Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday January 23, 2007
A project of Raw Story Investigates
(Click here to read the full timeline of the decades-long buildup to Iran)
The escalation of US military planning on Iran is only the latest chess move in a six-year push within the Bush Administration to attack Iran, a RAW STORY investigation has found.
While Iran was named a part of President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil” in 2002, efforts to ignite a confrontation with Iran date back long before the post-9/11 war on terror. Presently, the Administration is trumpeting claims that Iran is closer to a nuclear weapon than the CIA’s own analysis shows and positing Iranian influence in Iraq’s insurgency, but efforts to destabilize Iran have been conducted covertly for years, often using members of Congress or non-government actors in a way reminiscent of the 1980s Iran-Contra scandal.
The motivations for an Iran strike were laid out as far back as 1992. In classified defense planning guidance – written for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney by then-Pentagon staffers I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, World Bank Chief Paul Wolfowitz, and ambassador-nominee to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad – Cheney’s aides called for the United States to assume the position of lone superpower and act preemptively to prevent the emergence of even regional competitors. The draft document was leaked to the New York Times and the Washington Post and caused an uproar among Democrats and many in George H. W. Bush’s Administration.
In September 2000, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) issued a report titled “Rebuilding America's Defenses,” which espoused similar positions to the 1992 draft and became the basis for the Bush-Cheney Administration's foreign policy. Libby and Wolfowitz were among the participants in this new report; Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other prominent figures in the Bush administration were PNAC members.
“The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security,” the report read. “While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. . . . We cannot allow North Korea, Iran, Iraq or similar states to undermine American leadership, intimidate American allies or threaten the American homeland itself.”
This approach became official US military policy during the current Bush Administration. It was starkly on display yesterday when Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns noted a second aircraft carrier strike force headed for the Persian Gulf, saying, "The Middle East isn't a region to be dominated by Iran. The Gulf isn't a body of water to be controlled by Iran. That's why we've seen the United States station two carrier battle groups in the region."
The Structure
Almost immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Iran became a focal point of discussion among senior Administration officials. As early as December 2001, then-Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and the leadership of the Defense Department, including Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, allegedly authorized a series of meetings between Defense Department officials and Iranian agents abroad.
The first of these meetings took place in Rome with Pentagon Iran analyst, Larry Franklin, Middle East expert Harold Rhode, and prominent neoconservative Michael Ledeen. Ledeen, who held no official government position, introduced the US officials to Iran-Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. According to both Ghorbanifar and Ledeen, the topic on the table was Iran. Ledeen told RAW STORY last year the discussion concerned allegations that Iranian forces were killing US soldiers in Afghanistan, but Ghorbanifar has claimed the conversation focused on regime change.
In January 2002, evidence that Iran was enriching uranium began to appear via credible intelligence and satellite imagery. Despite this revelation – and despite having called Iran part of the Axis of Evil in his State of the Union that year – President Bush continued to focus on Iraq. Perhaps for that reason, throughout 2002 the strongest pressure for regime change flowed through alternative channels.
In early 2002, Ledeen formed the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, along with Morris Amitay, the former executive director of the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
In August 2002, Larry Franklin began passing classified information involving United States policy towards Iran to two AIPAC employees and an Israeli diplomat. Franklin pleaded guilty to the charges in October 2005, explaining that he had been hoping to force the US to take a harder line with Iran, but AIPAC and Israel have continued to deny them.
At the same time, another group’s political representatives begin a corollary effort to influence domestic political discourse. In August 2002, the National Council of Resistance of Iran – a front for a militant terrorist organization called Mujahedin-E-Khalq (MEK) – held a press conference in Washington and stated that Iran had a secret nuclear facility at Natanz, due for completion in 2003.
Late that summer , the Pentagon's Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz expanded its Northern Gulf Affairs Office, renamed it the Office of Special Plans (OSP), and placed it under the direction of Abram Shulsky, a contributor to the 2000 PNAC report.
Most know the Office of Special Plans as a rogue Administration faction determined to find intelligence to support the Iraq War. But that wasn’t its only task.
According to an article in The Forward in May 2003, “A budding coalition of conservative hawks, Jewish organizations and Iranian monarchists is pressing the White House to step up American efforts to bring about regime change in Iran. . . . Two sources [say] Iran expert Michael Rubin is now working for the Pentagon's 'special plans' office, a small unit set up to gather intelligence on Iraq, but apparently also working on Iran. Previously a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East policy, Rubin has vocally advocated regime change in Tehran.”
Dark Actors/Covert Activities
While the Iraq war was publicly founded upon questionable sources, much of the buildup to Iran has been entirely covert, using non-government assets and foreign instruments of influence to conduct disinformation campaigns, plant intelligence and commit acts of violence via proxy groups.
A few weeks prior to the Iraq invasion, in February 2003, Iran acknowledged that it was building a nuclear facility at Natanz, saying that the facility was aimed at providing domestic energy. However, allegations that Iran was developing a nuclear weapons program would become louder in the course of 2003 and continue unabated over the next three years.
That spring, then-Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) opened a channel on Iran with former Iranian Minister Fereidoun Mahdavi, a secretary for Ghorbanifar. Both Weldon and Ledeen were told a strikingly similar story concerning a cross border plot between Iran and Iraq in which uranium had been removed from Iraq and taken into Iran by Iranian agents. The CIA investigated the allegations but found them spurious. Weldon took his complaints about the matter to Rumsfeld, who pressured the CIA to investigate a second time, with the same result.
In May 2003, with pressure for regime change intensifying within the US, Iran made efforts to negotiate a peaceful resolution with the United States. According to Lawrence Wilkerson, then-Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, these efforts were sabotaged by Vice President Cheney.
"The secret cabal got what it wanted: no negotiations with Tehran," Wilkerson said.
The US was already looking increasingly to rogue methodology, including support for the Iranian terrorist group MEK. Before the US invasion, MEK forces within Iraq had supported Saddam Hussein in exchange for safe harbor. Despite this, when they were captured by the US military, they were disarmed of only their major weapons and are allowed to keep their smaller arms. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld hoped to use them as a special ops team in Iran, while then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and State Department officials argued against it. By 2005, the MEK would begin training with US forces in Iraq and carrying out bombings and assassinations in Iran, although it is unclear if the bombings were in any way approved by the US military.
The Pressure is On: 2004 – 2006
For a variety of reasons – ranging from the explosion of the insurgency in Iraq following the high point of "Mission Accomplished" to Iran's willingness to admit IAEA inspectors – the drumbeat for regime change died down over the summer of 2003. In October 2003, with Iran accepting even tougher inspections, Larry Franklin told his Israeli contact that work on the US policy towards Iran which they had been tracking seemed to have stopped.
Yet by the autumn of 2004, pressure for confrontation with Iran had resumed, with President Bush telling Fox News that the US would never allow Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. By then, the Pentagon had been directed to have a viable military option for Iran in place by June 2005.
This phase of pressure was marked by increased activity directed at Congress. An "Iran Freedom Support Act" was introduced in the House and Senate in January and February of 2005. Neoconservatives and individuals linked to the defense contracting industry formed an Iran Policy Committee, and in April and May presented briefings in support of MEK before the newly-created Iran Human Rights and Democracy Caucus of the House of Representatives.
In March 2006, administration action became more overt. The State Department created an Office of Iranian Affairs, while the Pentagon created an Iranian Directorate that had much in common with the earlier Office of Special Plans. According to Seymour Hersh, covert US operations within Iran in preparation for a possible air attack also began at this time and included Kurds and other Iranian minority groups.
By setting up the Iranian Directorate within the Pentagon and running covert operations through the military rather than the CIA, the administration was able to avoid both Congressional oversight and interference from then-Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, who has been vocally skeptical about using force against Iran. The White House also successfully stalled the release of a fresh National Intelligence Estimate on Iran, which could reflect the CIA's conclusion that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program.
In sum, the Bush Administration seems to have concluded that Iran is guilty until proven innocent and continues to maintain that the Persian Gulf belongs to Americans – not to Persians – setting the stage for a potential military strike.
Click here to read the full timeline of the decades-long buildup to Iran
Raw Story Investigates is made possible by reader donations. This is the first article in a series of weekly investigative reports by Raw Story. To make a contribution, click here.
Monday, February 12, 2007
The World Can Halt Bush’s Crimes by Dumping the Dollar
by Paul Craig Roberts
What would be the consequences of a US or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear energy sites?
At the 2006 Perdana Global Peace Forum, Australian medical scientist Dr. Helen Caldicott provided an authoritative analysis of the devastating impact on human life that would result from the radiation release from such an attack.
Dr. Caldicott described the catastrophic deaths that would result from a conventional attack on nuclear facilities and the long-term increase in cancer deaths from the radiation release.
Should the attack be made with nuclear weapons – as some of Bush’s criminally insane neoconservative advisers advocate – the populations of many countries would suffer for generations from radioactive particles in air, water, and food chains. Deaths would number in the many millions.
Such an attack justified in the name of "American security" and "American hegemony" would constitute the rawest form of evil the world has ever seen, far surpassing in evil the atrocities of the Nazi and Communist regimes.
Dr. Caldicott detailed the horrible long-term consequences for the Iraqi population from the US military’s current use of depleted uranium in explosive ammunition used in Iraq. Caldicott explained that "depleted" does not mean depleted of radiation. She explained that each time such ammunition is used, radioactive particles are released in the air and are absorbed into people’s lungs. We are yet to see the horrific civilian casualty rate of the American invasion – or the true casualty rate among US troops.
Dr. Caldicott expressed bewilderment why the rest of the world does not stand up to the US and force a halt to its crimes against humanity.
One man heard her – Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
On February 10 at the 43rd Munich Security Conference, President Putin told the world’s assembled political leaders that the US was trying to establish a "uni-polar world," which he defined as "one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master."
This goal, Putin said, was a "formula for disaster."
