"Why Wikileaks Is Important To Our Freedom" (4 Parts)

"Those Who Close Their Eyes And Ears To These Revelations Are Nothing Less Than Ignorant Accomplices In The Loss Of Freedom For All Mankind"

http://wikileaksmirrorlist.blogspot.com/

"Christmas Past"

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, 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, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

"It Could Be Anyone Of Us Who Dares To Speak Out"

"The Right to Ignore the State"

§1. As a corollary to the proposition that all institutions must be subordinated to the law of equal freedom, we cannot choose but admit the right of the citizen to adopt a condition of voluntary outlawry. If every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man, then he is free to drop connection with the State,—to relinquish its protection and to refuse paying towards its support. It is self-evident that in so behaving he in no way trenches upon the liberty of others; for his position is a passive one, and, whilst passive, he cannot become an aggressor. It is equally self-evident that he cannot be compelled to continue one of a political corporation without a breach of the moral law, seeing that citizenship involves payment of taxes; and the taking away of a man's property against his will is an infringement of his rights. Government being simply an agent employed in common by a number of individuals to secure to them certain advantages, the very nature of the connection implies that it is for each to say whether he will employ such an agent or not. If any one of them determines to ignore this mutual-safety confederation, nothing can be said, except that he loses all claim to its good offices, and exposes himself to the danger of maltreatment,—a thing he is quite at liberty to do if he likes. He cannot be coerced into political combination without a breach of the law of equal freedom; he can withdraw from it without committing any such breach; and he has therefore a right so to withdraw.

§2. "No human laws are of any validity if contrary to the law of nature: and such of them as are valid derive all their force and all their authority mediately or immediately from this original." Thus writes Blackstone, to whom let all honour be given for having so far outseen the ideas of his time,—and, indeed, we may say of our time. A good antidote, this, for those political superstitions which so widely prevail. A good check upon that sentiment of power-worship which still misleads us by magnifying the prerogatives of constitutional governments as it once did those of monarchs. Let men learn that a legislature is not "our God upon earth," though, by the authority they ascribe to it and the things they expect from it, they would seem to think it is. Let them learn rather that it is an institution serving a purely temporary purpose, whose power, when not stolen, is, at the best, borrowed.
 Nay, indeed, have we not seen that government is essentially immoral? Is it not the offspring of evil, bearing about it all the marks of its parentage? Does it not exist because crime exists? Is it not strong, or, as we say, despotic, when crime is great? Is there not more liberty—that is, less government—as crime diminishes? And must not government cease when crime ceases, for very lack of objects on which to perform its function? Not only does magisterial power exist because of evil, but it exists by evil. Violence is employed to maintain it; and all violence involves criminality. Soldiers, policemen, and gaolers; swords, batons, and fetters,—are instruments for inflicting pain; and all infliction of pain is, in the abstract, wrong. The State employs evil weapons to subjugate evil, and is alike contaminated by the objects with which it deals and the means by which it works. Morality cannot recognise it; for morality, being simply a statement of the perfect law, can give no countenance to anything growing out of, and living by, breaches of that law. Wherefore legislative authority can never be ethical—must always be conventional merely.
 Hence there is a certain inconsistency in the attempt to determine the right position, structure, and conduct of a government by appeal to the first principles of rectitude. For, as just pointed out, the acts of an institution which is, in both nature and origin, imperfect cannot be made to square with the perfect law. All that we can do is to ascertain, firstly, in what attitude a legislature must stand to the community to avoid being by its mere existence an embodied wrong; secondly, in what manner it must be constituted so as to exhibit the least incongruity with the moral law; and, thirdly, to what sphere its actions must be limited to prevent it from multiplying those breaches of equity it is set up to prevent.
The first condition to be conformed to before a legislature can be established without violating the law of equal freedom is the acknowledgment of the right now under discussion—the right to ignore the State.

§3. Upholders of pure despotism may fitly believe State-control to be unlimited and unconditional. They who assert that men are made for governments and not governments for men may consistently hold that no one can remove himself beyond the pale of political organisation. But they who maintain that the people are the only legitimate source of power—that legislative authority is not original, but deputed—cannot deny the right to ignore the State without entangling themselves in an absurdity.
For, if legislative authority is deputed, it follows that those from whom it proceeds are the masters of those on whom it is conferred: it follows further that as masters they confer the said authority voluntarily: and this implies that they may give or withhold it as they please. To call that deputed which is wrenched from men whether they will or not is nonsense. But what is here true of all collectively is equally true of each separately. As a government can rightly act for the people only when empowered by them, so also can it rightly act for the individual only when empowered by him. If A, B, and C debate whether they shall employ an agent to perform for them a certain service, and if, whilst A and B agree to do so, C dissents, C cannot equitably be made a party to the agreement in spite of himself. And this must be equally true of thirty as of three: and, if of thirty, why not of three hundred, or three thousand, or three millions?

§4. Of the political superstitions lately alluded to, none is so universally diffused as the notion that majorities are omnipotent. Under the impression that the preservation of order will ever require power to be wielded by some party, the moral sense of our time feels that such power cannot rightly be conferred on any but the largest moiety of society. It interprets literally the saying that "the voice of the people is the voice of God," and, transferring to the one the sacredness attached to the other, it concludes that from the will of the people—that is, of the majority—there can be no appeal. Yet is this belief entirely erroneous.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that, struck by some Malthusian panic, a legislature duly representing public opinion were to enact that all children born during the next ten years should be drowned. Does any one think such an enactment would be warrantable? If not, there is evidently a limit to the power of a majority. Suppose, again, that of two races living together—Celts and Saxons, for example—the most numerous determined to make the others their slaves. Would the authority of the greatest number be in such case valid? If not, there is something to which its authority must be subordinate. Suppose, once more, that all men having incomes under £50 a year were to resolve upon reducing every income above that amount to their own standard, and appropriating the excess for public purposes. Could their resolution be justified? If not, it must be a third time confessed that there is a law to which the popular voice must defer. What, then, is that law, if not the law of pure equity—the law of equal freedom? These restraints, which all would put to the will of the majority, are exactly the restraints set up by that law. We deny the right of a majority to murder, to enslave, or to rob, simply because murder, enslaving, and robbery are violations of that law—violations too gross to be overlooked. But, if great violations of it are wrong, so also are smaller ones. If the will of the many cannot supersede the first principle of morality in these cases, neither can it in any. So that, however insignificant the minority, and however trifling the proposed trespass against their rights, no such trespass is permissible.

