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Cheney's Contempt for the Republic
As Vice President Dick Cheney goes public in exit interviews about his vision of expansive executive powers, it's getting clearer how close the American Republic came to suffering major deformity – if not destruction – in the past eight years.
It is also apparent that the risks to the Republic are not over, unless incoming President Barack Obama repudiates many of the executive powers that Cheney and his boss, George W. Bush, made central to their governing style.
In a revealing Dec. 21 interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Cheney disclosed that he briefed congressional Republican – and Democratic – leaders about the administration’s program of warrantless wiretapping inside the United States and that the leaders, presumably including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, endorsed the spying.
This so-called “terrorist surveillance program” fit with the Bush-Cheney view that the President wields virtually unlimited powers during wartime, even a conflict as vaguely defined as the “war on terror.”
Though Cheney cited constitutional precedents from the Civil War and World War II to justify his position, what has made the “war on terror” such an insidious basis for asserting the broadest presidential powers is that it is amorphous both in time and space.
Unlike conventional wars that have beginnings and ends – as well as battlefronts – this “war” is theoretically everywhere and never-ending. That means that the principles of a Republic – with constitutional limits on executive power and “unalienable rights” for everyone – would not just be suspended during a short-term emergency but essentially be eliminated forever.
In the interview, Cheney argued that the bridge to this new paradigm of an all-powerful Executive was crossed with the de facto granting to the President of the authority to retaliate in the event of a nuclear attack.
“I think that what we've done has been totally consistent with what the Constitution provides for,” Cheney told Wallace. “The President of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States.
“He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody; he doesn't have to call the Congress; he doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It's unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have.”
Justifying Everything
In Cheney’s view, it is now the threat of terrorism that justifies other executive powers – everything from spying on Americans and ignoring habeas corpus to torturing detainees and launching military strikes around the world.
“I think in wartime, when you consider [the President’s] responsibilities as Commander-in-Chief, clearly that means command of the Armed Forces. It also, when you get into use of forces in wartime, means collecting intelligence.
“And therefore, I think you're fully justified in setting up a ‘terrorist surveillance program’ to be able to intercept the communications of people who are communicating with terrorists outside the United States. I think you can have a robust interrogation program with respect to high-value detainees.
“Now, those are all steps we took that I believe the President was fully authorized in taking, and provided invaluable intelligence, which has been the key to our ability to defeat al-Qaeda over these last seven years.”
Cheney also argued that the President’s wartime powers trump laws passed by Congress.
“The Congress has -- clearly has the ability to write statutes and has certain constitutional authorities granted in the Constitution,” Cheney said. “But I would argue that they do not have the right by statute to alter presidential constitutional power. In other words, you can't override his constitutional authorities and responsibilities with a statute.”
Cheney’s chief regret appeared to be that the U.S. Supreme Court narrowly rejected the administration’s argument that these presidential powers allowed Bush to ignore fundamental individual rights incorporated in the Constitution, such as the writ of habeas corpus, an ancient legal principle requiring a government to show cause for imprisoning a person.
“I think that, frankly, the basic decision they [the Supreme Court justices] made was wrong,” Cheney said. “But it's their authority. The vote was 5-4.”
In other words, Cheney was suggesting that the replacement of one more justice from the court’s moderate wing by the likes of John Roberts or Samuel Alito – Bush’s two appointees – would have swung the Supreme Court into a historic reinterpretation of the Constitution.
Essentially, such a Supreme Court would have made the President all powerful and eliminated the founding U.S. principle of “unalienable rights” for individuals, protected by a government based on checks and balances.
Under that new paradigm – of an endless “war on terror” and an Executive who decides whether someone is or is not an “enemy combatant” – the key pillars of the American Republic would have been in ruins.
Instead of a Republic in which citizens possessed fundamental liberties enshrined in the Constitution – as the Founders envisioned – Americans would become, in effect, subjects to a monarchical President, who would apportion – or deny – freedoms as he would see fit.
Congressional Blessings
Beyond his legal arguments, Cheney noted that after 9/11, this new paradigm of presidential power was favored by most Americans and embraced by many members of Congress, at least in private.
“Go back and look at how eager the country was to have us work in the aftermath of 9/11 to make certain that that never happened again,” Cheney told Wallace.
The Vice President also disclosed that many congressional leaders, including some who have publicly criticized his expansive views on presidential power, privately went along with the administration’s actions, such as the warrantless surveillance program.
Cheney: “Well, let me tell you a story about the ‘terror surveillance program.’ We did brief the Congress and we brought in –“
Wallace: “A few members.”
Cheney: “We brought in the Chairman and the Ranking Member, House and Senate [Intelligence Committees], and briefed them a number of times up until -- this would be from late '01 up until '04, when there was additional controversy concerning the program.
“At that point, we brought what I describe as the ‘Big 9’ – not only the Intel [Committee] people, but also the Speaker, the Majority and Minority Leaders of the House and Senate, and brought them into the Situation Room in the basement of the White House.
“I presided over the meeting. We briefed them on the program and what we'd achieved and how it worked, and asked them, should we continue the program. They were unanimous, Republican and Democrat alike, all agreed, absolutely essential to continue the program.
“I then said, do we need to come to the Congress and get additional legislative authorization to continue what we're doing? They said, absolutely not, don't do it, because it will reveal to the enemy how it is we're reading their mail.
“That happened. I mean, we did consult. We did keep them involved. We ultimately ended up having to go to the Congress after The New York Times decided they were going to make the judge review all their -- make all of this available, obviously, when they -- in reacting to a specific leak.
“But it was a program that we briefed on repeatedly. We did these briefings in my office; I presided over them. We went to the key people in the House and Senate Intel Committees, and ultimately the entire leadership, and sought their advice and counsel and they agreed we should not come back to the Congress.”
Continued Dangers
Cheney’s description of a high-level bipartisan consensus on a program that ignored the clear legal requirements of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act suggests that the threats to American liberties go deeper than simply the aggressive actions by the Bush administration.
It means that – among others – House Speaker Pelosi who served as both the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and as House Minority Leader would have been part of Cheney’s program of White House briefings.
In 2008, Speaker Pelosi joined in supporting a compromise bill fashioned by House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, that granted retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that collaborated with Bush’s warrantless surveillance.
Although that bill – and an earlier one approved by the Democratic-controlled Congress in 2007 – effectively legalized Bush’s apparent lawbreaking, Pelosi argued that one of the strengths of the 2008 bill was that it restated the principle that the President must abide by the FISA law, a paradoxical argument for legislation that ensured that the previous violation of law would go unpunished. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Dems Legalize Bush’s Crimes.”]
