It CAN happen here

The following is an article from NPR about research published 10/2/08 in the journal Science by Jennifer Whitson.  Whitson set out to test whether people see patterns that aren’t there in response to a feeling of a lack-of-control.

 

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95296627>

 

 

It is with this in mind that I present the following:

 

 

 

 

 

 

“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross.” — Sinclair Lewis, 1935

 

On November 20^th 1942 the US ordered seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York that were being run by… Prescott Bush, (grandfather of George W. Bush)(http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar)

 

There has been a quiet transfer of power from President George W. Bush to Vice President Cheney.  The attempt now is to install a president who will die in office and who’s vice president is nothing if not the perfect public face of the puppet government. 

 

Already, terrorist attacks and financial crisis have been used to transfer legislative/judicial power to the executive branch.  The idea is to move real control and therefore real accountability away from the president to unaccountable levels where no checks exist and where decisions have no consequences on the decision makers.  This shadow government is at the behest of the interests who have used their financial power to create wars and terror in order to manipulate democracy.  Now this shadow government seeks to create economic crisis and panic in order to redistribute wealth and concentrate power even further into the hands of the real sources of the currencies of nations.

 

America is founded on common ground, public space; on the idea of consensus, of debate, of freedom of life and work and belief.  The shadow government subverts this and weakens democracy from within like a hollow dead tree which will fall with the slightest breeze.   The declaration of independence itself makes clear that the experiment of democracy is to internalize the spirit of revolution within the government so that external and violent revolution is unnecessary. But the declaration also acknowledges that the people must be stewards of their own freedom and never allow the kind of shadow government which now controls us.  It is the right and duty of Americans, when the mechanisms of democracy have been subverted, to stand up and change the government. 

 

Make no mistake about it, fundamentalists within both Christianity and Islam seek the great conflagration, both seek rapture in destruction.  It is in the interests of the controllers of the currencies to maintain a constant battle between these two groups in order to keep them both ignorant of and weak enough to not be able to challenge the status quo; their goal is actually to polarize the world. Divided, all can be controlled.  Our shadow government has the same addenda and the same owners as Al Qaeda. Confuse with lies, create fear with violence, and divide the population through sexism, racism, and prejudice.

 

Just as Jesus’ philosophy was co-opted and institutionalized to become the very thing which Jesus fought against; so the founding fathers’ philosophy of freedom was institutionalized and turned into the exact opposite of its intended spirit.  Throughout history each thesis or movement is counterpoised by its antithesis or opposite.  It is in the interests of the owners of the currencies to keep this antithesis balanced and profit from it.  The real question of any forward movement of history is whether the living spirit will continue to grow, evolve and create a greater synthesis or combination of the two opposites; or whether the point and counterpoint will remain locked in an un-winnable and mutually self-destructive struggle in which both sides fight to a draw.

 

Will Osama Bin Laden deliver another “October surprise” in the form of a video just before the presidential election to help Senator McCain get elected, just like what happened in 2004 in order to help drum up fear in order to re-elect George W. Bush? 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Osama_bin_Laden_video

 

Why were the Bin Laden family members in the United States cleared to fly out of the country in a private chartered jet after 9-11 when all other air traffic had been grounded?

 

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/feature/2004/03/11/unger_1/

 

bush salute

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fierce Urgency of Choice

 

            We take for granted this country is free.  In principle, as citizens of this nation neither one’s race, nor one’s gender, nor one’s geographic location defines us; we are to be judged only on the content of our character.  It is through the application of choice that our relative degree freedom or subordination is to be measured.  Choice can be wise and liberating, but choice can also be misplaced, stolen, or even killed.  Fear is the enemy of freedom.  The enemies of freedom have in the recent history of the Unites States, when defeated politically, violently killed the leaders of their opposition.  We conveniently categorize these killings as “assassinations” and therefore somehow expect to explain them away as almost some sort of political act.  To allow such silence in the face of a re-naming of murder is what allowed the Nazis to systematically murder millions.  It is the same dynamic which, on a different scale, serves to psychologically divide individuals in a society and surround each citizen in a shell of fear and doubt.