When we have made our constitution purely democratic, thinks to himself the earnest reformer, we shall have brought government into harmony with absolute justice. Such a faith, though perhaps needful for the age, is a very erroneous one. By no process can coercion be made equitable. The freest form of government is only the least objectionable form. The rule of the many by the few we call tyranny: the rule of the few by the many is tyranny also, only of a less intense kind. "You shall do as we will, and not as you will," is in either case the declaration; and, if the hundred make it to ninety-nine, instead of the ninety-nine to the hundred, it is only a fraction less immoral. Of two such parties, whichever fulfils this declaration necessarily breaks the law of equal freedom: the only difference being that by the one it is broken in the persons of ninety-nine, whilst by the other it is broken in the persons of a hundred. And the merit of the democratic form of government consists solely in this,—that it trespasses against the smallest number.
The very existence of majorities and minorities is indicative of an immoral state. The man whose character harmonises with the moral law, we found to be one who can obtain complete happiness without diminishing the happiness of his fellows. But the enactment of public arrangements by vote implies a society consisting of men otherwise constituted—implies that the desires of some cannot be satisfied without sacrificing the desires of others—implies that in the pursuit of their happiness the majority inflict a certain amount of unhappiness on the minority—implies, therefore, organic immorality. Thus, from another point of view, we again perceive that even in its most equitable form it is impossible for government to dissociate itself from evil; and further, that, unless the right to ignore the State is recognised, its acts must be essentially criminal.

§5. That a man is free to abandon the benefits and throw off the burdens of citizenship, may indeed be inferred from the admissions of existing authorities and of current opinion. Unprepared as they probably are for so extreme a doctrine as the one here maintained, the Radicals of our day yet unwittingly profess their belief in a maxim which obviously embodies this doctrine. Do we not continually hear them quote Blackstone's assertion that "no subject of England can be constrained to pay any aids or taxes even for the defence of the realm or the support of government, but such as are imposed by his own consent, or that of his representative in Parliament"? And what does this mean? It means, say they, that every man should have a vote. True: but it means much more. If there is any sense in words, it is a distinct enunciation of the very right now contended for. In affirming that a man may not be taxed unless he has directly or indirectly given his consent, it affirms that he may refuse to be so taxed; and to refuse to be taxed is to cut all connection with the State. Perhaps it will be said that this consent is not a specific, but a general, one, and that the citizen is understood to have assented to every thing his representative may do, when he voted for him. But suppose he did not vote for him; and on the contrary did all in his power to get elected some one holding opposite views—what then? The reply will probably be that by taking part in such an election, he tacitly agreed to abide by the decision of the majority. And how if he did not vote at all? Why then he cannot justly complain of any tax, seeing that he made no protest against its imposition. So, curiously enough, it seems that he gave his consent in whatever way he acted—whether he said "Yes," whether he said "No," or whether he remained neuter! A rather awkward doctrine, this. Here stands an unfortunate citizen who is asked if he will pay money for a certain proffered advantage; and, whether he employs the only means of expressing his refusal or does not employ it, we are told that he practically agrees, if only the number of others who agree is greater than the number of those who dissent. And thus we are introduced to the novel principle that A's consent to a thing is not determined by what A says, but by what B may happen to say!
It is for those who quote Blackstone to choose between this absurdity and the doctrine above set forth. Either his maxim implies the right to ignore the State, or it is sheer nonsense.