"The United States," Putin said, truthfully, "has overstepped its borders in all spheres" and "has imposed itself on other states."
The Russian leader declared: "We see no kind of restraint – a hyper-inflated use of force."
To avoid catastrophe, Putin said a reconsideration of the entire existing architecture of global security was necessary.
Putin’s words of truth fell on many deaf ears. US Senator John McCain, America’s most idiotic and dangerous "leader" after Bush and Cheney, equated Putin’s legitimate criticism of the US with "confrontation."
America’s new puppets – the states of central and Eastern Europe and the secretary general of NATO, no longer a treaty for the defense of Europe but a military force enlisted in America’s quest for empire – lined up with McCain’s argument that Russia was in fundamental conflict "with the core values of Euro-Atlantic democracies."
Even the BBC’s defense and security correspondent, Rob Watson, jumped on the American propaganda bandwagon, tagging Putin’s speech a revival of the cold war.
No delegate at the security conference stood up to state the obvious fact that it is not Russia that is invading countries under pretexts as false as Hitler’s and setting up weapons systems on foreign soil in order to achieve military hegemony.
The reception given to Putin’s words made it clear to Russia, China, and every country not bribed, threatened or purchased into participation in America’s drive for world hegemony that the US has no interest whatsoever in peace. Intelligent people realize that American claims to be a moral and democratic force are mere pretense behind which hides a policy of military aggression.
The US, Putin said, has gone "from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them."
Putin has repeatedly stressed Russia’s peaceful intentions and desire to focus on its economy and to avoid a new arms race. In his speech on the 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, Putin said: "I am convinced that there is no alternative to our friendship and our fraternity. With our closest neighbors and all countries of the world, Russia is prepared to build a kind of relationship which is not only based on lessons of the past but is also directed into a shared future."
In his 2006 state of the nation speech, Putin noted that America’s military budget is 25 times larger than Russia’s. He compared the Bush Regime to a wolf who eats whom he wants without listening. Putin is being demonized by US propagandists, because he insists upon Russia being a politically and economically independent state.
The Bush Regime has taken the US outside the boundaries of international law and is acting unilaterally, falsely declaring American military aggression to be "defensive" and in the interests of peace. Much of the world realizes the hypocrisy and danger in the Bush Regime’s justification of the unbridled use of US military power, but no countries except other nuclear powers can challenge American aggression, and then only at the risk of all life on earth.
The solution is nonmilitary challenge.
The Bush Regime’s ability to wage war is dependent upon foreign financing. The Regime’s wars are financed with red ink, which means the hundreds of billions of dollars must be borrowed. As American consumers are spending more than they earn on consumption, the money cannot be borrowed from Americans.
The US is totally dependent upon foreigners to finance its budget and trade deficits. By financing these deficits, foreign governments are complicit in the Bush Regime’s military aggressions and war crimes. The Bush Regime’s two largest lenders are China and Japan. It is ironic that Japan, the only nation to experience nuclear attack by the US, is banker to the Bush Regime as it prepares a possible nuclear attack on Iran.
If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war. The arrogant hubris associated with the "sole superpower" myth would burst like the bubble it is.
The collapse of the dollar would also end the US government’s ability to subvert other countries by purchasing their leaders to do America’s will.
The demise of the US dollar is only a question of time. It would save the world from war and devastation if the dollar is brought to its demise before the Bush Regime launches its planned attack on Iran.
February 12, 2007
Paul Craig Roberts [send him mail] wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholar journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He is also coauthor with Karen Araujo of Chile: Dos Visiones – La Era Allende-Pinochet (Santiago: Universidad Andres Bello, 2000).
Copyright © 2007 Creators Syndicate
What would be the consequences of a US or Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear energy sites?
At the 2006 Perdana Global Peace Forum, Australian medical scientist Dr. Helen Caldicott provided an authoritative analysis of the devastating impact on human life that would result from the radiation release from such an attack.
Dr. Caldicott described the catastrophic deaths that would result from a conventional attack on nuclear facilities and the long-term increase in cancer deaths from the radiation release.
Should the attack be made with nuclear weapons – as some of Bush’s criminally insane neoconservative advisers advocate – the populations of many countries would suffer for generations from radioactive particles in air, water, and food chains. Deaths would number in the many millions.
Such an attack justified in the name of "American security" and "American hegemony" would constitute the rawest form of evil the world has ever seen, far surpassing in evil the atrocities of the Nazi and Communist regimes.
Dr. Caldicott detailed the horrible long-term consequences for the Iraqi population from the US military’s current use of depleted uranium in explosive ammunition used in Iraq. Caldicott explained that "depleted" does not mean depleted of radiation. She explained that each time such ammunition is used, radioactive particles are released in the air and are absorbed into people’s lungs. We are yet to see the horrific civilian casualty rate of the American invasion – or the true casualty rate among US troops.
Dr. Caldicott expressed bewilderment why the rest of the world does not stand up to the US and force a halt to its crimes against humanity.
One man heard her – Vladimir Putin, President of Russia.
On February 10 at the 43rd Munich Security Conference, President Putin told the world’s assembled political leaders that the US was trying to establish a "uni-polar world," which he defined as "one single center of power, one single center of force and one single master."
This goal, Putin said, was a "formula for disaster."
"The United States," Putin said, truthfully, "has overstepped its borders in all spheres" and "has imposed itself on other states."
The Russian leader declared: "We see no kind of restraint – a hyper-inflated use of force."
To avoid catastrophe, Putin said a reconsideration of the entire existing architecture of global security was necessary.
Putin’s words of truth fell on many deaf ears. US Senator John McCain, America’s most idiotic and dangerous "leader" after Bush and Cheney, equated Putin’s legitimate criticism of the US with "confrontation."
America’s new puppets – the states of central and Eastern Europe and the secretary general of NATO, no longer a treaty for the defense of Europe but a military force enlisted in America’s quest for empire – lined up with McCain’s argument that Russia was in fundamental conflict "with the core values of Euro-Atlantic democracies."
Even the BBC’s defense and security correspondent, Rob Watson, jumped on the American propaganda bandwagon, tagging Putin’s speech a revival of the cold war.
No delegate at the security conference stood up to state the obvious fact that it is not Russia that is invading countries under pretexts as false as Hitler’s and setting up weapons systems on foreign soil in order to achieve military hegemony.
The reception given to Putin’s words made it clear to Russia, China, and every country not bribed, threatened or purchased into participation in America’s drive for world hegemony that the US has no interest whatsoever in peace. Intelligent people realize that American claims to be a moral and democratic force are mere pretense behind which hides a policy of military aggression.
The US, Putin said, has gone "from one conflict to another without achieving a fully-fledged solution to any of them."
Putin has repeatedly stressed Russia’s peaceful intentions and desire to focus on its economy and to avoid a new arms race. In his speech on the 60th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany, Putin said: "I am convinced that there is no alternative to our friendship and our fraternity. With our closest neighbors and all countries of the world, Russia is prepared to build a kind of relationship which is not only based on lessons of the past but is also directed into a shared future."
In his 2006 state of the nation speech, Putin noted that America’s military budget is 25 times larger than Russia’s. He compared the Bush Regime to a wolf who eats whom he wants without listening. Putin is being demonized by US propagandists, because he insists upon Russia being a politically and economically independent state.
The Bush Regime has taken the US outside the boundaries of international law and is acting unilaterally, falsely declaring American military aggression to be "defensive" and in the interests of peace. Much of the world realizes the hypocrisy and danger in the Bush Regime’s justification of the unbridled use of US military power, but no countries except other nuclear powers can challenge American aggression, and then only at the risk of all life on earth.
The solution is nonmilitary challenge.
The Bush Regime’s ability to wage war is dependent upon foreign financing. The Regime’s wars are financed with red ink, which means the hundreds of billions of dollars must be borrowed. As American consumers are spending more than they earn on consumption, the money cannot be borrowed from Americans.
The US is totally dependent upon foreigners to finance its budget and trade deficits. By financing these deficits, foreign governments are complicit in the Bush Regime’s military aggressions and war crimes. The Bush Regime’s two largest lenders are China and Japan. It is ironic that Japan, the only nation to experience nuclear attack by the US, is banker to the Bush Regime as it prepares a possible nuclear attack on Iran.
If the rest of the world would simply stop purchasing US Treasuries, and instead dump their surplus dollars into the foreign exchange market, the Bush Regime would be overwhelmed with economic crisis and unable to wage war. The arrogant hubris associated with the "sole superpower" myth would burst like the bubble it is.
The collapse of the dollar would also end the US government’s ability to subvert other countries by purchasing their leaders to do America’s will.
The demise of the US dollar is only a question of time. It would save the world from war and devastation if the dollar is brought to its demise before the Bush Regime launches its planned attack on Iran.
February 12, 2007
Paul Craig Roberts [send him mail] wrote the Kemp-Roth bill and was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is author or coauthor of eight books, including The Supply-Side Revolution (Harvard University Press). He has held numerous academic appointments, including the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University and Senior Research Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University. He has contributed to numerous scholar journals and testified before Congress on 30 occasions. He has been awarded the U.S. Treasury's Meritorious Service Award and the French Legion of Honor. He was a reviewer for the Journal of Political Economy under editor Robert Mundell. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He is also coauthor with Karen Araujo of Chile: Dos Visiones – La Era Allende-Pinochet (Santiago: Universidad Andres Bello, 2000).
Copyright © 2007 Creators Syndicate
Thursday, February 8, 2007
The Offensiveness of Taking Offense
Selwyn Duke
February 6, 2007
The voicing of the unpopular, being the very soul of free speech, the right to give and take offense shall not be infringed.
Sometimes I think it is time to insert the above into our First Amendment. Whether it's an off-color joke or colorful commentary, it's now hard to make anything but the most plain vanilla statements without offending somebody. In fact, so ingrained is the notion of being offended that it has become a topic of satire. Just think about Geico's famous commercials, wherein stone-age characters take umbrage at the slogan, "So easy a caveman can do it."