           

            To let choice be dictated by the fear of, or bitterness from political defeat or violent assassination is to lay down those freedoms and rights which we believe we possess as citizens.  Americans no longer physically band together and protest like they did just 50 years ago in the days of JFK, MLK, RFK…  Perhaps if not physically, virtually will the American people come to kindle the necessary spirit needed to, in the words of the declaration of independence… “to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

                       

            From revolution against foreign occupation and tyranny to civil war among states, countrymen and brothers, to civil disobedience against the machines of discrimination and oppression, this country was founded upon the principle that each of us has within us certain inalienable rights to the pursuit of freedom.  The painful lesson of history is to choose truth over silence in the service of freedom.  To know that freedom can only exist through the freedom of each of us, implies choice.  Whether we believe history progresses forward through its ups and downs, or traces an arc through larger seasons of time, those who cannot learn from history are indeed doomed to repeat it.

           

 

From President Dwight D. Eisenhower: Military-Industrial Complex speech (1961):

 

“…Throughout America’s adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations… Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

 

…We face a hostile ideology — global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle — with liberty the stake.

 

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense… …the creation of a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions… This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience.

 

The total influence — economic, political, and even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, and every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

 

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

 

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

 

As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow…  I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight. “

 

 

From President John F. Kennedy: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association (April 27^th, 1961):

 

     “The very word “secrecy” is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers which are cited to justify it. Even today, there is little value in opposing the threat of a closed society by imitating its arbitrary restrictions. Even today, there is little value in insuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it. And there is very grave danger that an announced need for increased security will be seized upon by those anxious to expand its meaning to the very limits of official censorship and concealment…

     

            Today no war has been declared–and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack. Those who make themselves our enemy are advancing around the globe. The survival of our friends is in danger. And yet no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops; no missiles have been fired…

 

       It requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, and a change in missions–by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labor leader, and by every newspaper. 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.

 

     Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, and no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War; in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

     

            Nevertheless, every democracy recognizes the necessary restraints of national security–and the question remains whether those restraints need to be more strictly observed if we are to oppose this kind of attack as well as outright invasion…     Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed–and no republic can survive.”

 

 

From Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.: “Why I am opposed to the War in Vietnam” (April 30^th, 1967):

 

            “Now, I’ve chosen to preach about the war in Vietnam because I agree with Dante, that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality. There comes a time when silence becomes betrayal.

            

 

 

 

            The truth of these words is beyond doubt, but the mission to which they call us is a most difficult one.  Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover, when the issues at hand seem as perplexing, as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict, we’re always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty…

           

            Now, of course, one of the difficulties in speaking out today grows the fact that there are those who are seeking to equate dissent with disloyalty. It’s a dark day in our nation when high-level authorities will seek to use every method to silence dissent. But something is happening, and people are not going to be silenced. The truth must be told, and I say that those who are seeking to make it appear that anyone who opposes the war in Vietnam is a fool or a traitor or an enemy of our soldiers is a person that has taken a stand against the best in our tradition.

           

            A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our present policies… A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death…

           

            Oh, my friends, if there is any one thing that we must see today is that these are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wounds of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born… Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo, we shall boldly challenge unjust mores…

           

            Every nation must now develop an overriding loyalty to mankind as a whole in order to preserve the best in their individual societies. This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing, unconditional love for all men… I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality.

 

            I speak out against this war because I am disappointed with America. And there can be no great disappointment where there is not great love. I am disappointed with our failure to deal positively and forthrightly with the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism… Every man is an heir to a legacy of dignity and worth. Every man has rights that are neither conferred by, nor derived from the State–they are God-given. Out of one blood, God made all men to dwell upon the face of the earth. But America’s strayed away, and this unnatural excursion has brought only confusion and bewilderment. It has left hearts aching with guilt and minds distorted with irrationality.

           

            Now it isn’t easy to stand up for truth and for justice. Sometimes it means being frustrated…I have not lost faith. I’m not in despair, because I know that there is a moral order. I haven’t lost faith, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice…”

                  – – – – – – – – – – –

                  Today we have our own contemporary battle being waged in the never-ending war of truth and fear.  Once again, the shadowed side of human nature seeks to send nation against nation, people against people to serve the business of prejudice, profit, and war.  This election we face but a consequence of the many steps that have preceded it in history.  Freedom requires choice, not just of a president, but of a moral understanding of the world.  With understanding comes choice and with choice comes conscience.