§6. There is a strange heterogeneity in our political faiths. Systems that have had their day, and are beginning here and there to let the daylight through, are patched with modern notions utterly unlike in quality and colour; and men gravely display these systems, wear them, and walk about in them, quite unconscious of their grotesqueness. This transition state of ours, partaking as it does equally of the past and the future, breeds hybrid theories exhibiting the oddest union of bygone despotism and coming freedom. Here are types of the old organisation curiously disguised by germs of the new—peculiarities showing adaptation to a preceding state modified by rudiments that prophesy of something to come—making altogether so chaotic a mixture of relationships that there is no saying to what class these births of the age should be referred.
As ideas must of necessity bear the stamp of the time, it is useless to lament the contentment with which these incongruous beliefs are held. Otherwise it would seem unfortunate that men do not pursue to the end the trains of reasoning which have led to these partial modifications. In the present case, for example, consistency would force them to admit that, on other points besides the one just noticed, they hold opinions and use arguments in which the right to ignore the State is involved.
For what is the meaning of Dissent? The time was when a man's faith and his mode of worship were as much determinable by law as his secular acts; and, according to provisions extant in our statute-book, are so still. Thanks to the growth of a Protestant spirit, however, we have ignored the State in this matter—wholly in theory, and partly in practice. But how have we done so? By assuming an attitude which, if consistently maintained, implies a right to ignore the State entirely. Observe the positions of the two parties. "This is your creed," says the legislator; "you must believe and openly profess what is here set down for you." "I shall not do anything of the kind," answers the Nonconformist; "I will go to prison rather." "Your religious ordinances," pursues the legislator, "shall be such as we have prescribed. You shall attend the churches we have endowed, and adopt the ceremonies used in them." "Nothing shall induce me to do so," is the reply; "I altogether deny your power to dictate to me in such matters, and mean to resist to the uttermost." "Lastly," adds the legislator, "we shall require you to pay such sums of money toward the support of these religious institutions as we may see fit to ask." "Not a farthing will you have from me," exclaims our sturdy Independent; "even did I believe in the doctrines of your church (which I do not), I should still rebel against your interference; and, if you take my property, it shall be by force and under protest."
What now does this proceeding amount to when regarded in the abstract? It amounts to an assertion by the individual of the right to exercise one of his faculties—the religious sentiment—without let or hindrance, and with no limit save that set up by the equal claims of others. And what is meant by ignoring the State? Simply an assertion of the right similarly to exercise all the faculties. The one is just an expansion of the other—rests on the same footing with the other—must stand or fall with the other. Men do indeed speak of civil and religious liberty as different things: but the distinction is quite arbitrary. They are parts of the same whole, and cannot philosophically be separated.
"Yes they can," interposes an objector; "assertion of the one is imperative as being a religious duty. The liberty to worship God in the way that seems to him right, is a liberty without which a man cannot fulfil what he believes to be divine commands, and therefore conscience requires him to maintain it." True enough; but how if the same can be asserted of all other liberty? How if maintenance of this also turns out to be a matter of conscience? Have we not seen that human happiness is the divine will—that only by exercising our faculties is this happiness obtainable—and that it is impossible to exercise them without freedom? And, if this freedom for the exercise of faculties is a condition without which the divine will cannot be fulfilled, the preservation of it is, by our objector's own showing, a duty. Or, in other words, it appears not only that the maintenance of liberty of action may be a point of conscience, but that it ought to be one. And thus we are clearly shown that the claims to ignore the State in religious and in secular matters are in essence identical.
The other reason commonly assigned for nonconformity admits of similar treatment. Besides resisting State dictation in the abstract, the Dissenter resists it from disapprobation of the doctrines taught. No legislative injunction will make him adopt what he considers an erroneous belief; and, bearing in mind his duty toward his fellow-men, he refuses to help through the medium of his purse in disseminating this erroneous belief. The position is perfectly intelligible. But it is one which either commits its adherents to civil nonconformity also, or leaves them in a dilemma. For why do they refuse to be instrumental in spreading error? Because error is adverse to human happiness. And on what ground is any piece of secular legislation disapproved? For the same reason—because thought adverse to human happiness. How then can it be shown that the State ought to be resisted in the one case and not in the other? Will any one deliberately assert that, if a government demands money from us to aid in teaching what we think ill produce evil, we ought to refuse it, but that, if the money is for the purpose of doing what we think will produce evil, we ought not to refuse it? Yet such is the hopeful proposition which those have to maintain who recognise the right to ignore the State in religious matters, but deny it in civil matters.

§7. The substance of this chapter once more reminds us of the incongruity between a perfect law and an imperfect State. The practicability of the principle here laid down varies directly as social morality. In a thoroughly vicious community its admission would be productive of anarchy.[1] In a completely virtuous one its admission will be both innocuous and inevitable. Progress toward a condition of social health—a condition, that is, in which the remedial measures of legislation will no longer be needed—is progress toward a condition in which those remedial measures will be cast aside, and the authority prescribing them disregarded. The two changes are of necessity co-ordinate. That moral sense whose supremacy will make society harmonious and government unnecessary is the same moral sense which will then make each man assert his freedom even to the extent of ignoring the State—is the same moral sense which, by deterring the majority from coercing the minority, will eventually render government impossible. And, as what are merely different manifestations of the same sentiment must bear a constant ratio to each other, the tendency to repudiate governments will increase only at the same rate that governments become needless.
Let not any be alarmed, therefore, at the promulgation of the foregoing doctrine. There are many changes yet to be passed through before it can begin to exercise much influence. Probably a long time will elapse before the right to ignore the State will be generally admitted, even in theory. It will be still longer before it receives legislative recognition. And even then there will be plenty of checks upon the premature exercise of it. A sharp experience will sufficiently instruct those who may too soon abandon legal protection. Whilst, in the majority of men, there is such a love of tried arrangements, and so great a dread of experiments, that they will probably not act upon this right until long after it is safe to do so.

"Our Freedom Threatened"

Espionage Act: How the Government Can Engage in Serious Aggression Against the People of the United States
By Naomi Wolf


Huffington Post, December 11, 2010

  This week, Senators Joe Lieberman and Dianne Feinstein engaged in acts of serious aggression against their own constituents, and the American people in general. They both invoked the 1917 Espionage Act and urged its use in going after Julian Assange. For good measure, Lieberman extended his invocation of the Espionage Act to include a call to use it to investigate the New York Times, which published WikiLeaks' diplomatic cables. Reports yesterday suggest that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder may seek to invoke the Espionage Act against Assange.

  These two Senators, and the rest of the Congressional and White House leadership who are coming forward in support of this appalling development, are cynically counting on Americans' ignorance of their own history -- an ignorance that is stoked and manipulated by those who wish to strip rights and freedoms from the American people. They are manipulatively counting on Americans to have no knowledge or memory of the dark history of the Espionage Act -- a history that should alert us all at once to the fact that this Act has only ever been used -- was designed deliberately to be used -- specifically and viciously to silence people like you and me.

  The Espionage Act was crafted in 1917 -- because President Woodrow Wilson wanted a war and, faced with the troublesome First Amendment, wished to criminalize speech critical of his war. In the run-up to World War One, there were many ordinary citizens -- educators, journalists, publishers, civil rights leaders, union activists -- who were speaking out against US involvement in the war. The Espionage Act was used to round these citizens by the thousands for the newly minted 'crime' of their exercising their First Amendment Rights. A movie producer who showed British cruelty in a film about the Revolutionary War (since the British were our allies in World War I) got a ten-year sentence under the Espionage act in 1917, and the film was seized; poet E.E. Cummings spent three and a half months in a military detention camp under the Espionage Act for the 'crime' of saying that he did not hate Germans. Esteemed Judge Learned Hand wrote that the wording of the Espionage Act was so vague that it would threaten the American tradition of freedom itself. Many were held in prison for weeks in brutal conditions without due process; some, in Connecticut -- Lieberman's home state -- were severely beaten while they were held in prison. The arrests and beatings were widely publicized and had a profound effect, terrorizing those who would otherwise speak out.