Ironically, associating cavemen with being thin-skinned is quite apropos, since it is a frailty born of the more ignoble aspects of man's nature. As to this, I think about documentarian Alby Mangels who, while visiting primitives in Papua New Guinea, warned against "knocking back their hospitality." Prudence dictated he be wary, as those less spiritually and morally evolved are ruled by pride, the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins. And, lest we entertain the fancy that it is the superior person who doesn't give offense, know that it is actually the superior one who doesn't take it. It's hard to offend the humble.
In truth, though, our civilization is not as overcome by pride as by duplicity. And this is what is truly offensive (in the way an odor is so) about this offensiveness business: Screaming "That's offensive!" is nothing but a ploy. Yes, you heard it here first, few who emit that utterance are actually offended.
They just don't happen to like what you're saying.
I'll explain precisely what is going on. Liberals trade on this ploy, using it as a standard response whenever their sacred cows come under scrutiny. If they were tolerant, they would simply accept that some will espouse what we despise. If they were honest, they would simply say what they mean. But tolerance is just another ploy, and honesty, well, it has never served the ends of the left, and never less so than here. An understanding of what they really mean to say will illustrate why:
"I hate what you're saying, it makes me angry and you should shut your mouth! [expletives omitted]"
Of course, to exhibit such petulance would do nothing but reveal their vaunted tolerance for the facade it is and demonstrate their moral inferiority. And telling others to shut-up is the stuff of neither polite society nor effective debate, so a different strategy is in order.
And the "Offensiveness Ploy" (OP) is ideal, as it shifts the onus from them to you. A direct command to still your tongue would make them appear the villains, intolerant, immature, imperious clods, incapable of brooking dissent. It would be offensive. But the OP makes you seem the offensive one. And when told to shut-up, we feel transgressed against and know we occupy the moral high ground, a place from which taking the offense is justified. The OP, however, casts us as the transgressors, cowing us as we look up from our valley of disgrace. It works: Accusing others of giving offense is the best offense, as it places them on the defense.
But you don't have to read Sun Tzu's The Art of War to know strategies change with the situation. And this is why, when the bounds of propriety are loosed and the power is all theirs, liberals often show their true colors, resorting to a tactic blunter and less sophisticated but even more effective: Force.
Just think about the "students" — they don't deserve the designation — who attacked Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist at that institution of lower learning, Columbia University. Think about incidents where other conservative speakers were given the same treatment on other campuses, a phenomenon that prompted pundit Ann Coulter to retain bodyguards. You may think I'm painting the left with too broad a brush but, I can assure you, the very same spoiled brats would use the OP in any situation wherein the balance of power didn't favor them. But in a bastion of liberalism, where accountability is as absent as sensibility, they don't have to. And here's their message:
"I hate what you're saying, it makes me angry and you should shut your mouth! And you're going to shut your mouth whether you like it or not. We don't have to take it anymore [expletives omitted]."
I suppose it's one situation where you could say that honesty is definitely not refreshing.
Would that anyone claim I'm wrong, he has much to explain. Like, for instance, why these tolerant, unoffensive liberals, upon achieving institutional power, become similarly heavy-handed and use the principles of tolerance and offensiveness to squelch ideas they dislike. They have given us speech codes at universities and in corporations and hate speech laws in foreign countries. And the sanctimony, oh, the sanctimony. As they ostracize, penalize, terminate and arrest those who sin against political correctness, they tell us they're just protecting others from hateful feelings when they really just feel hateful.
Can there be doubt of this? This oh-so-sensitive set is the very one that defends the immersion of a crucifix in a jar of urine as artistic expression and the equation of 9/11 victims with Nazis as academic freedom.
If the truth about the OP hasn't raised your ire yet, understand that it is nothing less than part of the groundwork necessary for social engineering. If you want to effect social and legislative change, you must win the social and political debates so as to garner support for it. But if you can't defeat your adversaries in the arena of ideas, you have to keep them out of the competition; if you can't refute what's argued, you must stop it from being spoken.
So, first you demonize speech refutative of your agenda by labeling it "offensive," which cultivates social codes and attendant social pressure facilitative of the change you desire. Then, as these social codes become more widely accepted and entrenched, expressing them through rules and laws becomes more acceptable. This leads to the next stage, the organizational expression of them — the speech codes in various private institutions. And once sufficiently inured to these, it's time for the last stage of this imprisoning of ideas: The legislative expression of these social codes known as hate speech laws.
Case in point: It becomes harder for traditionalists to argue against anti-marriage if they're scorned and ostracized for saying homosexual behavior is sinful, destructive or disordered. It becomes harder still if those who do are punished within the context of our schools and businesses. And it becomes impossible if the government arrests you for such expression. The easiest way to win a debate is to prevent the other side from debating.
Thus, there is a lesson here we ignore at our own peril. You can have freedom from being offended or you can freedom of speech, but you cannot have both.
This is why I have no tolerance for the Offensiveness Ploy. It is manipulation by the mediocre, victory for the vacuous, derision by the dull. It is the protestation of a child, one with neither the brute force to be a Brownshirt nor the executive force to be a Blackshirt. If someone is offended by truth, the problem lies not with it being uttered. If someone doesn't want it uttered, he has a problem with truth.
The great victory of the left is that it has made us apologize for being right. A few may be truly offended, being in the grip of primitive pride. But, mostly, we are in the grip of a primitive ploy. We need more offensiveness, not less. We must offend the liars, the degraded, the darkness, the destroyers of civilization.
So my answer to the offended is, you have every right to be offended. Now, grow up. If you can't sit at the table of reasoned debate, go back to your bread and circuses. Let the adults figure out the problems of the world.
Selwyn Duke is a columnist, public speaker, and Internet entrepreneur whose work has been published widely online and in print. His articles appear at RenewAmerica, American Thinker, The Conservative Voice, and Blogcritics, as well as many other sites. He has been featured in The American Conservative (Pat Buchanan's magazine), on the Rush Limbaugh Show, and has a regular column in Christian Music Perspective.
© Copyright 2007 by Selwyn Duke
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/duke/070206
February 6, 2007
The voicing of the unpopular, being the very soul of free speech, the right to give and take offense shall not be infringed.
Sometimes I think it is time to insert the above into our First Amendment. Whether it's an off-color joke or colorful commentary, it's now hard to make anything but the most plain vanilla statements without offending somebody. In fact, so ingrained is the notion of being offended that it has become a topic of satire. Just think about Geico's famous commercials, wherein stone-age characters take umbrage at the slogan, "So easy a caveman can do it."
Ironically, associating cavemen with being thin-skinned is quite apropos, since it is a frailty born of the more ignoble aspects of man's nature. As to this, I think about documentarian Alby Mangels who, while visiting primitives in Papua New Guinea, warned against "knocking back their hospitality." Prudence dictated he be wary, as those less spiritually and morally evolved are ruled by pride, the worst of the Seven Deadly Sins. And, lest we entertain the fancy that it is the superior person who doesn't give offense, know that it is actually the superior one who doesn't take it. It's hard to offend the humble.
In truth, though, our civilization is not as overcome by pride as by duplicity. And this is what is truly offensive (in the way an odor is so) about this offensiveness business: Screaming "That's offensive!" is nothing but a ploy. Yes, you heard it here first, few who emit that utterance are actually offended.
They just don't happen to like what you're saying.
I'll explain precisely what is going on. Liberals trade on this ploy, using it as a standard response whenever their sacred cows come under scrutiny. If they were tolerant, they would simply accept that some will espouse what we despise. If they were honest, they would simply say what they mean. But tolerance is just another ploy, and honesty, well, it has never served the ends of the left, and never less so than here. An understanding of what they really mean to say will illustrate why:
"I hate what you're saying, it makes me angry and you should shut your mouth! [expletives omitted]"
Of course, to exhibit such petulance would do nothing but reveal their vaunted tolerance for the facade it is and demonstrate their moral inferiority. And telling others to shut-up is the stuff of neither polite society nor effective debate, so a different strategy is in order.
And the "Offensiveness Ploy" (OP) is ideal, as it shifts the onus from them to you. A direct command to still your tongue would make them appear the villains, intolerant, immature, imperious clods, incapable of brooking dissent. It would be offensive. But the OP makes you seem the offensive one. And when told to shut-up, we feel transgressed against and know we occupy the moral high ground, a place from which taking the offense is justified. The OP, however, casts us as the transgressors, cowing us as we look up from our valley of disgrace. It works: Accusing others of giving offense is the best offense, as it places them on the defense.
But you don't have to read Sun Tzu's The Art of War to know strategies change with the situation. And this is why, when the bounds of propriety are loosed and the power is all theirs, liberals often show their true colors, resorting to a tactic blunter and less sophisticated but even more effective: Force.
Just think about the "students" — they don't deserve the designation — who attacked Minutemen founder Jim Gilchrist at that institution of lower learning, Columbia University. Think about incidents where other conservative speakers were given the same treatment on other campuses, a phenomenon that prompted pundit Ann Coulter to retain bodyguards. You may think I'm painting the left with too broad a brush but, I can assure you, the very same spoiled brats would use the OP in any situation wherein the balance of power didn't favor them. But in a bastion of liberalism, where accountability is as absent as sensibility, they don't have to. And here's their message:
"I hate what you're saying, it makes me angry and you should shut your mouth! And you're going to shut your mouth whether you like it or not. We don't have to take it anymore [expletives omitted]."
I suppose it's one situation where you could say that honesty is definitely not refreshing.
Would that anyone claim I'm wrong, he has much to explain. Like, for instance, why these tolerant, unoffensive liberals, upon achieving institutional power, become similarly heavy-handed and use the principles of tolerance and offensiveness to squelch ideas they dislike. They have given us speech codes at universities and in corporations and hate speech laws in foreign countries. And the sanctimony, oh, the sanctimony. As they ostracize, penalize, terminate and arrest those who sin against political correctness, they tell us they're just protecting others from hateful feelings when they really just feel hateful.
