abuse of the public, whatever the State does is legal. To such a pass have we in America come as a result of our long historic indoctrination in serving our financial elite, our Ruling Class.

To achieve any redemption for Americans, to make possible any more just, humane and life-honoring society, will require complete abandonment of the system of Predatory Capitalism. If offers no prospect of reform or improvement and we have all been witness to the idiocy of the so-called “democratic process” in action for generations now.

America is nearing the greatest crisis point in its history and the terrific cataclysm, when it happens, will determine the future our country is to have. If we cannot, in dominating numbers, rise to reject the heartless, mindless, soulless machine of Imperial Predatory Capitalism, we will be condemned to a fascistic command and control horror in which human beings are mere possessions of the State, units of production or service, and then perhaps not even that, as excess population in that brave, new world nay be eliminated.

That end is not inevitable. We are not lost. We are not even defeated because to this moment we have not engaged. We have not honored our responsibility as human beings. We have not risen to defend our humanity. We have let ourselves be ruled.

All around the world the thunder of vast and immeasurable discontent can be heard and felt. In Egypt and Spain, Jordan and Greece, Iraq and Sudan, Afghanistan and Ireland, Latin America, the Far East and Africa, the legitimate anger of humanity is expressing itself against the dead and killing hand of Predatory Capitalism and its agencies of violence. And here, in America, so long trapped and encapsulated, frozen like a fly in amber in a false religion of state idolatry, the anger is deep, widespread, and growing.

It is up to those who know and care to lead. As Thomas Paine said, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” Nothing is guaranteed us. That can’t matter. We cannot be concerned with odds or outcomes. We cannot let the Machine of Injustice grind on. We must oppose it with all the moral force we own. We must act with quiet courage to confront a vicious tyrannical system that is destroying the earth, its life, and its people. We must put our lives on the line to oppose it.

The Nightmare Machine of rapacious exploitation has overthrown humanity’s decency and reason and its bloody inhuman treason flourishes over us. This must be ended.

Let your life be a friction now to stop the Machine.

Consequences To Expect If The U.S. Invades Iran

Let’s be honest, quite a few Americans love a good war, especially those Americans who have never had to bear witness to one first hand.  War is the ultimate tribally vicarious experience.  Anyone, even pudgy armchair generals with deep-seated feelings of personal inadequacy, can revel in the victories and actions of armies a half a world away as if they themselves stood on the front lines risking possible annihilation at the hands of dastardly cartoon-land “evil doers”.  They may have never done a single worthwhile thing in their lives, but at least they can bask in the perceived glory of their country’s military might.

This attitude of swollen ego through proxy is not limited to the “Right” side of the political spectrum as some might expect.  In fact, if the terrifyingly demented presidency of Barack Obama has proven anything so far, it is that elements of the “Left” are just as bloodthirsty as any NeoCon, and just as ready to blindly support the political supremacy of their “side” regardless of any broken promises, abandoned principles, or openly flaunted hypocrisies.  No matter how reasonable or irrefutable the arguments against a particular conflict are, there will ALWAYS be a certain percentage of the populace which ignores all logic and barrels forward to cheerlead violent actions which ultimately only benefit a select and elite few.

They do this, though they rarely openly admit it, because of unbalanced and irrational biases which drive their decision making processes.  In the case of the wars in the Middle East, the common public argument boils down to one of “self defense”.  “They are coming to get us!”  At least, that is what we are constantly told.  And I’m sure that some Americans out there truly believe this.  However, in their heart of hearts, others instead relish the idea of imposing their world views and philosophical systems upon others, even if it means using cluster bombs and predator drones.

Some people simply hate Muslims, for one reason or another.  Some people believe that war will bring with it economic gain.  Some are so afraid of what they do not comprehend that they only feel secure by attacking it.  Some believe that the U.S. citizenry is morally obligated to become entangled with governments like Israel’s, and support them without question as if they are infallible, though they are often just as corrupt as the governments we are directed to despise.  And yet others (for religious purposes), actually clamor for Middle Eastern destruction in the desperate hopes that their version of biblical prophecy will be vindicated.  Ultimately, most Americans who support continued destruction in the Middle East, or anywhere else for that matter, do so out a selfish need for private absolution and elevation, not out of a sincere sense of patriotism, and not because nations like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, or Iran present a legitimate danger to their safety.

These men and women have invested their very identities into the mechanizations of collective war.  They will not be swayed by evidence or honorable arguments.  Any criticism of the actions of the collective will immediately be treated as a personal attack on their individual character, causing their minds to shut down completely.

As far as Iran is concerned, I am not here to convince the war-drum pounding zombie hoards infesting the mentally impotent sewage soaked wastelands of my country that their rationalizations for raining laser guided death on the third world is a “reprehensible thing”.  Given their impenetrable biases, which I listed above, that would be a complete waste of time.

I could, indeed, point out how in 1953 the U.S. and Britain overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran, Mohammad Mossaddegh, because he refused to allow global corporate interests to exploit his country’s oil resources.  I could outline how the forced CIA installation of the Shah in Iran and the creation of his secret police led to the torture and murder of thousands of innocent people.  I could list similar covert activities over the past 100 years or so, in countries all over the world, which have created the now universal disdain the third world has for the U.S. government.  I could even show them a PBS special from 1987 which effectively details this history and warns of what is now going on today.  The kind of mainstream news coverage that networks currently blacklist honest and daring journalists for:

But what about all the nuclear talk being shoved down our throats lately?  Doesn’t this supersede any historical concerns between Iran and the U.S.?  What if the terrorists get their hands on “the bomb”?!

On this issue, I could easily interject the fact that countries supposedly hostile to the U.S., like North Korea, have long had nuclear capability, and certainly the means to use infiltrators to deliver that technology, yet, we haven’t sent the Western war machine after them.  I would also set the record straight by mentioning that the ONLY country in the world that has used a nuclear weapon against another is the U.S.  I could educate these people on the exposure of secret Israeli nuclear weapons programs since the 1970’s, and the fact that Israel even attempted to illegally sell this technology to Apartheid South Africa:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-24/israel-tried-to-sell-nuclear-weapons/839404 

I could try to clear the air by reminding the uninformed that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently admitted that Iran has no nuclear weapons capability.  And, that this fact was repeated by an Iranian nuclear scientist, Sharhram Amiri, who defected to the U.S. in 2010 with the help of the CIA in the hopes that he could be used to disseminate propaganda on “secret” nuclear weapons programs in his former homeland.  Instead, he only reinforced the assertion that there are no such programs:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/LG21Ak01.html

With the CIA made to look foolish, they have now decided that Amiri is “peripheral” to the Iranian nuke programs, and is no longer a solid source of information.  I could follow by pointing out how decidedly convenient this is…

What about all the similarities between the lies on WMD’s in Iraq and the rhetoric against Iran today?  What about the disinformation put forward by the IAEA and its cadre of foreign policy yes-men?

