BEWARE of OBAMA
54MEET THE NEW BOSS
LET THIS BE A WARNING.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=ron+paul+09&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#
Ron Paul says it best.
My God, you guys; reader; ANYBODY who might be listening. We'll be in a global depression the likes of which has never been seen very, very soon. The people of this country need to WAKE THE F&*K UP.
This so called 'stimulus' package will mark the second 800 billion dollars that the privately owned (as in by private, individual bankers, their families, and their friends--as in, give or take, a few hundred people) U.S. 'Federal' Reserve Bank has literally STOLEN from the American people. We think that we're giving the government our tax money to spend on infrastructure projects in order to create jobs, or that we're giving the government money to 'loan' to the banks so that they can then give that money back out to us in the form of loans or some sort of nonsense. We think that the 'U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve' system is trying to use the money to help us out.
THEY ARE NOT.
THEY'RE TAKING IT.
THEY'RE TAKING THE MONEY.
THEY'RE BANKRUPTING OUR ECONOMY.
ON PURPOSE.
THE UNITED STATES DOES NOT OWN THESE INSTITUTIONS.
THESE INSTITUTIONS ARE OWNED BY A SMALL HANDFUL OF PRIVATE PEOPLE.
THESE PEOPLE SWEAR NO ALLEGIANCE TO ANY COUNTRY.
WHATSOEVER.
THEY ARE PRIVATE, INTERNATIONAL BANKERS.
THE REAL LEADERS OF YOUR GOVERNMENT DON'T WORK FOR YOU; THEY WORK FOR THEM.
Have you noticed how none of these supposed bailouts has actually worked? THAT'S WHY. They are purposely trying to drive us into a depression. They are purposely trying to drive the WHOLE WORLD into a depression. And it's working. WELL.
"You're just paranoid and crazy," you say?
"Conspiracy theorist," you say?
"That doesn't make any sense at all," you say?
"Why would they do that," you ask?
THEY WANT A ONE WORLD CURRENCY TO BE DEALT OUT TO ALL PEOPLE THROUGH A ONE WORLD BANK.
THEIR ONE WORLD BANK.
GET IT?
DO YOUR RESEARCH.
Look at Newsweek, which has very recently called for EXACTLY THAT. Look at Time, which has very recently called for EXACTLY THAT. Look at the multitude of 'major,' monopolized, news sources and their plethora of subsidiaries, nearly all of whom are now talking about 'Obama and the New Global Elite;' or running headlines that read, 'Obama's New World Order;' or saying that 'this is what we get' for not having an INTERNATIONAL, ONE WORLD reserve bank; or talking about the possible benefits of a proposed 'North American Currency' like the AMERO. I'm serious. Open up a new window to Google, run a search, and LOOK. See how many VERY RECENT articles you find in 'major' publications talking about these sorts of things. You think this is an accident?
THEY OWN THESE MEDIA COMPANIES.
THEY OWN THEM.
THEY WANT A ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT.
"Nah!" you say?
"Why would they want a one world government," you ask?
THEY WANT TO OWN THE WORLD.
THAT'S WHY.
LIKE A BUSINESS.
GET IT?
And, from the looks of things, Barack Obama is trying to give it to them. He said he was going to 'listen to everybody.' NO Republicans in the House voted for the new 'stimulus package.' NONE. 15 DEMOCRATS voted against it, too.
Obama's response to the extreme division over the bill?
"I think we'll get it passed."
DO YOUR RESEARCH.
Investigate The 'Federal Reserve' system, The International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and The World Trade Organization. Learn for yourself. Find out how it works. It is one, gigantic PYRAMID SCHEME. PERIOD.
It makes absolutely certain that each and every one of the nations with which it interacts in the name of lending a helping hand--a.k.a. BAILING OUT--becomes hoplessly indebted to it. It's a BANK. It's a giant BANK, and you can NEVER PAY IT BACK.
EVER.
"Why can't you pay it back," you ask?
THEY GIVE YOU THE MONEY WITH DEBT ATTACHED.
THERE IS NEVER ENOUGH MONEY IN THE SYSTEM TO REPAY THE ORIGINAL DEBT BECAUSE ALL MONEY ISSUED IS ISSUED WITH MORE DEBT ATTACHED.
IT'S A PYRAMID SCHEME.
GET IT?
This is what the so called 'conspiracy theorists' are reffering to when they talk about "The New World Order," or the "Illuminati." You know, that THING ON YOUR DOLLAR BILL THAT LOOKS LIKE AN UNFINISHED PYRAMID WITH AN EYE RISING OUT FROM THE TOP OF IT?
THAT'S THEM!
THERE THEY ARE!
YOU SEE 'EM?
WAVE TO THE NICE PEOPLE UP THERE RUNNING THE SHOW.
WAKE THE F@$K UP!
WAKE UP!
That really is it. That's all they are--the private, international banking families and individual banking elite who own and operate this gigantic, international pyramid scheme. That's it. There is no conspiracy about it. They are real, and that is exactly who they are. They own and operate the indebted Federal Reserve banks of most of the nations of the world through the IMF, World Bank, and WTO, which, in turn, means they own the governments, which, in turn means that they use those governments to institute policies which help them accomplish their ultimate end of a one world government with a one world currency. Period.
