There has long been speculation that on December 21, 2012, the world as we know it will end. Some predict that we'll be wiped out by a natural disaster like a giant tidal wave, an Earth-wide earthquake or a tremendous volcanic eruption. Others believe that on that day in December, the Earth will collide with a mysterious "Planet X," causing magnetic pole shifts, gravitational reversals or a black hole so big that our solar system will simply disappear. What's more, believers say that this news is not really news at all; on the contrary, they argue, we have known about the coming apocalypse since the ancient Maya predicted and recorded it on their Long Count calendar more than 2,200 years ago. 2012 actually marks the beginning of a new Era.
The below correspondence was posted at The Daily Paul website.
Why Jeff is Moving to a New and Better Network
Dear Friends of Liberty and Free Speech… Following is a reply I sent to a long-time listener and thought you should be able to read it, too. It will answer the basic questions many have asked. Thank you, all, for your kindness and support. I am looking forward to working with the new networks which will be making major efforts to present the program on far more stations than the former network ever did. With best regards to all of my good Friends here at MySpace.
.. Jeff From: Dan > Subject: Jeff Rense fired > Date: Friday, March 27, 2009, 2:57 PM Heard a rumor the Jeff Rense was fired from GCN because he posted an article that Alex Jones is a Zionist agent. I called GCN. Ted Andersen is not in today but the first person I talked to confirmed the rumor, and the second person said they couldn’t talk about it. This is extremely disheartening for all Americans who value the first amendment. If Ted Andersen does not, then it is our duty to expose him. Dan
Hello Dan… Thank you for your concern. I was not ‘fired’ because I was never paid by GCN. I was letting them have use of my program in exchange for commercial minutes each hour. This is all about Jones…who called me at home last Tuesday afternoon just past 1pm and threatened to “destroy” me (and my family) over the well-written story by Brother Nathanael Kapner researching and seeking to understand the reasons why Jones is, and has long been, pro-zionist and an unabashed apologist of zionist Israel and its genocide of Palestinians…and generally steers people away from AIPAC and the Rothschild City of London banking monolith which controls so much of the Western world. The story is available here at Real Jew News Note how the article cites direct quotes from Jones’ own PrisonPlanet message board. I also, as the world knows, always encourage and post legitimate rebuttals to stories. Matter of fact, when I told Jones to stop threatening me on the phone, he maniacally (no exaggeration) roared in his guttural, Neanderthal voice: “I’m not ‘threatening’ you…I PROMISE you I will destroy you!!!” Never in my life have I been terrorized like that and it is my personal opinion that such behavior is mentally deranged and unquestionably dangerous. While this took place, my partner heard him bellowing and raging and screaming on the phone and she was shocked and stunned…as am I. The many stories and allegations about his abuse and threatening of others in this business would seem to be accurate, at least as far as I am concerned. I have filed a formal police report against him for interstate terrorism and threats. Within an hour or so of his phone call, Ted Anderson emailed me notification of 30 day cancellation of our broadcast agreement. Jones has bragged to me and others that he “owns Ted Anderson’s ass”…Ted is a lap dog and did as he was ordered. Jones efforts to censor the news are clear and unquestionable. Jones ordered that my live programs be blocked last Tuesday and GCN has been running encores the last four nights without so much as the common courtesy of advising me which program would be aired. After all and in sum, it is tragically clear Jones has an agenda which does not include steadfast support of our Constitution, Freedom of Speech and Inquiry, and Freedom of the Press. As so many others have claimed over the years, he is too often an opportunistic, self-aggrandizing tyrant and hypocrite who seeks to promote himself over all other issues, while clearly serving the wishes of special interest groups. At this point in time, after doing my program for fifteen years, I find that I must regrettably agree with that assessment. William Cooper, indeed, raised some very serious issues about Jones just before he was shot to death. Please know that I expect to be back doing Live Programs by Monday night on at least two new networks. There will be a formal announcement on the site this weekend. Thank you, most kindly, for your concern. Jeff Note from Moderator: Brother Kapner explored the issue of Jones’ wife’s religion as it was reflected on Jones’ own PrisonPlanet site message board and did so as a journalistic tool to tryto understand why he is so pro-Zionist.
This article responds to a March 15 Los Angeles Times Judea Pearl one headlined: “Is anti-Zionism hate?” Pearl teaches computer science at UCLA, is the father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation. It was “formed….to continue Danny’s mission and to address the root causes of this tragedy in the spirit” of the man it represents, including “uncompromised objectivity and integrity….and respect for people of all cultures….”
Some of its honorary board member belie this purpose:
– former president Bill Clinton, an unindicted war criminal and backer of neoliberal plunder;
– Elie Wiesel, a shameless self-promoter, “Holocaust” exploiter, and apologist for the most outrageous Israeli crimes;
– Jordan’s Queen Noor, wife of King Abdullah II, who, like his father Hussein, rules with dictatorial police state powers; and
– Christiane Amanpour and Ted Koppel, two notables in the corporate media who never let facts conflict with their views and support for the powerful.
Pearl calls anti-Zionism “hate more dangerous than anti-Semitism, threatening lives and peace in the Middle East.” Zionism is precisely the opposite as numerous Jewish writers, including this one, have addressed.
In his book “Overcoming Zionism,” Joel Kovel explained how it fosters “imperialist expansion and militarism (with) signs of the fascist malignancy;” that it turned Israel “into a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses” led by terrorists posing as democrats. Kovel’s book and his work got him fired from the Bard College faculty effective July 1 when his current contract expires – for daring to criticize Israel, its Zionist ideology, state-sponsored terror, and decades of lawlessness and egregious behavior.
Kovel expressed outrage that institutions like Bard aren’t bothered; that they grant Israel impunity, suppress dissent, then marginalize, punish, and remove the “heretics,” ones like Kovel who honorably and courageously write truths.
Pearl railed about a UCLA Center for Near East Studies symposium invitation to “four longtime Israel bashers” so they could attack Zionism’s legitimacy and “its vision of a two-state solution….” – a scheme to consign Palestinians to isolated cantons and steal their most valuable land.
He equates legitimate Israeli criticism and anti-Zionism with “criminaliz(ing) Israel’s existence, distort(ing) its motives and malign(ing) its character, its birth, even its conception.” He cites “Jewish leaders (condemning) this hate-fest as a dangerous invitation to anti-Semitic hysteria” even though one has nothing to do with the other and conflating them masks the real issue – Zionism’s corrosive effects and the myths on which it’s based.
Ones Pearl ignores in stating “Anti-Zionism rejects the very notion that Jews are a nation – a collective bonded by a common history – and, accordingly denies Jews the right to self-determination in their historical birthplace. It seeks the dismantling of the Jewish nation-state: Israel, (what it) ‘grants’ to other historically bonded collectives (e.g. French, Spanish, Palestinians), the right to nationhood….”
Pearl can’t accept the hard facts that Tel Aviv University Professor Shlomo Zand documented in his important 2008 book: “When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?” It exposes biblical nonsense comprising core Zionist beliefs about Jews:
– that ancient Romans expelled them;
– their exodus from Egypt, then left to wander the earth rootless;
– enslaved, oppressed, and tormented for centuries; and
– the myth that God bestowed a “Greater Israel” for Jews alone – “A land without people for a people without land.”
According to Israeli journalist Tom Segev and others:
– there never was a Jewish people, just a Jewish religion;
– there was no exile, therefore no return, and much of the Jewish Diaspora was voluntary; and
– the story was a Zionist invention, a conspiracy to justify a future Jewish state, and now vilify Palestinian self-determination as a plot to destroy it.
With regard to other “bonded collectives,” France, Spain, America and other states are nationalities, not religions. Israel is a Jewish state with rights for Jews alone. They matter. Others don’t, and therein lies the difference. Palestinians, in contrast, are occupied, impoverished, oppressed, driven from their land, vilified for being Muslims, and victimized by slow-motion genocide to destroy them and any hope for self-determination.
“Are Jews a nation,” asks Pearl? “Some philosophers would argue Jews are a nation first and religion second.” He cites the usual mythology:
– the Exodus and return to the “promised land before they received the Torah at Mt. Sinai;”
– “the unshaken conviction in their eventual repatriation to (their) birthplace (since) the Roman expulsion;” and
– their “shared history, not religion (as) the primary uniting force behind the secular, multiethnic society of Israel” – favoring Jews alone in a quasi secular/religious state where practicing another one is dangerous.
The “Jewish identity today feed(s) on Jewish history (more precisely folklore and myths) and its natural derivatives -
– the state of Israel” despite its illegitimate birth and mythological roots;
– “its struggle for survival” in spite of being the world’s fourth most powerful military, nuclear-armed; with no enemies except the ones it makes; and having a history of aggressive wars; violence over conciliation; confrontation, not diplomacy; and claiming self-defense as justification when there is none;
– “its cultural and scientific achievements,” much of the latter involving militarism and hard line security; and
– “its relentless drive for peace.”
Pearl like most others can’t accept the fact that Israel disdains peace, thrives on violence, and needs it as justification. The very notion of peace and conflict resolution terrifies it. What prime minister Yitzhak Shamir once admitted about Israel’s 1982 Lebanon war – that there was “terrible danger….not so much a military one as a political one” so a pretext was invented to attack when no threat or justification existed.
It took 18,000 lives and left South Lebanon occupied until Israel Defense Forces withdrew in May 2000, except for the 25 square km Shebaa Farms area illegally retained to this day.
Yet Pearl insists that “anti-Zionism targets the most vulnerable part of the Jewish people, namely, the Jewish population of Israel, whose physical safety and personal dignity depend crucially on maintaining Israel’s sovereignty. Put bluntly, the anti-Zionist ‘plan’ to do away with Israel condemns 5.5 million human beings, mostly refugees or children of refugees, to eternal defenselessness in a region where genocidal designs are not uncommon.”
He adds that “anti-Zionist rhetoric (shows) academic sophistication and social acceptance in certain extreme yet vocal circles. (It’s also) a stab in the back to the Israeli peace camp (and) gives credence (to) the hidden agenda of every Palestinian (for) the eventual elimination of Israel.”
Now some facts misrepresented, distorted, or unstated by Pearl and other like-minded apologists:
– There never was nor is there now an “Israeli peace camp,” as explained above.
– Israel’s sovereignty isn’t the issue. It exists, is accepted, and anti-Zionists don’t dispute it. Further, since at least the late 1980s, Palestinian leaders (including Arafat and Hamas) have been willing to extend recognition. But Israel rejects all peace and reconciliation overtures, yet the dominant media and Zionists won’t mention it.
– Palestinians and other Arabs don’t target Israel and haven’t since the 1973 war. However, they justifiably defend themselves when attacked as international law allows.
– Anti-Zionists, like this writer, have no plan or desire to destroy Israel, harm its people, or render them defenseless. Demanded, however, is that Israel behave, act civilized, practice the democracy it preaches, observe international and its own laws, and be held fully accountable when it doesn’t, including its leaders for their crimes of war and against humanity to deter future ones from committing similar violations.
– Israel alone menaces Palestinians and other regional states, including Lebanon, Syria, and Iran. Those nations, nor any others, threaten Israel, yet again media and Zionist propaganda say otherwise.
– Zionist ideology is extremist, undemocratic, and hateful. It claims Jewish supremacy, specialness, and uniqueness – God’s “chosen people.” It harms Jews and non-Jews alike. Former Israeli scholar, critic, and life-long human rights activist, Israel Shahak (1933 – 2001), explained the dangers of Jewish chauvinism, religious fanaticism, and its influence on America’s polity.
He called the notion of self-hating Jews “nonsensical” and explained the definition of a Jew:
….”if either their mother, grandmother, great-grandmother (or) great-great-grandmother were Jewesses by religion; or if the person (converted) to Judaism in a way satisfactory to the Israeli authorities, and on condition that the person has not converted from Judaism to another religion.” According to the Talmud and post-Talmudic rabbinic law, “conversion (must be) performed by authorized rabbis in a proper manner.” For females, it entails an outlandish ritual – “their inspection by three rabbis while naked in a ‘bath of purification’ ” to confirm it.
Shahak wrote extensively on how Israel discriminates in favor of Jews in most every aspect of life, including the three he called most important – “residency rights, the right to work (and to have) equality before the law.”
Zionist ideology demeans non-Jews and denies them equal rights in Israel. A body of law enforces it – to legally discriminate against non-Jewish Israeli citizens (for their religion) and Palestinians in the Territories, something unimaginable in all developed states and most others on every continent.
Shahak stated: “The obvious intention of such discriminatory measures is to decrease the number of non-Jewish citizens of Israel (to affirm its existence as a) ‘Jewish’ state” quite hostile to and demeaning of other religious faiths.
This is the Zionist message and why growing numbers of Jews and many others oppose it. Supporting Zionism is repugnant, indefensible, and equivalent to defending cancer, a malignancy relentlessly destroying its host. It must be exposed, denounced, and once and for all expunged from the body politic. A CIA study suggested the alternative – that beyond 20 years, Israel won’t survive in its present form.
The Agency predicts “an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial Apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 (Palestinian) refugees. The latter (is) the precondition for sustainable peace in the region.”
According to international lawyer Franklin Lamb, “the handwriting….is on the wall….history will reject the colonial enterprise sooner or later.”
The report also predicts the return of all Palestinian refugees to their homeland and the exodus of two million Israeli Jews to America in the next 15 years. They’re fed up and want to leave. Omitted from the report, or at least unrevealed, is that short of an equitable resolution to the long-standing Palestinian conflict, Israel eventually will destroy itself. Nations that live by the sword, die by it, and Israel is no exception.
The alternative is peace and reconciliation, something Israel flatly rejects. Unless that changes, its very existence is at stake, what history teaches but Israel has yet to learn.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to The Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Monday – Friday at 10AM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on world and national issues. All programs are archived for easy listening.
Fox News blowhard Glenn Beck is up to his old tricks again – after attempting to convince the public that he was some kind of crusader against the new world order he is now giving a platform to arch-yellow journalist debunker James Meigs of Popular Mechanics in a pathetic attempt to discredit so-called “conspiracy theories” behind FEMA camps.
After announcing yesterday on his show that he called Meigs three weeks ago to have him look at the issue of FEMA camps, Beck then attacks the credibility of the Internet before turning to Meigs, who states that Popular Mechanics has assigned one of their illustrious reporters to the issue, presumably from the same pool of reporters who made such infantile, glaring and agenda-driven botch jobs of “debunking” 9/11 truth.
Despite admitting that they haven’t deeply researched the issue, Meigs makes it clear that they have already decided it “isn’t true” – proving once again that the whole process isn’t about really getting to the bottom of the issue, it’s about debunking a perfectly provable fact by means of strawman tactics and deceitful reasoning.
“It looks from our early reporting like a classic conspiracy theory,” claims Meigs, adding, “Little grains of truth all adding up to something that really isn’t true.”
Beck and Meigs are going to go full court press in attempting to debunk the issue a week on Monday – April 6th.
Watch the video clip.
Little grains of truth that add up to something that isn’t true? This is quite rich coming from a guy whose military-industrial complex rag is put out by by Hearst Publishing – the very progenitors of the term “yellow journalism”.
But who are we to question the expertise of James Meigs? The illustrious former editor of those serious and scholarly publications Video Review and Entertainment Weekly.
Little grains of truth that add up to something that isn’t true?
The fact that internment facilities inside America have been built and prepared for the incarceration of American citizens is not a “conspiracy theory,” it is a manifestly provable fact, and we have tirelessly written article after article documenting the reality of FEMA camps.
The purpose of such facilities is to provide “temporary housing, medical, and humanitarian assistance to individuals and families dislocated due to an emergency or major disaster,” the expansion of which under FEMA is codified under HR 645, otherwise known as the National Emergency Centers Act.
Ominously, the bill states that the camps can be used to “meet other appropriate needs, as determined by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” an open ended mandate which many fear could mean the forced detention of American citizens in the event of widespread rioting after a national emergency or total economic collapse.
The issue of containment camps re-gained national attention three years ago when it was announced that Kellogg, Brown and Root had been awarded a $385 million dollar contract by Homeland Security to construct detention and processing facilities in the event of a national emergency.
The language of the preamble to the agreement veils the program with talk of temporary migrant holding centers, but it is made clear that the camps will also be used “as the development of a plan to react to a national emergency.”
Following the story, first given wide attention by Prisonplanet.com, the Alternet website put together an alarming report that collated all the latest information on plans to initiate internment of political subversives and Muslims after the next major terror attack in the US.
The article highlighted the disturbing comments of Sen. Lindsey Graham, who encouraged torture-supporting former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to target, “Fifth Columnists” Americans who show disloyalty and sympathize with “the enemy,” whoever that enemy may be.
It is important to stress that the historical precedent mirrors exactly what the Halliburton camp deal outlines. Oliver North’s Reagan era Rex 84 plan proposed rounding up 400,000 refugees, under FEMA, in the event of “uncontrolled population movements” over the Mexican border into the United States.
The real agenda, just as it is with Halliburton’s gulags, was to use the cover of rounding up immigrants and illegal aliens as a smokescreen for targeting political dissidents. From 1967 to 1971 the FBI kept a list of persons to be rounded up as subversive, dubbed the “ADEX” list.
As recently highlighted by author Naomi Wolf, the National Counterterrorism Center holds the names of close to one million “terror suspects” with the number increasing by 20,000 per month.
Discussions of federal concentration camps are no longer the rhetoric of paranoid Internet conspiracy theorists, they are mainstream news.
Halliburton, through their KBR subsidiary, is the same company that built most of the major new detention camps in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A much discussed and circulated report, the Pentagon’s Civilian Inmate Labor Program, has recently been updated and the revision details a “template for developing agreements” between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations.”
The plan is clearly to swallow up disenfranchised groups like prisoners, immigrants and Muslims at first and then extend the policy to include ‘Fifth Columnists,’ otherwise known as anyone who disagrees with the government or exercises their Constitutional rights.
Respected author Peter Dale Scott speculated that the “detention centers could be used to detain American citizens if the Bush administration were to declare martial law.”
Daniel Ellsberg, former Special Assistant to Assistant Secretary of Defense, called the plan, “preparation for a roundup after the next 9/11 for Mid-Easterners, Muslims and possibly dissenters. They’ve already done this on a smaller scale, with the ’special registration’ detentions of immigrant men from Muslim countries, and with Guantanamo.”
Furthermore, In 2002, FEMA sought bids from major real estate and engineering firms to construct giant internment facilities in the case of a chemical, biological or nuclear attack or a natural disaster.
Okanogan County Commissioner Dave Schulz went public in 2003 with his contention that his county was set to be a location for one of the camps.
In May 2006, we exposed the existence of a nationwide FEMA program which is training Pastors and other religious representatives to become secret police enforcers who teach their congregations to “obey the government” in preparation for the implementation of martial law, property and firearm seizures, mass vaccination programs and forced relocation.
A whistleblower who was secretly enrolled into the program told us that the feds were clandestinely recruiting religious leaders to help implement Homeland Security directives in anticipation of a potential bio-terrorist attack, any natural disaster or a nationally declared emergency.
The first directive was for Pastors to preach to their congregations Romans 13, the often taken out of context bible passage that was used by Hitler to hoodwink Christians into supporting him, in order to teach them to “obey the government” when martial law is declared.
It was related to the Pastors that quarantines, martial law and forced relocation were a problem for state authorities when enforcing federal mandates due to the “cowboy mentality” of citizens standing up for their property and second amendment rights as well as farmers defending their crops and livestock from seizure.
It was stressed that the Pastors needed to preach subservience to the authorities ahead of time in preparation for the round-ups and to make it clear to the congregation that “this is for their own good.”
Pastors were told that they would be backed up by law enforcement in controlling uncooperative individuals and that they would even lead SWAT teams in attempting to quell resistance.
