Independent research and analysis, essays in politics and philosophy.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
A Short Rebuttal of Hobbes
Freedom, Democracy and the Delusions of Power
For all his faults and the faults of the endeavour he was involved with, Jefferson was right on the essential point, in terms of political theory, which is the rebuttal that lays waste to Hobbes, the fantasy which still imprisons our minds and world, and that is: "If you can't trust men to govern themselves, how can you trust them to govern others?"
The core premise that I am addressing, the premise that you can't trust human beings, is the root of the Hobbsian fallacy. There are strong reasons to disagree with this premise, and I do, but let’s accept it for the moment for the sake of argument. Assuming, for the moment, that you can't trust people, who then, do you propose to govern people? The argument put forth by Hobbes, and accepted by so many scholars, politicians and business men, though it is clearly ridiculous, is this. You say you don't trust people, therefore you give some people enormous power. This should strike us as patently absurd, if not simply delusional. If you do not trust people with a little power, the power over their own lives, then why would you entrust them with overwhelming great power? Is not Lord Acton more sensible here? “Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” I think there is a great deal of confusion surrounding the issues of power in society, and the implications - as we have seen in Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, China, Russia, Cambodia, and across the "Third World" in so many brutal, soulless, self-serving dictatorships - are extreme.
It seems to me that if you are afraid of people, if you take it as a basic assumption that you cannot trust people, then you have basically two choices - assuming there is no place to go to get away from people, or that you choose not to do so.
One choice, is the path of Hobbes: seek, cozy up to, or align yourself with some great power, in order to feel safe(r). But as we saw with Stalin, to name just one example, cozying up to power is no guarantee of protection, and as we see in all dictatorships or tyrannical regimes, of either right or left, seeking the protection of such powers leaves one in great danger from the very same powers. And seeking power oneself, when it is not a cozying up as a courtesan underling, or a mousy tugging at the coat tail for protection from above; when it is a grasping at the highest level of power, ie: becoming top dog oneself, this too is fraught with the greatest of danger, both from external and internal threats. The latter course leads generally to a life of paranoia, as it is always a reality that such power is impossible to guarantee, and even powerful emperors and empires fall to dust, invariably.
Therefore, the three variations on the first strategy - seek, serve/cozy up to, or align with a great power, is totally unreliable, and cannot ensure safety - far from it. In fact, this strategy opens the doors to even greater dangers.
The alternative to looking to power - your own or someone else's - to protect oneself, which is the essence of the Hobbesian hypnosis, or delusion, is to disarm - both oneself and others. This is what Jefferson aimed to do, I would say. And this is the basic premise of classical liberal democracy. (Jefferson was simply more coherent and consistent with regard to such views than many others at the time or since – though he too had his contradictions.)
To make an analogy: if you are afraid of people, you can get a gun - better yet, become a mob boss, a big gun - or you can lick the boots of the mob boss who has the guns, hoping he'll protect you, and won't get angry for some unforeseen reason one day and feed you to his dog. This is basically the power-seeking/power cozying-up/protect me mister powerful man set of patterns. Become a mob boss, or lick the boots, or whatever else is required, of the mob boss, and hope this strategy keeps you safe. It doesn't. And moreover, it should be repulsive to anyone to do either.
The alternative to becoming a mob boss, or licking the boots of the mob boss, is to eliminate the mob bosses - to disarm the threat. This is the basic gist of constitutional democracy, when intelligently applied, and particularly to that more robust form of constitutional democracy which is Jeffersonian democracy. Do not seek to gather power or align with centers of power, but rather, seek to distribute power and empower all, so that none have such excessive power that it could easily be abused.
To make another analogy, in a world where you perceive danger everywhere, as Hobbes did, you can start an arms race, hoping that great power will protect you, or you can work toward mutual disarmament. The former path is the one we have been on for some millennia now, and it has been a path of disaster. At this time, our weapons have grown so powerful that to continue down this path is a virtual guarantee of self-annihilation. The path of mutual disarmament is now the only viable path for human survival. This applies not only to the obvious aspects of disarmament, such as the universal elimination of all weapons of mass destruction, but to the more essential point of dissolving excessive concentrations of power in society, distributing power more broadly, and empowering all in equality, so that none have the means to terrorize or oppress others. Jefferson thus was far more sensible, more rational, and simply more sane than Hobbes.
Ultimately, the kind of elitist thinking which Plato and Hobbes represent, forms the basis of both feudal and fascist orders. Liberal democracy is antithetical to such notions, and libertarianism - left libertarianism, to be clear – is the most consistent application of this line of thinking which rejects elitist and authoritarian social structures. This is where Jefferson, for example, intersects with Chomsky. Jefferson understood the need to keep power decentralized politically in order to prevent its abuse, and understood equally well the need to place firm checks and limits on the powers of corporations, and what he called “the new monied aristocracy.” Jefferson, were he alive today, would be aligned with the libertarian left.
Chomsky put it remarkably succinctly when he said, ultimately, “you’re either an aristocrat or a democrat.” In other words, you either believe in rule by an elite, or you believe in rule by the people. The monarchies and aristocracies of feudal times were forms of elitist rule. The Caesars and Pharaohs and Babylonian kings represented forms of elitist rule. The theocracies of the Ayatollah Khomeini or the Taliban were forms of elitist rule. The reign of local thugs and war lords in parts of Africa is a form of elitist rule. The regimes of Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Mussolini and Hitler were forms of elitist rule. And the emerging de facto world government, as the leading business journal, the Financial Times calls it, seated in Davos, Switzerland, is of course another form of elitist rule. All of these are antithetical to democracy, antithetical to freedom, antithetical to human rights, and antithetical to human dignity. They are a crude form of barbarism, masking itself, as always, as the salvation of the world. And there is now a powerful and dominant faction of the world’s business elite who want to create a most thorough form of elitist and authoritarian rule. We should shudder, and of course, defeat all such adolescent and dangerous dreams of self-deification. It would be very unwise to think that such infantile grandiosity, delusions of grandeur, or fantasies of total power have gone away, are a thing of the past, or can be dismissed as minor concerns. There are always a few who dream of complete domination, and will go to the greatest of lengths to attain their goal.
Plato became disillusioned with democracy after the council of Athens sentenced his teacher, Socrates, to death. Famously, he advocated a society ruled by philosopher kings. It sounds good in principle, but in reality it has almost without exception turned into a nightmare. Elite rule has almost universally brought oppression, tyranny, irrationality, stupidity and destruction upon humanity – over and over again throughout five thousand years of recorded history. Shall we try again? Have we not repeated this pattern enough? At present, the global business elite is planning the same routine, once more, and working fiercely and consciously to create Plato’s dream. They have decided that they are the wise kings, and want a global rule, with them in full control. Sounds like a recipe for total disaster to me, as I’m sure it does to most people. Yet here we go again. If we do not oppose the current trend, that is, if we do not reclaim our power, we will have a global feudal fascist order, and soon.
It is time we dispensed with our Hobbesian delusions, and decentralized power. Authentic democracy, freedom, human rights, and even human survival, now requires mutual empowerment and the dissolution of excessive concentrations of power in society. This would mean greater power for individuals, families, communities, states and provinces, joined together in federations of shared power and mutual aid and protection; and diminished power for national governments and large corporations. It would require firstly, however, a dismantling or opting out of investor rights agreements which transfer real power to unaccountable and undemocratic transnational centers of power, namely the global business elite. NAFTA, CAFTA, FTAA, the WTO, IMF, World Bank and SPP all concentrate real power in society in the hands of a few international business elites, as does the current global monetary system. All of these therefore are anti-democratic and incompatible with a future of social justice, democracy or freedom.
In order to decentralize power and reduce the possibilities for power to be abused or become oppressive – as Jefferson advised and even urged - the power of the nation state and national democracies must first be strengthened however, for it is the power of the nation state and national democracies which are one of the powers potentially available to people to fend off and reverse the growing concentration of power in the hands of a global investment elite. To save democracy, the global business elite must first be put in check, their powers limited and rolled back to a level where they can no longer dominate national governments, communities and the lives of virtually all of humanity. Once this is accomplished, and it will be, then we can look to decentralizing power further, in order to take democracy and freedom to new levels of maturation and fullness. I think I’m safe in saying that three of the thinkers I respect most, Chomsky, Jefferson and Thoreau, would all agree on this. First reduce the power of the global business elite, and return power to national democracies. Then we can talk about a future of sanity, sustainability, justice and peace. Until then, we are on the road to serfdom and slavery, if not self-destruction. It is time to take the power back.
Thomas Paine was right. The central issues of power in society are not so very complicated. Ultimately, it is largely a matter of common sense. The primary obstacles are fear, disempowerment and illusion. The answers therefore are clear. They are courage, empowerment and a basic clarity of mind. These three elements are all within our reach.
The future is in our hands.
J. Todd Ring,
February 13, 2008
Essential reading:
The Chalice and the Blade – Rianne Eisler
The Ecology of Freedom – Murray Bookchin
Mutual Aid – Petr Kropotkin
Escape from Freedom – Eric Fromm
The Discourse on Voluntary Servitude – Etienne de la Boitie
On Civil Disobedience – Henry David Thoreau
The Pedagogy of the Oppressed – Paulo Friere
The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism – Max Weber
A few quotes, to introduce myself, and to give some glimpse into who I am, what I value, and what has inspired me:
Compiled for a publisher, and reprinted here as an introduction to this blog and this writer, and also as a sort of short-hand preface to my (first) book, which should be released shortly.
My apologies for the chaotic mix of fonts - Blogger must be one of the worst digital publishing platforms available, but I have put too much effort into this site to easily switch, and have neither the technical savvy nor the patience to labor over its bugs. Sooner or later I do transfer all articles from this site to the far superior format at Wordpress, so you can check there for a more esthetically soothing format if you like. (I would transfer the entire site to Wordpress in an instant if I knew how to transfer the enormous body of links and resources that have been compiled on the Blogger site. For now, there are two sites - one that works well, and one with an excellent resource directory. Maybe someone more technically literate can help me figure out how to bridge the two.)
I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man. – Thomas Jefferson
For reasons I do not fully understand, fiction dances out of me. Non-fiction is wrenched out by the aching, broken world I wake up to every morning. – Arundhati Roy
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root. - Henry David Thoreau
The theme of much of what I write, fiction as well as non-fiction, is the relationship between power and powerlessness and the endless, circular conflict they're engaged in….I believe that the accumulation of vast unfettered power by a State or a country, a corporation or an institution -- or even an individual, a spouse, friend or sibling -- regardless of ideology, results in excesses such as the ones I will recount here.
–Arundhati Roy
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. – Thoreau
If necessary, let us forgo one bridge across the river, go `round a little there, and throw at least one span across the greater gulf of ignorance that surrounds us. – Henry David Thoreau
In accumulating property for ourselves or our posterity, in founding a family or a state, or acquiring fame even, we are mortal; but in dealing with truth we are immortal, and need fear no change or accident. – Thoreau
I took my stand in the midst of humanity, and I wept for them, for they came into the world blind, and they seek to leave the world blind.- Jesus, The Gospel of Thomas
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it. - The Buddha
Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. - Albert Einstein
A single step on the path of enlightenment is greater than being the ruler of the universe. - The Buddha
When I reflect upon the ruts in a road, I am forced to think, how much deeper the ruts of the mind. - Thoreau
It is never too late to give up your prejudices. - Thoreau
Life is rounded by a little sleep. - Shakespeare
Only that day dawns to which we are awake. – Thoreau
A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. – Thoreau
(TV is perhaps the most ugly, pathetic and vacuous example, next to heroine. - JTR)
As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. - Thoreau
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. But it is uncharacteristic of wisdom to do desperate things. – Thoreau
Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? - Thoreau
Most men would feel insulted if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now. - Thoreau
It's not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we busy about?
- Thoreau
I do not wish, when I come to the end of this life, to find I had not lived. – Thoreau
They are busy, as an old book says, laying up treasures that moths and rust will corrode, and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find out at the end of it, if not sooner. - Thoreau
I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor. – Thoreau
Silence is the communing of a conscious soul with itself. If the soul attend for a moment to its own infinity, then and there is silence. She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we will we may always hearken to her admonitions. – Thoreau
We select granite for the underpinning of our houses and barns; we build fences of stone; but we do not ourselves rest on an underpinning of granitic truth, the lowest primitive rock. Our sills are rotten. - Thoreau
The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad, and if I repent of anything it is very likely to my good behavior. What demon possessed me that I behaved so well? – Thoreau
I became convinced that non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. - Martin Luther King Jr.
Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right. - Thoreau, "Civil Disobedience"
"The truth must be told.
A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order, and say of war, this way of settling differences is not just...cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love.
A nation that continues year after year, to spend more money on military defense (sic) than on social uplift, is approaching spiritual death.
It is a sad fact...the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world, have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries.
Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit, and go out into a sometimes hostile world, declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism and militarism.
I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation and militarism. We are presently moving down a dead end road.
All men are brothers. All men are created equal. Every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth. Every man has rights that are neither derived by nor conferred from the state. They are God-given.
I have not lost faith. I'm not in despair. I haven't lost faith because...
You shall reap what you sow.
With this faith we shall be able to speed up that day, when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
With this faith we will be able to speed up the day, when all over the world, we will be able to join hands, and sing in the words of the old negro spiritual, "Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, we are free at last.""
- Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
It is a sort of disease when you consider yourself some kind of god, the creator of everything.
-George Soros
They must find it difficult…those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority. – Gerald Massey
Where is the knowledge that is lost in information?
Where is the wisdom that is lost in knowledge?
-T.S. Elliot
The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers. – Thomas Jefferson
The moment a person forms a theory, his imagination sees in every object only the tracts which favor that theory. – Thomas Jefferson
I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it. – Thomas Jefferson
I have no fear that the result of our experiment will be that men may be trusted to govern themselves without a master. – Thomas Jefferson
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
The republican is the only form of government which is not eternally at open or secret war with the rights of mankind. - Thomas Jefferson
Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.
- Thomas Jefferson
If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest. - Thomas Jefferson
If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own - that thing is the preservation of their own liberties and institutions.
-Abraham Lincoln
The people of the United Statesare the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution. - Abraham Lincoln, September 17, 1859, in a speech in Cincinnati, Ohio
A diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. - James Madison 1825
I have seen enough of one war never to wish to see another. – Thomas Jefferson
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies ... If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] ... will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent [that] their fathers conquered. - Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the re-charter of The Bank Bill, (1809)
I do verily believe that a single, consolidated government would become the most corrupt government on the earth. - Thomas Jefferson to Gideon Granger, 1800
Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains. – Thomas Jefferson
The purpose of economic competition is to eliminate competition.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
I hope we shall crush in its infancy the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country. – Thomas Jefferson
The country is headed toward a single and splendid government of an aristocracy founded on banking institutions and monied incorporations and if this tendency continues it will be the end of freedom and democracy, the few will be ruling and riding over the plundered plowman and the beggar. – Thomas Jefferson
The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism: ownership of a government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
-FranklinDelanoRoosevelt
Society must take every means at its disposal to defend itself against the emergence of a parallel power which defies the elected power. – Pierre Elliot Trudeau
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent. – Thomas Jefferson
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
– Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it. – Jefferson
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing. - Albert Einstein
Put fear behind and save the country. – Simon Bolivar
The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.