  Presidential candidate Eugene Debs received a ten-year prison sentence in 1918 under the Espionage Act for daring to read the First Amendment in public. The roundup of ordinary citizens -- charged with the Espionage Act -- who were jailed for daring to criticize the government was so effective in deterring others from speaking up that the Act silenced dissent in this country for a decade. In the wake of this traumatic history, it was left untouched -- until those who wish the same outcome began to try to reanimate it again starting five years ago, and once again, now. Seeing the Espionage Act rise up again is, for anyone who knows a thing about it, like seeing the end of a horror movie in which the zombie that has enslaved the village just won't die.

  I predicted in 2006 that the forces that wish to strip American citizens of their freedoms, so as to benefit from a profitable and endless state of war -- forces that are still powerful in the Obama years, and even more powerful now that the Supreme Court decision striking down limits on corporate contributions to our leaders has taken effect -- would pressure Congress and the White House to try to breathe new life yet again into the terrifying Espionage Act in order to silence dissent. In 2005, Bush tried this when the New York Times ran its exposé of Bush's illegal surveillance of banking records -- the SWIFT program. This report was based, as is the WikiLeaks publication, on classified information. Then, as now, White House officials tried to invoke the Espionage Act against the New York Times. Talking heads on the right used language such as 'espioinage' and 'treason' to describe the Times' release of the story, and urged that Bill Keller be tried for treason and, if found guilty, executed. It didn't stick the first time; but, as I warned, since this tactic is such a standard part of the tool-kit for closing an open society -- 'Step Ten' of the 'Ten Steps' to a closed society: 'Rename Dissent 'Espionage' and Criticism of Government, 'Treason' -- I knew, based on my study of closing societies, that this tactic would resurface.

  Let me explain clearly why activating -- rather than abolishing -- the Espionage Act is an act of profound aggression against the American people. We are all Julian Assange. Serious reporters discuss classified information every day -- go to any Washington or New York dinner party where real journalists are present, and you will hear discussion of leaked or classified information. That is journalists' job in a free society. The White House, too, is continually classifying and declassifying information.

  As I noted in The End of America, if you prosecute journalists -- and Assange, let us remember, is the New York Times in the parallel case of the Pentagon Papers, not Daniel Ellsberg; he is the publisher, not the one who revealed the classified information -- then any outlet, any citizen, who discusses or addresses 'classified' information can be arrested on 'national security' grounds. If Assange can be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, then so can the New York Times; and the producers of Parker Spitzer, who discussed the WikiLeaks material two nights ago; and the people who posted a mirror WikiLeaks site on my Facebook 'fan' page; and Fox News producers, who addressed the leak and summarized the content of the classified information; and every one of you who may have downloaded information about it; and so on. That is why prosecution via the Espionage Act is so dangerous -- not for Assange alone, but for every one of us, regardless of our political views.

  This is far from a feverish projection: if you study the history of closing societies, as I have, you see that every closing society creates a kind of 'third rail' of material, with legislation that proliferates around it. The goal of the legislation is to call those who criticize the government 'spies', 'traitors', enemies of the state' and so on. Always the issue of national security is invoked as the reason for this proliferating legislation. The outcome? A hydra that breeds fear. Under similar laws in Germany in the early thirties, it became a form of 'espionage' and 'treason' to criticize the Nazi party, to listen to British radio programs, to joke about the fuhrer, or to read cartoons that mocked the government. Communist Russia in the 30's, East Germany in the 50's, and China today all use parallel legislation to call criticism of the government -- or whistleblowing -- 'espionage' and 'treason', and 'legally' imprison or even execute journalists, editors, and human rights activists accordingly.

  I call on all American citizens to rise up and insist on repeal of the Espionage Act immediately. We have little time to waste. The Assange assault is theater of a particularly deadly kind, and America will not recover from the use of the Espionage Act as a cudgel to threaten journalists, editors and news outlets with. I call on major funders of Feinstein's and Lieberman;s campaigns to put their donations in escrow accounts and notify the staffers of those Senators that the funds will only be released if they drop their traitorous invocation of the Espionage Act. I call on all Americans to understand once for all: this is not about Julian Assange. This, my fellow citizens, is about you.

Those calling for Julian Assange's criminalization include:

1. Rep. Candice Miller
2. Jonah Goldberg, Journalist
3. Christian Whiton, Journalist
4. Bill O'Reilly, Fox News Journalist
5. Sarah Palin, Member of the Republican Party, former candidate
6. Mike Huckabee, Politician
8. Prof. Tom Flanagan
9. Rep. Peter King
10. Tony Shaffer
11. Rick Santorum
12. Rep. Dan Lugren
13. Jeffrey T. Kuhner, Journalist The Washington Times
14. Rep. Virginia Foxx
15. Sen. Kit Bond, Vice Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee
16. Sen. Joe Liberman
17. Sen. Charles Schumer
18. Marc Thiessen, Columnist

Injustice in the age of Obama - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Injustice in the age of Obama - Opinion - Al Jazeera English

Self Help in Hard Times

Self Help in Hard Times: "... I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart, I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars. I am the red man driven from the land, I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek- And finding only the same old stupid plan. Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak... . O, let America be America again- The land that never has been yet- And yet must be-the land where every man is free. The land that's mine-the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, All, Who made America, Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain, Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain, Must bring back our mighty dream again. Sure, call me any ugly name you choose- The steel of freedom does not stain. From those who live like leeches on the people's lives, We must take back our land again, America! . . ." Langston Hughes. 1938.

Facebook (13) | Glenn Nunley

Facebook (13) Glenn Nunley:

"From birth until death is as a whisper. From our
first breath until the last is an incredibly short journey even for those who
live a full life span.

We come into this world with nothing and when we
leave this world, 'The only thing we get to keep is what we give
away."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2011/1/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/galleries/2011/1/

"We are Family"

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

Click Link Below---A Must Read!!