When the bill reached the Senate in early summer 2008, Sen. Barack Obama was one of the Democrats who voted for it, prompting sharp criticism from many in the Democratic “base” that Obama was flip-flopping on his earlier protests against Bush’s illegal spying program.
Now, with less a month before Bush’s presidency ends, Vice President Cheney has thrown down the gauntlet, again, regarding whether Pelosi, Obama and other Democrats actually will repudiate the Bush-Cheney concept of an imperial presidency.
- Posted in
97 Comments so far
Show AllWords describing my contempt for Cheney failed me years ago.
There is nothing left to say. I don't believe in heaven, but I sure wish I could believe in hell for the solace it would provide knowing that Cheney and the whole lot, along with those Democrat enablers, would be destined to go there.
---USAn---
Amen from this atheist!
I'm not an atheist, but I am a life-long believer in reincarnation, and I believe those who've worked so hard to destroy this country, and the world, for that matter, will be back just in time to live through the worst of what they have wrought - without the $billions$ to save their sorry asses.
Tony:Ifit was my vote for all of them,dem and repug,they would all be at home.
Cheney doesnt do interviews with people who are going to challenge him. Chris Wallace is a corporate media suckup.
If Cheney did he wouldnt be able to have such an easy time.
There was a BBC reporter who grilled Tony Blair a couple of years ago--forgot his name but I would have loved to see him go at Bush or Cheney.
We're always presented with thses false 'either/or' scenarios:
E.g.: either we shred the Constitution to protect ourselves against terrorists, or we abide by the Constitution and open the door to terrorists' injuring and killing us.
As long as the problem is framed in this way, there will always be popular support for giving the gov all the dictatorial power it demands, to 'protect us.'
What never gets discussed is: our imperial foreign policy -- which produces most of the terrorist threat in the first place.
Cheney's [et al] wider, unspoken argument is: "We need to shred our Constitution at home in order to maintain our ability to violently manipulate and illegally interfere in the lives of other perople, abroad."
Of course, the presumption of Imperial Right will never second guess itself in this manner; never frame the issue in this broader, more honest context. So, round and round we go, slowly eroding the Republic in order to protect the terrorist-generating Imperium.
The fact is, what we call terrorism against the US would virtually disappear if our government played by civilized democratic rules, both at home and abroad. And at that point, when and if oru gov ever did reform itself and isolated terrorist acts or threats still remained real, the issue of ''terrorism would be treated as a police matter, as it should be, instead a perpetual state of formal war.
The mechanisms of a self-governing Republic based on constitutionally guaranteed human and civil rights, are inherently at-odds with the mechanisms needed to maintain an Imperial State.
You can't have both, simultaneously.
Thus, the real choice isn't between citizen safety vs. civil rights.
It's between a democratic republic vs. an imperial oligarchy.
Cheney [et al] will never frame the problem this way. But We The People, should.
A trademark of the right wing is to frame everything and view everything through a binary lens. Good-evil, black-white, if you are not for us you are against us etc. etc. No nuances are allowed, grey areas are not countenanced; these binary simplistic views resonate so well with the uninformed, ignorant or belligerent.
It also works well with the mass media since they can crank out with ease what amounts to little more than binary headlines that are then lapped up by the aforementioned. Since sensationalism sells, the MSM also acts as a force multiplier to further distort and polarise the issues and behind the scene governments can and do shape the information imparted to the MSM to achieve their ends.
All that is required to counteract and neutralise this debilitating rot is a little critical thinking to clear the emotional fog and spin plus an understanding of very basic logic to winkle out the logical fallacies. A little education goes a long way and it is within the grasp of almost everyone with access to a public library.
Sioux Rose
SANCTUARY: Excellent analysis. I am one who believes 911 was planned much like the Reichtang fire in Germany that led to similar repression of civil liberties and chants against outside equivalent terrorists. In many ways, the current brand of neocons are using the old Nazi playbook. Indeed, the climate of fear was such to make nuanced thinking all but impossible right after 911. However, if indeed 911 was premeditated on the part of some U.S insiders (of high level) then part of the plan was to have a strong enough excuse specifically to suppress liberties in the homeland. That has proven the case.
One like Cheney who IS darkness can only see the world through that prism. I suppose part of him truly believes in all the enemies his dark mind conjures "out there," and never recognizes in himself, the use of the same methods that he brands as evil when others use them. Our nation has been taken over by darkness, and in the case of some whores to power, their ignorance of what's truly at stake is the basis for their complicity. Plausibly only the innermost circle understands the orchestrations that have led to a coup against America's people and founding principles.
Sioux Rose
You lump this nation as if it was composed of a singular strand, as if the persons living today who are TRYING to make it better are to blame for events over 200 years ago? I have always said 911 was an inside job. Given this info, knowing the kind of military machine and weapons domestic citizens are up against, it's amazing how you demand that WE do something. What are YOU doing? I don't see you out on any front lines here? And trying to make us feel guilty for what we do and what we are trying to undo is like kicking people in the knees. What purpose does that serve?
Sometimes the child conceived in rape turns out to be an amazing human being. (This doesn't mean I advocate that women raped should have babies thus conceived.) My point is that Mother Nature, or Creative forces use everything for a higher purpose in the long run. I believe everything serves the greater good, and while there is massive suffering and injustice in our midst, the same of which has bloodily stained history, that doesn't mean that the mass of humanity is not moving towards a greater understanding, that in the long-run these dasdardly behaviors would be shed.
.I prefer a definition I once heard from a latino who actually did something rather than just express vitriol and put down everyone.
"I envy those in the United States above all others, as, living in the belly of the beast, they have the most important task of all." Dr. Ernesto ( Che) Guevarra
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.Insert usual observation about rambling and vitriolic stupidity.....
Add only that my second eldest grandson is a Red Lakes Band Chippewa whom I saw inducted into his tribe a few years back. Those who hate care little for reality and only seek to nurture the flames of hatred they carry within themselves, pity.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.One major point, you imbecilic harpy, is that the earlier post above, which you, in your madness and rage driven ego, assumed was addressed to you, was in response to Sioux Rose and not you. My reference to my grandson's ethnicity was to try and puncture your neurosis and make you understand that the world is not at all as you see it.
The more time you spend here the less time you have for psychiatric counseling.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.My opinion of you and my comments regarding your uselessness to this forum stand as noted.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.Yet you compulsively respond to each and every opinion you claim to not care about....How does it feel to be the single most worthless poster here? You contribute only rancor , bitterness and every post drives a wedge between folks trying to find common ground. You suck, frankly, and you are politically useless.
