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Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.
- George Washington
The re-declaration of a national State of Emergency by President Obama on September 10, 2009 is not theoretical; it affects our civil liberties and our ability to live in a free and open society. Not one major media outlet covered the fact that we've just entered our 9th year of a continuous state of emergency. The question is: Do we still enjoy the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment?
We first witnessed so-called "free speech zones" when we covered the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles for the Santa Monica Mirror. The "zone" was a black asphalt parking lot surrounded on all sides by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Heavily armed riot police walked the perimeter. There was a gate at one end through which people could pass as salt passes through an hourglass.
It didn't take a lot of imagination to foresee what would happen if the people crowded inside this enclosure felt compelled to leave in a hurry. And sure enough, when the LAPD decided it was time to "clear the zone" there were plenty of bodies caught in the neck of the hourglass, easy prey for the batons, gas, and rubber bullets. After all, this was a post-Seattle situation and law enforcement didn't lack for "crowd control" gadgets.
Flash forward to Pittsburgh, site of the September 24-25, 2009 meeting of the G-20. Now those who choose to exercise their constitutional rights to free speech and assembly risk the loss of their hearing! With the advent of the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) or sonic cannon, police can not only disperse pesky demonstrators, but cripple them for life as well. In addition, the Pittsburgh armed force had all the other accoutrements of crowd control; one wag described them as "10,000 Darth Vaders." Were those citizens on the receiving end of the LRAD reasonably able to exercise their freedoms of speech and assembly?
It's no coincidence that as the United States loses its global preeminence, constitutional rights are under full assault. In the heart of the schoolyard bully lives the fear of a bigger, meaner bully. The bully gives no quarter, tolerates no opposition, sneers down his enemies and when necessary, goes nuclear. This is the fearful position of the United States in 2009. Obama's America is a nation adrift, without moral compass, armed to the teeth.
Over the past half century, the United States has turned its aggression outward against such counties as Vietnam, Bosnia, Panama, Iraq, and Afghanistan. This insatiable appetite for aggression ultimately turns inward, manifesting as domestic repression and the kind of violence we witnessed this month in Killeen, Texas. Surveillance of private citizens has become more comprehensive and sophisticated. The internet is more restricted with websites and blogs watched for "offensive" content. Meaningful political protest, as in Pittsburgh, is extinguished. As Naomi Wolf points out in her book The End of America (2007), "The Department of Homeland Security's surveillance apparatus is certainly aimed at prosecuting the war on terror. But it may also be aimed at us, for domestic political purposes."
So this is how "the land of the free and the home of the brave" devolves. This is how we become a neutered people, no longer holding our leaders to account, no longer seeming to care that our constitution has become just another piece of paper.
It is a betrayal that President Obama continues to "render" foreign nationals to countries where they suffer the very torture that candidate Obama railed against. In September, 2006, Sen. Obama spoke these words on the floor of the U.S. Senate,
...restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe.
Now this same Barack Obama presides over indefinite detention without habeas corpus for thousands of prisoners being held by this country in Afghanistan. Most of the unspeakable policies initiated under Bush continue in the Obama administration. Where is the change we were promised?
Last April, President Obama attended the Summit of the Americas hosted by the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. At the end of what turned out to be a rather humiliating meeting for the United States, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez coyly asked Obama, "Are you a prisoner?" Chavez's words were shrugged off, but there was poignant truth in them. Latin American leaders know too well what it is to be under the control of the military. Is this the predicament in which our new president finds himself?
Regardless of whether Obama is a captive, we the people must reject the cruelty being committed in our name. We must act on the truth that justice denied to some is justice denied to all, that it's a short step from your brother or sister being held outside the law to being treated the same yourself.
If we as a people fail to speak out for the millions currently being bombed, maimed, tortured and jailed without recourse in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and even here on the meaner streets of our own country, we become complicit in the dismantling of our democratic republic.
We may think we can hide behind well-rehearsed defenses about national security and American exceptionalism. But the truth is that if the constitution has no meaning, neither does the American republic.
In the words of Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither."
54 Comments so far
Show AllThese comments are mostly CommonNightmares.
