Fascism Now, Wake Up Sheeple
The American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as
A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
Oppressive, dictatorial control, hmm. Dont yell at me or call me an alarmist for showing you what is happening. If you dont like, go bury your head in the sand and watch Survivor. But dont forget to go fill up your car with some of that $3 a gallon gas before it hits $100 a barrel. How's the dollar doing on the world stage this morning? oh yes, all time weaknesses all over the planet. Go be a 'Good German" and do what you are told by the people that own you.
We have all heard of The 14 Defining Characteristics of Fascism by Dr Lawrence Britt:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism- Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are everywhere.
Does this sound familiar? From the onslaught of yellow ribbon and "Support Our Troops" magnets from China that adorn the bumpers of sport utility vehicles to the continued use of "God Bless America" during the 7th Inning Stretch of baseball games to include the now concluded World Series.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
Um, do I need to mention Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Water-boarding, or Enhanced Interrogation Techniques?
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
Two Words: Al Qaeda
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
It's not like we are seeing the military in our airports or in border cities. I believe that there is a specific effort in place to get us used to seeing uniformed troops on a daily basis so that we will not react when they are used to police us in our cities in towns.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
Oh come on, are you going to tell me that we have been preaching hate towards women or homosexuality. It's not like we have had republican politicians introducing "Marriage Protection Acts" or any such thing.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
Fox News news anyone? War is good-thought is bad…..
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
Homeland Security Agency??? Be sure to take your shoes off at the airport…..
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
Oh come on this is like shooting christian fish in a barrel.
9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
Cough (Enron) cough
10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
"You are doin a heck of a job, Brownie"........GWB
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
Can you say Karl Rove? Do you remember Al Gore, the guy won the popular vote back in 2000?
Dr. Britt wrote of this in 2004 after studying the regimes of "Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Papadopoulos's Greece, Pinochet's Chile, and Suharto's Indonesia". How well are we falling in to this familiar pattern?
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Have you tried to do anything lately without the taxation, approval, or consent of the government?
I got a haircut last week and my barber had his little government license taped to the windshield. I too have been under the thumb of the government for just trying to run a business. I'm a private investigator and have been jumping through flaming hoops for more than a year so that I can open my own business. Free market, I dont think so. A competitor has been filing phony complaints with the state board and has delayed me. If this were a true free market capitalist society, wouldnt we both try to fight it out in the market and allow our customers to determine who makes money and who sits home?
I dare you to try to live one day without the intervention from the totalitarian government. You cant do it unless you live in a shack in the hills and eat possum.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
A Mistake Or A Preparation?
Some news was made recently when it was 'discovered' that a handful of nuclear weapons were 'accidentally' transferred from a base in Minot, ND to another airbase in Barksdale, LA. The first stories were told to slant this as a 'mistake', but I cannot believe that two days passed before another possible reason for this 'mistake'. As a result of this 'faux paus' the Air Force announced that they will ground all fighters and bombers on September 14th.- hmm
This is from former CIA operative and insider, Larry Johnson:
Staging Nukes for Iran?
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/09/05/staging-nukes-for-iran/
Why the hubbub over a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota and subsequently landing at a B-52 base in Barksdale, Louisiana? That's like getting excited if you see a postal worker in uniform walking out of a post office. And how does someone watching a B-52 land identify the cruise missiles as nukes? It just does not make sense.
So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of circumstantial evidence. My buddy, let's call him Jack D. Ripper, reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site.
Then he told me something I had not heard before.
Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can't imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?
His final point was to observe that someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else.
Now maybe there is an innocent explanation for this? I can't think of one. What is certain is that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride. We need some tough questions and clear answers. What the hell is going on? Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? I don't know, but it is a question worth asking.
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Dozens of reports have surfaced from various insiders who have predicted that this adminstration is planning on attacking Iran in the very near future. Fox has been going batshit crazy in their Iran war drumming, and this latest supposition from Johnson and others 'fits' into this meme in a sick and twisted kind of way.
Following this 'mistake' the Air Force has announced an almost unprecedented grounding of all fighters and bombers over the US on September 14th. I say 'almost' because most of us will remember that NORAD was stood down during the 'attacks' of 9/11.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/05/loose.nukes/
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Six nuclear warheads on cruise missiles were mistakenly carried on a flight from North Dakota to Louisiana last week, prompting a major investigation, military officials have confirmed.
Don Shepperd, a retired Air Force major general and military analyst for CNN said the United States had agreed in a Cold War-era treaty not to fly nuclear weapons. "It appears that what happened was this treaty agreement was violated,".
The Air Force announced that all flights of fighters and bombers in the United States will be halted on September 14 to allow for a review of procedures.
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Gee, I hope that nothing bad happens on September 14th. Isn't it just a tad queer how close September 14th is to the anniversary of September 11th? I'm sure that it's only a coincidence. Watch the skies Henny Penny.
This is from former CIA operative and insider, Larry Johnson:
Staging Nukes for Iran?
http://noquarterusa.net/blog/2007/09/05/staging-nukes-for-iran/
Why the hubbub over a B-52 taking off from a B-52 base in Minot, North Dakota and subsequently landing at a B-52 base in Barksdale, Louisiana? That's like getting excited if you see a postal worker in uniform walking out of a post office. And how does someone watching a B-52 land identify the cruise missiles as nukes? It just does not make sense.
So I called a old friend and retired B-52 pilot and asked him. What he told me offers one compelling case of circumstantial evidence. My buddy, let's call him Jack D. Ripper, reminded me that the only times you put weapons on a plane is when they are on alert or if you are tasked to move the weapons to a specific site.
Then he told me something I had not heard before.
Barksdale Air Force Base is being used as a jumping off point for Middle East operations. Gee, why would we want cruise missile nukes at Barksdale Air Force Base. Can't imagine we would need to use them in Iraq. Why would we want to preposition nuclear weapons at a base conducting Middle East operations?
His final point was to observe that someone on the inside obviously leaked the info that the planes were carrying nukes. A B-52 landing at Barksdale is a non-event. A B-52 landing with nukes. That is something else.
Now maybe there is an innocent explanation for this? I can't think of one. What is certain is that the pilots of this plane did not just make a last minute decision to strap on some nukes and take them for a joy ride. We need some tough questions and clear answers. What the hell is going on? Did someone at Barksdale try to indirectly warn the American people that the Bush Administration is staging nukes for Iran? I don't know, but it is a question worth asking.
_____________________________________________________
Dozens of reports have surfaced from various insiders who have predicted that this adminstration is planning on attacking Iran in the very near future. Fox has been going batshit crazy in their Iran war drumming, and this latest supposition from Johnson and others 'fits' into this meme in a sick and twisted kind of way.
