THIS PAGE
TO A FRIEND
Land of the Free
BECAUSE of the BraveAnn Margaret....
This is a good counter balance story to the Jane Fonda Vietnam**
Woman Of The Year story.*Viet Nam* *1966 **
Richard, (my husband), never really talked a lot about his time in Viet Nam other than he had been shot by a sniper. However, he had a rather grainy, 8 x 10 black and white photo he had taken at a USO show of Ann Margaret with Bob Hope in the background that was one of his treasures.
A few years ago, Ann Margaret was doing a book signing at a local bookstore. Richard wanted to see if he could get her to sign the treasured photo so he arrived at the bookstore at 12 o'clock for the 7:30 signing.
When I got there after work, the line went all the way a round the bookstore, circled the parking lot and disappeared behind a parking garage. Before her appearance, bookstore employees announced that she would sign only her book and no memorabilia would be permitted.
Richard was disappointed, but wanted to show her the photo and let her know how much those shows meant to lonely GI's so far from home. Ann Margaret came out looking as beautiful as ever and, as second in line, it was soon Richard's turn.
He presented the book for her signature and then took out the photo. ** **When he did, there were many shouts from the employees that she would not sign it. Richard said, 'I understand. I just wanted her to see it.'
She took one look at the photo, tears welled up in her eyes and she said, 'This is one of my gentlemen from Viet Nam and I most certainly will sign his photo. I know what these men did for their country and I always have time for 'my gentlemen.''
With that, she pulled Richard across the table and planted a big kiss on him. She then made quite a to-do about the bravery of the young men she met over the years, how much she admired them, and how much she appreciated them. There weren't too many dry eyes among those close enough to hear. She then posed for pictures and acted as if he were the only one there.
Later at dinner, Richard was very quiet. When I asked if he'd like to talk about it, my big strong husband broke down in tears. 'That's the first time anyone ever thanked me for my time in the Army,' he said.
That night was a turning point for him. He walked a little straighter and, for the first time in years, was proud to have been a Vet. I'll never forget Ann Margaret for her graciousness and how much that small act of kindness meant to my husband.
I now make it a point to say 'Thank you' to every person I come across who served in our Armed Forces. Freedom does not co me cheap and I am grateful for all those who have served their country.
If you'd like to pass on this story, feel free to do so. Perhaps it will help others to become aware of how important it is to acknowledge the contribution our service people make.
Don't be too busy today... Share this inspiring message with friends and family. On behalf of those who DO appreciate all that you did for us, thank you to each of you who receive this message who have served or are serving our country in the armed services or any other service. **
IF YOU DON'T STAND BEHIND OUR TROOPS, **PLEASE, FEEL FREE TO STAND IN FRONT OF THEM!*
Southern Minn. teen cited for Ron Paul decal
Photo from Owatonna.com OWATONNA, Minn. (AP) - Cody Hauer is an enthusiastic Ron Paul supporter, but it could cost him more than $550 after receiving four citations in one week for having a large decal on his rear window.
Hauer, 18, decided to support the Republican presidential hopeful by displaying a 13-inch-by-40-inch "Ron Paul Revolution" decal on his Buick Park Avenue. The problem is, such decals are illegal if they obstruct the driver's view.
Still, Hauer questions whether he was targeted and says he plans to contest each citation in court next month.
"I support Ron Paul, the city Police Department doesn't," he said. "They gave me a DWR - driving while Republican."
Owatonna Police Chief Shaun LaDue disputes that.
"The political aspect of this doesn't enter into the equation at all," LaDue told The Associated Press. "It's very clear in state statute that you cannot have anything that obstructs the driver's vision."
LaDue also said Hauer had been cited four different times because besides being in violation of the law, during each traffic stop he showed disrespect toward the officer. "He talks himself into a citation each time," LaDue said.
Hauer said he'll argue in court that the law violates his First Amendment right to free speech.
"To be honest, I'm probably not going to win, but I'm going to go down fighting," he said.
Red Fridays Very soon, you will see a great many people wearing Red every Friday. The reason? Americans who support our troops used to be called the "silent majority." We are no longer silent, and are voicing our love for God, country and home in record breaking numbers. We are not organized, boisterous or overbearing.
Many Americans, like you, me and all our friends, simply want to recognize that the vast majority of America supports our troops. Our idea of showing solidarity and support for our troops with dignity and respect starts this Friday... and continues each and every Friday until the troops all come home, sending a deafening message that... every red-blooded American who supports our men and women afar, will wear something red.
By word of mouth, press, TV... let's make the United States on every Friday a sea of red much like a homecoming football game in the bleachers. If every one of us who loves this country will share this with acquaintances, coworkers, friends, and family, it will not be long before the is covered in RED and it will let our troops know the once "silent" majority is on their side more than ever, certainly more than the media lets on.
The first thing a soldier says when asked "What can we do to make things better for you?" is..."We need your support and your prayers." Let's get the word out and lead with class and dignity, by example, and wear something red every Friday.
Stop loose lips I am an American soldier. I serve my country proudly. I'm a God-fearing, Christian American who wears the uniform of the United States Air Force.
There is great evil in the world. These evil forces exist everywhere, and they are often very difficult to find. They hide quite well. They are men, women and children. They profess all religions, races and creeds. They share one common trait ? they want me dead. They want my family dead. They want my friends dead. They want my countrymen dead. Chances are good they want you, the reader, dead. They will go to any length to obtain their goal.
They are often supported by my countrymen, albeit unknowingly. When you ridicule the U.S .military, you aid their cause. When you belittle American leadership, you uplift theirs. When you give out our secrets, you provide them with critical intelligence.