Understandable disappointment but sooner or later, it'll be necessary to dream a future that works. Resisting the old is part of the old.
Our conflict starts when we take the wonderful words of kiddie raping, slave holding, richfilth animals and guide ourselves by them. These men, Washington, Jefferson, in fact 8 of the 9 first Presidents (slave holders all) wanted "The Roman Slave Republic" ruled with total impunity by kiddie raping, slave holding, richfilth patrician animals (they called themselves the "best men") - and that's what they got it. They believed Liberty was their entitled right to order the lives of everyone below them in the social order, not just their personal "property" and they got that too.
What's left is a genocidal cannibalistic blood feast in which the only Rules are the table etiquette, and the only question is whether you're on the menu or one of the diners...The United States of America...Empire of Death.
Rule of Law? Can anyone who has lived through the last 50 years honestly say this country believes in Law except as a sledge hammer to destroy their enemies both here and abroad? From their own behavior, when the Law is inconvenient they either ignore it or write another....Law in this country is an abused and degraded woman sold for coin by males who have no other use for Her. That is also why they are doomed but first they will drink deeply from undiluted Hell on Earth.
They have shat their nest, fucked their children, and decorated themselves unashamed with the entrails and body parts of their neighbors... now they die slow...
What distortion you spout "luckyleft",
Slavery was around for thousands of years before the founding fathers tried to get rid of it. The Native Americans were famous for raiding neighboring tribes and making slaves of their women and children. Then, the Kingdoms of Spain, Britain, and France and other European countries used it throughout their colonies and possessions. Your attempt to vilify the only people on the planet who were INCREASING liberty for everybody world-wide through a little experiment called: representational democracy does not square at all with history. History shows that unlike Europe, ANYBODY could head West and homestead a piece of land as his own. No money required. Hit the road and start putting up sticks as a fence.
Slavery almost tore the Continental Congress apart. It DID tear the whole country apart later in the Civil War. We finally got rid of it, until the Bush Dark Ages betrayed America and America's Constitution. Now it sounds like it is back.
But no abominations committed by Israeli-American International bankers surprises me much anymore. Human trafficking could only exist with the sanctioning of organized crime as ANOTHER banker money getting device. Kosher Nastra was famous for prostitution and trafficking as were the italian mobs in NYC in the 1900's. Not sure if they are behind this one, maybe this one is the Mexican mob, who knows? Odds are, they get their support from the Mexican Central Bank and once again, the trail leads back to Kosher Nastra who set up central banks all over the world with the help of the Rothschild empire.
If you want to go after founding fathers: Go after Alexander Hamilton. He's the one who set up the crooked National Central Bank.
That's what I think.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
again, some democrat needs to be campaigning in new hampshire. right now! we need a president with backbone. o is humstrung in his conceptual brilliance. the reification of his intentions is never to be. he is too nice. and whites resent him. if he's aggessive, he fits the role of the angry you know what. if he shows people he can help them, then he is a condescending egoist. he would be a great vice-president; he is at his best gladhanding folks. he's made his way by being everything to everybody, which proves that he is not a post-racial president. a great person, a nice guy, a good husband and better father he will always be, but he simply cannot stand up to anyone and loaths decision making. maybe he'll change, but i doubt it.
listen johnny u i have some bridges for sale here in nyc. they have no tolls
but you can work that out later. 1 billion apiece or 3.75 for all five. now
if you believe this about obama we can buy these bridges. if you realize the
truth he is smiling shark and will do whatever the elite order then you will
have enough sense not to take my offer. he will continue the race to the bottom
and leave this country in a place that we would never have dreamed possible!
be aware that he ordered the patriot act be brought back while everyone was
focused on the health care fiasco that he destroyed as well. also he tried
to force through a national security act that would allow him to take control of the
internet and turn it off when he felt like!nice smiling face! beware whats
behind that face! i almost worked for him until i saw the truth!
The H1N1 vaccination program = a research study on public obedience. Health care reform = being mandated to buy insurance from the already wealthy insurance company = next step up towards obedience.
And actually, we could go another step and say it is representative of the general and widening decay in our country, in the world.
We have just absolutely fucked this up... the earth, the food supply,the air, our water, our minds.....are toxic.