Though some doubted the accuracy of this report at the time due to its fundamentally disturbing implications, the story was later confirmed by a KSLA 12 news report, in which participating clergy and officials admitted to the existence of the program.
Watch the video:
This program is continuing under the Obama administration with churches declaring that Barack Obama’s presidency is appointed by God and that Obama himself is “God’s minister”.
In another detention camp related development, last May it was revealed that the federal government is accepting bids on the contracts from county governments or private companies to build and run “family detention centers” on both coasts and on the Southwestern border.
Again, as with REX 84, the precedent is to deal with an influx of immigrants.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) already runs two similar camps, one of which hit the headlines at the end of 2006 after residents in Taylor Texas held protests outside the The T. Don Hutto detention facility.
One of the last acts of Congress in 2006 was to send President Bush a bill that establishes a $38 million program of National Park Service grants to preserve Japanese POW internment camps in Hawaii, California, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah and Idaho. Is this really in the name of historical interest or does it dovetail with programs on the books to intern hundreds of thousands of dissidents in a time of crisis?
“What could the government be contemplating that leads it to make contingency plans to detain without recourse millions of its own citizens?”, asked former Congressman Dan Hamburg of the watchdog groupVoice of the Environment, Inc. in a article carried by the San Francisco Chronicle last year.
“Since 9/11, and seemingly without the notice of most Americans, the federal government has assumed the authority to institute martial law, arrest a wide swath of dissidents (citizen and non citizen alike), and detain people without legal or constitutional recourse in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants in the U.S., or to support the rapid development of new programs.” Hamburg co-wrote with Lewis Seiler.
The article continued:
Beginning in 1999, the government has entered into a series of single-bid contracts with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) to build detention camps at undisclosed locations within the United States. The government has also contracted with several companies to build thousands of railcars, some reportedly equipped with shackles, ostensibly to transport detainees.
According to diplomat and author Peter Dale Scott, the KBR contract is part of a Homeland Security plan titled ENDGAME, which sets as its goal the removal of “all removable aliens” and “potential terrorists.”
Over the past decade we have witnessed an extreme acceleration of the physical implementation of a framework and infrastructure ready to receive those who will not go along with a coordinated destruction of traditional American values and freedom.
You do not need any confirmation one way or the other on this issue from James Meigs, Fox News or Glenn Beck, who has a track record as one of the most insidious corporate propagandists on television.
Just over a year ago Beck was on TV every week telling CNN viewers that Ron Paul supporters, libertarians and the anti-war left were terrorist sympathizers. Beck inferred that the U.S. military should be used to silence such dissenters, a theme we revealed to be a direct talking point that could be traced back to a September 2006 White House directive.
Glenn Beck is a modern day Judas Iscariot, attempting to co-opt the legitimate movement of millions of Americans furious at the abuse and conduct of their government. His invitation to have the corporate crony journalistic prostitutes at Popular Mechanics “debunk” the manifestly provable existence of internment camps in America tells us everything we need to know about where his sympathies really lie.
AFP on the trail of Bilderberg group: Site near Athens, Greece, is verified to be scene of 2009 globalist coven
Bilderberg will return to its 1993 crime scene when it attempts to meet secretly in Vouliagmeni, Greece, May 14-17. Bilderberg will return to the grounds of Nafsika Astir Palace hotels in Vouliagmeni, 20 miles outside Athens, and meet behind guards at the Westin Nafsika.
High on the Bilderberg agenda will be how to manipulate the global economic crisis for their selfish interests. They will pressure both European and North American nations to pull back from “protectionism” in the later meetings of heads of state. Since the international financiers and high officials of government see themselves as “citizens of the world” and scorn “nationalism,” their only loyalty is bankrolls, not their country. They love free trade, essential for world government.
Thus, they are determined that the United States and other nations refuse to impose tariffs that would equalize competition at the water’s edge. They want to continue shipping U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas where cheap labor may be exploited. They want to continue importing products made by slave labor in China and Africa, underselling domestic products.
Bilderberg, a secret elitist group that meets each spring at posh resorts protected by armed guards, uniformed police, sometimes the host nation’s military plus a brigade of private, plain-clothes guards, tries hard to keep its deliberations secret. But, with help from the European media and with inside sources, their mischief is always revealed to this newspaper.
Bilderberg has a dutiful son in President Barack Obama who will be told to press ahead with the North American Union, which is to be expanded throughout the Western Hemisphere into an “American Union” similar to the European Union. Ultimately, with creation of an “Asian-Pacific Union,” the world is to be divided into three great regions for the administrative convenience of a global government of the UN. Following orders, Obama has a platoon of Bilderberg luminaries in his administration.
But Bilderberg has had problems for years in trying to impose its will on the globe. When meeting in Greece 19 years ago, it was celebrating President Bill Clinton’s promise to sign the Rio Treaty on global warming, which would have surrendered U.S. wealth and sovereignty to international bureaucrats.
Clinton, who attended Bilderberg in 2001 and was elected president in 2002, did sign the Rio Treaty but a test vote in the Senate showed ratification would be overwhelmingly rejected. It is still pending and Bilderberg boys are depressed.
AFP editor James P. Tucker Jr. is a veteran journalist who spent many years as a member of the “elite” media in Washington. Since 1975 he has won widespread recognition, here and abroad, for his pursuit of on-the-scene stories reporting the intrigues of global power blocs such as the Bilderberg Group. Tucker is the author of Tucker is the author of Jim Tucker’s Bilderberg Diary: One Man’s 25-Year Battle to Shine the Light on the World Shadow Government.. American Free Press editor Jim Tucker speaks about the upcoming Bilderberg meeting, which will be held in Greece in early May 2009.
Rarely do I tune into any network news especially from CNN. However, last night as we sat down to dinner ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight’ was on. Over the years, I have had a great amount of respect for Mr. Dobbs and his willingness to keep the American people as informed as he was allowed. But, last night his comments regarding American’s reactions to their tax dollars being pocketed as bonuses for AIG employees was, in a word, astonishing. From the CNN transcript:
In this country, newly revealed documents show the extent of anger at AIG executives over those bonuses. Dozens of very personal threats against AIG and its employees are emanating from those upset, and the Connecticut attorney general has complied with the freedom of information request from NBC Connecticut. Surprisingly, many of the threats contain the senders’ names and their e-mail addresses.
Most of the comments, I must tell you, can’t be shown on television. The rest, at the very best are objectionable. For example, “If the bonuses don’t stop, it will be very likely that every CEO at AIG has a bull’s eye on their back. I don’t hope that bad things happen to the recipients of those bonuses. I really hope that bad things happen to the children and grandchildren of them. Whatever hurts them the most.”
Another. “We will hunt you down. Every last penny. We will hunt your children. Give back the money or kill yourselves.” When we get to this point, folks, we are a country that needs to stop and really start thinking. Yes, the bonuses are objectionable, the way in which the Obama administration has conducted itself objectionable. But nothing rises to the level of those threats. And whoever sent them should be extraordinarily ashamed and, in my judgment, prosecuted.
Is it not reasonable to wonder why the American people would be so extraordinarily harsh in their reactions to basically being robbed? Weren’t the bailouts to keep corporations afloat, yeah right, not to be pocketed as bonuses for star employees? I guess the American people misunderstood.
Then Congressman Thaddeus McCotter, from his own high perch, had the audacity to invalidate Americans’ reactions. Again, from the CNN transcript:
DOBBS: What is your reaction to threats like that, being conducted at anyone but AIG over the issue of bonuses?
MCCOTTER: Well, it’s absolutely, as you pointed out, it is reprehensible. We are a nation of laws, we are a nation of morals and virtues, and there is no place for that activity in the United States. And one of the problems that we are going continue to see in this very chaotic time where the American people feel there are entity’s larger than the sovereign government is to resort to means which should be rejected at all costs, which is an appeal to violence.
Oh – my god! I nearly lost what dinner I had managed to eat. We are a nation of laws? Really? Of morals and virtues? You’re kidding, right? Well, then somebody forgot to drop that bomb on the criminals in D.C. As ludicrous as McCotter’s statements were, the irony associated with the issue is shocking. I am certain most Americans would agree.
Lets see if I have this straight.
The law is only applicable to the underclass in America. I don’t see any of the Wall Street thieves being hauled off to jail for their part along with the government in picking our pockets for the next four generations. Nor, would the Wall Street “Jewish” elite know what a “moral” or a “virtue” was if they were drowning in them.
Mr. Dobb’s, in essence, has attacked the American right to ‘freedom of speech’ make that freedom of thought, and furthermore, embraced a communist-like attitude that these Americans should be prosecuted because their reaction was beyond the realm of political correctness. Moreover, and unlike the wolves on Wall Street, the difference between what a normal working-class American says and what he actually does is like comparing apples to oranges. One has nothing to do with the other.
My apologies to the author for not submitting these important essays in a timely manner. Real-life problems recently captured my entire focus, so without further delay the most recent writings of Zahir Ebrahim. Whitewraithe~
Financial Terrorism 2009
Please do read “Why Not Be An Ostrich? February 13, 2009” to understand that the agendist-antagonists play chess in other peoples’ blood – with many moves lookahead, and many counter-moves, and counter-counter moves, over a long term planning horizon, many decades long, with infinite resources and their own orchestrated legalism at their disposal. The protagonists on the other hand merely react day to day, moment to moment, no look-ahead, no planning, no execution – only tactical reactionary play. With not a penny to their name to effectively bring to bear any efficacy on the matters, they have no ability to mobilize public opinion, their only potent counter to hectoring hegemons. It is not for nothing that many a superlative statesman has timelessly opined: the price of liberty is eternal vigilance. If you stay asleep all your life chasing your “American Dream” (see “Prisoners of the Cave”), you move not a muscle when others are being bombed to smithereens (see “America’s Shame!”), you care not when others are being bonded through economic conscription (see “Introducing A Game As Old As Empire”), and finally, when your own house is on fire, you suddenly wake up to look for water to douse it. Well, you know the efficacy of that. It is called fait accompli. – Financial Terrorism March 2009
It is evident that the Pakistani leadership is entirely co-opted into systematically suiciding that nation by its prancing about at the “unbirthday party” with the “Mad Hatter” for the past eight years. Today it appears entirely natural that the United States should just walk right in to ‘save’ the Pakistanis from the ‘radical islamists’. This was quite unimaginable just a few years ago, but every grotesque bomb blast, every few dozen peoples killed in it, every act of extreme violence, political violence, demonstrations, and uncertainty created by ‘loose nukes’ mantras, culminating in the grotesque assassination of Benazir Bhutto, now makes it the most natural next step for the “truly global superpower”. A deliberate orchestration of “revolutionary times” in Pakistan to make “what is inconceivable in normal times possible in revolutionary times”. ‘Why’ is rather obvious once again. But for those who do not bother to study the “Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives” craftsmanship of the ‘hectoring hegemons’, it is about the repartitioning of Pakistan to primarily create an independent and geostrategically significant ‘Baluchistan’ nation – much like Kosovo’s orchestrated independence from Serbia – while finally de-nuking Pakistan! This is only the phase-1 of the repartition plan through violently induced “birth pangs of a new Middle East”, whereby, “whatever we do we have to be certain that we’re pushing forward to the new Middle East not going back to the old one.”Read More
In order to comprehend what’s going on – please see the book by the legal scholar Professor Francis Boyle, Protesting Power: War, Resistance, and Law, or read it online here. Francis Boyle observes in the very first chapter titled: “The Right to engage in Civil Resistance to Prevent State Crimes”, items 15-16, pages 9-10:
The judgment of the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal meted out severe punishment in 1946 against individuals who, acting in full compliance of domestic law but in disregard of the limitations of international law, had committed war crimes as defined in its Charter 6 F.R.D 69 (1948). That Charter has been enacted as a law of the United States, 59 Stat. 5144 (1945). See also U.S. War Crimes Act, 18 U.S.C. 2441. By implication, the Nuremberg judgment privileges all citizens of nations engaged in war crimes to act in a measured but effective way to prevent the continuing commissions of those crimes. The same privilege is recognized by means of Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, “General Principles of Law Recognized by All Civilized Nations,” which has been adopted as a Treaty by the United States.
In the present day, there has been a breakdown in the Constitutional principle of checks and balances which implements the separation of powers; most notably neither Congress nor courts have beenwilling to ensure that the Executive Branch act within the law that limits method and means of the threat or use of military force. … In spite of years in which these Defendants have participated in citizens petitions, letters, referendums, civil cases, requests for criminal prosecution and the recent decisions on these questions with the full participation of the United States before the International Court of Justice, the U.S. Flouts its responsibility to abide by the laws of war, laws to which we are fundamentally bound. Under these circumstances, where redress within traditional channels is refused and ineffective, domestic criminal law coincides with the “Nuremberg privilege” mentioned in the preceding paragraph to afford a justification for seeming violations of criminal laws in an effort to prevent the war crimes outlined above.
Life-long activist, Splitting the Sky appeared at St. Ann’s Academy, Victoria, BC, on November 29, 2008. In this impassioned and authoritative speech he meticulously follows the bloody and labyrinthine trail of corruption and money, which leads him to conclude that a cast of top-level financiers and international secret service agencies were behind the events of 9/11.
It is heartening that native American Indian Activist John Boncore, an Iroquois whose “Mohawk name, Dacajeweiah, translated into English means Splitting the Sky”, has quite independently arrived at the same thinking-logic, and the same rational forensic analysis, based on the same observable data-sets and commonsense that is publicly available to anyone, as ProjectHumanbeingsfirst.Splitting the Sky reported that there are of the order of 150 million web pages doing research on 911 and demanding justice, and that many of them are reaching similar conclusion-space! This talk is a must-watch, for Splitting the Sky elegantly connects many of the same dots as Project Humanbeingsfirst, but goes deeper into the specific uncovering of the financial players, names their names, identifies their inter-relationships and their corporate linkages with the 38 corporations that profited from the put options on 911 which he also names. He does an awesome job of making the case that financial terrorism and 911 are joined at the hip for the same purposes as already outlined by Project Humanbeingsfirst: the financial oligarchs’ orchestration of ‘one-world’ government. Also see Splitting the Sky’swebsite and autobiography “From Attica to Gustafsen Lake”.
In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion. Once the lights go off, they make sure Goldman Sachs and a host of other large corporations have the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they incurred playing casino capitalism repaid with taxpayer money.
We live in an age of moral nihilism. We have trashed our universities, turning them into vocational factories that produce corporate drones and chase after defense-related grants and funding. The humanities, the discipline that forces us to stand back and ask the broad moral questions of meaning and purpose, that challenges the validity of structures, that trains us to be self-reflective and critical of all cultural assumptions, have withered. Our press, which should promote such intellectual and moral questioning, confuses bread and circus with news and refuses to give a voice to critics who challenge not this bonus payment or that bailout but the pernicious superstructure of the corporate state itself. We kneel before a cult of the self, elaborately constructed by the architects of our consumer society, which dismisses compassion, sacrifice for the less fortunate, and honesty. The methods used to attain what we want, we are told by reality television programs, business schools and self-help gurus, are irrelevant. Success, always defined in terms of money and power, is its own justification. The capacity for manipulation is what is most highly prized. And our moral collapse is as terrifying, and as dangerous, as our economic collapse.
Theodor Adorno in 1967 wrote an essay called “Education After Auschwitz.” He argued that the moral corruption that made the Holocaust possible remained “largely unchanged.” He wrote that “the mechanisms that render people capable of such deeds” must be made visible. Schools had to teach more than skills. They had to teach values. If they did not, another Auschwitz was always possible.
“All political instruction finally should be centered upon the idea that Auschwitz should never happen again,” he wrote. “This would be possible only when it devotes itself openly, without fear of offending any authorities, to this most important of problems. To do this, education must transform itself into sociology, that is, it must teach about the societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms.”
Our elites are imploding. Their fraud and corruption are slowly being exposed as the disparity between their words and our reality becomes wider and more apparent. The rage that is bubbling up across the country will have to be countered by the elite with less subtle forms of control. But unless we grasp the “societal play of forces that operates beneath the surface of political forms” we will be cursed with a more ruthless form of corporate power, one that does away with artifice and the seduction of a consumer society and instead wields power through naked repression.
I had lunch a few days ago in Toronto with Henry Giroux, professor of English and cultural studies at McMaster University in Canada and who for many years was the Waterbury Chair Professor at Penn State. Giroux, who has been one of the most prescient and vocal critics of the corporate state and the systematic destruction of American education, was driven to the margins of academia because he kept asking the uncomfortable questions Adorno knew should be asked by university professors. He left the United States in 2004 for Canada.
“The emergence of what Eisenhower had called the military-industrial-academic complex had secured a grip on higher education that may have exceeded even what he had anticipated and most feared,” Giroux, who wrote “The University in Chains: Confronting the Military-Industrial-Academic Complex,” told me. “Universities, in general, especially following the events of 9/11, were under assault by Christian nationalists, reactionary neoconservatives and market fundamentalists for allegedly representing the weak link in the war on terrorism. Right-wing students were encouraged to spy on the classes of progressive professors, the corporate grip on the university was tightening as made clear not only in the emergence of business models of governance, but also in the money being pumped into research and programs that blatantly favored corporate interests. And at Penn State, where I was located at the time, the university had joined itself at the hip with corporate and military power. Put differently, corporate and Pentagon money was now funding research projects and increasingly knowledge was being militarized in the service of developing weapons of destruction, surveillance and death. Couple this assault with the fact that faculty were becoming irrelevant as an oppositional force. Many disappeared into discourses that threatened no one, some simply were too scared to raise critical issues in their classrooms for fear of being fired, and many simply no longer had the conviction to uphold the university as a democratic public sphere.”
Frank Donoghue, the author of “The Last Professors: The Corporate University and the Fate of the Humanities,” details how liberal arts education has been dismantled. Any form of learning that is not strictly vocational has at best been marginalized and in many schools has been abolished. Students are steered away from asking the broad, disturbing questions that challenge the assumptions of the power elite or an economic system that serves the corporate state. This has led many bright graduates into the arms of corporate entities they do not examine morally or ethically. They accept the assumptions of corporate culture because they have never been taught to think.
Only 8 percent of U.S. college graduates now receive degrees in the humanities, about 110,000 students. Between 1970 and 2001, bachelor’s degrees in English declined from 7.6 percent to 4 percent, as did degrees in foreign languages (2.4 percent to 1 percent), mathematics (3 percent to 1 percent), social science and history (18.4 percent to 10 percent). Bachelor’s degrees in business, which promise the accumulation of wealth, have skyrocketed. Business majors since 1970-1971 have risen from 13.6 percent of the graduation population to 21.7 percent. Business has now replaced education, which has fallen from 21 percent to 8.2 percent, as the most popular major.
The values that sustain an open society have been crushed. A university, as John Ralston Saul writes, now “actively seeks students who suffer from the appropriate imbalance and then sets out to exaggerate it. Imagination, creativity, moral balance, knowledge, common sense, a social view-all these things wither. Competitiveness, having an ever-ready answer, a talent for manipulating situations-all these things are encouraged to grow. As a result amorality also grows; as does extreme aggressivity when they are questioned by outsiders; as does a confusion between the nature of good versus having a ready answer to all questions. Above all, what is encouraged is the growth of an undisciplined form of self-interest, in which winning is what counts.”
This moral nihilism would have terrified Adorno. He knew that radical evil was possible only with the collaboration of a timid, cowed and confused population, a system of propaganda and a press that offered little more than spectacle and entertainment and an educational system that did not transmit transcendent values or nurture the capacity for individual conscience. He feared a culture that banished the anxieties and complexities of moral choice and embraced a childish hyper-masculinity, one championed by ruthless capitalists (think of the brutal backstabbing and deception cheered by TV shows like “Survivor”) and Hollywood action heroes like the governor of California.