And YES. THAT'S WHY SO MANY HUGE CORPORATIONS ADOPT IT AS THEIR SYMBOL.
It's not a conspiracy; in fact, it's really completely uncreative and obvious.
WHY
DO
PEOPLE
NOT
REALIZE
THIS?
It's a fucking pyramid scheme. Ya know?
IT'S A PYRAMID SCHEEEEEEEEME!
For the love of God, people. Can we all just vote for a F*$%ing LIBERTARIAN for once.
Or something.
ANYTHING. ANYTHING ELSE. ANYTHING BUT THIS.
Over and over and over and over and over again we vote for these guys and THEY ALL END UP BEING OWNED BY THE SAME PEOPLE.
ALL OF THEM!
EVERY DEMOCRAT, EVERY REPUBLICAN, EVERY TIME!
THIS IS GETTING DANGEROUS.
These international bankers have been doing what they do for many, many years. They are the most VIP of all the VIP's of all of this world. They are very, very secretive about the way they work (though it's not that hard to figure out). They meet as 'The Bilderberg Group' at undisclosed locations every year (though they denied the existence of such meetings until about eight years ago, when people like Alex Jones and others started following them to the meetings, filming their cavalcade of bullet proof limousines as they arrived at various out-of-the-way, Five-Star hotels throughout the world, and posting the films to the internet.)
DO YOUR RESEARCH.
They are also very strange and are apparently occultists. I wouldn't even believe that, much less report it, if I hadn't SEEN THE VIDEO that proves it and if it didn't give us some sense of what kind of character the people who dominate the world possess. You might say, "of course, naturally. They must be evil and weird and without human emotion; after all, they had to totally crush a lot of other people in order to get to 'top' of that pyramid. And after all, they have the deaths of so, so many starving children, of so many soldiers on both sides of every war they have funded (and funded both sides) on their hands. It's logical, in a way, that they'd be crazy.
But occultists?
DO YOUR RESEARCH.
After they meet at Bilderberg, they reconvene in a grove of redwood trees in the Northwest U.S. called 'Bohemian Grove' and perform CEREMONIAL MOCK SACRIFICES before a GIANT FIRE beneath a statue of a God called MOLOCH. I'm not making this up. Like I said, I wouldn't believe it or report it had I not seen it. Alex Jones filmed that, too. He broke in and FILMED it.
HE FILMED IT! HE F*&#ING FILMED THEM DOING IT!
THESE ARE PEOPLE YOU KNOW! WELL!
DO YOUR RESEARCH!
Ya know?
ALL OF IT can be found on Youtube and other internet video sharing sites. Look it up. If you don't belive the video is really what it claims to be, then look up Jones' ambush interview on the topic with David Gergen, the now CNN correspondent and once presidential advisor to Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton. Go to Youtube and type in "David Gergen Alex Jones." Watch how incredibly angry Gergen becomes. Watch him stand there screaming, "If you were there, then you took an understanding! You are now violating your understanding! Etc.."
WATCH IT!
These things are REAL, these people do them, and this is exactly who they are.
INTERNATIONAL BANKERS.
And Tim Geithner is one. And George Michell is one. And Bill Clinton was one. And George H. W. Bush was one. And his son was too. And so on.
And Obama and Hillary Clinton MET WITH THE FOLKS AT THE BILDERBERG CONFERENCE OUTSIDE OF WASHINGTON ON OCT. 14th of LAST YEAR. IT WAS DOCUMENTED ON FILM.
THIS IS NOT CHANGE.
I REPEAT.
THIS IS NOT CHANGE.
I'm sorry to say it. I'm really, really, REALLY sorry to say it; I loved the guy. I really believed in him. I campaigned for him, for God's sake. But this is not change. It just isn't.
BEWARE.
During his time in office, George Walker Bush created an unprecedented amount of executive orders, the vast majority of which laid a massive legal and literal infrastructural framework for the establishment of a true DICTATORSHIP in this country.
A DICTATORSHIP.
Many of them can be found here: http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/FEMA-Concentration-Camps3sep04.htm (toward the bottom of the page.)
These are F*&%KING REAL, ok? They're f*%#ing there, in black and white, on FEDERAL websites, and they're REAL. READ THEM.
READ THEM!
Barack Obama has not yet overturned ONE of these orders.
NOT ONE.
In fact, http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2008/Bush-Intelligence-Intact11nov08.htm
Closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, does NOT constitute anything close to overturning the established infrastructure for dictatorship. Closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba constitutes a hollow, entirely symbollic, entirely placating gesture.
BEWARE.
Signing an executive order banning torture but leaving provisions for the use of 'special techniques under special circumstances' does NOT constitute anything close to abolishing torture.
BEWARE.
Signing orders banning cabinet members from lobbying congress for two years before or after service in your administration, but then making multiple 'special exceptions' for a few 'very necessary, very important' people like William J. Lynn III, appointee for the number 2 position at the Department of Defense and military contracting giant Ratheon lobbyist, does NOT constitute any thing close to closing the revolving door between business and government.
BEWARE.
Pulling a few of the troops out of Iraq but being sure to leave a strong and indefinite military presence in the region while redoubling an even stronger effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continuing to support Israel's genocide of the Palestinians in the giant concentration camp called Gaza does NOT constitute anything close to a new age in American foreign policy relations with the rest of the world.
BEWARE.