I believe it is a main factor why we can not see ourselves out of the occupation this country is under. We ( as a collective whole) can not think clearly.
If we were not so toxic we could see to choose life and peace over death and war.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
Reading this article and all these posts makes me think the bastards were studying how the ayatollahs brutally dealt with protesters in Tehran to see how many of their shoot-to-kill and brazen media manipulation tactics they could use here in the necrotic USA.
As Naomi Wolf points out in her book The End of America (2007), "The Department of Homeland Security's surveillance apparatus is certainly aimed at prosecuting the war on terror. But it may also be aimed at us, for domestic political purposes."
Geez. Ya think?
http://ampedstatus.com/the-critical-unraveling-of-us-society
"Hungry people and jobless people are the stuff of dictatorships." FDR
I'm baffled by reverence for a constitution written by the richest men in America to institutionalize government by people like themselves: government by the rich, for the rich, and of the rich.
Don't be baffled,
The only way the Constitution passed ratification was with the understanding that a Bill of Rights was going to be added. Otherwise the South was going to succeed since they didn't trust the merchants in the North. That Bill of Rights IS America. Just because there's a free-for-all in breaking it by government does not make it invalid.
What we have right now is an ignorant population. They've never read the Bill of Rights. They don't know they posses the tools to dethrone these bankers. It's important for us to educate them about their rights. Then it's important to educate them about their history in the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party against the shipping Monopoloy: The British East India Company.
Bankers have always been our biggest problems
Huge Corporations have always been our biggest problems.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
A quick Wiki check reveals that the National State of Emergency declared at the start of the Korean War lasted 28 years.
That would be called a precedent.
And the reason Bush declared our present National State of Emergency was because it was the only way to illegally invade Afghanistan without Congress declaring 'War.'
If a few thousand 'terrorists' can cause us pussies to live in a perpetual State of Emergency, imagine what an actual threat would trigger...
And, BTW, I'm looking around - I see no sign that anyone, anywhere is even aware that evil-doer danger is so f**king close, a State of Emergency has been declared! Shouldn't we be doing State of Emergency stuff? Like stocking food and water, learning how to shoot, securing all sensitive locations...
Dan Hamburg tells it like it is. I hope he realizes that California, our most progressive state has the solution at hand, the voter initiative and referendum. The money power is so frightened by its ability to let the public circumvent bought politicians and make its own laws that it has poured millions into corrupting the process. It pays signature gatherers to get regressive laws on the ballot, Pays for costly advertising and bribes politicians to maintain a super-majority rule that stymies progressive legislation, putting brakes on the process as their recent successful campaign against gay marriage shows. Countries without fraudulent voter initiatives and referendums have the most successful governments. http://ni4d.us/
I hope the people of California realize this and will end the corruption of the process that could give government back to its rightful owners, the public.
This is the most intelligent article an group of postings yet, thank you for the postings. Always, in American presidencies, Zaphod Beeblebrox comes to mind. The US will eat itself up from within, the rich will get richer, and the trend won't stop until all resources are exhausted. The American public has been dumbed down to a point of ridicule. Insanity is sanity. What to do? People talk of taking it to the streets. I took it to the streets for 12 years. In the end, it's best to just let the beast die it's own indignant death. One can only organize communities for so long if they don't want to be organized. The fear of the kids being taken out, is a fear that Obama shares with many Americans. Fear pervades the society. If you're tired of it, then dust off your best thumb and get traveling, or start living like Wonko the Sane.
Well said. There is an inertia to this process. While it's true that it is getting harder and harder for the elite to fool the people into blind allegiance, the laws and those who enforce them have been corrupted to the point that an open dictatorship will not be resisted.
And maybe that was the plan all along. The elite are running out of time. We, the people, ran out of power decades ago.
But we don't have to make it easy for the rich bastards. Open dictatorship will cost them plenty. The Madame Defarges will spring up like weeds in elite and poor homes from sea to shining sea.
When George said "they hate us for our freedom" I heard "I hate the freedoms the American people have", and everything he did proved I was right.
The amoral and the ignorant will continue to shoot their feet out and say yes to that question while the rest of us will wonder when we'll either be free or find a way to break out of this prison hell.