Get it?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
.You are not only a harpy but an egotistical clown as well. Most here do not respond to you, probably because, from your first re-entry here you expressed no tolerance whatsoever for any opinion but your own, you lumped every single American citizens together in a common guilt, a bigoted stance to be sure but also an abysmally ignorant one designed almost purposively to separate and hinder any coming together.
Some here have a long history of activism, of demonstrating, of marching for justice. You are simply a troubled soul with an enormous ego. You think to make changes by venting an immature and silly anger at everyone, but all you do is assist the status quo. You do Dick Cheney's work rather better than did Karl Rove in fact.
I only respond to your crap so that others without the stomach to stand the rancid smell of your responses will understand that they are not alone in noting your lack of any discernible worth here.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
¿ Perhaps Serena's apparent anger is a perfect reflection of her perceived world, and that none of us could ever fully understand ( nor experience ) what that means ?
How condescending for you to judge ANGER as silly, or unproductive -- when you care not to seek to understand the gradient of another's life.
¿ Perhaps you've heard before, that each of us is EXACTLY where we need to be -- and that is a perfect reflection of each's consciousness, evolution, and experience ?
¿ Perhaps one might better discover one's own "purpose", by not attempting to pigeonhole another nor by further polarizing obvious differences in viewpoint ?
Tolerance is as tolerance does.
No one is ultimately separate from another, when viewed from the perspective of the Source of ALL that is ( "that thou are that" ).
I hardly understand your position regarding our own discussion above ( about 9_!_! ), being so non-confrontational and evasive, so as to accomplish basically nothing.
I understand the difference between architects and structural engineering ( physics ), but apparently you believe in your sources -- even though mostly at odds with the factual parts of the 911 Commission, NIST reports, and their conclusions. For you to believe in some second or third rate opinions, in lue of and attempting to provide credence to the overall vacuous officious narrative -- it would help to be conversant in those details ( as some are actually true ).
BTW, the official govt reports eliminate the possibility of proving or accepting the truth of "pancaking", and instead rely upon the totally inane assumption that what was observed ( progressive collapse ) happened causally following the airplane crashes and fires -- while admitting the total lack of any proof or accurate model that scientifically proves what they "conclude" happened.
In other words, the engineers and scientists say essentially that they needn't bother to check what actually happened, not understand the details -- as everyone could see that the 3 WTC building did collapse. They form the officious rational for the collapses, by deciding in advance that what appeared to happen -- is what happened ( never determining why or how ).
The actual rigor of inquiry and discovery of the underlying details was considered superfluous and unnecessary to the apparent need to quickly start our war of terror, w/o any of those pesky missing details exposed.
If the TV show "Are you Smarter than a 5th Grader ?" were to analyze the events of 9_!_!, they would likely do a far more thorough job at least to figure out what still needs to be uncovered. I have no interest in dissecting your "sources", as they are incredibly w/o real credibility -- and many web sites easily found, can provide far superior analysis. I can feel for your misapplied efforts, as you've already admitted to not wanting to waste your time. Sometimes we must choose our battles, based on sketchy information -- only later to re-evaluate and re-apply ourselves.
The "wasting" of your time, is really an illusion and your judgment -- as the possibility now exists for you to re-evaluate what information you once relied upon, which never would have been found to be faulty -- if we hadn't discussed these issues.
Of course, the gullible ( which I was once ) are happy to swallow the officious bu$h!t, as it likely fulfills some dark appeal to authority. That isn't an option any longer for me, and I have NO affiliations with those truther sites, other than a source for details not otherwise easily available -- I come to my own conclusions.
If you consider your sources sacrosanct -- then I would be wasting my time to continue.
Namaste
.I note the way you insert a continuation of the "conspiracy theory" into a discussion of the uselessness of that particular poster.
Look, I tried to politely present evidence in support of my opinion that the events of 9/11 were exactly what they were, an attack on the multinational forces that steal from the third world and the military that supports that theft. I never thought for one minute to persuade you otherwise, only to post an alternative, and rather more factual opinion for those who might read your rant sans an alternative viewpoint.
I think I understand the nature of those who believe the impossible and would much prefer to let this discourse die a natural death. Conspiracy theorists are impossible to reason with as they use no facts other than those which decide the moon was made of green cheese. For every factual or scientific notation cited you and your ilk will have a myriad of reasons that those scientists were wrong, or a part of the conspiracy to begin with. Fine, you may certainly do and believe as you please, it is , after all, a free country.
I would appreciate no further responses to me regarding this matter. We can certainly find other, more profitable lines of dialogue , ones which will not see you and I descending into further impoliteness.....
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Your own words paint you into the corner of bu$h!t's own conspiracy theory of the events of that Sept morning, how does that feel -- supporting a mass murdering liar ?
Your branding another concerned correspondent herein -- useless -- is likely more appropriately to be hung around your barking neck, as by what right do you sit in judgment over any ?
The fact that I have far more than mere theory ( and 3 decades of engineering & science easily trumps what you view as "evidence" ), and I guess it is beyond you ability to comprehend variations of different realities -- that unobserved occupy your own universe.
Your attempts to generalize my believing in the impossible, is the EXACT point I know that you are STILL believing in, as your mind cannot apparently imagine the astronomical scope of the event's devastation and planning -- and the actual impossibility of its having succeeded -- if it was only managed by a few deranged Arabs living in a cave. The fact that hundreds of millions here in the USA, still believe in these fairy tales -- must bring some needed comfort to you.
I did investigate your "evidence" and found it to be seriously wanting, and you oh so conveniently bypass dozens of detailed arguments and official facts that I present -- that is in no manner an objective nor balanced treatment.
Your passive aggressive approach and assertion of me "ranting" is left to the observers, to resolve. The taste of green cheese in your own mouth must be very familiar by now.
How "polite" of you to call me "ranting", and then plead that to be the last word.
I sadly withdraw any judgment of your having an objective, trust-deserving, or balanced point of view -- as you've demonstrated at best the very limited curiosity & courage to read a "ranting" pro-NeoCONer web site, and then assume that that is the truth.
Luckily ( for humankind ), younger thinking minds have the capacity to see possibilities where you only see certainties . . .
Who benefits from 9/11? Recently I've been wondering whether the destruction of WTC1 and 2 was merely a red herring and the real target was WTC7.