Following this 'mistake' the Air Force has announced an almost unprecedented grounding of all fighters and bombers over the US on September 14th. I say 'almost' because most of us will remember that NORAD was stood down during the 'attacks' of 9/11.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/05/loose.nukes/
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Six nuclear warheads on cruise missiles were mistakenly carried on a flight from North Dakota to Louisiana last week, prompting a major investigation, military officials have confirmed.
Don Shepperd, a retired Air Force major general and military analyst for CNN said the United States had agreed in a Cold War-era treaty not to fly nuclear weapons. "It appears that what happened was this treaty agreement was violated,".
The Air Force announced that all flights of fighters and bombers in the United States will be halted on September 14 to allow for a review of procedures.
________________________________________________
Gee, I hope that nothing bad happens on September 14th. Isn't it just a tad queer how close September 14th is to the anniversary of September 11th? I'm sure that it's only a coincidence. Watch the skies Henny Penny.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Tough Times For Republican Hypocrites
There are two stories of high ranking republicans from Florida and the former executive director of the GOP in Georgia in the news that you probably have not heard. These two stories are of the fall from grace and murder suicide of a few anti gay republicans who apparently got caught with their hands in the perverbial 'cookie jar' engaging in homosexual behavior and affairs. While I would normally not be drawing attention to the troubles that have befallen these men, these men belong to an organization, the republican party, that preaches against homosexual behavior. I normally do not care what anyone does within their own homes as long as it does not affect me, but when people spend their time preaching hate and condemnation for the same behavior that they themselves indulge in, it bothers me. I will never preach against drinking beer on Saturdays while watching football- because I love watching football and drinking a few beers.
This first one from Mid July.State Rep. Says He'll Plead Not Guilty To Solicitation Chargehttp://www.wftv.com/news/13670554/detail.html
"TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- A Republican state lawmaker charged with offering to perform oral sex for $20 on an undercover male police officer vowed Thursday to defend himself in court and said he would not resign from office.
Police revealed new details about Allen's arrest on Thursday. His arrest affidavit says Allen followed the male undercover officer into the men's restroom and then, after talking to him from over the stall door, Allen stepped into the officers stall with him and stood against the door.
According to the report, Allen asked the officer, "This is kind of a public place isn't it?" The officer replied, "Do you have somewhere else we can go?" Allen then responded, "How about across the bridge? It's quiet over there."
The conversation continued and, police said, Allen told the officer he wanted the undercover officer to ride with him to the wildlife refuge and Allen would give him the $20 and perform the sexual act on the officer there. The money was never exchanged because, as soon as they left the bathroom, the lawmaker was arrested.
Allen was charged with solicitation for prostitution, which has a maximum penalty of one year in jail. Brevard County jail officials said Allen posted a $500 bond. While being transported to jail, Allen told WFTV Channel 9 that the situation was "a very big misunderstanding."
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The second is the story of a murder suicide following a 'lover's spat'.Lovers' Quarrel May Have Sparked Murder-Suicide Prominent Republican Party Consultant, 2 Others Found Deadhttp://www.local6.com/news/13957884/detail.html
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- A prominent Republican Party consultant is one of three men found dead in a Central Florida home Thursday in an apparent double murder-suicide possibly sparked by a lovers' quarrel, according to detectives.
When deputies arrived at the home after receiving the call at 9:13 a.m., the front door was open, and officers said they found the victims inside and signs of a struggle.
"We are working it as a homicide, but there is some early evidence to suggest that this may in fact be a murder-suicide," Orange County sheriff's Sgt. Allen Lee said.
The three men may have been dead since Tuesday.
The home's address is listed as the office of The Strategum Group, a firm founded by political strategist Ralph Gonzalez.
Gonzalez's clients have included U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, State Rep. Dean Cannon and U.S. Rep Tom Price, according to the firm's Web site. Gonzalez is the former executive director of the Georgia Republican Party, the Web site stated.
This first one from Mid July.State Rep. Says He'll Plead Not Guilty To Solicitation Chargehttp://www.wftv.com/news/13670554/detail.html
"TITUSVILLE, Fla. -- A Republican state lawmaker charged with offering to perform oral sex for $20 on an undercover male police officer vowed Thursday to defend himself in court and said he would not resign from office.
Police revealed new details about Allen's arrest on Thursday. His arrest affidavit says Allen followed the male undercover officer into the men's restroom and then, after talking to him from over the stall door, Allen stepped into the officers stall with him and stood against the door.
According to the report, Allen asked the officer, "This is kind of a public place isn't it?" The officer replied, "Do you have somewhere else we can go?" Allen then responded, "How about across the bridge? It's quiet over there."
The conversation continued and, police said, Allen told the officer he wanted the undercover officer to ride with him to the wildlife refuge and Allen would give him the $20 and perform the sexual act on the officer there. The money was never exchanged because, as soon as they left the bathroom, the lawmaker was arrested.
Allen was charged with solicitation for prostitution, which has a maximum penalty of one year in jail. Brevard County jail officials said Allen posted a $500 bond. While being transported to jail, Allen told WFTV Channel 9 that the situation was "a very big misunderstanding."
_____________________________________________________
The second is the story of a murder suicide following a 'lover's spat'.Lovers' Quarrel May Have Sparked Murder-Suicide Prominent Republican Party Consultant, 2 Others Found Deadhttp://www.local6.com/news/13957884/detail.html
ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. -- A prominent Republican Party consultant is one of three men found dead in a Central Florida home Thursday in an apparent double murder-suicide possibly sparked by a lovers' quarrel, according to detectives.
When deputies arrived at the home after receiving the call at 9:13 a.m., the front door was open, and officers said they found the victims inside and signs of a struggle.
"We are working it as a homicide, but there is some early evidence to suggest that this may in fact be a murder-suicide," Orange County sheriff's Sgt. Allen Lee said.
The three men may have been dead since Tuesday.
The home's address is listed as the office of The Strategum Group, a firm founded by political strategist Ralph Gonzalez.
Gonzalez's clients have included U.S. Rep. Tom Feeney, State Rep. Dean Cannon and U.S. Rep Tom Price, according to the firm's Web site. Gonzalez is the former executive director of the Georgia Republican Party, the Web site stated.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Bush: Pres for life? Drawbacks of Democracy?
This is from an excerpt of an editorial on familysecuritymatters.org. This editorial was removed following a backlash from people with a central nervous system and exposure on other blogs and radio shows. Here is the full article, the original which can be viewed at http://www.webcitation.org/5R9ikXAUH
Exclusive: Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy Philip Atkinson
Author: Philip AtkinsonSource: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.Date: August 3, 2007
While democratic government is better than dictatorships and theocracies, it has its pitfalls. FSM Contributing Editor Philip Atkinson describes some of the difficulties facing President Bush today.
Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy
By Philip Atkinson
President George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005 after being chosen by the majority of citizens in America to be president.
Yet in 2007 he is generally despised, with many citizens of Western civilization expressing contempt for his person and his policies, sentiments which now abound on the Internet. This rage at President Bush is an inevitable result of the system of government demanded by the people, which is Democracy.
The inadequacy of Democracy, rule by the majority, is undeniable for it demands adopting ideas because they are popular, rather than because they are wise. This means that any man chosen to act as an agent of the people is placed in an invidious position: if he commits folly because it is popular, then he will be held responsible for the inevitable result. If he refuses to commit folly, then he will be detested by most citizens because he is frustrating their demands.
When faced with the possible threat that the Iraqis might be amassing terrible weapons that could be used to slay millions of citizens of Western Civilization, President Bush took the only action prudence demanded and the electorate allowed: he conquered Iraq with an army.
This dangerous and expensive act did destroy the Iraqi regime, but left an American army without any clear purpose in a hostile country and subject to attack. If the Army merely returns to its home, then the threat it ended would simply return.
The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.
The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet Israel is not popular, and so is denied permission to defend itself. In the same vein, President Bush cannot do what is necessary for the survival of Americans. He cannot use the nation's powerful weapons. All he can do is try and discover a result that will be popular with Americans.
As there appears to be no sensible result of the invasion of Iraq that will be popular with his countrymen other than retreat, President Bush is reviled; he has become another victim of Democracy.
By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.
However, President Bush has a valuable historical example that he could choose to follow.
When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.
Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome. This brilliant action not only ended the personal threat to Caesar, but ended the civil chaos that was threatening anarchy in ancient Rome thus marking the start of the ancient Roman Empire that gave peace and prosperity to the known world.
If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.
He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.
President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming ex-president Bush or he can become President-for-Life Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Philip Atkinson is the British born founder of ourcivilisation.com and author of A Study of Our Decline. He is a philosopher specializing in issues concerning the preservation of Western civilization. Mr. Atkinson receives mail at rpa@ourcivilisation.com.
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Here are a few members of their Board of Directors.
Dr. Monica Crowley, WABC Radio Talk Show Host; former Foreign Policy Assistant to President Richard Nixon; doctorate in International Relations, Columbia University.
Laura Ingraham, Author, Columnist, Political Commentator, Host of Nationally Syndicated Radio Show.
R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence in 1993-95;
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Here's another reference to this story from Alex Jones
http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/dictatorship_neocons_make_bush_dictator_of_the_world.htm
If you thought Stu Bykovsky's call for a new 9/11 was the lowest the Neo-Cons could sink, think again. A right-wing foundation with links to Dick Cheney has called for Bush to be made lifetime president, ruler of the world, and for Iraq to be ethnically cleansed of Arabs by means of a nuclear holocaust.
The Family Security Matters organization masquerades as an independent "think tank" yet was highly influential in President Bush's re-election in 2004 and has links to top Neo-Con ideologues.
The outfit poses as an advocacy group for a new breed of goose-stepping brownshirts - so-called "security moms," who are noted for their blind obedience to neo-conservatism as a result of believing every ounce of fearmongering that emanates from the Bush administration on the inevitability of mass casualty terror attacks.
"In late 2004, Media Matters for America discovered that the phone number listed on FSM's website actually belonged to the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a rabidly hardline foreign policy outfit run by former Reagan administration figure Frank Gaffney," reports Right Web .
The Center for Security Policy is an umbrella organization that includes the National Security Advisory Council, whose members hold senior positions within the Bush administration itself. Former and current members include Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams and the organization has also given awards to Donald Rumsfeld.
Exclusive: Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy Philip Atkinson
Author: Philip AtkinsonSource: The Family Security Foundation, Inc.Date: August 3, 2007
While democratic government is better than dictatorships and theocracies, it has its pitfalls. FSM Contributing Editor Philip Atkinson describes some of the difficulties facing President Bush today.
Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy
By Philip Atkinson
President George W. Bush is the 43rd President of the United States. He was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2005 after being chosen by the majority of citizens in America to be president.
Yet in 2007 he is generally despised, with many citizens of Western civilization expressing contempt for his person and his policies, sentiments which now abound on the Internet. This rage at President Bush is an inevitable result of the system of government demanded by the people, which is Democracy.
The inadequacy of Democracy, rule by the majority, is undeniable for it demands adopting ideas because they are popular, rather than because they are wise. This means that any man chosen to act as an agent of the people is placed in an invidious position: if he commits folly because it is popular, then he will be held responsible for the inevitable result. If he refuses to commit folly, then he will be detested by most citizens because he is frustrating their demands.
When faced with the possible threat that the Iraqis might be amassing terrible weapons that could be used to slay millions of citizens of Western Civilization, President Bush took the only action prudence demanded and the electorate allowed: he conquered Iraq with an army.
This dangerous and expensive act did destroy the Iraqi regime, but left an American army without any clear purpose in a hostile country and subject to attack. If the Army merely returns to its home, then the threat it ended would simply return.
The wisest course would have been for President Bush to use his nuclear weapons to slaughter Iraqis until they complied with his demands, or until they were all dead. Then there would be little risk or expense and no American army would be left exposed. But if he did this, his cowardly electorate would have instantly ended his term of office, if not his freedom or his life.
The simple truth that modern weapons now mean a nation must practice genocide or commit suicide. Israel provides the perfect example. If the Israelis do not raze Iran, the Iranians will fulfill their boast and wipe Israel off the face of the earth. Yet Israel is not popular, and so is denied permission to defend itself. In the same vein, President Bush cannot do what is necessary for the survival of Americans. He cannot use the nation's powerful weapons. All he can do is try and discover a result that will be popular with Americans.
As there appears to be no sensible result of the invasion of Iraq that will be popular with his countrymen other than retreat, President Bush is reviled; he has become another victim of Democracy.
By elevating popular fancy over truth, Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.
However, President Bush has a valuable historical example that he could choose to follow.
When the ancient Roman general Julius Caesar was struggling to conquer ancient Gaul, he not only had to defeat the Gauls, but he also had to defeat his political enemies in Rome who would destroy him the moment his tenure as consul (president) ended.
Caesar pacified Gaul by mass slaughter; he then used his successful army to crush all political opposition at home and establish himself as permanent ruler of ancient Rome. This brilliant action not only ended the personal threat to Caesar, but ended the civil chaos that was threatening anarchy in ancient Rome thus marking the start of the ancient Roman Empire that gave peace and prosperity to the known world.
