Monday, December 31, 2012
Libertarians, don't fret. We are part of the solution...
Why We Fight
by Jacob G. Hornberger December 31, 2012
Given the statist direction in which our nation continues to head, one might be tempted to succumb to despondency. After all, everywhere you look, there’s a crisis, with calls for even more statism to address the crises. The worse things get, the more hopeless the situation might seem for people striving for the triumph of libertarianism.
There certainly is no guarantee that we libertarians will succeed in restoring liberty to our land within our respective life spans. Many champions of liberty have passed away without seeing the restoration of liberty.
But the fact is though that none of us is in charge of saving the world or the country. The most we can do is fight to restore a free society to our land. We have no control over the outcome, and so there is no need to despair over it.
One thing is for sure, however: If we don’t fight, the chances of restoring liberty to America are virtually nil.
Why do we fight? Not just because it’s a necessary prerequisite to winning but, more important, because it’s the right thing to do. We are who we are — libertarians — and it is incumbent on us to be true to ourselves and to the philosophy that is part of us.
How do we fight? Through the power of ideas. There really isn’t any other way. The statists have their philosophy and we have ours. It’s a matter of whether we libertarians can end up attracting a sufficiently large number of committed, dedicated, passionate people who ultimately reach a critical mass that brings about a major shift toward liberty in American society.
Consider what must have seemed to be insurmountable odds facing statists in, say, 1890. Americans were living in a society without Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, income taxation, paper money, a Federal Reserve, economic regulations, farm subsidies, immigration controls, public schooling, drug laws, a standing army, a military-industrial complex, a CIA, foreign invasions and occupations, torture, regime-change operations, and assassination.
Yet, did the statists throw up their hands in despair and exclaim, “Oh, we’ll never win. Let’s give up.” No, they continued expounding their ideas of socialism, interventionism, and imperialism because they believed in them.
And no one can deny that the statists were persuasive. Within a few decades, they had revolutionized American life, bringing to America the welfare-warfare state under which we now live, under the rubric of “freedom, free enterprise, and national security.”
One of the advantages we libertarians have today is that the results are now in for everyone to see. The welfare-warfare state has brought us an extremely dysfunctional society consisting of political plunder, coerced charity, envy, covetousness, torture, assassination, wars of aggression, masses of drug users, periodic massacres of people, a submissive citizenry with stultified consciences, perpetual crises and chaos, not to mention ever-growing severe infringements on liberty and privacy.
So, at least now we have two different systems and results that we can point to: the system the Founding Fathers brought into existence, which produced the most prosperous, charitable, peaceful, and harmonious society in history, and the system the statists have foisted upon our land, which has produced the opposite. Americans can make the choice.
But regardless of how things work out, the fact is that we libertarians are part of one of the grandest, most glorious movements in history, one that ranks up there with those that brought us such monumental achievements as Magna Carta, the English Petition of Right, habeas corpus, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, due process of law, and the right to keep and bear arms.
Can we prevail? Sure we can. But that’s not why we fight. We fight because we’re right.
Link:
http://fff.org/2012/12/31/47733/
Our elected leaders cannot serve two masters...
Cut Aid to the Poor, Not Israel
by MEDEA BENJAMIN And CHARLES DAVIS
With the U.S. economy in the tank and governments at all levels facing massive budget shortfalls, politicians left and right are seeking ways to curb spending. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to eliminate collective bargaining rights and the decent pay that goes with them. President Barack Obama’s budget includes halving the home-heating oil subsidy poor households depend on.
As Republicans and Democrats propose cuts in programs that actually benefit their increasingly impoverished constituents, though, they agree there’s one area of the budget that’s not to be touched: the annual $3 billion subsidy U.S. taxpayers provide to the Israeli military.
One of the biggest defenders of the handout is House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. "There will be no cuts to security assistance to the Jewish State of Israel," her chief of staff declared in a recent letter to House Republicans. The rest of the U.S. foreign aid budget, including assistance for Iraqi refugees and food aid to the world’s poorest people, is fair game. But the Florida congresswoman insists we must help Israel maintain its "Qualitative Military Edge."
And congressional Democrats have her back.
Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, for instance – a leading member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus – has drafted a letter, cosigned by California Democrat Anna Eshoo, warning that the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia "have the potential to add to the very real security challenges faced by Israel." Reducing or "otherwise endangering aid to our ally" would be "unproductive," she adds, encouraging her colleagues to tell Obama they "strongly support … providing $3.075 billion in assistance to Israel." (For those shivering at home, that’s more assistance than Obama is proposing to offer Americans trying to keep their houses warm.)
This liberal appeal for Israeli military aid, meanwhile, is being sent out under the auspices of J Street, a group that positions itself as a left-leaning answer to AIPAC. But J Street staff we spoke with at their recent conference were hard-pressed to explain why U.S. taxpayers should fund a right-wing Israeli government that continues to build settlements and maintains an inhumane siege of Gaza.
So it’s left to folks like libertarian Congressman Ron Paul and his son, Kentucky Senator and Tea Party favorite Rand Paul, to call for ending aid to Israel. In a February 4 interview with ABC News, Rand Paul said of Israel, "I think that their per capita income is greater than probably three-fourths of the rest of the world. Should we be giving free money or welfare to a wealthy nation? I don’t think so."
Indeed, Israel has the 24th largest economy in the world, and ranks 15th among 169 nations on the UN Human Development Index, which makes it a "very highly developed" nation.
Yet what thanks did Senator Paul get for his call to save the U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars? A torrent of criticism, even from J Street, which called on Republicans – and their donors – "to repudiate his comments and ensure American leadership around the world is not threatened by this irresponsible proposal."
Paul’s fellowTea Partiers aren’t any better. Of the 87 freshmen House Republicans elected on platforms of cut-baby-cut, at least three-fourths have now signed a letter declaring that, "As Israel faces threats from escalating instability in Egypt" – where have we heard that line of argument before? – "security assistance to Israel … has never been more important." Subsidies are for militaries, you see, not poor people.
But even without U.S. funding, Israel would still spend $11 billion-plus on its military, more than all but 20 other nations in the world spend on their armed forced – and hundreds of millions of dollars more than the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite having just 1/10th the population. Throw in a couple – as in, couple hundred – little things called nuclear weapons, and, for better or worse, the Jewish state’s "Qualitative Military Advantage" isn’t going anywhere.
But you wouldn’t know that listening to the folks at J Street or to liberals like Jan Schakowsky, who hysterically cite the specter of Arab democracy to advocate billions in subsidies for a government that openly flouts international law. So much for their concern about human rights. And so much for being progressive. Indeed, with liberals like these, the Netanyahu government and its allies at AIPAC are likely asking themselves: who needs the Tea Party?
Link:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/03/03/cut-aid-to-the-poor-not-israel/
OOPS!!! It's getting colder because it's getting warmer...
Alabama Temperatures Plummeting
Steven Goddard
Alabama temperatures have dropped more than two degrees over the last 90 years.
Link:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/alabama-temperatures-plummeting/
Steven Goddard
Alabama temperatures have dropped more than two degrees over the last 90 years.
Link:
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2012/12/30/alabama-temperatures-plummeting/
What's up with Hillary???
Clinton Injured, US Navy Seal Killed In Secret US Mission To Iran?
Robert Wenzel
The European Union Times is reporting a very different story about Hillary Clinton than what is coming out of U.S. mainstream media. I have no way to gauge the veracity of the EUT story, but merely publish it here for the record:
A new Foreign Military Intelligence (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today is saying that United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was injured, and a top US Navy Seal Commander killed when their C-12 Huron military passenger and transport aircraft crash landed nearly 3 weeks ago in the Iranian city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border.
Iranian intelligence agents quoted in this GRU report confirm that the C-12 Huron aircraft is still in their possession in Ahvaz, but will only admit that the plane was “forced to land because of technical problems”.
The US Navy Seal member reported killed in this bizarre incident, this report says, was indentified as Commander Job W. Price who as a leader of this highly specialized American Special Forces unit protects high-ranking diplomats traveling in Middle Eastern and Asian combat zones.
Curiously, US media reports on Commander Price’s death say it being investigated as a possible suicide as he died from what the American Defense Department describes as “a non-combat related injury”.
Equally as curious, US media reports state that Secretary Clinton will return to work next week after her having suffered what they describe as a “nasty bout with stomach flu” and a “concussion” which have kept her missing from public view the past three weeks.
This GRU report, however, states that US military flight logs recorded by Russian air and space forces confirm that Commander Price, and other members of US Navy Seal Team 4, left their base in Urozgan Province, Afghanistan on a flight to US Naval Support Activity Bahrain where they met up with Secretary Clinton and all of them transferred to the C-12 Huron that began a flight path to Baghdad, Iraq.
Within minutes of leaving Bahrain airspace, this report says, the C-12 Huron carrying Secretary Clinton and her US Navy Seal protectors, “without notice,” deviated from their assigned flight path heading, instead, directly towards Iran’s Ahwaz International Airport where, coincidentally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had previously landed on an “unscheduled” visit.
Important to note, GRU analysts say in this report, was that when the C-12 Huron entered into Iranian airspace neither American nor Iran air force units responded clearly indicating that this secret mission was sanctioned.
Upon the C-12 Huron landing at Ahwaz, however, this report says it encountered “extreme turbulence” causing it to leave the runway where its main landing gear then collapsed causing it to crash.
Within seconds of the C-12 Huron crashing, this report continues, Iranian emergency and security personal responded freeing the victims, including Secretary Clinton who was reportedly unconscious and “bleeding profusely.”
After emergency aid was given, GRU agents stationed in Iran state that another US military flight was dispatched from Bahrain to Ahwaz which evacuated all of those wounded and killed in the crash including Secretary Clinton.
UPDATE: State Department denies Hillary was injured in a plane crash.
UPDATE 2:
UPDATE: ABC News has reported on a U.S. plane making an emergency landing in Iran approximately 17 days ago.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/clinton-injured-us-navy-seal-killed-in.html
Robert Wenzel
The European Union Times is reporting a very different story about Hillary Clinton than what is coming out of U.S. mainstream media. I have no way to gauge the veracity of the EUT story, but merely publish it here for the record:
A new Foreign Military Intelligence (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today is saying that United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was injured, and a top US Navy Seal Commander killed when their C-12 Huron military passenger and transport aircraft crash landed nearly 3 weeks ago in the Iranian city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border.
Iranian intelligence agents quoted in this GRU report confirm that the C-12 Huron aircraft is still in their possession in Ahvaz, but will only admit that the plane was “forced to land because of technical problems”.
The US Navy Seal member reported killed in this bizarre incident, this report says, was indentified as Commander Job W. Price who as a leader of this highly specialized American Special Forces unit protects high-ranking diplomats traveling in Middle Eastern and Asian combat zones.
Curiously, US media reports on Commander Price’s death say it being investigated as a possible suicide as he died from what the American Defense Department describes as “a non-combat related injury”.
Equally as curious, US media reports state that Secretary Clinton will return to work next week after her having suffered what they describe as a “nasty bout with stomach flu” and a “concussion” which have kept her missing from public view the past three weeks.
This GRU report, however, states that US military flight logs recorded by Russian air and space forces confirm that Commander Price, and other members of US Navy Seal Team 4, left their base in Urozgan Province, Afghanistan on a flight to US Naval Support Activity Bahrain where they met up with Secretary Clinton and all of them transferred to the C-12 Huron that began a flight path to Baghdad, Iraq.
Within minutes of leaving Bahrain airspace, this report says, the C-12 Huron carrying Secretary Clinton and her US Navy Seal protectors, “without notice,” deviated from their assigned flight path heading, instead, directly towards Iran’s Ahwaz International Airport where, coincidentally, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had previously landed on an “unscheduled” visit.
Important to note, GRU analysts say in this report, was that when the C-12 Huron entered into Iranian airspace neither American nor Iran air force units responded clearly indicating that this secret mission was sanctioned.
Upon the C-12 Huron landing at Ahwaz, however, this report says it encountered “extreme turbulence” causing it to leave the runway where its main landing gear then collapsed causing it to crash.
Within seconds of the C-12 Huron crashing, this report continues, Iranian emergency and security personal responded freeing the victims, including Secretary Clinton who was reportedly unconscious and “bleeding profusely.”
After emergency aid was given, GRU agents stationed in Iran state that another US military flight was dispatched from Bahrain to Ahwaz which evacuated all of those wounded and killed in the crash including Secretary Clinton.
UPDATE: State Department denies Hillary was injured in a plane crash.
UPDATE 2:
UPDATE: ABC News has reported on a U.S. plane making an emergency landing in Iran approximately 17 days ago.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/clinton-injured-us-navy-seal-killed-in.html
"The surveillance State constantly drags its heels and seeks to keep its surveillance secret. There is no possibility of citizens controlling a government when they don’t know what the government is doing. If whistle blowers, soldiers and ex-soldiers, government officials and ex-government officials, and media figures are repressed and prevented from making information public, in other words, as the surveillance state seeks to keep its activities secret, the threat to freedom amplifies."
What’s Wrong With the Surveillance State?
by Michael S. Rozeff
Do you know what the NSA is? It’s the National Security Agency. The NSA has collected an estimated 15 to 20 trillion communications involving Americans.
Government spying on Americans and surveillance of Americans are rapidly increasing. The government has forced telecommunications companies to participate. This is being litigated in lawsuits.
Financial institutions must report certain cash transactions to the Department of the Treasury. This is accepted practice. This reporting includes the following and I quote the U.S. Treasury:
"Individuals transporting over $10,000 in currency or other monetary instruments into/out of the US.