.Prof,
I am not among those who believe the events of that Sept. day were anything but what they seemed. The targets were the multinational corporations as symbolized by the World Trade Center, the military force that backed up the rule of the corporations as symbolized by the attack on the Pentagon and of course, the White House, the stooge of corporate power masquerading as democracy.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
A R D E E,
Your perceptions of what "the events of that Sept. day were […] what they seemed", illustrates your view of that 'conspiracy' was to target highly visible status symbols of "multinational corporations, … military force," and "White House, the stooge of corporate power".
At one level, there is useful information here as to the built-in obvious targets -- but I believe that the sinister truth is revealed circumstantially, that it was the mental health and psyches of ALL of Americans -- that was actually being wickedly targeted.
The collapsing of three WTC towers -- is with near infinite certainty -- an integrated act of immense technical knowledge, extremely difficult opportunity, hideously demanding detailed planning, and illogically impossibility of thousands of the world's most highly trained professionals ( and most sophisticated radars ) all making together a constellation of incompetent and interdependent mistakes ( and no one was ever punished for ).
Our military daily tracks space debris of millions of objects, including tiny nuts and bolts in 300 mile high orbits, with extreme precision, to carefully have the NASA shuttle orbits avoid devastating collisions and loss of life. Our country's space defenses against enemy missile launches is highly integrated with hundreds of radar installations -- especially in our most secure areas like major cities and DC.
There is absolutely no manner for 4 jumbo jets to "disappear" from continuous military tracking, when inch long nuts and bolts are continuously tracked -- w/o the involvement of highest levels of govt complicity -- as these processes are automatic and practiced over 4 decades of cold war readiness ( to launch counter attacks, mutually assured destruction ).
As the the actual buildings demolitions, I am certain that the seemingly "obvious" progression of floors collapsing is physically impossible for thousands of well understood reasons -- none of which has ever seen the benefit of thorough analysis of causation -- as the "obvious cause" was assumed to be the accurate one ( regardless of the impossibly too small of energy in the planes and fires, buildings do NOT collapse that way -- w/o explosives added assistance ).
It appears to me that what I perceived ( from experience in radars, and structures ) is substantially a different reality than what it seemed to be for you. Perhaps that is fundamentally a result of who I am, what I am, and what attention to hidden details I choose to focus upon ( per Anais Nin ).
Are you ready to become more informed ?
Perhaps what seems to be truth ( for you and many Americans "raped" by this molestation ), is a anything but what really happened -- given the trillions of dollars of profits resulting ( to a very few ) ? With billion$ spent on carefully crafted propaganda and devious and insidiously effective PSYOPS, to target America's psyches -- the only ones capable of that are -- not the usual suspects ( holding box cutters ).
The corporapist ONES who control both the USA media & govt -- are the 'who' that seems most capable to me of this massively complex undertaking, ultimately eroding our "inalienable rights" to mere window dressing.
Namaste
.Can we not agree to disagree?
I have actually checked into the architectural anomalies that led to the collapse of those towers, have you? As they were constructed on Port Authority land they received a waiver of building codes that allowed them to be constructed soas to maximise the appearance of vast space within. In short, vertical structural integrity was compromised for effect. This is what led to the "pancaking effect" that you attribute to conspiratorial methodologies.
I understand the difficulties of refuting such conspiracy theories, based upon nonlinear thinking as they are, using a technique that first derives a conclusion and then creates the scenarios that lead one to that predetermined ending. When applying logic to the theories of those who believe as you do about those events one rather rapidly runs up against far too many impossibilities.
In order to achieve a complex and enormously public scenario as this one simply must involve far too many people to keep this secret. Study history for examples of attempts to defraud or circumvent and one quickly sees how rapidly the plotters become exposed. Watergate involved a dozen or so and that secret fell almost immediately. The events of 9/11 would have had to involve literally hundreds and we would all have become very aware of something, somewhere. One guy deciding to cash in on the notoriety is all it would take.
Lastly you seem to give the most inept administration in American history a capability they have never demonstrated in any other endeavor in which they have involved our nation, thus the "blind pig and acorn" reference must have been in effect to carry such as this to fruition..
I do not seek to take away your right to an opinion, please do not attempt to minimize my own personal opinion by calling me misinformed because I refuse to suspend reason, logic and the laws of intellectual pursuit to rally behind such theories. The reason we gather here, I thought, was to find a common ground on which to build something that might succeed. You and your fellow theorists simply advance a notion that very, very few will rally behind, thus, even if you were correct in your beliefs it wouldnt matter at all! Noone is listening and that makes your efforts wasted. Sad but true.
I prefer "wasting my time" on things that actually may succeed. If, in the fullness of time, it proves to have been as you say it was I will apologize profusely and think you smart indeed, but not quite now.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
{ 2 of 2 } CONTINUED FROM ABOVE
If you truly believe none are listening, I must wonder what causes you to even consider responding to me? I sense ( and commend you ) that it is far more than just respectful dialogue, as you have gone further than most Americans to investigate on your own what happened. Your laudable attempts to cut through the well camouflaged propaganda is not "wasted", it was only a beginning.
Of course you are perfectly entitled to your opinions, but when you attempt to speak of the facts, you are elevating your perceptions AS IF THEY WERE REAL, w/o having paid the necessary "entry fees" of schooling and experience. I have little use for bu$h!t apologists, those directing terrorism against "truthers", and of "American Dream" enablers -- as whether they do it for pay or perhaps just lazy ( unquestioning authoritorian ) thinking -- the result is just about the same. 'The truth is out there' regardless, and what it takes for revelation, is due diligence and enough courageous folks to break apart the gov't conspiratorial illusions.
There is now legal ( court case ) proof of MLK assassination being a gov't conspiracy of FBI and others, so who really is now ignorant of the reality and its proof of such existence ?
Ultimately the secrets will come out, and people then will wonder why more didn't force the issue of superflicial investigation ( hiding the clear pretext used ) when the data ( and molten iron ) was still hot.
The unmitigated truth is that there is clear proof of the many elements of the vast conspiring systems of events on Sept 11, 2001 -- which has been carefully camouflaged and detracted from, with even more piles of misinformation and disinformation -- exactly per the CIA processes well characterized and used over the last 5 decades ( in other countries ).
I know you A R D E E to be an honorable person, at least as far as one can attempt to make sense of each pother's words here on CD -- but there are experts and lies -- and with the documented proof of abundant bu$h!t "big lies", I find in hard for anyone to invest much credibility in anything that the gov't advocates. You are wise to be able to imagine a future where you might eventually see a larger reality unfold (& "apologize profusely"" ). And although I too often see myself as "smart", I know that I have been wrong before but mostly when the data was far less obvious.