If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege while terrifying American enemies.
He could then follow Caesar's example and use his newfound popularity with the military to wield military power to become the first permanent president of America, and end the civil chaos caused by the continually squabbling Congress and the out-of-control Supreme Court.
President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming ex-president Bush or he can become President-for-Life Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Philip Atkinson is the British born founder of ourcivilisation.com and author of A Study of Our Decline. He is a philosopher specializing in issues concerning the preservation of Western civilization. Mr. Atkinson receives mail at rpa@ourcivilisation.com.
_________________________________________________________________
Here are a few members of their Board of Directors.
Dr. Monica Crowley, WABC Radio Talk Show Host; former Foreign Policy Assistant to President Richard Nixon; doctorate in International Relations, Columbia University.
Laura Ingraham, Author, Columnist, Political Commentator, Host of Nationally Syndicated Radio Show.
R. James Woolsey, former Director of Central Intelligence in 1993-95;
______________________________________________________
Here's another reference to this story from Alex Jones
http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/dictatorship_neocons_make_bush_dictator_of_the_world.htm
If you thought Stu Bykovsky's call for a new 9/11 was the lowest the Neo-Cons could sink, think again. A right-wing foundation with links to Dick Cheney has called for Bush to be made lifetime president, ruler of the world, and for Iraq to be ethnically cleansed of Arabs by means of a nuclear holocaust.
The Family Security Matters organization masquerades as an independent "think tank" yet was highly influential in President Bush's re-election in 2004 and has links to top Neo-Con ideologues.
The outfit poses as an advocacy group for a new breed of goose-stepping brownshirts - so-called "security moms," who are noted for their blind obedience to neo-conservatism as a result of believing every ounce of fearmongering that emanates from the Bush administration on the inevitability of mass casualty terror attacks.
"In late 2004, Media Matters for America discovered that the phone number listed on FSM's website actually belonged to the Center for Security Policy (CSP), a rabidly hardline foreign policy outfit run by former Reagan administration figure Frank Gaffney," reports Right Web .
The Center for Security Policy is an umbrella organization that includes the National Security Advisory Council, whose members hold senior positions within the Bush administration itself. Former and current members include Dick Cheney, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams and the organization has also given awards to Donald Rumsfeld.
Clergy To Quell Dissent In The Event Of Martial Law
from KSLA http://www.ksla.com/Global/story.asp?S=6937987 in Shreveport, LA and http://www.prisonplanet.com/.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/160807_quell_dissent.htm
Feds Train Clergy To "Quell Dissent" During Martial Law
A shocking KSLA news report has confirmed the story we first broke last year, that Clergy Response Teams are being trained by the federal government to "quell dissent" and pacify citizens to obey the government in the event of a declaration of martial law.
In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to "obey the government" when martial law is declared.
So there you have it - Homeland Security are working with local police departments and religious leaders to prepare for the declaration of martial law and in particular developing techniques they will employ during the crisis to "quell dissent."
Phony Christian leaders are brainwashing their congregations to accept the premise that the totalitarian police state is "of the Lord" and that they should get on their knees and lick jackboots while the round-ups take place as citizens are processed into quarantine zones and detention camps by the National Guard and U.S. troops returning from Iraq.
The precedent for mass gun confiscation and martial law in times of a real or manufactured emergency was set during Hurricane Katrina, when police and National Guard patrols forced home owners - even in areas unaffected by the hurricane - to hand over their legally owned firearms at gunpoint.
This is a clear precursor for the imminent declaration of a state of emergency, a scenario that President Bush codified in his recent Presidential Decision Directive of May 9th, which states in the event of a "catastrophic event" the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.
The scope of the program is so secretive that even Homeland Security Committee member and Congressman Peter DeFazio was denied access to view the classified portion of the documents. ..end-->
Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-BtWhs8qlg
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2007/160807_quell_dissent.htm
Feds Train Clergy To "Quell Dissent" During Martial Law
A shocking KSLA news report has confirmed the story we first broke last year, that Clergy Response Teams are being trained by the federal government to "quell dissent" and pacify citizens to obey the government in the event of a declaration of martial law.
In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to "obey the government" in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to "obey the government" when martial law is declared.
So there you have it - Homeland Security are working with local police departments and religious leaders to prepare for the declaration of martial law and in particular developing techniques they will employ during the crisis to "quell dissent."
Phony Christian leaders are brainwashing their congregations to accept the premise that the totalitarian police state is "of the Lord" and that they should get on their knees and lick jackboots while the round-ups take place as citizens are processed into quarantine zones and detention camps by the National Guard and U.S. troops returning from Iraq.
The precedent for mass gun confiscation and martial law in times of a real or manufactured emergency was set during Hurricane Katrina, when police and National Guard patrols forced home owners - even in areas unaffected by the hurricane - to hand over their legally owned firearms at gunpoint.
This is a clear precursor for the imminent declaration of a state of emergency, a scenario that President Bush codified in his recent Presidential Decision Directive of May 9th, which states in the event of a "catastrophic event" the President can take total control over the government and the country, bypassing all other levels of government at the state, federal, local, territorial and tribal levels, and thus ensuring total unprecedented dictatorial power.
The scope of the program is so secretive that even Homeland Security Committee member and Congressman Peter DeFazio was denied access to view the classified portion of the documents. ..end-->
Watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-BtWhs8qlg
Sunday, August 12, 2007
They Thought They Were Free- an excerpt
An excerpt from
They Thought They Were Free
The Germans, 1933-45
Milton Mayer
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
"The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.
"Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late."
"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’
"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
"You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.
"Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.
"Once the war began," my colleague continued, "resistance, protest, criticism, complaint, all carried with them a multiplied likelihood of the greatest punishment. Mere lack of enthusiasm, or failure to show it in public, was ‘defeatism.’ You assumed that there were lists of those who would be ‘dealt with’ later, after the victory. Goebbels was very clever here, too. He continually promised a ‘victory orgy’ to ‘take care of’ those who thought that their ‘treasonable attitude’ had escaped notice. And he meant it; that was not just propaganda. And that was enough to put an end to all uncertainty.
"Once the war began, the government could do anything ‘necessary’ to win it; so it was with the ‘final solution of the Jewish problem,’ which the Nazis always talked about but never dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its ‘necessities’ gave them the knowledge that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still thought of complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany’s losing the war. It was a long bet. Not many made it."
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
______________________________________________________
Let's look at the ideas raised here:
Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’- How were the 'good German citizens supposed to consider the end? They had no road map of where the growing powers of the Nazi government were leading to, but we have a road map today. The road map is our history book that shows us exactly what the Nazi's did, what enemies they created and blamed, how they took the rights away from the citizenry, how they amassed power, and what they did to the German citizens, the Jews, the people of Europe and the world.