What about the fact that back when Iran was run by our own puppet leader, the Shah, an iron-fisted sociopathic dictator, we were more than happy that the country was developing nuclear power plants:

Sorry, but sharing this information with the warmongering percentage of our American culture is futile.  None of this data means a thing to them.  For these people, it’s not about facts; it’s about foggy perception, uncontrolled emotion, and false identity.  Understanding the situation only complicates their pursuit of the next collectivist high; that frenetic freak frenzy that takes hold of a population and makes them swarm like mad bees, or hungry piranha, poisoning and devouring everything in their path.

With this in mind, the only recourse I could possibly think of to wake them up to their philosophical and moral folly is to expose them to very real and debilitating consequences they will face in their everyday lives in the wake of expanded conflict on the part of the U.S.  That is to say, you may hate Iran, you may hate Iranians, you may despise Muslims, you may be driven by a childish need to live vicariously through the exploits of your government, or, you might actually believe the hype that Iran is in league with Al-Qaeda, that they really are after nuclear weapons in a diabolical plot to harm Americans, and you might truly believe that Israel is that “beacon of freedom” in the Middle East and that all its neighbors must be pacified for the sake of democracy.  At bottom, whatever your deepest intentions, and whatever you might think, this is irrelevant in the face of the inevitable costs of war.  If you support such a war, here is how it will affect you when it breaks loose:

Exploding Oil Prices

The U.S. has had a ban on Iranian oil imports since 1979, however, Iran still supplies about 5% of the global oil market.  This might not seem like much, but Iran also has the means and ability to shut down the Straight of Hormuz, which is one of two major petroleum choke points in the world.  Around 17 million barrels of oil per day are shipped through the Straight of Hormuz, or about 20% of all oil traded worldwide.

In 2006, during the last major Iran war scare, experts predicted gasoline price increases in excess of $10 a gallon if Iran was invaded.

http://money.cnn.com/2006/02/07/news/international/iran_oil/

This would devastate the U.S. economy, which is already hanging by a thin thread.  Iran has announced this past weekend it will cease all oil shipments to Britain and France in protest of their support of economic sanctions.  This alone is causing oil to spike today.  A global energy crisis will financially decimate average citizens who will have their savings sapped by extreme price inflation, not just in gasoline, but in all goods that require the use of gasoline in their production and shipping.  If you like this idea, then by all means, support an invasion of Iran.

War Domino Effect

In January of 2010, I wrote an article for Neithercorp Press entitled “Will Globalists Trigger Yet Another World War”.  In that article, I warned about the dangers of an invasion of Iran or Syria being used to foment a global conflict, in order to create a crisis large enough to distract the masses away from the international banker created economic collapse:

http://www.alt-market.com/neithercorp/press/2010/01/will-globalists-trigger-yet-another-world-war/

In 2006, Iran signed a mutual defense pact with its neighbor, Syria, which is also in the middle of its own turmoil and possible NATO intervention.  Syria has strong ties to Russia, and even has a revamped Russian naval base off its coast, a fact rarely mentioned by the mainstream media.  Both Russia and China have made their opposition clear in the case of any Western intervention in Iran or Syria.  An invasion by the U.S. or Israel in these regions could quickly intensify into wider war between major world powers.  If you like the idea of a world war which could eventually put you and your family in direct danger, then by all means, support an invasion of Iran.

Dollar Collapse

Make no mistake, the U.S. dollar is already on the verge of collapse, along with the U.S. economy.  Bilateral trade agreements between BRIC and ASEAN nations are sprouting up everywhere the past couple months, and these agreements are specifically designed to end the dollar’s status as the world reserve currency.  An invasion of Iran will only expedite this process.  If global anger over the resulting chaos in oil prices doesn’t set off a dump of the dollar, the eventual debt obligation incurred through the overt costs of war will.  Ron Paul has always been right; it doesn’t matter whether you think invasion is a good idea or not.  We simply CANNOT afford it.  America is bankrupt.  Our only source of income is our ability to print money from thin air.  Each dollar created to fund new wars brings our currency ever closer to its demise.

This combination of disastrous economic policy and disastrous foreign policy has actually been used before.  Great Britain once sat in the position of economic authority that the U.S. sits in today, and the pound sterling was once considered the world reserve because it was required in the global trade of oil, just as the dollar is now.  However, British intrigues in the Middle East, and more specifically in Egypt, led them into extreme debt.  In the 1940’s and 1950’s, international banks led by America and France threatened to dump British Treasury Bonds in response to their efforts to dominate Middle Eastern oil.  Does any of this sound familiar?

This ultimately led to considerable devaluation of the pound.  In 1967, the death blow was finally delivered when Prime Minister Harold Wilson artificially reduced the British exchange rate by 14% overnight!  Meaning, in the span of a single evening, British citizens lost 14% of their buying power, and every product they went out to buy the next day would cost them 14% more.

It would be practical to mention that the move to destroy the British pound came right in time for the implementation of new programs for the construction of the European Union, and the Euro, the new supranational currency which would later become the standard.  The EU and the Euro never could have come about while the Pound Sterling remained a world reserve.  Just another amazing coincidence I’m sure, and one that couldn’t possibly have any relation to what is happening to the dollar in 2012, right…?

So, if you like the idea of losing 14% or more of your buying power overnight, and having that financial loss blamed on the tides of war, rather than on the corporate bankers who actually created the mess, then by all means, support an invasion of Iran.