“This educational ideal of hardness, in which many may believe without reflecting about it, is utterly wrong,” Adorno wrote. “The idea that virility consists in the maximum degree of endurance long ago became a screen-image for masochism that, as psychology has demonstrated, aligns itself all too easily with sadism.”
Sadism is as much a part of popular culture as it is of corporate culture. It dominates pornography, runs like an electric current through reality television and trash-talk programs and is at the core of the compliant, corporate collective. Corporatism is about crushing the capacity for moral choice. And it has its logical fruition in Abu Ghraib, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and our lack of compassion for the homeless, our poor, the mentally ill, the unemployed and the sick.
“The political and economic forces fueling such crimes against humanity-whether they are unlawful wars, systemic torture, practiced indifference to chronic starvation and disease or genocidal acts-are always mediated by educational forces,” Giroux said. “Resistance to such acts cannot take place without a degree of knowledge and self-reflection. We have to name these acts and transform moral outrage into concrete attempts to prevent such human violations from taking place in the first place.”
The single most important quality needed to resist evil is moral autonomy. Moral autonomy, as Immanuel Kant wrote, is possible only through reflection, self-determination and the courage not to cooperate.
Moral autonomy is what the corporate state, with all its attacks on liberal institutions and “leftist” professors, has really set out to destroy. The corporate state holds up as our ideal what Adorno called “the manipulative character.” The manipulative character has superb organizational skills and the inability to have authentic human experiences. He or she is an emotional cripple and driven by an overvalued realism. The manipulative character is a systems manager. He or she exclusively trained to sustain the corporate structure, which is why our elites are wasting mind-blowing amounts of our money on corporations like Goldman Sachs and AIG. “He makes a cult of action, activity, of so-called efficiency as such which reappears in the advertising image of the active person,” Adorno wrote of this personality type. These manipulative characters, people like Lawrence Summers, Henry Paulson, Robert Rubin, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, AIG’s Edward Liddy and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, along with most of our ruling class, have used corporate money and power to determine the narrow parameters of the debate in our classrooms, on the airwaves and in the halls of Congress while they looted the country.
“It is especially difficult to fight against it,” warned Adorno, “because those manipulative people, who actually are incapable of true experience, for that very reason manifest an unresponsiveness that associates them with certain mentally ill or psychotic characters, namely schizoids.”
Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. Hedges graduated from Harvard Divinity School and was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. He is the author of “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”
Israeli warplanes return to the skies of the Gaza Strip and evoke memories of the three-week onslaught on the blockaded territory.
At least two sonic booms hit Gaza City and northern areas of the strip earlier on Sunday, Xinhua cited witnesses as saying.
Tel Aviv has previously resorted to sonic boom attacks on the Gazans for weeks on end, causing psychological disorders for thousands of Gazans — mainly children.
“Around 50 percent of the children in Gaza are in need of mental health interventions,” Gaza-based psychologist El Sarraj told Fars News Agency in a previous interview.
Israeli gunboats also opened fire on Palestinian fishing boats near the coast of Rafah city south of the territory. A number of the boats were reportedly damaged.
Similar attacks happen on Palestinian boats on a regular basis with a 20-month blockade being in place on the coastal sliver.
Israel brought a three-week war against the Gazan population on December 27 to allegedly stop Hamas rocket attacks but later declared a unilateral ceasefire on January 18 after failing to achieve its goals.
The Israeli assault killed nearly 1,350 Palestinians and wounded 5,450 others — a large number of them women and children.
In spite of its ceasefire, Israel has been hitting targets in the Palestinian territory on a regular basis.
Commander confirms Netanyahu war plans Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:36:18 GMT
The last Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip claimed the lives of at least 1,350 Palestinians.
Israel is preparing for all-out war on multiple fronts that include Iran, Syria and Lebanon, a senior military commander claims.
Israeli army Home Front Command Major General Yair Golan said Sunday that Tel Aviv is preparing for “all possible scenarios”, indicating that one such scenario would be to fight a simultaneous war against Iran, Syria and Lebanon.
The confirmation comes as US President Barack Obama seeks “new beginnings” with its arch-rival Iran. The US offer has been met with world praise but with fury in Tel Aviv.
Israeli media outlets late on Sunday began propagating wild scenarios that Iran is using the Lebanese Hezbollah to recruit Palestinian fighters to carry out terror attacks on Israel.
Citing anonymous sources, the reports began to surface after Tel Aviv countered an alleged bombing attempt outside a shopping mall in the northern city of Haifa.
“We are treating the attempted attack in Haifa with great gravity. A huge disaster was prevented by a miracle,” Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told a weekly cabinet meeting after the bomb was defused on Sunday.
Israel has long accused Iran of arming Hezbollah and Palestinian groups via Syria, in an attempt to demonize the two Muslim countries.
Tel Aviv also accuses Tehran of developing nuclear weaponry — a charge denied by the UN nuclear watchdog.
At a conference held in Tel Aviv, Golan also confirmed the likeliness of Israel staging another military confrontation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Although Israel does not consider rocket attacks from Gaza as a serious threat, there is the possibility of “dangerous” missile attacks by other countries, he said.
He failed to elaborate how such missile attacks would relate to Gaza.
His remarks came as reports claim that the soon-to-be Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has plans for “a major military conflict in the coming months.”
The commander also revealed that Tel Aviv will install new warning systems across Israel in preparation for its war plans.
The last Israeli-waged war on the Gaza Strip, which began on December 27, killed at least 1,350 Palestinians and wounded more than 5,450 others in the densely-populated sliver.
The aggression was the last in a series of operations carried out by the Israeli forces against the natives of the land since occupying Palestine in 1948.
History Moved Today: Charles Freeman Rips The Mask Off The Neocon Takeover Of American Government by Israel-Firsters
Charles Freeman, now an American hero, released the statement that is quoted in full below. This statement is one of the most earth-shaking in the history of American government. It marks a watershed. It means that the gloves have come off between whatever remains of the corps of patriots loyal to America in our foreign service and the Israel-firsters who hijacked our government.
What is stunning, and wonderful, about former Ambassador Charles Freeman’s statement is that he squarely lowers the boom on the Neocon Israel-firsters from a position of great POWER. Freeman is on the INSIDE of that power. He just walked out the door with the loudest blast at the Israel-firsters issued from such a high position on the inside in many moons.
Freeman is the highest-placed insider in recent years to declare with hammering words that: 1) Jewish extremists control American government; 2) Jewish extremists control our media; 3) Americans (meaning us) no longer have enough free speech to be able to even know what these Israel-firsters have done to them; 3) only Israel’s bootlickers can now advance in positions of power, and; 4) he (Charles Freeman) would rather shout these truths out loud in one final blast as he storms out the door than be intimidated into silence by these un-American gangsters who have surreptitiously taken over the government of his country. History moved with this statement.
– Jamie Kelso
Freeman speaks out on his exit
Tue, 03/10/2009 – 5:35pm
Retired Amb. Chas Freeman, who said today that he no longer accepts an offer to chair the National Intelligence Council, has just sent this message:
You will by now have seen the statement by Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair reporting that I have withdrawn my previous acceptance of his invitation to chair the National Intelligence Council.
I have concluded that the barrage of libelous distortions of my record would not cease upon my entry into office. The effort to smear me and to destroy my credibility would instead continue. I do not believe the National Intelligence Council could function effectively while its chair was under constant attack by unscrupulous people with a passionate attachment to the views of a political faction in a foreign country.I agreed to chair the NIC to strengthen it and protect it against politicization, not to introduce it to efforts by a special interest group to assert control over it through a protracted political campaign.
As those who know me are well aware, I have greatly enjoyed life since retiring from government. Nothing was further from my mind than a return to public service. When Admiral Blair asked me to chair the NIC I responded that I understood he was “asking me to give my freedom of speech, my leisure, the greater part of my income, subject myself to the mental colonoscopy of a polygraph, and resume a daily commute to a job with long working hours and a daily ration of political abuse.” I added that I wondered “whether there wasn’t some sort of downside to this offer.” I was mindful that no one is indispensable; I am not an exception. It took weeks of reflection for me to conclude that, given the unprecedentedly challenging circumstances in which our country now finds itself abroad and at home, I had no choice but accept the call to return to public service. I thereupon resigned from all positions that I had held and all activities in which I was engaged. I now look forward to returning to private life, freed of all previous obligations.
I am not so immodest as to believe that this controversy was about me rather than issues of public policy. These issues had little to do with the NIC and were not at the heart of what I hoped to contribute to the quality of analysis available to President Obama and his administration. Still, I am saddened by what the controversy and the manner in which the public vitriol of those who devoted themselves to sustaining it have revealed about the state of our civil society. It is apparent that we Americans cannot any longer conduct a serious public discussion or exercise independent judgment about matters of great importance to our country as well as to our allies and friends.
The libels on me and their easily traceable email trails show conclusively that there is a powerful lobby determined to prevent any view other than its own from being aired, still less to factor in American understanding of trends and events in the Middle East. The tactics of the Israel Lobby plumb the depths of dishonor and indecency and include character assassination, selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record, the fabrication of falsehoods, and an utter disregard for the truth. The aim of this Lobby is control of the policy process through the exercise of a veto over the appointment of people who dispute the wisdom of its views, the substitution of political correctness for analysis, and the exclusion of any and all options for decision by Americans and our government other than those that it favors.
There is a special irony in having been accused of improper regard for the opinions of foreign governments and societies by a group so clearly intent on enforcing adherence to the policies of a foreign government – in this case, the government of Israel. I believe that the inability of the American public to discuss, or the government to consider, any option for US policies in the Middle East opposed by the ruling faction in Israeli politics has allowed that faction to adopt and sustain policies that ultimately threaten the existence of the state of Israel. It is not permitted for anyone in the United States to say so. This is not just a tragedy for Israelis and their neighbors in the Middle East; it is doing widening damage to the national security of the United States.
The outrageous agitation that followed the leak of my pending appointment will be seen by many to raise serious questions about whether the Obama administration will be able to make its own decisions about the Middle East and related issues. I regret that my willingness to serve the new administration has ended by casting doubt on its ability to consider, let alone decide what policies might best serve the interests of the United States rather than those of a Lobby intent on enforcing the will and interests of a foreign government.
In the court of public opinion, unlike a court of law, one is guilty until proven innocent. The speeches from which quotations have been lifted from their context are available for anyone interested in the truth to read. The injustice of the accusations made against me has been obvious to those with open minds. Those who have sought to impugn my character are uninterested in any rebuttal that I or anyone else might make.
Still, for the record: I have never sought to be paid or accepted payment from any foreign government, including Saudi Arabia or China, for any service, nor have I ever spoken on behalf of a foreign government, its interests, or its policies. I have never lobbied any branch of our government for any cause, foreign or domestic. I am my own man, no one Else’s, and with my return to private life, I will once again – to my pleasure – serve no master other than myself. I will continue to speak out as I choose on issues of concern to me and other Americans.
I retain my respect and confidence in President Obama and DNI Blair. Our country now faces terrible challenges abroad as well as at home. Like all patriotic Americans, I continue to pray that our president can successfully lead us in surmounting them.
Note from Whitewraithe: Many who visit this blog know that under certain conditions I have promoted Alex Jones for some of the great work he is doing, however, the questions stated in the article below have always been a source of contention, for me, as to whether Alex was the real deal. Recently, one of our great patriots fighting this cause was outright cursed and shunned by Jones because he chose to breach the subject with the truth about Jewish involvement. I used to believe, as I did about David Icke, that he was being cautious not to approach the Jewish card directly for fear of reprisal. It now appears that we may, indeed, have a shill controlling the opposition directly for his handlers. He says that the MIBs are coming to get him one day, yet he’s expanding his alternative media empire. I’m not completely ready to can Jones just yet, but it would behoove him to address some of these concerns and be straight with those that he wishes to inspire.
IS ALEX JONES A ZIONIST? Controversy Swirls-WhoISJones And What Is His True Agenda? By Brother Nathanael Kapner, Copyright 2009
Articles May Be Reproduced Only With Authorship of Br Nathanael Kapner
& Link To Real Jew News(SM)
___________________________________
THE SIMMERING CONTROVERSY OF ALEX ‘BULLHORN’ JONESallegedly being a Zionist shill and/or a de facto Zionist agent and spin meister has now spilled over onto Jones’ own Prison Planet Message Board (see below)…despite alleged message-censoring efforts by Jones, personally, and his staff. According to a number of postings which are excerpted below, Jones’ allegiance to Zionism stems from two things: 1) His core Protestant Fundamentalist-Zionist belief system, and, 2) Widely circulated reports that his wife is a Jew which would make their two children Jewish under Talmudic law.
Here is a sampling of postings published on February 23rd, 2009, on Jones’ Prison Planet Forum (Scroll Down) demonstrating possible reasons for his strong pro-Zionist leanings. The posting reads as follows:
** FORBIDDEN INFORMATION THAT ALEX JONES DOES NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW **
“Alex Jones’ ‘w-i-f-e’ is Jewish. He has two children by her. His children are therefore by rabbinical law, considered fully Jewish. This is because in rabbinical law, children are considered fully Jewish if their mother is Jewish, regardless of the race or ethnicity of the father.
Alex’s w-i-f-e and children therefore qualify for Right of Return status under Israeli law. The Israeli Right of Return statute allows any Jew anywhere in the world to immigrate to Israel and receive instant automatic citizenship. Alex Jones’ ‘w-i-f-e’ and children are therefore de facto dual citizens of the state of Israel.
It is well-known that many years ago Alex Jones used to complain on his radio show about how difficult it was for a non-Jewish spouse of a Jewish person to immigrate to the state of Israel because of the excessive bureaucratic red tape and regulations involved.”View Entire StoryHere.
EVIDENCE OF CENSORSHIP ABOUT JONES’ JEWISH FAMILY
HERE IS UNEQUIVOCAL PROOF FROM AN ASTUTE COMMENTER on the Prison Planet Forum that Alex Jones tried to censor comments regarding his Zionist sympathies:
“Alex Jones does not wish for this information about his wife to become widely known and he is desperately trying to conceal it.
Jones has instructed his Webmaster, Paul Watson, to create a text filter that scans all comments posted on this website for the word ‘w-i-f-e,’ except without dashes or other characters between the letters.
If the word ‘w-i-f-e’ (without dashes) is found in either the body of the comment itself or in the poster’s name, then that comment is automatically placed on moderation.
If you don’t believe what I am saying, then please try it out for yourself. Simply post a comment with the word ‘w-i-f-e’ contained in it, except do not place dashes between the letters of the word.
You will see that when you post your comment, it will automatically be placed on moderation status. You will see the following message next to the title of your post: ‘Your comment is awaiting moderation.”View Entire StoryHere.
From my own perspective, (Brother Nathanael Kapner, publisher of Real Jew News), I know for a fact that Alex Jones deleted all comments that had links to articles on Real Jew News on his Prison Planet Forum. Jones even had a regular forum participator, a man named Nicolae Ibasfalean, BANNED from ever posting on the Prison Planet Forum again, simply because he posted links to various Real Jew News articles. This is pure, unadulterated censorship.
JONES’ SUDDEN RISE IN POPULARITY
BY ALLOWING JONES TO TAKE A ‘HIDDEN’ CAMCORDERinto the Zionist elite’s Skull & Bone’s Bohemian Grove in the Redwoods forest in January of 2006, and to subsequently release the footage (in a for-profit video), the Zionist press conferred upon Jones an almost instant celebrity status.
The astute marketing of the Bohemian Grove footage by Jones unquestionably gave himself an alternative news internet reputation which he used as a platform to create an undying, maniacal devotion (frighteningly, some say) of thousands of Americans…not unlike the ‘Jonestown’ loyalty Obama constructed during his presidential campaign. View Entire StoryHere & Here.
Another commenter on Jones’ Prison Planet Message Board, with penetrating insight, brought to light Jones’ role as a ‘disinfo’ agent for the Zionists:
“I agree that while on the air, Alex Jones is a disinfo agent for the Jews and Israel. Obama, whose administration Jones continually censures, is infiltrated with Jews and Israel-Firsters. The communists, to whom Alex Jones and his guests refer, who influence and surround Obama, are also Jews. The banksters and the elite groups they talk about are dominated by the Zionists. There would not be the powerful Rockefeller dynasty had not the Jewish Israel-Firsters, that is, the Rothschilds, financed it.
Israel did 9/11 – Mossad did 9/11. The low-life Larry Silverstein should be arrested and asked to take a lie detector test because of his involvement and benefit from the destruction of the twin towers. I am very disgusted with the decision of Alex Jones to revert to his former refusal to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as to the identity of the criminals who are destroying the USA.”View Entire StoryHere.
WILLIAM COOPER EXPOSED JONES
AS A LIAR, FRAUD AND ‘BULLS**T ARTIST’
ABOUT SEVEN WEEKS AFTER EXPOSING JONES AS A LIAR AND A FRAUDon his highly-regarded national patriot radio show (listen HERE), Cooper (former naval intelligence officer and author of the alternative news best-seller Behold A Pale Horse) – was shot to death at his home in Eager, Arizona on November 5, 2001. Indeed, the renowned author, historian, and political theorist, Cooper, exposed Jones clearly as a fraud and was, according to many observers, removed to clear the way for Jones ascension to be the Rush Limbaugh of ‘patriot radio.’
After Cooper’s expose and subsequent execution, Alex Jones waged a heavy-handed campaign to downplay any role the Israelis and their Zionist counterparts in America had in the 9-11 incident. Jones continually shifted the blame away from the Zionists and onto others – mainly Americans, but also some British and Chinese. Jones then moved on to attempt to convince his listeners and readers that Zionists are actually subservient to other people, such as the Queen of England! View Entire StoryHere.
As times passes, more are of the opinion that Cooper was clearly a major obstacle for Jones and was removed to clear the way for Jones to ‘fly-paper op’ as much of the patriot community as possible. View YouTube VideosHere. Jones has accumulated a large following in the years since Cooper’s death and has developed legions of kool-aid drinkers ready to, in many cases, die for him if needed. Again, this is the same cult adulation that surrounds Obama.
–JONES SEES ANYONE ELSE ON THE STAGE AS A THREAT– CALLED DAVID ICKE A ‘TURD IN A PUNCH BOWL’
AS WITH MANY EGOCENTRIC and self-absorbed/obsessed media personalities, Alex Jones has personally attacked others who seem, in his world, to be competition. David Icke is a perfect case in point. During one recorded instance of Jones putting Icke down, he refers to the anti-NWO crusader as a ‘Turd In A Punch Bowl’ as seen in this YouTube video Here.
Another common technique in the drive to be a media ‘King’ is the ability to quickly adopt and absorb the work of others and synthesize it into one’s own output. Jones has been criticized for this very kind of ‘research’ and deftly uses a large, full-time, paid staff to assure his success in appearing to be the omnipotent source of the ‘truth.’
Whether it be cadging the guests of other talk shows or appropriating and simply rewriting news material from other sites and sources and presenting it as ‘original’, Alex Jones and his websites have certainly been at the center of such controversy.
SO, WHO OR WHAT IS ALEX JONES, REALLY?
IS JONES A ZIONIST OPERATIVE…either in the closet or out? Readers and listeners must decide for themselves. The bottom line seems to be that, at the very least, Jones is doing, intentionally or otherwise, exactly what the Illuminati want by continually ranting, over and over again, about the control being imposed over the population.
While this informs to a degree, the larger issue is of a massive desensitization through endless repetition and ensuing listener psychological frustration which leads to a de facto acceptance of that very control paradigm. Clever stuff. Repeat most anything often enough and people come to accept it and become resigned to it.