 

  Silence is also a choice; a choice implied by the very nature of the knowledge of right from wrong.  It is not just a choice of candidates on a ballot every four years which gives life to the freedom we believe we as Americans enjoy.  It is the choices we make each day which define us and by which eternity shall judge us, either as free citizens of humanity, or as slaves to hatred, greed, and fear.

 

            The following video is Martin Luther King’s Last speech he would give before being assassinated.  The enemies of truth and freedom are powerful and violent but the fierce urgency of choice confronts us.  There is, within the human mind a transcendent realm where life and death no longer matter and where this moment of now stretches on to the everlasting. 

 

            In this election gender and race have been at the forefront of the selection of president more than even in the 1860’s or the 1960’s.  This time the enemies of freedom seek to use the gender and race against each other.  The perceived misogynistic treatment of Hilary Clinton by Barack Obama, and the selection of Sarah Palin by John McCain are examples of the attempt to set race and gender at odds and divide the American people into giving up their choice and passively accepting another presidential “election”.  It is my hope that the American people come to understand the consequences of laying down and giving back our power to choose.  I hope we as a people come to understand it and prevent it, before we have to live it… again.

 

             As Malcolm X said in 1964:

 

“..It’s time now for you and me to become more politically mature and realize what the ballot is for; what we’re supposed to get when we cast a ballot; and that if we don’t cast a ballot, it’s going to end up in a situation where we’re going to have to cast a bullet. It’s either a ballot or a bullet.”

 

 

 

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1L8y-MX3pg

 

 

 

 

King George II

“In war, truth is the first casualty.” ~Aeschylus

 

            Imagine for a moment that our government has been hijacked by a totalitarian regime.  Let us imagine for a moment that we view the events of the past 8+ years in reverse order so that those events which we assume to be effects are indeed causes:

 

·         George W. Bush has still not been impeached and no investigation has ever been formally launched.

·         The country of Georgia under US auspices provokes Russia to counterattack, allowing the US to gain the political will in eastern Europe needed to go forward with the missile systems

·         The federal reserve bank assumes control of the financial system to assure its “security” while oil companies and oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia reap record profits.

·         As a result of US Treasury monetary policy and Fed Reserve interest rate policy the U.S. dollar falls heavily with the resulting spike in oil and commodity prices which are priced in U.S. dollars.

·         The meltdown of the “sub-prime” mortgage market triggering events which eventually bring the U.S. financial system to the brink of bankruptcy.

·         The US Government discontinues reporting of M3, which is a measure of the money supply in circulation and which would, if used make clear the inflationary policies of the US government.

·         George W. Bush encourages the American public to buy homes at a record pace thereby creating the largest boom in US housing prices in history.

·         The US invades Iraq and occupies it for the next 5+ years

·         The CIA plants evidence which link Iraq to Al Qaeda and to weapons of mass destruction.

·         Tax cuts are passed which benefit primarily corporations and the highest net worth individuals.

·         The patriot act is passed which lays the groundwork for future expansion of the executive branch of government including the use of extraordinary rendition, torture, and domestic wiretapping.

·         Afghanistan is attacked in an effort to destroy the Taliban who provided support to the 9-11 Saudi Arabian jihadists.

·         George W. Bush tells the American public the most good they can do is go back to their normal lives and go shopping.

·         Saudi Arabian Jihadists hijack 4 passenger planes and fly them into civilian and military targets on 09/11/2001.

·         George W. Bush losses the popular vote but becomes president when the supreme court affirms a controversial election in Florida, a state of which his brother is the governor.

·         The neo-conservative think tank ‘Project for the new American Century’ is founded and publish among others a document entitled Rebuilding America’s Defenses which lays out the political utility of “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”

·         Bill Clinton avoids impeachment on charges of perjury after lying under oath about a sexual affair he had which was investigated by order of congress.

·         Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait and Bush’s father attacks Iraq in the fist gulf war.

·         Bush’s father, former head of the CIA and vice president under Ronald Regan becomes the 41^st president.

·         Donald Rumsfeld under President Regan visits Iraq to meet with Saddam Hussein and re-affirm the US’ support for Iraq against Iran.