Can there be doubt of this? This oh-so-sensitive set is the very one that defends the immersion of a crucifix in a jar of urine as artistic expression and the equation of 9/11 victims with Nazis as academic freedom.
If the truth about the OP hasn't raised your ire yet, understand that it is nothing less than part of the groundwork necessary for social engineering. If you want to effect social and legislative change, you must win the social and political debates so as to garner support for it. But if you can't defeat your adversaries in the arena of ideas, you have to keep them out of the competition; if you can't refute what's argued, you must stop it from being spoken.
So, first you demonize speech refutative of your agenda by labeling it "offensive," which cultivates social codes and attendant social pressure facilitative of the change you desire. Then, as these social codes become more widely accepted and entrenched, expressing them through rules and laws becomes more acceptable. This leads to the next stage, the organizational expression of them — the speech codes in various private institutions. And once sufficiently inured to these, it's time for the last stage of this imprisoning of ideas: The legislative expression of these social codes known as hate speech laws.
Case in point: It becomes harder for traditionalists to argue against anti-marriage if they're scorned and ostracized for saying homosexual behavior is sinful, destructive or disordered. It becomes harder still if those who do are punished within the context of our schools and businesses. And it becomes impossible if the government arrests you for such expression. The easiest way to win a debate is to prevent the other side from debating.
Thus, there is a lesson here we ignore at our own peril. You can have freedom from being offended or you can freedom of speech, but you cannot have both.
This is why I have no tolerance for the Offensiveness Ploy. It is manipulation by the mediocre, victory for the vacuous, derision by the dull. It is the protestation of a child, one with neither the brute force to be a Brownshirt nor the executive force to be a Blackshirt. If someone is offended by truth, the problem lies not with it being uttered. If someone doesn't want it uttered, he has a problem with truth.
The great victory of the left is that it has made us apologize for being right. A few may be truly offended, being in the grip of primitive pride. But, mostly, we are in the grip of a primitive ploy. We need more offensiveness, not less. We must offend the liars, the degraded, the darkness, the destroyers of civilization.
So my answer to the offended is, you have every right to be offended. Now, grow up. If you can't sit at the table of reasoned debate, go back to your bread and circuses. Let the adults figure out the problems of the world.
Selwyn Duke is a columnist, public speaker, and Internet entrepreneur whose work has been published widely online and in print. His articles appear at RenewAmerica, American Thinker, The Conservative Voice, and Blogcritics, as well as many other sites. He has been featured in The American Conservative (Pat Buchanan's magazine), on the Rush Limbaugh Show, and has a regular column in Christian Music Perspective.
© Copyright 2007 by Selwyn Duke
http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/duke/070206
Wednesday, February 7, 2007
Political Power and the Rule of Law
by Ron Paul
With the elections over and the 110th Congress settling in, the media have been reporting ad nauseam about who has assumed new political power in Washington. We're subjected to breathless reports about emerging power brokers in Congress; how so-and-so is now the powerful chair of an important committee; how certain candidates are amassing power for the 2008 elections, and so on. Nobody questions this use of the word "power," or considers its connotations. It's simply assumed, in Washington and the mainstream media, that political power is proper and inevitable.
The problem is that politicians are not supposed to have power over us – we're supposed to be free. We seem to have forgotten that freedom means the absence of government coercion. So when politicians and the media celebrate political power, they really are celebrating the power of certain individuals to use coercive state force.
Remember that one's relationship with the state is never voluntary. Every government edict, policy, regulation, court decision, and law ultimately is backed up by force, in the form of police, guns, and jails. That is why political power must be fiercely constrained by the American people.
The desire for power over other human beings is not something to celebrate, but something to condemn! The 20th century's worst tyrants were political figures, men who fanatically sought power over others through the apparatus of the state. They wielded that power absolutely, without regard for the rule of law.
Our constitutional system, by contrast, was designed to restrain political power and place limits on the size and scope of government. It is this system, the rule of law, which we should celebrate – not political victories.
Political power is not like the power possessed by those who otherwise obtain fame and fortune. After all, even the wealthiest individual cannot force anyone to buy a particular good or service; even the most famous celebrities cannot force anyone to pay attention to them. It is only when elites become politically connected that they begin to impose their views on all of us.
In a free society, government is restrained – and therefore political power is less important. I believe the proper role for government in America is to provide national defense, a court system for civil disputes, a criminal justice system for acts of force and fraud, and little else. In other words, the state as referee rather than an active participant in our society.
Those who hold political power, however, would lose their status in a society with truly limited government. It simply would not matter much who occupied various political posts, since their ability to tax, spend, and regulate would be severely curtailed. This is why champions of political power promote an activist government that involves itself in every area of our lives from cradle to grave. They gain popular support by promising voters that government will take care of everyone, while the media shower them with praise for their bold vision.
With the elections over and the 110th Congress settling in, the media have been reporting ad nauseam about who has assumed new political power in Washington. We're subjected to breathless reports about emerging power brokers in Congress; how so-and-so is now the powerful chair of an important committee; how certain candidates are amassing power for the 2008 elections, and so on. Nobody questions this use of the word "power," or considers its connotations. It's simply assumed, in Washington and the mainstream media, that political power is proper and inevitable.
The problem is that politicians are not supposed to have power over us – we're supposed to be free. We seem to have forgotten that freedom means the absence of government coercion. So when politicians and the media celebrate political power, they really are celebrating the power of certain individuals to use coercive state force.
Remember that one's relationship with the state is never voluntary. Every government edict, policy, regulation, court decision, and law ultimately is backed up by force, in the form of police, guns, and jails. That is why political power must be fiercely constrained by the American people.
The desire for power over other human beings is not something to celebrate, but something to condemn! The 20th century's worst tyrants were political figures, men who fanatically sought power over others through the apparatus of the state. They wielded that power absolutely, without regard for the rule of law.
Our constitutional system, by contrast, was designed to restrain political power and place limits on the size and scope of government. It is this system, the rule of law, which we should celebrate – not political victories.
Political power is not like the power possessed by those who otherwise obtain fame and fortune. After all, even the wealthiest individual cannot force anyone to buy a particular good or service; even the most famous celebrities cannot force anyone to pay attention to them. It is only when elites become politically connected that they begin to impose their views on all of us.
In a free society, government is restrained – and therefore political power is less important. I believe the proper role for government in America is to provide national defense, a court system for civil disputes, a criminal justice system for acts of force and fraud, and little else. In other words, the state as referee rather than an active participant in our society.
Those who hold political power, however, would lose their status in a society with truly limited government. It simply would not matter much who occupied various political posts, since their ability to tax, spend, and regulate would be severely curtailed. This is why champions of political power promote an activist government that involves itself in every area of our lives from cradle to grave. They gain popular support by promising voters that government will take care of everyone, while the media shower them with praise for their bold vision.
Political power is inherently dangerous in a free society: it threatens the rule of law, and thus threatens our fundamental freedoms. Those who understand this should object whenever political power is glorified.
February 6, 2007
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
Saturday, February 3, 2007
Whose Afraid of Another Constitutional Convention?
The United States has had only one constitutional convention, even though it gives the right to states to have Congress call another one when two-thirds of state legislatures ask for one. They have. But Congress has refused to act.
You may not want to know this. Americans have been successfully brainwashed to fear exactly what their revered Constitution gives them the right to have. Those smart Framers of the Constitution decided that we needed exactly what the establishment, pro-status quo elitists who run our plutocracy do NOT want us to have. There is even a well funded semi-secret group organized to prevent what we the people have a right to.
Has the brainwashing worked? You bet it has. In the absence of public furor, for over 200 years Congress has not done what Article V of the Constitution says it "shall" do. Congress has never issued a call for an Article V convention of state delegates to consider constitutional amendments, in response to two-thirds of state legislatures asking for one. That numeric requirement – the only specified requirement in Article V – has been satisfied, with 50 states submitting over 500 requests. Such a convention operating under authority of the Constitution would be a fourth, impermanent branch of the federal system, not beholding to the three permanent branches. Such independence has been cartooned into a frightening monster.
There is no uncertainty about what the Framers thought the nation needed. They wrote in crystal clear language a two-step process for amending the Constitution. First, craft proposals for possible amendments. Either Congress can do it or an Article V convention of state delegates can. Second, ratify proposed amendments by three-quarters of the states, either through their legislatures or state conventions, as Congress chooses. The Framers believed that Americans, acting through large numbers of state legislators, deserved a way to circumvent the excessive power of Congress or its refusal or inability to satisfy sovereign citizens – their bosses. No role was given to the federal judiciary and executive branch in amending the Constitution.
Who is threatened?
An Article V convention is a clear threat to the political, social and economic establishment exerting self-serving influence on Congress. It can put into public debate ideas for amending the Constitution that threaten established political forces, both liberal and conservative. Acting independently, it can courageously propose amendments without interference from status quo defenders.
So, not surprisingly, many persons and groups holding power oppose an Article V convention. How have they brainwashed Americans to fear such a convention? They fostered the image of a "runaway convention" – something to fear on a par with fears of a physical attack on the nation by foreign enemies or terrorists. How could something placed into our Constitution to thwart an ineffective federal government be turned on its head to become such a feared threat?
Clever people grasped onto a historical fact and extrapolated it into a phantasy nightmare. In fact, the nation’s first and only constitutional convention was a runaway. Rather than do what had been planned for it – namely to modify the Articles of Confederation that first tied the states together – the state delegates constructed what we have for over two hundred years worshipped: the U.S. Constitution. Those rascal Framers created a strong federal government that not everyone at the time wanted. The anti-status quo guys won.
Backstage power brokers have never wanted another convention that might change the political system they expertly corrupt and control. They made people believe that a convention could destroy their cherished, constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. Or, equally bad, strange amendments would overturn the structure of our federal government and throw the nation into chaos and destroy our lauded political and governmental stability.