- Eleanor Roosevelt.
No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true today may turn out to be falsehood tomorrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. - Thoreau
Public opinion is a weak tyrant, compared with our private opinion--what a man thinks of himself, that is which determines, or rather indicates his fate. - Thoreau
The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly. - Thoreau
I believe that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another. – Jefferson
The future holds ominous portent, and signs of great hope. Which result ensues depends largely upon what we make of the opportunities.
- Noam Chomsky
The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences…
- Winston Churchill, on facing the threat of fascism (the first time)
We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. – Martin Luther King Jr.
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. - Thoreau
Ultimately, men hit only what they aim for; therefore, though they should fail immediately, they had better aim high. - Thoreau
There is more day yet to dawn. The sun is but a morning star. – Henry David Thoreau
It was from a reference by Joseph Campbell, whom I greatly admire, that I first heard of The Gospel of Thomas. Joseph Campbell's quotation from the lost scripture made me rush out to order the book immediately.
I guess I was fortunate, because it turned out to be Marvin Meyer's translation. It is wonderful.
I can't put words to what this gospel says to me. It rings true in accordance with the writings of sages the world over, East and West, as well as with the generally ignored passage in the New Testament: "The kingdom of heaven is within you."
It is not surprising that Emperor Constantine chose to crucify the Gospel of Thomas - worse, attempted to erase its memory by burning all copies he could find, and killing anyone who spoke of it - along with other scriptures he disliked: it leaves no need for a gatekeeper to heaven - neither emperor, as self-appointed ruler under God, nor church hierarchy - but only a direct communion with truth, through the wisdom of His words. Power seekers do not like to be left out of the loop.
The Gospel of Thomas is a revelation. Were it not for Emperor Constantine's self-anointed appropriation of the position of God's editor in the 4th century CE, we would have a very different, and expanded Bible. The Gospel of Thomas would certainly be one part of that more complete cannon. Only the most rigorously dogmatic can fail to recognize its authenticity.
Alas, such as these are always the ones drawn most to positions of "authority" within hierarchical social institutions, such as academia and the church. Jesus has a blunt retort to such men and women, recorded in the Gospel of Thomas: "The priests are like dogs that lay in the manger, for they do not eat, and they do not let the cattle eat."
"I took my stand in the midst of humanity, and I wept for them, for they came into the world blind, and they seek to leave the world blind." - Jesus, Gospel of Thomas. Who knew the church could be so afraid, even of the words of its root and inspiration? The door is now open, however, for all who "wish to see."
"The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth, and men see it not," Jesus is recorded as saying in the Gospel. If we could begin to realize that, there would be a spiritual and social revolution on earth, and "on earth, as it is in heaven," would not be mere words of piety, but actual visible fact.
Marvin Meyers translation, I later discovered, only through direct comparison to others, is by far the superior in the field, from the translations I have seen.
Do not miss this text. It is one of profound wisdom.
The death of democracy in America: Time for a re-awakening
Let us start with a look at the current US presidential election. The patterns emerging are clear. Fascism is unfolding in America, and the coming elections promise to be utterly irrelevant.
McCain, Clinton, Obama – Good, Solid Republicans All
The far right is screaming that Republican Party US Presidential candidate John McCain is too liberal – remember, this is the man who said he’d keep troops in Iraq for the next hundred years – while warm words are spoken from the corporatist talking heads about both Clinton and Obama. It would seem we have a three-way race between good solid Republican candidates. More aptly, it is corporatist empire mouthpiece and military-industrial complex shill, numbers one, two or three. Door number one, door number two, or door number three? Surprise! All three lead to fascism. Aren’t you lucky.
This would not be the first time the Democratic Party allowed itself to be virtually indistinguishable in substance from the Republicans, sounds bites and PR scripts aside. The supposedly liberal Democrat Bill Clinton was referred to by former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan as “the best Republican candidate we’ve had in a long time.” Greenspan, acting unofficially as the voice of corporate America, went on to say that he agreed with Bill Clinton on about 80% of his policies.
Lefty-liberal Democrat and “human rights” president Jimmy Carter approved the Brzezinski plan of using the CIA to arm, fund and train militant Islamic extremists in the Middle East in order to destabilize the Soviet Union. CIA drug trading was further institutionalized under his watch, allowing billions of dollars in drug money to be funneled into black ops and Wall Street banking houses. Hand picked by the business elite’s own exclusive clubs, both the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg group, this liberal “democrat” stacked the executive branch with other elite club members, making the transition to Reagan and Bush largely a matter of changing the guard out front, while the real powers remained the same.
Under Lyndon Banes Johnson, mass bombing of civilians in South-East Asia continued, and the Great Society pronouncements were revealed to be hollow rhetoric and deceitful cover for brutal imperial crusades. Under LBJ the infamous Gulf of Tonkin lie was made to pass an unwitting populace, and the mass slaughter was escalated under grand and deceitful pretext. An estimated 80,000 Americans and 3 million people of South-East Asia, mainly peasants, were to liquidated for the empire.
We can go back further, but the record is clear enough. What corporate America wants, corporate America gets – at least as far as the Democratic and Republican party machinery goes. Dissenting voices within the parties are silenced, side-lined, or pushed into obscurity. The corporate controlled network media are of course happy to comply. There have always been truly noble, virtuous individuals within the two major parties in the US, and for the most part, they have not held power. The record is not impressive.
But let us return to the present farce of an election.
While McCain is slammed as being too soft, a glowing chorus surrounds the Democratic front-runners. You’d almost expect an angelic choir to be invoked by the mainstream media in support of the supposedly democratic candidates. Even the far right screaming harpie, corporatist toadie Ann Coulter, has said she’d actually support Hillary Clinton over Republican John McCain, “because she’s more conservative than he is.” What does this say about Clinton? Ann Coulter thinks anything to the left of Mussolini is dangerous ground. Now she’s speaking warmly of Hillary Clinton. Obama meanwhile is getting praise from the corporatist right as well. One telling statement was, “We can work with him.”
Remember, both Clinton and Obama voted for the war on Iraq, voted repeatedly to fund the war in Iraq, refused to back efforts to remove troops and end the military occupation of the coutry, voted in favour of the Patriot Act, voted a second time to make fourteen of its provisions permanent, have both said with regards to attacking Iran that, “Everything is on the table” – and now claim to be pro-peace, pro-Constitution, pro-civil liberties, yada, yada, yada……At the very least, their words and promises should be met with great doubt. At the very least, they should inspire absolutely no confidence. The best that can be said of them is that their integrity and commitment to their stated principles is seriously in question.
Most damning of all, aside from actual voting records, which no one seems to care about– a politician’s record of actual conduct, as distinct from their noble sounding proclamations and speech writer’s carefully crafted statements – is the fact that all of the leading candidates, both Democrat and Republican, have chosen as key advisors, individuals with long histories of establishment politics and imperial bloodshed. The advisors chosen by Clinton and Obama – the people who will be the architects of their foreign and domestic policies – are people who are solidly pro-empire, pro-military-industrial complex, and who are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
If, for some bizarre reason, after all that has been said and discussed, you still feel the inclination to support one of the three amigos – McCain, Obama or Clinton – then at least get them to openly and publicly endorse the American Freedom Campaign or the American Freedom Agenda – the liberal and conservative coalitions which are working to preserve freedom and the Constitution in the US from the growing real homeland security threat, which is fascism. Get them to sign the legislation which has been drafted by these groups – and already signed by Congressman Ron Paul – which will re-affirm America’s commitment to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, civil liberties and freedom. And get them furthermore, to sign an affidavit stating that they will, if elected to office, immediately act without delay to repeal the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, along with the executive signing orders passed by Bush which far exceed the limits of Constitutional powers of the executive branch. Good luck in that, by the way.
Maybe it’s time to switch off the network news, for those who haven’t already. When Obama and Clinton can pass themselves off as peace-loving, pro-freedom, pro-democracy, civil rights cherishing, Constitution-hugging progressives, while their record of voting as well as their choice of key advisors shows they are in fact the opposite of this, then we are reminded again of the power of the media to turn arsenic into strawberry jello, and have a large percentage of the people ready and eager to eat it up.
The death of the two party system in America
The Republican party is in full melt-down. It’s popular base is leaving in droves. People on the left and right in the US are disgusted with the Republicans. In the fall of 2006, the people of the US put the Democratic Party in power in Congress with very considerable popular support, in order to reverse the trends of escalating imperial warfare abroad, and the demolition of democracy and constitutional rights and freedoms at home, which the Republicans had taken to new levels. People who should have known better fell under the spell of false promises, as hopes ran high for a new Democratically controlled Congress. Eighteen months later, people are now almost as disgusted with the Democrats as with the Republicans – and this deep disillusionment toward the Democratic Party includes many of its most dedicated activists.
Since the fall of 2006, the Democratic Party has steadfastly stalled, blocked, hedged and equivocated on any action that would actually do something to address these issues of war and democracy, and war on democracy. Worse, the majority of Democrats in Congress have gone merrily along with the continued attack on democracy and civil liberties, most recently passing the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, which criminalizes the freedom of speech, eliminating the basic rights of freedom of speech, association and assembly, while refusing to impeach Bush or Cheney, refusing to stop funding the war in Iraq, refusing to bring the troops home from Iraq, refusing to draw a firm line in opposition to any attack on Iran, refusing to renounce or even criticize the dangerous, illegal, immoral and criminal policy of pre-emptive war, refusing to cut military spending….in short, siding with empire and Corporatocracy over the people and democracy. Need we say more about the current state of the Democratic Party? It is no surprise that they too are in disgrace and in a deep crisis of legitimacy with the people of the United States.
While US presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was still in the race, he said he was trying to save the Democratic Party from destroying itself. It seems the Party is quite alright with its chosen path, popular support and credibility be damned.
A sinister take on these trends might be that the party machine, and the political elite within this wing of the corporate allegiance coalition – which spans both factions of the financial feudalism cartel, Republican and Democrat – are seeking only to deceive enough of the people to win just one more election. If the bottom of the barrel of credibility can be scrapped successfully enough, the political process which is now in a profound crisis of legitimacy can be tapped once more, in order to get a pro-corporatist imperial White House team elected – probably Clinton/Obama. With all that has been put in place, the legislative framework for full fascism now established, the thugs ready with the mercenary forces of Blackwater and company, the secret prisons and rendition networks already here, the detention centers ready with more being built, and the story line of the war on terrorism (inc.) presented as the official narrative, all that is needed is a catalyst, a match, an ignition source - a trigger event, as Brzezinski has predicted - and the trap can be sprung on the American people: corporate feudal fascism, with a smiling Orwellian Democratic face. Shock and denial will numb enough people long enough, it must be hoped, for the consolidation of the new order. The rest will be silenced. And a Brave New World will be born.
This, I am afraid, by all indications, is where the Democratic Party is taking America. I am sad to see that candidates of integrity of either party have been sidelined. Kucinich, Paul or Gravel – any one of them would make a president and leader of the country capable and willing to protect and preserve democracy, freedom, civil rights, the rule of constitutional law, and genuine peace. If none of these three win the next election, it will be fascism with a pretty face. Mark my words. I pray I am wrong, but everything points to this unthinkable conclusion. Consider the following, if you have any doubts.
Fascist legislation in place
The Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act and Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act have put in place the legislative framework for fascist rule. Habeas corpus has been eliminated, along with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. 800 years of the growth and development of constitutional law and civil rights has been overturned. Executive signing orders give the president the ability to re-write laws passed by Congress or to ignore them, as the president sees fit, giving the president rule by decree. The signing orders along with the above legislation effectively annul freedom, democracy and human rights in America. These fascist laws allow anyone, US citizens or others, to be picked up off the street, or arrested in their homes or workplaces, taken to an undisclosed detention center or interrogation center, held without trial, without recourse to a lawyer, without a phone call or any notification of family members, indefinitely, and allow for them to be tortured or summarily executed, as the president or anyone he chooses to represent him deems necessary. The framework is in place, and needs only to be engaged. Just turn the key. A trigger event is all that is needed, and the fascist legislation is engaged in full.
The criminalization of dissent
The most revealing element in this whole development towards fascism, is the clear intent of the process: the criminalization of dissent. HR 1955, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, makes this unmistakable. The act states openly that “violent radicalization” or “terrorism” will be defined under this law as any use of force or violence for the purpose of advancing political goals. It further states that the use of “logical argument” or “compelling” force of reason are defined as terrorism. Force under this act, even if non-violent, such as the political force of a popular movement or organization, peaceful protest or dissent, is defined as terrorism. A letter to the editor, blog post or newpaper article that criticizes the government with logically compelling force of argument – that is now defined as terrorism. Note also that violence is already illegal under US law, and so no new law is needed to deal with violence. This means that HR 1955 is solely about the criminalization of freedom of expression and the repression of dissent. This is the hallmark of fascist states. Racism, sexism, nationalism and xenophobia are often present as well, along with strange cultish ideology, but the defining marks of fascism are the demolition of democracy, freedom and civil rights, the institutionalization of unchecked totalitarian power, the reign of the few over the many by unlimited force, and the criminalization and violent suppression of opposition and dissent. In every fascist state, as Naomi Wolf makes clear, the first to go to the gas chambers or the detention centers are the outspoken journalists, editors, scholars, political opposition, outspoken clergy, trade union and labour activists – in short, all threats to the power elite. Fascism is designed to do one thing above all: concentrate all power in society in the hands of the few. HR 1955 makes clear what these trends are all about. And the Democrats as well as Republicans voted for it: 404-6.
Total Information Awareness, “Homeland Security” and Full Spectrum Dominance
The surveillance state is in place. The Pentagon’s very shadowy and Strangelovian DARPA (Defense and Advanced Research Projects) has announced the Pentagon’s goal. It was revealed as the original name for one of DARPA’s top priority projects: Total Information Awareness. Apparently the public found the name too overtly Orwellian, so it’s been changed, but the program remains, as does its intention. TIA is one element within a matrix of control, advancing the Pentagon’s stated overall objective: “full spectrum dominance.” They simply want to control everything, everywhere, world-wide. TIA integrates 17 US intelligence agencies under one umbrella, with a new intelligence Tzar to oversee this giant hydra-like beast. The new intelligence Tzar: John Negroponte. That name might be familiar. He was appointed for a stint as ambassador to Iraq, after having served in Latin America for many years. Before his post to Iraq, Negroponte was in charge of overseeing Central American death squads. Nice fellow to have as the head of a giant security apparatus. Heinrich Himmler would reasonably be described as a close cousin. With the long-established Project Echelon plugged into this network, gathering data on virtually all electronic communication in most parts of the world, including phone and cell calls, emails, fax, text messages, radio or tv via spy satellites and huge data processing computer centers, and an army of agents in the intel groups of course, surveillance cameras everywhere, and new identification and tracking technologies, the goal is to be able to track every person’s every activity everywhere, and to be able to eliminate all threats to the reigning powers before they arise. Forget about privacy – that is the least of our worries. The abuse of this system of extreme and unchecked power is the danger, and that is very real. The strategy of all such “security” apparatus creations, particularly when the reigning regime is clearly at war with democracy and in love with its power, is to frighten the public into submission, and to eliminate all who can not be intimidated.