I suggest travel. For all intents and purposes the President of the USA holds the same office of Zaphod Beeblebrox. The one freedom which we still possess in the US is that of a passport and the ability to go somewhere. Get on it before they try to take that right away. The "prison hell" only looks like an asylum from a distance.
And don't forget your towel!
Easier said than done. In most countries, the costs of living are higher. You better have a high paying job just to withstand those costs.
Lex, high costs of living in other countries is a popular misconception.
I lived in Japan for a year 2006-2007, and I was extremely surprised how little I paid for rent, groceries, etc. I made less, but was able to save much more.
I use to live in Mexico and lived like a King for a pittance. My Nephew lives in New Zealand and gets by on very little because of free health care ect. Also, I have friends that live in Canada that get free health care. My Sister use to live in Costa Rica and lived like a queen there.
Actually, I make less money in South Korea and save more than ever. Same was true for Mexico, and Argentina. Come to think of it, the only country I've been to where the costs of living are higher is Britain. As it is, the costs of living are generally dirt cheap in comparison to the US. As for a high paying job, they're happy to pay you a decent wage to teach English. Sure 20k a year isn't the 30k I was making in the states, but then again, the 1.5k that ends up accruing in my bank account every month due to these "high costs of living" cause me plenty of sleep-ful nights, I'll tell ya. Lex, get out of the jar.
Whether he's being blackmailed or whether he's a Company man, the results for us are the same.
I agree, don't buy gold. Sell any stocks you have too and pension funds etc, etc, etc. It's time we began to starve the Wall Street crowd; they're perfectly happy to starve us.
Two statements I've heard in the last week on NPR Morning Report: one, walmart's projected increased profit drove the Dow up that day; two, consumers are now considered to be 2/3 of the American economy so they need to really spend money.
Goody, goody, thinks I; let's all NOT SPEND ANY MONEY and see how fast we can destroy the Dow, Nasdaq and every money grubber in every bank and brokerage. Maybe when the cash flow dries up and Wall Street dies of thirst we can get our country back.
I agree prescient article Buck, but I think Obama doesn't have to be intiminated in some back room as he is part of the problem and conned the American public into thinking he was part of the solution; otherwise he would have been marginalized like: Cynthia McKinney, Ron Paul,Dennis Kucinich,Mike Gravel,ect. and would never have been allowed to become President.
agreed.,
i have heard that excuse from so many -- that obama realizes the greater game and is intimidated...
but no -- he is too smart and had too many examples before him -- whether it's american presidents, such as kennedy , or johnson, or other countries and their leaderships -- to NOT KNOW what he is coming into ..and THEREFORE
right from the outset WANTED to BE "part of the establishment"
NOT to Change it in ways it needs to be changed AWAY from teh war state and capitalist dogma ATTACHED to that war state
but to ENHANCE and "refine" it....
but the SONG REMAINS THE SAME. and obama WANTED to be part of it - and in fact WANTED to LEAD IT.
he is not innocent by MILES!
Exactly teddy,
He's just a chain-smoking government Con Man. Son of an Oil Man, ex-employee of the Global Banking Mafia, ex-CIA operative.
Let's invite the "Birthers" to our site and agree with them that we aren't going to recognize him as president until we see his actual birth certificate. If we had demanded to see documents showing that GWB was a Felon, maybe we would have been complaining about Al Gore instead. But our problem is not the individual Blackjack dealer. For though we now have a new one, we're still going to loose inside the voting Casino because the house makes the rules.
And the house is the OWG "One-World-Government" Mafia that doesn't even exist. (I suspect it's a re-combination of the MIC and the banking Kosher Nostra.)
I have discovered what may be old ties between the Bush Crime Family through (E.H.) Harrimann Brothers Investment bank and the advent of the Kosher Nostra mafia possibly through a banker named Jacob Schiff. He was famous for financing munition sales to Japan. This idea of starting wars by bankers has been going on quite a while it appears.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Schiff
He became associated with E.H. Harriman in notable contests with James J. Hill and J.P. Morgan & Company for control of several Western railroads. Schiff served as a director of the Equitable Life Assurance Society, National City Bank of New York, Central Trust Company, Western Union Telegraph Company, Union Pacific Railroad, Bond & Mortgage Guarantee Company, and Wells Fargo & Company. He was elected a director of Wells Fargo in September 1914 to succeed his brother-in-law, Paul Warburg, who had resigned to accept appointment to the original Federal Reserve Board.[9][10][11][12] UNQUOTE
Same suspects here: banking, insurance and the Federal Reserve Board.