War Is A Racket, by Major General Smedley Butler, 1935: "War Is A Racket
By Major General Smedley Butler


General Smedley Butler, The most highly decorated marine general In history has presented us with a horrendous truth about The United States Government and a simple solution whereby the American people can forever put a stop to the senseless killing and war profiteering which is perpetuated in cycle after cycle and always to enrich the guilty few at the expense of the innocent many. TerPa.


Contents
Chapter 1: War Is A Racket
Chapter 2: Who Makes The Profits?
Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?
Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!
Chapter 5: To Hell With War!"

"One Man's Perspective On The Tea Party Movement"

Max Blumenthal goes inside the Tea Party from Ram Bam on Vimeo.

" And You Think You Matter? You Don't"

"Let Us Not Forget Them"

No amount of criminal prosecution can compensate for the intolerable and painful suffering of our seabirds and the many animals becoming ensnared by oil each day, and in the months and years ahead. That their beauty and innocence are but a memory — as they lay dying, soaked in oil, immobilized and gasping for breath — should be with us all every time we fill our gas tanks and through all the air-conditioned miles we drive, until we become part of the solution. I agree.     TP.

" Are We Destined To Kill Ourselves? "

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution." Thomas Jefferson


"At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant to step the Ocean and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excluded) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln.

"AN INTERESTING E-MAIL"

To: Wall Street chief executives

From: Your man in Washington

Re: Embracing the status quo


Our earnings are robust, our compensation has returned to its naturally high levels and, as a result, we have very nearly regained our grip on the imaginations of the most ambitious students at the finest universities — and from that single fact many desirable outcomes follow.

Thus, we have almost fully recovered from what we have agreed to call The Great Misfortune. In the next few weeks, however, ill-informed senators will meet with ill-paid representatives to reconcile their ill-conceived financial reform bills. This process cannot and should not be stopped. The American people require at least the illusion of change. But it can be rendered harmless to our interests.

Our World---"Gone With The Wind"

AMAZING SPEECH BY WAR VETERAN

  


"BEHOLD A TRUE AMERICAN PATRIOT"

Wikileaks leaked video of Civilians killed in Baghdad - Full video

THIS IS THE KIND OF SHIT THAT WILL ENSURE OUR COUNTRY WILL REMAIN UNDER ATTACK. DOES ANYONE NOT UNDERSTAND THIS?

NOTE TO THE SHOOTERS: TerrorPatriot

As unlikely as it is, if I were to ever cross paths with any of you chicken shit shooters involved in this incident it would be my pleasure to put you out of your misery "with extreme prejudice" You are nothing less than serial killers who would piss your pants in a fair battle. Hopefully you caught a direct hit from an RPG before you left Araq. It is less than you deserve scumbags!

NOTE TO ALL HONORABLE MILITARY PERSONEL:
To all those who served with honor in our armed services in any American conflict, this is not an inditement of you. You command the complete respect of this writer.

President Obama, No One in Arizona is Laughing

"Happy Mother"s Day---Not"

           "FOR THE MONEY AND THE POWER"

"Only those who are dead know the end of war" -Plato

"Dick Cheney's Mentor?" "Not A Happy Day For Some Mothers"

"Military men are dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns for foreign policy"  -Henry Kissinger

"Big Bother Comes Knocking In Pennsylvania"

TerrorPatriot say's "Fuck Pennsylvania And The Horse They Rode In On"  "Lock And Load...Rock And Roll" Everybody gotta die sometime Tom.

"Armageddon Can Come From Many Different Angles"

Inside the U.S. biodefense program


Lynn Klotz ’65 and Edward Sylvester ’65 say that government labs make us more vulnerable


By W. Barksdale Maynard ’88


Published in the February 24, 2010, issue


Courtesy The University of Chicago Press


Lynn Klotz ’65, top, and Edward Sylvester ’65 take readers inside laboratories where mistakes occur.


Two former Lockhart Hall roommates have written a book to make you lie awake at night. Breeding Bio Insecurity: How U.S. Biodefense Is Exporting Fear, Globalizing Risk, and Making Us All Less Secure argues that $60 billion in taxpayer funding that has been spent combating bioweapons since Sept. 11 has failed to protect us. On the contrary, they say, we are paying scientists to tinker with deadly substances in our own backyards.

The bioterror threat is overhyped, believes biodefense expert Lynn Klotz ’65, and the U.S. response — in terms of funds invested and the number of labs conducting research — has been disproportionate. He foresees no major attack on U.S. soil — these are hard to pull off except by foreign states that would face massive retaliation.

Yet the tinkering that goes on in government labs, Klotz writes in Breeding Bio Insecurity, is making us less secure. He was inspired to begin writing this book when he saw that Bostonians were ignorant about a proposed high-security laboratory, now complete but not fully operational, in the heart of their city, at Boston University. He was active in protesting against its opening. Klotz and his co-author, science journalist Edward Sylvester ’65, paint chilling scenarios: Suppose a researcher unknowingly infected with the SARS virus takes the subway home at the end of the day, sneezing as she goes.

Published by the University of Chicago Press, Breeding Bio Insecurity warns of the hazards inherent in spreading bioterror research across hundreds of laboratories nationwide and cloaking each one in secrecy. In a survey of recent snafus, Klotz and Sylvester take readers inside sloppy facilities that, they say, employ inexperienced workers. Anthrax has spilled onto scientists’ desks. And in 2005, mice infected with bubonic plague disappeared from a lab in Newark, N.J., perhaps having scurried out into the surrounding neighborhood. The authors argue that scientists probe Pandora’s box: sequencing smallpox DNA, then posting the results on the Internet; bringing the 1918 flu virus back to life by exhuming a corpse in Alaska. Such data in the wrong hands could be used to produce a catastrophe, Klotz says. Scientists “don’t see that they might be creating the next Nagasaki.”

A math major at Princeton, Klotz earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, San Diego. He taught biochemistry at Harvard and Princeton but left academia to launch a biotech startup in the 1980s. Eventually he became a consultant on disarmament and today is a senior science fellow at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Sylvester, a philosophy major at Princeton, has written several books on cutting-edge medical research and The Gene Age (1983) with Klotz about the then-emerging biotechnology revolution.