A private army of thugs
Mussolini had his black shirts; Hitler liked the idea and created the brown shirts. Stalin was impressed and created his own band of goons. Now America has Blackwater. The head of Blackwater is a close ally and supporter of the Bush administration. Blackwater is a private corporation, a mercenary army, on hire to anyone who will pay, willing to kill, arrest, detain or torture anyone on a list they are given. No questions asked. They are not accountable to the public, as the military ultimately is, and have no code of honour, other than the code of sociopathic ruthless violence, and the loyalty needed among organized crime members toward their own and to their masters. Presently their role in Iraq seems to be destabilization – randomly shooting and killing civilians – in order to justify unending US and British military occupation of that country. “The country’s a mess – we can’t leave now!” Cerberus would welcome these thugs as kin, were it not for the fact that they do not guard the gates of hell, but open them. Blackwater specifically recruits individuals who have experience and comfort with repression, murder and torture of their own people – often former death squad members from Latin America. Blackwater’s goal for 2007 was to recruit an additional 35,000 loyal troops. With the recent wildfires in the US, Blackwater was unleashed on America. Get ready for the goons.
REX 84: Blueprint for martial law
“We are dangerously close to a situation where ~ if the American people took to the streets in righteous indignation or if there were another 9/11 ~ a mechanism for martial law could be quickly implemented and carried out under REX 84.
The Cheney/Bush administration has a plan which would accommodate the detention of large numbers of American citizens during times of emergency.
The plan is called REX 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984. Through Rex-84 an undisclosed number of concentration camps were set in operation throughout the United States, for internment of dissidents and others potentially harmful to the state.
The Rex 84 Program was originally established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA.
Existence of the Rex 84 plan was first revealed during the Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987, and subsequently reported by the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987:
" These camps are to be operated by FEMA should martial law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached."
And there you have it ~ the real purpose of FEMA is to not only protect the government but to be its principal vehicle for martial law.
This is why FEMA could not respond immediately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster ~ humanitarian efforts were no longer part of its job description under the Department of Homeland Security.”
-Allen L Roland, Rex 84: FEMA's Blueprint for Martial Law in America,
As of 2004 there were 800 prison camps in the US, all fully staffed and operational, but sitting empty. They have an average capacity of 20,000 detainees, making a total capacity of 1.8 million. This was before KBR, the subsidiary of Cheney’s Haliburton, announced in a press release in 2006 that they have been granted a $385 million contract to build a network of detention centers in the US. The press release added that the contract is “open ended” in terms of both time frame and scale. The stated intent of the detention centers is the detainment illegal aliens, “and other purposes.” All of the detention centers have railways leading in and out of the complexes. Most are nearby major airports. Now that HR 1955 is being passed into law, we can see who is to fill these detention centers: anyone who challenges, threatens or criticizes the government or its corporate backers.
Operation Endgame
A document issued by the Office of Detention and Removal Operations (DRO - an arm of the Department of Homeland Security) titled "Strategic Plan, 2003-2012 Detention and Removal Strategy for a Secure Homeland" describes Operation Endgame as follows:
Endgame is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Detention and Removal (DRO) multi-year strategic enforcement plan. It stresses the effective and efficient execution of the critical service DRO provides its partners and stakeholders…
Operation Endgame, a plan officially acknowledged and run by the Department of Homeland Security, is stated to be concerned with the detention and deportation of all illegal aliens by 2012. However, in light of the above trends toward a clearly deliberate and highly conscious elimination of dissent and the creation of an all-powerful fascist state, it is highly doubtful that illegal aliens are the sole or even primary target for detention under the Endgame plan. We will see, but all evidence points to Endgame being a plan to eliminate all dissenting voices from the new “Fortress North America” under the “new security environment” – as the business and political elite are referring to it. (See: Secret Banff Meeting of CEOs & the Defense Establishment) Should we believe that all of the above developments are for the protection of US citizens, the fight against actual terrorism, or the arrest of illegal aliens? Given all that we know, this would seem about as plausible as the tooth fairy or the Easter Bunny. Unfortunately, believing in the Easter Bunny won’t hurt you, whereas willful ignorance and denial here may have very serious consequences.
Winning the “War on Terror”
A leaked Pentagon memo which was sent to high level military and civilian officials and reported by the Washington Post stated that the “War on Terror” (sic) is to be won by October 2008. Bear in mind that all the evidence shows clearly that the war on terror is a two part operation, neither of which has anything to do with fighting terrorism: 1) the “Global War on Terror” provides the story line, the narrative, that is, the pretext or cover for an unending war of empire around the world, including operations designed to secure control of the world’s energy reserves in the Middle East and elsewhere; 2) the “War on Terror” provides the pretext or cover for a war on democracy at home – the elimination of dissent and the consolidation of power in the hands of the business and political elite.
In the US as in the Western world generally, there has been an uneasy tension between liberal democratic institutions on the one hand, and real concentrations of very high levels of power in the hands of a business and political elite on the other. For a long time, elites have dominated the democratic institutions. Now that there is a crisis of legitimacy within the ostensibly democratic nations, the elite are resorting to their only remaining alternative, if they are to maintain power. They are moving from dominance to full control. In other words, we are now witnessing the drive to transform liberal democracies, which have been dominated by elites for generations, into full fascist oligarchy, in which the threat of democracy has been eliminated. Under this latest development, the agenda is to not simply dominate democracy, but to demolish it.
Given the undeniable nature and intent of the “War on Terror” – which is in truth a war on democracy and a war for empire – what does it mean when the Pentagon tells high level military and political officials that the firm target for winning the war is October 2008? It would seem then that the time-line trajectory has been speeded up. 2012 is apparently not soon enough. The war on democracy is to be decisively won, according to this new information, by the fall of 2008. We must conclude then, that the target is to achieve a stealth coup, and establish full fascist control in elite hands, by this coming fall.
Get ready. Mass resistance will be needed. The spirit of a Martin Luther King or Braveheart must be generated, or better, Jefferson or Thomas Paine.
“Never under-estimate the power of denial”
Lest there is any doubt as to whether such a pattern of events could happen here, let us look to a little known episode of history, from not so long ago. It was 1933, and the returning military hero General Smedley Butler had come home, after what he later would describe as “three decades as a gangster for capitalism.” He was approached by a go-between, who wanted General Butler to lead a fascist coup on Washington, to overthrow FDR, whom many of the business elite hated to his New Deal for Americans. Smedley smelled a rat, and shrewdly showed interest long enough to find out who was behind the plot. What came out in testimony under oath before a US Senate investigation was that a number of the most powerful business men and dynasties in the US, including Rockefeller, Morgan, and the heads of many of the biggest corporations, were the architects of what now is known as the Business Plot. Amazingly, this nefarious and treasonous plot to overthrow democracy in the US and install a fascist regime, has been wiped from history. Yet here we have a clear precedent for what is unfolding now. Had the courageous Smedley Butler not refused to lead the coup on Washington, America would have had a fascist regime in 1933. Today, the elite are more subtle. It is not a full frontal assault which has been launched against democracy, but an end-run, a coup by stealth. The effect, however, will be the same – if we allow it to succeed.
For anyone who still thinks that such a thing could not happen here, or that no one could be so despicable or deluded as to attempt a fascist putsch today, I would suggest a closer look at the past century of history. Do a key word search for some of these: Nazi backers, financiers, IBM, USB, Thyssein, IG Farben, Prescott Bush, CIA, Nazi recruitment, US intervention, Nicaragua, Italy, Gladio, Iran, Guatemala, Indonesia, Chile, Pinoche, Pepsi, Kissinger, trials of, Brzezinski, Afghanistan, blowback, Iran-Contra, drugs, death squads, School of Americas, Business Plot, Palast, Chomsky, John Stockwell, Philip Agee, John Perkins, Naomi Klein, Peter Dale Scott, Mike Ruppert, ….It would be hard, after examining the evidence of history - including recent history - to hold the view that it can’t happen here, unless you’re committed to willful ignorance or denial.
Conclusion: Freedom and democracy, or feudal fascism?
It is revolution or slavery now. Regimes such as the one now arising, do not compromise. They can be dealt with only through decisive defeat. Our fathers and grandfathers defeated fascism sixty years ago. And we will defeat this beast again today.
It is unfortunate, but it is necessary: we must fight fascism once again, and we must undertake a democratic revolution, once again. The price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilance. And more: when tyranny arises, it must simply be defeated. We have done it before, and we will do it again.
“I have sworn upon the altar of God,
eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.”
- Thomas Jefferson
I, for one, embrace this oath with all of my heart, my life, and my powers. Until all peoples live in freedom, in peace, and in justice, there is work to be done. I will not rest until that work is complete. And if I should die before that time, then my life’s work will have been meaningful. For myself, I can see no other way to live. For others, a choice is at hand. For me, there can be no choice.
Patriots, democrats, and all who value and prefer freedom to fascism, take note. This is the time for action. Whatever your political views or allegiances, left or right, liberal, conservative, progressive or otherwise, if you do not want to see the destruction of constitutional rule of law, civil rights or a voice for the people, if you do not want to live under a fascist regime, then you must take action now. Inform yourself, inform others, speak, write, share information, connect with others, get together, build bridges of understanding, common cause and solidarity, build networks and a broad-based popular coalition, united to preserve freedom and to defeat the fascism which is emerging.
People in Canada, Mexico, Britain and Europe, don’t think this will necessarily be contained within the US. Organize now to preserve freedom and democracy, while you can. The war on democracy knows no borders, nor does the ruling class of international business elites who are driving this agenda. Never underestimate the machinations of the power-hungry. History has proven that there will always be those few who hunger for supreme power. Vigilance, solidarity and mutual empowerment are the only remedies to tyranny, now, as always. If you rise to the aid of your brothers and sisters in America today, you will have a greater power to resist and defeat the war on democracy in your own countries tomorrow.
Renounce violence in all forms. A band of rebels with shotguns and rifles is no match for tanks and grenade launchers, or helicopter gun ships with infra-red sniper scopes at 1,000 feet. Martin Luther King Jr. was right: “If I did not reject the use of violence on moral grounds, I would reject it on practical grounds. To be throwing bricks at people with machine guns is not only violent, it is foolish.” Whether it be bricks or even assault rifles, in the arena of force, there is no contest. The battle must therefore be on grounds where popular movements have the greater strength. Read Sun Tzu: you do not attack where the enemy is strong. This should be a matter of common sense.
The power elite rely on the cooperation of masses of people. Remove that cooperation, and the power games collapse, like a house of cards. Remember the fall of the Soviet empire. When the people were sufficiently fed up that they ceased to give power to the reigning order, that order fell to pieces, virtually overnight. It is terrible what came in to replace it, but the point is that all empires and all social orders ultimately rest upon the acquiescence of the many. Power lies with the people. It is only when the people do not embrace their power that the few can dominate the many. Reclaim your power, and encourage others to do the same, and the possibilities are unlimited. Democracy and freedom now require, more than ever, the empowerment of the people. This is the crux of the matter.
Do not seek to grasp power. Do not flee from your power. Instead, embrace your power and seek to empower others, in freedom and equality. This is the basis for a sane and just society. This is the basis for freedom. And this alone is the basis for an authentic democracy, with recognition and protection of the rights and dignity of all.
Read Etienne de la Boittie. His essay On Voluntary Servitude, along with Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience, and Sun Tzu’s Art of War (which is a treatise on peace and harmony and intelligent resolution of conflict)are the strategic manuals we need now.
Brains beat brawn. Heart defeats corruption. Maybe not instantly, but decisively, and inevitably.
Yet, what we do or fail to do at this time will be of enormous significance. The level of violence, suffering and destruction, or the level of peace in the transition to a fuller and more genuine freedom and democracy, depends upon our actions now.
What do the power elite understand? Money. Hit them in the pocket book. Economic warfare. Shut down the means of plunder. Redirect money, resources, human energies and economic flows away from the business elite and their political drones, and into the hands of the people and the communities of the earth.
If the popular movements to preserve and enhance freedom, democracy and human rights are to succeed, it will be through non-violent resistance and civil disobedience, along the lines of King, Gandhi and Thoreau, combined with an intelligent and good-hearted generation of viable, practical, just and sustainable alternatives. Raising a militia will not only likely be useless, not only bring on a protracted, long-term blood bath of civil war and chaos, but would immediately make it simple for the power elite to portray genuine defenders of freedom as terrorists, making the crackdown on dissent all the easier. No, the resistance must be moral, intellectual, spiritual and above all, strategically smart: communication, information, knowledge, truth telling, networking, coalition building, non-cooperation and peaceful civil disobedience, along with the building of concrete alternatives for the mutual benefit of all, will be far more effective than picking up your 22 and heading for the woods.
Unless you want to live under a rock, or in a cave, fascism is something we are simply going to have to face, and confront. And these are the terms of engagement. This is how we will defeat the most recent threat to freedom.
All empires fall. But this one will take some effort to vanquish. Inaction is no longer morally conscionable. Stand now.
Prepare for an onslaught, keep hope alive, and organize for the resistance now. The deer in the headlights syndrome will not be helpful. Denial will not be helpful. A paralysis of fear will not be helpful. Avoidance will not be helpful. Passive hand-wringing will not be helpful. Couch-perched pronouncements of disapproval will not be helpful. We must get out there, get connected, and build the resistance to what clearly is unfolding. Divided we fall. Only united do we stand.
The unthinkable is emerging. The beast is here. Fascism is coming to America.
Strength or energy exerted or brought to bear : cause of motion or change : active power; moral or mental strength; capacity to persuade or convince (eg. the force of the argument); an individual or group having the power of effective action (eg. a labor force;join forces to prevent violence);a force in politics; the quality of conveying impressions intensely in writing or speech; in great numbers (eg. picnickers were out in force).
McCain, Clinton, Obama – Good, Solid Republicans All
Or,
The death of democracy in America:
Time for a re-awakening
Let us start with a look at the current US presidential election. The patterns emerging are clear. Fascism is unfolding in America, and the coming elections promise to be utterly irrelevant.