Civil Liberties Destroyed

Do you like being able to walk down the street without having to suffer through constant pat-downs by low wage brain-dead cretins in blue gloves?  Does it make you feel good to know that if you are ever arrested, whether you are guilty or not, you are guaranteed by law to receive a fair trial by your peers in a civilian court with a lawyer by your side?  Do you enjoy taking a long drive with the family without facing check points, and predator drones constantly overhead every time you put the top down to feel the wind in your hair?  Don’t get too comfortable, folks!  These “luxuries” will soon be a thing of the past, especially as the U.S. financial situation deteriorates and war escalates.  Think of all the new threats the elites in our government can use to rationalize the usurpation of Constitutional protections when war with Iran, or Syria, or Russia, or China, or all of them at once, breaks out.

The term “terrorist” will take on a whole different dynamic.  Great national dangers often facilitate broader definitions of who is and who is not an “enemy of the state”.  Crisis gives wings to legislation like the NDAA.  In this kind of despotic environment, no one, even those citizens who support the state in nearly all of its enterprises, is safe.  Maybe you love the idea of war with Iran, but at the same time, hate the idea of having a TSA goon manhandling your wife or daughter in a train station or on a street corner.  Good luck with that.  Speaking out could be treated as disruption of national security measures.  Off to the gulag with you!

The “greater good” somehow always entails the dissolution of civil liberties for the common man.  Invariably, the establishment in power favors no one, save a highly connected few.  Being pro-establishment does not necessarily protect you from a government given free reign to do whatever it pleases in wartime.  In the end, everyone is fair game.

If this is the kind of America you want to live in, by all means, support an invasion of Iran.

If You Can’t See The Big Picture, You Can’t See A Thing…

The relentless drive for war in the Middle East is not about “spreading democracy”.  It is not about terrorism.  It is not about oil (at least for the most part).  It is not about Israel (at least, not the Israeli people).  It is not even about corporate profiteering by the Military Industrial Complex.  War in the Middle East is about changing the way our country and our world operates, culturally, socially, financially, and politically.  War opens doors to social re-engineering that could never be accomplished otherwise.  War creates fear, panic, rage, and allows dystopian fallacies to reign supreme.  War, unjust and dishonorable war, makes countries weak, and ripe for violent change.

Iran is not a threat to our way of life, and never has been.  But, war in Iran could easily upset the core of our entire country, and leave us wayward strangers in the land we were born.

While much of the rhetoric of preemptive invasion that America has been awash in these past few months is carefully crafted and disseminated by government entities whose intentions are far from honest, its effectiveness is mute without the helping hand of a thoughtless subsection of the public.  Every decade or so, a new generation of idiot spawn comes of age to be willingly sacrificed on the chopping block of globalist conquest.  This new decade brings with it the promise of not just more of the same, but perhaps the most costly tithe to the gods of war ever made in our country’s history.  This is not our fight.  This is a fight we are being conned into undertaking for the profit of others, and thus, it is a fight we cannot win.  Perhaps when the blind mobs of this nation feel the abrupt sting of their foolishness in their narrow day-to-day existence, they will finally understand…

Source: Brandon Smith | Alt-Market

Christians Feed Their Own To The Lions

We’ve all heard about how Christians were thrown to the lions during the reign of the Caesars. But it is very doubtful that Christians were feeding one another to the lions. Alas, it appears that should this kind of Christian persecution become vogue in America, many Christians would doubtless join with these modern-day Caesars and gladly feed their own to the lions.

How did it happen? How did Christians lose their love? Of course, our Lord predicted that the day would come when “the love of many shall wax cold.” (Matthew 24:12) Sadly, this truism also obviously applies to many of us calling ourselves Christians. But how did it happen? How did Christians lose their love for souls? How did they lose their love for the Brotherhood? How did they lose their love for truth? How did they lose their love for peace? How did they lose their love for liberty? How did it happen?

I sat aghast as I watched the Republican Presidential debate in South Carolina and listened to hundreds of the GOP faithful (which included a great number of Christians) boo Congressman Ron Paul when he injected the Golden Rule into the discussion of America’s foreign policy. To say I was stunned is the understatement of the year! Christians booing a Presidential candidate (who, himself, is a Christian) for suggesting that our country practices the Golden Rule? Egad! What’s next? Christians cheering when people are thrown to the lions? I confess that I am flummoxed beyond words to describe!

I was raised in a Christian home by Christian parents who never missed Sunday School or church. My dad saw to it that I began memorizing scripture before I started kindergarten. I have heard the great Bible stories taught and re-taught. And while Christians have always differed on the nuances of particular Bible doctrines, the fundamental principles of God’s Word were universally taught and accepted.

Universally, Christians believed and taught, “God is love.” We understood the virtue and necessity of loving God and our fellow man–especially our brothers and sisters in Christ. Universally, we accepted the primacy of the Golden Rule, which states, “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 7:12)

So, what has happened? How is it that the people who cheer the loudest for ever-burgeoning wars of aggression overseas are Christians? How is it that Christians will be the first ones to boisterously sing the chorus with John McCain, “Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran”? How is it that it doesn’t seem to cross their minds at all that the hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women, and children were killed, wounded, and maimed by our government in a needless and unconstitutional war of aggression? How is it that the US government can wantonly wage war with an almost unlimited number of nations–killing and maiming thousands upon thousands of innocent people in the process–and Christians cheer? Some even join with the likes of Madeleine Albright and pompously spout: it is “acceptable collateral damage.” How did this happen?

So deep is our bloodlust that when a Republican Presidential candidate (Ron Paul), who is the only military veteran in the entire GOP Presidential field, by the way, introduces the Golden Rule into a political debate, he is booed and jeered–by Christians! What in God’s name has happened to us?

Watch and listen to Christians booing Ron Paul’s suggestion that America practice the Golden Rule:

Is war sometimes justified? Yes! Do 2000 years of Western Civilization and even all of Biblical history recognize the right of men to protect and defend themselves, their families, their communities, and their country? Yes! Christians on the whole have never been pacifists. A few have been, but they have always been the exception to the rule. In the strict definition, the Lord Jesus Christ was not a pacifist. He proved that when he removed by force those moneychangers from the Temple. In the South Carolina debate, was Ron Paul suggesting that America not protect and defend itself? Absolutely not! Dr. Paul proudly supported Ronald Reagan’s “Peace Through Strength” initiatives. He simply asked, should not our dealings with foreign countries reflect the principles of peace and goodwill as exemplified and taught by our Savior? And for that, Christians jeer and boo him?