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
We have seen the same small steps and just like the German citizens, we have done nothing as we wait for the first and last steps that will shock us. After September 11, 2001 the Patriot Act was passed on October 26, 2001, just like Hitler passed the "Enabling Act" (March 23, 1933 ) after he had the Reichstag burned (February 27, 1933). Bush waited 45 days to pass his legislation when Hilter only waited a month. During that 45 day wait the Democratic leadership in the Senate, the Democratic chair of the Judiciary Committee, and leaders of the mass media were all sent mysterious packages containing weapons grade anthrax.
Since the Patriot Act was 'passed' we have had numerous 'steps' towards totalitarian control. We have found out about warrantless wiretapping, FISA laws have been rewritten to give just a little and just a little and just a little more power to the Executive Branch and taking just a few more and just a few more and just a few more rights from us, the citizens. When we go the airport, we have all become accustomed to taking off our shoes- not because shoes are weapons, but so that we would not question the authority of the "HOMELAND Security Agency". HOMELAND- for goodness sakes, even Hitler referred to Germany as the 'homeland' and 'fatherland'. This criminal administration is even using the terms that the Nazis did and we still see and do nothing. "Resist the beginnings and consider the end". We do not need to consider the end we have seen what the end will be. It is too late to resist the beginnings, but we can resist the middle. We have already launched one illegal war and the time is drawing near for the second and possibly third and fourth. We are not going to invade Poland, but we did invade Iraq and are looking into Iran.
Remember the beginnings and resist the end.
They Thought They Were Free
The Germans, 1933-45
Milton Mayer
"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.
"The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?
"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.
"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.
"Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late."
"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’
"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.
"You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.
"Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.
"Once the war began," my colleague continued, "resistance, protest, criticism, complaint, all carried with them a multiplied likelihood of the greatest punishment. Mere lack of enthusiasm, or failure to show it in public, was ‘defeatism.’ You assumed that there were lists of those who would be ‘dealt with’ later, after the victory. Goebbels was very clever here, too. He continually promised a ‘victory orgy’ to ‘take care of’ those who thought that their ‘treasonable attitude’ had escaped notice. And he meant it; that was not just propaganda. And that was enough to put an end to all uncertainty.
"Once the war began, the government could do anything ‘necessary’ to win it; so it was with the ‘final solution of the Jewish problem,’ which the Nazis always talked about but never dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its ‘necessities’ gave them the knowledge that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still thought of complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany’s losing the war. It was a long bet. Not many made it."
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
______________________________________________________
Let's look at the ideas raised here:
Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’- How were the 'good German citizens supposed to consider the end? They had no road map of where the growing powers of the Nazi government were leading to, but we have a road map today. The road map is our history book that shows us exactly what the Nazi's did, what enemies they created and blamed, how they took the rights away from the citizenry, how they amassed power, and what they did to the German citizens, the Jews, the people of Europe and the world.
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
We have seen the same small steps and just like the German citizens, we have done nothing as we wait for the first and last steps that will shock us. After September 11, 2001 the Patriot Act was passed on October 26, 2001, just like Hitler passed the "Enabling Act" (March 23, 1933 ) after he had the Reichstag burned (February 27, 1933). Bush waited 45 days to pass his legislation when Hilter only waited a month. During that 45 day wait the Democratic leadership in the Senate, the Democratic chair of the Judiciary Committee, and leaders of the mass media were all sent mysterious packages containing weapons grade anthrax.
Since the Patriot Act was 'passed' we have had numerous 'steps' towards totalitarian control. We have found out about warrantless wiretapping, FISA laws have been rewritten to give just a little and just a little and just a little more power to the Executive Branch and taking just a few more and just a few more and just a few more rights from us, the citizens. When we go the airport, we have all become accustomed to taking off our shoes- not because shoes are weapons, but so that we would not question the authority of the "HOMELAND Security Agency". HOMELAND- for goodness sakes, even Hitler referred to Germany as the 'homeland' and 'fatherland'. This criminal administration is even using the terms that the Nazis did and we still see and do nothing. "Resist the beginnings and consider the end". We do not need to consider the end we have seen what the end will be. It is too late to resist the beginnings, but we can resist the middle. We have already launched one illegal war and the time is drawing near for the second and possibly third and fourth. We are not going to invade Poland, but we did invade Iraq and are looking into Iran.
Remember the beginnings and resist the end.
Friday, August 10, 2007
I'm no economist, but...
I cant help but think that it's a bad thing that the world markets continue to slide even after having both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve pump billions into the world banking system.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070810/europe-market-jitters/
"FRANKFURT, Germany — The European Central Bank injected another $83.8 billion into the banking system Friday amid signs that bad U.S. mortgages were digging deeper into the world economy.
But investors did not seem appeased, with major indexes plunging in London, Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo.
The 61 billion-euro move by the ECB, which had provided 95 billion euros ($130.7 billion) in funds to banks on Thursday, came after Japan's central bank injected 1 trillion yen ($8.4 billion) into money markets. Early Friday, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a three-day addition of liquidity. The Fed had already intervened Thursday, injecting a larger-than-normal $24 billion in temporary reserves to the U.S. banking system.
It was the first time the U.S., European and Japanese central banks had taken such action together since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Australian, Hong Kong and Canadian central banks also joined in."
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/monetary/2007/20070810/default.htm
"The Federal Reserve is providing liquidity to facilitate the orderly functioning of financial markets.
The Federal Reserve will provide reserves as necessary through open market operations to promote trading in the federal funds market at rates close to the Federal Open Market Committee's target rate of 5-1/4 percent. In current circumstances, depository institutions may experience unusual funding needs because of dislocations in money and credit markets."
______________________________________________________________
I like to consider myself to be a "big picture" kinda guy, but why the reference to this being the first time since 9/11 that the world banks worked together to increase the 'fluidity' of money inside the system. Between that scary little tidbit and the idea that the Democratic Congress gave the prez increased spying power before getting the heck out of Dodge for more than a month, makes me think that something is up. I belong to the growing school of thought that believe that this president will not give up all of his near-totalitarian power to the next (most likely Democratic) president. Let's also mention that Dick Cheney is pushing harder than ever for a military attack on Iran and that several 'president-friendly' newspapers are printing Iranian propaganda. Other people have gone so far as to say that we need 'another 9/11' in order to unify this country and the world behind Bush. Are they planning another false flag attack? Hilter only burned down the Reichstag once.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070810/europe-market-jitters/
"FRANKFURT, Germany — The European Central Bank injected another $83.8 billion into the banking system Friday amid signs that bad U.S. mortgages were digging deeper into the world economy.