The far right is screaming that Republican Party US Presidential candidate John McCain is too liberal – remember, this is the man who said he’d keep troops in Iraq for the next hundred years – while warm words are spoken from the corporatist talking heads about both Clinton and Obama. It would seem we have a three-way race between good solid Republican candidates. More aptly, it is corporatist empire mouthpiece and military-industrial complex shill, numbers one, two or three. Door number one, door number two, or door number three? Surprise! All three lead to fascism. Aren’t you lucky.
This would not be the first time the Democratic Party allowed itself to be virtually indistinguishable in substance from the Republicans, sounds bites and PR scripts aside. The supposedly liberal Democrat Bill Clinton was referred to by former Federal Reserve chair Alan Greenspan as “the best Republican candidate we’ve had in a long time.” Greenspan, acting unofficially as the voice of corporate America, went on to say that he agreed with Bill Clinton on about 80% of his policies.
Lefty-liberal Democrat and “human rights” president Jimmy Carter approved the Brzezinski plan of using the CIA to arm, fund and train militant Islamic extremists in the Middle East in order to destabilize the Soviet Union. CIA drug trading was further institutionalized under his watch, allowing billions of dollars in drug money to be funneled into black ops and Wall Street banking houses. Hand picked by the business elite’s own exclusive clubs, both the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg group, this liberal “democrat” stacked the executive branch with other elite club members, making the transition to Reagan and Bush largely a matter of changing the guard out front, while the real powers remained the same.
Under Lyndon Banes Johnson, mass bombing of civilians in South-East Asia continued, and the Great Society pronouncements were revealed to be hollow rhetoric and deceitful cover for brutal imperial crusades. Under LBJ the infamous Gulf of Tonkin lie was made to pass an unwitting populace, and the mass slaughter was escalated under grand and deceitful pretext. An estimated 80,000 Americans and 3 million people of South-East Asia, mainly peasants, were to liquidated for the empire.
We can go back further, but the record is clear enough. What corporate America wants, corporate America gets – at least as far as the Democratic and Republican party machinery goes. Dissenting voices within the parties are silenced, side-lined, or pushed into obscurity. The corporate controlled network media are of course happy to comply. There have always been truly noble, virtuous individuals within the two major parties in the US, and for the most part, they have not held power. The record is not impressive.
But let us return to the present farce of an election.
While McCain is slammed as being too soft, a glowing chorus surrounds the Democratic front-runners. You’d almost expect an angelic choir to be invoked by the mainstream media in support of the supposedly democratic candidates. Even the far right screaming harpie, corporatist toadie Ann Coulter, has said she’d actually support Hillary Clinton over Republican John McCain, “because she’s more conservative than he is.” What does this say about Clinton? Ann Coulter thinks anything to the left of Mussolini is dangerous ground. Now she’s speaking warmly of Hillary Clinton. Obama meanwhile is getting praise from the corporatist right as well. One telling statement was, “We can work with him.”
Remember, both Clinton and Obama voted for the war on Iraq, voted repeatedly to fund the war in Iraq, refused to back efforts to remove troops and end the military occupation of the coutry, voted in favour of the Patriot Act, voted a second time to make fourteen of its provisions permanent, voted for the Military Commissions Act, which eliminated habeas corpus and made torture legal in America, have both said with regards to attacking Iran that, “Everything is on the table” – and now claim to be pro-peace, pro-Constitution, pro-civil liberties, yada, yada, yada……At the very least, their words and promises should be met with great doubt. At the very least, they should inspire absolutely no confidence. The best that can be said of them is that their integrity and commitment to their stated principles is seriously in question.
Most damning of all, aside from actual voting records, which no one seems to care about– a politician’s record of actual conduct, as distinct from their noble sounding proclamations and speech writer’s carefully crafted statements – is the fact that all of the leading candidates, both Democrat and Republican, have chosen as key advisors, individuals with long histories of establishment politics and imperial bloodshed. The advisors chosen by Clinton and Obama – the people who will be the architects of their foreign and domestic policies – are people who are solidly pro-empire, pro-military-industrial complex, and who are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
If, for some bizarre reason, after all that has been said and discussed, you still feel the inclination to support one of the three amigos – McCain, Obama or Clinton – then at least get them to openly and publicly endorse the American Freedom Campaign or the American Freedom Agenda – the liberal and conservative coalitions which are working to preserve freedom and the Constitution in the US from the growing real homeland security threat, which is fascism. Get them to sign the legislation which has been drafted by these groups – and already signed by Congressman Ron Paul – which will re-affirm America’s commitment to the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, civil liberties and freedom. And get them furthermore, to sign an affidavit stating that they will, if elected to office, immediately act without delay to repeal the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act and the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, along with the executive signing orders passed by Bush which far exceed the limits of Constitutional powers of the executive branch. Good luck in that, by the way.
Maybe it’s time to switch off the network news, for those who haven’t already. When Obama and Clinton can pass themselves off as peace-loving, pro-freedom, pro-democracy, civil rights cherishing, Constitution-hugging progressives, while their record of voting as well as their choice of key advisors shows they are in fact the opposite of this, then we are reminded again of the power of the media to turn arsenic into strawberry jello, and have a large percentage of the people ready and eager to eat it up.
The death of the two party system in America:
The Republican party is in full melt-down. It’s popular base is leaving in droves. People on the left and right in the US are disgusted with the Republicans. In the fall of 2006, the people of the US put the Democratic Party in power in Congress with very considerable popular support, in order to reverse the trends of escalating imperial warfare abroad, and the demolition of democracy and constitutional rights and freedoms at home, which the Republicans had taken to new levels. People who should have known better fell under the spell of false promises, as hopes ran high for a new Democratically controlled Congress. Eighteen months later, people are now almost as disgusted with the Democrats as with the Republicans – and this deep disillusionment toward the Democratic Party includes many of its most dedicated activists.
Since the fall of 2006, the Democratic Party has steadfastly stalled, blocked, hedged and equivocated on any action that would actually do something to address these issues of war and democracy, and war on democracy. Worse, the majority of Democrats in Congress have gone merrily along with the continued attack on democracy and civil liberties, most recently passing the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007, which criminalizes the freedom of speech, eliminating the basic rights of freedom of speech, association and assembly, while refusing to impeach Bush or Cheney, refusing to stop funding the war in Iraq, refusing to bring the troops home from Iraq, refusing to draw a firm line in opposition to any attack on Iran, refusing to renounce or even criticize the dangerous, illegal, immoral and criminal policy of pre-emptive war, refusing to cut military spending….in short, siding with empire and Corporatocracy over the people and democracy. Need we say more about the current state of the Democratic Party? It is no surprise that they too are in disgrace and in a deep crisis of legitimacy with the people of the United States.
While US presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was still in the race, he said he was trying to save the Democratic Party from destroying itself. It seems the Party is quite alright with its chosen path, popular support and credibility be damned.
A sinister take on these trends might be that the party machine, and the political elite within this wing of the corporate allegiance coalition – which spans both factions of the financial feudalism cartel, both Republican and Democrat – are seeking only to deceive enough of the people to win just one more election. If the bottom of the barrel of credibility can be scrapped successfully enough, the political process which is now in a profound crisis of legitimacy can be tapped once more, in order to get a pro-corporatist imperial White House team elected – probably Clinton/Obama. With all that has been put in place, the legislative framework for full fascism now established, the thugs ready with the mercenary forces of Blackwater and company, the secret prisons and rendition networks already here, the detention centers ready with more being built, and the story line of the war on terrorism (inc.) presented as the official narrative, all that is needed is a catalyst, a match, an ignition source - a trigger event, as Brzezinski has predicted - and the trap can be sprung on the American people: corporate feudal fascism, with a smiling Orwellian Democratic face. Shock and denial will numb enough people long enough, it must be hoped, for the consolidation of the new order. The rest will be silenced. And a Brave New World will be born.
This, I am afraid, by all indications, is where the Democratic Party is taking America. I am sad to see that candidates of integrity of either party have been sidelined. Kucinich, Paul or Gravel – any one of them would make a president and leader of the country capable and willing to protect and preserve democracy, freedom, civil rights, the rule of constitutional law, and genuine peace. If none of these three win the next election, it will be fascism with a pretty face. Mark my words. I pray I am wrong, but everything points to this unthinkable conclusion. Consider the following, if you have any doubts.
Fascist legislation in place:
The Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act and Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act have put in place the legislative framework for fascist rule. Habeas corpus has been eliminated, along with the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. 800 years of the growth and development of constitutional law and civil rights has been overturned. Executive signing orders give the president the ability to re-write laws passed by Congress or to ignore them, as the president sees fit, giving the president rule by decree. The signing orders along with the above legislation effectively annul freedom, democracy and human rights in America. These fascist laws allow anyone, US citizens or others, to be picked up off the street, or arrested in their homes or workplaces, taken to an undisclosed detention center or interrogation center, held without trial, without recourse to a lawyer, without a phone call or any notification of family members, indefinitely, and allow for them to be tortured or summarily executed, as the president or anyone he chooses to represent him deems necessary. The framework is in place, and needs only to be engaged. Just turn the key. A trigger event is all that is needed, and the fascist legislation is engaged in full.
The criminalization of dissent:
The most revealing element in this whole development towards fascism, is the clear intent of the process: the criminalization of dissent. HR 1955, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act makes this unmistakable. The act states openly that “violent radicalization” or “terrorism” will be defined under this law as any use of force or violence for the purpose of advancing political goals. It further states that the use of “logical argument” or “compelling” force of reason are defined as terrorism. Force under this act, even if non-violent, such as the political force of a popular movement or organization, peaceful protest or dissent, is defined as terrorism. Note also that violence is already illegal under US law, and so no new law is needed to deal with violence. This means that HR 1955 is solely about the criminalization of freedom of expression and the repression of dissent. This is the hallmark of fascist states. Racism, sexism and xenophobia are often present as well, along with strange cultish ideology, but the defining marks of fascism are the demolition of democracy, freedom and civil rights, the institutionalization of unchecked totalitarian power, the reign of the few over the many by unlimited force, and the criminalization and violent suppression of opposition and dissent. In every fascist state, as Naomi Wolf makes clear, the first to go to the gas chambers or the detention centers are the outspoken journalists, editors, the political opposition, outspoken clergy, trade union and labour activists – in short, all threats to the power elite. Fascism is designed to do one thing above all: concentrate all power in society in the hands of the few. HR 1955 makes clear what these trends are all about. And the Democrats as well as Republicans voted for it: 404-6.
A private army of thugs:
Mussolini had his black shirts, Hitler liked the idea and created the brown shirts. Stalin was impressed and created his own band of goons. Now America has Blackwater. The head of Blackwater is a close ally and supporter of the Bush administration. Blackwater is a private corporation, a mercenary army, on hire to anyone who will pay, willing to kill, arrest, detain or torture anyone on a list they are given. No questions asked. They are not accountable to the public, as the military ultimately is, and have no code of honour, other than the code of sociopathic ruthless violence, and the loyalty needed among organized crime members toward their own and to their masters. Presently their role in Iraq seems to be destabilization – randomly shooting and killing civilians – in order to justify unending US and British military occupation of that country. “The country’s a mess – we can’t leave now!” Cerberus would welcome these thugs as kin, were it not for the fact that they do not guard the gates of hell, but open them. Blackwater specifically recruits individuals who have experience and comfort with repression, murder and torture of their own people – often former death squad members from Latin America. Blackwater’s goal for 2007 was to recruit an additional 35,000 loyal troops. With the recent wildfires in the US, Blackwater was unleashed on America. Get ready for the goons.
REX 84: Blueprint for martial law
“We are dangerously close to a situation where ~ if the American people took to the streets in righteous indignation or if there were another 9/11 ~ a mechanism for martial law could be quickly implemented and carried out under REX 84.
The Cheney/Bush administration has a plan which would accommodate the detention of large numbers of American citizens during times of emergency.
The plan is called REX 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984. Through Rex-84 an undisclosed number of concentration camps were set in operation throughout the United States, for internment of dissidents and others potentially harmful to the state.
The Rex 84 Program was originally established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA.
Existence of the Rex 84 plan was first revealed during the Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987, and subsequently reported by the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987:
" These camps are to be operated by FEMA should martial law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached."
And there you have it ~ the real purpose of FEMA is to not only protect the government but to be its principal vehicle for martial law.
This is why FEMA could not respond immediately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster ~ humanitarian efforts were no longer part of its job description under the Department of Homeland Security.”
-Allen L Roland, Rex 84: FEMA's Blueprint for Martial Law in America,
As of 2004 there were 800 prison camps in the US, all fully staffed and operational, but sitting empty. They have an average capacity of 20,000 detainees, making a total capacity of 1.8 million. This was before KBR, the subsidiary of Cheney’s Haliburton, announced in a press release in 2006 that they have been granted a $385 million contract to build a network of detention centers in the US. The press release added that the contract in “open ended” in terms of both time frame and scale. The stated intent of the detention centers is the detainment illegal aliens, “and other purposes.” All of the detention centers have railways leading in and out of the complexes. Most are nearby major airports.
Operation Endgame:
A document issued by the Office of Detention and Removal Operations (an arm of the Department of Homeland Security) titled "Strategic Plan, 2003-2012 Detention and Removal Strategy for a Secure Homeland"describes Operation Endgame as follows:
Endgame is the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Office of Detention and Removal (DRO) multi-year strategic enforcement plan. It stresses the effective and efficient execution of the critical service DRO provides its partners and stakeholders…
Operation Endgame, a plan officially acknowledged and run by the Department of Homeland Security, is stated to be concerned with the detention and deportation of all illegal aliens by 2012. However, in light of the above trends toward a clearly deliberate and highly conscious creation of a fascist state, it is highly doubtful that illegal aliens are the sole or even primary target for detention under the Endgame plan. We will see, but all evidence points to Endgame being a plan to eliminate all dissenting voices from the new “Fortress North America” under the “new security environment” – as the business and political elite are referring to it. Should we believe that all of the above developments are for the protection of US citizens, the fight against actual terrorism, or the arrest of illegal aliens? Given all that we know, this would seem about as plausible as the tooth fairy or the Easter Bunny. Unfortunately, believing in the Easter Bunny won’t hurt you, whereas willful ignorance and denial here may have very serious consequences.
Winning the “War on Terror”
A leaked Pentagon memo which was sent to high level military and civilian officials and reported by the Washington Post stated that the “War on Terror” (sic) is to be won by October 2008. All the evidence shows clearly that the war on terror is a two part operation, neither having anything to do with fighting terrorism: 1) the “Global War on Terror” provides the story line, the narrative, that is, the pretext of cover for an unending war of empire around the world, including operations designed to secure control of the world’s energy reserves in the Middle East and elsewhere; 2) the “War on Terror” provides the pretext or cover for a war on democracy at home – the elimination of dissent and the consolidation of power in the hands of the business and political elite. Given the undeniable nature and intent of the “War on Terror” – which is in truth a war on democracy and a war for empire – what does it mean when the Pentagon tells the military and political elite that the firm target for winning the war is October 2008? It would seem then that the time-line trajectory has been speeded up. 2012 is apparently not soon enough. The war on democracy is to be decisively won, according to this new information, by the fall of 2008.