Breeding Bio Insecurity calls on the United States to abandon its secretive approach, scale back its numerous laboratories, and partner with global allies for a more effective war on bioterror. A more likely threat than a major bioterror attack, says Klotz, is pandemic disease, which deserves additional research dollars.

"Yea!! Idiots... "Drill Baby Drill"

On Gulf Coast, Nervous Wait for Oil Arrival

"The Hard Truth Is...Our Worst Fears Are Now Unfolding."

Deepwater Horizon Incident, Gulf of Mexico

This is not the time for finger pointing or casting stones. That time will surely come. Now is the time for all of us on the Gulf Coast to unite in a herculean effort. Our local officials must now lead by acting quickly and thinking outside the box on this one if we are to mitigate the impact of what we can not avoid.
    The hard truth and reality of this catastrophe; We have opened an artery in Mother Earth and she is bleeding all over us from an ocean depth of over a mile deep.
     The worst part is there is no way to stem the flow. The technology does not exist. We have unleashed Armageddon in the Gulf Of Mexico and our lives are forever changed in drastic ways that all will soon comprehend.     TP.
     

                                                                                                                                                                          Situation: Thursday 29 April

Today the Deepwater Horizon incident declared a Spill of National Significance (SONS). A SONS is defined as, "a spill that, due to its severity, size, location, actual or potential impact on the public health and welfare or the environment, or the necessary response effort, is so complex that it requires extraordinary coordination of federal, state, local, and responsible party resources to contain and clean up the discharge" and allows greater federal involvement. Estimates of the release rate increased to 5000 barrels (210,000 gallons) per day based on surface observations and reports of a newly discovered leak in the damaged piping on the sea floor.

NOAA is assisting the Unified Command in evaluating a new technique to apply dispersants to oil at the source - 5000’ below the surface, if successful this would keep plumes and sheens from forming. Work continues on a piping system designed to take oil from a collection dome at the sea floor to tankers on the surface; this technique has never been tried at 5000’. Drilling of a relief or cut-off well is still planned, but will not be complete for several months.

Campaign for Liberty - Audit the Fed

Campaign for Liberty - Audit the Fed: "'Audit the Federal Reserve'
Petition to my U.S. Senators

Whereas: The Federal Reserve refuses to give a public accounting of the TRILLIONS in recent taxpayer-backed loans; and


Whereas: Congress has the responsibility to force a public audit of the Federal Reserve, and the American people deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent; and


Whereas: Allowing the Fed to remain out of control and shrouded in secrecy clearly allows for abuse and the continued stealing of our tax dollars through inflation and unaccounted electronic bank 'loans'; and


Whereas: The Federal Reserve's abuses lead to constant economic crises like the current housing crisis, international banking crisis and the resulting chaos; and


Whereas: The Federal Reserve System forces fuel, food, housing, medical care and education costs upward, meaning that everyone who is NOT on the government dole is forced to make do with less as the value of money slowly decreases; and


Whereas: History shows us that riots, violence and full-scale police states can result when people finally realize fiat money isn't worth the paper it's printed on and REFUSE to accept it;


Therefore: I urge you to cosponsor and make every effort to seek roll call votes on the Audit the Fed Bill, S 604."

"The Earth Bleeding To Death"

"ARIZONA HAS OPENED A BIG CAN OF ILLEGAL WORMS"


   To Whom It May Concern,

   I am deeply concerned about how the media is portraying and handling the new law in Arizona , regarding illegal immigration in our state.

It seems that for whatever reason , The media seems to broadcast the protesters and opponents views much closer , rather than the mainstream citizens view , and the Federal Laws that have been in place for years.

Why isn't this being treated fairly ? Why is Arizona ,and the supporters of this bill being compared to " Nazis" and "Racists" ? No civil human being is wanting , or calling for the extermination of illegals. We just want ALL people to come here legally , just as the millions before them did. How does the word " Nazi" or "Racist " come into play for simply pleading with the government to stop the illegal flooding?

This isn't a " Racial " issue . It's an " Illegal " issue . And I'm offended when I turn on my television , or open up my newspaper to see words like that . And whenever opponents use the " White People " words I cringe . Do people not understand that what they call " Whites " are people that are actually made up of of other nationalities too ? Are the opponents of this law themselves " racially profiling " ?

As a citizen of the USA , and living here in Arizona , I have had first hand experience of being victimized by an illegal aliens criminal activity. A couple years ago we had found out that my 15 year old daughters social security number was stolen and being used by an illegal immigrant for employment . Nothing ever came of it because the police could not find her . And it was a real pain when trying to get it straight with social security .Where were the cameras and media to broadcast and make a stand for my teenage daughter ? Where were HER rights then? I know there are thousands more like my daughter that have been victimized . Where are our rights ?

Many years ago I lived in Texas , and had the privilege to meet and work alongside an Iranian man named Zeke . We became very good friends , and we often spoke about our families with each other . I can't tell you how many times his eyes would tear up when he talked about his wife . You see , his wife was a citizen of Iran at the time , And Zeke was doing everything in his power to get her here to the USA so that they could start their new life here in the United States together . The problem was , he was doing everything the RIGHT way , and was waiting on the governments paperwork to be completed . So while he went about it the correct way , he suffered greatly each and every day.

With that being said , I wonder how my friend Zeke , or his wife would feel now. After all , He and his wife only wanted a better way of life too.

Is amnesty for all illegals really the answer ? Is it really even plausible ? And if so wouldn't America simply be creating a bigger monster if this was done ? How can the US give amnesty to all the illegal aliens that are currently here , but in the same breath , turn away every other nationality that wants to come too ,simply because they aren't on american soil ? To me , and probably millions of other americans , that would be the true definition of " Racist" . What do we tell our friends , and relatives that are currently citizens of other countries , But want so much to come live here as a citizen too ?