But investors did not seem appeased, with major indexes plunging in London, Frankfurt, Paris and Tokyo.
The 61 billion-euro move by the ECB, which had provided 95 billion euros ($130.7 billion) in funds to banks on Thursday, came after Japan's central bank injected 1 trillion yen ($8.4 billion) into money markets. Early Friday, the U.S. Federal Reserve announced a three-day addition of liquidity. The Fed had already intervened Thursday, injecting a larger-than-normal $24 billion in temporary reserves to the U.S. banking system.
It was the first time the U.S., European and Japanese central banks had taken such action together since the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The Australian, Hong Kong and Canadian central banks also joined in."
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/press/monetary/2007/20070810/default.htm
"The Federal Reserve is providing liquidity to facilitate the orderly functioning of financial markets.
The Federal Reserve will provide reserves as necessary through open market operations to promote trading in the federal funds market at rates close to the Federal Open Market Committee's target rate of 5-1/4 percent. In current circumstances, depository institutions may experience unusual funding needs because of dislocations in money and credit markets."
______________________________________________________________
I like to consider myself to be a "big picture" kinda guy, but why the reference to this being the first time since 9/11 that the world banks worked together to increase the 'fluidity' of money inside the system. Between that scary little tidbit and the idea that the Democratic Congress gave the prez increased spying power before getting the heck out of Dodge for more than a month, makes me think that something is up. I belong to the growing school of thought that believe that this president will not give up all of his near-totalitarian power to the next (most likely Democratic) president. Let's also mention that Dick Cheney is pushing harder than ever for a military attack on Iran and that several 'president-friendly' newspapers are printing Iranian propaganda. Other people have gone so far as to say that we need 'another 9/11' in order to unify this country and the world behind Bush. Are they planning another false flag attack? Hilter only burned down the Reichstag once.
Sunday, August 5, 2007
A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth- by Paul Craig Roberts (reprint)
This article was written before Rupert Murdoch and his "News Corp" (how's that for Doublespeak ) purchased The Wall Street Journal. The former financial paper of record can now be expected to reflect the same bastardized and slanted version of the "news" as does Murdoch's Fox News. Here's how they do it:
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=11300
In his novel 1984, George Orwell portrayed a future time in which the explanations of recent events and earlier history are continually changed to meet Big Brother's latest purpose. Previous explanations disappear down "the memory hole."
Sound familiar? Any American who pays attention can observe the identical phenomenon occurring in the U.S. today.
Think about the Bush regime's changing explanations for the failed U.S. occupation of Iraq. Shortly after Bush's May 2003 announcement of "mission accomplished," the mission revealed itself to be very much unaccomplished. Americans were told that the cause of the snafu was a small Sunni insurgency of two or three thousand at the most inspired by "die-hard Ba'ath Party remnants." Remember the propagandistic deck of cards identifying the most wanted down to the less wanted? Americans were assured that once Saddam Hussein and his relatives and henchmen were rounded up, our troops would be pelted with the promised flowers instead of roadside bombs.
When the roundups, trials, and executions failed to fix the problem, the "die-hard" explanation disappeared. A new explanation, with no continuity to the old, took its place.
The new explanation was that Syria was allowing foreigners to cross its border into Iraq to commit jihad against the American troops. This explanation lasted until it became all too clear, despite the propaganda, that the "foreign fighters" were remarkably well accepted by, and concealed within, the Iraqi communities that were suffering all the collateral damage of the conflict.
When it came time for the U.S. to create an Iraqi government, it was evident that it would be one dominated by Shi'ites. Then, for a limited time, it was permissible to recognize that the insurgency was popularly based in the Sunnis.
As the insurgency evolved into what the Iraq Study Group [.pdf] described as a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war with U.S. troops unclear on which side they stood, the Bush Regime and the captive media began blaming al-Qaeda for the escalating violence. Americans were assured by the Ministry of Truth that there wasn't a civil war, just outsiders stirring up conflict. This enabled Big Brother to deny that there was a civil war and to revive fear of terrorist attacks in the U.S. and UK, the new Oceania.
The al-Qaeda explanation was soon discarded into the memory hole. The explanation implied that Oceania's invasion of Iraq had greatly expanded the ranks and strength of al-Qaeda, thus contradicting big Brother's claim that his war in Iraq was making Oceanians safe by stamping out terrorism. The al-Qaeda explanation had to depart for another reason as well. Cheney, Israel, and the neocons, the rulers of the new Oceania, plan to attack Iran, and so the insurgency in Iraq is now being blamed on Iran.
The Ministry of Truth has accommodated the latest explanation, just as it did all others before, without remarking on the funeral of the previous explanation. All of a sudden, a new explanation appears and is repeated until it, too, goes down the memory hole.
The American and British media work the same way as the Ministry of Truth in Oceania. A day arrives when the "truth" no longer serves the empire or hegemonic power or center of moral purpose in the world, or for short, the regime. When that day arrives, a new explanation appears and is repeated until it, too, is discarded down the memory hole.
In recent weeks Americans have been fed a series of reports from official sources that Iran is arming both Iraqi insurgents and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Experts, both within the government and without, who have been made more attentive by the Bush Regime's false charges of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, have disputed the news reports.
But the reports keep on coming. As I write, the latest story is that the U.S. military "discovered a field of rocket launchers near a U.S. Army base south of Baghdad armed with 34 Iranian-made missiles." Can you imagine? The insurgents went to the trouble of lugging powerful missiles within striking distance of a U.S. base and just left them there unfired to be discovered by the Americans. To further serve Cheney's plan to attack Iran, the media report states: "Earlier this month, U.S. commanders stepped up the charges [against Iran], claiming that senior leaders of Iran's special forces and of the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah militia have trained Iraqi fighters and provided other support."
Notice that none of the explanations fed to Americans over the years have ever mentioned, even as a faint possibility, that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq might be the cause of the violence in Iraq.
Allegedly, the U.S. is a free and open country with a free press and a government accountable to the people. Yet the information fed to the American people is as thoroughly false as that fed to the citizens of Oceania by Big Brother through the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's famous novel.
In Orwell's novel, despite the totalitarian power of the government, nothing happens to people as long as they accept the government's intrusive monitoring of their lives and do not become interested in truth or facts. In such a world, truth and individuality pass out of human consciousness and become unimportant. Citizens survive by accepting Big Brother's ever changing reality.