The case for a convention
Is there any supporting evidence for fearing an Article V convention? No. To the contrary, there are solid reasons for demanding it.
First, there have been many state constitutional conventions and a huge number of amendments to state constitutions. Look around. Our states and their governments have not been ruined. Conventions were not hijacked and turned into weapons. And the first national constitution convention was hugely successful, even if it was a runaway, telling us that the good is the enemy of the better.
Second, the requirement that three-quarters of the states must ratify any specific amendments produced by an Article V convention provides a safety net. This is such a high hurdle that it is crazy to believe that truly awful amendments could ever become permanent changes to our Constitution. Anyway, when an amendment not worthy of retaining has happened, it was fixed through another amendment.
Third, the nation’s first Article V convention would be so unique and of such historical significance that in our modern age of media and Internet communication there would be a solar-bright light on all its activities, from the election of state delegates to their debates and final amendment proposals. In fact, this temporary fourth branch of our federal system would be under more public scrutiny and less susceptible to corruption than our present, permanent branches of government.
Fourth, we should reject the indirect way of changing our constitution, namely through interpretations and judgments by those few non-elected, political appointees that serve on the Supreme Court. Plus, as President George W. Bush has demonstrated, a runaway CEO of our nation along with an ineffective Congress can take big bites out of our constitutional rights and protections and suffer no consequences.
Fifth, while it is true that we have had considerable political and governmental stability, we have paid a heavy price for it: namely a permanent culture of corruption, lying and deception that have danced around our constitutional protections and riddled American democracy with hypocrisy. Too much stability has turned our democracy into a plutocracy and a convention could consider remedies.
Sixth, the majority of Americans are independents, not loyal Democrats or Republicans, and only an Article V convention offers a truly independent route to addressing intransigent root problems that the political system under two-party control has allowed to fester.
Seventh, the congressional experience with proposing amendments has shown that though many may be considered, few survive. Over 11,000 have been considered by Congress, but only 33 reached the ratification phase, and only 27 were ratified – very few in the last 100 years. [The last amendment was finally ratified in 1992 – 203 years after it was first proposed by Congress!] Why should we think that a convention would agree on a huge number of amendments? With all America watching, delegates that know their states would focus on a few critical amendments likely to be ratified.
Anti-conventionists
Lastly, what about that semi-secret group that was created to block attempts to amend our Constitution? Few know about The Constitution Project (www.constitutionproject.org), "that urges restraint in the constitutional amendment process." It was formed in 1997 to "oppose the facile rewriting of the U.S. Constitution." They fear "unthinking tinkering with fundamental rights and liberties" – actually, amendments on social and fiscal issues from conservatives. It has been funded by The Century Fund, a liberal group. The nearly 70 members in the constitutional amendments initiative are true status quo elites. Many were members of Congress or presidential appointees. They produced guidelines for evaluating possible amendments that, as discussed in "The Second Constitutional Convention" by Richard Labunski, were formulated to defeat attempts to amend the Constitution.
On the political right, the John Birch Society has consistently pushed the Big Runaway Lie and said the "prospect [of a convention] is ominous." "We do not believe that, under today’s mentality and morality, the nation can handle that much sovereignty in one place." To support their position, they cite elites: Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger said "there is no effective way to limit or muzzle the actions of a Constitutional Convention. The Convention could make its own rules and set its own agenda. Congress might try to limit the Convention to one amendment or to one issue, but there is no way to assure that the Convention would obey." Liberal Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg said "one of the most serious problems Article V poses is a runaway convention. There is no enforceable mechanism to prevent a convention from reporting out wholesale changes to our Constitution and Bill of Rights. …delegates could put a runaway convention in the hands of single-issue groups whose self-interest may be contrary to our national well-being." Ardent right-wingers admire what a joint congressional resolution said in 1935: "The government of the United States is not a concession to the people from some one higher up. It is the creation and the creature of the people themselves, as absolute sovereigns." Yet, they do NOT trust we the people to exercise our sovereignty and be smart enough to make a convention work in the public interest!
There are, luckily, pro-convention advocates. Listen to the wise words of Judge Thomas Brennan, former Chief Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court and Dean Emeritus and President of Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing, Michigan: "There is no danger of a runaway convention. That phrase, ‘runaway convention’, and all the accompanying horror stories about repealing the Bill of Rights are utterly without substance. They are myths, harmful to democracy, invented by those who are afraid to let the people exercise their historic and God-given right to self government." Amen.
Come join the fight for a convention
Despite the truth, opponents to an Article V convention have successfully framed the issue in the public consciousness. A highly negative status quo bias belief has been cemented into many minds – but not everyone. Even when confronted with pro-convention information, brainwashed people fall victim to the pain of cognitive dissonance. The truth is blocked out to minimize discomfort. They stay fixated with the implanted Big Runaway Lie that a convention will harm the nation. For those that let in objective reality, angry dissent must fuel demand for one.
Where do we go from here? If respect for our Constitution and our sovereign selves prevails, pro-convention patriots must work extra hard to move the nation towards an Article V convention. The first battle is to get a convention. The second challenging battle is to prevent a convention from being abused and co-opted by the power elites that would be out for blood after failing to prevent a convention. A high level of public support is critically needed to win both battles. To win the first battle, the smart strategy is not to let people become sidetracked about specific possible amendments. Those who have fostered the Big Runaway Lie will surely posit some terrible possible amendments – ones that would immediately frighten and alienate huge numbers of Americans. Public fear is their weapon.
Back to reality: What we now have, along with runaway public distrust of government, is runaway political disengagement as evidenced by low voter turnout, runaway disgust with both the Republican and Democratic Parties, runaway economic inequality, runaway corruption of government by corporate and other special interests, and runaway mainstream media dysfunction – a corporate press more than a free press. The only thing Americans should fear is more of the same.
Can people purge their brainwashing? Only if they confront the false status quo bias belief and acknowledge that power elites did it to maintain a system they manipulate. To be against a convention is to stay a victim. Let the truth set you free. Do not fear the second American constitutional convention. Embrace it. Do not worry about a convention being hijacked. Instead, stay focused on this ugly truth: America has already been hijacked by corporate and other special interests on the left and right, along with their sycophant corrupt politicians. Stay vigilant! Because power elites will use every dirty trick imaginable to instill fear about a convention and then to undermine it, should they lose the first battle.
Come work for an Article V convention to reboot American democracy and provide a transfusion into the body politic through a heavy dose of transparent direct democracy. Help the USA remain committed to the rule of law. Compel Congress to respect what is clearly stated in the Constitution, and the meaning of "shall."
The Supreme Court decides whether laws passed by Congress are or are not constitutional. But it refuses to tell Congress and the nation that Congress’ refusal to call an Article V convention is unconstitutional. What happened to checks and balances? Maybe Supreme Court Justices have also been brainwashed, or like members of Congress don’t want to risk losing their power.
The bitter truth is that literally every individual, group and institution now holding real power opposes a second national constitutional convention. Does that make the quest for a convention futile? Only if one gives up on the supermajority of Americans that should, for their own sake and the sake of future generations, want a convention. Elitists have much to lose. Everyone else has much to gain.
The fight for American democracy is not over. Our Founders fought British oppression and now we must fight congressional oppression. Can nonviolent collective action produce an Article V convention? Only if each of us says "yes!" And then help spread an idea virus to reach a tipping point among we the people: Millions of Americans must tell state legislatures and congressional delegations they demand a convention. Tools may include citizen state petitions on the Internet and thousands of community meetings arranged through meetup.com. Such activities and a convention itself would provide what many believe the Framers intended to create: a deliberative democracy.
On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the Constitution, esteemed political scientist James MacGregor Burns, warned that "major changes will not be made until there is a severe crisis – at which time we might open the floodgates to reckless constitutional change." Instead, he advised taking thoughtful action now. "We must all become framers," he advised.
To keep working on the goal of forming "a more perfect Union,’ and as a political necessity and a moral obligation, we OUGHT to have a second national constitutional convention – which means we the people CAN have one. Simply put, an Article V convention is all about "power to the people." Either you believe in it or you don’t. The people who created our nation and Constitution believed in it. They gave us Article V. Our elected MISrepresentatives in Congress and their masters don’t believe in it. They won’t willingly give us a convention. We have a runaway Congress. That’s what’s frightening. And that’s why we must fight for a convention.
 | By Joel Hirschhorn Published: 1/16/2007 |
Friday, February 2, 2007
GLOBALISM: YOU WON’T LIKE IT!
By Frosty Wooldridge
April 13, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
When you look at globalists like Senator Kerry, Condi Rice, Vice President Cheney, Senator Frist, President Bush and others in our nation’s capitol, you’re looking at men and women performing a frightening experiment on the United States of America. You’re also looking at men and women who have failed to stand up for the U.S. Constitution.
They’ve failed their oath of office. They contrived us into an un-winnable war; created a horrific national debt; opened our borders to unending illegal immigration; outsourced, insourced and offshored jobs stolen from our middle class—and finally, they abet lawlessness of 20 million illegal aliens—instead of preserving our rights as American citizens.
These leaders support globalism. Their goal is to bring this country into line with the poverty and corruption of Third World countries like Mexico. A reader said, “You Americans have been living an artificially high standard of living for far too long; its time you drop down to the poverty levels of the Third World. Massive immigration will do that to you.”
With one million legal immigrants pouring into our nation from Third World countries annually and over three million illegal aliens crossing America’s borders each year—folks, that man must be laughing his head off at our sinking into poverty like millions in the Third World.
Globalization, or globalism, means centralization operating on a global scale - that is to say, centralization aiming at global dictatorship, a kind of ultimate expansion of tyranny. It follows that everything you see in the realm of politics, economics, human rights, and especially in all things seen as social engineering, reflect the endeavors of centralization. This will not change course, nor will it self-destruct! No! It needs to be opposed!