"Shippers/Receivers of over $10,000 in currency or other monetary instruments into/out of the US
"For each person engaged in a trade or business who receives over $10,000 in cash in one transaction or two or more related transactions.
"For each U.S. person who has a financial interest in, or signature authority, or other authority, over any financial accounts, including bank, securities, or other types of financial accounts in a foreign country, if the aggregate value of these financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year."
Former NSA official, William Binney, says that the government is collecting and storing everyone’s e-mails.
"...the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least."
Asked if this collection were only of those who could be a threat to national security, he said
"It’s everybody. The Naris device, if it takes in the entire line, so it takes in all the data. In fact they advertised they can process the lines at session rates, which means 10-gigabit lines. I forgot the name of the device (it’s not the Naris) – the other one does it at 10 gigabits. That’s why they're building Bluffdale [database facility], because they have to have more storage, because they can’t figure out what’s important, so they are just storing everything there. So, emails are going to be stored there in the future, but right now stored in different places around the country. But it is being collected – and the FBI has access to it."
If we examine the legality of this NSA warrantless surveillance, we will quickly become mired down in abstruse issues of statutory and constitutional law.
Let us not go there. That won’t give us the central answer to the question of what’s wrong with a wide network of government surveillance of Americans, with or without warrants.
Binney gives us the beginning of the answer:
"Unfortunately, the state of our surveillance state is: all set, to be turned on for the imperial presidency to do whatever it wants to do."
What’s wrong with the surveillance state is (1) that the State has far more power than each individual American has, and (2) the State can and will turn that power against Americans if it can get away with it.
The State is not some beneficent body of men and women devoted to public service who are unselfishly acting on behalf of the welfare of Americans. Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, John Boehner, Harry Reid, John Roberts, David Petraeus, Keith B. Alexander, Robert Mueller, and Michael Hayden are not saints. They are not even close.
We have had recent examples of the abuses of power as exercised by George Bush and his administration. Barack Obama continues those abuses and adds more of his own. The Congress continues its many abuses. The Supreme Court continues its abuses. If there is one thing we can be sure of, it is that men and women in the U.S. government have immense power to do many evil and foul deeds, and they have done them, and they will continue to do them.
It is built into human nature and into the nature of the institutions of government that such evils can and will occur, and they must be curtailed or else they annihilate civil society.
The State consists of a relatively small group of men and women with great power, and they will abuse this power if they can, that is to say, if the governed do not control their governors.
The State has organized and official power that we as individuals do not have. The State has the power to make laws and say what is legal or not legal, constitutional or not constitutional. It has the power to carry out and enforce its laws. The State’s power also finds acceptance among many Americans.
When there is a contest between some Americans and the State, or when some Americans oppose the government’s powers, their means of recourse are not as strong as the State’s, not as well organized, not as well known, not as well focused, and not as well accepted. It is more difficult for Americans to find ways to control the State than it is for the State to devise ways to control Americans. The citizens who wish to keep the State under control do not as a routine and accepted matter have institutions that they have built up and used over time to check the State’s power.
As government has grown and State power accumulated, the powers of civil society to control the State have atrophied. It is in the interest of the State to diminish those powers, and over time it is doing this. It is in the State’s interest to diminish an armed citizen militia and to replace it with a nationalized, centralized and professionalized armed force. It is in the State’s interest to replace common law and dispersed courts with a nationalized and centralized system of law-making, law-interpretation and law-enforcement.
It is by no means impossible to control the State, but it’s a non-routine and trying task. When the State flexes its muscles and oversteps, legal and electoral mechanisms may be slow and unwieldy and they may fail. The State has staying power.
And so William Binney accurately pinpoints the risk. With a surveillance state in place and with access to information on everyone, the few at the top who run the State and particularly the imperial President, who already is attempting to rule by Executive Order, can do whatever he or she wants to do.
What I envision is creeping totalitarianism, also one can call it democratic totalitarianism. It is a totalitarianism in which a facade of democratic or republican government, call it what you will, is maintained, but the actuality is increasingly detailed and oppressive control over ordinary life. The State will know where you are and what you are doing, and it will have the means of punishing you if you do not obey its rules.
Surveillance is a key component of such totalitarianism. Imagine that the State controls currency and eliminates hand-to-hand cash altogether, replacing it by electronic transactions. These can be monitored and collected. The State can know every item that you buy or sell. The State then can pass a law, according to its whim, that outlaws a certain food or item or service, or it can do the opposite. It can pass a law requiring a certain food or medical procedure. Surveillance gives it the means of enforcing its laws by knowing who is obeying and who is not. The State can turn anyone into a criminal ex post facto by passing a law and then searching past records, communications and transactions to find evidence of their previous wrongdoing. The U.S. Constitution forbids ex post facto laws, but it also forbids fiat money and requires declarations of wars by Congress. Many other constitutional provisions are ignored.
What’s wrong with the surveillance state? The balance of power between citizens and government in America is already lopsided and becoming increasingly so. The surveillance state opens up new opportunities and new vistas for government control of its citizens.
The biggest danger is that Americans be trained to accept the State’s controls over their lives, or that they have a limited notion of what freedom means. In roughly 15 years of training, a new generation can be taught that the State’s controls are PROPER and that what the State is doing is RIGHT and for the GOOD of the people. When this happens, further restrictions and controls become easier and a high degree of oppression reigns, and it even meets with a high degree of acceptance.
Totally free communication is absolutely essential to prevent this from occurring. There must be the capacity to speak freely and to educate all people, young and old, about freedom and the challenges to freedom emanating from the State. If surveillance is used to instill fear of speaking freely or used to control speech or used to prevent people from earning a livelihood or used to tie people up in legal proceedings or used to blackmail people into silence, the threat to freedom at that point is open and severe.
The surveillance State constantly drags its heels and seeks to keep its surveillance secret. There is no possibility of citizens controlling a government when they don’t know what the government is doing. If whistle blowers, soldiers and ex-soldiers, government officials and ex-government officials, and media figures are repressed and prevented from making information public, in other words, as the surveillance state seeks to keep its activities secret, the threat to freedom amplifies.
The battle lines between citizens and the State are always drawn. They never go away. The State is always a threat to freedom. The State is always pushing for greater control unless the citizens push back, develop and use means to control the State. Growing surveillance by the State is an offensive operation of the State in this never-ending war. It is up to the citizens to resist the State’s surveillance, form ongoing institutions to control the State, form a culture of citizen control, and dismantle the State’s capacity for such surveillance. It is that or else surrender more of their disappearing freedom.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff398.html
by Michael S. Rozeff
Do you know what the NSA is? It’s the National Security Agency. The NSA has collected an estimated 15 to 20 trillion communications involving Americans.
Government spying on Americans and surveillance of Americans are rapidly increasing. The government has forced telecommunications companies to participate. This is being litigated in lawsuits.
Financial institutions must report certain cash transactions to the Department of the Treasury. This is accepted practice. This reporting includes the following and I quote the U.S. Treasury:
"Individuals transporting over $10,000 in currency or other monetary instruments into/out of the US.
"Shippers/Receivers of over $10,000 in currency or other monetary instruments into/out of the US
"For each person engaged in a trade or business who receives over $10,000 in cash in one transaction or two or more related transactions.
"For each U.S. person who has a financial interest in, or signature authority, or other authority, over any financial accounts, including bank, securities, or other types of financial accounts in a foreign country, if the aggregate value of these financial accounts exceeds $10,000 at any time during the calendar year."
Former NSA official, William Binney, says that the government is collecting and storing everyone’s e-mails.
"...the FBI has access to the data collected, which is basically the emails of virtually everybody in the country. And the FBI has access to it. All the congressional members are on the surveillance too, no one is excluded. They are all included. So, yes, this can happen to anyone. If they become a target for whatever reason – they are targeted by the government, the government can go in, or the FBI, or other agencies of the government, they can go into their database, pull all that data collected on them over the years, and we analyze it all. So, we have to actively analyze everything they’ve done for the last 10 years at least."
Asked if this collection were only of those who could be a threat to national security, he said
"It’s everybody. The Naris device, if it takes in the entire line, so it takes in all the data. In fact they advertised they can process the lines at session rates, which means 10-gigabit lines. I forgot the name of the device (it’s not the Naris) – the other one does it at 10 gigabits. That’s why they're building Bluffdale [database facility], because they have to have more storage, because they can’t figure out what’s important, so they are just storing everything there. So, emails are going to be stored there in the future, but right now stored in different places around the country. But it is being collected – and the FBI has access to it."
If we examine the legality of this NSA warrantless surveillance, we will quickly become mired down in abstruse issues of statutory and constitutional law.
Let us not go there. That won’t give us the central answer to the question of what’s wrong with a wide network of government surveillance of Americans, with or without warrants.
Binney gives us the beginning of the answer:
"Unfortunately, the state of our surveillance state is: all set, to be turned on for the imperial presidency to do whatever it wants to do."
What’s wrong with the surveillance state is (1) that the State has far more power than each individual American has, and (2) the State can and will turn that power against Americans if it can get away with it.
The State is not some beneficent body of men and women devoted to public service who are unselfishly acting on behalf of the welfare of Americans. Barack Obama, Dianne Feinstein, John Boehner, Harry Reid, John Roberts, David Petraeus, Keith B. Alexander, Robert Mueller, and Michael Hayden are not saints. They are not even close.
We have had recent examples of the abuses of power as exercised by George Bush and his administration. Barack Obama continues those abuses and adds more of his own. The Congress continues its many abuses. The Supreme Court continues its abuses. If there is one thing we can be sure of, it is that men and women in the U.S. government have immense power to do many evil and foul deeds, and they have done them, and they will continue to do them.
It is built into human nature and into the nature of the institutions of government that such evils can and will occur, and they must be curtailed or else they annihilate civil society.
The State consists of a relatively small group of men and women with great power, and they will abuse this power if they can, that is to say, if the governed do not control their governors.
The State has organized and official power that we as individuals do not have. The State has the power to make laws and say what is legal or not legal, constitutional or not constitutional. It has the power to carry out and enforce its laws. The State’s power also finds acceptance among many Americans.
When there is a contest between some Americans and the State, or when some Americans oppose the government’s powers, their means of recourse are not as strong as the State’s, not as well organized, not as well known, not as well focused, and not as well accepted. It is more difficult for Americans to find ways to control the State than it is for the State to devise ways to control Americans. The citizens who wish to keep the State under control do not as a routine and accepted matter have institutions that they have built up and used over time to check the State’s power.
As government has grown and State power accumulated, the powers of civil society to control the State have atrophied. It is in the interest of the State to diminish those powers, and over time it is doing this. It is in the State’s interest to diminish an armed citizen militia and to replace it with a nationalized, centralized and professionalized armed force. It is in the State’s interest to replace common law and dispersed courts with a nationalized and centralized system of law-making, law-interpretation and law-enforcement.
It is by no means impossible to control the State, but it’s a non-routine and trying task. When the State flexes its muscles and oversteps, legal and electoral mechanisms may be slow and unwieldy and they may fail. The State has staying power.
And so William Binney accurately pinpoints the risk. With a surveillance state in place and with access to information on everyone, the few at the top who run the State and particularly the imperial President, who already is attempting to rule by Executive Order, can do whatever he or she wants to do.
What I envision is creeping totalitarianism, also one can call it democratic totalitarianism. It is a totalitarianism in which a facade of democratic or republican government, call it what you will, is maintained, but the actuality is increasingly detailed and oppressive control over ordinary life. The State will know where you are and what you are doing, and it will have the means of punishing you if you do not obey its rules.
Surveillance is a key component of such totalitarianism. Imagine that the State controls currency and eliminates hand-to-hand cash altogether, replacing it by electronic transactions. These can be monitored and collected. The State can know every item that you buy or sell. The State then can pass a law, according to its whim, that outlaws a certain food or item or service, or it can do the opposite. It can pass a law requiring a certain food or medical procedure. Surveillance gives it the means of enforcing its laws by knowing who is obeying and who is not. The State can turn anyone into a criminal ex post facto by passing a law and then searching past records, communications and transactions to find evidence of their previous wrongdoing. The U.S. Constitution forbids ex post facto laws, but it also forbids fiat money and requires declarations of wars by Congress. Many other constitutional provisions are ignored.
What’s wrong with the surveillance state? The balance of power between citizens and government in America is already lopsided and becoming increasingly so. The surveillance state opens up new opportunities and new vistas for government control of its citizens.
The biggest danger is that Americans be trained to accept the State’s controls over their lives, or that they have a limited notion of what freedom means. In roughly 15 years of training, a new generation can be taught that the State’s controls are PROPER and that what the State is doing is RIGHT and for the GOOD of the people. When this happens, further restrictions and controls become easier and a high degree of oppression reigns, and it even meets with a high degree of acceptance.
Totally free communication is absolutely essential to prevent this from occurring. There must be the capacity to speak freely and to educate all people, young and old, about freedom and the challenges to freedom emanating from the State. If surveillance is used to instill fear of speaking freely or used to control speech or used to prevent people from earning a livelihood or used to tie people up in legal proceedings or used to blackmail people into silence, the threat to freedom at that point is open and severe.
The surveillance State constantly drags its heels and seeks to keep its surveillance secret. There is no possibility of citizens controlling a government when they don’t know what the government is doing. If whistle blowers, soldiers and ex-soldiers, government officials and ex-government officials, and media figures are repressed and prevented from making information public, in other words, as the surveillance state seeks to keep its activities secret, the threat to freedom amplifies.