I believe there are a couple of mitigating factors in this propensity of today’s Christians to relish in bloodlust. First, many Christians have lost respect for their own character. When men give in to hatred, bitterness, jealousy, resentment, etc., they do more damage to their own soul than to anyone else’s. Our Lord said that if we hated our brother we murdered him (in our hearts). So, what do we commonly see in our churches today? Envy, bitterness, resentment, gossip, rancor, and hatred! Rightly does the scripture state, “If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar; for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” (I John 4:20)

If we Christians take delight in “murdering” our “friends” and fellow believers through our bitterness, envy, and hatred, why should we lose any sleep over the deaths of thousands of unknown people who live halfway around the world? And nevermind that many of these innocent victims are also our brothers and sisters in the Lord! For example, most Christians in the United States refuse to even acknowledge the fact that there is far more state persecution against our Christian brothers and sisters in Iraq since the US-backed puppet regime took power. Far more!

People who allow their heart and soul to be taken over with bitterness and hatred become angry, vengeful, and even dangerous. People with the love and peace of Christ in their hearts do not salivate for war; they do not desire violence. They seek peace with their fellowman. Oh yes! They are prepared to defend themselves against the wolves and lions who seek to prey on their neighbors. Yes Sir! For sure! But that is a far cry from hollering out for war against people who have not even harmed us–or who may not even have the capability of harming us. And it is a far cry from booing a Christian man who actually believes in the Golden Rule.

One of America’s great warriors, General Douglas MacArthur rightly said, “War is a scourge.” Why would Christians cheer for a scourge unless, as King David said, “I am for peace; but when I speak, they are for war.” (Psalms 120:7)

Secondly, many Christians have developed a Caesarean “might makes right” philosophy regarding patriotism. But from the earliest days of our nation, our leaders respected Saint Augustine’s “Just War” doctrine. Daniel Webster and other American statesman gave eloquent tribute to the necessity and importance of never fighting unjust wars.

Was Pharaoh justified when he ordered the deaths of thousands of innocent babies? Was King Herod justified when he ordered the deaths of thousands of innocent babies? Were Hitler, Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung justified when they ordered the deaths of millions of innocent men, women, and children? Is violence against innocent people justified merely because the one ordering violence is powerful enough to get away with it? If so, will somebody please tell me what those Nuremberg trials were all about?

If power-mad potentates of history were unjustified in the manner in which they ignored the moral, Natural Law principles of God, how can Christians rejoice when power-mad leaders in the United States do the same thing? Do we really think that God has given some sort of special dispensation to America?

Missouri Senator Carl Schurz gave what must regarded as one of the truest and most insightful oratories regarding genuine patriotism ever given. In a speech delivered at the Anti-Imperialistic Conference, Chicago, Illinois, October 17, 1899, he said, “I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country–when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’” Schurz, Carl. The Policy of Imperialism. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1913. Print.

Instead of cheering when we see our country’s leaders ignoring the Golden Rule, constitutional government, and the Natural laws of God, we Christians should be on our knees begging God to forgive and mend us–and vociferously demanding that these leaders cease and desist their illicit conduct! The same trepidation that filled the heart of Thomas Jefferson should fill our hearts also: “God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

Figuratively speaking, Christians in South Carolina threw Ron Paul to the lions. They tried to boo him off the stage when he proposed that America follow the Golden Rule in its dealings with foreign nations. I shudder to think what they would have done if he had quoted Jesus saying, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

Iraq: Who Won, Who Lost, Who Got Screwed?

This month, our combat troops of United States military withdrew from Iraq after nearly a decade of killing 100,000 Iraqi citizens of all persuasions, being murdered themselves by insurgents who infiltrated past check points, thousands were killed or maimed by countless IEDs, and, as time plays out over 100,000 American combat troops are predicted to commit suicide from their brains being scrambled by the horrors of war.  Thousands of marriages will fail and countless children will suffer the horrors of war as their fathers live in Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome purgatory.

As to the first question of who won: no one.  As to the second question of who lost: everyone.  As to the third question of who got screwed: America’s military and America’s sons and daughters that served.

Of all the stupid, needless, meaningless and painful wars the United States has created, George W. Bush and the Military Industrial Complex, along with other war profiteers should be sent to prison for their lies, fraud and deception against the American people.  “Weapons of Mass Destruction” will become the poster-phrase for our leaders lying, cheating and swindling the American people.  George W. Bush cajoled, coaxed and coerced us into war with Iraq.

The German Nazi beast Hermann Goring said it 60 years ago:

“Naturally the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany.  That is understood.  But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship.  Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them that they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

Vietnam killed 58,300 kids, wounded 350,000 young men and created havoc across our country. It started our national debt into the trillions of dollars. It split families and it too was based on a lie:  the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Lyndon Baines Johnson the “reason” to massacre over 2.1 million Vietnamese in 10 years of war.  No negotiation, no conversation, no attempt at understanding—just go in to Nam and blast them back into the stone age.  Trouble was—they pretty much lived in the Stone Age in the first place.  Because of his sickening choice, Johnson died of depression and a very sick and sad man the last years of his life.  He actually “got it” as to what he did.  It will be interesting to see if former President George W. Bush ever “gets it” as to the astounding amount of death and horror he created.  He may end his life inside a bottle of booze where he started it.

From the war in Vietnam, I wrote a piece showing a doctor’s research whereby somewhere over 175,000 to as high as 225,000 American combat troops that left Vietnam in one piece, killed themselves from their emotional wounds from their service in Vietnam.  The alcoholism and drug addiction from that war grew beyond imagination. It continues today in veteran homelessness, poverty, broken families, drug and alcohol use and nameless children that never enjoyed a healthy father.

The human misery that George W. Bush created in Iraq and Afghanistan may go much higher than 225,000 suicides of U.S. troops.  If you start counting the human misery of 2.5 million Iraqi refugees and incredible displacement of their society, the human misery factor extends off the charts.

As you noticed this past week, the Sunni and Shiites are already bombing each other into more violence.  One bomb in Baghdad killed 69 people and wounded over 100 others.  Sectarian violence will continue.