An interview with Mel Fowler concerning the debilitating aspects of America’s dabbling in globalism may provoke an outcry, and later, fear of the future.
“I think most Americans have some idea of what "tyranny" means,” Fowler said. “It's a quaint word we haven't heard people use for quite some time. Because things that have been happening to us in our United States of America of late, the word tyranny is coming back into use.
“Before our very eyes, the United States has been transformed from a settled, relatively good-natured, comfortable country into an imperialist, war-making state. The whole world is mad at the United States!
Fowler continued, “When I was a child, we were poor. Even seemingly solid businesses struggled to stay alive. We worried about unemployment, the depression and the approaching war (WWII) yet, in some way that's hard to explain, we were happy. Or perhaps I should say we had faith that the underlying supports were still in place. We were poor, and we didn't have anything. We are still poor, but now most of us have everything we might want, and then some - most of it acquired by going into debt.
“Now we have globalism. It is an extension, to include the entire planet, of everything the British Empire aimed at. More than two centuries ago, Americans fought to free themselves from British Imperialism. Globalism, the current form taken by the lusts for empire is guaranteed tyranny for us all, except for the globalist elites. It is infinitely authoritarian in its mind set. It would seem that the globalist center of power will be seated at such a distance that there will be no concern or need for democracy, constitutionalism, or legal protections for common people, whose numbers are to be so drastically reduced.”
The front line of the conflict we have with globalism is its very opposite, NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.
“Whereas globalism seeks to centralize authority, power and wealth in the hands of its elite,” Fowler said. “The interests of common people are served, not by centralization of those items, but by the opposite of centralization: by a distributive scheme regarding authority, power and wealth. National sovereignty is the only thing you have that protects those things that you most treasure. Without it, you have nothing. Providing you are willing to join forces with others like you, with the retention of national sovereignty, you might just have a fighting chance. If we lose our national sovereignty, hence our freedom and all else we care about, we will never get it back.
“The overlords of globalism appear now to be attempting to sprint to their goal of world dictatorship, and we now have some other things to worry us, not the least of which is the destructive power of several million illegal aliens pouring into our country every year.
“We have completely lost control of the political life of this country. The two-party system works splendidly for the globalists who captured our country some time ago. Those who see that the United States is in serious trouble are dismayed by the appearance that the great majority of our citizenry are not aware of it. They go on as if life is sweet and getting sweeter.
“As everyone knows, the two-party political system we have is rotten to the core. The public perception is that there are two ways to waste your vote: (1) vote the ticket of one of the major parties or (2) vote otherwise (i.e., third party or write in).
“Our legislative bodies are no longer responsive to the citizens and their needs, members of Congress and the Senate now answerable only to special interests represented by lobbying organizations such as AIPAC, the sources of wealth they depend on for necessary re-election money.
“Our manufacturing facilities and manufacturing jobs with them have been moved overseas. We are now dependent on China to produce and sell us what we need.
“As a result of profligate spending on wars and the maintenance of the huge military forces thought to be necessary for the Imperial power our government in its dream-like condition believes it to be, the United States now has the greatest burden of debt in its history, both public and private, accumulated during the period in which we acquired the greatest number of new millionaires and billionaires ever to grace our land, while the U.S. economy now perches on the precipice of collapse and bankruptcy, Alan Greenspan having performed magnificently for Wall Street.
“Our Constitution, laws and freedoms, are being trashed piecemeal by people who appear to place no value on those freedoms which the Constitution of the United States guarantees to its citizens, such people coming to America from various dictatorial regimes where they never acquired a respect for our love of freedom.
“The United States and its national sovereignty, we are told, are soon to become a thing of the past, the territory it now occupies to become part of a "region" in the globalist scheme consisting of Canada and Mexico with the former United States in between.
“We find that we have been substantially lied to about the purposes of environmental and land preservation measures, most of which we now know are tied into globalist endeavors under the sponsorship of the UN, to evict the public from most of the land we Americans thought of in the past as belonging to the people of our country for their use and enjoyment.
“Farmers who wish to continue to be farmers will not be allowed to produce their own seed for crops of subsequent years, but will have to apply to Monsanto or other corporate monstrosity for purchase of genetically modified seeds, from which only next year's crop may be grown.
“Law enforcement in The United States is rapidly being consolidated under the federal government and The Department of Homeland Security with its political biases, its inattention to aliens coming into the country, its taste for annoying ordinary American citizens with inappropriate personal searches at airports, its preemption of responsibility for local police departments and County Sheriffs, and other outrages.”
Millions of illegal aliens marching in our streets in promotion of anarchy in the past two weeks without fear of our president manifesting his oath of office and our impotent Congress not standing for the rule of law--exhibit the worst behavior of our leaders. It also shows you that the reader was correct, “You Americans have been living an artificially high standard of living; it’s time for you to drop down to the poverty levels of the rest of the Third World. Immigration will do that to you.” Globalism—you won’t like it because it will make America country like their countries. The American Dream dies with globalism.
© 2006 Frosty Wooldridge - All Rights Reserved
Frosty Wooldridge possesses a unique view of the world, cultures and families in that he has bicycled around the globe 100,000 miles, on six continents in the past 26 years.
He has written hundreds of articles (regularly) for 17 national and 2 international magazines. He has had hundreds of editorials published in top national newspapers including the Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post, Albany Herald and Christian Science Monitor.
His first book, "HANDBOOK FOR TOURING BICYCLISTS" by Falcon Press is available nationwide. His second book "STRIKE THREE! TAKE YOUR BASE" by the Brookfield Reader published in January 2002. His bicycle books include "BICYCLING AROUND THE WORLD."
His latest book. ‘IMMIGRATION’S UNARMED INVASION—DEADLY CONSEQUENCES.’
Frosty Wooldridge has guest lectured at Cornell University, teaching creative writing workshops, magazine writing at Michigan State University, and has presented environmental science lectures at the University of Colorado, University of Denver and Regis University. He also lectures on "Religion and Ethics" at Front Range College in Colorado.
Website: www.FrostyWooldridge.com
E:Mail: frostyw@juno.com
April 13, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
When you look at globalists like Senator Kerry, Condi Rice, Vice President Cheney, Senator Frist, President Bush and others in our nation’s capitol, you’re looking at men and women performing a frightening experiment on the United States of America. You’re also looking at men and women who have failed to stand up for the U.S. Constitution.
They’ve failed their oath of office. They contrived us into an un-winnable war; created a horrific national debt; opened our borders to unending illegal immigration; outsourced, insourced and offshored jobs stolen from our middle class—and finally, they abet lawlessness of 20 million illegal aliens—instead of preserving our rights as American citizens.
These leaders support globalism. Their goal is to bring this country into line with the poverty and corruption of Third World countries like Mexico. A reader said, “You Americans have been living an artificially high standard of living for far too long; its time you drop down to the poverty levels of the Third World. Massive immigration will do that to you.”
With one million legal immigrants pouring into our nation from Third World countries annually and over three million illegal aliens crossing America’s borders each year—folks, that man must be laughing his head off at our sinking into poverty like millions in the Third World.
Globalization, or globalism, means centralization operating on a global scale - that is to say, centralization aiming at global dictatorship, a kind of ultimate expansion of tyranny. It follows that everything you see in the realm of politics, economics, human rights, and especially in all things seen as social engineering, reflect the endeavors of centralization. This will not change course, nor will it self-destruct! No! It needs to be opposed!
An interview with Mel Fowler concerning the debilitating aspects of America’s dabbling in globalism may provoke an outcry, and later, fear of the future.
“I think most Americans have some idea of what "tyranny" means,” Fowler said. “It's a quaint word we haven't heard people use for quite some time. Because things that have been happening to us in our United States of America of late, the word tyranny is coming back into use.
“Before our very eyes, the United States has been transformed from a settled, relatively good-natured, comfortable country into an imperialist, war-making state. The whole world is mad at the United States!
Fowler continued, “When I was a child, we were poor. Even seemingly solid businesses struggled to stay alive. We worried about unemployment, the depression and the approaching war (WWII) yet, in some way that's hard to explain, we were happy. Or perhaps I should say we had faith that the underlying supports were still in place. We were poor, and we didn't have anything. We are still poor, but now most of us have everything we might want, and then some - most of it acquired by going into debt.
“Now we have globalism. It is an extension, to include the entire planet, of everything the British Empire aimed at. More than two centuries ago, Americans fought to free themselves from British Imperialism. Globalism, the current form taken by the lusts for empire is guaranteed tyranny for us all, except for the globalist elites. It is infinitely authoritarian in its mind set. It would seem that the globalist center of power will be seated at such a distance that there will be no concern or need for democracy, constitutionalism, or legal protections for common people, whose numbers are to be so drastically reduced.”
The front line of the conflict we have with globalism is its very opposite, NATIONAL SOVEREIGNTY.
“Whereas globalism seeks to centralize authority, power and wealth in the hands of its elite,” Fowler said. “The interests of common people are served, not by centralization of those items, but by the opposite of centralization: by a distributive scheme regarding authority, power and wealth. National sovereignty is the only thing you have that protects those things that you most treasure. Without it, you have nothing. Providing you are willing to join forces with others like you, with the retention of national sovereignty, you might just have a fighting chance. If we lose our national sovereignty, hence our freedom and all else we care about, we will never get it back.
“The overlords of globalism appear now to be attempting to sprint to their goal of world dictatorship, and we now have some other things to worry us, not the least of which is the destructive power of several million illegal aliens pouring into our country every year.
“We have completely lost control of the political life of this country. The two-party system works splendidly for the globalists who captured our country some time ago. Those who see that the United States is in serious trouble are dismayed by the appearance that the great majority of our citizenry are not aware of it. They go on as if life is sweet and getting sweeter.
“As everyone knows, the two-party political system we have is rotten to the core. The public perception is that there are two ways to waste your vote: (1) vote the ticket of one of the major parties or (2) vote otherwise (i.e., third party or write in).