SADLY,JONES’ LEGIONS OF SYCOPHANTS and disciples are in many cases every bit as blind and brainwashed as those who will follow Obama into the abyss…never figuring out what happened to them. The dangers of the adulation and idolatry of Jones – or any other media ego-tripping Pied Piper – were never more keenly evidenced than by the eBay auction of his cheap Radio Shack bullhorn for over $50,000…in a massive financial depression. This is essentially psychopathic hero worship. In fact, the contrived use of a stage prop bullhorn to grandstand – often for his own video productions – by yelling anti-NWO slogans at hotel buildings and a few limousines is absurdly transparent.
Think about it. If the controllers wish to direct and condition many patriots to give up and accept their domination, there is no better way to desensitize them than to construct a fly paper forum wherein the throngs who care are exposed to the continual, repetitious, non-stop rantings of someone who preaches doom and against servitude.
This NLP technique of repetition, especially, the grandiose and bellicose variety, achieves – over time – a fatalism and desensitization which serves the elite agenda perfectly. People will only be told to go out and take their country back so many times before the futility of same turns them off and they withdraw and give in to the paradigm of control which has been so carefully constructed by Zionism for well over 100 years.
SO, WHO IS ALEX JONES?AND WHO IS HE WORKING FOR?His Godzilla ego which has destroyed more bridges than the original cinematic reptile? Or, is Jones shilling for world Zionism as evidenced by his continual misdirection away from it? Or, is it all about money and self-aggrandizement? Or…is it all of the above?
The Obama Deception is a hard-hitting film that completely destroys the myth that Barack Obama is working for the best interests of the American people. The Obama phenomenon is a hoax carefully crafted by the captains of the New World Order. He is being pushed as savior in an attempt to con the American people into accepting global slavery. We have reached a critical juncture in the New World Orders plans. Its not about Left or Right: its about a One World Government. The international banks plan to loot the people of the United States and turn them into slaves on a Global Plantation. Covered in this film: who Obama works for, what lies he has told, and his real agenda. If you want to know the facts and cut through all the hype, this is the film for you. Watch the Obama Deception and learn how: * Obama is continuing the process of transforming America into something that resembles Nazi Germany, with forced National Service, domestic civilian spies, warrantless wiretaps, the destruction of the Second Amendment, FEMA camps and Martial Law. * Obamas handlers are openly announcing the creation of a new Bank of the World that will dominate every nation on earth through carbon taxes and military force. * International bankers purposefully engineered the worldwide financial meltdown to bankrupt the nations of the planet and bring in World Government. * Obama plans to loot the middle class, destroy pensions and federalize the states so that the population is completely dependent on the Central Government. * The Elite are using Obama to pacify the public so they can usher in the North American Union by stealth, launch a new Cold War and continue the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The information contained in this film is vital to the future of the Republic and to freedom worldwide. President Barack Obama is only the tool of a larger agenda. Until all are made aware, humanity will remain captive to the masters of the New World Order. http://www.obamadeception.net http://www.prisonplanet.com *** Please SUPPORT ALEX JONES, go to the prison planet website and sign up for a membership *** Pass this video ON! Don’t let the television and mass media tell you what to choose, watch and make your own conclusions.
The Election of Barack Obama is just the most startling manifestation of a larger trend: the gradual erosion of “whiteness” as the touchstone of what it means to be American. If the end of white America is a cultural and demographic inevitability, what will the new mainstream look like—and how will white Americans fit into it? What will it mean to be white when whiteness is no longer the norm? And will a post-white America be less racially divided—or more so?
“Civilization’s going to pieces,” he remarks. He is in polite company, gathered with friends around a bottle of wine in the late-afternoon sun, chatting and gossiping. “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Colored Empires by this man Goddard?” They hadn’t. “Well, it’s a fine book, and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don’t look out the white race will be—will be utterly submerged. It’s all scientific stuff; it’s been proved.”
He is Tom Buchanan, a character in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, a book that nearly everyone who passes through the American education system is compelled to read at least once. Although Gatsby doesn’t gloss as a book on racial anxiety—it’s too busy exploring a different set of anxieties entirely—Buchanan was hardly alone in feeling besieged. The book by “this man Goddard” had a real-world analogue: Lothrop Stoddard’s The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy, published in 1920, five years before Gatsby. Nine decades later, Stoddard’s polemic remains oddly engrossing. He refers to World War I as the “White Civil War” and laments the “cycle of ruin” that may result if the “white world” continues its infighting. The book features a series of foldout maps depicting the distribution of “color” throughout the world and warns, “Colored migration is a universal peril, menacing every part of the white world.”
As briefs for racial supremacy go, The Rising Tide of Color is eerily serene. Its tone is scholarly and gentlemanly, its hatred rationalized and, in Buchanan’s term, “scientific.” And the book was hardly a fringe phenomenon. It was published by Scribner, also Fitzgerald’s publisher, and Stoddard, who received a doctorate in history from Harvard, was a member of many professional academic associations. It was precisely the kind of book that a 1920s man of Buchanan’s profile—wealthy, Ivy League–educated, at once pretentious and intellectually insecure—might have been expected to bring up in casual conversation.
As white men of comfort and privilege living in an age of limited social mobility, of course, Stoddard and the Buchanan’s in his audience had nothing literal to fear. Their sense of dread hovered somewhere above the concerns of everyday life. It was linked less to any immediate danger to their class’s political and cultural power than to the perceived fraying of the fixed, monolithic identity of whiteness that sewed together the fortunes of the fair-skinned.
From the hysteria over Eastern European immigration to the vibrant cultural miscegenation of the Harlem Renaissance, it is easy to see how this imagined worldwide white kinship might have seemed imperiled in the 1920s. There’s no better example of the era’s insecurities than the 1923 Supreme Court case United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, in which an Indian American veteran of World War I sought to become a naturalized citizen by proving that he was Caucasian. The Court considered new anthropological studies that expanded the definition of the Caucasian race to include Indians, and the justices even agreed that traces of “Aryan blood” coursed through Thind’s body. But these technicalities availed him little. The Court determined that Thind was not white “in accordance with the understanding of the common man” and therefore could be excluded from the “statutory category” of whiteness. Put another way: Thind was white, in that he was Caucasian and even Aryan. But he was not white in the way Stoddard or Buchanan were white.
The ’20s debate over the definition of whiteness—a legal category? a commonsense understanding? a worldwide civilization?—took place in a society gripped by an acute sense of racial paranoia, and it is easy to regard these episodes as evidence of how far we have come. But consider that these anxieties surfaced when whiteness was synonymous with the American mainstream, when threats to its status were largely imaginary. What happens once this is no longer the case—when the fears of Lothrop Stoddard and Tom Buchanan are realized, and white people actually become an American minority?
Whether you describe it as the dawning of a post-racial age or just the end of white America, we’re approaching a profound demographic tipping point. According to an August 2008 report by the U.S. Census Bureau, those groups currently categorized as racial minorities—blacks and Hispanics, East Asians and South Asians—will account for a majority of the U.S. population by the year 2042. Among Americans under the age of 18, this shift is projected to take place in 2023, which means that every child born in the United States from here on out will belong to the first post-white generation.
Obviously, steadily ascending rates of interracial marriage complicate this picture, pointing toward what Michael Lind has described as the “beiging” of America. And it’s possible that “beige Americans” will self-identify as “white” in sufficient numbers to push the tipping point further into the future than the Census Bureau projects. But even if they do, whiteness will be a label adopted out of convenience and even indifference, rather than aspiration and necessity. For an earlier generation of minorities and immigrants, to be recognized as a “white American,” whether you were an Italian or a Pole or a Hungarian, was to enter the mainstream of American life; to be recognized as something else, as the Thind case suggests, was to be permanently excluded. As Bill Imada, head of the IW Group, a prominent Asian American communications and marketing company, puts it: “I think in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, [for] anyone who immigrated, the aspiration was to blend in and be as American as possible so that white America wouldn’t be intimidated by them. They wanted to imitate white America as much as possible: learn English, go to church, go to the same schools.”
Today, the picture is far more complex. To take the most obvious example, whiteness is no longer a precondition for entry into the highest levels of public office. The son of Indian immigrants doesn’t have to become “white” in order to be elected governor of Louisiana. A half-Kenyan, half-Kansan politician can self-identify as black and be elected president of the United States. [even if validity of citizenship has yet to be proven. WW~]
As a purely demographic matter, then, the “white America” that Lothrop Stoddard believed in so fervently may cease to exist in 2040, 2050, or 2060, or later still. But where the culture is concerned, it’s already all but finished. Instead of the long-standing model of assimilation toward a common center, the culture is being remade in the image of white America’s multi-ethnic, multicolored heirs.
For some, the disappearance of this centrifugal core heralds a future rich with promise. In 1998, President Bill Clinton, in a now-famous address to students at Portland State University, remarked:
Today, largely because of immigration, there is no majority race in Hawaii or Houston or New York City. Within five years, there will be no majority race in our largest state, California. In a little more than 50 years, there will be no majority race in the United States. No other nation in history has gone through demographic change of this magnitude in so short a time … [These immigrants] are energizing our culture and broadening our vision of the world. They are renewing our most basic values and reminding us all of what it truly means to be American.
Not everyone was so enthused. Clinton’s remarks caught the attention of another anxious Buchanan—Pat Buchanan, the conservative thinker. Revisiting the president’s speech in his 2001 book, The Death of the West, Buchanan wrote: “Mr. Clinton assured us that it will be a better America when we are all minorities and realize true ‘diversity.’ Well, those students [at Portland State] are going to find out, for they will spend their golden years in a Third World America.”
Today, the arrival of what Buchanan derided as “Third World America” is all but inevitable. What will the new mainstream of America look like, and what ideas or values might it rally around? What will it mean to be white after “whiteness” no longer defines the mainstream? Will anyone mourn the end of white America? Will anyone try to preserve it?
Another moment from The Great Gatsby: as Fitzgerald’s narrator and Gatsby drive across the Queensboro Bridge into Manhattan, a car passes them, and Nick Carraway notices that it is a limousine “driven by a white chauffeur, in which sat three modish Negroes, two bucks and a girl.” The novelty of this topsy-turvy arrangement inspires Carraway to laugh aloud and think to himself, “Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge, anything at all …”
For a contemporary embodiment of the upheaval that this scene portended, consider Sean Combs, a hip-hop mogul and one of the most famous African Americans on the planet. Combs grew up during hip-hop’s late-1970s rise, and he belongs to the first generation that could safely make a living working in the industry—as a plucky young promoter and record-label intern in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and as a fashion designer, artist, and music executive worth hundreds of millions of dollars a brief decade later.
In the late 1990s, Combs made a fascinating gesture toward New York’s high society. He announced his arrival into the circles of the rich and powerful not by crashing their parties, but by inviting them into his own spectacularly over-the-top world. Combs began to stage elaborate annual parties in the Hamptons, not far from where Fitzgerald’s novel takes place. These “white parties”—attendees are required to wear white—quickly became legendary for their opulence (in 2004, Combs showcased a 1776 copy of the Declaration of Independence) as well as for the cultures-colliding quality of Hamptons elites paying their respects to someone so comfortably nouveau riche. Prospective business partners angled to get close to him and praised him as a guru of the lucrative “urban” market, while grateful partygoers hailed him as a modern-day Gatsby.
“Have I read The Great Gatsby?” Combs said to a London newspaper in 2001. “I am the Great Gatsby.”
Yet whereas Gatsby felt pressure to hide his status as an arriviste, Combs celebrated his position as an outsider-insider—someone who appropriates elements of the culture he seeks to join without attempting to assimilate outright. In a sense, Combs was imitating the old WASP establishment; in another sense, he was subtly provoking it, by over-enunciating its formality and never letting his guests forget that there was something slightly off about his presence. There’s a silent power to throwing parties where the best-dressed man in the room is also the one whose public profile once consisted primarily of dancing in the background of Biggie Smalls videos. (“No one would ever expect a young black man to be coming to a party with the Declaration of Independence, but I got it, and it’s coming with me,” Combs joked at his 2004 party, as he made the rounds with the document, promising not to spill champagne on it.)
In this regard, Combs is both a product and a hero of the new cultural mainstream, which prizes diversity above all else, and whose ultimate goal is some vague notion of racial transcendence, rather than subversion or assimilation. Although Combs’s vision is far from representative—not many hip-hop stars vacation in St. Tropez with a parasol-toting manservant shading their every step—his industry lies at the heart of this new mainstream. Over the past 30 years, few changes in American culture have been as significant as the rise of hip-hop. The genre has radically reshaped the way we listen to and consume music, first by opposing the pop mainstream and then by becoming it. From its constant sampling of past styles and eras—old records, fashions, slang, anything—to its mythologicalization of the self-made black antihero, hip-hop is more than a musical genre: it’s a philosophy, a political statement, a way of approaching and remaking culture. It’s a lingua franca not just among kids in America, but also among young people worldwide. And its economic impact extends beyond the music industry, to fashion, advertising, and film. (Consider the producer Russell Simmons—the ur-Combs and a music, fashion, and television mogul—or the rapper 50 Cent, who has parlayed his rags-to-riches story line into extracurricular successes that include a clothing line; book, video-game, and film deals; and a startlingly lucrative partnership with the makers of Vitamin Water.)
But hip-hop’s deepest impact is symbolic. During popular music’s rise in the 20th century, white artists and producers consistently “mainstreamed” African American innovations. Hip-hop’s ascension has been different. Eminem notwithstanding, hip-hop never suffered through anything like an Elvis Presley moment, in which a white artist made a musical form safe for white America. This is no dig at Elvis—the constrictive racial logic of the 1950s demanded the erasure of rock and roll’s black roots, and if it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else. But hip-hop—the sound of the post- civil-rights, post-soul generation—found a global audience on its own terms.
Today, hip-hop’s colonization of the global imagination, from fashion runways in Europe to dance competitions in Asia, is Disney-esque. This transformation has bred an unprecedented cultural confidence in its black originators. Whiteness is no longer a threat, or an ideal: it’s kitsch to be appropriated, whether with gestures like Combs’s “white parties” or the trickle-down epidemic of collared shirts and cuff links currently afflicting rappers. And an expansive multiculturalism is replacing the us-against-the-world bunker mentality that lent a thrilling edge to hip-hop’s mid-1990s rise.
Peter Rosenberg, a self-proclaimed “nerdy Jewish kid” and radio personality on New York’s Hot 97 FM—and a living example of how hip-hop has created new identities for its listeners that don’t fall neatly along lines of black and white—shares another example: “I interviewed [the St. Louis rapper] Nelly this morning, and he said it’s now very cool and in to have multicultural friends. Like you’re not really considered hip or ‘you’ve made it’ if you’re rolling with all the same people.”
Just as Tiger Woods forever changed the country-club culture of golf, and Will Smith confounded stereotypes about the ideal Hollywood leading man, hip-hop’s rise is helping redefine the American mainstream, which no longer aspires toward a single iconic image of style or class. Successful network-television shows like Lost, Heroes, and Grey’s Anatomy feature wildly diverse casts, and an entire genre of half-hour comedy, from The Colbert Report to The Office, seems dedicated to having fun with the persona of the clueless white male. The youth market is following the same pattern: consider the Cheetah Girls, a multicultural, multi-platinum, multi-platform trio of teenyboppers who recently starred in their third movie, or Dora the Explorer, the precocious bilingual 7-year-old Latina adventurer who is arguably the most successful animated character on children television today. In a recent address to the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, Brown Johnson, the Nickelodeon executive who has overseen Dora’s rise, explained the importance of creating a character who does not conform to “the white, middle-class mold.” When Johnson pointed out that Dora’s wares were outselling Barbie’s in France, the crowd hooted in delight.
Pop culture today rallies around an ethic of multicultural inclusion that seems to value every identity—except whiteness. “It’s become harder for the blond-haired, blue-eyed commercial actor,” remarks Rochelle Newman-Carrasco, of the Hispanic marketing firm Enlace. “You read casting notices, and they like to cast people with brown hair because they could be Hispanic. The language of casting notices is pretty shocking because it’s so specific: ‘Brown hair, brown eyes, could look Hispanic.’ Or, as one notice put it: ‘Ethnically ambiguous.’”
“I think white people feel like they’re under siege right now—like it’s not okay to be white right now, especially if you’re a white male,” laughs Bill Imada, of the IW Group. Imada and Newman-Carrasco are part of a movement within advertising, marketing, and communications firms to re-imagine the profile of the typical American consumer. (Tellingly, every person I spoke with from these industries knew the Census Bureau’s projections by heart.)
“There’s a lot of fear and a lot of resentment,” Newman-Carrasco observes, describing the flak she caught after writing an article for a trade publication on the need for more-diverse hiring practices. “I got a response from a friend—he’s, like, a 60-something white male, and he’s been involved with multicultural recruiting,” she recalls. “And he said, ‘I really feel like the hunted. It’s a hard time to be a white man in America right now, because I feel like I’m being lumped in with all white males in America, and I’ve tried to do stuff, but it’s a tough time.’”
“I always tell the white men in the room, ‘We need you,’” Imada says. “We cannot talk about diversity and inclusion and engagement without you at the table. It’s okay to be white!
“But people are stressed out about it. ‘We used to be in control! We’re losing control!’”
If they’re right—if white America is indeed “losing control,” and if the future will belong to people who can successfully navigate a post-racial, multicultural landscape—then it’s no surprise that many white Americans are eager to divest themselves of their whiteness entirely.
For some, this renunciation can take a radical form. In 1994, a young graffiti artist and activist named William “Upski” Wimsatt, the son of a university professor, published Bomb the Suburbs, the spiritual heir to Norman Mailer’s celebratory 1957 essay, “The White Negro.” Wimsatt was deeply committed to hip-hop’s transformational powers, going so far as to embrace the status of the lowly “wigger,” a pejorative term popularized in the early 1990s to describe white kids who steep themselves in black culture. Wimsatt viewed the wigger’s immersion in two cultures as an engine for change. “If channeled in the right way,” he wrote, “the wigger can go a long way toward repairing the sickness of race in America.”
Wimsatt’s painfully earnest attempts to put his own relationship with whiteness under the microscope coincided with the emergence of an academic discipline known as “whiteness studies.” In colleges and universities across the country, scholars began examining the history of “whiteness” and unpacking its contradictions. Why, for example, had the Irish and the Italians fallen beyond the pale at different moments in our history? Were Jewish Americans white? And, as the historian Matthew Frye Jacobson asked, “Why is it that in the United States, a white woman can have black children but a black woman cannot have white children?”
Much like Wimsatt, the whiteness-studies academics—figures such as Jacobson, David Roediger, Eric Lott, and Noel Ignatiev—were attempting to come to terms with their own relationships with whiteness, in its past and present forms. In the early 1990s, Ignatiev, a former labor activist and the author of How the Irish Became White, set out to “abolish” the idea of the white race by starting the New Abolitionist Movement and founding a journal titled Race Traitor. “There is nothing positive about white identity,” he wrote in 1998. “As James Baldwin said, ‘As long as you think you’re white, there’s no hope for you.’”
Although most white Americans haven’t read Bomb the Suburbs or Race Traitor, this view of whiteness as something to be interrogated, if not shrugged off completely, has migrated to less academic spheres. The perspective of the whiteness-studies academics is commonplace now, even if the language used to express it is different.
“I get it: as a straight white male, I’m the worst thing on Earth,” Christian Lander says. Lander is a Canadian-born, Los Angeles–based satirist who in January 2008 started a blog called Stuff White People Like (stuffwhitepeoplelike.com), which pokes fun at the manners and mores of a specific species of young, hip, upwardly mobile whites. (He has written more than 100 entries about whites’ passion for things like bottled water, “the idea of soccer,” and “being the only white person around.”) At its best, Lander’s site—which formed the basis for a recently published book of the same name (reviewed in the October 2008 Atlantic)—is a cunningly precise distillation of the identity crisis plaguing well-meaning, well-off white kids in a post-white world.