The battle lines between citizens and the State are always drawn. They never go away. The State is always a threat to freedom. The State is always pushing for greater control unless the citizens push back, develop and use means to control the State. Growing surveillance by the State is an offensive operation of the State in this never-ending war. It is up to the citizens to resist the State’s surveillance, form ongoing institutions to control the State, form a culture of citizen control, and dismantle the State’s capacity for such surveillance. It is that or else surrender more of their disappearing freedom.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff398.html
Sunday, December 30, 2012
The government has the middle class in its' sights...
Happy New Year Middle Class: The Fiscal Cliff Is Going To Rip You To Shreds
Mike Snyder
The middle class has quite a gift welcoming them as the calendar flips over to 2013. Their payroll taxes are going to go up, their income taxes are going to go up, and approximately 28 million households are going to be hit with a huge, unexpected AMT tax bill on their 2012 earnings. So happy New Year middle class! You are about to be ripped to shreds. In addition to the tax increases that I just mentioned, approximately two million unemployed Americans will instantly lose their extended unemployment benefits when 2013 begins, and new Obamacare tax hikes which will cost American taxpayers about a trillion dollars over the next decade will start to go into effect. If Congress is not able to come to some sort of a deal, all middle class families in America will be sending thousands more dollars to Uncle Sam next year than they were previously. And considering the fact that the middle class is already steadily shrinking and that the U.S. economy is already in an advanced state of decline, that is not good news. You would think that both major political parties would want to do something to keep the middle class from being hit with this kind of tax sledgehammer. Unfortunately, at this point it appears that our "leaders" in Washington D.C. are incapable of getting anything done. So get ready for much smaller paychecks and much larger tax bills. What is coming is not going to be pleasant.
So what happened?
Weren't the tax increases only supposed to be for the wealthy?
Well, that is what the politicians always promise, but it is always the middle class that ends up getting hit the hardest.
In this day and age, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy are absolute masters at avoiding taxes.
For example, Facebook paid approximately $4.64 million in taxes on their entire foreign profits of $1.344 billion for 2011.
That comes out to a tax rate of about 0.3 percent.
Overall, the global elite have approximately 18 trillion dollars parked in offshore tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.
Keep in mind that U.S. GDP for 2011 was only slightly above 15 trillion dollars.
So the global elite have an amount of money parked in offshore banks that is substantially larger than the total value of all goods and services produced in the United States each year.
According to one estimate, a third of all the wealth in the entire world is stationed in offshore banks. Our politicians are playing checkers and the global elite are playing chess when it comes to taxes. Our current system of taxation is irreversibly broken and should be entirely thrown out and replaced with something else.
And of course under our current system those that are poor don't pay much in taxes because they are just trying to survive.
So who always ends up getting the painful end of the hammer?
The middle class does, and that really stinks.
Let us hope and pray that our politicians can come together and do something for the middle class. In particular, we should all be screaming and yelling at our politicians about the Alternative Minimum Tax. It was originally designed as a method to "tax the rich", but unless Congress does something the middle class is about to be ripped to shreds by it. The following is from a recent CNBC article about the AMT...
In a cruel epilogue to 2012, roughly 28 million families would owe the IRS $86 billion more than they anticipated for this year should the country plunge off the cliff, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Those families would face the "Alternative Minimum Tax," which was introduced in 1969 to supposedly guarantee that wealthy Americans could not elude the taxman. But the AMT not only flopped, it was never indexed to inflation. So with each passing year, it seeps away from high society and into the wallets of Target and Wal-Mart shoppers. That sets up a disaster for April 15.
So how much money are we talking about?
According to that same article, many families are about to be socked by tax bills that will be absolutely huge...
On the whole, 98 percent of those with incomes between $200,000 to $500,000 would pay an additional $11,000 in AMT this year, according to the center's estimates. About 88 percent of those with incomes of $100,000 to $200,000 would need to fork over another $3100, and even the majority of Americans with earnings between $75,000 and $100,000 would have an AMT liability.
Most of the tax increases that will be coming as a result of the fiscal cliff will be for 2013 earnings, but the AMT tax hike will apply to 2012 earnings. So if you end up falling under the AMT, you better get ready to write a very large check to Uncle Sam in just a couple of months.
And the AMT is only just one of the very painful tax increases that American families will be facing. If no deal is reached in Congress, every single middle class American taxpayer will be dealing with significantly higher taxes.
A recent ABC News report entitled "Fiscal Cliff: By The Numbers" detailed some of the other tax increases that you can expect in 2013...
So why don't our politicians do something about all of this?
What are they fighting so bitterly about anyway?
Sadly, neither side is actually serious about substantially reducing the size of government deficits or about getting government spending under control.
During a recent interview on CNBC, Ron Paul explained that "they pretend they are fighting up there, but they really aren't. They are arguing over power, spin, who looks good, who looks bad; all trying to preserve the system where they can spend what they want, take care of their friends and print money when they need it."
Most in the mainstream media are making it sound like some kind of a "battle royal" is going on in Washington, but as Lou Dobbs recently pointed out, the U.S. national debt is going to end up in just about the same place no matter what happens.
According to Dobbs, if we "do nothing" the U.S. national debt will be approximately 25.8 trillion dollars in 2022.
If "Obama wins", the U.S. national debt will be approximately 25.4 trillion dollars in 2022.
If "Boehner wins", the U.S. national debt will be approximately 25.2 trillion dollars in 2022.
You can watch the entire analysis by Lou Dobbs right here...
So they are putting all of us through all of this torture even though nothing will really change in the long run no matter who wins?
What kind of a circus is this?
Meanwhile, the reckless spending continues.
Barack Obama has just issued a new executive order that ends the pay freeze for federal workers that had been in place.
So now all federal employees will be getting a nice hefty pay raise.
For example, Vice President Joe Biden brought in $225,521 this year.
Next year, he will make $231,900.
Not that our politicians really need the money. Most members of Congress are millionaires anyway. But if they can get us to pay for it, they might as well go for it, eh?
There are now close to half a million federal employees that bring home at least $100,000 a year. Plus, it is important to keep in mind that the benefits that federal employees get are absolutely outstanding, and it is close to impossible to actually fire a federal worker.
Life is good if you are working for Uncle Sam.
Meanwhile, our politicians seem determined to keep draining more blood out of the middle class. Even if a "deal" is reached, we will still be hit by some categories of tax increases. Let's just hope and pray that we don't get hit by all of the tax increases that are scheduled to go into effect. That would be a financial disaster for millions of families.
So happy New Year middle class. Your taxes are about to go through the roof and our politicians are too busy fighting with each other to do anything about it.
What else will 2013 bring?
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/happy-new-year-middle-class-the-fiscal-cliff-is-going-to-rip-you-to-shreds
Mike Snyder
The middle class has quite a gift welcoming them as the calendar flips over to 2013. Their payroll taxes are going to go up, their income taxes are going to go up, and approximately 28 million households are going to be hit with a huge, unexpected AMT tax bill on their 2012 earnings. So happy New Year middle class! You are about to be ripped to shreds. In addition to the tax increases that I just mentioned, approximately two million unemployed Americans will instantly lose their extended unemployment benefits when 2013 begins, and new Obamacare tax hikes which will cost American taxpayers about a trillion dollars over the next decade will start to go into effect. If Congress is not able to come to some sort of a deal, all middle class families in America will be sending thousands more dollars to Uncle Sam next year than they were previously. And considering the fact that the middle class is already steadily shrinking and that the U.S. economy is already in an advanced state of decline, that is not good news. You would think that both major political parties would want to do something to keep the middle class from being hit with this kind of tax sledgehammer. Unfortunately, at this point it appears that our "leaders" in Washington D.C. are incapable of getting anything done. So get ready for much smaller paychecks and much larger tax bills. What is coming is not going to be pleasant.
So what happened?
Weren't the tax increases only supposed to be for the wealthy?
Well, that is what the politicians always promise, but it is always the middle class that ends up getting hit the hardest.
In this day and age, the big corporations and the ultra-wealthy are absolute masters at avoiding taxes.
For example, Facebook paid approximately $4.64 million in taxes on their entire foreign profits of $1.344 billion for 2011.
That comes out to a tax rate of about 0.3 percent.
Overall, the global elite have approximately 18 trillion dollars parked in offshore tax havens such as the Cayman Islands.
Keep in mind that U.S. GDP for 2011 was only slightly above 15 trillion dollars.
So the global elite have an amount of money parked in offshore banks that is substantially larger than the total value of all goods and services produced in the United States each year.
According to one estimate, a third of all the wealth in the entire world is stationed in offshore banks. Our politicians are playing checkers and the global elite are playing chess when it comes to taxes. Our current system of taxation is irreversibly broken and should be entirely thrown out and replaced with something else.
And of course under our current system those that are poor don't pay much in taxes because they are just trying to survive.
So who always ends up getting the painful end of the hammer?
The middle class does, and that really stinks.
Let us hope and pray that our politicians can come together and do something for the middle class. In particular, we should all be screaming and yelling at our politicians about the Alternative Minimum Tax. It was originally designed as a method to "tax the rich", but unless Congress does something the middle class is about to be ripped to shreds by it. The following is from a recent CNBC article about the AMT...
In a cruel epilogue to 2012, roughly 28 million families would owe the IRS $86 billion more than they anticipated for this year should the country plunge off the cliff, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
Those families would face the "Alternative Minimum Tax," which was introduced in 1969 to supposedly guarantee that wealthy Americans could not elude the taxman. But the AMT not only flopped, it was never indexed to inflation. So with each passing year, it seeps away from high society and into the wallets of Target and Wal-Mart shoppers. That sets up a disaster for April 15.
So how much money are we talking about?
According to that same article, many families are about to be socked by tax bills that will be absolutely huge...
On the whole, 98 percent of those with incomes between $200,000 to $500,000 would pay an additional $11,000 in AMT this year, according to the center's estimates. About 88 percent of those with incomes of $100,000 to $200,000 would need to fork over another $3100, and even the majority of Americans with earnings between $75,000 and $100,000 would have an AMT liability.
Most of the tax increases that will be coming as a result of the fiscal cliff will be for 2013 earnings, but the AMT tax hike will apply to 2012 earnings. So if you end up falling under the AMT, you better get ready to write a very large check to Uncle Sam in just a couple of months.
And the AMT is only just one of the very painful tax increases that American families will be facing. If no deal is reached in Congress, every single middle class American taxpayer will be dealing with significantly higher taxes.
A recent ABC News report entitled "Fiscal Cliff: By The Numbers" detailed some of the other tax increases that you can expect in 2013...
So why don't our politicians do something about all of this?
What are they fighting so bitterly about anyway?
Sadly, neither side is actually serious about substantially reducing the size of government deficits or about getting government spending under control.
During a recent interview on CNBC, Ron Paul explained that "they pretend they are fighting up there, but they really aren't. They are arguing over power, spin, who looks good, who looks bad; all trying to preserve the system where they can spend what they want, take care of their friends and print money when they need it."
Most in the mainstream media are making it sound like some kind of a "battle royal" is going on in Washington, but as Lou Dobbs recently pointed out, the U.S. national debt is going to end up in just about the same place no matter what happens.
According to Dobbs, if we "do nothing" the U.S. national debt will be approximately 25.8 trillion dollars in 2022.
If "Obama wins", the U.S. national debt will be approximately 25.4 trillion dollars in 2022.
If "Boehner wins", the U.S. national debt will be approximately 25.2 trillion dollars in 2022.
You can watch the entire analysis by Lou Dobbs right here...
So they are putting all of us through all of this torture even though nothing will really change in the long run no matter who wins?
What kind of a circus is this?
Meanwhile, the reckless spending continues.
Barack Obama has just issued a new executive order that ends the pay freeze for federal workers that had been in place.
So now all federal employees will be getting a nice hefty pay raise.
For example, Vice President Joe Biden brought in $225,521 this year.
Next year, he will make $231,900.
Not that our politicians really need the money. Most members of Congress are millionaires anyway. But if they can get us to pay for it, they might as well go for it, eh?
There are now close to half a million federal employees that bring home at least $100,000 a year. Plus, it is important to keep in mind that the benefits that federal employees get are absolutely outstanding, and it is close to impossible to actually fire a federal worker.
Life is good if you are working for Uncle Sam.
Meanwhile, our politicians seem determined to keep draining more blood out of the middle class. Even if a "deal" is reached, we will still be hit by some categories of tax increases. Let's just hope and pray that we don't get hit by all of the tax increases that are scheduled to go into effect. That would be a financial disaster for millions of families.
So happy New Year middle class. Your taxes are about to go through the roof and our politicians are too busy fighting with each other to do anything about it.
What else will 2013 bring?
Link:
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/happy-new-year-middle-class-the-fiscal-cliff-is-going-to-rip-you-to-shreds
"Most Americans view the national-security state (e.g., the military and the CIA) as a “force for good” around the world. Yet, how can any regime that supports and partners with brutal dictatorships be a “force for good” in the world?"
The National Security State’s Embrace of Dictatorships
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The New York Times published an article on December 25 that exposes a harsh reality about U.S. foreign policy to mainstream Americans. The article, entitled “Bahrain, a Brutal Ally,” focuses on one of the principal dark sides of U.S. foreign policy: the U.S. national-security state’s ardent support of brutal dictatorships, this one being Bahrain.
Why is the U.S. government supporting the brutal dictatorship in Bahrain while opposing, say, the brutal dictatorship in Syria?
The answer is very simple. The dictatorship in Bahrain, where the U.S. military has one of its largest naval bases, is pro-U.S. The dictatorship in Syria is independent of the U.S. government at best and anti-U.S. at worst.
Among the worst consequences of having engrafted the national-security state onto our constitutional order has been the blind faith that Americans have placed in it. That blind faith has caused all too many Americans to delude themselves about the real nature of U.S. foreign policy.