This is what the mainstream media in the U.S. and UK are enabling the new Oceania to accomplish. It is pointless to complain about a few Judith Millers here and there at the New York Times, or the obvious warmongers at the Weekly Standard, Fox "News," and Wall Street Journal editorial page. The entire corporate media is behaving as a Ministry of Truth.
http://www.antiwar.com/roberts/?articleid=11300
In his novel 1984, George Orwell portrayed a future time in which the explanations of recent events and earlier history are continually changed to meet Big Brother's latest purpose. Previous explanations disappear down "the memory hole."
Sound familiar? Any American who pays attention can observe the identical phenomenon occurring in the U.S. today.
Think about the Bush regime's changing explanations for the failed U.S. occupation of Iraq. Shortly after Bush's May 2003 announcement of "mission accomplished," the mission revealed itself to be very much unaccomplished. Americans were told that the cause of the snafu was a small Sunni insurgency of two or three thousand at the most inspired by "die-hard Ba'ath Party remnants." Remember the propagandistic deck of cards identifying the most wanted down to the less wanted? Americans were assured that once Saddam Hussein and his relatives and henchmen were rounded up, our troops would be pelted with the promised flowers instead of roadside bombs.
When the roundups, trials, and executions failed to fix the problem, the "die-hard" explanation disappeared. A new explanation, with no continuity to the old, took its place.
The new explanation was that Syria was allowing foreigners to cross its border into Iraq to commit jihad against the American troops. This explanation lasted until it became all too clear, despite the propaganda, that the "foreign fighters" were remarkably well accepted by, and concealed within, the Iraqi communities that were suffering all the collateral damage of the conflict.
When it came time for the U.S. to create an Iraqi government, it was evident that it would be one dominated by Shi'ites. Then, for a limited time, it was permissible to recognize that the insurgency was popularly based in the Sunnis.
As the insurgency evolved into what the Iraq Study Group [.pdf] described as a Sunni-Shi'ite civil war with U.S. troops unclear on which side they stood, the Bush Regime and the captive media began blaming al-Qaeda for the escalating violence. Americans were assured by the Ministry of Truth that there wasn't a civil war, just outsiders stirring up conflict. This enabled Big Brother to deny that there was a civil war and to revive fear of terrorist attacks in the U.S. and UK, the new Oceania.
The al-Qaeda explanation was soon discarded into the memory hole. The explanation implied that Oceania's invasion of Iraq had greatly expanded the ranks and strength of al-Qaeda, thus contradicting big Brother's claim that his war in Iraq was making Oceanians safe by stamping out terrorism. The al-Qaeda explanation had to depart for another reason as well. Cheney, Israel, and the neocons, the rulers of the new Oceania, plan to attack Iran, and so the insurgency in Iraq is now being blamed on Iran.
The Ministry of Truth has accommodated the latest explanation, just as it did all others before, without remarking on the funeral of the previous explanation. All of a sudden, a new explanation appears and is repeated until it, too, goes down the memory hole.
The American and British media work the same way as the Ministry of Truth in Oceania. A day arrives when the "truth" no longer serves the empire or hegemonic power or center of moral purpose in the world, or for short, the regime. When that day arrives, a new explanation appears and is repeated until it, too, is discarded down the memory hole.
In recent weeks Americans have been fed a series of reports from official sources that Iran is arming both Iraqi insurgents and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Experts, both within the government and without, who have been made more attentive by the Bush Regime's false charges of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, have disputed the news reports.
But the reports keep on coming. As I write, the latest story is that the U.S. military "discovered a field of rocket launchers near a U.S. Army base south of Baghdad armed with 34 Iranian-made missiles." Can you imagine? The insurgents went to the trouble of lugging powerful missiles within striking distance of a U.S. base and just left them there unfired to be discovered by the Americans. To further serve Cheney's plan to attack Iran, the media report states: "Earlier this month, U.S. commanders stepped up the charges [against Iran], claiming that senior leaders of Iran's special forces and of the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah militia have trained Iraqi fighters and provided other support."
Notice that none of the explanations fed to Americans over the years have ever mentioned, even as a faint possibility, that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq might be the cause of the violence in Iraq.
Allegedly, the U.S. is a free and open country with a free press and a government accountable to the people. Yet the information fed to the American people is as thoroughly false as that fed to the citizens of Oceania by Big Brother through the Ministry of Truth in Orwell's famous novel.
In Orwell's novel, despite the totalitarian power of the government, nothing happens to people as long as they accept the government's intrusive monitoring of their lives and do not become interested in truth or facts. In such a world, truth and individuality pass out of human consciousness and become unimportant. Citizens survive by accepting Big Brother's ever changing reality.
This is what the mainstream media in the U.S. and UK are enabling the new Oceania to accomplish. It is pointless to complain about a few Judith Millers here and there at the New York Times, or the obvious warmongers at the Weekly Standard, Fox "News," and Wall Street Journal editorial page. The entire corporate media is behaving as a Ministry of Truth.
Confessions Of A Political Junkie
The Good Doctor Hunter S. Thompson declared in his fourth volume of The Gonzo Papers that [politics is] Better Than Sex: Confessions Of A Political Junkie. I too, find that I am just not the same unless I start and end my day with a spike of the good stuff directly into the vein. Upon waking, I do not stumble around for my first cup of coffee, but instead I search for my connection, my internet connection to the websites that feed my need. My need for information takes me to the usual suspects (RawStory, Huff Po, Thinkprogress, etc) New flavors come and go, but the same few staples are there for me everyday and can be counted on. I then will spend a few hours throughout the day lurking around the communities where my people can be found. I read and post on message boards, update my page, conduct research, and add my own snarky commentary. I peak sometime in the late afternoon when my radio talk shows begin in earnest. I join the same dozen or so hardcore wonks in the live online chats as we listen to the hosts and their guests. Two to four hours into my hardcore political wonking, I crack a beer or six and start mixing my deadly addictions. I do get out and live and act with this world, but if left to my devices on a generic Thursday afternoon, I can and will be found pounding on the keys of an old computer with a fast internet connection....hopefully.
Today the world of political 'wonkitude' has become somewhat like watching roller derby. It's messy, violent, they go around in circles, and I'm pretty sure that it is fake- or at least fixed. I am still somewhat of an 'angry young man' and I often have to fight the itchy feet and remain calm and realize that it will all be ok. It will all be ok, right?
Today the world of political 'wonkitude' has become somewhat like watching roller derby. It's messy, violent, they go around in circles, and I'm pretty sure that it is fake- or at least fixed. I am still somewhat of an 'angry young man' and I often have to fight the itchy feet and remain calm and realize that it will all be ok. It will all be ok, right?
So You Think That You Are A Republican?
I just wanted to take a quick second to pen a response to all of the wity "pro- republican" blogs and bulletins.