“Like, I’m aware of all the horrible crimes that my demographic has done in the world,” Lander says. “And there’s a bunch of white people who are desperate—desperate—to say, ‘You know what? My skin’s white, but I’m not one of the white people who’s destroying the world.’”
For Lander, whiteness has become a vacuum. The “white identity” he limns on his blog is predicated on the quest for authenticity—usually other people’s authenticity. “As a white person, you’re just desperate to find something else to grab onto. You’re jealous! Pretty much every white person I grew up with wished they’d grown up in, you know, an ethnic home that gave them a second language. White culture is Family Ties and Led Zeppelin and Guns N’ Roses—like, this is white culture. This is all we have.”
Lander’s “white people” are products of a very specific historical moment, raised by well-meaning Baby Boomers to reject the old ideal of white American gentility and to embrace diversity and fluidity instead. (“It’s strange that we are the kids of Baby Boomers, right? How the hell do you rebel against that? Like, your parents will march against the World Trade Organization next to you. They’ll have bigger white dreadlocks than you. What do you do?”) But his lighthearted anthropology suggests that the multicultural harmony they were raised to worship has bred a kind of self-denial.
Matt Wray, a sociologist at Temple University who is a fan of Lander’s humor, has observed that many of his white students are plagued by a racial-identity crisis: “They don’t care about socio-economics; they care about culture. And to be white is to be culturally broke. The classic thing white students say when you ask them to talk about who they are is, ‘I don’t have a culture.’ They might be privileged, they might be loaded socio-economically, but they feel bankrupt when it comes to culture … They feel disadvantaged, and they feel marginalized. They don’t have a culture that’s cool or oppositional.” Wray says that this feeling of being culturally bereft often prevents students from recognizing what it means to be a child of privilege—a strange irony that the first wave of whiteness-studies scholars, in the 1990s, failed to anticipate.
Of course, the obvious material advantages that come with being born white—lower infant-mortality rates and easier-to-acquire bank loans, for example—tend to undercut any sympathy that this sense of marginalization might generate. And in the right context, cultural-identity crises can turn well-meaning whites into instant punch lines. Consider ego trip’s The (White) Rapper Show, a brilliant and critically acclaimed reality show that VH1 debuted in 2007. It depicted 10 (mostly hapless) white rappers living together in a dilapidated house—dubbed “Tha White House”—in the South Bronx. Despite the contestants’ best intentions, each one seemed like a profoundly confused caricature, whether it was the solemn graduate student committed to fighting racism or the ghetto-obsessed suburbanite who had, seemingly by accident, named himself after the abolitionist John Brown.
Similarly, Smirnoff struck marketing gold in 2006 with a viral music video titled “Tea Partay,” featuring a trio of strikingly bad, V-neck-sweater-clad white rappers called the Prep Unit. “Haters like to clown our Ivy League educations / But they’re just jealous ’cause our families run the nation,” the trio brayed, as a pair of bottle-blond women in spiffy tennis whites shimmied behind them. There was no non-ironic way to enjoy the video; its entire appeal was in its self-aware lampooning of WASP culture: verdant country clubs, “old money,” croquet, popped collars, and the like.
“The best defense is to be constantly pulling the rug out from underneath yourself,” Wray remarks, describing the way self-aware whites contend with their complicated identity. “Beat people to the punch. You’re forced as a white person into a sense of ironic detachment. Irony is what fuels a lot of white subcultures. You also see things like Burning Man, when a lot of white people are going into the desert and trying to invent something that is entirely new and not a form of racial mimicry. That’s its own kind of flight from whiteness. We’re going through a period where whites are really trying to figure out: Who are we?”
The “flight from whiteness” of urban, college-educated, liberal whites isn’t the only attempt to answer this question. You can flee into whiteness as well. This can mean pursuing the authenticity of an imagined past: think of the deliberately white-bread world of Mormon America, where the ’50s never ended, or the anachronistic WASP entitlement flaunted in books like last year’s A Privileged Life: Celebrating WASP Style, a handsome coffee-table book compiled by Susanna Salk, depicting a world of seersucker blazers, whale pants, and deck shoes. (What the book celebrates is the “inability to be outdone,” and the “self-confidence and security that comes with it,” Salk tells me. “That’s why I call it ‘privilege.’ It’s this privilege of time, of heritage, of being in a place longer than anybody else.”) But these enclaves of preserved-in-amber whiteness are likely to be less important to the American future than the construction of whiteness as a somewhat pissed-off minority culture.
This notion of a self-consciously white expression of minority empowerment will be familiar to anyone who has come across the comedian Larry the Cable Guy—he of “Farting Jingle Bells”—or witnessed the transformation of Detroit-born-and-bred Kid Rock from teenage rapper into “American Bad Ass” southern-style rocker. The 1990s may have been a decade when multiculturalism advanced dramatically—when American culture became “colorized,” as the critic Jeff Chang put it—but it was also an era when a very different form of identity politics crystallized. Hip-hop may have provided the decade’s soundtrack, but the highest-selling artist of the ’90s was Garth Brooks. Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods may have been the faces of athletic super-stardom, but it was NASCAR that emerged as professional sports’ fastest-growing institution, with ratings second only to the NFL’s.
As with the unexpected success of the apocalyptic Left Behind novels, or the Jeff Foxworthy–organized Blue Collar Comedy Tour, the rise of country music and auto racing took place well off the American elite’s radar screen. (None of Christian Lander’s white people would be caught dead at a NASCAR race.) These phenomena reflected a growing sense of cultural solidarity among lower-middle-class whites—a solidarity defined by a yearning for American “authenticity,” a folksy realness that rejects the global, the urban, and the effete in favor of nostalgia for “the way things used to be.”
Like other forms of identity politics, white solidarity comes complete with its own folk heroes, conspiracy theories (Barack Obama is a secret Muslim! The U.S. is going to merge with Canada and Mexico!), and laundry lists of injustices. The targets and scapegoats vary—from multiculturalism and affirmative action to a loss of moral values, from immigration to an economy that no longer guarantees the American worker a fair chance—and so do the political programs they inspire. (Ross Perot and Pat Buchanan both tapped into this white identity politics in the 1990s; today, its tribunes run the ideological gamut, from Jim Webb to Ron Paul to Mike Huckabee to Sarah Palin.) But the core grievance, in each case, has to do with cultural and socioeconomic dislocation—the sense that the system that used to guarantee the white working class some stability has gone off-kilter.
Wray is one of the founders of what has been called “white-trash studies,” a field conceived as a response to the perceived elite-liberal marginalization of the white working class. He argues that the economic downturn of the 1970s was the precondition for the formation of an “oppositional” and “defiant” white-working-class sensibility—think of the rugged, anti-everything individualism of 1977’s Smokey and the Bandit. But those anxieties took their shape from the aftershocks of the identity-based movements of the 1960s. “I think that the political space that the civil-rights movement opens up in the mid-1950s and ’60s is the transformative thing,” Wray observes. “Following the black-power movement, all of the other minority groups that followed took up various forms of activism, including brown power and yellow power and red power. Of course the problem is, if you try and have a ‘white power’ movement, it doesn’t sound good.”
The result is a racial pride that dares not speak its name, and that defines itself through cultural cues instead—a suspicion of intellectual elites and city dwellers, a preference for folksiness and plainness of speech (whether real or feigned), and the association of a working-class white minority with “the real America.” (In the Scots-Irish belt that runs from Arkansas up through West Virginia, the most common ethnic label offered to census takers is “American.”) Arguably, this white identity politics helped swing the 2000 and 2004 elections, serving as the powerful counter-punch to urban white liberals, and the McCain-Palin campaign relied on it almost to the point of absurdity (as when a McCain surrogate dismissed Northern Virginia as somehow not part of “the real Virginia”) as a bulwark against the threatening multiculturalism of Barack Obama. Their strategy failed, of course, but it’s possible to imagine white identity politics growing more potent and more forthright in its racial identifications in the future, as “the real America” becomes an ever-smaller portion of, well, the real America, and as the soon-to-be white minority’s sense of being besieged and disdained by a multicultural majority grows apace.
This vision of the aggrieved white man lost in a world that no longer values him was given its most vivid expression in the 1993 film Falling Down. Michael Douglas plays Bill Foster, a downsized defense worker with a buzz cut and a pocket protector who rampages through a Los Angeles overrun by greedy Korean shop-owners and Hispanic gangsters, railing against the eclipse of the America he used to know. (The film came out just eight years before California became the nation’s first majority-minority state.) Falling Down ends with a soulful police officer apprehending Foster on the Santa Monica Pier, at which point the middle-class vigilante asks, almost innocently: “I’m the bad guy?”
But this is a nightmare vision. Of course most of America’s Bill Fosters aren’t the bad guys—just as civilization is not, in the words of Tom Buchanan, “going to pieces” and America is not, in the phrasing of Pat Buchanan, going “Third World.” The coming white minority does not mean that the racial hierarchy of American culture will suddenly become inverted, as in 1995’s White Man’s Burden, an awful thought experiment of a film, starring John Travolta, that envisions an upside-down world in which whites are subjugated to their high-class black oppressors. There will be dislocations and resentments along the way, but the demographic shifts of the next 40 years are likely to reduce the power of racial hierarchies over everyone’s lives, producing a culture that’s more likely than any before to treat its inhabitants as individuals, rather than members of a caste or identity group.
Consider the world of advertising and marketing, industries that set out to mold our desires at a subconscious level. Advertising strategy once assumed a “general market”—“a code word for ‘white people,’” jokes one ad executive—and smaller, mutually exclusive, satellite “ethnic markets.” In recent years, though, advertisers have begun revising their assumptions and strategies in anticipation of profound demographic shifts. Instead of herding consumers toward a discrete center, the goal today is to create versatile images and campaigns that can be adapted to highly individualized tastes. (Think of the dancing silhouettes in Apple’s iPod campaign, which emphasizes individuality and diversity without privileging—or even representing—any specific group.)
At the moment, we can call this the triumph of multiculturalism, or post-racialism. But just as whiteness has no inherent meaning—it is a vessel we fill with our hopes and anxieties—these terms may prove equally empty in the long run. Does being post-racial mean that we are past race completely, or merely that race is no longer essential to how we identify ourselves? Karl Carter, of Atlanta’s youth-oriented GTM Inc. (Guerrilla Tactics Media), suggests that marketers and advertisers would be better off focusing on matrices like “lifestyle” or “culture” rather than race or ethnicity. “You’ll have crazy in-depth studies of the white consumer or the Latino consumer,” he complains. “But how do skaters feel? How do hip-hoppers feel?”
The logic of online social networking points in a similar direction. The New York University sociologist Dalton Conley has written of a “network nation,” in which applications like Facebook and MySpace create “crosscutting social groups” and new, flexible identities that only vaguely overlap with racial identities. Perhaps this is where the future of identity after whiteness lies—in a dramatic departure from the racial logic that has defined American culture from the very beginning. What Conley, Carter, and others are describing isn’t merely the displacement of whiteness from our cultural center; they’re describing a social structure that treats race as just one of a seemingly infinite number of possible self-identifications.
(March 1901)
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line…” By W.E.B. DuBois
The problem of the 20th century, W. E. B. DuBois famously predicted, would be the problem of the color line. Will this continue to be the case in the 21st century, when a black president will govern a country whose social networks increasingly cut across every conceivable line of identification? The ruling of United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind no longer holds weight, but its echoes have been inescapable: we aspire to be post-racial, but we still live within the structures of privilege, injustice, and racial categorization that we inherited from an older order. We can talk about defining ourselves by lifestyle rather than skin color, but our lifestyle choices are still racially coded. We know, more or less, that race is a fiction that often does more harm than good, and yet it is something we cling to without fully understanding why—as a social and legal fact, a vague sense of belonging and place that we make solid through culture and speech.
But maybe this is merely how it used to be—maybe this is already an outdated way of looking at things. “You have a lot of young adults going into a more diverse world,” Carter remarks. For the young Americans born in the 1980s and 1990s, culture is something to be taken apart and remade in their own image. “We came along in a generation that didn’t have to follow that path of race,” he goes on. “We saw something different.” This moment was not the end of white America; it was not the end of anything. It was a bridge, and we crossed it.
NEW YORK—Spurred by continuing frustration mounting from the recession and proposed city and state budget cuts, an estimated 50,000 people protested outside City Hall on Thursday afternoon in what was called A Rally For New York.
Venting anxieties and frustrations, a diverse range of groups clogged the streets during rush hour. Labor leaders, community groups and families gathered to communicate to city and state leaders that they do not want services cut from budgets, and to urge Gov. David Paterson to find new ways to resolve the state’s budgetary problems, without cutting funds for public services, education and health care.
An alternative to cuts to public services proposed by many protesters is to increase income taxes on New Yorkers earning more than $250,000.
Activists planned to speak through the night, with some claiming that they would not leave until their demands are heard.
Traffic was snarled in all directions, Broadway was closed from Canal to City Hall, the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges were held at a stand still, and all streets around City Hall were backed up.
A senior Republican member of the House of Representatives, Rep. Chris Smith (N.J.), has told the Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA)— which is said to be the “global news service of the Jewish people”—that “serious penalties” should be imposed on the perpetrators of “anti-Semitism.”
This should be a concern to all Americans and other people around the globe who value freedom of expression. It is a signal that Smith and others of like mind are actively planning the institution of legal measures to curtail freedom of speech that is perceived to be critical of the political agenda of the organized Jewish community, including the interests of the state of Israel.
In this regard, it is important to recognize that although the term “anti-Semitism” has historically been said to be hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group (although Arabs are Semites), the meaning of the term has been broadened in recent years to include even criticism of the actions of the state of Israel as well as opposition to Zionism, the movement that established the state of Israel and which maintains a global support network for Israel.
Smith issued his call for “serious penalties” to be imposed on “anti-Semites” during the recent conclave of the London Conference on Anti-Semitism, which was attended by 120 parliamentarians from 40 countries. The Jewish Chronicle of London said the gathering was a virtual “who’s who of world politics.”
The JTA cited Michael Gove, a member of the British Parliament in attendance at the conference, as having proclaimed that “Anti-Zionism is the new anti- Semitism.”
Other conference attendees said that recent criticisms of Israel’s actions in Gaza against Christian, Muslim and secular Arabs, comparing Israel’s misdeeds to National Socialist Germany’s measures against European Jews, were also manifestations of “anti-Semitism.”
Irwin Cotler, a member of the Canadian Parliament, asserted that any effort to disconnect anti-Zionism from anti-Semitism was totally false; in other words, those who call themselves “anti-Zionist” but who say they are not “anti-Semitic” are, in fact, “anti-Semitic,” despite their protestations to the contrary.
In addition, Smith said that “Holocaust remembrance and tolerance education must dramatically expand, and we need to ensure that our respective laws punish those who hate and incite violence against Jews.”
This is particularly dangerous and inflammatory inasmuch as Smith and his colleagues believe that criticism of the Jewish agenda (in whatever form) and criticism of Israel do cause “hate” and do “incite violence against Jews.”
Although there are now in place so-called “hate crime” measures in the United States that increase criminal penalties on individuals who have been found to have committed crimes of violence ostensibly motivated by “anti-Semitism” or “racism,” the clear intent of the recent London conference was to further lay the groundwork for instituting legislation specifically geared to penalizing any form of speech or expression that is perceived to be hostile to Jewish interests or the state of Israel.
During the conference the attendees issued a formal declaration vowing to fight “anti-Semitism,” saying that the phenomenon has risen to worldwide levels that they asserted—according to the JTA—“[have] not been seen since the holocaust.”
The official declaration specifically charged that Iran and Venezuela are demonstrating manifestations of “government-backed anti-Semitism in general and state-backed genocidal anti-Semitism in particular.”
Included in the American delegation (led by Smith) included Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, a lobby for Israel which also functions as an asset of Israel’s intelligence service.
Also included was Deborah Lipstadt, a professor of religion, who is touted as an “expert” on what she and others say is “holocaust denial.” (Lipstadt herself admitted in her book, History on Trial, that she had once acted as an informant for Israeli intelligence during a trip to the Soviet Union.)
A highlight is the message from John Alan Martinson, formerly WorldWarThreeNews and Force Multiplication. He’s working on a brand new documentary that will blow the lid off the lies we were told about World War II.
We desperately need a human rights organization which will respond to Jewish aggression. The Jews are committing genocide, imprisoning people for daring to think, destroying the World economy, agitating for wars and revolutions, subverting governments and religions, engaging in the slave trade, illegally trading in weapons and drugs, etc. Yet there is today not a single body which responds to this organized Jewish attack on the human race.
Why are courageous individuals rotting in European prisons without any support from a human rights organization? Why does no human rights organization criticize Judaism and Jewish supremacism? It is because we have thus far been too stupid, too lazy and too complacent to stand up for our rights and confront the genocidal Jews with an organized counter-attack.
The mere act of founding such an organization will draw attention to the problem of Jewish hostility towards humanity, and will provide a centralized structure for exposing the problem, one which offers the victims of the Jews an outlet to demand justice. The Jews are so vile in their attacks on innocent people, that we will be able to demonstrate that organized Jewry is trafficking in women for prostitution, genociding the Palestinians, subverting Christianity and Islam, and throwing scholars in jail for examining historical issues. We can demand Habeas Corpus for victims of Jewish aggression and organize criminal prosecutions of the Jews who are murdering, enslaving and imprisoning us.
Introducing the POWER PARTY –
I will begin to produce videos which explain the nature and mission of the POWER PARTY. Your feedback is gratefully acknowledged and much appreciated! CJB
Why has the term, “Racism” become exclusive to the White Race?
Why are people being jailed for investigating the Jewish Holocaust?
How will the Neo-Marxist ADL’s anti hate laws bring an end to freedom of speech and why is our government working hand in hand with them?
How does A.I.P.A.C control American politics?
Why are you called a racist for speaking out against Black on White crime?
Why does the media down play Black on White crime while creating a public furor over White on Black crime?
Why are White rights activists branded “White supremacists” and “racists” while non-White activists are always called civil rights activists regardless of how blatantly hateful they are towards Whites?
Why has slavery become synonymous with the White race?
Why are Homosexual groups allowed to go into public schools to intice your children into experimenting with their lifestyle and why are you labeled “homophobic” for objecting to it?
Why do we allow Jews to remove Christian religious symbols from public property and then say nothing when they replace them with Jewish religious symbols?
Why is the B’nai Brith funding and supporting violent communist agitators in our communities?
Why are your children embracing negro gang culture while casting off their own racial and cultural identity?
Why has race mixing become a trendy lifestyle for today’s White youth?
Why has pop culture and teen media become so depraved and devoid of morality and decency in the past decade?
Why do the political parties nominate the worst candidates imaginable to run for president?
Why has lesbianism become the “in” thing for so many young girls today?
I am fairly certain I posted this same video last year either here, or, on my other blog ‘No One Has Jurisdiction Over The Truth’. Anyway, it’s being posted again this year as a reminder to everyone.
Lets continue our fight to abolish the illegal, unconstitutional Federal Reserve System and their right hand strong arm, the Internal Revenue Service, who ceaselessly enforces their will upon our lives and greedy mitts into every American’s bank account, wallet and pocket-book.
Thoughts to ponder: Could the following revelation about former US Ambassador Freeman be a positive move on the part of President Obama’s Administration? And, if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s probably a duck in reference to the state of Israel. It’s time the world removed the blinders to see Israel for what it is and what it is not. WW~
A flurry of reports over the weekend said that the former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, considered a sharp critic of Israel, is to be named to a top intelligence post in the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama.
Chas W. Freeman Jr., who was U.S. ambassador in Riyadh from 1989-1992, is set to be named chairman of the National Intelligence Council, which has a strong influence on the content of the intelligence briefings presented to the President (and puts together the National Intelligence Estimate, or NIE, which in 2007 dissuaded the Bush regime from attacking Iran). The Council chairman is also often called on to give direct briefings to the President.