Get ready. Mass resistance will be needed. The spirit of a Martin Luther King or Braveheart must be generated, or better, Jefferson or Thomas Paine. It is revolution or slavery now.
Conclusion: Freedom and democracy, or feudal fascism?
Patriots, democrats, and all who value and prefer freedom to fascism, take note. This is the time for action. Whatever your political views or allegiances, left or right, liberal, conservative, progressive or otherwise, if you do not want to see the destruction of constitutional rule of law, civil rights or a voice for the people, if you do not want to live under a fascist regime, then you must take action now. Inform yourself, inform others, speak, write, share information, connect with others, get together, build bridges of understanding, common cause and solidarity, build networks and a broad-based popular coalition, united to preserve freedom.
People in Canada, Mexico, Britain and Europe, don’t think this will necessarily be contained within the US. Organize now to preserve freedom and democracy, while you can. The war on democracy knows no borders. Never underestimate the machinations of the power-hungry. History has proved that there will always be those few who hunger for supreme power. Vigilance, solidarity and mutual empowerment are the only remedies to tyranny.
Renounce violence in all forms. A band of rebels with shotguns and rifles is no match for tanks and grenade launchers. Martin Luther King Jr. was right: “If I did not reject the use of violence on moral grounds I would reject it on practical grounds. To be throwing bricks at people with machine guns is not only violent, it is foolish.” Whether it be bricks of even assault rifles, in the arena of force, there is no contest. The battle must therefore be on grounds where popular movements have the greater strength. Read Sun Tzu: you do not attack where the enemy is strong. This should be a matter of common sense.
The power elite rely on the cooperation of masses of people. Remove that cooperation, and the power games collapse, like a house of cards. Remember the fall of the Soviet empire. When the people were sufficiently fed up that they ceased to give power to the reigning order, that order fell to pieces, virtually overnight. It is terrible what came in to replace it, but the point is that all empires and all social order ultimately rest upon the acquiescence of the many. Power lies with the people. It is only when the people do not embrace their power that the few can dominate the many. Reclaim your power, and encourage others to do the same, and the possibilities are unlimited. Democracy and freedom now require, more than ever, the empowerment of the people. This is the crux of the matter.
Do not seek to grasp power. Do not flee from your power. Instead, embrace your power and seek to empower others, in freedom and equality. This is the basis for a sane and just society. This is the basis for freedom. And this alone is the basis for an authentic democracy, with recognition and protection of the rights and dignity of all.
Look up Etienne de la Boittie. His essay On Voluntary Servitude, along with Thoreau’s essay On Civil Disobedience,and Sun Tzu’s Art of War (which is a treatise on peace and harmony and intelligent resolution of conflict)are the strategic manuals we need now.
Brains beat brawn. Heart defeats corruption. Maybe not instantly, but decisively, and inevitably. Yet, what we do or fail to do at this time will be of enormous significance. The level of violence, suffering and destruction, or the level of peace in the transition to a fuller and more genuine freedom and democracy, depends upon our actions now.
What do the power elite understand? Money. Hit them in the pocket book. Economic warfare. Shut down the means of plunder. Redirect money, resources, human energies and economic flows away from the business elite and their political drones, and into the hands of the people and the communities of the earth.
If the popular movements to preserve and enhance freedom, democracy and human rights are to succeed, it will be through non-violent resistance and civil disobedience, along the lines of King, Gandhi and Thoreau, combined with an intelligent and good-hearted generation of viable, practical, just and sustainable alternatives. Raising a militia will not only likely be useless, not only bring on a protracted, long-term blood bath of civil war and chaos, but would immediately make it simple for the power elite to portray genuine defenders of freedom as terrorists, making the crackdown on dissent all the easier. No, the resistance must be moral, intellectual, spiritual and above all, strategically smart: communication, information, knowledge, truth telling, networking, coalition building, non-cooperation and peaceful civil disobedience, along with the building of concrete alternatives for the mutual benefit of all, will be far more effective than picking up your 22 and heading for the woods.
Prepare for an onslaught, keep hope alive, and organize for the resistance now. The deer in the headlights syndrome will not be helpful. Denial will not be helpful. A paralysis of fear will not be helpful. Avoidance will not be helpful. Passive hand-wringing will not be helpful. Couch-perched pronouncements of disapproval will not be helpful. We must get out there, get connected, and build the resistance to what clearly is unfolding. Divided we fall. Only united do we stand.
The unthinkable is emerging. The beast is here. Fascism is coming to America.
Strength or energy exerted or brought to bear : cause of motion or change : active power; moral or mental strength; capacity to persuade or convince (eg. the force of the argument); an individual or group having the power of effective action (eg. a labor force;join forces to prevent violence);a force in politics; the quality of conveying impressions intensely in writing or speech; in great numbers (eg. picnickers were out in force).
Powder Keg USA: US heading toward fascism and civil war
“In the long run it is far more dangerous to adhere to illusion than to face what the actual truth is.” – David Bohm
It is very important that we now divest ourselves of any remaining willful ignorance. It is too late, and the stakes too high, for denial and wishful thinking to persist. Dream of better times, generate and hold fast to a more noble vision, but do not let our view of reality be skewed by a fear of facing the truth.
A year and a half ago I came across information pertaining to a number of very large issues, and was compelled to research them, and their inter-relationships, implications, and probable outcomes, and then to summarize as concisely as possible these research findings and analyses. What I concluded then, in October of 2006, was that a number of very large patterns were in motion which, as they unfold, will profoundly affect the US and the world, and further, that the United States was a powder keg, set to explode. Less than eighteen months later, we can see that the analysis was clearly correct, in all major facets, and the US is even more clearly, a powder keg waiting to explode. Here’s why, and here are some of the implications. The patterns are of profound significance and are unfolding rapidly, with increasing speed, therefore understanding them and forming appropriate responses is of urgent necessity.
From the October 2006 research summary:
A number of points which are now either undeniable, or at least have increasing and very strong evidence to support them:
The United States is in a deep and growing crisis of legitimacy, a serious and deepening internal political crisis, with the result of very significant and mounting instability – a crisis which will only get worse by ignoring it, and will be further exacerbated by the other related unfolding crises, both manufactured and otherwise. The following inter-related dynamics will affect the growing US political crisis profoundly.
The US is on the verge of economic collapse. 14 months later, this now is admitted by nearly everyone. When economic collapse hits the US, the political crisis will move from deeply serious to explosive as public discontent reaches a flashpoint. US elites are most certainly taking actions in advance to deal with the deepening political crisis.
Peak oil is about to hit globally, with profound economic, social and political implications for the US and the world. That was the best analysis in fall 2006. It now has hit, and is unfolding, as is being admitted. As predicted, oil prices rose dramatically, causing global economic shock and downturn. Oil prices went from US$ 50 a barrel in 2006 to US$ 100 a barrel in 2007. Between 2002 and 2007 world oil prices rose from US$ 20/barrel to US$ 100/barrel – a five-fold increase, again, as predicted. The economic ramifications are severe and growing as energy costs for all manufacturing and shipping rise exponentially.
A political scandal of simply tectonic magnitude is unfolding rapidly within the US – speaking from October 2006 - on top of the already precarious situation of a long-standing and slowly deepening political crisis. (Remember that the slowly deepening crisis of legitimacy which unfolded over decades within the Soviet Union led ultimately to a “tipping point” in which the entire structure collapsed, virtually overnight.) In September and October 2006 two things happened which moved the US domestic political crisis from deep and growing, to precipitous and potentially cataclysmic in terms of its effects, as least as far as the political and business elite of the country are concerned. One: Hugo Chavez stated before the UN that there is growing evidence, and a growing number of people around the world and within the US are coming to believe, that elements within the US government actively participated in the terrorist attacks on the US on September 11. The media around the world and across the US reported on a story that was too big to silence: the story of the accusation, that is. A much more important event occurred that fall: the number of US citizens who believe it is very likely or somewhat likely that elements within the US government were actively involved in the 9/11 terrorist attack on the US reached 36% - and the number of Americans who do not believe the official story reached a stunning 84%. As of October 2006 only 16% of Americans believed the official story. This is a cataclysmic scale crisis of legitimacy, a scandal of truly tectonic proportions. This is what I would call a “house of cards event.”
By now, fourteen months later, over 100 scholars, prominent military, intelligence, government and media figures have stated that the official story is untenable, and that there are serious questions as to active involvement in the attacks by high level US government officials and agents. The former head of the Russian air force has stated the official story is impossible (that statement actually came in fall 2001). Former German parliamentarian Helmut Schmidt has said that WTC-7 was brought down by controlled demolition, in order to conceal the evidence as to who orchestrated the attack, which was coordinated out of that same building. Former assistant editor for the Wall Street Journal, and creator of Reaganomics, Paul Craig Roberts, has said that the evidence is incontrovertible that WTC-7 was brought down by controlled demolition. Former Italian Prime Minister Francesco Cossiga has publicly declared that, “the disastrous attack was planned and carried out by the American CIA and the Mossad” – and went on to state that every intelligence agency in the world knows this.
The domestic political crisis in the US, though smoothed over by the network media, is fast approaching a tipping point, and the political and business elite are highly aware of this fact. When popular discontent is already deep and wide, and a scandal of such magnitude is erupting, even the conditions that set off the first American Revolution seem to pale in comparison. Such gross criminal activity on the part of domestic elites is bound to provoke a full scale crisis of confidence, to put it mildly.
This makes Watergate look like a love-in. This is the stuff of a Boston Tea Party. US elites are not taking this lightly, of course.
For geo-strategic reasons, primarily control over world energy resources, as well as for reasons of domestic instability and internal political crisis (I’ll explain why in a moment), the US is likely to attack Iran, if the people of the US and the world do not stop a government that is out of control. This is only becoming more and more evident.
An attack on Iran would require an enormous pretext, given that the American people do not want even to continue the war in Iraq, let alone expand it. Opposition to the war in Iraq has now grown to approximately 70%. Yet the US government seems intent on expanding the war in the Middle East, and attacking Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons. (Controlling the Middle East means controlling approximately 70% of world oil supplies. Controlling world oil supplies means dominating the global economy and the world, as PNAC and the Pentagon have openly stated is their aim. Peak oil only adds to their sense of urgency.)
(Note that none of the remaining US presidential candidates, with the exception of Ron Paul and Mike Gravel, are willing to stop the current trend toward escalating war in the Middle East, so counting on electoral change is patently foolish, unless somehow Ron Paul or Mike Gravel were to win. Obama and Hillary have both said with regard to Iran, “Everything is on the table” – nuclear first strike and all.)
Not only would an attack on Iran risk ecological and humanitarian disaster, as well as seriously risk a world war, but would require the greatest of pretexts to get the American people to go along with it. In the words of the neo-con think tank PNAC, it would seem to require a “cataclysmic event,” or as Zbig himself described it in his 1997 book on global geo-strategy, The Grand Chessboard, a “Pearl Harbor type event.”
This begs a very frightening question. Following my analysis in the fall of 2006, less than six months later, Zbigniew Brzezinski warned the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee that just such a false flag event, a terrorist attack on the US, “blamed on Iran….and a quote, unquote, defensive retaliation against Iran,” was a likely scenario. Congressman Ron Paul has also stated that he believes the danger of a Gulf of Tonkin event is great. (He is softening the blow for us. It would be, rather, much more severe than an offshore event which would be needed, in all likelihood, given the extremely strong public opposition to expanding or even continuing the war.)
Remember also that former NATO Supreme Allied Commander General Tommy Franks said in an interview a couple of years ago that if there is another terrorist attack on the US it would likely be the end of democracy – Congress would not likely be reconvened, he said.
Of course, the final destruction of what remains of democracy, freedom and civil rights in America, under a police state, would provoke civil war. Again, the elite surely know this very well. Civil war in turn gives further pretext and justification for crackdown on dissent. “Domestic terrorism” charges will be used to eliminate all political opposition and dissenting voices – most likely via media spin, while individuals and groups are quietly rounded up in mass arrests, without trial or due process of law.
Witness the Green Zone and giant high-security embassy in Bagdad: US forces are training in maintaining full dominance within a setting of permanent civil war. Iraq is the laboratory for what is to be applied at home. War justifies repression, repression ensures continuing war, and war and repression yield dominance and plunder. It is a simple yet effective strategy, at least in the short run. Permanent war means a permanent state of emergency, as well as great profits for the military-industrial complex. It would be a return to the walled cities of feudal times, backed by new mercenaries armies such as Blackwater. Outside the walls, chaos, violence, war and poverty reign. Inside the walls, it is a pampered police state for those who are sufficiently obedient. It is a very dark road that the US has set upon. It is a path into what one might most appropriately call feudal fascism, both at home and abroad.
Note also that this current trajectory ties in perfectly with the business elites’ agenda for a “new security environment” in “Fortress North America” within the framework of feudal fascist rule via the NACC and SPP. Canada and Mexico will thus also be drawn into this morass unless resistance and an alternative vision are quickly generated. US business elites want Canadian oil and Mexican labour, as well as continental “security.” The popular movement to resist this agenda of fascism under continental corporate rule must therefore be international. We are now clearly in this together.
In each of these cases, the evidence has only grown more compelling.
Put the pieces together.
a) Deep and growing crisis of legitimacy in the US.
b) Rapidly unfolding economic crisis in the US, which will only exacerbate the underlying political crisis.
c) Peak oil crisis unfolding rapidly, compounding both the economic and political crises.
d) A “house of cards event” emerging rapidly with the 9/11 scandal – a scandal big enough to bring down not just a government, but an entire socio-political order, a la the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989-90.
e) A war planned on Iran to secure geostrategically vital world energy reserves, requiring a giant pretext to get the American people to accept expansion of war in the Middle East, when what they want now is to end it.
f) The warnings of former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski that such an unfolding of events is “likely.”
g) Tommy Franks statement that another event would precipitate the foreclosure of democracy in America.
Conclusion:
Elements of the US political and business elite are sufficiently desperate, power hungry and reckless as to consider and plan for a series of events, which, if successful, would resolve the political crisis in the US - by dissolving democracy and invoking a police state - while securing control over the majority of the world’s remaining energy reserves in an era of diminishing oil supplies. For some, this must seem a wonderful win-win scenario. Of course, for the vast majority, this means living hell.
If unsuccessful, the consequences may be global thermonuclear annihilation of the entire Northern Hemisphere – but you have to take some risks, right?
There are other profound implications, such as global economic collapse, due to the strangulation of oil shipments and spiking oil prices within the context of an already volatile and unstable global economy, but the very real potential of nuclear disaster tops the list, followed closely by the nightmare scenario of the re-emergence of fascism in the Western world.
By the way, Russia and China are now economic and military allies with Iran, and both are nuclear powers with ICBMs. Word is, the mad fools in Washington, or those at the helm at least, are actively seeking a confrontation with two of the world’s military, economic and nuclear superpowers. The insanity is truly mind-boggling.