Our “moment” (10 years) over there might be likened to a person sticking his or her hand into a bucket of water. While our hand remained in the water, the level of the water changed and we created cause and effect.  When we withdrew our hand, it all returned to the same as before we left.  As Richard Engel said to NBC’s Brian Williams on Friday, “Their sectarian violence is just beginning and will implode Iraq.  Iraq’s President Maliki cannot control what’s coming.”

In other words, their endless tribal wars will re-convene.  Which means, all our nearly $1 trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer money will have gone for all the death and destruction—for nothing.  In the meantime, our own country’s educational systems, infrastructure and cities crumble before our eyes.

Saddam Hussein was no more a threat to the United States than a baby in a sandbox 10,000 miles away.  To remain in Afghanistan for 10 years defies logic, reason and common sense.  If we are to be the police-nation of the world to bring all the dictators to justice, we would have to attack, occupy and dominate North Korea, China, Pakistan, Republic of Congo, Somalia, Sudan and two dozen other countries around the world.  It’s absolutely absurd what we allowed the Military Industrial Complex to perpetrate on our citizens and our country.

But because we now support an all volunteer army, no one blinks at the deaths and costs.  More disturbing, we spend more money on war than most of the rest of the world combined.  In the meantime, we suffer 42 million functionally illiterate Americans, 46 million Americans living on food stamps, another 15 million unemployed and 13 million children living in poverty.  We’re losing the middle class while our prisons house 2.3 million suffering souls.  We have millions of foreclosures of homes for Americans and we can’t pay our teachers a decent wage while our schools fail.

When will this president address America’s rebuilding?  When will this Congress “attack” America’s problems?  When will Americans speak up for America’s future?

When will 535 members of Congress grow a brain, spine and conscience to represent peace, common sense and reason?  When will we elect presidents that studied history, learned critical thinking and understood logic?  When will America become an instrument of peace in the world?

If I were a betting man, some president in the future will “create” another war guided by the Military Industrial Complex that creates another generation of suicides, fatherless families, plastic legs, arms and PTSD military veterans.  And the American people?  Too apathetic to get off the couch to speak up against war!

Some Thoughts That OCCUPY My Mind

The Anti-Empire Report…

When the Vietnam War became history, and the protest signs and the bullhorns were put away, so too was the serious side of most protestors’ alienation and hostility toward the government. They returned, with minimal resistance, to the restless pursuit of success, and the belief that the choice facing the world was either “capitalist democracy” or “communist dictatorship”. The war had been an aberration, was the implicit verdict, a blemish on an otherwise humane American record. The fear felt by the powers-that-be that society’s fabric was unraveling and that the Republic was hanging by a thread turned out to be little more than media hype; it had been great copy.

I mention this to explain why I’ve been reluctant to jump with both feet on the Occupy bandwagon. I first thought that if nothing else the approaching winter would do them in; if not, it would be the demands of their lives — they have to make some money at some point, attend classes somewhere, lovers and friends and family they have to cater to somewhere; lately I’ve been thinking it’s the police that will do them in, writing finis to their marvelous movement adventure — if you hold the system up to a mirror the system can go crazy.

But now I don’t know. Those young people, and the old ones as well, keep surprising me, with their dedication and energy, their camaraderie and courage, their optimism and innovation, their non-violence and their keen awareness of the danger of being co-opted their focusing on the economic institutions more than on the politicians or political parties. There is also their splendid signs and slogans, walking from New York to Washington, and not falling apart following the despicable police destruction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment. They’ve given a million young people other ideas about how to spend the rest of their lives, and commandeered a remarkable amount of media space. The Washington Post on several occasions has devoted full page or near-full page sympathetic coverage. Occupy is being taken increasingly seriously by virtually all media.

Yet, the 1960s and 70s were also a marvelous movement adventure — for me as much as for anyone — but nothing actually changed in US foreign policy as a result of our endless protests, many of which were also innovative. American imperialism has continued to add to its brutal record right up to this very moment. We can’t even claim Vietnam as a victory. Most people believe that the US lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, by poisoning the earth, the water, the air, and the gene pool for generations, Washington in fact achieved its primary purpose: preventing the rise of what might have been a good development option for Asia, an alternative to the capitalist model.

It has greatly helped Occupy’s growth and survival that they have seldom mentioned foreign policy. That’s much more sensitive ground than corporate abuse. Foreign policy gets into flag-waving, “our brave boys” risking their lives, American exceptionalism, nationalism, patriotism, loyalty, treason, terrorism, “anti-American”, “conspiracy theorist” … all those emotional icons that mainstream America uses to separate a Good American from one who ain’t really one of us.

Foreign policy cannot be ignored permanently of course, if for no other reason than that the nation’s wealth that’s wasted on war could be used to pay for anything Occupy calls for … or anything anyone calls for.

The education which Occupy has caused to be thrust upon the citizenry — about corporate abuse and criminality, political corruption, inequality, poverty, etc., virtually all unprosecuted — would be highly significant if America were a democracy. But as it is, more and more people can learn more and more about these matters, and get more and more angry, but have nowhere to turn to, to effectuate meaningful change. Money must be removed from the political process. Completely. It is my favorite Latin expression: sine qua non — “without which, nothing”.

USrael and Iran

There’s no letup, is there? The preparation of the American mind, the world mind, for the next gala performance of D&D — Death and Destruction. The Bunker Buster bombs are now 30,000 pounds each one, six times as heavy as the previous delightful model..

But the Masters of War still want to be loved; they need for you to believe them when they say they have no choice, that Iran is the latest threat to life as we know it, no time to waste.

The preparation of minds was just as fervent before the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. And when it turned out that Iraq did not have any kind of arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) … well, our power elite found other justifications for the invasion, and didn’t look back. Some berated Iraq: “Why didn’t they tell us that? Did they want us to bomb them?”

In actuality, before the US invasion high Iraqi officials had stated clearly on repeated occasions that they had no such weapons. In August 2002, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz told American newscaster Dan Rather on CBS: “We do not possess any nuclear or biological or chemical weapons.”¹

In December, Aziz stated to Ted Koppel on ABC: “The fact is that we don’t have weapons of mass destruction. We don’t have chemical, biological, or nuclear weaponry.”²

Hussein himself told Rather in February 2003: “These missiles have been destroyed. There are no missiles that are contrary to the prescription of the United Nations [as to range] in Iraq. They are no longer there.”³

Moreover, Gen. Hussein Kamel, former head of Iraq’s secret weapons program, and a son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, told the UN in 1995 that Iraq had destroyed its banned missiles and chemical and biological weapons soon after the Persian Gulf War of 1991.⁴

There are yet other examples of Iraqi officials telling the world that the WMD were non-existent.