Now, an important thing to check into in Wikipedia is the history pages and compare them to the earlier versions. Frequently, operatives "clean up" the reputation of robber barons in their gang:
''Jacob Schiff''' ([[1847]] - [[1920]]) was the [[German]] born New York City banker and traitor to America who financed the [[communist]] revolution in Russia in 1917. He was part of a wealthy and powerful circle that included the Warburgs and Rothschilds, From his base on Wall Street, he was the foremost Jewish leader in what became known as the "Schiff era," grappling with all major issues and problems of the day, including the plight of Russian Jews under the czar, American and international anti-Semitism, care of needy Jewish immigrants, and the rise of Zionism. He also became the director in many important corporations, including the New York City National Bank, the Equitable Life Assurance Society, and the Union Pacific Railroad.
In the mid 1800's Schiff was sent on a mission from the House of Rothschild to accomplish a goal of this New Order For the Ages. He came to New York first for the sole purpose of getting control of the United States monetary system. He eventually became the head of the banking firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Company. He bought Kuhn & Loeb out later with Rothschild money. [NOTE: KUHN, LOBE & CO MERGED WITH Lehman Brothers IN 1975.-TJ]
In 1904 and 1905, on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War, the New York investment bank of Kuhn, Loeb, led by Jacob H. Schiff, extended a critical series of loans to Japan as a means of taking revenge for the anti-Rothschild actions of the Tsarist regime such as refusal to be enslaved to a one-world banker led dictarorship proposed by Nathan Rothschild at the Congress of Vienna in the 19th Century. Korean General Jong Sik Park notes that Schiff funded Japan in its war on Russia.
Jacob Schiff gave $20 Million Dollars in Gold (worth Five Hundred Million in 1999 dollars) to LEVI BRAUNSTEIN, also known as Trotsky (Grand Orient Lodge), and Vladimir Ilich Blanc Ulanyoff, also known as Lenin. They used this money to turn Russia into a terrifying communist slave state. The communist revolution resulted in a bloody holocaust of over 100 MILLION DEAD [deleted] men and Women which no one seems to want to remember or talk about. Hollywood has never made one movie about this Christian Holocaust.
Out of the Jekyll Island meeting came the Aldrich Bill. But, the centralization of the American Banks never passed through Congress. However, these conspirators just fell back and regrouped again and re-named the Central Bank Conspiracy, "The Federal Reserve Act," to make it sound more like a U.S. Government run agency. And to see to it that it would pass through Congress this time they landed their very first president in office. His name was Woodrow Wilson. Jacob Schiff, Bernard Baruch, Henry Morgenthau, Thomas Fortune Ryan, and New York Times Publisher Adolph Ochs, all contributed heavily to finance the Wilson Campaign.
Hundreds, if not thousands of researchers have proven that the European Rothschilds sent their German agents of the Schiff, Astor and Warburg families to serve the interests of the super-rich. In the 1940s, the Warburg connection to Hitler was exposed in a startling book by one of their own, Sidney Warburg. He wrote that he was sent to Hitler's court to fnance Hitler's rise with American funds funneled through the Warburg banking operation in Hamburg. UNQUOTE
Sounds kinda like Schiff funded both sides of the Japan-Russia conflict if I'm seeing what's going on here. I'm willing to bet these are the forefathers of the scum who looted the US Treasury in 2008. What do you think? And it looks to me like we may have funded Al Quieda through the Pakistanakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) where billions just disappeared. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
Big Bankers = War & Plunder forever. Big Government = tool to protect big bankers.