Most Americans view the national-security state (e.g., the military and the CIA) as a “force for good” around the world. Yet, how can any regime that supports and partners with brutal dictatorships be a “force for good” in the world? Brutal dictatorships are a bad thing. In fact, one might easily argue that they are evil. It goes without saying that supporting things that are bad or evil is not good.
What brutal dictatorships has the U.S. national-security state supported since its establishment in 1947? The list is a long one.
There is Iran, where the national-security state destroyed Iran’ s experiment with democracy in 1953, which is the root cause of the difficult relations between the United States and Iran today. That was when the CIA ousted the democratically elected prime minister and installed the brutal dictator known as the shah of Iran. The CIA then helped train the shah’s domestic police, military, and intelligence forces in the art of maintaining brutal control over the citizenry through torture, indefinite detention, and other tyrannical measures.
There is Guatemala, where the national-security state ousted the democratically elected president of the country and installed a series of brutal pro-U.S. military dictators.
There is Cuba, where the U.S. government supported the brutal dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who preceded Fidel Castro in power.
There is Nicaragua, where the U.S. government supported the brutal Somoza regime.
There is Argentina, where the U.S. government supported the brutal military dictatorship that subjected the Argentine people to a dark decade of torture, indefinite detention, disappearances, and murder.
There is Chile, where the U.S. government supported the ouster of the democratically elected president and the installation of a brutal military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet, which proceeded to murder, torture, detain, and disappear thousands of Chileans and two young American journalists.
There is Egypt, where the U.S. government supported the brutal military dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.
There is Pakistan, where the U.S. government supported the brutal military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf.
There is Iraq, where the U.S. government supported the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
There is Libya, where the U.S. government partnered with the brutal Qaddafi dictatorship to torture people on its behalf.
Indeed, there is Syria — yes, Syria — where the U.S. government employed the brutal Assad dictatorship that it is now opposing to torture Canadian citizen Maher Arar on its behalf.
The list goes on and on, in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. And it’s not just an aberration. Support of brutal dictatorships has long been an integral part of the U.S. national-security state. In fact, the national-security state actually trained many of the Latin American torturers in the art of torture at its infamous School of the Americas, which even had its own written torture manuals.
Meanwhile, when the question is asked, “Why do people hate us?” many mainstream Americans continue to automatically mold their minds to the official line of the U.S. national-security state: “They hate us for our freedom and values.” They simply block out of their minds the possibility that people who have suffered horribly under brutal dictatorships, including arbitrary arrest, torture, indefinite detention, murder, disappearances, censorship, and other such things, might hate the United States for having supported and even enabled their tyranny. Such Americans just keep repeating to themselves that the military and the CIA are over there defending “our rights and our freedoms” and “spreading democracy.”
It’s just one of the horrible things that the national-security state has done to the minds of the American people.
Link:
http://fff.org/2012/12/27/the-national-security-states-embrace-of-dictatorships/
by Jacob G. Hornberger
The New York Times published an article on December 25 that exposes a harsh reality about U.S. foreign policy to mainstream Americans. The article, entitled “Bahrain, a Brutal Ally,” focuses on one of the principal dark sides of U.S. foreign policy: the U.S. national-security state’s ardent support of brutal dictatorships, this one being Bahrain.
Why is the U.S. government supporting the brutal dictatorship in Bahrain while opposing, say, the brutal dictatorship in Syria?
The answer is very simple. The dictatorship in Bahrain, where the U.S. military has one of its largest naval bases, is pro-U.S. The dictatorship in Syria is independent of the U.S. government at best and anti-U.S. at worst.
Among the worst consequences of having engrafted the national-security state onto our constitutional order has been the blind faith that Americans have placed in it. That blind faith has caused all too many Americans to delude themselves about the real nature of U.S. foreign policy.
Most Americans view the national-security state (e.g., the military and the CIA) as a “force for good” around the world. Yet, how can any regime that supports and partners with brutal dictatorships be a “force for good” in the world? Brutal dictatorships are a bad thing. In fact, one might easily argue that they are evil. It goes without saying that supporting things that are bad or evil is not good.
What brutal dictatorships has the U.S. national-security state supported since its establishment in 1947? The list is a long one.
There is Iran, where the national-security state destroyed Iran’ s experiment with democracy in 1953, which is the root cause of the difficult relations between the United States and Iran today. That was when the CIA ousted the democratically elected prime minister and installed the brutal dictator known as the shah of Iran. The CIA then helped train the shah’s domestic police, military, and intelligence forces in the art of maintaining brutal control over the citizenry through torture, indefinite detention, and other tyrannical measures.
There is Guatemala, where the national-security state ousted the democratically elected president of the country and installed a series of brutal pro-U.S. military dictators.
There is Cuba, where the U.S. government supported the brutal dictator, Fulgencio Batista, who preceded Fidel Castro in power.
There is Nicaragua, where the U.S. government supported the brutal Somoza regime.
There is Argentina, where the U.S. government supported the brutal military dictatorship that subjected the Argentine people to a dark decade of torture, indefinite detention, disappearances, and murder.
There is Chile, where the U.S. government supported the ouster of the democratically elected president and the installation of a brutal military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet, which proceeded to murder, torture, detain, and disappear thousands of Chileans and two young American journalists.
There is Egypt, where the U.S. government supported the brutal military dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak.
There is Pakistan, where the U.S. government supported the brutal military dictatorship of Pervez Musharraf.
There is Iraq, where the U.S. government supported the brutal dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.
There is Libya, where the U.S. government partnered with the brutal Qaddafi dictatorship to torture people on its behalf.
Indeed, there is Syria — yes, Syria — where the U.S. government employed the brutal Assad dictatorship that it is now opposing to torture Canadian citizen Maher Arar on its behalf.
The list goes on and on, in Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. And it’s not just an aberration. Support of brutal dictatorships has long been an integral part of the U.S. national-security state. In fact, the national-security state actually trained many of the Latin American torturers in the art of torture at its infamous School of the Americas, which even had its own written torture manuals.
Meanwhile, when the question is asked, “Why do people hate us?” many mainstream Americans continue to automatically mold their minds to the official line of the U.S. national-security state: “They hate us for our freedom and values.” They simply block out of their minds the possibility that people who have suffered horribly under brutal dictatorships, including arbitrary arrest, torture, indefinite detention, murder, disappearances, censorship, and other such things, might hate the United States for having supported and even enabled their tyranny. Such Americans just keep repeating to themselves that the military and the CIA are over there defending “our rights and our freedoms” and “spreading democracy.”
It’s just one of the horrible things that the national-security state has done to the minds of the American people.
Link:
http://fff.org/2012/12/27/the-national-security-states-embrace-of-dictatorships/
Censored 2012...
Top 25 Censored Stories of 2012 - Project Censored - Which stories did the media ignore this year?
Top 25
Censored 2012: Stories of 2010-2011
1. More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat
2. US Military Manipulates the Social Media
3. Obama Authorizes International Assassination Campaign
4. Global Food Crisis Expands
5. Private Prison Companies Fund Anti–Immigrant Legislation
6. Google Spying?
7. U.S. Army and Psychology’s Largest Experiment–Ever
8. The Fairytale of Clean and Safe Nuclear Power
9. Government Sponsored Technologies for Weather Modification
10. Censored # 10: Real Unemployment: One Out of Five in US
11. Trafficking of Iraqi Women Rampant
12. Pacific Garbage Dump—Did You Really Think Your Plastic Was Being Recycled?
13. Will a State of Emergency Be Used to Supersede Our Constitution?
14. Family Pressure on Young Girls for Genitalia Mutilation Continues in Kenya
15. Big Polluters Freed from Environmental Oversight
16. Sweatshops in China Are Making Your iPods While Workers Suffer
17. Superbug Bacteria Spreading Worldwide
18. Monsanto Tries to Benefit from Haiti’s Earthquake
19. Oxfam Exposes How Aid Is Used for Political Purposes
20. US Agencies Trying to Outlaw GMO Food Labelling
21. Lyme Disease: An Emerging Epidemic
22. Participatory Budgeting – A Method to Empower Local Citizens & Communities
23. Worldwide Movement To Ban or Charge Fees For Plastic Bags
24. South Dakota Takes Extreme Measures to Be the Top Anti–Abortion State
25. Extension of DU to Libya
Click here for hyperlinks:
http://12160.info/page/top-25-censored-stories-of-2012-project-censored-which-stories-di
Top 25
Censored 2012: Stories of 2010-2011
1. More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat
2. US Military Manipulates the Social Media
3. Obama Authorizes International Assassination Campaign
4. Global Food Crisis Expands
5. Private Prison Companies Fund Anti–Immigrant Legislation
6. Google Spying?
7. U.S. Army and Psychology’s Largest Experiment–Ever
8. The Fairytale of Clean and Safe Nuclear Power
9. Government Sponsored Technologies for Weather Modification
10. Censored # 10: Real Unemployment: One Out of Five in US
11. Trafficking of Iraqi Women Rampant
12. Pacific Garbage Dump—Did You Really Think Your Plastic Was Being Recycled?
13. Will a State of Emergency Be Used to Supersede Our Constitution?
14. Family Pressure on Young Girls for Genitalia Mutilation Continues in Kenya
15. Big Polluters Freed from Environmental Oversight
16. Sweatshops in China Are Making Your iPods While Workers Suffer
17. Superbug Bacteria Spreading Worldwide
18. Monsanto Tries to Benefit from Haiti’s Earthquake
19. Oxfam Exposes How Aid Is Used for Political Purposes
20. US Agencies Trying to Outlaw GMO Food Labelling
21. Lyme Disease: An Emerging Epidemic
22. Participatory Budgeting – A Method to Empower Local Citizens & Communities
23. Worldwide Movement To Ban or Charge Fees For Plastic Bags
24. South Dakota Takes Extreme Measures to Be the Top Anti–Abortion State
25. Extension of DU to Libya
Click here for hyperlinks:
http://12160.info/page/top-25-censored-stories-of-2012-project-censored-which-stories-di
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Sound familiar???
1991 Book Predicts School Shootings By Drugged Individuals In Order To Disarm Public
Does this seem familiar? From the pages of Milton William Cooper’s 1991 book Behold A Pale Horse:
“The government encouraged the manufacture and importation of firearms for the criminals to use. This is intended to foster a feeling of insecurity, which would lead the American people to voluntarily disarm themselves by passing laws against firearms. Using drugs and hypnosis on mental patients in a process called Orion, the CIA inculcated the desire in these people to open fire on schoolyards and thus inflame the ant-igun lobby. This plan is well under way, and so far is working perfectly. The middle class is begging the government to do away with the 2nd Amendment.” — with Anya Lambert. A complete lecture by Cooper on The Secret Government is available here:
Milton William Cooper (May 6, 1943 – November 5, 2001) was an American conspiracy theorist, radio broadcaster, and author best known for his 1991 book, Behold a Pale Horse, in which he claimed global conspiracies, some involving aliens.
On November 5, 2001 Cooper was fatally shot by a law enforcement officer at his Eagar, Arizona home after confronting deputies trying to arrest him and shooting one of them in the head. Authorities said Cooper was carrying a handgun and fled when Apache County deputies identified themselves and tried to arrest Cooper on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and endangerment stemming from earlier disputes with local residents. Federal authorities reported that Cooper spent years trying to avoid capture on a 1998 arrest warrant for tax evasion and according to a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, Cooper vowed “he would not be taken alive”...
Read more here:
http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/1991-book-predicts-school-shootings-by-drugged-individuals-in-order-to-disarm-public/29461/
Does this seem familiar? From the pages of Milton William Cooper’s 1991 book Behold A Pale Horse:
“The government encouraged the manufacture and importation of firearms for the criminals to use. This is intended to foster a feeling of insecurity, which would lead the American people to voluntarily disarm themselves by passing laws against firearms. Using drugs and hypnosis on mental patients in a process called Orion, the CIA inculcated the desire in these people to open fire on schoolyards and thus inflame the ant-igun lobby. This plan is well under way, and so far is working perfectly. The middle class is begging the government to do away with the 2nd Amendment.” — with Anya Lambert. A complete lecture by Cooper on The Secret Government is available here:
Milton William Cooper (May 6, 1943 – November 5, 2001) was an American conspiracy theorist, radio broadcaster, and author best known for his 1991 book, Behold a Pale Horse, in which he claimed global conspiracies, some involving aliens.
On November 5, 2001 Cooper was fatally shot by a law enforcement officer at his Eagar, Arizona home after confronting deputies trying to arrest him and shooting one of them in the head. Authorities said Cooper was carrying a handgun and fled when Apache County deputies identified themselves and tried to arrest Cooper on charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and endangerment stemming from earlier disputes with local residents. Federal authorities reported that Cooper spent years trying to avoid capture on a 1998 arrest warrant for tax evasion and according to a spokesman for the U.S. Marshals Service, Cooper vowed “he would not be taken alive”...
Read more here:
http://fromthetrenchesworldreport.com/1991-book-predicts-school-shootings-by-drugged-individuals-in-order-to-disarm-public/29461/
Funny how that happens....
California gun sales jump; gun injuries, deaths fall
Phillip Reese
Gun deaths and injuries have dropped sharply in California, even as the number of guns sold in the state has risen, according to new state data.
Dealers sold 600,000 guns in California last year, up from 350,000 in 2002, according to records of sale tallied by the California Attorney General’s office.
During that same period, the number of California hospitalizations due to gun injuries declined from about 4,000 annually to 2,800, a roughly 25 percent drop, according to hospital records collected by the California Department of Public Health.