Appointing mostly former Clinton administration cabinet members to your new cabinet and keeping some Bush, Jr. appointees on for the ride does NOT constitute anything close to change.
BEWARE.
And speaking of CONCENTRATION CAMPS, maybe we should quickly consider (in passing) the subject of the so called DOMESTIC, United States 'FEMA Camps,' the existence of which the 'conspiracy theorists' of this nation have been reporting, FILMING, posting to the internet, and generally SCREAMING about for the last five or six years. You know, the ones that look suspiciously like, well, GIANT CONCENTRATION CAMPS, over six hundred of which already exist all over the country, all of which were contracted from the Department of Homeland Security and built by Cheney's Halliburton, most of which can hold up to 20,000 detainees but four of which can hold as many as 1 MILLION people. Yeah, those 'camps.'
And in considering the subject, lets compare those FILM-DOCUMENTED reports with this LEGISLATION RELEASED JANUARY 22ND, 2009 which OFFICIALLY acknowledges said camps (which it calls 'closed military installations') exist, calls for MORE, and states that they are to be used for the purpose of 'providing temporary residence' to AMERICAN CITIZENS in the event of a 'national emergency' including but not limited to A MASSIVE COLLAPSE OF THE AMERICAN ECONOMY:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-645
OK?
READ THAT! READ IT! THEN GO LOOK AT THE VIDEOS, AND READ IT AGAIN! READ IT AGAIN! READ IT AGAIN!
READ IT UNTIL IT SINKS INTO YOUR BRAIN WHAT IS BEING SAID!
THAT WAS RELEASED THIS WEEK.
THIS WEEK!
GET IT?
And if YOU'RE STILL ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE who is essentially too lazy to do the research and, therefore, dismisses it all offhand with THIS argument--"do you know how many people would have to be involved in covering that up?"
If YOU'RE STILL ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE who (because its easier and more comfortable to do so) thinks that it's all impossible; that dictatorships, in fact, haven't been the ONLY CONSTANT in the history of world governments; that this doesn't happen, REGULARLY, to people just like you and me; that authoritarian regimes DON'T take the people of any given country by surprise, EVERYTIME; that they NEVER HAPPEN because TOO MANY PEOPLE would have to be involved in covering it up; if you're one of these people, then think of it this way:
Your government has been SPYING ON YOU--EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU--EVERYDAY for SEVEN YEARS, and not until LAST WEEK was ANYONE able to come forth to TELL YOU SO.
AND HE (N.S.A. agent Russel Tice) SAID BLATANTLY, ON MSNBC, ON KEITH OLBERMAN'S PRIMETIME SHOW, THAT THE FBI WAS ALL OVER HIM LIKE, AND I QUOTE, "FLIES ON YOU KNOW WHAT" BECAUSE OF IT.
THE FBI WAS CHARTERED TO GO AFTER THIS GUY FOR THIS REASON.
Do YOU realize HOW MANY PEOPLE it takes, even with the help of supremely advanced computer filters, to look through all the RED-FLAGGED SHIT that must turn up out of ALL of the communications of ALL of the AMERICAN PEOPLE!
350,000,000 PEOPLE!
MILLION!
THEY ARE SPYING ON 350 MILLION PEOPLE!
Do YOU know HOW MANY PEOPLE would have to be involved in covering THAT up!?!
IT GOES ON FOR SEVEN YEARS; ONLY ONE GUY IS ABLE TO COME FORWARD!
GET IT?
In fact, if YOU'RE STILL ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE who dismisses the entire thing offhand, FOR ANY REASON, then you can just shut the fuck up, because you're an idiot.
You know what's even worse, with the whole NSA spying on ALL American people thing?
It's completely out of the news.
GONE!
Zppp!... Just like that.
I'm the only one still talking about it.
(Actually I'm not. Actually there are a lot of people still talking about it out here on the Internet, where media is still free--knock on wood.)
Whatever, right?
American Idol, Grammys, Super Bowl, etc.
B E W A R E !!!
That's all I have for now. A more detailed, point-by-point series of 10 to 20 analysis-articles meant to measure the extent and direction of the 'change' represented by the policy decisions of our new president, Barack Obama's will follow from here, God willing. I will try very hard to remain objective in those articles. I will try very hard to assume a much less panicked tone in writing them. I will try very hard to make them more coherent, much more professional, and much less sprawling than this particular communication is. But understand, right now, this constitutes a WARNING. And, in all honesty, I could really care less about my "Hubpages score" as far as this is concerned. I'm not trying to make money off of this one. I'm upset, I'm angry, and I'm scared. I feel very betrayed right now.
I thought I had voted to take the aspiring NWO dictator OUT of office.
Do your research. Come to your own conclusions. But really do it. Don't be lazy. You can't afford that anymore. And I can tell you right now, you're probably not going to find any real answers in Time, in Newsweek, on CNN, FOX, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, SLATE, SALON. Huffington might help, some, but probably not much. Look for the "crazies." I mean it. The Zeitgeist people, Illuminati people, the New World Order people, the 911 Truth people, the Bilderberg people, the Alex Jones people, the Gerald Celente people, the David Ray Griffin people, etc. Look through all of the madness they put out there. Stay skeptical, but wade through all the shit, and seriously, honestly, and openly do it. DON'T BE LAZY. Disregard the hysteria. Look for the FACTS. Look HARD. AT EVERYTHING out there on this stuff. Add it up for yourself. See what you think. Let me know, but not before you do that.