We have more terrorism after the 8 yo war of terror, more drugs after war of …, more economic devastation ( for the life stock of middle class Americans ) after the bankster bailouts ( was on subprime loans -- not real fault of CDOs and scary vacuous derivatives ). Across the board, if the govt says anything, the opposite is far more likely to be true, now days.
Namaste
P.S. I write the above to the overall audience of CD, not just in response to ARDEE, so the tone may be uneven in presentation and hardly well polished. I have elsewhere discussed nano-thermite explosives and gone into excruciating levels of 9_!_! details, just search for NAMASTE on CD's archives
Yes, we can "agree to disagree", and thank you for responding …
… but this clarifies your relative standards of intellectual independence from the great propaganda machine -- that is clearly less important to you -- along with this supposedly "wasting my time" concern.
Hey, I can understand your position and resignation, as for many years I languished in doubtful ambivalence and inquiry.
The issue for me, is that I have the accredited skills to read architectural designs, calculate dynamic and static floor loading, the energy to pulverize concrete, and heating needed to compromise steel reinforced structures to various degrees of deflection. I also am quite knowledgeable about the laws of Physics, particularly the Conservation of Momentum, energy budgets, and chaotic collapse progressions.
You earnestly refer to construction "errors" of how WTC "received a waiver of building codes that allowed them to be constructed soas to maximize the appearance of vast space within. In short, vertical structural integrity was compromised for effect."
The problem with this type of hearsay ( what was your source? ) is the lack of actual factual records and structural engineering rigor. I know the designs you were referring to, and regrettably you've been caught up in the well supplied and crafted bamboozling network of lies. Not knowing the quality of your sources and investing time in wild ranting packaged as if truth -- was a complete waste of your time ( in more ways than one ).
You pass along the often stated lies of administrative incompetency and inability to pursue immense tasks with deadly secrecy. So how do the reality of long secret Manhattan Project and immense although shorter D-day planning -- match with your shaky conclusions ? Was stealing several trillion dollars of our population's future wealth ( proven class warfare concentrating wealth ) a "proof" of incompetence -- or of the vastly strong gov't desire to manipulate public consensus and information to make appearances of it being accidental -- while reaping avaricious rewards.
You state partially accurately that "When applying logic to the theories of those who believe as you do about those events one rather rapidly runs up against far too many impossibilities". What I mean is that the official conspiracy theory of the 911 commission is never held to any standards of causation and logic -- and is itself MORE full of "impossibilities" and obvious mendacity.
The burden of proof of one theory, is a relative one, as the official narrative has less validity than many other competing ones. The obvious purpose of a refined PSYOPS propaganda program would be to inflate multiple spurious "conspiracy theories", to conflate ignorance, and waste most people's time following 'red herrings'.
You assert that "achieve a complex and enormously public scenario as this one simply must involve far too many people to keep this secret". But you ignore the actual responder testimonies, the hierarchical cloaking structure of the military in compartmentalized projects, and massive amounts of air traffic controller evidence contrary to the official reports. The system is leaking like a sieve in many places, although the higher ups are clearly protected from even punishment of outright incompetence and ignorance. Why is that ?
Your "one guy" theory has already occurred with multiple well informed experts, like Italy's Prez, and others who watch the overall pace and heartbeat of intelligence data and actual readiness levels ( of credible authority ). Have you read of the local NJ Police official reports of the 'dancing Mossad agents' caught videoing the collapse ( you did they know to set up that tripod ? ) ? Or how about that Geo the shrub stating publicly that he saw the 1st WTC tower collapse video on the 1st day in his limo -- when all known video records of that 1st collapse were found later on the 12th? Do you really think that he's as idiotic as he has been characterized ?
Besides what you call the "logic and the laws of intellectual pursuit to rally behind such theories", I have actual relevant technical training, and on-the-job experience solving intensely complicated systems that fail all the time, and digging through the debris to find out what happened.
Our gov't spent $400 million of TWA 800 crash over the Atlantic Ocean, to rule out terrorism -- whereas the WTC collapses were initially totally denied any funding, which later grew to ~ one twentieth of TWA 800's investigation:
for more than ten fold more deaths
for ~ trillion$ of damages
to launch two otherwise unjustifiable wars
to "justify" gutting our Constitutional rights
Namaste
{ 1 of 2 } CONTINUED BELOW
.You have obviously put a lot of effort into your argument and your belief system. I respect the effort if not the conclusions reached.
You asked about my notations regarding the structural flaws inherent in the buildings in question:
http://www.blythe.org/nytransfer-subs/Environment/Censored_Alert:_World_Trade_Center_Design_Flaws
Censored Alert: World Trade Center Design Flaws
Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit
source - Peter Phillips
World Trade Center Design Flaws
Designer/Builder Magazine - November/December 2001
Why the World Trade Center Collapsed: An Architect's Assessment
by Kingsley Hammett
Synopsis by: Chris Salvano, Sonoma State University
Among the more shocking images of September 11th was the sight of the
World Trade Centers collapsing into rubble in a matter of seconds.
Why did both towers of the World Trade Center, set afire in their
upper floors, collapse to the earth? San Francisco architect and
welder Jim Malott explains his assessment of intrinsic design and
construction flaws of the towers which hastened their complete
collapse.
Malott holds a bachelor's degree in pre-architecture from Stanford, a
master's degree in architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of
Design. Malott has studied the properties of steel-reinforced
concrete from graduate courses at the University of Delaware. He is
also a skilled welder and a practicing architect in the San Francisco
area, where he has helped design a number of high-rise buildings.
Malott has also chronicled and photographed the towers' birth from
the mid-60's to its rise and construction in the 70's.
According to Malott, before the advent of the World Trade Center
towers, high-rise buildings shared two vital characteristics: one,
they were supported by a grid of steel columns, and two, the columns
were encased in a tough cladding of reinforced concrete. This
concrete created a fireproof skin designed to withstand a four-hour
inferno. (The four-hour rating is a building industry standard for
fireproofing) As designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki the Twin
Towers incorporated neither of these traditional features. These
features were found in most tall buildings before the Twin Towers
came along and changed the equation. Malott claims that it was the
failure to use the traditional steel column grid design and concrete
coating on the steel columns that was the fatal flaw of the
buildings--not the initial crashes, not the exploding jet fuel and
not the subsequent fire alone.