Firearm-related deaths fell from about 3,200 annually to about 2,800, an 11 percent drop, state health figures show...
Read more:
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html
Phillip Reese
Gun deaths and injuries have dropped sharply in California, even as the number of guns sold in the state has risen, according to new state data.
Dealers sold 600,000 guns in California last year, up from 350,000 in 2002, according to records of sale tallied by the California Attorney General’s office.
During that same period, the number of California hospitalizations due to gun injuries declined from about 4,000 annually to 2,800, a roughly 25 percent drop, according to hospital records collected by the California Department of Public Health.
Firearm-related deaths fell from about 3,200 annually to about 2,800, an 11 percent drop, state health figures show...
Read more:
http://www.sacbee.com/2012/12/27/5079151/california-gun-sales-increase.html
Destroying the 4th Amendment one bill at a time...
Robert Wenzel
Yesterday evening, the U.S. Senate voted on amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act Reauthorization Act of 2012, H.R.5949, including one introduced by Sens. Rand Paul and Mike Lee. The amendment, known as the Fourth Amendment Protection Act extends Fourth Amendment guarantees to electronic communications and requires specific warrants granted through FISA courts in order to obtain this information.
The amendment failed, 79-12.
Prior to the vote Rand spoke on the floor urging passage of the amendment:
The Fourth Amendment guarantees that people should be secure in their persons, houses and papers against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Somewhere along the way, though, we became lazy and haphazard in our vigilance. We allowed Congress and the courts to diminish our Fourth Amendment protection, particularly when our papers were held by third parties.
I think most Americans would be shocked to know that the Fourth Amendment does not protect your records if they're banking, Internet or Visa records. A warrant is required to read your snail mail and to tap your phone, but no warrant is required to look at your e-mail, text or your Internet searches. They can be read without a warrant. Why is a phone call more deserving of privacy protection than an e-mail?
This amendment would restore the Fourth Amendment protections to third-party records, and I recommend a yes vote.
Link:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2012/12/senate-votes-against-fourth-amendment.html
Occupy the Grassy Knoll...
by John Judge
On the day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, now almost 50 years ago, an independent and feisty newspaperman, Penn Jones, Jr., editor of the Midlothian Mirror about 35 miles south of Dallas, came to hear JFK’s scheduled speech at the International Trade Mart building along Stemmons Freeway. Penn, and other reports were sitting at the lunch tables for the event when they got news that Kennedy had been shot in Dealey Plaza and was on his way to Parkland Hospital with serious wounds.
George Dealey was a conservative newspaper editor at the Dallas Morning News who had no love for President Kennedy. D.H. Byrd, of the rich and politically influential Byrd family of both Texas and Virginia, owned the Texas School Book Depository building at Dealey Plaza, where Lee Harvey Oswald worked. Byrd also despised John F. Kennedy. Years later he was reported to have removed the original window frame from the Sixth Floor of his building, the alleged window that was part of the “sniper’s nest” from which the fatal shots were supposedly fired by Oswald, and hung it in his hunting trophy room at home next to heads of deer and other trophies.
Penn Jones and other reporters rushed from the Trade Center and drove to Parkland Hospital, and later to the scene of the crime that day. Penn did his job as a journalist, taking pictures and asking questions. One of his photos caught the back of Jack Ruby going into Parkland Hospital when both JFK and Gov. John Connally were still in the building. Ruby was in many interesting locations on November 22, and was seen by one credible witness taking a rifle up the back of the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza. Ruby had access to the Dallas police station and had many friends among the Dallas cops. He was present at public press conferences where Lee Harvey Oswald protested his innocence and claimed to be a “patsy”. When a Dallas police official stated to the press that Oswald was part of the Free Cuba Committee (an anti-Castro organization based in Miami, Florida), Jack Ruby spoke up to correct him, saying “It’s the Fair Play for Cuba Committee.” This from a man who the Warren Commission (set up by President Lyndon Johnson to study the crime) said did not know Lee Harvey Oswald and who was reportedly a disinterested a bar and striptease joint owner in Dallas. The next day Jack Ruby was able to be present during the transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald to another jail and he leapt out and fatally shot him.
Penn Jones began to collect evidence from the first day of events in Dallas that would later severely contradict the official version of events being reported in the Dallas Morning News, and across the country by press and electronic media, and also contradicted the final conclusions of the Warren Commission report, which blamed Oswald without trail of being the “lone assassin” of President Kennedy. The hard ballistics, forensic, medical and witness evidence revealed over the years and available to both the Warren Commission and the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) fifteen years later, exonerates Oswald and points to multiple gunmen and a conspiracy to kill the President in Dallas. Penn’s investigation almost immediately centered on the untimely and violent deaths of witnesses and others who knew information that contradicted the official statements of the Dallas police and press. He would eventually collect information on nearly 175 suspicious witness deaths, continuing into the era of the House Select Committee.
Penn first wrote his articles in the small circulation Midlothian Mirror, but eventually collected them into a series of four books, Forgive My Grief, and his work was printed in Ramparts, the L.A. Free Press, and The Rebel over the years.
In 1964, Penn Jones returned to the scene of the crime on November 22 at 12:30 pm and held a Moment of Silence to commemorate the death of a President he loved and to keep alive the need for a criminal investigation into the still unsolved assassination of JFK. He continued this tradition for many years, when only a handful of people would return annually to ask the question, “Who Really Killed President Kennedy?” and to speak truth to power. The established press, the national media and government bodies continued in the other direction, along with the FBI and CIA who were hiding documents, destroying and altering evidence, and giving instructions on how to discredit the critics of the official reports. To this day, the national media have their own annual tradition around the time of the assassination of presenting yet another “special investigative report” that tries to buttress the flawed conclusions of the Warren Commission and smear all evidence to the contrary as “conspiracy theory”.
I joined Penn Jones, Jr. out on the Grassy Knoll for his annual vigil starting in the early 1970s and have been there every year but one, when we visited the Kennedy family gravesite instead. By then, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. had also been assassinated by a modus operandi and cover-up that was very similar to the assassination in 1963. The same agencies and the press and police played a similar role in hiding the truth and framing a pasty for each crime. Few people know that Robert Kennedy believed his brother was murdered by a political conspiracy and told close associates that he would reopen the investigation if he was able to be elected into the White House. Even fewer people know that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was high on his list of possible running mates for the presidency in 1968. All these deaths served to kill public hope for social and political change and left the rising Military Industrial Intelligence Complex warned about by outgoing President Eisenhower in 1963, and a permanent war economy and Cold War and nuclear arsenal were left in place to grow, along with the power of the intelligence agencies and the national security and police state who were clearly suspect of playing a role in these murders.
In the intervening years a body of literature questioning the official conclusions of the Warren Commission, and the events themselves, led the vast majority of Americans to conclude that there was a conspiracy that went beyond Oswald, or in some cases one that framed Oswald and concealed the real killers. That majority has not really wavered to this day. A small group of researchers worked on the JFK case over those years, filing FOIA requests, digging into new evidence, interviewing witnesses the Commission ignored or misrepresented, giving lectures to the public, and calling for a new investigation. There was enough public pressure in that direction by the mid-1970s to convince Congress to create a Select Committee of the House to study the murders of both President Kennedy and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Hobbled by political considerations and the loss of its original staff director, homicide prosecutor Richard Sprague, the HSCA failed to answer many questions about the forensic evidence and the guilt of the alleged assassins, but did end its probe in 1978, concluding that there had been a “probably conspiracy” which it instructed the Justice Department and FBI to investigate further. To date, those agencies have neither done an honest or thorough investigation of these murders, nor examined the evidence pointing to the role of J. Edgar Hoover, former FBI director in both the assassinations and the cover-up. The HSCA Chairman then ordered their extensive investigative files sealed from public view for 50 years, until 2028. President Johnson had also sealed the Warren Commission investigative files for 75 years in 1965, for potential release in 2035. Freedom of Information Act requests and legal suits succeeded in the getting several thousands of pages released from 1964-1994, but nowhere near the complete classified records on JFK alone.
In the 1980s, one of the people who came out annually for the Moment of Silence was a California labor organizer who had worked with Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Union. He would hold up a cardboard sign with the insignia of that group that had been splattered with the blood of Robert F. Kennedy in his presence on the night of the assassination at the Ambassador Hotel. He also knew what the country had lost with the death of the Kennedy brothers. The Dallas Morning News did not send reporters out to cover our annual events. I once suggested to Penn Jones that we few were like a small remaining flame for democracy and truth in a darkening world. Only a handful of people were out there on the Grassy Knoll until the 30th anniversary in 1993.
What changed everything was the release in 1991 of Oliver Stone’s film, JFK, based on a book, On The Trail of the Assassins by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who had tried to prosecute conspirators involved in killing Kennedy who had operated out of his city in the period before the assassination, and who knew Lee Harvey Oswald when he lived there briefly. Defeated in court, but adamant in his writings about the reality of the conspiracy he tried to unearth, which went to the top levels of the Pentagon and the CIA, Garrison had called at the end of the trial for release of the JFK assassination files in time for his young son to read them. Stone based the film very accurately on the official records released by the Warren Commission in 26 volumes of evidence and on the investigative work of many serious critics in the intervening years. Every line of dialogue in the film script was footnoted to a known source or witness. Stone presented Garrison’s legal case as it developed into his arguments at trial. At the end of the film, Stone had a short notice that the files remained sealed to that day.
The film introduced a whole new generation to the questions that remain about the murder of John F. Kennedy and made a plausible argument for motive, means and opportunity for enemies of the President in the government who conspired to stage a military coup to prevent his policies that aimed at peace instead of ongoing and even nuclear war with the Soviet Union, Vietnam and Cuba, and his support for domestic changes regarding racism, wealth and poverty, and international relations that would end the Cold War and promote the United States in a more positive role around the world. The trailer regarding the records generated hundreds of thousands of calls and letters to Congress calling for their release and gave momentum to the passage of the JFK Assassination Records Act in 1992, drafted and supported by the research community working on JFK’s assassination. The Committee for an Open Archives, formed in 1989 to promote legislation opening the records and the evidence to public scrutiny, had generated several earlier bills, which did not get out of committee. The Records Act was not really implemented until 1994, when an independent Records Review Board was created and began a four-year process of releasing over 4.5 million pages of classified records, and setting the machinery of review in motion that has resulted in a total of over 6 million pages released to date. More files remain buried and their release is being considered under the earlier and flawed provisions of the FOIA and in court actions. The HSCA files on Dr. King’s murder remain sealed until 2028, lacking legislation or a decision by the Clerk of the House.
In 1994, the Committee for an Open Archives proposed the creation of a national coalition and network of researchers and organizations representing our interests to effectively oversee the functions of the JFK Assassination Records Review Board and to continue serious research into the emerging documentary and scientific evidence in the major political assassinations of the 1960s and since. The Review Board was receptive to our expertise in the case and our input and worked effectively for release rather than postponement of records, and ended its work in 1998.
The new organization, the Coalition on Political Assassinations, continues to work for full release of classified files relating to our own history and holds annual conferences in Dallas, Texas on the best new evidence being released or discovered in these unsolved murders. We commemorate JFK’s speech ending the Cold War, seeking détente and calling for an end to the nuclear arms race and weapons testing on June 10, 1963, at the site on the campus of American University, Washington, DC at noon, by the memorial plaque. Every fifth year we have held conferences in Memphis and Los Angeles on the anniversary dates of the murders of Dr. King (April 4) and Robert F. Kennedy (June 6) in 1968. Next year will be the 45th anniversary of our deaths as well. COPA has also sponsored discussions on the assassination of Malcolm X in New York City over the recent years, some of them held in conjunction with the Dr. Betty Shabazz/Malcolm X Memorial Center at the site of the old Audubon Hotel in Harlem where he was killed on February 21, 1965. See www.politicalassassinations.com for more on our work or write to copa@starpower.net for emails about our upcoming events.
By the mid-1990’s, Penn Jones, Jr. was suffering from an advancing case of Alzheimer’s disease, which made it hard for him to continue the annual commemorations on the Grassy Knoll. He asked me to do them in his stead. The Moment of Silence has been held, with a legal permit, on the Grassy Knoll under the auspices of the Coalition on Political Assassinations to larger crowds over the years. There were close to 5,000 people there on the 40th anniversary and the City of Dallas made Dealey Plaza into a public historical site. Penn Jones and I were unable to get through a massive police blockade of the Grassy Knoll that year, and held our Moment of Silence on the south slope of the Plaza instead. The Sixth Floor Museum was created to preserve the Book Depository building and the alleged site of the assassin’s lair, but by doing so they promote the official “lone nut” version of events and fail to answer the questions of the critics in the case.
Literally millions of tourists visit the site each year and a lone critic, Robert Groden, sells videotapes and books relating to the conspiracy to kill the President based on the best photographic evidence and analysis. Groden was on the staff of the HSCA and handled their photographic analysis. He was responsible for the first nationally viewed showing of the famous Abraham Zapruder amateur film of the assassination, which clearly demonstrates more than one gunman hitting President Kennedy, a film sealed from public view for more than three decades. Groden has been illegally arrested by Dallas police dozens of times over the years for selling without a permit, winning his release each time without conviction when judges ruled no such permit exists for the park location. This harassment has led Groden to sue the City of Dallas for his civil and constitutional right to sell and distribute critical materials on the Grassy Knoll regarding the most famous assassination in world history at this point.