God Bless.
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Comments
Thanks maven, I appreciate the positive feedback. Lol. Puffington Host. I feel ya there. Looking back over it, it definitely is a rant. I guess it all boils down to this: we cannot afford to watch a furthering of the Bush agenda in any form, deceptive or not. As the labor unions in this country have stated, we are waiting and watching. The framework for successful declaration of marshall law was, indeed, set up very calculatedly by the Bush administration, and until I see an honest and purposeful dismantling of that framework, I refuse to accept the notion that anything has changed.
Check out these links, by the way:
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=kucinich+mar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8
A complete economic collapse in this country is now set up to lead to the declaration of marshall law. The change that is needed to reverse this possiblity must be sweeping and drastic. Hopefully my coming point-by-point articles will shed some light on the insufficient nature and character of the 'change' Obama is making in the U.S. to do anything to counteract what the Bush administration did.
Gary,
To quote an old Eagle's lyric " cheap talk and wine " is what I'm getting with Obama...if his cabinet picks are any indication of his judgement we are in real trouble.
Holden's complicity in the Marc Rich pardon, Hillary Clinton's enormous conflict of interest with foreign governments' subsidizing her husband, Giethner's tax fiasco, Brown's socialist ties, Daschle's tax evasion and ties to health care lobbyists, and Napolitano as Homeland Security chief with her soft approach to illegal aliens... not a lot to feel good about here...
Look forward to your point-by-point hubs. We need to keep Obama's feet to the fire, the MSM sure won't....
The definition of an emergency is not to have concentration camps and the definition of disaster is not human riots. However they could be used that way with one decision. But that is not their intent. They want to avoid another Katrina.
The main thing is that FDR stopped the fascists and maybe Obama can do the same. Wewill just have to keep pressure on regarding the president Bush order that makes him king. Obama must overturn that. http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode42/us
Maven, I couldn't agree more with the idea of keeping Obama's feet to the fire. You know--regardless of the likely duplicity of his own personal agenda--Obama's revolutionary rhetoric throughout the course of his campaign really woke a lot of people up. It's reasonable to look at that as being in our favor. He spoke often, for instance, to a general desire he witnessed in people to return this nation to the constitution upon which it was founded. In fact, in large part, Obama hijacked the momentum growing behind Ron Paul and the Liberty Movement, dressed up the message with sweeping generalizations, and with his incredible eloquence, made it his own. Now, we have to recognize the fact that Obama is essentially a world-class lawyer who recieved his training in the craft at none other than Harvard Law. Not only did he study there, in fact, but he excelled so greatly at it that he was elected Student Body President of the school. The most logical conclusion to draw from that fact is that Barack Obama possesses an absolutely brilliant sociopolitical mind, and that this mind is also armed with an unmatched aptitude in the arts of persuasion and manipulation. The man is a certified, Harvard-educated lawyer.
When he directed his aspirations toward the political arena, he was instructed by his mentors to get himself down on a level with the people in order to better understand what it was that they wanted so that he could then begin to offer it to them. A lot of his campaign rhetoric, incidentally, was right on point, and while I can look back on it now and see that much of it was actually convoluted and agenda-driven argumentation cloaked in a thematic veil of hope and change which spoke some of the publics' deepest held desires, I think a lot of us--myself included--were fooled for good reason. He spoke to the poor, he spoke to the evil of monopoly by corporate interests, and he spoke to the constitution.
The point is that we can heart in the fact that, in his psychological assesment of the public, it was these things to which Mr. Obama found it most necessary to speak. No matter who the man, himself, may be or where his true allegiances lie, we know by looking at his campaign that a great majority of the people in this country are well aware and also sick and tired of the current international money monopoly and of the elite who own and operate it. People recognize, for instance, that free-market capitalism has never truly existed for them in the vast majority their lifetimes.
Likewise, I don't see how his cabinet picks could be seen as anything other than an indication, and a pretty concrete indication, at that, of Obama's judgement and true political leanings. They all scare me, as the majority of them are likely to violate the Logan Act at some point along the line just as their predecessors have over the greater part of the last century to the present by attending the Bilderberg conference, Bohemian Grove, and others this year and meeting in secret with foreign dignitaries at those events. Obama and Clinton have already done so, as have Daschle and Napolitano. The appointment of Carol Brown as 'Global Warming Czar,' a woman who has very clearly and openly stated her political allegiance to socialism, is abominable and should just have the people of this country up in arms, you know?
There's just so much to say. Lol. Thank you sir, for what do and let's just keep it up.
bgamall, thank you for your insight, the link, and your wisdom in general. I realize that the giant rant of an article above is extremely paranoid in tone; it was meant to be. The reason I wrote it and that I wrote it like I did is mainly that I have been following the issue of Kellog, Brown, and Root's contract with the U.S. Government which resulted in the construction of these mysterious military facilities across the nation under the banner of FEMA and Homeland Security for a while now, so to see legislation appear that would seem to be referring directly to them was startling.
In terms of the definitions you provided, the definition of 'emergency' seems pretty open ended to me. I guess the line of thought that most concerns me is that the neo-cons have established a formidable scientific dictatorial infrastructure in this country largely beyond view of the public eye, and that neo-cons and neo-libs have played good cop-bad cop to a global elitist agenda for many years now.