So you think that you are a republican? why, because you are against abortion? Most people who identify themselves as pro-choice are not fans of abortion as birth control. We are, however pro CHOICE. We think that YOU should have the right to decide what YOU can do with YOUR body- not the government. If you dont like abortions- dont have one.
So you think that you are a republican? why, because you are a religious person? Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That's from the Bill Of Rights. Keep your religion out of my government and I'll keep my government out of your religion. I wont tell you who or what to worship and you do the same for everyone else. For the record I was raised as a Baptist and I still follow, but I seperate my religion from my government. I like chocolate cake and I like spicy chili, but I think that each are best when separate from each other.
So you think that you are a republican? why because you think that everyone should have to work and no one should get a free ride from the government? The biggest benefactor of tax breaks and benefit programs are large corporations and not the "welfare mothers" who get food stamps for spitting out numerous children. You complain that you have to work for your money and that it should not go to these welfare mothers, but do you know where it goes? It goes to:
Oil Company Tax BreakTitle VII, Section 707Cost to Taxpayers: $295 million
Tax Breaks for Oil RefinersTitle III, Subtitle C, Sections 328-329Cost to Taxpayers: $119 million : Following is the list of companies that appear to qualify for this tax break as it is now written: Chalmette Refining, TotalFinaElf, Crown Central-La Gloria Oil & Gas, Sinclair Oil-Little America Refining, Frontier Oil, Cenex Harvest States Corp, Murphy Oil, Farmland Industries, Ergon-Lion Oil, Giant Indus, Holly Corp-Navajo Refining-Montana Refining, Calumet, United Refining, Suncor Energy, Petro Star, Alon USA Energy, Gary Williams, Paramount Acquisition Corp, Placid Refining, Time Oil-U.S. Oil & Refining Co, Hunt, Transworld Oil USA, Apex Oil, Kern Oil, San Joaquin Refining, Countrymark Cooperative, Southland Oil, El Paso Corp-Coastal, Silver Eagle Refining, Wyoming Refining, Age Refining, American Refining Group, Greka Energy, World Oil, Cross Oil, Somerset Refinery, Young Refining, Foreland Refining, Oil Holding Inc, and Dow Chemical. http://www.citizen.org/
So you think that you are a republican? why because they look out for the little guy, the hard worker, the individual? The republicans bailed out Enron, a little guy in the field of energy production who stole from the retirement funds of their emplyees only after they stole from the states that they were supposed to serve. When is the last time that you heard of the republicans bailing out a starving family? Who do the republicans pass legislation for, small town people or large corporations? When is the last time that you have been invited to the White House? Why is Dick Cheney destroying his visitation logs, to conceal the number of visits from citizens or from lobbyists like Jack Abramoff? Do you have the cash to pay for a night's stay in the Lincoln Bedroom? It was over $100,000.00 a night at last check.
Or do you think that you are a republican because you support the troops? We all support the troops, except for those who sent them off to fight and die with substandard body armor. Who supports the troops more, a man who sent them to Iraq, a country that never attacked us nor had any weapons of mass destruction, or those of us who want them to come home to be with their families? I support the troops, I want them to come home and stop dying so that companies like Halliburton can make billions off the war effort. You say that you support the troops, park your SUV so that we wont need to fight for foreign oil.
If I've upset you, I am sorry. If I made you think, good, that was my point.
So you think that you are a republican? why, because you are against abortion? Most people who identify themselves as pro-choice are not fans of abortion as birth control. We are, however pro CHOICE. We think that YOU should have the right to decide what YOU can do with YOUR body- not the government. If you dont like abortions- dont have one.
So you think that you are a republican? why, because you are a religious person? Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. That's from the Bill Of Rights. Keep your religion out of my government and I'll keep my government out of your religion. I wont tell you who or what to worship and you do the same for everyone else. For the record I was raised as a Baptist and I still follow, but I seperate my religion from my government. I like chocolate cake and I like spicy chili, but I think that each are best when separate from each other.
So you think that you are a republican? why because you think that everyone should have to work and no one should get a free ride from the government? The biggest benefactor of tax breaks and benefit programs are large corporations and not the "welfare mothers" who get food stamps for spitting out numerous children. You complain that you have to work for your money and that it should not go to these welfare mothers, but do you know where it goes? It goes to:
Oil Company Tax BreakTitle VII, Section 707Cost to Taxpayers: $295 million
Tax Breaks for Oil RefinersTitle III, Subtitle C, Sections 328-329Cost to Taxpayers: $119 million : Following is the list of companies that appear to qualify for this tax break as it is now written: Chalmette Refining, TotalFinaElf, Crown Central-La Gloria Oil & Gas, Sinclair Oil-Little America Refining, Frontier Oil, Cenex Harvest States Corp, Murphy Oil, Farmland Industries, Ergon-Lion Oil, Giant Indus, Holly Corp-Navajo Refining-Montana Refining, Calumet, United Refining, Suncor Energy, Petro Star, Alon USA Energy, Gary Williams, Paramount Acquisition Corp, Placid Refining, Time Oil-U.S. Oil & Refining Co, Hunt, Transworld Oil USA, Apex Oil, Kern Oil, San Joaquin Refining, Countrymark Cooperative, Southland Oil, El Paso Corp-Coastal, Silver Eagle Refining, Wyoming Refining, Age Refining, American Refining Group, Greka Energy, World Oil, Cross Oil, Somerset Refinery, Young Refining, Foreland Refining, Oil Holding Inc, and Dow Chemical. http://www.citizen.org/
So you think that you are a republican? why because they look out for the little guy, the hard worker, the individual? The republicans bailed out Enron, a little guy in the field of energy production who stole from the retirement funds of their emplyees only after they stole from the states that they were supposed to serve. When is the last time that you heard of the republicans bailing out a starving family? Who do the republicans pass legislation for, small town people or large corporations? When is the last time that you have been invited to the White House? Why is Dick Cheney destroying his visitation logs, to conceal the number of visits from citizens or from lobbyists like Jack Abramoff? Do you have the cash to pay for a night's stay in the Lincoln Bedroom? It was over $100,000.00 a night at last check.
Or do you think that you are a republican because you support the troops? We all support the troops, except for those who sent them off to fight and die with substandard body armor. Who supports the troops more, a man who sent them to Iraq, a country that never attacked us nor had any weapons of mass destruction, or those of us who want them to come home to be with their families? I support the troops, I want them to come home and stop dying so that companies like Halliburton can make billions off the war effort. You say that you support the troops, park your SUV so that we wont need to fight for foreign oil.
If I've upset you, I am sorry. If I made you think, good, that was my point.
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