And if there were still any uncertainty remaining, last year Hans Blix, former chief United Nations weapons inspector, who led a doomed hunt for WMD in Iraq, told a British inquiry into the 2003 invasion that those who were “100 percent certain there were weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq turned out to have “less than zero percent knowledge” of where the purported hidden caches might be. He testified that he had warned British Prime Minister Tony Blair in a February 2003 meeting — as well as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in separate talks — that Hussein might have no weapons of mass destruction.⁵

Those of who you don’t already have serious doubts about the American mainstream media’s knowledge and understanding of US foreign policy, should consider this: Despite the two revelations on Dan Rather’s CBS programs, and the other revelations noted above, in January 2008 we find CBS reporter Scott Pelley interviewing FBI agent George Piro, who had interviewed Saddam Hussein before he was executed:

PELLEY: And what did he tell you about how his weapons of mass destruction had been destroyed?

PIRO: He told me that most of the WMD had been destroyed by the U.N. inspectors in the ’90s, and those that hadn’t been destroyed by the inspectors were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.

PELLEY: He had ordered them destroyed?

PIRO: Yes.

PELLEY: So why keep the secret? Why put your nation at risk? Why put your own life at risk to maintain this charade?⁶

The United States and Israel are preparing to attack Iran because of their alleged development of nuclear weapons, which Iran has denied on many occasions. Of the Iraqis who warned the United States that it was mistaken about the WMD — Saddam Hussein was executed, Tariq Aziz is awaiting execution. Which Iranian officials is USrael going to hang after their country is laid to waste?

Would it have mattered if the Bush administration had fully believed Iraq when it said it had no WMD? Probably not. There is ample evidence that Bush knew this to be the case, or at a minimum should have seriously suspected it; the same applies to Tony Blair. Saddam Hussein did not sufficiently appreciate just how psychopathic his two adversaries were. Bush was determined to vanquish Iraq, for the sake of Israel, for control of oil, and for expanding the empire with new bases, though in the end most of this didn’t work out as the empire expected; for some odd reason, it seems that the Iraqi people resented being bombed, invaded, occupied, demolished, and tortured.

But if Iran is in fact building nuclear weapons, we have to ask: Is there some international law that says that the US, the UK, Russia, China, Israel, France, Pakistan, and India are entitled to nuclear weapons, but Iran is not? If the United States had known that the Japanese had deliverable atomic bombs, would Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been destroyed? Israeli military historian, Martin van Creveld, has written: “The world has witnessed how the United States attacked Iraq for, as it turned out, no reason at all. Had the Iranians not tried to build nuclear weapons, they would be crazy.”⁷

It can not be repeated too often: The secret to understanding US foreign policy is that there is no secret. Principally, one must come to the realization that the United States strives to dominate the world. Once one understands that, much of the apparent confusion, contradiction, and ambiguity surrounding Washington’s policies fades away. Examine a map: Iran sits directly between two of the United States’ great obsessions — Iraq and Afghanistan … directly between two of the world’s greatest oil regions — the Persian Gulf and Caspian Sea areas … it’s part of the encirclement of the two leading potential threats to American world domination — Russia and China … Tehran will never be a client state or obedient poodle to Washington. How could any good, self-respecting Washington imperialist resist such a target? Bombs Away!

American exceptionalism — A survey

The leaders of imperial powers have traditionally told themselves and their citizens that their country was exceptional and that their subjugation of a particular foreign land should be seen as a “civilizing mission”, a “liberation”, “God’s will”, and of course bringing “freedom and democracy” to the benighted and downtrodden. It is difficult to kill large numbers of people without a claim to virtue. I wonder if this sense of exceptionalism has been embedded anywhere more deeply than in the United States, where it is drilled into every cell and ganglion of American consciousness from kindergarten on. If we measure the degree of indoctrination (I’ll resist the temptation to use the word “brainwashing”) of a population as the gap between what the people believe their government has done in the world and what the actual (very sordid) facts are, the American people are clearly the most indoctrinated people on the planet. The role of the American media is of course indispensable to this process — Try naming a single American daily newspaper or TV network that was unequivocally against the US attacks on Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Panama, Grenada, and Vietnam. Or even against any two of them. How about one? Which of the mainstream media expressed real skepticism of The War on Terror in its early years?

Overloaded with a sense of America’s moral superiority, each year the State Department judges the world, issuing reports evaluating the behavior of all other nations, often accompanied by sanctions of one kind or another. There are different reports rating how each lesser nation has performed in the previous year in the areas of religious freedom, human rights, the war on drugs, trafficking in persons, and counterterrorism, as well as maintaining a list of international “terrorist” groups. The criteria used in these reports are mainly political, wherever applicable; Cuba, for example, is always listed as a supporter of terrorism whereas anti-Castro exile groups in Florida, which have committed literally hundreds of terrorist acts, are not listed as terrorist groups.