Anticipating ever larger crowds on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination on November 22, 2013, the Coalition has applied for a legal permit in advance over the last three years, only to be told no permit can be issued more than a year in advance. Despite that rule, the Dallas Parks and Recreation Department informed me this year that a permit has been issued to the Sixth Floor Museum and the City of Dallas for the use of Dealey Plaza for the entire week from November 19-24, for exclusive use of the area and that no other permit can be issued for our event. The Director of the Sixth Floor Museum, Jessica Langford, has stated in the Dallas Morning News that they have no event planned for the Plaza, but they wanted to be “proactive” in preventing “a circus atmosphere” and the presentation of “conspiracy theories” in 2013. They also know quite well how many will be there listening. At one point she was asked what sort of an event they want to hold and she told the DMN reporter that she was not sure, “maybe a Moment of Silence”. This direct and content-based refusal of permit for the use of a public and historical site violates the protections of the First Amendment for free speech and expression.
While our Moment of Silence events have always been dignified, holding banners calling for release of files or citing the open questions surrounding these murders, followed by myself and other researchers speaking to the crowds without public address system about the issues that remain to be resolved and the historical importance of the ongoing investigations, there have been over the years other events held without permit ranging from performance art, large puppets, music and speech that some may consider as “carnival” or “circus” atmosphere, they also are protected expressions of free speech. Our permit has never been exclusive, though we have asked those who come with sound systems to allow us a few moments of silence and speech each year at 12:30 pm. Some years we have been drowned out. But, if the Sixth Floor Museum and the Mayor’s office are allowed to control the content of the message that day to only include what I was told would be events “celebrating the life of John F. Kennedy” and not mentioning or questioning his death and the conspiracy and cover-up which have no statute of limitations in an unsolved crime, it will mark not a moment but an eternity of silence on the real issues of this historical tragedy and its implications today.
COPA continues to negotiate, as we were instructed to do by the Parks & Recreation Department, with the Sixth Floor Museum and the Mayor’s office by informing them of our intent to continue a 48-year tradition of our Moment of Silence and speaking truth to power on the Grassy Knoll on the day that marks the brutal assassination of a President and of hope for change in this country since. For several months we have had little or no response to our communications. We have been told clearly that we will not be issued a permit. For us, the permit was not to allow us free speech but only to permit coordination of events in a public space. I was told when I asked for an exclusive permit for a few hours so that our event would not be overwhelmed by a sound system, I was told by the Dallas Police liaison to the Parks Department that their right to interrupt me was “free speech” in his view. Those interfering had secured no permits when they did so over the years.
If this silence in regard to our right to free speech and to hold our commemorative event continues into 2013 then we may attempt legal action to secure our rights. However, given the history of harassment of critics in Dealey Plaza and the attempts by the national press, media and official bodies to suppress and discredit our message, I am making a call to all those concerned with having another point of view present, audible and visible on the Grassy Knoll, Dealey Plaza, Dallas, Texas at 12:30 pm on November 22, 2013, the 50th anniversary of the murder of President John F. Kennedy, which will solemnly celebrate his life, but also acknowledge that his life got him killed, to be there at the site and to Occupy the Grassy Knoll so that we can be heard. The press of the world is likely to be present along with thousands of Americans that day. If they do not allow a sound system then perhaps I will yell out “Mike Check!” to make myself heard to the crowd.
I am calling on the national network of Occupy groups to join us as well as the thousands of researchers, authors, critics and concerned citizens who know the truth about the Kennedy assassination, or at least suspect that the official version is wrong, to join us there. I am not calling for anyone to get arrested or confront or challenge the police present. I am and have always been non-violent and I follow in the steps of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in using only non-violent means to expose the truth.
If there is not enough democracy left in America to ask questions in public about the assassinations of JFK, RFK, MLK, Malcolm X and others on the 50th anniversary of JFK’s murder at the scene of the crime and be heard by those who are coming that day with his assassination in mind, then those who killed him have won. I think the American people need to win back our democracy and restore our real history instead. This will not be done by ignoring the questions but by embracing them and calling for the full release of information and the serious criminal investigations that need to be done to resolve them and hold those responsible to task. I think this is worthy of an Occupy action and that it is in the spirit of all earlier actions by citizens to empower themselves to have a say in our own country’s future.
“The past is prologue” is the quote on the front of the National Archives building in Washington, DC. The future is just as important as the past and depends on knowing about it. George Orwell wrote, “Those who control the present control the past, and those who control the past control the future.” In any real democracy, shouldn’t that be the people themselves, not an elite few? Finally, Thomas Jefferson said, “There is no safe repository for the powers of a society except among the people themselves. If we find them unable to exercise their discretion in a wholesome fashion, the solution is not to take the power from them, but to inform their discretion.”
A CALL TO OCCUPY THE GRASSY KNOLL IN 2013
Please join us in reclaiming our own history and our own future on November 22, 2013 at the Grassy Knoll in Dealey Plaza at 12:30 pm so that we can inform the discretion of the American people and put the power back in our hands. Don’t let the forces that arrayed against President Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X steal our hope one more time. Don’t contribute to perpetual silence on these murders but come to a Moment of Silence followed by free speaking of historical truth to the power of the 1% who do not want real democracy and freedom and who are afraid of the truth.
OCCUPY THE GRASSY KNOLL IN 2013
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/orig13/judge-j1.1.1.html
"Neocon hostility to Hagel is rooted in a fear that in Obama's inner councils his voice would be raised in favor of negotiating with Iran and against a preventive war or pre-emptive strike. But if Obama permits these assaults to persuade him not to nominate Hagel, he will only be postponing a defining battle of his presidency, not avoiding it."
Why the War Party Fears Hagel
by Patrick J. Buchanan
In the fortnight since Chuck Hagel's name was floated for secretary of defense, we have witnessed Washington at its worst.
Who is Chuck Hagel?
Born in North Platte, Neb., he was a squad leader in Vietnam, twice wounded, who came home to work in Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, was twice elected U.S. senator, and is chairman of the Atlantic Council and co-chair of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
To The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, however, Hagel is a man "out on the fringes," who has a decade-long record of "hostility to Israel" and is "pro-appeasement-of-Iran."
Lest we miss Kristol's point, Standard blogger Daniel Halper helpfully adds that a "top Republican Senate aide" said, "Send us Hagel, and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite."
The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens continued in this vein.
"Prejudice ... has an olfactory element," he writes, and with Hagel, "the odor is especially ripe." Stephens is saying that Chuck Hagel reeks of anti-Semitism.
Hagel's enemies contend that his own words disqualify him.
First, he told author Aaron David Miller that the "Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up there" on the Hill. Second, he urged us to talk to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. Third, Hagel said several years ago, "A military strike against Iran ... is not a viable, feasible, responsible option."
Hagel has conceded he misspoke in using the phrase "Jewish lobby." But as for a pro-Israel lobby, its existence is the subject of books and countless articles. When AIPAC sends up to the Hill one of its scripted pro-Israel resolutions, it is whistled through. Hagel's problem: He did not treat these sacred texts with sufficient reverence.
"I am a United States senator, not an Israeli senator," he told Miller. "I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath ... to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not to a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that."
Hagel puts U.S. national interests first. And sometimes those interests clash with the policies of the Israeli government.
In 1957, President Eisenhower told Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to get his army out of Sinai. Would that disqualify Ike from being secretary of defense because, to quote Kristol, this would show Ike was not "serious about having Israel's back"?
If a senator or defense secretary believes an Israeli action – like bisecting the West Bank with new settlements that will kill any chance for a Palestinian state and guarantee another intifada – what should he do?
Defend the U.S. position, or make sure there is "no daylight" between him and the Israeli prime minister?
As for talking to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, what are we afraid of?
Harry Truman talked to Josef Stalin and read Vyacheslav Molotov the riot act in the Oval Office. Ike invited Nikita Khrushchev to tour the United States three years after he sent tanks into Budapest.
Richard Nixon went to China and toasted Mao Zedong, 20 years after the Chinese were killing U.S. solders in Korea and brainwashing our POWs, and at the same time they were conducting their maniacal cultural revolution and shipping weapons to Hanoi.
Israel negotiated with Hezbollah to retrieve the remains of airman Ron Arad and traded 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in a deal with Hamas for the return of Pvt. Gilad Shalit. And we can't talk to them?
If Hagel's view that a war with Iran is not a "responsible option" is a disqualification for defense secretary, what are we to make of this statement from Robert Gates, defense secretary for Bush II and Obama:
"Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as Gen. (Douglas) MacArthur so delicately put it."
If Hagel were an anti-Semite, would he have the support of so many Jewish columnists and writers? If he were really "out on the fringes," would national security advisers for presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Obama be in his camp?
Neocon hostility to Hagel is rooted in a fear that in Obama's inner councils his voice would be raised in favor of negotiating with Iran and against a preventive war or pre-emptive strike. But if Obama permits these assaults to persuade him not to nominate Hagel, he will only be postponing a defining battle of his presidency, not avoiding it.
For Bibi Netanyahu is going to be re-elected this January. And the government he forms looks to be more bellicose than the last. And Bibi's highest priority, shared by his neocon allies, is a U.S. war on Iran in 2013.
If Obama does not want that war, he is going to have to defeat the war party. Throwing an old warrior like Chuck Hagel over the side to appease these wolves is not the way to begin this fight.
Nominate him, Mr. President. Let's get it on.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan288.html
by Patrick J. Buchanan
In the fortnight since Chuck Hagel's name was floated for secretary of defense, we have witnessed Washington at its worst.
Who is Chuck Hagel?
Born in North Platte, Neb., he was a squad leader in Vietnam, twice wounded, who came home to work in Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign, was twice elected U.S. senator, and is chairman of the Atlantic Council and co-chair of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.
To The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol, however, Hagel is a man "out on the fringes," who has a decade-long record of "hostility to Israel" and is "pro-appeasement-of-Iran."
Lest we miss Kristol's point, Standard blogger Daniel Halper helpfully adds that a "top Republican Senate aide" said, "Send us Hagel, and we will make sure every American knows he is an anti-Semite."
The Wall Street Journal's Bret Stephens continued in this vein.
"Prejudice ... has an olfactory element," he writes, and with Hagel, "the odor is especially ripe." Stephens is saying that Chuck Hagel reeks of anti-Semitism.
Hagel's enemies contend that his own words disqualify him.
First, he told author Aaron David Miller that the "Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up there" on the Hill. Second, he urged us to talk to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran. Third, Hagel said several years ago, "A military strike against Iran ... is not a viable, feasible, responsible option."
Hagel has conceded he misspoke in using the phrase "Jewish lobby." But as for a pro-Israel lobby, its existence is the subject of books and countless articles. When AIPAC sends up to the Hill one of its scripted pro-Israel resolutions, it is whistled through. Hagel's problem: He did not treat these sacred texts with sufficient reverence.
"I am a United States senator, not an Israeli senator," he told Miller. "I support Israel. But my first interest is I take an oath ... to the Constitution of the United States. Not to a president. Not to a party. Not to Israel. If I go run for Senate in Israel, I'll do that."
Hagel puts U.S. national interests first. And sometimes those interests clash with the policies of the Israeli government.
In 1957, President Eisenhower told Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion to get his army out of Sinai. Would that disqualify Ike from being secretary of defense because, to quote Kristol, this would show Ike was not "serious about having Israel's back"?
If a senator or defense secretary believes an Israeli action – like bisecting the West Bank with new settlements that will kill any chance for a Palestinian state and guarantee another intifada – what should he do?
Defend the U.S. position, or make sure there is "no daylight" between him and the Israeli prime minister?
As for talking to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, what are we afraid of?
Harry Truman talked to Josef Stalin and read Vyacheslav Molotov the riot act in the Oval Office. Ike invited Nikita Khrushchev to tour the United States three years after he sent tanks into Budapest.
Richard Nixon went to China and toasted Mao Zedong, 20 years after the Chinese were killing U.S. solders in Korea and brainwashing our POWs, and at the same time they were conducting their maniacal cultural revolution and shipping weapons to Hanoi.
Israel negotiated with Hezbollah to retrieve the remains of airman Ron Arad and traded 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in a deal with Hamas for the return of Pvt. Gilad Shalit. And we can't talk to them?
If Hagel's view that a war with Iran is not a "responsible option" is a disqualification for defense secretary, what are we to make of this statement from Robert Gates, defense secretary for Bush II and Obama:
"Any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should 'have his head examined,' as Gen. (Douglas) MacArthur so delicately put it."
If Hagel were an anti-Semite, would he have the support of so many Jewish columnists and writers? If he were really "out on the fringes," would national security advisers for presidents Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I and Obama be in his camp?
Neocon hostility to Hagel is rooted in a fear that in Obama's inner councils his voice would be raised in favor of negotiating with Iran and against a preventive war or pre-emptive strike. But if Obama permits these assaults to persuade him not to nominate Hagel, he will only be postponing a defining battle of his presidency, not avoiding it.
For Bibi Netanyahu is going to be re-elected this January. And the government he forms looks to be more bellicose than the last. And Bibi's highest priority, shared by his neocon allies, is a U.S. war on Iran in 2013.
If Obama does not want that war, he is going to have to defeat the war party. Throwing an old warrior like Chuck Hagel over the side to appease these wolves is not the way to begin this fight.
Nominate him, Mr. President. Let's get it on.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/buchanan/buchanan288.html
"The Western ‘welfare state model’, ‘socialism light,’ will collapse just like ‘classical’ socialism – of course, I can’t say whether in five, ten or 15 years. The key words are: state bankruptcy, hyperinflation, currency reform and violent distribution battles. Then it will either come to a call for a ‘strong man’ or – hopefully – a massive secession movement."
Obsessed by Megalomania
Interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe
The following interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe first appeared in the German weekly Junge Freiheit on November 2, 2012, and was conducted by Moritz Schwarz. It has been translated here into English by Robert Groezinger.