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Good Grief, TJ!
we always hear about being wary of "conspiracy theories" because they seem so outrageous as seen on "movies"..but in reality -- the more outrageous they are....the more they seem to be true. there ARE cabals of very powerful, rich folks who DO connive against everyone else for their selfish interests.
the thing is - that shouldn't be surprising. that's what power does...it always tries to accrue more unto itself. and it's not different from a political party trying to enhance its power with "like-minded" and then of course plan, scheme, have "platforms" and "course of action".
i always put it this way :
if the USA and these rich folks can hector everyone else that there are "BAD PEOPLE OUT THERE" scheming and planning to "harm us" ....
such as terrorists, any criminal group trying to rob a bank of chicago....(those are conspiracies, aren't they? advance plans to get a particular result against the interests of the public) --
THEN WHAT IS ONE TO SAY about THESE very same rich folks who DO THE HECTORING? including their well-laid out, advance plans , on
"law and order", "contingency", "NORTHCOM"....Spying, "pre-emptive" detention, invasion, strikes?
THOSE ARE conspiracies.
what I DON'T understand is that America has SO MANY of them - OPENLY practiced -- and americans can't quite get themselves to SAY IT for what it IS:
"ruling class CONSPIRING against" them. for fear them might be singled out as "cuckoo?"
even if it's TRUE? and it affects them on a daily basis already?
the BAIL OUT of banks? the mortgages? the low wages? the "desirable unemployment?"
what are americans waiting for?
teddy,
I wish you would quit saying "the USA does this, and the USA does that". The USA is 300 million unwitting victims/prisoners.. Less than one percent of that is American-Israeli international bankers who appear, to me at least, to be causing 99 percent of the problems around the world.
Let's call it NWOM "The NEW WORLD ORDER MAFIA" , OK? because it certainly isn't confined to American citizens.
Many of the world gamers are Royal Families around the world, War Lords and unknown Oil Barons and International Captains of Industry. None of them are elected. Have you read the intel analysis Collateral Damage? I don't know who the web of mid-east financiers and underworld organized crime guys are on those charts, but apparently they are the real players.
www.israelshamir.net/Contributors/Collateral_Damage_911.pdf
TJ
"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent." - Thomas Jefferson
Just a possibility.
See Galen below.
Land of the free lunch for the wealthy and home of the Atlanta Braves. That sums up the USA.
Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."
I still like my little flag button that says, "a nation of sheep ruled by wolves owned by pigs."
"Land of the Greed, Home of the Slave"
GREAT ONE!!!
also:
"LAND of the FREE-LY CONNED..home of the TERRIFIED *braves*".
Oh, too right. I want a bumper sticker.
It is time for real change. The investor class needs to understand there are way more important things than growth, greed and what the Dow is doing. It is time for a complete reform. The first thing is to do is to quit buying gold because it is a sucker bet and makes one dependent on the very system that we know is monolithic and ruthless.
I deeply fear we have arrived at the position where the only thing worth buying is a weapon.
Assemble a Bug Out Bag (B.O.B.), Altoid pocket kit, and some basic hand tools instead.
Then get to know your neighbors.
Obama made his choice. He is not excusable. If he lacks courage and character that is his problem. His actions define who he is and he is not a friend of the people. Obama is complicit and just as guilty as his corporate masters. Puleeese stop apologizing or exempting Obama for his actions, they are his!
Speaking up is good but acting up is better. Do something today. Actionize your community or cowar and be swept away.
The great irony is that this diminution of civil liberties that is taking place at home and abroad, which was once roundly condemned when it occurred under George W. Bush, is now taking place under the auspices and leadership of a former Constitutional law scholar named Barack Obama. Yet the corporate media and the country seem much more concerned about the activities of a mental lightweight named Sarah Palin than they do regarding the fact that their rights and freedoms are not so slowly being eroded away by their [alleged] populist president.
"No one can terrorize a whole nation, unless we are all his accomplices."-Edward R. Murrow concerning Senator Joseph McCarthy's accusations about Communism in the American government.
"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is one un-American act that could most easily defeat us."-former Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
Errol-
think this will change soon. I was horrified at combat geared militarized police, from 50 jursdictions (i read), were pointing their weapons at PEACEFULLY demonstrating students this week. The students' protest was valid, a sudden $10k increase in their tuition. We are all suffering "sudden" increases in our expenses, whether they be incredible tuition hikes, hikes in interest and fees, hikes in taxes, hikes in health insurance, etc. etc. We are ALL facing mass joblessness and bankruptcy.