• “The causes of the malady are not entirely clear but its recurrence is one of the uniformities of history: power tends to confuse itself with virtue and a great nation is peculiarly susceptible to the idea that its power is a sign of God’s favor, conferring upon it a special responsibility for other nations — to make them richer and happier and wiser, to remake them, that is, in its own shining image.” — Former US Senator William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power (1966)
• “We Americans are the peculiar, chosen people –– the Israel of our time; we bear the ark of the liberties of the world. … God has predestined, mankind expects, great things from our race; and great things we feel in our souls.” — Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850)
• “God appointed America to save the world in any way that suits America. God appointed Israel to be the nexus of America’s Middle Eastern policy and anyone who wants to mess with that idea is a) anti-Semitic, b) anti-American, c) with the enemy, and d) a terrorist.“ — John le Carré, London Times, January 15, 2003
• “Neoconservatism … traded upon the historic American myths of innocence, exceptionalism, triumphalism and Manifest Destiny. It offered a vision of what the United States should do with its unrivaled global power. In its most rhetorically-seductive messianic versions, it conflated the expansion of American power with the dream of universal democracy. In all of this, it proclaimed that the maximal use of American power was good for both America and the world.” — Columbia University Professor Gary Dorrien, The Christian Centurymagazine, January 22, 2007
• “To most of its citizens, America is exceptional, and it’s only natural that it should take exception to certain international standards.” — Michael Ignatieff, Washington Post columnist, Legal Affairs, May-June, 2002
• Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Peters, US Army War College, 1997: “Our country is a force for good without precedent”.Thomas Barnett, US Naval War College: “The US military is a force for global good that … has no equal.” —The Guardian (London), December 27, 2005
• John Bolton, future US ambassador to the United Nations, writing in 2000: Because of its unique status, the United States could not be “legally bound” or constrained in any way by its international treaty obligations. The U.S. needed to “be unashamed, unapologetic, uncompromising American constitutional hegemonists,” so that their “senior decision makers” could be free to use force unilaterally.Condoleezza Rice, future US Secretary of State, writing in 2000, was equally contemptuous of international law. She claimed that in the pursuit of its national security the United States no longer needed to be guided by “notions of international law and norms” or “institutions like the United Nations” because it was “on the right side of history.” — Z Magazine, July/August 2004
• “The president [George W. Bush] said he didn’t want other countries dictating terms or conditions for the war on terrorism. ‘At some point, we may be the only ones left. That’s okay with me. We are America’.” —Washington Post, January 31, 2002
• “Reinhold Niebuhr got it right a half-century ago: What persists — and promises no end of grief — is our conviction that Providence has summoned America to tutor all of humankind on its pilgrimage to perfection.” — Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations, Boston University
• In commenting on Woodrow Wilson’s moral lecturing of his European colleagues at the Versailles peace table following the First World War, Winston Churchill remarked that he found it hard to believe that the European emigrants, who brought to America the virtues of the lands from which they sprang, had left behind all their vices. — The World Crisis, Vol. V, The Aftermath, 1929
• “Behold a republic, gradually but surely becoming the supreme moral factor to the world’s progress and the accepted arbiter of the world’s disputes.” — William Jennings Bryan, US Secretary of State under Woodrow Wilson, In His Image (1922)
• Newsweek editor Michael Hirsch: “U.S. allies must accept that some U.S. unilateralism is inevitable, even desirable. This mainly involves accepting the reality of America’s supreme might — and truthfully, appreciating how historically lucky they are to be protected by such a relatively benign power.” — Foreign Affairs, November, 2002
• Colin Powell speaking before the Republican National Convention, August 13, 1996: The United States is “a country that exists by the grace of a divine providence.”
• “The US media always has an underlying acceptance of the mythology of American exceptionalism, that the US, in everything it does, is the last best hope of humanity.” — Rahul Mahajan, author of: The New Crusade: America’s War on Terrorism, and Full Spectrum Dominance
• “The fundamental problem is that the Americans do not respect anybody except themselves,” said Col. Mir Jan, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry. “They say, ‘We are the God of the world,’ and they don’t consult us.” —Washington Post, August 3, 2002
• “If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.” — Madeleine Albright, U.S. Secretary of State, 1998

People who like this sort of thing will find this the sort of thing they like.

To my dear readers in the United States and around the world — In the spirit of the season, I wish each of you your choice of the following:

• Merry Christmas
• Happy Chanukah
• Joyous Eid
• Festive Kwanza
• Happy New Year
• Gleeful Occupy
• Erotic Pagan Rite
• Internet Virtual Holiday
• Heartwarming Satanic Sacrifice
• Devout Atheist Season’s Greetings
• Possessed Laying-on-of-Hands Ceremony
• Really Neat Reincarnation with Auras and Crystals

And may your name never appear on a Homeland Security “No-fly list”.

May you not vex a marginally literate high school graduate with a badge, a gun, and a can of pepper spray.

May your abuses at the hands of authority be only cruel, degrading and inhuman, nothing that Mr. Obama or Mr. Cheney would call torture.

May you or your country never experience a NATO or US humanitarian intervention, liberation, or involuntary suicide.

May neither your labor movement nor your elections be supported by the National Endowment for Democracy.

May the depleted uranium, cluster bombs, white phosphorous, and napalm which fall upon your land be as precisely guided and harmless as the State Department says they are.

May you receive for Christmas a copy of “An arsonist’s guide to the homes of Pentagon officials.”

May you not fall sick in the United States without health insurance, nor desire to go to an American university while being less than wealthy.

May you re-discover what the poor in 18th century France discovered, that rich people’s heads can be mechanically separated from their shoulders if they refuse to listen to reason.

May you be given the choice of euthanasia instead of having to watch Republican primary debates.

Notes

1. CBS Evening News, August 20, 2002 ^↩
2. ABC Nightline, December 4, 2002 ^↩
3. 60 Minutes II, February 26, 2003 ^↩
4. Washington Post, March 1, 2003 ^↩
5. Associated Press, July 28, 2010 ^↩
6. 60 Minutes, January 27, 2008. See also: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting [FAIR] Action Alert, February 1, 2008 ^↩
7. New York Times, August 21, 2004^↩

We Are All Palestinians

Most solidarity activists in this country would agree that the PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign)  is potentially an invaluable institution. Yet, the National Office, under its current leadership, has made some serious mistakes.

The PSC’s task is not easy. We all operate in a Zionised environment and we’re subject to constant pressure and abuse. Moreover, it’s not always clear what we should do for Palestine. It is obvious that Palestinian resistance is more than just single political perception or a vision of conflict resolution. Palestine is basically a dynamic discourse of negation with Palestinians themselves divided on different issues to do with their struggle and their fate. Consequently, Palestinian solidarity is also far from being a rigid or monolithic discourse. Furthermore, the enemy also is far from being any obviously singular identity or monolithic political discourse. The Jewish national project is a varied discourse, driven by many conflicting thoughts such as Zionism, Israeli patriotism, Israeli escapism, Jewishness, Jewish messianic militancy, pseudo-peaceful propaganda, pre-traumatic stress and so on. So it makes sense that Palestinian solidarity must encompass many voices reflecting the immense complexity of the conflict and its possible resolution.