Are taxes nothing but protection money? The state a kind of mafia? Democracy a fraud? Philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe is not only considered one of the most prominent pioneering intellectuals of the libertarian movement, but also perhaps the sharpest critic of the Western political system.
Professor Hoppe: In your essay collection ‘Der Wettbewerb der Gauner’ (‘The Competition of Crooks’) you write that ‘99 percent of citizens, asked if the state was necessary, would answer yes.’ Me too! Why am I wrong?
Hoppe: All of us, from childhood, have been moulded by state or state licensed institutions – preschools, schools, universities. So the result you quoted is not surprising. However, if I asked you whether you said yes to an institution having the last word in each conflict, even in those it is itself involved in, you would certainly say no – unless you hoped to be in charge of this institution yourself.
Er ... correct.
Hoppe: Of course, because you know that such an institution cannot only mediate in conflicts but also cause them, you can recognize that it can then resolve them to its own advantage. In the face of this I, for one, would live in fear of my life and property. However, it is precisely this, the ultimate power of judicial decision-making, that is the specific characteristic of the institution known as the state.
Correct, but on the other hand the state is based on a social contract, which provides the individual with protection and space for personal fulfilment, which without the state he would not have – in a struggle of all against all.
Hoppe: No, the state is anything but the result of a contract! No one with even just an ounce of common sense would agree to such a contract. I have a lot of contracts in my files, but nowhere is there one like this. The state is the result of aggressive force and subjugation. It has evolved without contractual foundation, just like a gang of protection racketeers. And concerning the struggle of all against all: that is a myth. Of course the racketeer protects his victims on "his" territory from other racketeers, but only so he can conduct his own racket more successfully. Moreover: It is states that are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people and immeasurable destruction in the 20th century alone. Compared to that, the victims of private crimes are almost negligible. And do you seriously believe that conflicts between the inhabitants of the tri-border region [of France, Germany and Switzerland] near Basle, who are living together in a condition of anarchy, are more numerous than conflicts between the inhabitants of Dortmund and Düsseldorf, who are citizens of one and the same state [Germany]? Not that I know of.
Why in your view is democracy just a "competition of crooks"?
Hoppe: All highly-developed forms of religion forbid the coveting of someone else’s property. This prohibition is the foundation of peaceful cooperation. In a democracy, on the other hand, anyone can covet anybody else’s property and act according to his desire – the only precondition being that he can gain access to the corridors of power. Thus, under democratic conditions, everybody becomes a potential threat. And during mass elections what tends to happen is that the members of society who attempt to access the corridors of power and rise to the highest positions are those who have no moral inhibitions about misappropriating other people’s property: habitual amoralists who are particularly talented in forging majorities out of a multitude of unbridled and mutually exclusive demands.
‘Politicians: lazy and spongers!’ Aren’t you afraid you might be reproached for complaining on the level of the ‘Bild’ tabloid newspaper?
Hoppe: So what? Up until the 20th century there was hardly an important political thinker who didn’t speak disparagingly about democracy. The keyword was: mob rule. The populist criticism of democracy, as can be found in Bild or at the water cooler, is all very well. But it is not fundamental enough, nor does it go far enough – to date Bild hasn’t asked me for an interview either. Of course politicians are spongers: they live off money extorted from other people with the threat of violence – which is called ‘taxation’. But unfortunately, politicians are not lazy. It would be nice if all they did was squander their booty. Instead they are obsessive megalomaniacal do-gooders, who in addition make life difficult for their victims with thousands of laws and regulations.
Democracy is only one possible variety of statehood. Would a different form of state be more acceptable to you?
Hoppe: In a monarchist state everyone knows who the ruler is and who the ruled are, and accordingly there is resistance against any attempt to increase state power. In a democratic state this distinction becomes blurred, and it becomes all the easier to expand state power.
Just a moment: that’s what courts, laws and the constitution are for, to limit and control the state – government as well as parliament.
Hoppe: The mafia also has "executive", "legislative" and "judicial" branches. Just go and watch the movie "The Godfather" again!
Another objection: What about the new internet-based detractors of the state, such as ‘Occupy’ or the ‘Pirates,’ who demand transparency and participation, without immediately condemning the state and democracy in their entirety?
Hoppe: The ‘Occupy’ movement consists of economic ignoramuses who fail to understand that the banks’ dirty tricks, which they rightly deplore, are possible only because there is a state-licensed central bank that acts as a "lender of last resort," and that the current financial crisis therefore is not a crisis of capitalism but a crisis of statism. The ‘Pirates’, with their demand for an unconditional basic income, are well on the way to becoming another ‘free beer for all’ party. They have a single issue: criticism of ‘intellectual property rights’ (IP rights), which could make them very popular – and earn them the enmity in particular of the music, film and pharmaceutical industries. But even there they are clueless wimps. They just need to google Stephan Kinsella. Then they’d see that IP has nothing to do with property, but rather with state privileges. IP allows the inventor (I) or ‘first maker’ of a product – a text, picture, song or whatever – to forbid all other people to replicate this product, or to charge them license fees, even if the replicator (R) thereby uses his own property only (and does not take away any of I’s property). This way, I is elevated to the status of co-owner of R’s property. This shows: IP rights are not property but, on the contrary, are an attack on property and therefore completely illegitimate.
In ‘The Competition of Crooks’ you outline as an alternative the model of a ‘private law society’. How does it work?
Hoppe: The basic concept is simple. The idea of a monopolistic property protector and law keeper is self-contradictory. This monopolist, whether king or president, will always be an expropriating property protector and a law breaking law keeper – who will characterize his actions as being in ‘the public interest’. In order to guarantee the protection of property and safeguard the law there has to be free competition in the area of law as well. Other institutions apart from the state must be allowed to provide property and law protection services. The state then becomes a normal subject of private law, on an equal footing with all other people. It can’t raise taxes any more or unilaterally enact laws. Its employees will have to finance themselves just the same as everybody else does: by producing and offering something that freely engaging customers consider value for money.
Wouldn’t that quickly lead to a war between these ‘providers’?
Hoppe: War and aggression are costly. States go to war because they can, via taxes, pass on the cost to third parties who are not directly involved. By contrast, for voluntarily financed companies war is economic suicide. As a private law subject the state too will, like all other security providers, have to offer its customers contracts that can only be changed by mutual agreement, and which in particular regulate what is to be done in the case of a conflict between itself and its customers, or between itself and the customers of other, competing security providers. And for that there is only one solution acceptable to everyone: that in these sorts of conflicts not the state, but an independent third party decides – arbitrators and judges who in turn compete with each other, whose most important asset is their reputation as keepers of the law, and whose actions and judgments can be challenged and, if need be, revised, just as anyone else’s can be.
Who should be such a ‘third party’? And with what instruments of power should it assert the interests of an individual citizen against his contractual partner – the private state, which of course is much more powerful?
Hoppe: In local conflicts, in a village or a small town, these will very often be universally respected ‘natural aristocrats’. Or else arbitrating organisations and courts of appeal, which insurers and insured have contractually agreed on from the start. Whoever then does not abide by the judgments will not only be defaulting, he will become a pariah in the world of business. Nobody will want to have anything to do with him, and he will immediately lose all his customers. This is no utopian idea. This is already the usual practice in international – anarchical – business transactions today. And another question for you: How should the individual citizen assert his interests in the face of a monopolistic tax-state? It is much more powerful – and always has the last word!
Do you understand the continuing scepticism with regard to your proposition?
Hoppe: Of course, as most people have never heard of this idea, let alone thought about it seriously. I am only unsympathetic towards those who yell out at the top of their voices when they hear this idea and demand the condemnation of its representatives, without having the least knowledge of economics and political philosophy.
It is hardly likely that a majority of citizens will ever support such an unfamiliar model. But what parts of it at least could be adopted, in order to achieve at least partial improvements of our current system, without a complete abandonment of state and democracy?
Hoppe: There is an interim solution. It’s called secession and political decentralization. Small states must be libertarian, otherwise the productive people will desert them. Desirable therefore is a world made up of thousands of Liechtensteins, Singapores and Hong Kongs. In contrast, a European central government – and even more so a world government – with a ‘harmonized’ tax and regulation policy, is the gravest threat to freedom.
For that too you will probably not find a majority. Therefore how will state and democracy develop in future? Where will we finally end up?
Hoppe: The Western ‘welfare state model’, ‘socialism light,’ will collapse just like ‘classical’ socialism – of course, I can’t say whether in five, ten or 15 years. The key words are: state bankruptcy, hyperinflation, currency reform and violent distribution battles. Then it will either come to a call for a ‘strong man’ or – hopefully – a massive secession movement.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe31.1.html
Interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe
The following interview with Hans-Hermann Hoppe first appeared in the German weekly Junge Freiheit on November 2, 2012, and was conducted by Moritz Schwarz. It has been translated here into English by Robert Groezinger.
Are taxes nothing but protection money? The state a kind of mafia? Democracy a fraud? Philosopher Hans-Hermann Hoppe is not only considered one of the most prominent pioneering intellectuals of the libertarian movement, but also perhaps the sharpest critic of the Western political system.
Professor Hoppe: In your essay collection ‘Der Wettbewerb der Gauner’ (‘The Competition of Crooks’) you write that ‘99 percent of citizens, asked if the state was necessary, would answer yes.’ Me too! Why am I wrong?
Hoppe: All of us, from childhood, have been moulded by state or state licensed institutions – preschools, schools, universities. So the result you quoted is not surprising. However, if I asked you whether you said yes to an institution having the last word in each conflict, even in those it is itself involved in, you would certainly say no – unless you hoped to be in charge of this institution yourself.
Er ... correct.
Hoppe: Of course, because you know that such an institution cannot only mediate in conflicts but also cause them, you can recognize that it can then resolve them to its own advantage. In the face of this I, for one, would live in fear of my life and property. However, it is precisely this, the ultimate power of judicial decision-making, that is the specific characteristic of the institution known as the state.
Correct, but on the other hand the state is based on a social contract, which provides the individual with protection and space for personal fulfilment, which without the state he would not have – in a struggle of all against all.
Hoppe: No, the state is anything but the result of a contract! No one with even just an ounce of common sense would agree to such a contract. I have a lot of contracts in my files, but nowhere is there one like this. The state is the result of aggressive force and subjugation. It has evolved without contractual foundation, just like a gang of protection racketeers. And concerning the struggle of all against all: that is a myth. Of course the racketeer protects his victims on "his" territory from other racketeers, but only so he can conduct his own racket more successfully. Moreover: It is states that are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of millions of people and immeasurable destruction in the 20th century alone. Compared to that, the victims of private crimes are almost negligible. And do you seriously believe that conflicts between the inhabitants of the tri-border region [of France, Germany and Switzerland] near Basle, who are living together in a condition of anarchy, are more numerous than conflicts between the inhabitants of Dortmund and Düsseldorf, who are citizens of one and the same state [Germany]? Not that I know of.
Why in your view is democracy just a "competition of crooks"?
Hoppe: All highly-developed forms of religion forbid the coveting of someone else’s property. This prohibition is the foundation of peaceful cooperation. In a democracy, on the other hand, anyone can covet anybody else’s property and act according to his desire – the only precondition being that he can gain access to the corridors of power. Thus, under democratic conditions, everybody becomes a potential threat. And during mass elections what tends to happen is that the members of society who attempt to access the corridors of power and rise to the highest positions are those who have no moral inhibitions about misappropriating other people’s property: habitual amoralists who are particularly talented in forging majorities out of a multitude of unbridled and mutually exclusive demands.
‘Politicians: lazy and spongers!’ Aren’t you afraid you might be reproached for complaining on the level of the ‘Bild’ tabloid newspaper?
Hoppe: So what? Up until the 20th century there was hardly an important political thinker who didn’t speak disparagingly about democracy. The keyword was: mob rule. The populist criticism of democracy, as can be found in Bild or at the water cooler, is all very well. But it is not fundamental enough, nor does it go far enough – to date Bild hasn’t asked me for an interview either. Of course politicians are spongers: they live off money extorted from other people with the threat of violence – which is called ‘taxation’. But unfortunately, politicians are not lazy. It would be nice if all they did was squander their booty. Instead they are obsessive megalomaniacal do-gooders, who in addition make life difficult for their victims with thousands of laws and regulations.
Democracy is only one possible variety of statehood. Would a different form of state be more acceptable to you?
Hoppe: In a monarchist state everyone knows who the ruler is and who the ruled are, and accordingly there is resistance against any attempt to increase state power. In a democratic state this distinction becomes blurred, and it becomes all the easier to expand state power.
Just a moment: that’s what courts, laws and the constitution are for, to limit and control the state – government as well as parliament.
Hoppe: The mafia also has "executive", "legislative" and "judicial" branches. Just go and watch the movie "The Godfather" again!
Another objection: What about the new internet-based detractors of the state, such as ‘Occupy’ or the ‘Pirates,’ who demand transparency and participation, without immediately condemning the state and democracy in their entirety?
Hoppe: The ‘Occupy’ movement consists of economic ignoramuses who fail to understand that the banks’ dirty tricks, which they rightly deplore, are possible only because there is a state-licensed central bank that acts as a "lender of last resort," and that the current financial crisis therefore is not a crisis of capitalism but a crisis of statism. The ‘Pirates’, with their demand for an unconditional basic income, are well on the way to becoming another ‘free beer for all’ party. They have a single issue: criticism of ‘intellectual property rights’ (IP rights), which could make them very popular – and earn them the enmity in particular of the music, film and pharmaceutical industries. But even there they are clueless wimps. They just need to google Stephan Kinsella. Then they’d see that IP has nothing to do with property, but rather with state privileges. IP allows the inventor (I) or ‘first maker’ of a product – a text, picture, song or whatever – to forbid all other people to replicate this product, or to charge them license fees, even if the replicator (R) thereby uses his own property only (and does not take away any of I’s property). This way, I is elevated to the status of co-owner of R’s property. This shows: IP rights are not property but, on the contrary, are an attack on property and therefore completely illegitimate.