I agree; we need to keep the pressure on Obama, and that executive order is the place to start. The way I see it, if you and I recognize the existence and danger of such an unconstitutional order, then there is no way that Obama doesn't. Indeed, he must overturn it.
I appreciate your rant but wonder if you had similiar rants one month ago when Bush was in office. I agree with you that Bush's order needs to be reversed. That is the type of change Obama promised and hopefully deliver.
...and I appreciate your feedback, bgpappa. Thanks for your insight.
First off, let me make this perfectly clear: I absolutely oppose the Bush-Cheney agenda and continue to do so. I’m not a Republican, I’m not a Democrat, I’m not “Liberal,” I’m not a “Conservative.” I’m a freelance writer and an independent thinker. I tend to see the whole Left-Right Political Paradigm as a good-cop, bad cop act on the part of a larger Global Elitist Paradigm. We all know politics is business, and business is politics.
As far as my present take on Obama is concerned, just let me put it this way: I was on the front lines of the Obama movement precisely because, for the first time in my life, I heard a truly powerful politician promising to deliver the type of change you spoke of. I campaigned, and even canvassed for him--and I had never campaigned in any way, for anybody--exactly because I understood all too well (as did the rest of the American public) that we couldn't afford to allow the Bush-Cheney, elite monetary globalist agenda, embodied in the New 'American' Century Plan, to continue in any way, shape, or form.
What this 'rant,' as it has appropriately come to be called here, was intended to point out is that the 'change' that was promised has not yet begun to be delivered in earnest, and that fact, alone, should be cause for GREAT alarm. I'm trying to put together a bunch of articles meant to highlight at least some of the most telling issues at which we must look in order to accurately assess the Obama agenda as it differs (or doesn't) from that of the Bush-Cheney agenda. In turn, regardless of our differing views on the new president’s personal allegiance to either us or to the same global monetary elite that Bush-Cheney worked for, this project will help paint a clearer picture of the incredible scope of the task at hand if we wish to defeat the continuation of the Bush-Cheney corporate agenda.
This is, however, a HUGE project to undertake alone. I will do so, if I must, but I think it would be a much more well-rounded, impactful, and timely endeavor if other writers were willing to take on one or more of the issues and produce articles of their own.
I’m going to try to put out a call to action on the part of all the writers on this site who might be interested in participating. We’ll see what happens.
One point that could be taken from all of this is that there are liberals, conservatives, and neocons. Even Pat Buchanan rails against the war party neocons for provoking Russia unnecessarily. Perhaps we need some strategic historical conservatives to balance the neocons and try to get the Republican party back to slow to war, slow to empire build philosophy.
Yeah. Personally, I think a strong libertarian presence is called for. You know, you look back to the nation's founding, and you don't see much resemblance to those ideals in either of our two parties at all anymore. We need politicians who will stand up--not just to "CEO's"--but to the private central bankers running the Federal Reserve and IMF who think they live above the law of any nation. I think you said something to that effect in your "Marx Was Right" hub.
Listen, I just set up a hub called "The Change on Trial Project." I really have a lot of respect for your writing and your understanding, so I'd love to see you take on one of the issues and get involved with it. I'm going to manually scour the ranks of hubpages in order to invite other writers to join in. (I'm going to be writing on it myself, too.) Eventually this whole project is going to be moved to its own website. At that point, I'll probably be doing some 'guerilla marketing' stuff--calling radio programs, craigslist, etc. (P.S. Your post on drawing traffic is going to be very helpful.)
(P.P.S When I move the project to that site--out of respect to authors' ownership of their own work--I'll simply provide categorized links on the new site to the original articles written here as hubs. I won't republish hubpages authors' work on that site.)
Anyway, the idea is not to slander any one party or person or anything to that effect.
The idea is to look at what is best for we the people, decide whether or not we are getting that from Washington (i.e. real change in OUR interest) and what we can do to make things better for OURSELVES. The idea is that we need answers, and it seems we're going to have a lot of trouble getting them from anyone but one another.
If you'd like to get involved, you'd just take on one of the numbered questions or a related one, publish your own hub on it, leave a comment in the "The Change on Trial Project" hub with a link denoting that it's for the project.
I'd really appreciate your insight.
Well Gary, here it is, 3 months later..do you still feel we need to move to the more libertarian side of conservativism, or do you think Obama is on the right track.?
Hey, Maven! It's good to hear from you again. I hope you're well, buddy.