Initially, the PSC was an attempt provide an umbrella for diverse intellectual and political thoughts, ideas and tactics. However, because of internal political struggles and a relentless internal Jewish campaign, its national office has become a policing operation, engaged mainly in restricting the discourse and stifling freedom of speech, thought and expression. The organisation that was founded to fight for the rights of the expelled Palestinians, has itself, started to expel and abuse its most notable and dedicated activists and thinkers.

I believe that the PSC should never attempt to dominate the discourse. Anyway, it lacks both the political power and the intellectual capacity to do so.  It should instead facilitate a wide debate that would transform this solidarity movement into a mass movement.

Instead of suggesting what is ‘right’ and who is ‘kosher’, the PSC should come up with a single, short, incisive but inclusive statement.

“WE ARE ALL PALESTINIANS”

Dominated by a Zionist power structure and ideology, with 80% of our leading party’s MPs being Conservative Friends of Israel  (CFOI), our media editorials being controlled by BICOM, and our country having been involved in criminal wars to serve Israeli interests – we are indeed, all Palestinians. So, like Palestinians, we also need to be liberated.

Our solidarity with Palestine should start, right here at home. We could begin by exposing our local MP who is more than likely to be a CFOI, LFI or Lib Dem Friends of Israel member.  It’s about time the British public grasped that we have far too many ‘Friends of Israel’ in our government but nowhere nearly enough friends of Britain.

We live in unique times. Yesterday’s ideologies and political institutions are crumbling. We are living in a post-ideological and post-political age. Thanks to the internet and the social networks, each one of us is an independent broadcasting outlet. Each one of us is capable of disseminating information at the speed of light – wider and faster than any institutional media corporation. People are now free to choose who they follow and what they believe. In sum, this technology offers us a unique opportunity to democratise the realm of thoughts, ideas and action. It’s a window of opportunity and we’d better make the most of it.

To some extent the PSC – just like the JC, the Guardian, the Trade Unions the parties – belongs to the old world, the world of stagnation and political power games. Perhaps this explains why the PSC leadership is so desperate for the approval of the JC, the Guardian and Parliament.

Instead, the PSC should communicate with the masses and proclaim far and wide that same, vital, humanist message:

WE ARE ALL PALESTINIANS

But, as ever, there’s some good news. The old Red Commissar is dead and so  are the ‘liberal’ newspapers, radio and  TV.  Politics, as we knew it has become a meaningless activity. McCarthyism, witch-hunting and other Talmudic forms of excommunication and general abuse, they also belong to the past. Change is in the air and the PSC National Office had better get used to it – and fast. If it doesn’t, it will, quite simply and unfortunately, disappear.

Three Reasons Why Ron Paul Appeals To Young People

Denver talk host David Sirota wrote a very fine essay this week on Ron Paul’s appeal among voters aged 18 to 29. Contrary to common belief, this popularity is not simply a matter of their wanting to burn hippie lettuce.* Rather, Sirota says, it is that they have a principled stance against America’s endless wars.

I want to approach this question from a different angle: how one’s life experience often   profoundly influences one’s worldview. There are three major cultural reasons for Ron Paul’s appeal to younger voters.

1)      They are on the internet more intensively than anyone else. Indeed, if you are 18, you may very well not remember life without the internet.

When I was 18, in 1979, we got our news from the three major networks, newspapers and news magazines. No we were not in the Soviet Union where the flow of information was controlled by TASS, Pravda and Izvestia. However, our news options were relatively quite limited. Cable TV hadn’t gained a footing yet. The Fairness Doctrine governed radio, so talk radio was a non-factor.

Along came the internet in the 1995-96 time frame. Now, anyone anywhere of even modest financial means could broadcast their message worldwide. Our news and information options suddenly became infinite. This is the world in which the majority of the group Sirota describes has come of age. This is how they get their information. And it absolutely tortures control freaks!

2)      They know they have gotten a raw economic deal.

On the front end of things, more people than ever are questioning the value of a traditional college education. In 1965, tuition at Yale and Princeton was $1950 per year. In 2011, it is roughly $40,000. In-state tuition at Black Hills State University is now $7400. Higher education may very well constitute another bubble waiting to burst.

Not only has college become way more expensive – largely due to federal involvement – but jobs for new graduates are scarcer than ever. And the total amount of outstanding student loan debt has surpassed that of outstanding credit card debt.

On the back end, most young adults know that they will never see a dime of Social Security or Medicare. Current unfunded liabilities of the federal government stand at over $116 trillion. If you can’t comprehend that number, don’t worry. Neither can many astrophysicists.

It is this generation that will foot the bill for the financial damage that the current political and paper-money financial establishments hath wrought.

3)      They are of military age.

Sirota goes into great detail about their thoughts on war and foreign policy. Let me drill down here. Might these thoughts just stem from the fact that, more than anyone, they, their friends and classmates have spilled their blood in endless wars that are being sold to them by politicians and media hacks who have never served a day in the military?

It is easy to talk about “war”, “country”, “flag” and “patriotism”. It is quite another to pay for these things in the coin of your own blood.

It is quite another to have before-and-after photos like those of Marine Sergeant Tyler Ziegel of Metamora, Illinois.

I resent it when people purport to speak for me. Hence, I almost never want to speak for someone else. However, it is one thing to wage war, finance war, and promote war and to get all weepy-eyed whenever you hear Lee Greenwood sing and to gawk at Fox News as if it were the Playboy Channel. It is quite another to experience war firsthand or to know someone who has.

Is it any surprise that Ron Paul receives more campaign contributions from active duty military than all other presidential candidates combined? He is the only candidate who realizes that war is not just a video game, but a true life-and-death experience. He is the only candidate who will not use you or your kids as meat on the hoof for endless wars based on endless lies.

Is it any surprise that Ron Paul is so popular among young voters? I repeat my thesis: one’s life experiences have profound effects on one’s worldview. Ron Paul’s message and philosophy have enormous practical appeal to those who are coming into adulthood at this point in American history.
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* Ron Paul supports your Ninth Amendment right to burn hippie lettuce. Newt Gingrich, on the other hand, supports interrupting your life if you are caught ingesting things he doesn’t want you to ingest. Governments have done infinitely more to destroy civilization than plants and their extracts ever have.

When you let people do whatever they want, you run the risk of Woodstock. When you let governments do whatever they want, you run the risk of Auschwitz. Any questions?

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