In an attempt to cut weight--which is the enemy of all high-rise
buildings--the designers of the Towers eliminated the traditional
steel column grid. Instead, Yamasaki placed the steel columns in the
perimeter of the outer walls of the buildings and in the perimeter of
the small inner core of the buildings that housed the elevator
shafts. This design allowed every floor to have unobstructed floor
space with no interior supporting columns or beams.
In further attempts to save weight, time and money designers were
allowedto fireproof the steel columns with spray-on mineral-wool
fiber and layers of sheetrock instead of the traditional method of
using reinforced concrete. The elevator shaft and the steel columns
in those shaft walls were covered with sheetrock as well.
Yamasaki and his engineers had indeed calculated the impact of a
commercial jetliner shearing into the World Trade Center. Even a
jetliner flying at 300 mph isn't an overwhelmingly heavy load
according to Malott. The mass of a 767 aircraft is less than half
the mass of one floor of the building. What wasn't calculated says
Malott was a commercial jetliner shearing into the World Trade Center
and stripping the sheetrock fireproofing off the steel columns and
the elevator shaft. "The culprit was not the jet fuel," which Malott
has so often reiterated in the wake of the disaster. "I say that as
a formal naval officer who witnessed a number of catastrophic
aircraft accidents. Jet fuel vaporizes and ignites instantly. The
real culprit was that all the fireproofing was blown off on impact."
And since the Towers didn't have supporting columns and beams, the
unobstructed floors allowed the bodies of the planes to crash into
the elevator shaft core. This in turn destroyed the shaft walls, its
fireproof sheetrock and any hope that the building would survive a
four-hour fire. The exposed steel immediately became vulnerable to
structural failure and it took less than one hour to heat the
unprotected steel to the failure point.
Malott also notes the questionable quality control of some of the
welding in the buildings. Malott noted that during construction in
the 70's each exterior column section was bolted temporarily, three
in a row, then later welded in place. Photos after the collapse
showed that dozens, perhaps hundreds, of these welds failed. The
columns fell three in a row, just as they had been built. "All of
these decisions made back in the 60's were the precursor of this
tragedy," claims Malott.
Malott explains that designers must return to cladding their steel
columns with reinforced concrete or some other tough substitute
rather than fragile sheetrock. Ever since the World Trade Center
pushed the limits of design, most high-rise buildings in America have
followed its lead. Most wrap their steel columns in some combination
of mineral wool or gypsum board rather than concrete. This leaves
many of these buildings potentially susceptible to the same type of
structural failure.
Peter Phillips Ph.D.
Sociology Department/Project Censored
Sonoma State University
1801 East Cotati Ave.
Rohnert Park, CA 94928
707-664-2588
http://www.projectcensored.org/
=================================================================
NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems
Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us
339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012
http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org
=================================================================
I appreciate our ability to disagree in an informed and polite manner, there are some here who cannot even imagine such as we accomplish. In the interest of time and energy I will not comment upon your other contentions regarding secrecy or the ability of this current administration to carry out such a plan as this.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Sioux Rose
NPWR & ARDEE: You raise interesting points, ALL of which deserve due contemplation, if not research. If only OUR media allotted time to minds like yours. I, for one, am grateful to participate in a forum with genuine thinkers who share boundlessly of their thoughts, creative ideas, and sometimes pure conjecture. Thank you for raising the stakes on a debate worth continuing! The TRUTH is out there...
.Back atcha, Ms. Rose.
Im sure I alienate more than few with my diatribes towards 'she who will remain nameless'. But I really truly despise that sort of hater because ,ultimately, no progress can be made with her in the way. The exchange between npwr and I is the way I would love to dialogue always.Two folks on opposite sides of an issue yet civil, courteous and posting as factually as possible. That gives me hope, as do your efforts here as well.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
Sioux Rose
ARDEE: I fully agree, but prefer to duck out, as evidently this is one who has to have the last word, and it's an endless waste of energy. You nailed things earlier on. Leave it that. The light beholdeth the darkness and understood it not.
.As I just noted above, I do not respond to the broom riding witch directly, but do so in order to let others like you, without the stomach for her tripe, know that they are not alone.
I would bet that far righties love folks like her.
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
there is onlyk LIBERTY or NONE at all.
Benjamin Franklin, imo, the wisest of all the early "american" nation builders -- WARNED:
"the nation that gives up its liberties -- for the sake of SECURITY, no matter how TEMPORARY, deserves NEITHER liberty NOR security".
in other words -- he saw that one can NOT have liberty - without the RISKS of attacks or gaps in the ":security". it can NOT be done. you either choose ONE OR the other. you can not have BOTH.
does the earth revolve around the sun "freely?" does it REALLY have the security of NOT being one day STRUCK by a large heavenly body?
and as Eisenhower also warned:
"we must guard against the undue influence of the military/industrial/congressional complex ...and we shall BANKRUPT ourselves in the quest for absolute security".
BANKRUPT -- in economic and intellectual and moral ways. THAT is what has become of the USA now. a nation with SUCH PARANOIA about "keeping" its power and "security" to maintain that power -- it has rendered itself ABSOLUTELY BANKRUPT!
and BANKRUPT is another word for Benjamin Franklin's warning:
"this nation shall fall , not because of foreign enemies or threats, real or imagined.....but because the people are CORRUPT" (bankrupt)!
Bush and Cheney ideally wanted to overthrow constitutional rule by military force. It would never have worked because the entirety of the military would never have gone along with it and neither would a substantial minority of Americans. So, believing that the Republicans would rule into the distant future, they began a slo-mo coup d'etat, enabled by the Democrats, the courts and the MSM. The Republicans are out of power now but the coup d'etat is far from over. It is simply in hibernation, waiting for another moment of unfathomable stupidity when a MoFo like Bush is elected president yet again. Overthrowing what is left of democracy in the United States is the true hidden agenda of the Republican party.
Jeevee
To believe Cheney is to take a further huge step into Nazism! Let's hope he can and will be prosecuted to the fullest!
Prosecution was a possibility until Nancy Pelosi announced to the world in November 2006 that "impeachment is off the table", thereby assuring the Dubya Regime's license to steal and murder would have no expiration date.