“Our legislative bodies are no longer responsive to the citizens and their needs, members of Congress and the Senate now answerable only to special interests represented by lobbying organizations such as AIPAC, the sources of wealth they depend on for necessary re-election money.
“Our manufacturing facilities and manufacturing jobs with them have been moved overseas. We are now dependent on China to produce and sell us what we need.
“As a result of profligate spending on wars and the maintenance of the huge military forces thought to be necessary for the Imperial power our government in its dream-like condition believes it to be, the United States now has the greatest burden of debt in its history, both public and private, accumulated during the period in which we acquired the greatest number of new millionaires and billionaires ever to grace our land, while the U.S. economy now perches on the precipice of collapse and bankruptcy, Alan Greenspan having performed magnificently for Wall Street.
“Our Constitution, laws and freedoms, are being trashed piecemeal by people who appear to place no value on those freedoms which the Constitution of the United States guarantees to its citizens, such people coming to America from various dictatorial regimes where they never acquired a respect for our love of freedom.
“The United States and its national sovereignty, we are told, are soon to become a thing of the past, the territory it now occupies to become part of a "region" in the globalist scheme consisting of Canada and Mexico with the former United States in between.
“We find that we have been substantially lied to about the purposes of environmental and land preservation measures, most of which we now know are tied into globalist endeavors under the sponsorship of the UN, to evict the public from most of the land we Americans thought of in the past as belonging to the people of our country for their use and enjoyment.
“Farmers who wish to continue to be farmers will not be allowed to produce their own seed for crops of subsequent years, but will have to apply to Monsanto or other corporate monstrosity for purchase of genetically modified seeds, from which only next year's crop may be grown.
“Law enforcement in The United States is rapidly being consolidated under the federal government and The Department of Homeland Security with its political biases, its inattention to aliens coming into the country, its taste for annoying ordinary American citizens with inappropriate personal searches at airports, its preemption of responsibility for local police departments and County Sheriffs, and other outrages.”
Millions of illegal aliens marching in our streets in promotion of anarchy in the past two weeks without fear of our president manifesting his oath of office and our impotent Congress not standing for the rule of law--exhibit the worst behavior of our leaders. It also shows you that the reader was correct, “You Americans have been living an artificially high standard of living; it’s time for you to drop down to the poverty levels of the rest of the Third World. Immigration will do that to you.” Globalism—you won’t like it because it will make America country like their countries. The American Dream dies with globalism.
© 2006 Frosty Wooldridge - All Rights Reserved
Frosty Wooldridge possesses a unique view of the world, cultures and families in that he has bicycled around the globe 100,000 miles, on six continents in the past 26 years.
He has written hundreds of articles (regularly) for 17 national and 2 international magazines. He has had hundreds of editorials published in top national newspapers including the Rocky Mountain News, Denver Post, Albany Herald and Christian Science Monitor.
His first book, "HANDBOOK FOR TOURING BICYCLISTS" by Falcon Press is available nationwide. His second book "STRIKE THREE! TAKE YOUR BASE" by the Brookfield Reader published in January 2002. His bicycle books include "BICYCLING AROUND THE WORLD."
His latest book. ‘IMMIGRATION’S UNARMED INVASION—DEADLY CONSEQUENCES.’
Frosty Wooldridge has guest lectured at Cornell University, teaching creative writing workshops, magazine writing at Michigan State University, and has presented environmental science lectures at the University of Colorado, University of Denver and Regis University. He also lectures on "Religion and Ethics" at Front Range College in Colorado.
Website: www.FrostyWooldridge.com
E:Mail: frostyw@juno.com
Thursday, February 1, 2007
What if we're all in a trance?
The following article by Howard Rheingold discusses Charlie Tart's work on Consensus Trance. Consensus Trance can be defined as the body of ideas we agree on that inform our ordinary waking consciousness.
Charley Tart on Consensus Trance: Wake up!
By Howard Rheingold
The relationship between the use of language and the induction of trance states might be one of the keys to understanding life in the last years of the technology millennium. What if we're all in a trance, and have been given hypnotic suggestions to ignore the evidence that we are in a trance? As we stumble around, bedazzled, enormous machines eat the earth. How would we treat people who try to tell us that we need to wake up? Ask Charley Tart, Ph.D. As Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis, where he has taught, conducted research, and written books for the past 26 years, Charles Tart, Ph.D., qualifies as a tweedcoat and even a whitecoat. He is a member in good standing of the science cult, and his down to earth, low-key presentation lends an unexpected insider punch to his statements about the science cult's blind spots -- and every human's blind spots. He thinks of himself as a scientist, not a guru, working in a field that is underpopulated despite it's importance. It is underpopulated because research into consciousness is dangerous to an experimental psychologist's career, and because it isn't easy to do the kind of research that can get the attention of the orthodoxy. Tart's most recent book is Waking Up: Overcoming the Obstacles to Human Potential. [...] You can contact Dr. Tart via email: cttart@ucdavis.edu.-- Howard Rheingold
States of consciousness, from altered states to the state earthlings call "normal waking consciousness," have been Charley Tart's specialty for two decades. Surprisingly, Dr. Tart no longer calls it "normal consciousness," and has substituted what he feels to be a more accurate term: consensus trance. To him, the idea of "normal consciousness" is the kind of convenient fiction illustrated by the famous folktale of "the emperor's new clothes." Together, human groups agree on which of their perceptions should be admitted to awareness (hence, consensus), then they train each other to see the world in that way and only in that way (hence trance).
In the 1960s, Tart's groundbreaking scientific articles about hypnosis and dreams appeared in psychological journals, and in 1969 he published a collection of scientific articles, Altered States of Consciousness, bringing together laboratory studies of yogins, analysis of the brain-waves of Zenmasters, research into hypnotically induced dreams, lucid dreams, mutual hypnosis, and other borderlands of human consciousness that were beginning to attract scientific attention.
By his account, Charles Tart's childhood interest in his own vivid dream life -- a wondrous realm that everybody around him declared to be "unreal" -- was a factor in his decision to become a psychologist. Each night, in the dream state, he discovered as all children do that he could visit magical kingdoms and do all manner of miraculous things. And like all children, when he told his parents about these dreams he was reminded that such experiences are "figments of the imagination." If all his nocturnal adventures were not considered to be legitimate reality to the adults he told about his dreams, what was so special about being awake that made it more real? And why do people, when awake, seem oblivious of the existence of that other, magical realm of dream consciousness?
Experimental psychology was the vehicle Tart chose to pursue his questions about consciousness and reality. Although much of his early research involved dreaming, he was attracted to the mysterious altered state of consciousness known as hypnosis. Tart learned from his earliest experiences as a hypnotist that reality can be influenced far more strongly by one's state of mind than most people suspect, most of the time:
"In inducing hypnosis I would sit down with a volunteer who wanted to be hypnotized," Tart recalled. "We were presumably both normal people. With our eyes we presumably saw the same room around us that others saw; with our ears we presumably heard the ordinary sounds in the room. We smelled what odors were there and felt the solidity of the real objects in the room."
"Then I began to talk to the subject. Researchers give the style of talking the special name of 'hypnotic induction procedure,' but basically it was just talking. The subject was given no drugs, was not in a special environment, had nothing external done to his brain -- and yet in twenty minutes I could drastically change the universe he lived in. With a few words, the subject could not lift his arm. With a few more he heard voices talking when no one was there. A few more words and he could open his eyes and see something that no one else could see, or, with the right suggestion, a real object in plain sight in the room would be invisible to him."
How can anybody distinguish, then, between dream, hypnotic trance, and reality? Dehypnotization, the procedure of breaking out of the normal human state of awareness, according to both mystics and hypnotists, is a matter of direct mental experience. The method can be learned, and that's the nutshell description of the esoteric wisdom of the ages.
The clues from hypnosis research, experiments into the influence of beliefs upon perceptions, and teachings from the mystical traditions, led Tart to see how normal waking consciousness is the product of a true hypnotic procedure that is practiced by parents, teachers, and peers, reinforced by every social interaction, and maintained by powerful taboos. Consensus trance induction Ñ the process of learning the "normal waking" state of mind -- is involuntary, and occurs under conditions that give it far more power than ordinary hypnotists are ever allowed. When infants are first subjected to the processes that induce consensus trance, they are all vulnerable and dependent upon their consensus hypnotists, for their parents are the ones who initiate them into the rules of their culture, according to the instructions that had been impressed upon them by their own parents, teachers, and peers.
Among the techniques prohibited to ethical hypnotists but wielded effectively in the induction of consensus trance are: the enormous amount of time devoted to the induction (years to a lifetime), the use of physical force, emotional force, love and validation, guilt, and the instinctive trust children have for their parents. As they learn myriad versions of 'the right way to do things' -- and the things not to do -- from their parents, children build and continue to maintain a mental model of the world, a filter on their reality lens that they learn to perceive everything through (except partially in dreams). The result leaves most people in an automatized daze. "It is a fundamental mistake of man's to think that he is alive, when he has merely fallen asleep in life's waiting room," is the way Idries Shah, a contemporary exponent of ancient Middle Eastern mystical psychologies, put it (Seeker After Truth, Octagon Press, 1982).
If humans are indeed on the verge of realizing that we are caught in illusions while thinking we are perceiving reality, how do we propose to escape? The answer, Tart has concluded, could come in the form of "mindfulness training " -- a variety of exercises for elevating awareness by deliberately paying closer-than-usual attention to the mundane details of everyday life. Gurdjieff called it "self-remembering," and many flavors of psychotherapist, East and West, use it. Mindfulness is a skill that can be honed by the right approach to what is happening right in front of you: "Be here now" as internal gymnastics. Working, eating, waiting for a traffic light to change can furnish opportunities for mindfulness. Observe what you are feeling, thinking, perceiving, don't get hung up on judging it, just pay attention. Tart thinks this kind of self-observation -- noticing the automatization -- is the first step toward waking up.