As we speak, five air craft carrier groups are stationed off Iran, the war propaganda continues, preparing the public mind for acquiescence, and the political crisis in the US sinks deeper, while the US economy slides steadily off a cliff, and the peak oil crunch continues to unfold.
Think about it. This is end game. The US elite know this. We should harbour no illusions.
Note that this entire analysis does not even mention one giant and now undeniable pattern which is also rapidly unfolding, by clearly conscious design, and that is the war on democracy and the assault on freedom and civil liberties, which has been on-going and escalating since September 11 in particular. (It began earlier, but 9/11 was the “catalyst” to greatly speed up the process.) Consider the above in light of this.
The “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) has been used, and it is increasingly self-evident that it has been very consciously used, for the purpose of creating a state of permanent global imperial warfare on the one hand, and in order to “win” the war on democracy on the other. “Winning” in this context means global dominance is consolidated for the transnational business elite who already dominate the governments of the G-8 and the Western world. “Winning” is thus slavery for humanity – at home and abroad – and the destruction of democracy and freedom.
Note also that the Washington Post published a leaked memo from the Pentagon which was addressed to high level military and government officials, and which stated that the Global War on Terror is to be completed, won, by October 2008. The memo made explicit that this was a performance-related objective, communicating in definite terms that pay would be affected if targets are not reached.
What do we conclude from that? Bush and Cheney said this would be a war without end. Iraq has bogged down into civil war and quagmire and drags on endlessly, while neocons and Democrats bicker and posture while agreeing to “stay the course” and keep the troops in occupation position. Now the Pentagon wants the war wrapped up, completed and won within the next nine months (before the 2008 election). What dark entity is the Pentagon planning to birth in that time frame? What does the Pentagon consider “completion” or “winning” of the “global war on terror” – particularly when any intelligent observer can see that it is not a war on terrorism, but a war of empire and a war on democracy? Are we to assume then that the Pentagon has set a firm target, and that global consolidation of the empire, particularly, secure control over the Mid-East oil reserves, is to be complete by October 2008? That the war on democracy is to be won by October 2008? I think that we must give some very sober-minded consideration to these statements, in light of recent developments. A tremendous amount is at stake here.
I believe it is time we speak the truth directly. This is a war on the people of the earth. It must stop. And it is the people of the earth who must stop it.
I would say it is time for the people of the United States, and the people of the world, to stand up, and say in no uncertain terms, that this has gone far enough, and to demand, a) an end to military adventurism and imperial designs, and b) a respect for human rights, civil liberties, constitutional democracy, freedom and the self-determination of peoples in all nations – and in action, and not simply rhetoric.
Stop the madness!
People of the United States, people of the world, speak now. The stakes are high. This is our future. This is our children’s future. Too much is at stake to leave the future of humanity in the hands of those who are drunk with power. It is time to take the power back.
The future is in our hands. If we continue to give our power to a small band of elites, the above scenario will most likely unfold in all its terrible fullness. It is up to us, as always, the people of the Earth. Choose wisely. The powerful rule only when and if we give them our power. Remove that power and they fall like a house of cards. The Soviet Empire’s collapse proved this. It is now time for the collapse of the Western empire, and the birth of true democracy. Stay alert. The story is not yet over. We can write the next chapter if we so choose. Allowing the power elite to write it for us would be disastrous. Pick up the pen. Reclaim your power. Let us write a better story for the future of humanity and the earth.
"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs: when he first appears, he is a protector." - Plato
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - U.S. President James Madison
"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death". - Adolph Hitler
"Why of course the people don't want war ... 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 to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi leader, speaking before the Nuremberg Trials.
"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened". - Josef Stalin
But it can’t happen here. Or can it?
Do we really believe that certain countries are immune from the plots of evil men?
Really now.
JTR,
February 1, 2008
“War can never stop terrorism because war is the ultimate form of terrorism.” - John Deer
“Empires don’t bring democracy, they control people…..Predictably, anyone who threatens imperial power is treated as if they were, to put it mildly, a trouble-maker, or even a terrorist….No-one in power really wants democracy, because democracy would challenge their power structures.”- Tony Benn
HEY YOU! Lefties, liberals and progressives – Listen up
I know Obama is the darling of many of you, and I realize that some even like Hillary, but let us consider this most crucial fact. There were only three candidates in the US presidential race with demonstrated integrity in terms of that most essential criterion for becoming the next president of the world’s most powerful nation state – or any other nation for that matter: upholding civil rights and the rule of constitutional democracy during a time when these are under escalating and highly deliberate attack. Many of you will know immediately who I mean. Dennis Kucinich, Mike Gravel, and Ron Paul. These were the only three candidates with proven records of defending constitutional rights and freedoms, as well as the rule of democracy, against the by now undeniable assaults on the same. Mike Gravel, honorable as he is, I do not believe has a chance of winning. Dennis Kucinich has now dropped out of the race. This leaves us with only one serious candidate – that is, one serious candidate if we are serious about protecting civil rights and constitutional democracy. He is US Congressman Dr. Ron Paul.
If we look beyond the rhetoric for a moment, it becomes undeniable that the commitment of the others to upholding or even abiding by the Constitution, is highly questionable, at best. Obama and Hillary both voted in favor of the Patriot Act, which strips away critical liberties, nullifies much of the Bill of Rights, and is an abomination to democracy and the Constitution. Not only did these two chameleons vote in favor of the Patriot Act, but they voted a second time to make 14 of its provisions permanent. Hillary and Obama both voted in favor of the Military Commissions Act, voting in favor of making torture legal in the United States. These are not the actions of democrats. These two are not democrats: they have chosen to side with an assault on democracy. In the now unfolding battle between the corporatocracy and the people, they have shown where they stand. And it is not with the people, however pleasing their slippery rhetoric may appear.
Obama and Hillary have both shown their allegiance, moreover, to the military-industrial complex, to the on-going wars of empire – despite high-sounding words – and to unremitting deaths and destruction in support of global imperial ambition. They have both said, in regards to Iran, “Everything is on the table.” So pre-emptive war and nuclear attack are on the table. This is not only pro-empire, it is dangerous in the extreme, and risks an ecological and humanitarian disaster of the greatest magnitude.
Both Obama and Hillary voted in favor of the war in Iraq – repeatedly, voting to fund it every time Congress was asked. Now they talk of peace. This is sheer hypocrisy. Only Kucinich and Gravel on the Democratic side showed genuine integrity on the issue of war. Obama and Hillary will most likely become a united love-in ticket for the military-industrial complex, and I would advise you in the strongest of terms to re-examine them, and most crucially, their demonstrated records of action, their voting records, before endorsing Mr. and Mrs. corporate war establishment.
If you still have some doubts as to Hillary and Obama, consider also who they have chosen as their key advisors. It will reveal, if we are willing to look, a portrait in imperial criminality. Each of them have chosen as their key advisors, long standing establishment figures, all with blood on their hands, all with grave records of war crimes, crimes against humanity or mass murder. This is not the peace ticket, my friends. This is the ticket to a deepening hell of empire-fetish.
Hillary has named Madeleine Albright as a key advisor, the woman who single-handedly blocked the efforts to halt the genocide in Rawanda, endorsed the sanctions against Iraq, and when questioned on the fact that the sanctions had by that time killed half a million women and children in that country, coldly responded, “We think it’s worth the sacrifice.”
Obama has publicly named Zbigniew Brzezinski as his key advisor – the man who bragged of having created the band of militant extremist Muslims that later became Al Queda – with CIA funding, weapons and training, when he was Carter’s National Security Advisor – in order to lure the Soviet Union into a destabilizing war, “their own Vietnam.” Obama’s right hand man is thus one of the most cold-blooded as well as pre-eminent of Machiavellian strategists for the empire, co-founder of the Trilateral Commission, and chief intellectual in residence to the US business elite. In light of this, Barack Obama should gives us chills – and not of inspiration.
The Washington Post has recently commented on a very strange phenomenon: the political right is joining in a chorus of warmth toward Obama. One voice from the right has said, “We can work with him.” Given Obama’s adoring words toward Reagan, maybe we shouldn’t be surprised. But what does it mean when the political right in America says, “We can work with him.” I would contend that it means the obvious, as outlined above: he is no threat to the present establishment of power. Alan Greenspan has said that Bill Clinton was the best Republican President we’ve had in a long time. I think it’s safe to say that Hillary and Obama would be there, right next to that glorious legacy.
In a comment to Jim Hightower’s excellent article on the dismal state of the Democratic party, one writer said, “If something does not happen, very soon, we are going to have a laughable choice between two Republicans come November for President of the United States.” I’m afraid this is only too true. The only thing progressive about Hillary and Obama is their zeal for serving the corporate empire - it is a progressively demeaning form of treason to the people of the United States, and the Constitution, rights and freedoms upon which their future stands or falls.
I realize it is difficult to even consider voting for someone who is running under a Republican ticket, but remember, the Republican party machine hates him, so he can’t be all bad. Ron Paul has been asked if he is running for the wrong party, to which he replied, he is running for the party that used to be opposed to excessive executive powers, that used to be opposed to interventionist wars – that he is running for what the Republican party used to stand for, long before the emergence of the neoconservatives.
You may not agree with Ron Paul on every point, as I do, being a progressive; you may even disagree with him on some very important points, but you cannot help but agree with him on the most essential points: end the wars of empire, and stop the assault on democracy and civil rights.
Get with the program. This man is going to help save our collective behinds: he is the only candidate we can trust to stand with the people, and not the empire or its corporate backers. Check him out. A great deal rides on the outcome of this election. As the venerable Mike Gravel has said about the US 2008 Presidential race, “We have to get this one right.”
Money, Banks and Democracy: The reality beneath the ideological fantasies and spin
"Power follows property."
The Golden Rule, as cynically applied by the financial elite: "He who holds the gold makes the rules."
Of course, if you can dispense with the need for gold, and still make the rules, that's even better.
I think the evidence is enormously strong that democratically elected governments need to have greater control over their national currencies, not less. The "independence" of a privately owned central bank means economic policies which benefit the private bank's shareholders, rather than the people of the nation.
There is simply overwhelming evidence to support this view. Without democratic control of national currency, via democratically elected bodies such as Congress, sovereignty becomes an impossibility. We need to be dealing with reality here, not ideology.
Central banks that are privately owned - that is, controlled by large corporations or small groups of financial elites - tend to damage national economies while benefiting the financial elite, and more critically, undermine all ability of democratic governments to hold real power on behalf of the people, giving power to the bankers and corporations, and removing effective power from parliament or Congress.
Allowing private empires, such as those who control the FED, to "manage" the nation's money is pretty much letting the wolves guard the hen house. Democratically elected governments have the right, the mandate and the power to print and control the nation’s currency.
To forgo this right and pass this power to highly concentrated financial dynasties, is both unwise and highly dangerous. Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln knew this, and fought to prevent the handing over of control of the nation's currency to a private bank. They were far more prescient than most people or politicians today. Their advice on keeping the central bank public and democratically controlled should have been heeded. Having failed to heed their warnings, we must today correct our mistake. The issue of control over national currency is absolutely central. All talk of freedom or democracy is meaningless and hollow if this is not addressed.
William Lyon Mackenzie King
Once a nation parts with the control of its currency and credit, it matters not who makes the nations laws. Usury, once in control, will wreck any nation. Until the control of the issue of currency and credit is restored to government and recognized as its most sacred responsibility, all talk of the sovereignty of parliament and of democracy is idle and futile.
Thomas Jefferson
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their money, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them (around the banks), will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.” -President WoodrowWilson
Lord Acton
The issue which has swept down the centuries and which will have to be fought sooner or later is the people versus the banks.
James Madison
History records that the money changers have used every form of abuse, intrigue, deceit, and violent means possible to maintain their control over governments by controlling the money and its issuance.
Mayer Amschel Rothschild
Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws.
Napoleon Bonaparte
When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson.
Lord Acton
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Marcus Tullius Cicero
A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murder is less to fear.
David Rockefeller writes on pages 404 and 405 of his memoirs: "The anti-Rockefeller focus of these otherwise incompatible political positions [across the political spectrum] owes much to Populism. 'Populists' believe in conspiracies, and one of the most enduring is that a secret group of international bankers and capitalists, and their minions, control the world's economy. Because of my name and prominence as the head of the Chase for many years, I have earned the distinction of 'conspirator in chief' from some of these people…Some even believe we 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 is the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it."
Samuel Adams
If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.
Charles A. Lindbergh
This Act (the Federal Reserve Act, Dec. 23rd 1913) establishes the most gigantic trust on earth. When the President (Woodrow Wilson) signs the Bill, the invisible government of the Monetary Power will be legalised... The worst legislative crime of the ages is perpetrated by this banking and currency Bill.
H. L. Birum, Sr.
The Federal Reserve Bank is nothing but a banking fraud and an unlawful crime against civilization. Why? Because they "create" the money made out of nothing, and our Uncle Sap Government issues their "Federal Reserve Notes" and stamps our Government approval with NO obligation whatever from these Federal Reserve Banks, Individual Banks or National Banks, etc.
Grace Commission
100% of what is collected is absorbed solely by interest on the Federal Debt ... all individual income tax revenues are gone before one nickel is spent on the services taxpayers expect from government.
Henry Ford
It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.
Robert A. Heinlein
Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny.
Lord Acton
Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity.
Thomas Jefferson
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.
Samuel Adams
How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!
Thomas Jefferson
Yes, we did produce a near-perfect republic. But will they keep it? Or will they, in the enjoyment of plenty, lose the memory of freedom? Material abundance without character is the path of destruction.
Buddha
Believe nothing merely because you have been told it. Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be kind, conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
John Adams
Be not intimidated... nor suffer yourselves to be wheedled out of your liberties by any pretense of politeness, delicacy, or decency. These, as they are often used, are but three different names for hypocrisy, chicanery and cowardice.
Samuel Adams
The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.
"The ultimate authority ... resides in the people alone." - James Madison
"It is more honorable to repair a wrong than to persist in it." - Thomas Jefferson
John F. Hylan
The real menace of our Republic is the invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy legs over our cities states and nation. At the head is a small group of banking houses generally referred to as 'international bankers.' This little coterie... run our government for their own selfish ends. It operates under cover of a self-created screen...[and] seizes...our executive officers... legislative bodies... schools... courts... newspapers and every agency created for the public protection.
Justice Felix Frankfurter
The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind the scenes.
Charles-Louis De Secondat
There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.
Major L. L. B. Angus
The modern Banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banks can in fact inflate, mint and unmint the modern ledger-entry currency.
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the Field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere -- so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive -- that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it." - Woodrow Wilson
Carroll Quigley
The powers of financial capitalism had (a) far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank...sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.
“They must find it difficult…those who have taken authority as the truth, rather than truth as the authority.” – Gerald Massey
“Where is the knowledge that is lost in information?