Any attempt to prosecute will be significantly weakened when the defense reminds the judge and jury that the opposition party repeatedly enabled the continuation of crimes.
and by doing so - she singlehandedly SPAT on the US constitution that REQUIRED her and congress to begin "impeachment hearings" to eventually, if provable, lead to Impeachment itself. and she was tasked by teh constitition to lead congress so that "CONGRESS MAY NOT" relieve itself of its duties .
it si REQUIRED of them. they are NOT ALLOWED to defer it.
that means the USA is run by people who are TRAITORS to the US constitution itself!
they might as well declare themselves as the AMERICAN REICHSTAG's version of "parliament" that condoned Adolf Hitler's rise to power...."democratically". ...because they have REALIZED what the FASCIST texas congressman in the early 60's boastfully predicted:
"THE USA will one day be a FASCIST nation ....only they'll call it a democracy".
and THEY have taken part, with Cheney and company - in what Joseph Goebbels and Hitler declared:
"IT IS NO GREAT ACHIEVEMENT TO MAKE THE PEOPLE DO YOUR BIDDING....all you have to do is take a grand lie, reduce it to the understanding of the lowest intelligence among the people .........repeat and repeat and repeat until it is Truth....tell the people that 'we are being attacked'.....declare the opposition as being unpatriotic and aiding the enemy....it does not matter whether it is socialist, or fascist, or democracy, or any other dictatorship.......it works anywhere".
"The media should be treated by the state like a giant typewriter....where it can type whatever it pleases" --- Adolf Hitler
i have always said that the NEXT stage in capitalism is Fascism. fascism becomes the inevitable outcome of capitalism going through the phases and to its highest stages where there are no other options left for IT to sustain itself.
and THEN a collapse arrives - just like in germany and italy.
it is also what was predicted by Benjamin Franklin:
"should this nation fall...it shall fall not because of foreign enemies or threats, real or imagined, it shall fall because the people are corrupt.......and Democracy eventually ARRIVES at Tyranny".
and americans have NOT heeded the warnings of EVEN thomas jefferson and James madison:
"WE MUST regulate undue accumulation of wealth and power into the hands of a few...for it will be the DEATH of liberty..the growing power of corporations shall one day overcome our self-government".
BUT THEN -- having established what is essentially a belief in capitalism :
what THEY did NOT foresee was what Karl Marx predicted and is coming to pass:
"CAPITALISM establishes the seeds of ITS own destruction and creates the conditions for its replacement , just as it replaced feudalism and mercantilism".
FASCISM - remember is the next phase -- but it is only the CLIMAX of capitalism itself. and then -- it will be replaced.
by socialism , of course.
.I'm certain you know this but it bears repetition.
Mussolini's definition of Fascism was the merging of capitalism with the rule of government. Is this not exactly what we have here?
.
We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin
They all have contempt for the republic. Wall Street. The Pentagon. The media. Cheney is but one. Hopefully there will be at least some show of resistance at the inauguration.
Its obvious that all 50 states governors need to convene a special session together and dissolve the federal government before we fall totally into chaos.
Some kind of order and control needs to be shown very soon.
Here's the rub:
Unless Congress officially and Constitutionally declares "War," there is no "Commander In Chief," and, hence, no CIC powers.
The President can "declare" all the "wars" he wants - war on drugs, war on poverty, war on terrorism - but said declarations are irrelevant.
That's the fallacy Cheney doesn't want us to grasp, which is why he keeps reminding us America is "at war." The fact is, however, that America is neither officially nor Constitutionally "at war" with any nation on Earth.
"The Congress shall have the power... to declare war..."
"The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States (by the Congress.)
Shocking how so few really just do not give a shit anymore...
Sioux Rose
FRANK: Alas, the power of a preposition! Of course lawyers have done wonders with a single word... like Yeah or nay.
Cheney's specificity during the Chris Wallace interview about his briefing of the "Big Nine" House and Senate leaders, and their supposedly unanimous, bipartisan agreement to continue NSA's warrantless domestic wiretapping program, illustrates several of the major vices of the current so-called Congressional oversight mechanism where classified information is concerned.
First, the source going public here is Dick Cheney - a person whose allegiance to truth telling must be measured against the backdrop of the Vice President's involvement with those mythical vials of anthrax, the Nigerian yellow cake forgeries, Mohammed Atta's clandestine conversations in Prague, and other tall tales in which intelligence was being fixed around the policy.
Second, the briefer (just like the Big Nine briefees) is ostensibly bound by the National Security Act never to divulge what was said in these Congressional oversight sessions. Deadeye Dick's lame duck conversation with friendly Fox News is a bit reminiscent of the earlier outing of Valerie Plame: those who most vociferously threatened policy critics with criminal prosecution for leaking classified secrets will leak like a sieve when it serves their own partisan agenda.
Third, assuming Cheney is telling the American public the truth for once (yes, there was a Big Nine meeting he chaired and nobody in the room spoke up in opposition), why should we think he divulged the whole truth and nothing but?
Not even the NYTimes and WaPo journalists who broke the NSA/FISA program scandal (see also Michael Isikoff's recent Newsweek article) have concretely described the astounding sweep of the warrantless wholesale data collection process, how easily the stored digital communications could be retrieved for later followup warrantless "monitoring" by our spies, and the specifics of when, where, and why the vacuuming up of all these phone, FAX and e-mail transmissions with the cooperation of the telecoms took place.
Don't you think it likely that the Congressional oversight briefing stuck to the paradigm example of a "known terrorist suspect overseas" calling an unknown likely cohort on American soil under circumstances in which time was of the essence?
If Cheney's briefing did branch out into revelations about wholesale data mining of wholly domestic electronic communications by NSA spooks under the program, do you think the message was also brought home that months and months of the Congressional leaders' own conversations (and those of their staff and constituents) had been swept up, and were now safely stored away for subsequent warrantless retrieval from the massive digital data base?
Before I give much credence to Dick Cheney's bottom line assurance that everybody was indeed told everything, and everybody agreed it was "absolutely essential" to carry on without any further Congressional action, I would prefer to hear the version of what transpired from a few of the other participants at Mr. Cheney's briefing.
They are, of course, arguably forbidden by existing federal law to dispute, or even talk publicly about, the classified briefing sessions Mr. Cheney just chatted about on national television with Mr. Wallace.
Bill from Saginaw
BillfromSaginaw:keep repeating paragraph 2. and your last 2 paragraphs. Yes.