And if ever amnesty is mentioned , How many more illegal immigrants would come into the USA then ? Just to beat the deadline before the bill is passed . Do we dare say millions more? Who's to determine who was here , and who wasn't . And with all due respect , we can definately expect the " Race " card to played then on each and every single immigrant that was turned away because he was thought not to have been here in time.

When did the flooding of the United States by illegals become okay ? Why did Janet Napolitano and our Government waste tax payers money for border patrol , and construction of a border fence then if she, and the government refused to enforce it in the first place ?

911 was a changing point in the history of the United States . Homeland security told us each and every day that they were protecting us . They were spending millions to secure our safety . Please , Someone , Mr Obama , tell us . How is our country secure when we don't even know who's coming or going into our country ? And with all due respect what does a terrorists look like ?

So some believe that by the police having the power to question ones citizenship , is simply racial profiling . And that it infringes on their civil rights . To those people , and to Mr Obama , and to you in the media I ask , when was the last time you went through security at the airport , either locally , or nationally ? Take of your shoes , take off your belt , empty your pockets, place your purse in here , " Oh , and by the way could you please step over here sir I have a few questions for you ".

That's okay , But asking your citizenship isn't ? With all due respect If it wasn't for 911 and other illegal activities , the American citizens would never be going through this in the first place.

As a legal citizen of the United States I recently had to purchase passports for my family . I spent hundreds of hard earned dollars so that they could enter other countries , including Mexico .How ironic is it that the same government that seems to allow free flowing entrance into America , would charge my family to go out of it ? Sounds hypocritical .

Let me make a statement for all the people who say "Mexicans are only taking the jobs that nobody else wants " . First of all lets be correct here , that's simply NOT the truth . And to the people that state " Mexicans work harder " , all I'd like to say to you is this are you "racially profiling"?

But if one TRULY believes that ignorant statement , I ask you to take a look at Mexico as a whole and then look me in the eyes the next time you say that .

The simple truth of the matter is this . Both the American citizens AND the illegal aliens are getting the short end of the stick here . And the culprit is the businesses that hire the illegals . That's right , Our own companies and businesses are giving the american citizens the finger here. The companies and businesses want undocumented, cheap labor and rather than pay the typical american certain wages , along with insurance , they opt for an illegal so that the company can save thousands of dollars in cash and benefits. And we America , support them ? If amnesty ever does come into affect , these businesses and companies will be kicking themselves . They'll now have to pay better wages , and pay benefits to those illegals that they previously hired . Something they had avoided doing in the first place by hiring an american. Way to go. How many Americans are currently unemployed now ? How much money would the government save if they didn't have to keep extending unemployment benefits ? 11 million illegals in our country , and how many unemployed americans ?

" Well if you get rid of the illegals , then some businesses will pack up and leave ",,,,,,,,,Really ? News flash , read the paragraph above . THAT'S why they'll leave. Besides it happens all the time NOW. Companies pack up and move overseas all the time Next time you call your credit card company you'll see for yourself . Don't fool yourselves into thinking that companies will simply move in defense of the illegals rights movement .They do it to SAVE THEMSELVES MONEY.

I watch the news each and every day , and I see people like Felipe Calderon ,Salvador Reza,Raul Grijalva , and Mexico President President Felipe Calderon all demanding the rights of illegal aliens . With all due respect , what nationality are these people ? and where are the chinese figures , or the cubans , the iranians etc etc ? How is it wrong for anyone else to say " illegal mexicans " or " Illegal Hispanics" , when thats all you see but self proclaimed hispanics on tv or in the paper demanding special rights FOR THEIR PEOPLE ? Why aren't they on the docks in Florida helping out the cuban immigrants that are trying to get here from overseas?

The simple truth is , we know why they aren't . And that my friend looks ,smells and sounds selfish and racist to me.

I'm all for anyone in the world living here, regardless of race or religion . I understand wanting to have a better life , a better education . As long as it's done the right way like millions of others before you had to do . You don't just get to cut to the front of the line because it's not quick enough for you .

We simply cannot open the door just for our neighbors , and yet close it on our friends . For that itself would be racist , and unfair treatment for millions of others.

So unless we open up the United States to ANYONE and EVERYONE. no one should receive preferential treatment . NO ONE !!

U.S Citizen

PAY OFF THE NATIONAL DEBT-----LEGALIZE FREEDOM AGAIN.

     
                      