In ‘The Competition of Crooks’ you outline as an alternative the model of a ‘private law society’. How does it work?
Hoppe: The basic concept is simple. The idea of a monopolistic property protector and law keeper is self-contradictory. This monopolist, whether king or president, will always be an expropriating property protector and a law breaking law keeper – who will characterize his actions as being in ‘the public interest’. In order to guarantee the protection of property and safeguard the law there has to be free competition in the area of law as well. Other institutions apart from the state must be allowed to provide property and law protection services. The state then becomes a normal subject of private law, on an equal footing with all other people. It can’t raise taxes any more or unilaterally enact laws. Its employees will have to finance themselves just the same as everybody else does: by producing and offering something that freely engaging customers consider value for money.
Wouldn’t that quickly lead to a war between these ‘providers’?
Hoppe: War and aggression are costly. States go to war because they can, via taxes, pass on the cost to third parties who are not directly involved. By contrast, for voluntarily financed companies war is economic suicide. As a private law subject the state too will, like all other security providers, have to offer its customers contracts that can only be changed by mutual agreement, and which in particular regulate what is to be done in the case of a conflict between itself and its customers, or between itself and the customers of other, competing security providers. And for that there is only one solution acceptable to everyone: that in these sorts of conflicts not the state, but an independent third party decides – arbitrators and judges who in turn compete with each other, whose most important asset is their reputation as keepers of the law, and whose actions and judgments can be challenged and, if need be, revised, just as anyone else’s can be.
Who should be such a ‘third party’? And with what instruments of power should it assert the interests of an individual citizen against his contractual partner – the private state, which of course is much more powerful?
Hoppe: In local conflicts, in a village or a small town, these will very often be universally respected ‘natural aristocrats’. Or else arbitrating organisations and courts of appeal, which insurers and insured have contractually agreed on from the start. Whoever then does not abide by the judgments will not only be defaulting, he will become a pariah in the world of business. Nobody will want to have anything to do with him, and he will immediately lose all his customers. This is no utopian idea. This is already the usual practice in international – anarchical – business transactions today. And another question for you: How should the individual citizen assert his interests in the face of a monopolistic tax-state? It is much more powerful – and always has the last word!
Do you understand the continuing scepticism with regard to your proposition?
Hoppe: Of course, as most people have never heard of this idea, let alone thought about it seriously. I am only unsympathetic towards those who yell out at the top of their voices when they hear this idea and demand the condemnation of its representatives, without having the least knowledge of economics and political philosophy.
It is hardly likely that a majority of citizens will ever support such an unfamiliar model. But what parts of it at least could be adopted, in order to achieve at least partial improvements of our current system, without a complete abandonment of state and democracy?
Hoppe: There is an interim solution. It’s called secession and political decentralization. Small states must be libertarian, otherwise the productive people will desert them. Desirable therefore is a world made up of thousands of Liechtensteins, Singapores and Hong Kongs. In contrast, a European central government – and even more so a world government – with a ‘harmonized’ tax and regulation policy, is the gravest threat to freedom.
For that too you will probably not find a majority. Therefore how will state and democracy develop in future? Where will we finally end up?
Hoppe: The Western ‘welfare state model’, ‘socialism light,’ will collapse just like ‘classical’ socialism – of course, I can’t say whether in five, ten or 15 years. The key words are: state bankruptcy, hyperinflation, currency reform and violent distribution battles. Then it will either come to a call for a ‘strong man’ or – hopefully – a massive secession movement.
Link:
http://lewrockwell.com/hoppe/hoppe31.1.html
Friday, December 28, 2012
"If you believe that “liberty” and “freedom” are “dangerous”, you might hate America."
You Might Hate America If…
Mike Snyder
In America today, there is an all-out attack on the values that this country was founded upon.
Many of the people that are involved in these attacks actually claim to “love America” and yet they viciously attack the values and the principles that were foundational to what early Americans believed.
In particular, there are two documents that were greatly cherished in early America that are being relentlessly assaulted today: the U.S. Constitution and the Bible.
In colleges and universities all over America, students are being taught that these documents are “flawed” and that they need to “evolve” as society changes.
Those teaching this philosophy honestly believe that modern values are far superior to the values found in those documents. They are convinced that it is foolish to be “bound” by the wisdom of the past. That is why they love to refer to the U.S. Constitution as a “living, breathing document”.
They believe that they should be able to “reinterpret” the Constitution without going through the hassle of the formal amendment process. And of course we have seen courts do this over and over again in recent years.
When they feel it is necessary, our politicians and our courts will even openly ignore the Constitution when they feel it is necessary.
At this point, the Constitution has been so watered down and so many of our freedoms and liberties have been stripped away that we really don’t have much of a Constitution left. Sure, it is still there on paper, but our nation really doesn’t follow it anymore.
Of course a similar thing could be said of the Bible. In colleges and universities all over America, the Bible is relentlessly attacked.
Trust me, I have sat in university classrooms where it happens. The goal is to cast doubt on it, discredit it and make it as irrelevant as possible. In other words, they are trying to do the same thing to the Bible that they are doing to the U.S. Constitution.
But those two documents were the two most important documents in the early years of the United States.
Those two documents contained values and principles that helped make our country great.
Unfortunately, today we think that we “know better” and we are turning our backs on those values and principles.
So do you hate America and the values and the principles that it was founded upon? The following are some indications that you might…
If you refer to the U.S. Constitution as a “living, breathing document”, you might hate America.
If you believe that the U.S. Constitution is “inherently flawed“, you might hate America.
If you go around telling people that “we cannot let the Constitution become an obstacle“, you might hate America.
If you believe that the U.S. Constitution “represented values we should abhor or at least reject today“, you might hate America.
If you are convinced that there is “something infantile in the belief of the constitution-worshippers that the complex political arguments of today can be settled by simple fidelity to a document written in the 18th century”, you might hate America.
If you find yourself uttering phrases such as “capitalism does not work” or “capitalist pigs”, you might hate America.
If you consider marriage to be an “antiquated institution” and you believe that it enslaves women, you might hate America.
If you believe that the fact that the percentage of married couples in America today is at an all-time low is a good thing, you might hate America.
If you think that football is “too violent” and should be banned, you might hate America.
If you believe that those that are “reverent of individual liberty” are potential terrorists, you might hate America.
If you consider California to be a positive example for the rest of the nation, you might hate America.
If you believe that U.S. soldiers should be ordered to avoid criticizing “anything related to Islam“, you might hate America.
If you believe that students should be sent home from school for wearing shirts that display the American flag on the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo, you might hate America.
If you think that the U.S. military should be able to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without ever granting them a trial, you might hate America.
If you believe that “liberty” and “freedom” are “dangerous”, you might hate America.
If you believe that all human activity should be centrally planned and managed “for the good of the environment“, you might hate America.
If you believe that Christianity exists to keep the poor from killing the rich, you might hate America.
If you think that the government should take away most of what people earn through taxes, you might hate America.
If you believe that it is a good thing that millions of American jobs are being shipped to communist China, you might hate America.
If you consider small businesses to be “irrelevant”, you might hate America.
If you want to trample on our Second Amendment rights, you might hate America.
If you believe that volunteer chaplains should be banned from using the name of Jesus on government property, you might hate America.
If you think that the U.S. government should continue running trillion dollar deficits every single year, you might hate America.
If you think that traffic camera fines are a good thing, you might hate America.
If you believe that our borders should be left unprotected, you might hate America.
If you believe that illegal immigrants should be able to legally get driver’s licenses, you might hate America.
If you believe that illegal immigrants should be able to practice law in the United States, you might hate America.
If you are wearing a shirt that proclaims that you are “proud to be politically correct”, you might hate America.
If you think that the United Nations should be given control of the Internet, you might hate America.
If you are convinced that license plates that say “Choose Life” on them are unconstitutional, you might hate America.
If you believe that government agencies should be able to read your email without a search warrant, you might hate America.
If you believe that faith is a “mental illness”, you might hate America.
If you work for MSNBC, you might hate America.
If you believe that preppers are “dangerous extremists” that should be carefully watched and monitored, you might hate America.
If you believe that TSA goons should touch the private parts of our women and our children before they are allowed to board their flights, you might hate America.
If you are convinced that “it is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism”, you might hate America.
If you believe that making a profit is a sin, you might hate America.
If you consider the Founding Fathers to be “terrorists“, you might hate America.
Link:
http://thetruthwins.com/
Mike Snyder
In America today, there is an all-out attack on the values that this country was founded upon.
Many of the people that are involved in these attacks actually claim to “love America” and yet they viciously attack the values and the principles that were foundational to what early Americans believed.
In particular, there are two documents that were greatly cherished in early America that are being relentlessly assaulted today: the U.S. Constitution and the Bible.
In colleges and universities all over America, students are being taught that these documents are “flawed” and that they need to “evolve” as society changes.
Those teaching this philosophy honestly believe that modern values are far superior to the values found in those documents. They are convinced that it is foolish to be “bound” by the wisdom of the past. That is why they love to refer to the U.S. Constitution as a “living, breathing document”.
They believe that they should be able to “reinterpret” the Constitution without going through the hassle of the formal amendment process. And of course we have seen courts do this over and over again in recent years.
When they feel it is necessary, our politicians and our courts will even openly ignore the Constitution when they feel it is necessary.
At this point, the Constitution has been so watered down and so many of our freedoms and liberties have been stripped away that we really don’t have much of a Constitution left. Sure, it is still there on paper, but our nation really doesn’t follow it anymore.
Of course a similar thing could be said of the Bible. In colleges and universities all over America, the Bible is relentlessly attacked.
Trust me, I have sat in university classrooms where it happens. The goal is to cast doubt on it, discredit it and make it as irrelevant as possible. In other words, they are trying to do the same thing to the Bible that they are doing to the U.S. Constitution.
But those two documents were the two most important documents in the early years of the United States.
Those two documents contained values and principles that helped make our country great.
Unfortunately, today we think that we “know better” and we are turning our backs on those values and principles.
So do you hate America and the values and the principles that it was founded upon? The following are some indications that you might…
If you refer to the U.S. Constitution as a “living, breathing document”, you might hate America.
If you believe that the U.S. Constitution is “inherently flawed“, you might hate America.
If you go around telling people that “we cannot let the Constitution become an obstacle“, you might hate America.
If you believe that the U.S. Constitution “represented values we should abhor or at least reject today“, you might hate America.
If you are convinced that there is “something infantile in the belief of the constitution-worshippers that the complex political arguments of today can be settled by simple fidelity to a document written in the 18th century”, you might hate America.
If you find yourself uttering phrases such as “capitalism does not work” or “capitalist pigs”, you might hate America.
If you consider marriage to be an “antiquated institution” and you believe that it enslaves women, you might hate America.
If you believe that the fact that the percentage of married couples in America today is at an all-time low is a good thing, you might hate America.
If you think that football is “too violent” and should be banned, you might hate America.
If you believe that those that are “reverent of individual liberty” are potential terrorists, you might hate America.
If you consider California to be a positive example for the rest of the nation, you might hate America.
If you believe that U.S. soldiers should be ordered to avoid criticizing “anything related to Islam“, you might hate America.
If you believe that students should be sent home from school for wearing shirts that display the American flag on the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo, you might hate America.
If you think that the U.S. military should be able to indefinitely detain U.S. citizens on U.S. soil without ever granting them a trial, you might hate America.
If you believe that “liberty” and “freedom” are “dangerous”, you might hate America.
If you believe that all human activity should be centrally planned and managed “for the good of the environment“, you might hate America.
If you believe that Christianity exists to keep the poor from killing the rich, you might hate America.
If you think that the government should take away most of what people earn through taxes, you might hate America.
If you believe that it is a good thing that millions of American jobs are being shipped to communist China, you might hate America.
If you consider small businesses to be “irrelevant”, you might hate America.
If you want to trample on our Second Amendment rights, you might hate America.
If you believe that volunteer chaplains should be banned from using the name of Jesus on government property, you might hate America.
If you think that the U.S. government should continue running trillion dollar deficits every single year, you might hate America.
If you think that traffic camera fines are a good thing, you might hate America.
If you believe that our borders should be left unprotected, you might hate America.
If you believe that illegal immigrants should be able to legally get driver’s licenses, you might hate America.
If you believe that illegal immigrants should be able to practice law in the United States, you might hate America.
If you are wearing a shirt that proclaims that you are “proud to be politically correct”, you might hate America.
If you think that the United Nations should be given control of the Internet, you might hate America.
If you are convinced that license plates that say “Choose Life” on them are unconstitutional, you might hate America.
If you believe that government agencies should be able to read your email without a search warrant, you might hate America.
If you believe that faith is a “mental illness”, you might hate America.
If you work for MSNBC, you might hate America.
If you believe that preppers are “dangerous extremists” that should be carefully watched and monitored, you might hate America.
If you believe that TSA goons should touch the private parts of our women and our children before they are allowed to board their flights, you might hate America.
If you are convinced that “it is necessary to give up some civil liberties in order to make the country safe from terrorism”, you might hate America.
If you believe that making a profit is a sin, you might hate America.
If you consider the Founding Fathers to be “terrorists“, you might hate America.
Link:
http://thetruthwins.com/
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