But we are not allowed to peacefully protest to correct these problems and we know our "representatives" in the government do not give a flying rat's ass when we complain to them. For the most part, they are all now self servants rather than public servants. The rubber is hitting the road here. Soon, we will have no choice but to massively demonstrate, peacefully - or not. I do not think we will be "allowed" to do so.
I think soon, protests will not be able to be peaceful. Look at the increase in familicides, suicides, "death by cop", usually involving loss of a job, bankruptcy or foreclosure. We are taking it out on ourselves right now. Eventually, I think that will shift to taking it out on the ones really hurting us, either the Sheriffs serving eviction papers or banks foreclosing and bankrupting us.
I am reminded of Zinn's depiction of the small towns blocking roads and pointing guns at bankers to keep them out of the town where they were coming to foreclose on the townspeople in the Depression. Now, in these days, I think this will turn into a neighborhood or block-by-block tactic in Cities and Towns across the US.
This potential for suppression and oppression was always on the back burner here in the US. Our government mostly abused everyone else in the world for their own ends. I said, when GWB first got elected, "Oh no, now they are going to do to the US what they have been doing to the rest of the world forever." Now that has come to pass. I don't know to what lengths they will go to finally stamp out any semblance of freedom in this country, but all I have to do is to look at what we are already doing here and what we are currently doing all over the globe to answer that question.
We are already not free, we just think we are. They let us belly ache all we want in print, but try and do something in action, they will arrest you or shoot you dead.
Redpill
Well said. Your penultimate sentence reminds me of the part of the lyrics from Sly and the Family Stone's classic song Stand:
"Don't you know that you are free
Well at least in your mind if you want to be."
Scotland is doing better than this.
Right on target, the most prescient article I've read here.
Me thinks Obama was taken into a back room and had things explained to him. "Nice wife you got there, real cute kids."
Check out the video buried under the others from yesterday
concerning Secret Global Empire.
Go to http://manageableants.blogspot.com/ read about the Octopus.
Three steel framed buildings fall straight down, never happened before or since.
Gulf of Tonkin, The Riechstadt Fire, Business Plot, WMD
"For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence--on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations."
- President John F. Kennedy-
Thank you for recommending the ManageableAnts blog. I look forward to working my way back through his archive.
This is just one of several theories on a hypothetical meeting Obama may have had with the PTB.
I think a more realistic one is where he and John McCain are sat down together, and Obama is told he gets to play at being President but to not screw it up by actually doing anything. McCain is told to tell his people that will get their perfect puppet (Palin) in 2012.
Please recall that after much research journalist John Pilger found out that Obama worked for the CIA front company 'Business International'. Obama is a Company man. And no-one retires from The Company. Period.
Galenwainwright: I think you are spot on! Our government is made up of mostly corporate soldiers and no one retires from the corportocracy once they have taken their filthy lucre.
Like Buck said watch "The Secret Global Empire" under the video section on CDs main page. It explains how this government is really run. The video basically says that it really doesn't matter who is president because the president really does not have much real power anymore, big business/the military does.
It explains a lot of what we are seeing. We change presidents, we change the party in charge but how much do things really change as far as the people are concerned. I think Chavez was right, the president is a prisoner.
Galen,
This is new to me.
John Pilger 4 July, 2009
http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=545
Thanks.
Galen, my thanks continue to grow as I read more from Pilger.
Thank you VERY much for that link!
And thank you, Galen, for originally bringing it up.
Hey Buck, I think you are right on target there with that back room meeting.
With your life and your family's threatened how many of us would find the courage of resistence?
And now, with sonic cannons, tear gas and facing long jail sentences if you get arrested at a demo, I've come to think that the "peace" movement has been squashed by threats, too.
We need to learn the lessons of other oppressed people around the world and find our voices!
These people know no bounds.
Use your voice to spread ideas.
Think for yourself.
Question everything.
If they say black, think white.
If they say up. look down.
...find our ...what?
The only voice these bastards will ever understand is death.