Typical of Freeman’s viewpoints is a statement he made in a speech before the Washington Institute of Foreign Affairs in 2007, in which he more or less blames international terrorist acts on Israel:
“American identification with Israeli policy has also become total. Those in the region and beyond it who detest Israeli behavior, which is to say almost everyone, now naturally extend their loathing to Americans. This has had the effect of universalizing anti-Americanism, legitimizing radical Islamism, and gaining Iran a foothold among Sunni as well as Shiite Arabs. For its part, Israel no longer even pretends to seek peace with the Palestinians; it strives instead to pacify them. Palestinian retaliation against this policy is as likely to be directed against Israel’s American backers as against Israel itself. Under the circumstances, such retaliation – whatever form it takes – will have the support or at least the sympathy of most people in the region and many outside it. This makes the long-term escalation of terrorism against the United States a certainty, not a matter of conjecture.”
Freeman also is a strong advocate of talking to Hamas, which he says “is the only democratically-elected government in the Arab world.” In his speech, Freeman said that “Hamas is showing that if we offer it nothing but unreasoning hostility and condemnation, it will only stiffen its position and seek allies among our enemies. In both cases, we forfeit our influence for no gain.”
America reduced to Israeli colony
Freeman says that Israel must be pressured to accept the American point of view, which does not coincide with its own. “We must talk with all parties, whatever we think of them or their means of struggle. Refusal to reason with those whose actions threaten injury to oneself, one’s friends, and one’s interests is foolish, feckless, and self-defeating. That is why it is past time for an active and honest discussion with both Israel and the government Palestinians have elected, which – in an irony that escapes few abroad – is the only democratically-elected government in the Arab world.”
“We destroyed the Iraqi state and catalyzed anarchy, sectarian violence, terrorism, and civil war in that country… Meanwhile, we embraced Israel’s enemies as our own; they responded by equating Americans with Israelis as their enemies. We abandoned the role of Middle East peacemaker to back Israel’s efforts to pacify its captive and increasingly ghettoized Arab populations. We wring our hands while sitting on them as the Jewish state continues to seize ever more Arab land for its colonists. This has convinced most Palestinians that Israel cannot be appeased and is persuading increasing numbers of them that a two-state solution is infeasible. It threatens Israelis with an unwelcome choice between a democratic society and a Jewish identity for their state. Now the United States has brought the Palestinian experience – of humiliation, dislocation, and death – to millions more in Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel and the United States each have their reasons for what they are doing, but no amount of public diplomacy can persuade the victims of these policies that their suffering is justified, or spin away their anger, or assuage their desire for reprisal and revenge.”
Three weeks ago, during the stimulus bill controversy, I queried House Judiciary aides if anyone was calling to protest the two federal hate crimes bills. No one was! Ten days ago, the news was better: four or five concerned people called every day. Last Friday, I called all 39 members to ask the same question. The results were even better!
Rep. Lamar Smith’s office said 25% of all callers were protesting the hate bills. Rep. Issa’s office said the hate bill issue replaced the stimulus bill in number of calls! Many Democrat offices also reported their phones ringing with this issue. Some had received no calls but others heard from as many as 10 or 15 people by early afternoon.
Six Judiciary offices said they are aware of NPN’s video How to Kill the Hate Bills. Before I could finish telling them about where the video was, the staff of Rep. Conyers, Wexler, Johnson, and Schiffs finished my sentence with “at truthtellers.org.” Two said they had watched the video.
One aide objected, “The Anti-Defamation League says the National Prayer Network is an extremist group!” I replied that ADL is the biggest name-caller on the planet. They call anyone who disagrees with them, or is critical of Israel, an “anti-Semite.”
Rep. Issa’s spokeswoman also knew of the video, as did the spokesman of Rep. Chaffetz. He said their office is very much against the hate bills and is delighted that even “five or six calls are coming in every day.” He told me that calls, not emails, are the most effective way to impact Congressional offices.
Although the number of calls is still low, I am very encouraged and I want to thank each of you who have already called. Just two days after my recent e-alert, “Let’s Flood Congress with Hate Law Video,” Judiciary offices are learning of our website and its grave warnings about the hate bills now moving through their committee. This video could spread like a benevolent virus through the halls of Congress! This is a strategy that must be pursued until no member of Congress is ignorant of the truth about hate laws! Hate crime laws can’t stand up to scrutiny. Under examination, the “statistics,” supposed need for these laws, and their freedom-destroying potential and record immediately invite ridicule and contempt. The last thing wanted by the Anti-Defamation League, architect of such laws, is accurate education about their hate bills to permeate Congress. If that happens now, these bills could possibly die in committee!
Right now, HR 262 is in Judiciary subcommittees and HR 256 has not yet been considered by the Subcommittee on Crime. But it could be approved in minutes by that committee’s dominant liberals. The same could be true in Judiciary. The best news we could have over the next few weeks is no news—that the hate bills are not moving out of the House Judiciary subcommittees.
If you haven’t yet called your members of Congress, plus the crucial 39 members of the House Judiciary, you must join us! You are the vital freedom-saving torch-bearer who can bring truth to the darkness that prevails in Congress.
Christian “Watchdogs” Don’t Bark Loudly
This responsibility is especially yours because most large Christian/conservative “watchdog” groups remain agonizingly unhurried to effectively warn against HR 256 and HR 262.
Focus on the Family has nothing current on its website, nor does Family Research Council on its homepage. (FRC did recently announce creation of fighthatecrimes.com, a site which encourages you to sign a petition to oppose all hate crimes bills. But the site doesn’t mention HR 256 or 262 nor does it encourage petitioners to call Congress!) Concerned Women for America has nothing on its website except older articles. Like a number of other watchdog groups, it erroneously urges protest of S1105, the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act which was defeated in the last Congress.
As detailed in my recent article “Christian Silence Before Hate Bill Threat,” these presumed guardians of freedom still don’t urgently warn that it’s now or never to save liberty. They don’t make vivid that our freedom—to evangelize, criticize government, speak for the unborn or against immigration, or do any other Christian political activism—is on the block beneath the guillotine of impending federal legislation.
What if your local PBS station said the least possible concerning its need for public financial support? What if they posted their financial requirements in the recesses of their website? PBS knows no funds will come without in-your-face pledge drives night after night to passionately emphasize their need. All Christian leadership organizations could easily do this now, dramatizing that freedom from hate laws is as crucial to the survival of their ministries as oxygen to an athlete. Incredibly, they don’t.
The relatively low numbers of calls to Congress prove how ineffective Christian/conservative groups remain. I phoned members of the House and Senate to see if Congress in general was receiving many calls. They weren’t. Congressional offices said they were receiving no calls, or at most one or two, against “anti-hate” legislation. This reveals that the new right’s modest invitations to action are having little effect. But 15 or more calls (including emails, which one office said exceeded calls) are coming daily to members of the House Judiciary—showing that the vast majority of protest is being generated by the National Prayer Network.
You Can do More!
Thank you, to every listener who has heard my urgent pleas and taken action. We carry the torch for every American who ever gave their life, liberty, or time to preserve our Republic. Please don’t stop fighting.
Call other members of the House and Senate (listed at truthtellers.org) and encourage them to vote against any hate crimes legislation. Especially encourage them to watch NPN’s video at www.truthtellers.org. Also, come to www.truthtellers.org for the list of the highly influential Congressional aides to all members of the House Judiciary Committee, both local and federal, and call them.
Veteran political strategist Jack Ellis asserts from long experience that calls to such aides, both local and in Washington, is the most effective way to impact members of Congress.
It is sobering to realize that hundreds of thousands read my e-alerts or hear me on the radio, yet only several hundred actually pick up their phone to call. That’s one tenth of one percent. Many of us are tirelessly fascinated by conspiracies and events marking national decline, but are victims of apathy and fatalism. Even when God and the people defeated six Orwellian bills in the last Congress, most can’t believe their efforts can help make it happen again.
The greatest problem facing America is anti-Christ Jewish supremacism. But our apathy is a close second. Pick up your phone now!
Call 1-877-851-6437 toll-free or 1-202-225-3121 toll.
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Watch the dynamic 10-minute educational video How to Kill the Hate Bills at www.truthtellers.org which explains how the two hate bills, HR256 and HR262, threaten freedom. Please tell the offices of members of Congress to watch it! Also at www.truthtellers.org, watch our gripping 82-minute documentary Hate Laws: Making Criminals of Christians.
Let the Anti-Defamation League teach you how they have saddled 45 states with hate laws capable of persecuting Christians, and spearhead attempts to pass the federal hate crimes bill: http://www.adl.org/99hatecrime/intro.asp.
TALK SHOW HOSTS: Interview Rev. Ted Pike on this subject. Call (503) 631-3808.
During the FIU New World Order Summit, a professor at the school named Dr. Mark B. Rosenberg raised the concern during a panel session about the possibility of a military coup taking place in the United States by the year 2012. This was not theorizing, he was simply citing a study that took place at the Army War College.
He explained that this rebellion would be a response to the military being overextended and being put to a use by the administration in a manner that is contrary to their official purpose. The invited speaker of the panel, Parag Khanna, treated the concern as if it was nonsense and dismissed it by asking the audience “Have any of you heard of this? No? Okay then.”
It is interesting to note that both Dr. Rosenberg and Parag Khanna are members of the Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank dedicated to the purpose of establishing a one world government. Could Dr. Rosenberg’s statement exposing the white paper on the coup plot have been an example of dissent within the ranks of the CFR?
The letter that follows takes us on a darkly imagined excursion into the future. A military coup has taken place in the United States–the year is 2012–and General Thomas E. T. Brutus, Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces of the United States, now occupies the White House as permanent Military Plenipotentiary. His position has been ratified by a national referendum, though scattered disorders still prevail and arrests for acts of sedition are underway. A senior retired officer of the Unified Armed Forces, known here simply as Prisoner 222305759, is one of those arrested, having been convicted by court-martial for opposing the coup. Prior to his execution, he is able to smuggle out of prison a letter to an old War College classmate discussing the “Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.” In it, he argues that the coup was the outgrowth of trends visible as far back as 1992. These trends were the massive diversion of military forces to civilian uses, the monolithic unification of the armed forces, and the insularity of the military community. His letter survives and is here presented verbatim.
It goes without saying (I hope) that the coup scenario above is purely a literary device intended to dramatize my concern over certain contemporary developments affecting the armed forces, and is emphatically not a prediction. — The Author
—-
Dear Old Friend,
It’s hard to believe that 20 years have passed since we graduated from the War College! Remember the great discussions, the trips, the parties, the people? Those were the days!!! I’m not having quite as much fun anymore. You’ve heard about the Sedition Trials? Yeah, I was one of those arrested–convicted of “disloyal statements,” and “using contemptuous language towards officials.” Disloyal? No. Contemptuous? You bet! With General Brutus in charge it’s not hard to be contemptuous.
I’ve got to hand it to Brutus, he’s ingenious. After the President died he somehow “persuaded” the Vice President not to take the oath of office. Did we then have a President or not? A real “Constitutional Conundrum” the papers called it.[1] Brutus created just enough ambiguity to convince everyone that as the senior military officer, he could–and should–declare himself Commander-in-Chief of the Unified Armed Forces. Remember what he said? “Had to fill the power vacuum.” And Brutus showed he really knew how to use power: he declared martial law, “postponed” the elections, got the Vice President to “retire,” and even moved into the White House! “More efficient to work from there,” he said. Remember that?
When Congress convened that last time and managed to pass the Referendum Act, I really got my hopes up. But when the Referendum approved Brutus’s takeover, I knew we were in serious trouble. I caused a ruckus, you know, trying to organize a protest. Then the Security Forces picked me up. My quickie “trial” was a joke. The sentence? Well, let’s just say you won’t have to save any beer for me at next year’s reunion. Since it doesn’t look like I’ll be seeing you again, I thought I’d write everything down and try to get it to you.
I am calling my paper the “Origins of the American Military Coup of 2012.” I think it’s important to get the truth recorded before they rewrite history. If we’re ever going to get our freedom back, we’ve got to understand how we got into this mess. People need to understand that the armed forces exist to support and defend government, not to be the government. Faced with intractable national problems on one hand, and an energetic and capable military on the other, it can be all too seductive to start viewing the military as a cost-effective solution. We made a terrible mistake when we allowed the armed forces to be diverted from their original purpose.
I found a box of my notes and clippings from our War College days–told my keepers I needed them to write the confession they want. It’s amazing; looking through these old papers makes me realize that even back in 1992 we should have seen this coming. The seeds of this outrage were all there; we just didn’t realize how they would grow. But isn’t that always the way with things like this? Somebody once said that “the true watersheds in human affairs are seldom spotted amid the tumult of headlines broadcast on the hour.”[2] And we had a lot of headlines back in the ’90s to distract us: The economy was in the dumps, crime was rising, schools were deteriorating, drug use was rampant, the environment was in trouble, and political scandals were occurring almost daily. Still, there was some good news: the end of the Cold War as well as America’s recent victory over Iraq.
All of this and more contributed to the situation in which we find ourselves today: a military that controls government and one that, ironically, can’t fight. It wasn’t any single cause that led us to this point. Instead, it was a combination of several different developments, the beginnings of which were evident in 1992. Here’s what I think happened:
Americans became exasperated with democracy. We were disillusioned with the apparent inability of elected government to solve the nation’s dilemmas. We were looking for someone or something that could produce workable answers. The one institution of government in which the people retained faith was the military. Buoyed by the military’s obvious competence in the First Gulf War, the public increasingly turned to it for solutions to the country’s problems. Americans called for an acceleration of trends begun in the 1980s: tasking the military with a variety of new, nontraditional missions, and vastly escalating its commitment to formerly ancillary duties.
Though not obvious at the time, the cumulative effect of these new responsibilities was to incorporate the military into the political process to an unprecedented degree. These additional assignments also had the perverse effect of diverting focus and resources from the military’s central mission of combat training and warfighting. Finally, organizational, political, and societal changes served to alter the American military’s culture. Today’s military is not the one we knew when we graduated from the War College.
Let me explain how I came to these conclusions. In 1992 not very many people would’ve thought a military coup d’etat could ever happen here. Sure, there were eccentric conspiracy theorists who saw the Pentagon’s hand in the assassination of President Kennedy,[3] President Nixon’s downfall,[4] and similar events. But even the most avid believers had to admit that no outright military takeover had ever occurred before now. Heeding Washington’s admonitions in his Farewell address about the dangers of overgrown military establishments,[5] Americans generally viewed their armed forces with a judicious mixture of respect and wariness.[6] For over two centuries that vigilance was rewarded, and most Americans came to consider the very notion of a military coup preposterous. Historian Andrew Janos captured the conventional view of the latter half of the 20th century in this clipping I saved:
A coup d’etat in the United States would be too fantastic to contemplate, not only because few would actually entertain the idea, but also because the bulk of the people are strongly attached to the prevailing political system and would rise in defense of a political leader even though they might not like him. The environment most hospitable to coups d’etat is one in which political apathy prevails as the dominant style.[7]
However, when Janos wrote that back in 1964, 61.9 percent of the electorate voted. Since then voter participation has steadily declined. By 1988 only 50.1 percent of the eligible voters cast a ballot.[8] Simple extrapolation of those numbers to last spring’s Referendum would have predicted almost exactly the turnout. It was precisely reversed from that of 1964: 61.9 percent of the electorate did not vote.
America’s societal malaise was readily apparent in 1992. Seventy-eight percent of Americans believed the country was on the “wrong track.” One researcher declared that social indicators were at their lowest level in 20 years and insisted “something [was] coming loose in the social infrastructure.” The nation was frustrated and angry about its problems.[9]
America wanted solutions and democratically elected government wasn’t providing them.[10] The country suffered from a “deep pessimism about politicians and government after years of broken promises.”[11] David Finkle observed in The Washington Post Magazine that for most Americans “the perception of government is that it has evolved from something that provides democracy’s framework into something that provides obstacles, from something to celebrate into something to ignore.” Likewise, politicians and their proposals seemed stale and repetitive. Millions of voters gave up hope of finding answers.[12] The “environment of apathy” Janos characterized as a precursor to a coup had arrived.
Unlike the rest of government the military enjoyed a remarkably steady climb in popularity throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.[13] And indeed it had earned the admiration of the public. Debilitated by the Vietnam War, the US military set about reinventing itself. As early as 1988 U.S. News & World Report heralded the result: “In contrast to the dispirited, drug-ravaged, do-your-own-thing armed services of the ’70s and early ’80s, the US military has been transformed into a fighting force of gung-ho attitude, spit-shined discipline, and ten-hut morale.”[14] After the US military dealt Iraq a crushing defeat in the First Gulf War, the ignominy of Vietnam evaporated.
When we graduated from the War College in 1992, the armed forces were the smartest, best educated, and best disciplined force in history.[15] While polls showed that the public invariably gave Congress low marks, a February 1991 survey disclosed that “public confidence in the military soar[ed] to 85 percent, far surpassing every other institution in our society.” The armed forces had become America’s most–and perhaps only–trusted arm of government.[16]
Assumptions about the role of the military in society also began to change. Twenty years before we graduated, the Supreme Court confidently declared in Laird v. Tatum that Americans had a “traditional and strong resistance to any military intrusion into civilian affairs.”[17] But Americans were now rethinking the desirability and necessity of that resistance. They compared the military’s principled competence with the chicanery and ineptitude of many elected officials, and found the latter wanting.[18]
Commentator James Fallows expressed the new thinking in an August 1991 article in Atlantic magazine. Musing on the contributions of the military to American society, Fallows wrote: “I am beginning to think that the only way the national government can do anything worthwhile is to invent a security threat and turn the job over to the military.” He elaborated on his reasoning:
According to our economic and political theories, most agencies of the government have no special standing to speak about the general national welfare. Each represents a certain constituency; the interest groups fight it out. The military, strangely, is the one government institution that has been assigned legitimacy to act on its notion of the collective good. “National defense” can make us do things–train engineers, build highways–that long-term good of the nation or common sense cannot.[19]
About a decade before Fallows’ article appeared, Congress initiated the use of “national defense” as a rationale to boost military participation in an activity historically the exclusive domain of civilian government: law enforcement. Congress concluded that the “rising tide of drugs being smuggled into the United States . . . present[ed] a grave threat to all Americans.” Finding the performance of civilian law enforcement agencies in counteracting that threat unsatisfactory, Congress passed the Military Cooperation with Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies Act of 1981.[20] In doing so Congress specifically intended to force reluctant military commanders to actively collaborate in police work.[21]
This was a historic change of policy. Since the passage of the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878, the military had distanced itself from law enforcement activities.[22] While the 1981 law did retain certain limits on the legal authority of military personnel, its net effect was to dramatically expand military participation in anti-drug efforts.[23] By 1991 the Department of Defense was spending $1.2 billion on counternarcotics crusades. Air Force surveillance aircraft were sent to track airborne smugglers; Navy ships patrolled the Caribbean looking for drug-laden vessels; and National Guardsmen were searching for marijuana caches near the borders.[24] By 1992 “combatting” drug trafficking was formally declared a “high national security mission.”[25]
It wasn’t too long before 21st-century legislators were calling for more military involvement in police work.[26] Crime seemed out of control. Most disturbing, the incidence of violent crime continued to climb.[27] Americans were horrified and desperate: a third even believed vigilantism could be justified.[28] Rising lawlessness was seen as but another example of the civilian political leadership’s inability to fulfill government’s most basic duty to ensure public safety.[29] People once again wanted the military to help.