·         The CIA trains Osama Bin Laden along with other Jihadists to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

·         The US installs Saddam Hussein in power in Iraq and provides conventional, chemical, and biological weapons systems which are used against Iran and Iraqi Shiites and the Kurds.

·         George H. W. Bush receives Saudi Arabian financial support in his Texas oil business and early political career.

 

 

The following excerpts are from an article written by David Bromwich entitled Georgia and the Push for Cold War and which detail some of the conclusions that can be drawn from observing

“When Mikheil Saakashvili (The Georgian President) attacked the Russian peacekeepers in Tskhinvali, he expected to find success, or, at least, some cashable Western support. Part of his wish was granted. As soon as the Russians counter-attacked, an American politician was ready with threats and dire prophecies. John McCain was out of the gate on Georgia long before George W. Bush or Condoleezza Rice or Robert Gates made their first statements for the record. Why? Who gave McCain his early cue?

A fair bet is Saakashvili, through his closest American friend and former agent, Randy Scheunemann. Since Scheunemann is John McCain’s adviser on foreign policy, this looks like a dangerous contact — dangerous, that is, for the security of the United States. Yet it follows a pattern. Scheunemann was the agent of Ahmed Chalabi in agitating for the war against Iraq. He is a former director of the Project for the New American Century, which welcomed a world at permanent war, dominated by the U.S., as the order of the 21st century. And Scheunemann is as closely linked as it is possible to be — while holding a nominally different post — with the American Enterprise Institute, the Office of the Vice President, and the Weekly Standard: the most drastic and persistent lobbying network for the Iraq war, and the group that lately pressed the hardest for a war with Iran.

Seven and a half years into an administration that seems likely to go beyond January in all but name — so deeply are its patterns now ingrained in the culture of lawmakers and the mainstream media–the signs are strong that we are run by a government-within-the-government. The heart of the second government may not lie now in the connections between the West Wing and the OVP (Office of the Vice President), since the president now wants to know even less than he previously did; but the vice president is interested as always in everything: his men would be sure to know of the unorthodox gambles in the campaign of Scheunemann-McCain. And Cheney, as it happens, spoke out soon after McCain, and in language closely aligned with his.

Under the new American regime of military force, the world does not respect us as it once did. But it does fear us. And for a nation that is militaristic — whose highest virtue is military glory, whose medals of freedom are chiefly awarded to military men, whose idea of genius is most nearly answered by the general who devises the battle plan — for such a nation as we are becoming, to be feared may be the highest of attainments. The neoconservatives have long said so. This was the burden of their two leading documents published in the year 2000: the William Kristol-Robert Kagan anthology Present Dangers, and the Donald Kagan Gary Schmidt-Thomas Donnelly treatise Rebuilding America’s Defenses. An essay exploring the methods for overthrowing Saddam Hussein, in the first of these volumes, was contributed by Richard Perle. The second and more technical volume contained the famous sentence about the political utility of “some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”

 

            Ron Suskind in his book The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism claims that the White House illegally ordered the CIA to forge and disseminate false intelligence documents linking al-Qaeda and Iraq along with the presence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. What is preventing congress from calling an independent counsel like Kenneth Starr who can bring an investigation forth through which George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and the rest of the Bush administration can answer questions under oath?

           

            Why might the Democrats in Congress be so reluctant to investigate and impeach Bush, no matter how damning the evidence against him? What if the 2000 election was managed to ensure that Bush would win? What if individuals and organizations which pledge allegiance to no nation in particular facilitated and allowed the events of 9-11 as a means to launch wars of aggression and consolidate power within the executive branch of government?  What if the president had seized the power of unlimited, unchecked domestic spying? Would the president’s political opponents be subject to intimidation and blackmail?  Can we imagine that our country has allowed the president so much power as to effectively prevent the political avenues of dissent and opposition? 

           

            Can we recognize in the following paragraph anything that rings true today?

 

 “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…  when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

 

            What incendiary, unpatriotic, and dangerous document could the above have come from? It is from the second paragraph of the Declaration of independence.  Perhaps we should re-read the documents upon which our country was founded and ask ourselves just how far we have come from the principles upon which we gained our freedom.  Can it be true that we are now the incarnation of the very worst abuses of power against which a revolution waged and a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal was founded?

 

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html