Three months in, indeed, and still, I can't think of any of the specific areas that so badly needed changing--and there are many--which has truly changed in any significant way. On the issue of torture, for instance, which is one of the supposed major accomplishments of the 'change' administration--as is the case with many other issues the Obama team claims to have addressed and rectified--I think we're really missing the boat. The practice of torture by U.S. Other Governmental Agencies may or may not have actually been discontinued. We are to take the OGA's word for that, of course, as there is, by the very nature of such organizations, no realistic transparency by which we might be able to substantiate their policies in practice. Nevertheless, while it ought to be the case that the United States does not torture, isn't the greater threat to the people's freedom as far as prisons like Guantanamo Bay lying in the hands of overarching proactive programs like the Department of Homeland Security, which are specifically chartered for the purpose of defining, rooting out, and detaining enemies of state, and the role such agencies and institutions play in the War On Terror, as well as in the domestic and foreign politics of the country, that the prospect of their turning their definitions of who and what makes a terrorist against political enemies in this country is all too real, and that, perhaps even more importantly, they still remain beyond the reach of the constitutionally-based legal system in this country in terms of how they go about making those decisions and acting upon them? People are still being detained indefinitely without due process, for example, and there is still absolutely no way for anyone to find out the true reasons behind any given person's detention. People, once again, are still being expected to take as a given that a governmental institution allowed to act beyond the scope of the traditional and democratically vital checks and balances that would have otherwise been placed upon it by the constitution of this country is somehow going to remain forever benevolent. Apprehension without due process, for example, is always-already authoritarian. The Department of Homeland Security, in other words, inasmuch as it is granted the power to defy the U.S. Constitution by the democratically catastrophic Patriot Act which spawned it, is always-already a threat and a menace and is always already NOT benevolent. As such, it should either be done away with or brought within the realm of democratic law. Neither has occurred thusfar under the new Obama Administration, nor should we expect it to.
We still see no attempt, of course, at prosecution for either the official authorization of the use of torture tactics by branches of the U.S. government or the deliberate falsification of intelligence information in oder to take the country to war as far as crimes commited during the last adminstration's tenure go, but then, that's a given, as half of the current government would probably have to be indicted on either charge. We still see no action to reverse the democratically inexcusable Presidential Directives authorizing martial law in the event of a nationwide catastrophic emergency situation. The 'State Secrets' provision's use as a legal defense and the ability for virtually any governmental representative or agency to use it if he or she or it sees fit has actually expanded and extended in terms of who and what it makes legally exempt from judiciary prosecution or release into public knowledge. The so called 'transparency' that was promised, then, is nowhere to be found, but rather, it's opposite. The administration's cabinet is actually brimming with lobbyists, rather than being void of them as promised. Within the past three months, America watched Ben Bernanke tell Bernie Sanders during congressional testimony that he simply doesn't have to tell anyone of us anything about where the TARP money went because The Federal Reserve is above the law of this country and outside of the reach of it's people or their congress. It saw Obama announce a cap on executive compensation at troubled banks and corporations, but as it turned out, a whole lot of huge bonuses got paid out anyway; of course, that was a ridiculously hollow gesture in the first place and a completely unconstitutional one at that, since the real issue is and always has been that the wealthiest institutions are having their losses socialized by the taxpayer while their profits are allowed to remain completely privatized and that this is being done specifically so that there remains a perpetual absence of fluidity in terms of who and what constitutes the uppermost echelons of the socioeconomic structure in this country and, indeed, the rest of the world. Our troops are still in Iraq, and their withdrawl is set to be 'reconsidered' in twenty-three months. We're doubling up in Afghanistan. We're now bombing Pakistan.
After three months of watching Obama, in other words, I think he's a pragmatist, a paid apologist, a politician in the worst sense of the word, and absolutely unwilling to take any steps which would truly be to the detriment of the largest financial interests in the world in favor of the interests of its common people or of this country.
Nothing, whatsoever, has changed.
So having said that, my answer is a resounding, "yes." Now more than ever, we need to move as far toward libertarianism and away from the corporate fascistic economic and political policies which both major parties are beginning to practice ever more confidently and pronouncedly. Our country has gotten away from us as we have let our Constitutional balances of power become first upset then irrelevant. If we don't get our government and its many, many branches back under the rule of Constitutional law, a descent into the most hardened forms of authoritarianism is simply an inevitable eventuality for America and Americans. Barack Obama is obviously not going to do this for us, nor could we ever expect an individual to deliver us all, of his own effort, from the slightest possibility of such an outcome. That's up to us, every one of us, and it is therefore our obligation to do what we can in any way we can as individuals to facilitate and empower a major populist movement in that direction. As United States citizens according to the Constitution upon which our country was predicated, it is, indeed a legal obligation; as citizens of a country whose government has broken free from its contract with its people and is thus running wild and unfettered and will therefore, as history shows us, most likely only become increasingly oppressive, it is also in our best interest.
Thanks for asking, Maven, and for giving me the occasion and incentive to spell out my thoughts on the subject. In fact, I think I might post some version of this as a hub. Lol.
Those are my two cents. Penny for your thoughts?
Well Gary, your two cents and my penny wouldn't buy a cup of coffee in today's socio-economic firestorm...By that I mean we are becoming dinosaurs, sliding into oblivion, being replaced with a society that is on the take...a society of Sheeple, so invested in themselves they do not have a clue what is being slowly, but inexorably, taken away from them.
Personally, I do not consider waterboarding torture...no one has died from it, and more " journalists " than terrorists have actually been submitted to it...no worse than some college hazing I went through at Cal...You want torture, talk to those brave men that were captured by the Japanese and lived to tell about it...bare feet flayed by bamboo strips, bamboo slivers jammed into fingernails, teeth pulled out with pliers, private parts snipped with pruning shears....that's torture, my friend...
I agree DHS is an extremely dangerous bureaucracy that threatens our constitutional rights and freedoms...The idea that a political institution can unilaterally define who or what is terrorism is beyond comprehension...When Janet Napolitano broad-brushed the term terrorist to include former servicemen, gun rights activists, or just about any American with a gun, she did so with the approval of the Obama administration. This is a soft tyranny, a tyranny that is insidious and persistent, but a tyranny nonetheless.