Hints of an expanded police function were starting to surface while we were still at the War College. For example, District of Columbia National Guardsmen established a regular military presence in high-crime areas.[30] Eventually, people became acclimated to seeing uniformed military personnel patrolling their neighborhood.[31] Now troops are an adjunct to almost all police forces in the country. In many of the areas where much of our burgeoning population of elderly Americans live–Brutus calls them “National Security Zones”–the military is often the only law enforcement agency. Consequently, the military was ideally positioned in thousands of communities to support the coup.
Concern about crime was a major reason why General Brutus’s actions were approved in the Referendum. Although voter participation by the general public was low, older Americans voted at a much higher rate.[32] Furthermore, with the aging of the baby boom generation, the block of American voters over 45 grew to almost 53 percent of the voters by 2010.[33] This wealthy,[34] older electorate welcomed an organization which could ensure their physical security.[35] When it counted, they backed Brutus in the Referendum–probably the last votes they’ll ever cast.
The military’s constituency was larger than just the aged. Poor Americans of all ages became dependent upon the military not only for protection against crime, but also for medical care. Again we saw the roots of this back in 1992. First it was the barely defeated proposal to use veterans’ hospitals to provide care for the non-veteran poor.[36] Next were calls to deploy military medical assets to relieve hard-pressed urban hospitals.[37] As the number of uninsured and underinsured grew, the pressure to provide care became inexorable. Now military hospitals serve millions of new, non-military patients. Similarly, a proposal to use so-called “underutilized” military bases as drug rehabilitation centers was implemented on a massive scale.[38]
Even the youngest citizens were co-opted. During the 1990s the public became aware that military officers had the math and science backgrounds desperately needed to revitalize US education.[39] In fact, programs involving military personnel were already underway while we were at the War College.[40] We now have an entire generation of young people who have grown up comfortable with the sight of military personnel patrolling their streets and teaching in their classrooms.
As you know, it wasn’t just crises in public safety, medical care, and education that the military was tasked to mend. The military was also called upon to manage the cleanup of the nation’s environmental hazards. By 1992 the armed services were deeply involved in this arena, and that involvement mushroomed. Once the military demonstrated its expertise, it wasn’t long before environmental problems were declared “national security threats” and full responsibility devolved to the armed forces.[41]
Other problems were transformed into “national security” issues. As more commercial airlines went bankrupt and unprofitable air routes dropped, the military was called upon to provide “essential” air transport to the affected regions. In the name of national defense, the military next found itself in the sealift business. Ships purchased by the military for contingencies were leased, complete with military crews, at low rates to US exporters to help solve the trade deficit.[42] The nation’s crumbling infrastructure was also declared a “national security threat.” As was proposed back in 1991, troops rehabilitated public housing, rebuilt bridges and roads, and constructed new government buildings. By late 1992, voices in both Congress and the military had reached a crescendo calling for military involvement across a broad spectrum of heretofore purely civilian activities.[43] Soon, it became common in practically every community to see crews of soldiers working on local projects.[44] Military attire drew no stares.
The revised charter for the armed forces was not confined to domestic enterprises. Overseas humanitarian and nation-building assignments proliferated.[45] Though these projects have always been performed by the military on an ad hoc basis, in 1986 Congress formalized that process. It declared overseas humanitarian and civic assistance activities to be “valid military missions” and specifically authorized them by law.[46] Fueled by favorable press for operations in Iraq, Bangladesh, and the Philippines during the early 1990s, humanitarian missions were touted as the military’s “model for the future.”[47] That prediction came true. When several African governments collapsed under AIDS epidemics and famines around the turn of the century, US troops–first introduced to the continent in the 1990s–were called upon to restore basic services. They never left.[48] Now the US military constitutes the de facto government in many of those areas. Once again, the first whisperings of such duties could be heard in 1992.[49]
By the year 2000 the armed forces had penetrated many vital aspects of American society. More and more military officers sought the kind of autonomy in these civilian affairs that they would expect from their military superiors in the execution of traditional combat operations. Thus began the inevitable politicization of the military. With so much responsibility for virtually everything government was expected to do, the military increasingly demanded a larger role in policymaking. But in a democracy policymaking is a task best left to those accountable to the electorate. Nonetheless, well- intentioned military officers, accustomed to the ordered, hierarchical structure of military society, became impatient with the delays and inefficiencies inherent in the democratic process. Consequently, they increasingly sought to avoid it. They convinced themselves that they could more productively serve the nation in carrying out their new assignments if they accrued to themselves unfettered power to implement their programs. They forgot Lord Acton’s warning that “all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”[50]
Congress became their unwitting ally. Because of the popularity of the new military programs–and the growing dependence upon them–Congress passed the Military Plenipotentiary Act of 2005. This legislation was the legacy of the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986. Among many revisions, Goldwater-Nichols strengthened the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and mandated numerous changes intended to increase “jointness” in the armed services.[51] Supporters of the Military Plenipotentiary Act argued that unity of command was critical to the successful management of the numerous activities now considered “military” operations. Moreover, many Congressmen mistakenly believed that Goldwater-Nichols was one of the main reasons for the military’s success in the First Gulf War.[52] They viewed the Military Plenipotentiary Act as an enhancement of the strengths of Goldwater-Nichols.
In passing this legislation Congress added greater authority to the military’s top leadership position. Lulled by favorable experiences with Chairmen like General Colin Powell,[53] Congress saw little danger in converting the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff into the even more powerful Military Plenipotentiary. No longer merely an advisor, the Military Plenipotentiary became a true commander of all US services, purportedly because that status could better ameliorate the effects of perceived interservice squabbling. Despite warnings found in the legislative history of Goldwater-Nichols and elsewhere, enormous power was concentrated in the hands of a single, unelected official.[54] Unfortunately, Congress presumed that principled people would always occupy the office.[55] No one expected a General Brutus would arise.
The Military Plenipotentiary was not Congress’s only structural change in military governance. By 2007 the services were combined to form the Unified Armed Forces. Recall that when we graduated from the War College greater unification was being seriously suggested as an economy measure.[56] Eventually that consideration, and the conviction that “jointness” was an unqualified military virtue,[57] led to unification. But unification ended the creative tension between the services.[58] Besides rejecting the operational logic of separate services,[59] no one seemed to recognize the checks-and-balances function that service separatism provided a democracy obliged to maintain a large, professional military establishment. The Founding Fathers knew the importance of checks and balances in controlling the agencies of government: “Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. . . . Experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary controls . . . [including] supplying opposite and rival interests.”[60]
Ambition is a natural trait of military organizations and their leaders.[61] Whatever might have been the inefficiencies of separate military services, their very existence served to counteract the untoward desires of any single service. The roles and missions debates and other arguments, once seen as petty military infighting, also provided an invaluable forum for competitive analysis of military doctrine. Additionally, they served to ensure that unscrupulous designs by a segment of the military establishment were ruthlessly exposed. Once the services were unified, the impetus to do so vanished, and the authority of the military in relation to the other institutions of government rose.[62] Distended by its pervasive new duties, monolithic militarism came to dominate the Darwinian political environment of 21st-century America.
Why did the uniformed leadership of our day acquiesce to this transformation of the military? Much of the answer can be traced to the budget showdowns of the early 1990s. The collapse of the Soviet Union left the US military without an easily articulated rationale for large defense budgets. Billions in cuts were sought. Journalist Bruce Auster put it bluntly: “Winning a share of the budget wars . . . require[s] that the military find new missions for a post-Cold War world that is devoid of clear military threats.”[63] Capitulating, military leaders embraced formerly disdained assignments. As one commentator cynically observed, “the services are eager to talk up nontraditional, budget-justifying roles.”[64] The Vietnam-era aphorism, “It’s a lousy war, but it’s the only one we’ve got,” was resuscitated.
Still, that doesn’t completely explain why in 2012 the military leadership would succumb to a coup. To answer that question fully requires examination of what was happening to the officer corps as the military drew down in the 1980s and 1990s. Ever since large peacetime military establishments became permanent features after World War II, the great leveler of the officer corps was the constant influx of officers from the Reserve Officers Training Corps program. The product of diverse colleges and universities throughout the United States, these officers were a vital source of liberalism in the military services.[65]
By the late 1980s and early 1990s, however, that was changing. Force reductions decreased the number of ROTC graduates the services accepted.[66] Although General Powell called ROTC “vital to democracy,” 62 ROTC programs were closed in 1991 and another 350 were considered for closure.[67] The numbers of officers produced by the service academies also fell, but at a significantly slower pace. Consequently, the proportion of academy graduates in the officer corps climbed.[68] Academy graduates, along with graduates of such military schools as the Citadel, Virginia Military Institute, and Norwich University, tended to feel a greater homogeneity of outlook than, say, the pool of ROTC graduates at large, with the result that as the proportion of such graduates grew, diversity of outlook overall diminished to some degree.
Moreover, the ROTC officers that did remain increasingly came from a narrower range of schools. Focusing on the military’s policy to exclude homosexuals from service, advocates of “political correctness” succeeded in driving ROTC from the campuses of some of our best universities.[69] In many instances they also prevailed in barring military recruiters from campus.[70] Little thought was given the long-term consequences of limiting the pool from which our military leadership was drawn. The result was a much more uniformly oriented military elite whose outlook was progressively conservative.
Furthermore, well-meaning attempts at improving service life led to the unintended insularity of military society, representing a return to the cloistered life of the pre-World War II armed forces. Military bases, complete with schools, churches, stores, child care centers, and recreational areas, became never-to-be-left islands of tranquillity removed from the chaotic, crime-ridden environment outside the gates.[71] As one reporter put it in 1991: “Increasingly isolated from mainstream America, today’s troops tend to view the civilian world with suspicion and sometimes hostility.”[72] Thus, a physically isolated and intellectually alienated officer corps was paired with an enlisted force likewise distanced from the society it was supposed to serve. In short, the military evolved into a force susceptible to manipulation by an authoritarian leader from its own select ranks.
What made this all the more disheartening was the wretched performance of our forces in the Second Gulf War.[73] Consumed with ancillary and nontraditional missions, the military neglected its fundamental raison d’etre. As the Supreme Court succinctly put it more than a half century ago, the “primary business of armies and navies [is] to fight or be ready to fight wars should the occasion arise.”[74] When Iranian armies started pouring into the lower Gulf states in 2010, the US armed forces were ready to do anything but fight.
Preoccupation with humanitarian duties, narcotics interdiction, and all the rest of the peripheral missions left the military unfit to engage an authentic military opponent. Performing the new missions sapped resources from what most experts agree was one of the vital ingredients to victory in the First Gulf War: training. Training is, quite literally, a zero-sum game. Each moment spent performing a nontraditional mission is one unavailable for orthodox military exercises. We should have recognized the grave risk. In 1991 The Washington Post reported that in “interview after interview across the services, senior leaders and noncommissioned officers stressed that they cannot be ready to fight without frequent rehearsals of perishable skills.”[75]
The military’s anti-drug activities were a big part of the problem. Oh sure, I remember the facile claims of exponents of the military’s counternarcotics involvement as to what “valuable” training it provided.[76] Did anyone really think that crew members of an AWACS–an aircraft designed to track high-performance military aircraft in combat–significantly improved their skills by hours of tracking slow-moving light planes? Did they seriously imagine that troops enhanced combat skills by looking for marijuana under car seats? Did they truly believe that crews of the Navy’s sophisticated antiair and anti-submarine ships received meaningful training by following lumbering trawlers around the Caribbean?[77] Tragically, they did.
The problem was exacerbated when political pressures exempted the Guard and the Reserves from the harshest effects of the budgetary cutbacks of the early 1990s.[78] The First Gulf War demonstrated that modern weapons and tactics were simply too complex for part-time soldiers to master during their allotted drill periods, however well motivated.[79] Still, creative Guard and Reserve defenders contrived numerous civic-action and humanitarian assignments and sold them as “training.” Left unexplained was how such training was supposed to fit with military strategies that contemplated short, violent, come-as-you-are expeditionary wars.[80] Nice-to-have Guard and Reserve support-oriented programs prevailed at the expense of critical active-duty combat capabilities.[81]
Perhaps even more damaging than the diversion of resources was the assault on the very ethos of military service. Rather than bearing in mind the Supreme Court’s admonition to focus on warfighting, the military was told to alter its purpose. Former Secretary of State James Baker typified the trendy new tone in remarks about the military’s airlift of food and medicine to the former Soviet republics in early 1992. He said the airlift would “vividly show the peoples of the former Soviet Union that those that once prepared for war with them now have the courage and the conviction to use their militaries to say, `We will wage a new peace.’”[82]
In truth militaries ought to “prepare for war” and leave the “peace waging” to those agencies of government whose mission is just that. Nevertheless, such pronouncements–seconded by military leaders[83]–became the fashionable philosophy. The result? People in the military no longer considered themselves warriors. Instead, they perceived themselves as policemen, relief workers, educators, builders, health care providers, politicians–everything but warfighters. When these philanthropists met the Iranian 10th Armored Corps near Daharan during the Second Gulf War, they were brutally slaughtered by a military which had not forgotten what militaries were supposed to do or what war is really all about.
The devastation of the military’s martial spirit was exemplified by its involvement in police activities. Inexplicably, we ignored the deleterious effect on combat motivation suffered by the Israeli Defense Forces as a result of their efforts to police the West Bank and Gaza.[84] Few seemed to appreciate the fundamental difference between the police profession and the profession of arms. As Richard J. Barnet observed in The New Yorker, “The line between police action and a military operation is real. Police derive their power from their acceptance as `officers of the law’; legitimate authority, not firepower, is the essential element.”[85]
Police organizations are understandably oriented toward the studied restraint necessary for the end sought: a judicial conviction. As one Drug Enforcement Administration agent noted: “The military can kill people better than we can [but] when we go to a jungle lab, we’re not there to move onto the target by fire and maneuver to destroy the enemy. We’re there to arrest suspects and seize evidence.”[86] If military forces are inculcated with the same spirit of restraint, combat performance is threatened.[87] Moreover, law enforcement is also not just a form of low-intensity conflict. In low-intensity conflict, the military aim is to win the will of the people, a virtually impossible task with criminals “motivated by money, not ideology.”[88]
Humanitarian missions likewise undermined the military’s sense of itself. As one Navy officer gushed during the 1991 Bangladesh relief operation, “It’s great to be here doing the opposite of a soldier.”[89] While no true soldier relishes war, the fact remains that the essence of the military is warfighting and preparation for the same. What journalist Barton Gellman has said of the Army can be extrapolated to the military as a whole: it is an “organization whose fighting spirit depends . . . heavily on tradition.”[90] If that tradition becomes imbued with a preference for “doing the opposite of a soldier,” fighting spirit is bound to suffer. When we first heard editorial calls to “pacify the military” by involving it in civic projects,[91] we should have given them the forceful rebuke they deserved.
Military analyst Harry Summers warned back in ‘91 that when militaries lose sight of their purpose, catastrophe results. Citing a study of pre-World War II Canadian military policy as it related to the subsequent battlefield disasters, he observed that
instead of using the peacetime interregnum to hone their military skills, senior Canadian military officers sought out civilian missions to justify their existence. When war came they were woefully unprepared. Instead of protecting their soldiers’ lives they led them to their deaths. In today’s post-Cold War peacetime environment, this trap again looms large. . . . Some today within the US military are also searching for relevance, with draft doctrinal manuals giving touchy-feely prewar and postwar civil operations equal weight with warfighting. This is an insidious mistake.[92]
We must remember that America’s position at the end of the Cold War had no historical precedent. For the first time the nation–in peacetime–found itself with a still-sizable, professional military establishment that was not preoccupied with an overarching external threat.[93] Yet the uncertainties in the aftermath of the Cold War limited the extent to which those forces could be safely downsized. When the military was then obliged to engage in a bewildering array of nontraditional duties to further justify its existence, it is little wonder that its traditional apolitical professionalism eventually eroded.
Clearly, the curious tapestry of military authoritarianism and combat ineffectiveness that we see today was not yet woven in 1992. But the threads were there. Knowing what I know now, here’s the advice I would have given the War College Class of 1992 had I been their graduation speaker:
• Demand that the armed forces focus exclusively on indisputably military duties. We must not diffuse our energies away from our fundamental responsibility for warfighting. To send ill-trained troops into combat makes us accomplices to murder.
• Acknowledge that national security does have economic, social, educational, and environmental dimensions, but insist that this doesn’t necessarily mean the problems in those areas are the responsibility of the military to correct. Stylishly designating efforts to solve national ills as “wars” doesn’t convert them into something appropriate for the employment of military forces.
• Readily cede budgetary resources to those agencies whose business it is to address the non-military issues the armed forces are presently asked to fix. We are not the DEA, EPA, Peace Corps, Department of Education, or Red Cross–nor should we be. It has never been easy to give up resources, but in the long term we–and the nation–will be better served by a smaller but appropriately focused military.
• Divest the defense budget of perception-skewing expenses. Narcotics interdiction, environmental cleanup, humanitarian relief, and other costs tangential to actual combat capability should be assigned to the budgets of DEA, EPA, State, and so forth. As long as these expensive programs are hidden in the defense budget, the taxpayer understandably–but mistakenly–will continue to believe he’s buying military readiness.
• Continue to press for the elimination of superfluous, resource-draining Guard and Reserve units. Increase the training tempo, responsibilities, and compensation of those that remain.
• Educate the public to the sophisticated training requirements occasioned by the complexities of modern warfare. It’s imperative we rid the public of the misperception that soldiers in peacetime are essentially unemployed and therefore free to assume new missions.[94]
•Resist unification of the services not only on operational grounds, but also because unification would be inimical to the checks and balances that underpin democratic government. Slow the pace of fiscally driven consolidation so that the impact on less quantifiable aspects of military effectiveness can be scrutinized.
• Assure that officer accessions from the service academies correspond with overall force reductions (but maintain separate service academies) and keep ROTC on a wide diversity of campuses. If necessary, resort to litigation to maintain ROTC campus diversity.
• Orient recruiting resources and campaigns toward ensuring that all echelons of society are represented in the military, without compromising standards.[95] Accept that this kind of recruiting may increase costs. It’s worth it.
• Work to moderate the base-as-an-island syndrome by providing improved incentives for military members and families to assimilate into civilian communities. Within the information programs for our force of all-volunteer professionals (increasingly US-based), strengthen the emphasis upon such themes as the inviolability of the Constitution, ascendancy of our civilian leadership over the military, and citizens’ responsibilities.
Finally, I would tell our classmates that democracy is a fragile institution that must be continuously nurtured and scrupulously protected. I would also tell them that they must speak out when they see the institution threatened; indeed, it is their duty to do so. Richard Gabriel aptly observed in his book To Serve with Honor that
when one discusses dissent, loyalty, and the limits of military obligations, the central problem is that the military represents a threat to civil order not because it will usurp authority, but because it does not speak out on critical policy decisions. The soldier fails to live up to his oath to serve the country if he does not speak out when he sees his civilian or military superiors executing policies he feels to be wrong.[96]
Gabriel was wrong when he dismissed the military’s potential to threaten civil order, but he was right when he described our responsibilities. The catastrophe that occurred on our watch took place because we failed to speak out against policies we knew were wrong. It’s too late for me to do any more. But it’s not for you.
Best regards,
Prisoner 222305759
—-
NOTES
1. The Twenty-fifth Amendment to the Constitution provides that in the case of “death . . . the Vice President shall become the President.” But Section 1 of Article II requires the taking of the oath before “enter[ing] the Execution of his Office.”
2. Daniel J. Boorstin, “History’s Hidden Turning Points,” U.S. News & World Report, 22 April 1991, p. 52.
3. Oliver Stone’s movie, JFK, is one example. See Joel Achenbach, “JFK Conspiracy: Myth vs. Facts,” The Washington Post, 28 February 1992, p. C5.