             Just Add Hyperinflation: Its Armageddon


As I stand upon the mountain top, over looking the huddling masses of the peasants of humanity. My long beard and shanks rippling in the wind, my grizzled staff raised high, pointing at the dark mass of rolling darkness, darkness broken only rarely by the crackle of lightening. It is a darkness like no other, a mass of despair, a malice that is palatable and pungent in its hostility. My voice booms like the thunder of that storm, pummeling the gathered, clutching masses of frightened humanity: rich and poor, high and low, man and woman."Behold! Your Lord High Economist, the godling Keynes, through his priests the Interventionist Central Bankers have declared!" I pause for dramatic effect, fear and mysticism in the eyes of the masses. Mysticism at the mention of the shadowy man, nah godling John Maynard Keynes, fear at the coming of his Central Bankers. "Thou, sinners, thou thrifters, thou who have questioned his eternal Wisdom...now fear the fires of Inflation! Thou wilest be purged of your doubt and your consumer debt through the fires of Inflation! And since you voiced your doubt! Since you questioned the Will! It will be no simple inflation BUT...(more dramatic pause)...DEPRESSIONARY-HYPERINFLATION! You will eat grass and choke on weeds as you fondly remember steak dinners and red wine!"Gasps come from the huddle masses. Women cry out in shock and dismay. Babies wale, their cries mixing with the howling of the wind that brings the storm of Depressionary-Hyperinflation. The gnashing of teeth is heard over all. The End is neigh, thy punishment severe. I laugh the laughter of the mad, my eyes sparkling in the coming darkness."But how will this be worse then just Hyperinflation or a Great Depression?" comes a brave voice from the masses and suddenly the people's fear is abetted. Hope once more arises in their eyes that maybe, just maybe, this all is not as bad as they had but moments before feared. Even the storm seems to pause, rolling and pulsing but some how less menacing and stationary."Hmmm, this will not do, not do at all!" I think. "I will have to explain myself so that these fools will once more tremble." I pull up my robes around my knees and settle down upon the rock, perching over the masses, a wicked wisdom covering my face."To find this answer, let us examine, oh huddled masses, the difference between Hyperinflation and Depression and how both would normally effect your lives." They listen attentively."In a hyperinflationary situation, one usually created by a hyper expansionary government, a debt loaded economy or some catastrophe such as a major war, the money supply is rapidly expanded. The economy continues to roll along, jobs continue to exist as demand also continues to exist. At first, the workers are freed from their debts, as the amounts owned literally melt away in the face of larger and larger pay checks. Of course, as is usual, salaries rarely stay up to date with prices, which are much more agile and elastic. Soon the worker finds that while debt free, he can afford less and less to buy with his ever more worthless money, but at least, ground under the heel of hyperinflation, he is still employed and remains fed, even if on bread and processed meat rather then on croissants and steak."They bob their heads in understanding. Many of these peoples of the world have lived all their lives with inflations of one level or another and quite a few with hyperinflation. It is, after all, the order of the century, as the godling Keynes dictated to the interventionist fiat monetary systems. I go on."Then there is depression, something that most of you know little about. First spending falls, then output falls to match the new lower demand levels. Of course excess employees are laid off. These in turn spend little if anything and their employed brethren also spend much less, in fear of losing their jobs. Less spent means less produced and the cycle repeats. Debt become overwhelming and crushing, as the value of the dollar becomes greater, again, adding to the cycle. Of course, for those tens of millions unemployed, at least what few savings they have and what little money they get from their governments, will now buy them more then it did before.The pricing levels of the system are reset and will be kinder to future generations, but like most such things, it is painful and a nasty, if not necessary a long, process.""But how does this link back to Depressionary-Hyperinflation?" again that doubting Thomas. Enough of this, time to learn fear."Well," I begin, in an quite, almost gentle voice, "you see, the people fear this painful process of depression and they call upon their betters, their masters to do something, anything about it. Of course the Monetary Interventionists know only one thing to do: lower interest rates and print money. At first, this makes the pain less so and easier to bare. The problem is, especially for you millions and millions of unemployed, it is rather hard to propagate. Each easing requires more and more cash, sorta like a drug addiction. But once the cash hits the system it propagates inflation. This of course takes time to appear, so it is rather hard to guess when to much is to much and out of fear of not being enough, that gut feeling is ignored. Then comes the Hyperinflation!" I feel satisfied in my explanation, but still there is hope in their eyes!"So..." again that voice, though this time a bit more hesitantly."So!" I begin, "for those 15 to 30% of you without jobs, on meager fixed government monies, on pensions and savings...hahahaa....it's over, in days and weeks, your money buys nothing as the fires of Depressionary-Hyperinflation burn it all away! You will beg, you will steal, you will burn in rage and hunger and as the living dead, you will fall upon those who still have jobs but are to poor themselves to help you and you will consume them to! Fire and flame, hunger and despair! Then you will, in your orgy of despair and destruction, turn to the saviors who will come to you, the demagogues who will enslave you! Then and only then, will you truly know suffering!" My voice rings in stark laughter. I am on my feet again, waving my staff...the dark clouds booming and rolling forth.Now they understand, now they know, there is no hope, no salvation, not from this one. Some throw themselves at my feet, begging for salvation, others throw themselves from the nearby cliffs...but there is no salvation, no...only the Fires of Depressionary-Hyperinflation.My laughter is swallowed by the rolls of thunder.

"Concerning Finance Reform"

           

           "Play The Damn Race Card"


"I urge the President to play the race card--the human race card. The Founding Fathers sought to protect the Republic from this tyranny of private interests. This was meant to be a place where all members of the human race have a fair opportunity to thrive."

                   "OPEN YOUR MIND"

"Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" - Tim Wise

Let’s play a game, shall we? The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.

Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.

Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.

Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”

Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

Game Over.

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S. Wise has spoken in 48 states, on over 400 college campuses, and to community groups around the nation. Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has trained physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care. His latest book is called Between "Barack and a Hard Place."

"Stolen By An Assassin's Bullet"

We, The People Can Fix Our Country.

The federal government did not come into existence in order to right every wrong. The feds are obliged to recognize our natural rights. When the government behaves with no self-recognized limitations, when its only restraint is whatever it can get away with, when it actively attacks rather than forcefully protects our natural rights, then, as Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, and as federal law still states, “it is the duty of the people to alter or abolish it.”  Glenn Nunley.   North Florida.

"THOSE WHO FORGET HISTORY ARE CONDEMNED TO REPEAT IT" Sarah Palin = "Neo-Nazism"

   "Sarah Palin has been an exercise in Pygmalionism gone wrong. The most famous female politician in the world today is a vain and sanctimonious woman of boundless ambition and no vision." She is a dangerous work in progress. This begs the question, "who are her sculptors and mentors?"

     Given the right political circumstances coupled with the acute economic conditions that are being experienced in the country Sarah Palin has opportunistically amassed a sufficient following of the "herd mentality"to catapult her into power. All that would be needed is a cataclysmic event whether real or contrived to stampede her conformist inherited electorate to run this country off a cliff. She has and continues to gain a position of undefined prominence simply by parading around the country, wrapping herself in the flag and parroting the customary patriotic/religious party lines and pretending to represent freedom.

     If the sain and educated free thinking people of this country fail to recognize this clear and present danger to our country, there is the real possibility that we will once again witness political history repeat itself in tyrannical proportions not yet imagined by the people of the present time.   Glenn Nunley  North Florida.

Obama Continues To Fight Against "The Coalition Of The Ignorant" The Republican Party And The Uninformed Who Support Them.

"Let Us Not Forget Them"