Obama spent more time and research picking out the 1st Dog then he has picking out his pathetic administration. Unbelievably inept, corrupt, political hacks each and every one of them...
As for the decrepit Republican party, the loyal opposition, it remains mired in the swamp of discord and petty jealousies, without message or leadership. Amazingly enough, the loudest, and truest conservative voice emanates from a 14 year old conservative prodigy named Johnathan Krohn. His message is pure Reagan; Lower taxes, less government, and a strong military...
Problem is, most Americans want to tax the rich ( 250m + is now considered rich ), want more government in their lives ( cradle to grave maintenance ), and a military that is reactive vs proactive.
The War on Terror is an asymmetrical war, unlike any we have fought before. As such, our military must be proactive, seeking and destroying, before terrorists can carry out their attacks. Reacting to terror attacks, as a strategic model, is doomed to failure. I saw enough of that crap in Viet Nam.
I've never really been " political " in the activist sense...more of an innate philosophy of rugged individualism and individual rights vs civil liberties and communal subordination. Equal rights and justice for every US citizen, balanced by equal responsibilities for the protection of our freedoms, which include observing our laws, protecting our country and its national interests, educating our children, advocating freedom of speech, accepting personal responsibility for our lives and actions, and by voting...
I don't know, Gary, but I'm afraid our world of common sense and common values is being pushed aside by the tsunami of universal entitlement espoused by the roiling masses.
We are screwed! 12 U.S. Senators attended the crowning of Sun Yung Moon as the messiah. The insanity of our leader..ship is about to sink us all. Break out the lead and powder boys and girls...it's almost show time!
Great hub.....thanks!
"Well Gary, your two cents and my penny wouldn't buy a cup of coffee in today's socio-economic firestorm..." HAHA! Well put. I don't know, though, Maven. I think there's a lot more resistance out there than we'd imagine. It may not be a majority right now, but I really do believe that it will be approaching that level very soon. People are beginning to realize how powerful they are as individuals, and the converse of that fact is that, whether or not we agree on the specific details of every issue, ours is a philosophy of individual empowerment.
I see your point on 'waterboarding-as-torture' (and your status as a veteran lends a lot of credence to that), but then, as I said, I don't think any of us can say with authority what is really happening behind closed doors and regardless of that, I think torture is sort of a side issue to that of detainment without due process. Therein lies the real threat, right? If they can *already* take me without anybody ever knowing why to God-knows-where at any time, then how in the world are we going to pretend to be able to dictate what they are or are not going to do to me once they get me there? (Or whether I deserve it and why, etc.)
As far a DHS, I mean, the parallels to former totalitarian regimes speak for themselves. I'm not wholeheartedly a proponent of the Zeitgeist Movement and it's strange little 'Venus Project,' but this little clip does sum this particular theme up pretty perfectly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO_9LQaFAas
You have to wonder, in any event, who is working for whom and for what reasons. I question the entire venture that is The War On Terror.
Still, I agree we have to be proactive in some sense--terrorists do exist, they do carry out attacks, and with the right weapons, they could definitely cause substantial damage to our country. Yet terrorism, itself, is not an ideology but a method. You can't fight a war against 'guerilla warfare,' for instance, so if you're going to fight 'terrorists,' you have to be sure they are looking to attack you in particular and know exactly when. And it might even help, God forbid, to look at the possible reasons as to why factions who use terrorist tactics in their attempts to achieve their interests would want to attack our country in particular; conversely, a more humble and less exploitative foreign policy couldn't hurt. At the same time, though, we have a national security apparatus which is completely opaque and whose secrecy is completely protected. Congress doesn't even know what they're up to, so we definitely don't know what they're up to. In that sense, who do you trust as the War On Terror Authority, why, and how? Especially when so many fascist regimes have come to power by terrorizing their own people, and then demanding power to fight the so called terrorists. It isn't at all out of the realm of possibility, and anyone who says it is impossible is foolishly and blindly ignoring historical precedent.
What a mess, right? I think you're *almost* dead on when you say this:
"...I'm afraid our world of common sense and common values is being pushed aside by the tsunami of universal entitlement espoused by the roiling masses."
I agree completely that *many* people want to demand everything be taken care of for them by their government, though they're unwilling to get their own hands dirty in terms of actually looking at the issues and the possible consequences of potential quick and easy short-term and even various long term solutions. They're the same folks who will sit there on their couches and watch CNN, MSNBC, or FOX, and believe they're actually being educated on the issues of the day. It's hard to become educated and to come to conclusions thereby. It takes effort, it takes consideration, and it takes research, and these folks don't like to do that. But I don't think, Maven, that there are *as* many of those kinds of people as you fear. In fact, I hesitate to even call them a majority anymore. We have to remember, for example, that Barack Obama was forced to play *both sides* of the spectrum *very* strongly, from those of us whose social philosophies are strongly based in principle to those of us whose social philosophies are based strictly on self-interest, opportunism, and a sense of entitlement. In fact, I'd even say he did the majority of his pandering to the former, which ought to tell us something about the shape of principled ideology in this country.