Where is the wisdom that is lost in knowledge?”
- T.S. Elliot
“Put fear behind and save the country.” – Simon Bolivar
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt.
“I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” – Thomas Jefferson
"If there is anything which it is the duty of the whole people to never entrust to any hands but their own -- that thing is the preservation of their own liberties and institutions." – Abraham Lincoln
"The people of the United States are the rightful masters of both Congress and the Courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution." - Abraham Lincoln
A diffusion of knowledge is the only guardian of true liberty. - James Madison
"I have the Confederacy before me, and the bankers behind me, and for my country I fear the bankers most." - Abraham Lincoln.
Enlighten the people, generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like spirits at the dawn of day. – Thomas Jefferson
The Truth About Christianity: What Jesus Really Said
Jesus said, “The Kingdom of heaven is within you.”
I have come to show you the deeper things, which you have forgotten, and which now must be uncovered. It is time for the secrets to be revealed. And they were only ever secrets for two reasons: one, it was not Jesus who kept them secret, but those who would conceal or destroy the deeper teachings of Jesus, namely, the Roman Emperor Constantine and his collaborators; and more essentially, it has always been that the secrets will be revealed when you yourself learn to see. I will now tell you of the true history of the Christian church, and of the lost teachings.
The Christian church lost its deeper teachings when in the 4th century the emperor Constantine decided to edit the scriptures. There was no official cannon at that point. There were a number of scriptures, but no official cannon. Constantine took it upon himself, as holy emperor, to decide that this scripture stays, this one goes. “Mark, I like, Thomas, no.” Having selected the scriptures he liked, he set out to purge the land of the scriptures he didn’t like. The scriptures he didn’t agree with were burned, wherever they could be found. Those who held them or spoke of them were killed. It was a religious cleansing, through state terrorism, backed by the newly minted Christian church, as a church hierarchy formed around the emperor Constantine. This is the creation of the official gospels. This is the beginning of Christianity as most people have come to know it. But this is only a chapter.
At that point, when a church hierarchy formed around the emperor, and selected scriptures were enshrined as cannon, while others were burned and destroyed, Christianity lost its depths, or most of it, and went into literalism. It was at that point that the deeper teachings of Christianity were buried. Literalism triumphed with Constantine, very early in the history of Christianity, less than four hundred years after the death of Jesus.
Also at that point, the newly created orthodoxy of the Christian church aligned itself with the empire – essentially, aligned itself with a police state of vast proportions. You do not maintain your integrity when you align yourself with a police state – you lose it. (This is an important point to remember today as well.) What is surprising, in light of the Christian church aligning itself with a bloody, brutal empire, is not that Christianity was corrupted, which would seem to have been inevitable, given such a choice as to unite with the empire, but that there remained any integrity at all. The fact that the teachings of Jesus can still, to this day, cut through two thousand years of fog and smoke and mirrors, is almost amazing.
The laity and the monks and nuns, in spite of the church hierarchy, kept alive as much as they could of the original spirit and teachings of Jesus. It is they, not the clergy, who deserve the credit, although, to be fair, there have always been the best and the worst among the clergy, and the failings of Christianity are tied in some very significant degree to ordinary Christians, and not only to the hierarchy of church institutions. (The Crusades, the Inquisition, the witch trials, the conquest of the Americas, the slave trade, the pogroms, the protection of Nazi war criminals, the continuing and present support for empire and wars of conquest, the silence on the current war of robber barons against the people of the earth….)
On the whole, however, the spirit and teachings of Jesus have been kept alive by the hearts and minds of the people, in spite of the failings of the institution, ever since the time of the great conversion of that holy editor under God, Constantine. The priests and ministers, with few exceptions, as Jesus said, have been “dogs that lay in the manger,” then as now, ever since 325 AD and Constantine’s declaration of holy war on the scriptures – “for they do not eat, and they do not let the cattle eat.”
Here is what the church forgot to tell you – and in most instances, it has become the case, and has been the case for a very long time, that they don’t know themselves, and are not so much concealing something, as they are simply ignorant.
If you want to know the whole truth, and particularly, the deepest truths, go, immediately, and find this book. It is the most important of the missing gospels, which has now been found, was found in a desert cave some sixty years ago. It is the Gospel of Thomas. I will say no more, but let the scripture speak to you directly. You decide.
“I took my stand in the midst of humanity, and I wept for them, for they came into the world blind, and they seek to leave the world blind.”
“Knock and the door will be opened.”
“Those who have ears, let them hear.”
“Those who have eyes, let them see.”
“Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.”
“The kingdom of heaven is spread out upon the earth and men see it not.”
“The kingdom of heaven is within you.”
“Split a piece of wood and I will be there. Lift a rock and I will be there.”
“See what is before your nose and all will be revealed.”
“When the two are made one, the male and the female, the above and below, the inner and the outer, then you shall see.”
“The priests are like dogs that lay in the manger, for they do not eat, and the do not let the cattle eat.”
Christianity is now in crisis. Either it will rediscover its deeper teachings, or it will die. Fundamentalism is not the answer. More fervent clinging to a shallow literalism is not the answer. The answer lies in your heart, where it has always been, and nowhere else.
“Now when He was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, He answered them and said, “The kingdom of God does not come with observation; nor will they say, ‘See here!’ or ‘See there!’ For indeed, the kingdom of God is within you.”- Luke 17: 21
See what is before your nose and all will be revealed.
The Logan Act: Secrecy, Sovereignty, Democracy and Freedom of Speech
The Logan Act (US federal law, 1799), like the US Fourteenth Amendment (1868), falls into the category, I would say, of ambiguous legislation, which may be applied to serve the interests of the people, or alternately, to strip the people of their rights and deprive them of their interests. It must therefore be amended, as with the Fourteenth Amendment, in order to clarify its intent and application. I am not a lawyer or legislator, but these are my thoughts, and I believe they are worthy of serious consideration.
The Logan Act should allow citizens to hold discussions or correspondence with foreign nations' peoples, governments or representatives, but not as official representatives of the US government unless duly authorized, and not in secret – this would thereby give the protection of sovereignty which was intended, while upholding freedom of speech, assembly and association.
Allowing small groups of powerful men to meet secretly to discuss affairs of state pertaining to one or more nations is undemocratic and unwise, and leads easily to the tyranny of the few over the many. The closed door meetings of the Security and Prosperity Partnership, which seek to integrate the laws, regulations, economies, military, security and intelligence of Canada, the US and Mexico, as well as the secretive meetings of elite clubs such as the Bilderberg group, CFR and Trilateral Commission are four clear examples of such meetings which undermine the democratic process and leave open wide, the door to oligarchic anti-democratic rule.
Absence of checks on such extra-parliamentary, unaccountable and anti-democratic concentrations of power constitute grave and immediate threats to the functioning of democratic processes, to national sovereignties, as well as to the rights and freedoms of citizens in the US and other nations. Let the super-rich and corporate elite have their clubs. But let us not be so foolish as to allow them secretive meetings pertaining to national and international affairs of the greatest importance. Open the doors, if they wish to discuss. Power confers responsibility, not the prerogatives for skirting and avoiding accountability. This applies equally to economic power as to political power, if not more so – or, at least it will when we choose to exercise our common sense.
At the same time, banning citizens’ discussion with foreign nations or foreign citizens is clearly in violation of basic principles of human rights and freedom. To say for example that a US Senator, or any US citizen, is forbidden to speak with a member of a foreign government, and will be sanctioned, censured or imprisoned for doing so, as some tried to impose recently, is clearly draconian, unconstitutional, illegal, immoral, anti-democratic and antithetical to the principles of freedom.
The clarification recommended here would resolve both dilemmas.
Alternately, the previously proposed HR 6252 would vacate the law, rendering it next to useless, while Steve King’s proposed amendment would make it, as described above, draconian and unconstitutional as well as incompatible with basic rights and freedom.
This is a law which presently may be of service or of harm to the people, and no clarity is presently available within its current framing. It must therefore be amended, and it can be argued compellingly, immediately so. The significance of the act is in terms of two not unrelated realms, that of basic freedoms, and that of unchecked concentrations of un-elected and unaccountable, undemocratic powers. It is vital that both of these be addressed, and this act must be amended, along with other measures which must be taken, in order to accomplish this.
In the meantime, if the Logan Act can be utilized to protect the sovereignty, rights, freedoms and interests of the people of the United States, then of course it should be utilized immediately for that purpose. Though it is in need of clarification, it may even now be a vehicle to advance the public interest over the special interests of the highly influential corporate lobby. It would seem obvious that this should begin at once.
In sum, clarification and proper utilization of the Logan Act, the Fourteenth Amendment – stripping corporations of the unconstitutional and illegitimate, absurd claim to personhood – along with strengthening and full utilization of the competition and anti-trust laws, would go a considerable way to protecting the democratic process, the Constitution, and the sovereignty, rights and freedoms of the citizens of the United States, all of which are now under attack, and are in very real and immediate danger of being submerged by a transnational un-elected, undemocratic, unaccountable “defacto world government” – as the leading business journal in the Western hemisphere, the Financial Times, has itself described the emerging global corporatist order.
It is not too late to act, and all the tools and peaceful means at the disposal of the citizenry must be rallied and utilized in defense of freedom. There is no time to lose. A new form of tyranny is undeniably arising, and swiftly so.
People involved with the American Freedom Agenda, people opposed to the SPP and NAU, note this. It may be one more tool for protecting democracy and freedom from the rapidly encroaching corporate rule.
HR 1955: The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act
What is HR 1955, and why should we be interested? Here is a short introduction. More than we may imagine rides on the peoples' response to this newest development in the war on democracy.
Passed by a Democratic-controlled House of Representatives with a vote of 404-6, October 23, 2007.
Freedom of speech, association and assembly will be illegal in the US once the Senate and President sign on – and neither oppose it. With this law, dissent will be illegal. The unmistakable import of this new law is the criminalization of dissent.
The FBI’s infamous Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) stated clearly, in documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, that, “through counter-intelligence, it should be possible to pinpoint potential trouble makers (sic) and neutralize them.” J. Edgar Hoover said of his COINTELPRO operation that his intent was to “neutralize political dissidents.” The FBI’s COINTELPRO operated illegally. HR 1955 now makes legal the mechanisms for neutralizing dissent. Expressing an opinion or view that is not favourable to the current ruling powers may be met with repression. America is now officially a fascist state.
The bill is moving rapidly through Congress, and may be signed into law by February. Dissent and debate in the US House of Representatives was virtually non-existent. The media networks have been silent. Spread the news: the internet and face to face communication seem to be the only means to get this critical information out.
"Legislation such as this demands heavy-handed governmental action against American citizens where no crime has been committed," Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul stated to the House in December, after missing the vote while campaigning. "It is yet another attack on our constitutionally protected civil liberties. It is my sincere hope that we will reject such approaches to security, which will fail at their stated goal at a great cost to our way of life."
"It will no doubt prove to be another bureaucracy that artificially inflates problems so as to guarantee its future existence and funding," Paul predicted in his House speech. "But it may do so at great further expense to our civil liberties." It is, he concluded, an "unwise and dangerous solution in search of a real problem."
"If you understand what his bill does, it really sets the stage for further criminalization of protest," said Dennis Kucinich. "This is the way our democracy, little by little, is being stripped away from us."
“There is no way to overstate how crucial this piece of legislation is. We are at a turning point, and without the restoration of the rule of law the "blueprint" for what I have called a "fascist shift" -- the closing down of democracy -- calls for scarier recriminations against citizens, greater tightening of social controls -- the ever-growing, disturbingly political TSA watch list is, alarmingly, due to go from the airlines' administration to that of the TSA itself -- and more corruptions of the electoral process. Blackwater is a truly terrifying wild card. Without the rule of law we will be powerless as each of these assaults on liberty continue to escalate. With it we can fight back.” – Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America, and American Fascism, in 10 easy steps.
“The most pressing liberty Ron Paul, the ACLU, Dennis Kucinich and pretty much most left- and right-leaning organizations fear outright is a restriction on the right of internet access, since the House Subcommittee hearings and text of the resolution seized upon it with almost draconian intent. "The Web as a Weapon?" The question begs another: How do you disarm that weapon?” - Punishing Thought Crime: Would New Bill Make YOU a Terrorist?byScott Thill, AlterNet. January 17, 2008.
Look at the definition of terrorism in this bill. It is defined "the use, planned use or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious or social beliefs." Note that the bill states that terrorism may be the use of violence or force to advance political goals. The bill then specifies that the use of “intellectual force” by way of “compelling logical argument” falls under the definition of terrorism. This should make us all shudder. Thought crime. This is the destruction of democracy, civil rights, the constitution and freedom of speech.
It is important to remember that violence is already illegal, and therefore this bill is not about dealing with violence. Hence, this bill is about the use of non-violent “force” – the force of opinion, intellectual force, the force of a logical argument. In short, the bill is designed to combat free speech, and further, to suppress any form of protest, through association, assembly or expression. There is no other way to describe such legislation in any milder terms: this is fascism.
HR 1955 marks the beginning of the police state in America. When this bill is signed into law, dissent will be punishable by arrest without trial, and indefinite incarceration in the detention centers which Haliburton is busy constructing across the “homeland,” not to mention torture, which the Military Commissions Act of 1996 already made legal. Speak now, while you can. (See Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps and YouTube - Olbermann: the beginning of the end of America.)
Write, speak, blog, send letters to your representatives, email the news outlets and let them know that this critical unfolding of events, designed deliberately to destroy democracy and constitutional rights and freedoms, including this latest and most heinous of fascist legislation.
Here are some contact listings for getting the word out.
People of America, here is a coalition, across right and left, that is working to defend freedom, democracy and your constitutional rights. You might want to get involved. The hour is late.
“This is the answer both to those who say "What we can do?" and to those who claim (actually, sometimes whine) "there is nothing we can do." And if we don't act on this now we will get the democracy we deserve -- which is no democracy at all.
“Put aside your partisan ideal world -- sometimes issues simply transcend partisanship -- and if ever there is an issue that is above and separate from party politics, it is the restoration of the democratic system we inherited. There are good people and passionate patriots across the political spectrum.
“Let's do it. There is no excuse now. The restoration of democracy is up to you -- as the Founders intended it should be.” – Naomi Wolf
Get informed, get involved. There is much to be done, and little time.
"If there is one principle more deeply rooted in the mind of every American, it is that we should have nothing to do with conquest." - Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 3rd American President
"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." - Robert Frost
"As an American who long ago realized that the US military is used as a corporate security force to protect globalist assets and interests overseas, and the "wars" and "police actions" are mounted whenever global capital interests are threatened, I felt Dr. Paul deserved further investigation as a viable candidate." You might think this is the statement of a liberal or leftist, but this is a voice from conservative America. Wherever you are on the political spectrum, if you oppose the war in Iraq, if you would not like to see the further escalation and spread of war across the cauldron of the Middle East, would like to see the body count, on both sides, end, or would like to see America stop acting like the world's policeman, and stop wars of empire and aggression, or even if you would simply like to see the US avoid bankruptcy through $1 trillion a year in imperial warfare expenses, then please Google Ron Paul. If you are American, look at this long shot who just might win. If you are not from the United States, tell your American friends to Google Ron Paul.