4. See Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin, Silent Coup (New York: St. Martin’s, 1991).
5. George Washington in his “Farewell Address” dated 19 September 1796 counseled: “Overgrown military establishments . . . under any form of government are inauspicious to liberty and . . . are to be regarded as particularly hostile to republican liberty.” As quoted in The Annals of America (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1976), p. 609.
6. Author Geoffrey Perret expressed the traditional view as follows: “The antimilitaristic side of the American character is forever on guard. Americans are so suspicious of military ambition that even when the armed forces win wars they are criticized as robustly as if they had lost them.” A Country Made By War (New York: Vintage, 1989), p. 560.
7. Andrew C. Janos, “The Seizure of Power: A Study of Force and Popular Consent,” Research Monograph No. 16, Center for International Studies, Princeton University, 1964, p. 39.
8. Mark S. Hoffman, ed., The World Almanac & Book of Facts 1991 (New York: Pharo Books, 1990), p. 426; Royce Crocker, Voter Registration and Turnout 1948-1988, Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service Report No. 89-179 (Washington: LOC, 1989), p. 11.
9. E. J. Dionne, Jr., “Altered States: The Union & the Campaign,” The Washington Post, 26 January 1992, p. C1. Fordham University researcher Marc Miringoff reports that the Index of Social Indicators fell to its lowest point in 20 years. He describes the Index, which is an amalgamation of social and economic data from government sources, as “sort of a Dow Jones of the national soul.” See Paul Taylor, “`Dow Jones of the National Soul’ Sours,” The Washington Post, 16 January 1992, p. A25. The nation’s frustration was the cause, according to columnist George F. Will, of a rising level of collective “national stress.” George F. Will, “Stressed Out in America,” The Washington Post, 16 January 1992, p. A27. See also Charles Krauthammer, “America’s Case of the Sulks,” The Washington Post, 19 January 1992, p. C7.
10. A 1989 Harris poll revealed that 53% of Americans believed that Congress was not effectively fulfilling its responsibilities. See Robert R. Ivany, “Soldiers and Legislators: Common Mission,” Parameters, 21 (Spring 1991), 47.
11. Mortimer B. Zuckerman, “Behind Our Loss of Faith,” U.S. News & World Report, 16 March 1992, p. 76. Many believed that democracy’s promise didn’t include them. Ninety-one percent of Americans reported that the “group with too little influence in government is people like themselves.” See “Harper’s Index,” Harper’s Magazine, January 1991, p. 17.
12. David Finkle, “The Greatest Democracy on Earth,” The Washington Post Magazine, 16 February 1992, p. 16. Forty-three percent of those who failed to vote didn’t see any important differences between the two major parties. See “Harper’s Index,” Harper’s Magazine, March 1992, p. 13. One in eight Americans was so pessimistic as to conclude that the country’s domestic problems were “beyond solving.” “Harper’s Index,” Harper’s Magazine, October 1991, p. 15.
13. A ten-year rise in public confidence was reported by Tom Morganthau, et al., in “The Military’s New Image,” Newsweek, 11 March 1991, p. 50.
14. Michael Satchell, et al., “The Military’s New Stars,” U.S. News & World Report, 18 April 1988, p. 33.
15. A survey of 163 new Army brigadier generals revealed that their IQ was in the 92nd percentile of the population. See Bruce W. Nelan, “Revolution in Defense,” Time, 18 March 1991, p. 25. In many instances the curricula vitae of military personnel was more impressive than that of their civilian counterparts. For example, over 88% of brigadier generals had an advanced degree compared with 19% of top civilian business leaders. See David Gergen, “America’s New Heroes,” U.S. News & World Report, 11 February 1991, p. 76. Similarly, 97% of enlisted personnel were high school graduates, the highest percentage ever. See Grant Willis, “DoD: Recruits in ‘91 Best Educated, Most Qualified,” Air Force Times, 27 January 1992, p. 14. The services “had become practically a drug-free workplace.” See David Gergen, “Bringing Home the Storm,” The Washington Post, 28 April 1991, p. C2. Military sociologist Charles Moskos explained that the reason for the great decline in disciplinary problems is “simply better recruits.” Peter Slavin, “Telling It Like It Is,” Air Force Times, 14 March 1988, p. 60.
16. Ivany, 47; David Gergen, “America’s New Heroes,” p. 76; Grant Willis, “A New Generation of Warriors,” Navy Times, 16 March 1991, p. 12.
17. 408 U.S. 1, 17 (1972).
18. At least one observer sensed the peril which arises when power and respect converge in the military: “Our warriors are kinder and gentler, and have not shown the slightest inclination to lust for political power. But that potential always lurks where power and respect converge, and the degree of military influence in society is something to watch carefully in the years ahead.” Martin Anderson, “The Benefits of the Warrior Class,” The Baltimore Sun, 14 April 1991, p. 3F.
19. James Fallows, “Military Efficiency,” Atlantic, August 1991, p. 18.
20. Civilian law enforcement agencies were intercepting only 15% of the drugs entering the country. See U.S. Code Congressional & Administrative News (St. Paul: West, 1981), p. 1785; Public Law 97-86 (1981) codified in 10 U.S.C. 371 et seq.
21. Newsweek reports: “The Pentagon resisted the [counternarcotics] mission for decades, saying that the military should fight threats to national security, and the police should fight crime.” Charles Lane, “The Newest War,” Newsweek, 6 January 1992, p. 18. See also U.S. Code Congressional & Administrative News (St. Paul: West, 1981), p. 1785.
22. The original purpose of the Posse Comitatus Act (10 U.S.C. 1385) was to restrain Federal troops who had become deeply involved in law enforcement in the post-Civil War South–even in areas where civil government had been reestablished. See U.S. v. Hartley, 486 F.Supp. 1348, 1356 fn. 11 (M.D.Fla. 1980). The statute imposes criminal penalties for the improper uses of the military in domestic law enforcement matters. See U.S. Code Congressional & Administrative News (St. Paul: West, 1981), p. 1786.
23. Additional amendments were added in 1988. See Public Law 100-456 (1988).
24. Although anti-drug spending will decrease in FY 93, the rate of decline is slower than that of the DOD budget as a whole. William Matthews, “Counternarcotics Request Increased,” Air Force Times, 24 February 1992, p. 2. See also Lane, “Newest War,” p. 18.
25. “Combatting Drugs,” National Military Strategy of the United States (Washington: GPO, 1992), p. 15.
26. Some were suggesting the need for greater military authority in 1992. See Dale E. Brown, “Drugs on the Border: The Role of the Military,” Parameters, 21 (Winter 1991-92), 58-59.
27. The rise in the rate of violent crime continued a trend begun in the 1980s when such offenses soared by 23%. See John W. Wright, ed., “Crime and Punishment,” The Universal Almanac 1992 (Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1991), p. 255.
28. “Harper’s Index,” Harper’s Magazine, July 1991, p. 15.
29. George Will observed that “urban governments are failing to perform their primary function of protecting people from violence on streets and even in homes and schools.” George F. Will, “Stressed Out in America,” p. A27.
30. Using Guardsmen in a law enforcement capacity during riots and other emergencies was not unusual, but a regular presence in a civilian community in that role was unusual in those days. Guard members usually performed law enforcement activities in their status as state employees. This is distinct from their federalized status when they are incorporated into the US military. See U.S. Code Congressional & Administrative News (St. Paul: West, 1988), p. 2583; and K. R. Clark, “Spotlighting the Drug Zone,” Pentagram, 30 January 1992, pp. 20-21.
31. Indeed, one of the specific purposes of the DC program was to “work with police to increase the uniformed presence in the neighborhood at night to cut down on illegal activity.” See Clark p. 21.
32. For example, persons over the age of 65 vote at a rate 50% higher than that of the 18-34 age group. See George F. Will, “Stressed Out in America,” p. A27.
33. The number of baby boomers in the population is expected to peak in 2020. See Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies, “Trends Shaping the World,” The Futurist, September-October 1991, p. 12. Persons over 65 were estimated to constitute 18% of the electorate by 2010. This group, together with the boomers over 45 years, would constitute 53% of the electorate by 2010. These percentages were computed from statistics found in the Universal Almanac 1992, “The U.S. Population by Age,” John W. Wright, ed. (Kansas City: Andrews and McMeel, 1991), p. 207.
34. Deidre Fanning, “Waiting for the Wealth,” Worth, February/March 1992, pp. 87, 89.
35. A 1990 poll of Americans aged 50 years and older showed that nearly 23% believed that use of the military was the best way to combat the growing problems of drug abuse and crime. See Mark S. Hoffman, ed., The World Almanac & Book of Facts 1991 (New York: Pharo Books, 1990), p. 33.
36. “Plan to Open Veterans Hospitals to Poor is Dropped,” The New York Times, 23 February 1992, p. 17.
37. Scott Shuger, “Pacify the Military,” The New York Times, 14 March 1992, p. 25.
38. Andy Tobias, “Let’s Get Moving!” Time, 3 February 1992, p. 41.
39. U.S. News & World Report noted that “a third of the officers leaving the Army are qualified to teach high school math, and 10 to 20 percent can teach physics.” David Gergen, “Heroes For Hire,” U.S. News & World Report, 27 January 1992, p. 71.
40. For example, a District of Columbia National Guard unit entered into a “Partnership in Education” agreement with a local school district. Under the memorandum the Guard agreed to “institute a cooperative learning center providing tutoring in science, English, mathematics, and other basic subjects.” See “Guard Enters Partnership with School,” Pentagram, 13 February 1992, p. 3. For another example, see “Arlington Schools Join Forces with Defense Department Agency,” The Washington Post, 12 December 1991, p. Va. 1.
41. The DOD budget for environmental cleanup for FY 93 was $3.7 billion. Anne Garfinkle, “Going Home is Hard to Do,” The Wall Street Journal, 27 January 1992, p. 12. See also Peter Grier, “US Defense Department Declares War on Colossal Pollution Problem,” The Christian Science Monitor, 2 March 1992, p. 9. The Army, at least, saw this activity as a “vital mission” as early as 1991. The National Journal reported: “Outside the Storm, a pamphlet heralding the Army’s post-Persian Gulf war `vital missions and important work’ touches on the war on drugs and `protecting the planet Earth’ (even reprinting a syrupy ode to environmentalism from the 1989 Sierra Club Wilderness Calendar).” David C. Morrison, “Operation Kinder and Gentler,” National Journal, 25 May 1991, p. 1260.
42. In February 1992 Trans World Airlines became the eighth major airline to go bankrupt since 1989. Martha M. Hamilton, “Trans World Airlines Files for Bankruptcy,” The Washington Post, 1 February 1992, p. C2. By 1992 US-flagged commercial shipping had virtually disappeared. See James Bovard, “The Antiquated 1920 Jones Act Slowly Sinks U.S. Shipping,” Insight, 6 January 1992, p. 21. In the wake of Desert Storm, $3.1 billion was spent to build and convert ships for the military’s cargo fleet. Michael Blood, “An Idea to Use Shipyard as a U.S. Sealift Base,” Philadelphia Inquirer, 16 February 1992, p. B-1. The precedent for “leasing” military resources can be traced to 1992. Just such an arrangement occurred in Germany following reunification: “A shortage of German [air] controllers and their unfamiliarity with newly reunified Berlin’s busy skies prompted Germany to hire a squadron from the US Air Force at a cost of $35 million for four years. . . . It is the only US military unit that guides civilian air traffic on foreign soil.” Soraya S. Nelson, “AF Controllers in Berlin Keep Eye on Civilian Sky,” Air Force Times, 10 February 1992, p. 22.
43. See, e.g., Helen Dewar, “Nunn Urges Military Shift: Forces Would Aid Domestic Programs,” The Washington Post, 24 June 1992, p. A17; Rick Maze, “Nunn Urges Military to Take Domestic Missions, Army Times, 21 September 1992, p. 16; Mary Jordan, “Bush Orders U.S. Military to Aid Florida,” The Washington Post, 28 August 1992, p. A1; George C. Wilson, “Disaster Plan: Give Military the Relief Role,” Army Times, 21 September 1992, p. 33; and Rick Maze, “Pentagon May Get Disaster-relief Role Back,” Army Times, 21 September 1992, p. 26. See also note 64.
44. See Shuger, p. 25. Similarly, noting the growing obsolescence of the Guard’s combat role, a National Guard officer proposed an alternative: “The National Guard can provide a much greater service to the nation by seeking more combat support and combat service support missions and the structure to support them. Such units can participate in nation building or assistance missions throughout the world, to include the United States. . . . Much of our national infrastructure, streets, bridges, health care, water and sewer lines, to name just a few, particularly in the inner cities of the United States, are in disrepair. Many of the necessary repairs could be accomplished by National guard units on a year-round training basis.” Colonel Philip Drew, “Taking the National Guard Out of Combat,” National Guard, April 1991, p. 38. Also jumping on the bandwagon are National Guard officers Colonel Philip A. Brehm and Major Wilbur E. Gray in “Alternative Missions for the Army,” SSI Study, Strategic Studies Institute, USAWC, 17 July 1992.
45. Eric Schmitt, “U.S. Forces Find Work As Angels Of Mercy,” The New York Times, 12 January 1992, p. E3.
46. See the legislative history of Public Law 99-661, U.S. Code Congressional & Administrative News (St. Paul: West, 1986) p. 6482. Public Law 99-661 codified in 10 U.S.C. 401 et seq.
47. Ken Adelman, “Military Helping Hands,” Washington Times, 8 July 1991, p. D3; Bruce B. Auster with Robin Knight, “The Pentagon Scramble to Stay Relevant,” U.S. News & World Report, 30 December 1991/6 January 1992, p. 52.
48. It was predicted that the AIDS epidemic would hit Africa especially hard with infection rates in some cities as high as 40% by the year 2000. See Marvin J. Cetron and Owen Davies, “Trends Shaping the World,” The Futurist, September-October 1991, p. 12. Some experts have predicted that African famine might present a requirement for a military humanitarian mission (Weiss and Campbell, pp. 451-52). See also Richard H. P. Sia, “U.S. Increasing Its Special Forces Activity in Africa,” The Baltimore Sun, 15 March 1992, p. 1. Long-term military commitments to humanitarian operations have been recommended by some experts (Weiss and Campbell, p. 457).
49. US troops assigned to African countries in the early 1990s were tasked to “help improve local health-care and economic conditions.” See Sia, p. 1. Similarly, the notion of using the expertise of US military personnel to perform governmental functions in foreign countries was also suggested in the 1990s. For example, when the food distribution system in the former Soviet Union broke down during the winter of 1991-92, there were calls for Lieutenant General Gus Pagonis, the logistical wizard of the First Gulf War, to be dispatched to take charge of the system. See “A Man Who Knows How,” editorial, The Los Angeles Times, 5 February 1992, p. 10.
50. As quoted in Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations, Robert Debs Heinl, Jr., ed. (Annapolis: US Naval Institute, 1966), p. 245.
51. Public Law 99-433 (1986). Under the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act, the Chairman of the JCS was given much broader powers. Not only is he now the primary military advisor to the President, he is also responsible for furnishing strategic direction to the armed forces, strategic and contingency planning, establishing budget priorities, and developing joint doctrine for all four services. Edward Luttwak and Stuart L. Koehl, eds., The Dictionary of Modern War (New York: Harper Collins, 1991), p. 320. The law also mandated that joint duty be a requirement for promotion to flag rank. See Vincent Davis, “Defense Reorganization and National Security,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political Science, September 1991, pp. 163-65. This facilitated development of senior military cliques which transcended service lines.
52. Many praised Goldwater-Nichols as the source of success in the Gulf War. See, e.g., “Persian Gulf War’s Unsung Hero,” editorial, Charleston, S.C., News & Courier, 4 April 1991, p. 6. See also Sam Nunn, “Military Reform Paved Way for Gulf Triumph,” Atlanta Constitution, 31 March 1991, p. G5. But the Gulf War was not a true test of either Goldwater-Nichols or joint warfare. About all that conflict demonstrated was that poorly trained and miserably led conscript armies left unprotected from air attack cannot hold terrain in the face of a modern ground assault.
53. One study concluded that because of Powell’s background he was “especially well qualified” for the politically sensitive role as CJCS. See Preston Niblock, ed., Managing Military Operations in Crises (Santa Monica: RAND, 1991), p. 51.
54. Representative Denton stated as to Goldwater-Nichols: “This legislation proposes to reverse 200 years of American history by, for the first time, designating by statute . . . a single uniformed officer as the “Principal Military Advisor” to the President. That change in the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is profound in its implications. Similar proposals have been specifically and overwhelmingly rejected in the past–in 1947, 1949, 1958–on the grounds that, in a democracy, no single military officer, no matter what his personal qualifications, should have such power.” U.S. Code Congressional & Administrative News (St. Paul, Minn.: West, 1986), p. 2248. See also Robert Previdi, Civilian Control versus Military Rule (New York: Hippocrene Books, 1988).
55. In The Federalist No. 51 the Founding Fathers warned against the folly of constructing a governmental system based on assumptions about the good character of individuals who might occupy an office.
56. William Matthews, “Nunn: Merge the Services?” Air Force Times, 9 March 1992, p. 6.
57. This belief was enshrined in Joint Pub 1, Joint Warfare of the United States (Washington: Office of the JCS, 11 November 1991). It states (p. iii) that “joint warfare is essential to victory.” While joint warfare might usually be essential to victory, it cannot be said that it is essential in every instance. For example, rebels–composed entirely of irregular infantry–defeated massive Soviet combined-arms forces in Afghanistan. Equipped only with light arms, Stinger missiles, and light antiaircraft guns, they triumphed without benefit of any air or naval forces, and indeed without unity among themselves. Furthermore, even in the case of Western nations, there are likely to be plenty of hostilities involving single-service air or naval campaigns.
58. Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman described the value of this creative tension in discussing his criticism of the “unified” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff occasioned by Goldwater-Nichols. According to Lehman: “Franklin Roosevelt . . . wanted to hear Admiral King argue with Marshall in front of him. He wanted to hear MacArthur argue against Nimitz, and the Air Corps against the Army, and the Navy against all in his presence, so that he would have the option to make the decisions of major strategy in war. He knew that any political leader, no matter how strong, if given only one military position, finds it nearly impossible to go against it. Unfortunately . . . now the president does not get to hear arguments from differing points of view.” John Lehman, “U.S. Defense Policy Options: The 1990s and Beyond,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, September 1991, pp. 199-200.
59. See, e.g., Arthur C. Forster, Jr., “The Essential Need for An Independent Air Force,” Air Force Times, 7 May 1990, p. 25.
60. Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, The Federalist, as reprinted in the Great Books of the Western World, Robert M. Hutchins, ed. (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), XLIII, 163.
61. Shakespeare called ambition “the soldier’s virtue.” Antony and Cleopatra, Act III, Scene 1, as reprinted in the Great Books of the Western World, Robert M. Hutchins, ed. (Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952), XXVII, 327.
62. Samuel P. Huntington, The Soldier and the State (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1959), p. 87, said “If the officer corps is originally divided into land, sea, and air elements, and then is unified under the leadership of a.
Now some facts misrepresented, distorted, or unstated by Pearl and other like-minded apologists:
In decaying societies, politics become theater. The elite, who have hollowed out the democratic system to serve the corporate state, rule through image and presentation. They express indignation at AIG bonuses and empathy with a working class they have spent the last few decades disenfranchising, and make promises to desperate families that they know will never be fulfilled. Once the spotlights go on they read their lines with appropriate emotion. Once the lights go off, they make sure Goldman Sachs and a host of other large corporations have the hundreds of billions of dollars in losses they incurred playing casino capitalism repaid with taxpayer money. 
Charles Freeman, now an American hero, released the statement that is quoted in full below. This statement is one of the most earth-shaking in the history of American government. It marks a watershed. It means that the gloves have come off between whatever remains of the corps of patriots loyal to America in our foreign service and the Israel-firsters who hijacked our government.
By Rev. Ted Pike