As the article and other writers allude, the problem is not just with the megalomania that claims Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Wolfowitz, Woo and so many other criminals. These terrorists would never have gotten much of anywhere without the complicity of a cadre of co-conspirators in Congress, including many who've just been re-elected. Foremost among these traitors are Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, Emanuel, and Obama. They really don't deserve to be given second, third, fourth, upwards to unending opportunities to redeem their acts of treason against Americans. While any ordinary citizen is locked up or put to death for the perpetration of "crimes" that pale in comparison to those of Bush Co. and Congress, these miscreants will live free (albeit with Secret Service protection) to spend the spoils of their wholesale glutting of the planet. The words of sociopaths like Cheney, bold as they might appear, just belabor the obvious: those who live to accumulate wealth and power don't care about anything that might stand in their way - laws, conscience, even personal threats don't deter them. Least of all does human suffering or lack of justice affect their unmitigated pursuit of their own ideologies. The rest of us serve the purposes of megalomaniacs until we choose, really make a choice, to say enough.
The rule of law, which never really existed in America - ask indigenous survivors about genocide and worthless treaties - has been used successfully for over 200 years to keep citizens misinformed and toiling to facilitate corporate and administrative criminal behavior. Despite our purported free use of words, along with our dreams and our completely unsubstantiated belief in fairness and liberty and all those other platitudes most decidedly not characteristic of American society, greed and avarice and individual "exceptionalism" continue unabated. Class warfare is likely as old as humanity, and the neanderthals in the boardrooms, the war rooms, and the west wing have merely raised the stakes and changed the rules, as they must to keep their game going.
Little has really changed in human behavior over time, but my own sense of the complete lack of justice in this nation certainly has overcome a lifetime of manipulation and brainwashing. To answer those who wonder why I worry and despair about what I cannot change, I say I do so because I suffer, because I cannot be happy when I know that the greed parlayed into injustice, in my name and yours, continues to kill innocents, and continues to deprive me and you and every being on the face of the earth of a just and equitable culture that truly reveres life, not just the graven images of totalitarian religions. Perhaps my anger and anxiety will continue to take its toll on me and you and everyone who suffers, consciously or not. Perhaps we will continue to tolerate ignominious crimes and failures to bring criminals to justice to maintain the appearances of civilization and order, but the wounds will continue to fester, played out in our lives or in the lives and deaths of those we plunder for their lands and their means. Perhaps we will come to our senses and realize that it is the very system we live in that is killing our humanity, and one day we will kill the system for the sake of our lives and dignity and happiness.
and again , like in the last Star Wars movie -- as the Princess Amidala was watching as a senator -- how the Chancellor Palpitine declared himself emperor of the galaxy -- and the senate APPLAUDED:
"So -- this is how democracy dies.......with great applause".
it is EXACTLY as has now happened to the USA .
it has its :"storm troopers" -both in their standing army garb and privatized mercenary costumes and weapons and "legal authorities" - it has its equivalent in the corporations and banks and industries and "US chamber of commerce" the Empire's co-conspirator merchants' guild and builders of weapons and technologies and the "star destroyers"....
uncanny how reality imitates fiction and vice-versa.
Sioux Rose
TEDDY: I don't know if George Lucas realized the extent to which STAR WARS will function as a myth for our times. He may have been the chosen vessel of the dispensation of that higher understanding. America is much like the death star and Cheney-Bush the Darth Vader characterization. What took it down? An ad hoc coalition of idealists, a few of whom learned to use "The force." This force is a genuine power, it's used by Yogis and adepts to do things science (or logic) would term impossible. And Christ, a master metaphysical teacher, taught its use in the adage about "if two or more gather and ask in my name..."
Just as the past 20-30 years has favored conservatives and their mindset, as everyone of the outer planets traced its course across Capricorn, the sign of Saturn (planet of worldly ambitions, the sometimes corrupted premise of "What profiteth a man to gain the world and lose his soul"?); cycles of time also favor new amalgams. One such window of opportunity arises in full force from late January to mid-March as several key planets unite in Aquarius, the sign of revolutionary thinking, inventions, new amalgams, and the principle of group synergy depicted in the Star Wars trilogy. By the way, the battle between the entrenchment of conservative values & policy that has rooted over the past 3 decades is given its final push from Pluto's now begun transit of Capricorn. However, quite a powerful conflict of cosmic interets gets underway from 2010-2015. Eventually the LIGHT will win, and by 2020 (latest 2025) there will be a more humanitarian form of governance across the planet, one that honors all persons. Getting there takes all we've got, each endowed with his or her own particular contribution to this tidal wave of consciousness shifting.
Sioux Rose
TEDDY: As per the uncanny nature of the interplay between so-called fact/reality and fiction, this is why I make a strong case for the inviolate nature of those archetypes delineated first through mythology and then astrology. I look for the areas where these two systems converge and overlap, for they point to something timelessly true in ourselves, reflected from the ethers, or perhaps projected into them, or both. The interplay IS fascinating... and like a cosmic mirror, reveals so much about the traits, sins and greatnesses, that human flesh is heir/ess to.
Sioux Rose
SAND FLEA: I hear you! On the one hand, there is an imperative to honor the gift of our own human life, precious human life as the Buddhists refer to it; whilst on the other, to BE human and sentient is to feel all the grief, injustice and flat out inane policymaking that leads to so much unnecessary suffering. I call it living in a state of paradox. Do what we can, some of us in small ways, others of us in more evident ways, to try to turn the tide... that this battery to so many, which passes as "reality" be shifted into a direction that spreads the joy and benefits around more holistically. "Another World is Possible," as the thousands who have gathered for the World Social Forum hold to be true, and work for, across the globe. Peace is priceless... and what the world needs most.
The nation's government is irreparably corrupt and the only thing that will salvage it is a removal of the forces of evil and tyranny that dominate the highest levels. The two-party system has morphed into two wings of government by and for the corporations. Tyrants and sycophants have sold out our interests to corporate greed.
CHENEY could easily have been DARTH SIDIOUS - the Chancellor declaring to the Galactic Senate:
"in the interest of preserving order -- i have reorganized the Republic. Henceforth it shall be known as the FIRST GALLLLLACCTIC EMPPPIIIIIRE"
and then tell the young Anakin skywalker -- or the 'american people' -- as he and THEY get swallowed up by their emperor - "you are fulfilling your DESTINY...all who oppose us are now the ENEMY , including your friends, show No Mercy, we must act quickly! or they shall destroy us!! ..and once moooore the SITH shall Rule the Galaxy ...and there ...will be.....peaccccccce".......
"it's getting clearer how close the American Republic came to suffering major deformity – if not destruction – in the past eight years."
The day is young. Threats to the nation do not come only in Republican flavor.
Dave
http://daveeriqat.wordpress.com/
this has happened because we the people allowed the congress to desert its constitutional role as the only body in the system which can declare war. what are the people on this blog willing to do to create a congress which has the moral and legal right to rule?