Key words: Ron Paul, US, war, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, preemptive war, aggression, empire, CIA, Mossadegh, Mujahadeen, Brzezinski, Musharraf, ISI, blowback, bankruptcy, dollar crisis, Middle East, foreign policy, election, 2008, YouTube, Ron Paul 2008, constitution, voting record, freedom, non-intervention, republic
Ron Paul: Basic principles - first things first:
Stop the use of US military as global corporate security force. Restore civil liberties and constitutional rule at home.
In a nutshell: Save the republic, renounce empire.
My American friends, there approaches a fork in the road. The choice is becoming increasingly clear: empire or freedom. Everyone talks of freedom, democracy - like mom and apple pie, such words bring nods of approval, and everyone wants to be associated with them. But words can be hollow, even deceptive, as Orwell warned. In terms of freedom and democracy, one would expect a political candidate to support and adhere to the Constitution, and in practice, not just in speeches. Yet leading Democratic Presidential candidates (Clinton and Obama) voted for the Patriot Act and Military Commissions Act, which together nullify the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and in fact, abolish the 800 year old foundation of all rights under the rule of law, habeas corpus, allowing arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, without trial, indefinitely and without recourse to a lawyer or defense, and allow torture and extra-judicial execution by order of the executive or his representative. Only Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, among the US Presidential candidates, voted to protect the Constitution and Bill of Rights, to protect freedom and civil rights, and to protect democracy from excessive and arbitrary executive power. The other candidates literally voted in favour of demolishing the Constitution, Bill of Rights, civil liberties, freedom, democracy and the Republic, and in favour of arbitrary rule by Presidential decree. America has entered a terrifying new phase of its history. Only Paul and Kucinich among the candidates speak to the truth of this new reality, and only these two men speak and also act to defend the freedom, rights and democracy that are fundamental. Orwell would be nauseous over the rest. Many speak of peace, few have shown their words have any substance. Only Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul have shown action on opposing and reversing the historical pattern of US imperial warfare and wars of aggression. Look at the candidates voting records, not just their sound bite rhetoric. (See www.Vote-Smart.org)The rest are either unabashed pro-war hawks, ardent fence-sitters, or politicians who talk out of both sides of their mouths, saying one thing to win votes, but showing the complete opposite in their actions - and this includes Clinton, Obama and Edwards. (Mike Gravel seems a genuinely honorable and highly informed man of integrity, like Kucinich and Paul, but he is the long shot of long shots, hence I have focused here on the other two decent candidates, as I believe one of them, particularly Ron Paul, could actually win - could become the next president.)
As the insightful and prescient political essayist Gore Vidal put it, the United States has always had two very different currents running throughout its history as a nation: the Great Empire, and the Great Society. Unfortunately, it has been the Great Empire that has been the predominant pattern (my apologies to those who are fond of the American fantasy of sublime and pure history prior to Bush and company). There have always been strong anti-imperialist voices within American society as well, including those of Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoreau, Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr. and Noam Chomsky. Ron Paul follows in this most noble of American lineages. These are my American kindred. And I would suggest they are more kindred to the great majority of Americans than citizens of the United States tend to realize. Most Americans want a great society, in peace and in freedom, not a great empire. The fact that nearly 70% of Americans now oppose the war in Iraq is but one indication of such basic common sense and the basic decency of the American people. But the presidential candidates, with the exception of Paul and Kucinich, speak only in PR spin - doublespeak, as Orwell called it.
Substance is what is needed. We must renounce empire in more than words. We must support freedom, democracy and peace in more than pleasing phrases designed to win votes or assuage discontent. We must seek action that is bold and strong, or democracy and freedom will be lost, peace will be an impossibility, and empire will eclipse all hopes for a truly great and free society. If bold and peaceful action is not taken, it will be the end of the republic, the end of freedom in America, and the beginning in a new chapter of global imperial terror for the world.
There must be a deep re-examination of the state of the union, the Republic, democracy, freedom and civil rights, in light of the now oligarchic and profoundly anti-democratic nature of extremely and increasingly concentrated corporate power. Anti-trust laws must be strengthened, particularly in the absolutely critical area of mass communications and media ownership, and election financing reform must gain some real teeth. But these things are not even possible unless the basics of Constitutional rule and civil rights are upheld, and the powers of the executive held in check. Presently, America is sliding rapidly into fascism. Its future will not only deeply affect the American people, but will also profoundly affect the rest of the world.
Ron Paul does not represent the answer to every problem America faces, but he does represent a definitive rejection of the notion of empire, the imperial warfare that goes along with it, and the destruction of civil rights, freedom and democracy which are now entwined with this late-phase imperial ambition. He represents a reinstatement of the Constitution and a restoration of the most basic foundations of the Republic. Without these things, it is hard to see any future for America that is not gravely dark. And if America is not averted from its present dark road, it bodes very, very ill for the rest of the world as well.
The question now, the question for America, is, does America continue along the tragic and failed path of empire, which is to say, rogue nation, disregarding its own constitution, international law and the sovereignty, independence and self-determination of nations and peoples around the world, at the probable cost of American bankruptcy, and the certain cost of many more lives, both American and other, and the inevitable cost of further and possibly more terrible blowback, reaping what it has sown, or rather, the American people, tragically, reaping what its political and business elite have sown; or does America embrace that other current of its history, that more noble current, which upholds the rule of law, respects and honours the freedom and self-determination of all nations and peoples, and sows freedom and democracy by its good example - which is the only thing that works - and not through the barrel of a gun?
Which will it be America? Empire, or great society? The two are now self-evidently mutually exclusive. It cannot be both. Choose wisely my friends. The world is watching. I would urge you, please, choose freedom over empire. Choose the great society, forgo the madness of the great empire, and show the world the true greatness of America, in peace, in brotherhood, and in sisterhood, with all humanity on Earth. This is the basis of a peaceful and harmonious family of humanity: mutual respect in freedom and self-determination, with solidarity and strength in unity - within diversity. Trying to impose uniformity on the world - the impulse to domination - leads to the destruction of both freedom and democracy. It is only through embracing diversity, and recognizing our underlying commonality, despite our differences, our common ground as human beings, and also by renouncing completely the wars of conquest for material gain or economic predation, that we can live in peace, or that freedom or democracy are possible.
Freedom and empire cannot coexist. We are forced to choose one or the other. If we choose empire, say goodbye to freedom - at home as well as abroad. The choices are becoming stark. Freedom and democracy, or empire and fascism?
It is not important that we agree on everything, nor can we. It is enough that we agree on certain essential basics, certain fundamental principles. No to imperial warfare. Yes to freedom and democracy. If the people of America can unite on these two most basic, most essential points of principle, then there will be a new day for America. America, which will it be? America, I hope you have some dreams left. Let they be of peace, of freedom, and of the end of empires.
"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." - Thomas Jefferson
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." - Thomas Paine
America, a choice is at hand. America, what are your dreams?
This is not about right and left. This is about something more basic. This is about freedom versus empire. America, it is time to decide where you stand, and what you stand for. People of America, speak now. A moment of decision is at hand. There is a fork in the road ahead. Choose wisely. Your decision may be more momentous than you realize. America, this can be a time of rebirth, or the descent into further darkness. There is no time for apathy, no time for despair, no time for the paralysis of fear. Action must now be taken. Be brave: freedom is a powerful idea. Unlock the power of freedom. Restore the Constitution. Save the Republic. Renounce empire. The time is now. This is an historic juncture. It is time to decide.
America, who are you, and where are you going? The fog of delirium, the stupor of illusions, is wearing off. I can see the dawn light. Be clear, be brave, be decisive. Freedom or empire? Choose well my friends.
"The future holds ominous portent, and signs of great hope. Which result ensues depends largely upon what we make of the opportunities." - Noam Chomsky
Below is a collection of photos, quotes, videos and references. There are a lot of resources here, which together make for an excellent summary of where America now stands. You may want to bookmark this page and come back to it more than once.
"It's amazing what you can see - when you look." - Yogi Berra "Whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth." - Patrick Henry
"If the American people knew the blood that was on their hands [by acts carried out in their names] they would be appalled." - Noam Chomsky
"I have to believe that the American people are the most systematically lied to people on Earth; if I did not, I would believe they were the most evil." - Former Foreign Minister of Nicaragua
"We know what to do when someone is caught misappropriating funds, but when confronted with evidence of a systematic attempt to undermine the political system itself, we recoil, in a general failure of imagination and nerve." - Former National Security Council staff member Gary Sick
"Fear not the path of truth for the lack of people walking on it." - Robert F. Kennedy
"Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news." - Dan Rather
"In the size of the lie there is always contained a certain factor of credibility, since the great mass of people will more easily fall victims to a great lie than to a small one." - Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf
"If this were a dictatorship it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." - George Bush II
"Beware the military-industrial complex." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
"I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ...Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves. But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris [which ended the Spanish-American War], and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land." - Mark Twain
"I am said to be a revolutionist in my sympathies, by birth, by breeding and by principle. I am always on the side of the revolutionists, because there never was a revolution unless there were some oppressive and intolerable conditions against which to revolt." - Mark Twain
"Our involvement in the [Persian] Gulf is not transitory. It pre-dated Saddam Hussein's aggression, and will survive it." - George Bush Sr., September 11, 1990
"What I’ve Learned About U.S. Foreign Policy. The basic message being that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), the military-industrial-complex, the Pentagon, the multinational corporations, the media and the Government of the United States are responsible for the deaths of millions of people in the third world, not to mention the poverty and oppression of millions more. We support, arm, and train dictators and militaries that do these evil actions to their own people. All of this is to insure that we control the natural resources of these countries and their market place, use the people for cheap labor and keep the business of war (which is our biggest business) ongoing."
"Why do we do these grisly things broad? I believe strongly that until we have fundamental change in the United States, domestically, in the domestic system; until we have some kind of real democracy in this country, participatory democracy, where people have a say, and where we end the re-election of 95 to 97% of the incumbents at every election, [the Soviet Union only had a 92% re-election rate!] where there is a real political debate; until we change the domestic system, we're going to have elitist control of United States, we're going to have these foreign adventures, and grisly things that I mentioned that the CIA does abroad, so the real problem is here at home, in changing the domestic system, in bringing about a conversion of the economy to human purposes, solving the domestic crises, and getting the people out of office who are in there to back a continuation of the permanent war economy." - Former CIA Officer Philip Agee
By the way, the Bush family really does have a history of fascist sympathies and Nazi collaboration - something we might want to know:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1D6fxyOtVeI
Check the facts. Do your own homework. Don't dismiss or believe anything based upon who said it. See for yourself.
"In the course of hundreds of interviews in the US, Europe and the Middle East, I've been told repeatedly that individuals associated with the Reagan-Bush campaign of 1980 met secretly with Iranian officials to delay the release of the American hostages until after the Presidential election. For this favour, Iran was rewarded with a substantial supply of arms from Israel.....From October 15th to October 20th 1980 events came to a head in a series of meetings in Paris....Accounts of these meetings vary. There is, however, wide spread agreement on a number of points. [One:] William Casey, Reagan's campaign manager, was a key participant. [Two:] Iranian representatives agreed that the hostages would not be released prior to the Presidential election on November 4th. [Three: In return] Israel would serve as a conduit for arms and spare parts to Iran.... At least five of the sources who said they were in Paris in connection with these meetings insist that George Bush [senior] was present for at least one meeting. Three sources say they saw him there....[Former President George Bush denied being in Paris.] Immediately after the Paris meetings things began to happen. Iran shifted its policy position."
- US Congressional testimony of former National Security Council staff member Gary Sick, author of October Surprise
(The American hostages were released the day Reagan - and Bush - took office; in fact, just minutes after Reagan was inaugurated as President.)
"a bias, malicious, deceptive, and manipulative tissue of lies and another reason for Americans to disengage from an establishment media empire that continues to hemorrhage viewers on a daily basis due to its ceaseless lies and propaganda." - An unnamed voice of honesty in a sea of spin and fabrication.
Democracy in the US being destroyed, media networks silent - Greg Palast & RFK in NY
"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."
- Thomas Jefferson, 1816
"I have more fear for the banks than from standing armies." - Thomas Jefferson
"I have the South in front of me and the bankers behind me, and for my country, I fear the bankers more." - Abraham Lincoln
"The domination of government by corporate power is the essence of fascism."
- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
"Fascism, properly named, should be called corporatism, for it is the merger of business and the state. - Mussolini
"If you want to remain slaves of the bankers and pay for the costs of your own slavery, let them continue to create money and control the nation's credit." - Sir Josiah Stamp, 1880 - 1941
"Once a nation parts with control of its currency and credit…all talk of the sovereignty of Parliament and democracy is idle and futile." – Prime Minister of Canada Mackenzie King, 1935, creator of the publicly owned central bank, the Bank of Canada
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson." - Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933
"The real rulers in Washington are invisible, and exercise power from behind the scenes." - Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, 1952
"Those who would trade a little liberty for a little security deserve neither." - George Washington
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"- Patrick Henry
"Liberty, when it begins to take root, is a plant of rapid growth." - George Washington
"It ain't over `till it's over." - Yogi Berra
Ron Paul: Next President of the United States, 2008
Stop voluntarily subjecting yourself to propaganda, indoctrination and manipulation.
Cut through the spin. Switch off the corporate news.
Here are ten excellent resources for further information.
Examine things for yourself.
Democracy Now!
Online Independent TV & Radio
http://www.democracynow.org/
"The show that challenges presidents: For 12 years a radio and television news program, Democracy Now, has survived and even flourished on a cobbled-together broadcast network that reaches all of the United States and out into the world. It has almost no paid resources, yet daily defies the corporate and government agendas, and has sometimes forced mainstream media into picking up its stories, if not its attitudes."
People of America, your freedom is being attacked from within - from above; your democracy is being destroyed, your rights are in jeopardy. It is now time to act! Unite, and say no to empire, yes to freedom.
First, a few words about this blog: This site is dedicated to the pursuit of truth, the protection of living beings, to working for the benefit of all living beings, and to providing independent research and analysis on major issues affecting the world today in order to advance these goals.
About me:
I'm a 40-year old father of two beautiful children, writer, entrepreneur, social activist. How should I describe myself? A seeker of truth, unshakably optomistic, fiercely committed to facing our social and environmental realities, an ordinary man with a deep and abiding confidence in basic human goodness - despite everything - and one who believes a good life is one lived with compassion, and also enjoyment of simple pleasures. Hm. Talking about yourself feels a little wierd. Anyway, this is a bit of a profile, for anyone who is interested.