Why aren't the psychology departments of every major university working on the best ways to dehypnotize ourselves?
"We tend to think of consensus consciousness like a clearing in the wilderness." Tart replied. "We don't know what monsters are out there. We've made a place that's comfortable and fortified, and we are very ambivalent about leaving this little clearing for even a moment."
Most of the world's major value systems, Tart contends, are based on an extraordinary state of consciousness on the part of a prophet, or a group of people. To Christians, being "born again" is an altered state of consciousness. Moses heard sacred instructions from a burning bush. Mohammed received the Koran in a dream. Buddha sat under a tree and woke up. Most of the values that guide people's lives around the world today are derived from those extraordinary states of mind.
"If the sources of our values derive from altered-states experiences, and if we want to have some intelligent control of our destiny, we'd better not define these states out of existence. They are the vital sources of life and culture and if we don't really understand altered states we're going to live a very dispirited life. "
I asked him if he sees a way out of this dilemma of self-reinforcing institutional and individual trancemanship.
"Yes, I do," he replied. "We are indoctrinated to believe that intellect is what makes humans great, and emotions are primitive leftovers from our jungle ancestors that interfere with our marvelous logical minds. It is possible to train people to base decisions on the appropriate mixture of emotional, intellectual and body-instinctive intelligence. Compassion and empathy are emotions, and I agree with the Buddhists that these emotions are highly evolved, not primitive. With enough training in self-observation, we can develop a new kind of intelligence to bear on the world. Everyday life is quite an interesting place if you pay attention to it."
This article was converted from the text in Howard Rheingold's collection, formerly at http://riceinfo.rice.edu/projects/RDA/VirtualCity/Rheingold/texts/.
Conspiracy Theorists
This is an article I had originally posted in my MySpace blog. I republish it here as Jolly Roger makes some salient points about so-called "Conspiracy Theories" that the reader would do best to consider before off-handedly dismissing an idea because he or she suspects a conspiracy.
By Jolly Roger, slicingthroats@yahoo.com
Everyone has heard, and has probably used the term "conspiracy theorist," and the fact of the term being in common use, also indicates that we generally agree on what it means. I saw a movie by that name, and the title character was a raving lunatic who kept his food in thermoses with combination locks to reduce his chances of being poisoned by imaginary enemies.
Regardless of how the stupid movie turned out, what's important here is the common perception people have of someone to whom that label is applied, and just as important, is who it is that applies the label. The common perception is that someone who is labeled a "conspiracy theorist" is suffering from some type of psychological disorder, and that label is usually applied to people by our government, and our news media. The next thing to consider, is that the label is applied to anyone who questions our government's version of events in any matter. Doesn't it logically follow that the media are teaching us to assume that anyone who questions the government is insane? When that label is applied to a person, doesn't it become easy to dismiss everything they say without even hearing it? How convenient for them.
I think the label first became widely used to slander people who questioned the details surrounding the JFK assassination, and forty years later, there aren't too many thinking people who still believe the Warren Commission's "lone gunman" explanation. That explanation is doubted by everyone who has taken the time to look into the details, and believed only by people who refuse to.
Which is "theory" and which is fact? In the absence of a full confession, this can only be decided by a preponderance of evidence, and it would be silly to come to a conclusion on any matter without looking at all the evidence available. This is only common sense, just as it is safe to assume some degree of guilt or complicity on the part of anyone who lies about an event, or tries to hide, plant, or destroy any type of evidence.
Conspiracy theories arise from evidence. After the government releases an explanation of a particular event, a conspiracy theory is only born because evidence exists to disprove their explanation, or at least call it into question. There's nothing insane about it, unless you define sanity as believing whatever the government tells you. In light of the fact that our government lies to us regularly, I would define believing everything they tell you as utter stupidity.
In July of 1996, flight 800 exploded over Long Island. Shortly after their terrorist explanation failed scrutiny, our government then explained the event by claiming that a faulty electrical system caused a spark that ignited a fuel tank, and the people who doubted this explanation were quickly labeled "conspiracy theorists." More than a hundred witnesses saw a missile travel from the ground up to the plane just prior to its explosion, bu t rather than being treated as eyewitnesses to an event, they were labeled "conspiracy theorists," which label allowed all subsequent investigation to ignore the strongest evidence in the matter.
Our "investigative" news agencies decided to accept and disseminate the official story, and they helped us forget the U.S. naval station nearby, the fact that missiles were regularly test fired there, and naturally, they paid no heed to more than a hundred "conspiracy theorists" who saw the plane get blown out of the sky by a missile. I believe that the U.S. Navy accidentally shot down flight 800, and that's my belief because it's the most sensible explanation that can be drawn from the available evidence. I'm not theorizing about conspiracies, but there are conflicting explanations of the event, and if the Navy did accidentally blow a passenger plane out of the sky, who would have a motive to lie about it? The U.S. government, or a hundred witnesses?
Then of course, there were the "crazy conspiracy theories" arising from the bombing of the Alfred Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City. In that matter, audio tapes and witnesses agree that there were two explosions, the first of which occurred inside the building between eight and ten seconds before the truck bomb exploded. Explosive experts agree that Timothy McVeigh's fertilizer bomb could not have destroyed the building, and the FBI's counter terrorism chief, and members of BATF lied about their whereabouts during and prior to the catastrophe. The evening news decided not to tell you any of this, and they will label anyone who tries to a "paranoid conspiracy theorist." In light of the evidence, we would be complete fools if a conspiracy theory didn't exist.
There were no conspiracy theories arising from the explosion of flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and there were no conspiracy theories arising from the work of the uni-bomber, so the newly invented psycho-babble that tries to explain the malady of conspiracy theorists, also needs to explain why millions of conspiracy theorists all decided not to theorize about those events. There is no psychological malady. There was simply no evidence to indicate a conspiracy.
The real question is not why people theorize about conspiracies, but why people choose to believe the government's version of events when it's obvious that they're lying. One reason is that most people never see the evidence because our "news" industry hides it, and another reason is that the same news industry will quickly associate anyone who questions the government with the people who see Elvis, Bigfoot, and UFO's.
But sadly, I think the main reason people choose to believe the government's version of events despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is because it's easier, and safer. If you ignore most of the evidence, and accept as plausible whatever ridiculous explanation the T.V. provides, your life remains simple, and you get to sit on your ass and watch more T.V. If on the other hand, you pluck your head from that same ass and realize you've been lied to, as a citizen in a democratic society, you're instantly burdened with being responsible for doing something about it. Every citizen of the United States has a civic duty to participate in their government, and keep themselves informed of its actions, or government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" isn't possible. You were warned that "eternal vigilance is the price of freedom, " but you chose to ignore you r government, and believe whatever they told you, and because of this, Americans have lost their freedom. Although presidents and senators are public servants, unlike the dog catcher and mailman, they wield a lot of power over people's lives, and that's why they have to be watched, and scrutinized.
Statistical analysts from UCLA and Rutgers University believe that John Kerry won the 2004 presidential election by an estimated 1.3 million votes, and despite the fact that these learned scholars are probably the most qualified people alive to forward such an opinion, our news media dismisses this as "conspiracy theory." George W. Bush lost the 2000 election, and he lost the 2004 election, but he's occupying the White House, shredding our constitution, and stealing our wealth and freedom in a "war on terror" that's as fraudulent as his presidency because many Americans are too stupid to see it, too lazy to do anything about it, or both.
I'm sorry if I sound angry, but the fact of the matter is that I am angry. While you were staring into the television like an idiot, our freedom, wealth, and constitutional protections have been stolen from us, and because you're stupid enough to believe the manure being shoveled by our government, you've allowed them to commit bigger and more heinous crimes. Because you were too lazy to research their nonsensical economic policies, and see them for the scams that they are, we'll all soon be living in poverty. And because you're so lazy, apathetic, and easily lied to, millions have died for the profits of a few. I have every right to be angry, and only a fool wouldn't be.
Only a small portion of my anger is reserved for the government of the United States, because they only did what can be expected of any government. They grabbed money, power and control where it was easy to do so. Most of my anger is directed toward my fellow American citizens, because they allowed it to happen by believing whatever they're told, and not doing what's expected of them. Patriotism in America does not mean waving the flag in blind loyalty to the government. As an American citizen, you have a civic duty to question your government, and hold them accountable for their actions, not use the flag as a blindfold. The American people have been duped once again, and it doesn't seem like it's a difficult thing to accomplish.
America's latest "conspiracy nuts" are better known as the 9-11 truth movement. The news media are doing their usual job of slandering them with their usual childish name calling, but for more than three years, they have refused to show you the documented fact, scientific data, expert testimony, photographic evidence, or the credible eyewitness accounts that prove U.S. government complicity in the events of September, 11, 2001. If this we re just a "crazy conspiracy theory," I don't think people in our government would have worked so hard to destroy, hide, and lie about the evidence. The White House tried to derail every investigation into the matter. If w e had an honest government, we wouldn't have conspiracy theories. We would have honest investigations, and fair trials, but these things are disappearing from America.
There are disturbing facts regarding the events of September 11 that every American needs to be aware of , but naturally, none of it will be on T.V. I've met a lot of people in the 9-11 truth movement, and I can assure you that none of them are crazy, paranoid, or even "conspiracy theorists." One generalization I can make about them is that they all seem to be very intelligent. Maybe the smartest thing you could do would be to start listening to them. The Arabs don't "hate your freedom." The White House hates your freedom, because it's the only thing that stands between them, and unlimited power. - Jolly Roger
Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Freedom" - Thomas Jefferson
911truth.org 911review.org 911review.com physics911.org wtc7.net
Anything written by "Jolly Roger" is the property of the American Resistance Movement, and the author hereby grants permission to anyone who so desires to post, print, copy, or distribute this letter as they see fit, and in fact, the author encourages you to do so.
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