And I think that's the real issue. We need a strongly principled politics--one that says, "we're making the decision do deal with this issue in this specific way based on A, B, and C, which are time-tested truths that never fail to protect our individual freedoms and our national interest." In terms of what those principles might be or where we might find them, I have a strong suggestion, and you can probably guess what it is. Without the Constitution as a guiding light, we're basically just electing administrations one after the other by virtue of the fact that they are presenting us with the 'next best idea,' allowing them to then improvise solutions to perpetual crises and set haphazard policy accordingly, trusting that they have our best interests at heart at all times, and generally just 'winging it.'
And THAT, my friend, is just nuts.
But people *are* starting to realize that in very large numbers.
Tom, thanks and nice to meet you.
Seriously, right? Sun Yung Moon!? Really? What in the name of God was going on with that crap? What a weird, weird world we live in.
Here's a video on the story Tom is referencing made by John Gorenfeld--the guy who broke the story--from March of 2004, for those who don't know what in the hell we're talking about:
Intelligent response, most of which I totally agree with...
You wrote :
" We need a strongly principled politics--one that says, "we're making the decision do deal with this issue in this specific way based on A, B, and C, which are time-tested truths that never fail to protect our individual freedoms and our national interest."
Gary...That is one, long, convoluted oxymoron...in the world of Realpolitik one must always ask the question: Who benefits..? If it just happens that government self-interest and American freedoms are joined at the hip by mutual threat you have the perfect storm for creating an agency like DHS. You don't need a Reichstag incident to create it...
I agree terrorism is a method, but a method applied by an ideology that is brimming with hate, resentment, envy, and a deep religious conviction that allows them to think of non-believers as less than human...it is much easier to kill a human being if those you are killing are described as something other than human, thus, Asians became " Slopes ", Jews became " Vermin ", non-Islamic peoples became " Infidels ", terrorists became " Islamofascists ", and even nations became " The Evil Empire ", " The Axis of Evil ", or " The Land of Satan "...
I wish I could share your optimism Gary, but this downward slide began a long time ago, in the 60's actually, with the powerful forces of government dictated curricula in academia, a leftist press and mass media, and a self-indulgent generation of baby boomers...
Your Hub is entitled " Beware of Obama "...I think we should beware of ourselves...and I apologise for going off subject...Go ahead, waterboard me...
Fantastic hub. Thanks for the great read.
Call me convoluted again, and I just might, Maven. You'd better look out, buddy! ;)
Just kidding, of course.
I guess I subscribe to something more along the lines of "IdealPolitik" than "RealPolitik." I think realism is always the best essential place from which to form an honest understanding on an issue, but I think it much better to then take it a step further and follow a virtue-based manifesto as a playbook in dealing with the world. The Constitution is THAT for me. "RealPolitik" sort of says, "look at the world as it is, adapt, and improvise as best serves your own particular national and/or individual interest." I'm not into that. It threatens to undermine our core values, if you ask me, and leaves us with no real principled identity for which to fight. It sacrifices integrity to survivalism, and compromises both. It is, however, the dominant mentality of those who dominate the world in which we live. A Constitutional-based foreign policy would call for a much more neutral stance in world affairs. Of course, there'd be those who'd say, "you can't just do that, everybody's fighting for resources, you'd become a weakling in the international power struggle, you'd lose out, you'd be wiped off the map, etc." Then again, these are largely the same folks who would deny that Iraq and Afghanistan are actually Oil Wars. But me? I'd say let em fight. Develop a really strong alt-energy program. Become as self-sustainable as possible, turn inward to a large degree, BE PROTECTIONIST, just make sure to keep up a very, very strong military. (And don't go out and try to conquer the world with it.)
See, Obama acts like he's doing a lot of this stuff, but he really isn't. At all. He's absolutely full of it. He knows it's an underlying popular sentiment, so he speaks to it. But he doesn't DO it.
As far as terrorism and 9/11 go, I don't think that government self-interest and American freedoms could have ever possibly been so joined at the hip as to justify and facilitate two (resource) wars in the name of a single threat had it NOT been for that monumental 'Reichstag' event. And while I do acknowledge that there is an Islamic-extremist terrorist threat in the world and also definitely believe that its tenants are, inasmuch as they promote the rule of Islam by an iron fist, completely detestable, ridiculous, and against everything I stand for, I ALSO strongly question the official explanation of the events which took place on 9/11. Now, I'm not saying that I know for a fact that it was a so called 'inside job,' but I AM saying that NONE of us knows for certain that it wasn't and that certainly none of us have been offered anything close to an unbiased investigative report as to the details of what went on that day. It DID provide a very convenient scapegoat for carrying out the agenda spelled out in the New American Century Plan--as a matter of fact, it literally BECAME the 'pearl harbor-type event' that the plan itself had said would be necessary in order to get the people on board with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (That agenda continues in full force, of course.)
In any case, I'm the one who questions the offical story so strongly. Napolitano would probably call me a 'right-wing extremist.' LOL. Maybe they should waterboard ME, Maven! Maybe they will. ;)
What do you think?
FutonFraggle--
Thanks! I appreciate that.
P.S. I love Fraggle Rock, even STILL!
maven101 says:
11 months ago
A much needed rant...lot of good stuff in there...although I wouldn't recommend the Puffington Host to anybody with a brain...you want an American woman's perspective check out Malkin, Ingraham, and for a toot, Coulter...