It's time for this to stop. We have a president, we have a Congress, we have governors, we have state and local leaders. They need our support. They need our encouragement. They need our prayers. You are free to disagree with them. You are free to campaign against them. You are not free to give aid and comfort to the enemy. The evil forces in the world like it when you tear down our country at any level. Don't give them the satisfaction. The life you save may be your own.
Darin Kallen
Letter from an American soldier... Soldier's Outrage at Anti-War Protests at Army Hospital
"... I am a reservist out of Dallas, Texas, who is currently deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. I also was deployed to Iraq for one year in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. I was part of the initial invasion into Iraq. During my first deployment to Iraq, my MP unit was called up. I volunteered for this deployment because I felt I had more to give my country and felt it was the right thing to do. I would like to comment on the article you wrote in reference to the Code Pink group at Walter Reed Medical Center. I first saw your article on the Sean Hannity website and then listened to Marc Morano's interview with Mr. Hannity via-pod cast from here in Afghanistan. ('Anti-War Protests Target Wounded at Army Hospital,' August 25)
When I read the article I was assuming that the group was just close to the Medical Center. But when I listened to your interview with Mr. Hannity and your confrontation of the Code Pink lady, it became a lot clearer. I was taken aback by her and her group's arrogance to what they are really doing there and who they are actually hurting. To carry the signs, heckle the troops and to have mock caskets with an American flag over them is beyond protest. It is downright harassment of my brothers and sisters of the United States military who have been injured.
By the end of the interview I was shaking and was even in tears for my fellow brave soldiers who not only have to endure the loss of a limb(s), loss of sight, or even worse - the loss of a battle buddy (fellow soldier serving with your team). I know the guilt that soldiers feel when they are not taken or injured but someone else is. I feel guilt now that I made it through Iraq and now half way through my tour in Afghanistan and yet I am fine. Over 2,000 of my fellow soldiers have not made it. I can only imagine what my fellow injured soldiers are feeling as they look out that window and see the Code Pink group. I then went from thinking of my fellow soldiers to thinking about my family and what they would have to go through if I were injured and the emotional stress and guilt they would feel that they were unable to protect their 34-year-old son, even though I made a decision to protect my family and country...
Even though I disagree with what all of these groups such as Code Pink, Moveon.org and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan stand for, my fellow soldiers and I have fought, died, been injured and are still fighting for their right to protest and speak their mind. But what angers and hurts me as a soldier is that they parade their anti-war views in the face of my brothers and sisters who are recovering from the same battlefield that I fought on and am still fighting on as I type this e-mail. Is there no honor or dignity left in the anti-war movement? Do they have no shame? Do they have no integrity? Do they have no heart? Do they have no soul? I can answer that with a simple no! How can they say they support the troops but protest where they try to recover from war? You interviewed one gentleman, and I use that term loosely, who stated 'If I was injured I would want someone to speak for me like this.' Well let me tell him something, we do not want you to speak for us and we do not need you to speak for us! …
In closing, I would like to thank you for bringing their conduct to the public eye, not only in your article, but on 'The Sean Hannity Show.' I actually began to have some faith in the media again when I heard Morano stand up for us soldiers like he did. I wish there was something that I could do to personally thank him for your actions. But I am going to ask that you please do not stop speaking of these actions at Walter Reed. Please find a way to help stop the protesting at Walter Reed. Please write more articles, ask why they were granted permission, get public officials to speak out on the record and petition people to withdraw their right to protest within a certain distance from a military hospital. It scares me that next will be a fellow soldier's funeral. That is the next step! Please, I ask that you continue to investigate this protest and their rights to be there! Not to stop people's freedom of speech, but protect and respect my fellow soldiers.”
Sgt. Mark Leach, U.S. Army
Afghanistan
THE GHOST FROM VALLEY FORGE
(author unknown)
I had a dream the other night I didn't understand,
A figure walking through the mist, with flintlock in his hand.
His clothes were torn and dirty, as he stood there by my bed,
He took off his three-cornered hat, and speaking low he said:We fought a revolution to secure our liberty,
We wrote the Constitution, as a shield from tyranny.
For future generations, this legacy we gave,
In this, the land of the free and home of the brave.The freedom we secured for you, we hoped you'd always keep,
But tyrants labored endlessly while your parents were asleep.
Your freedom gone - your courage lost - you're no more than a slave,
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave.You buy permits to travel, and permits to own a gun,
Permits to start a business, or to build a place for one.
On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent,
Although you have no voice in choosing how the money's spent.Your children must attend a school that doesn't educate,
Your moral values can't be taught, according to the state.
You read about the current "news" in a very biased press,
You pay a tax you do not owe, to please the IRS.Your money is no longer made of silver or of gold,
You trade your wealth for paper, so life can be controlled.
You pay for crimes that make our Nation turn from God to shame,
You've taken Satin's number, as you've traded in your name.You've given government control to those who do you harm,
So they can padlock churches, and steal the family farm.
And keep our country deep in debt, put men of God in jail,
Harass your fellow countryman while corrupted courts prevail.Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oath they're sworn,
Your daughters visit doctors so children won't be born.
Your leaders ship artillery and guns to foreign shores,
And send your sons to slaughter, fighting other people's wars.Can you regain your Freedom for which we fought and died?
Or don't you have the courage, or the faith to stand with pride?
Are there no more values for which you'll fight to save?
Or do you wish your children live in fear and be a slave?Sons of the Republic, arise and take a stand!
Defend the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land!
Preserve our Republic, and each God-given right!
And pray to God to keep the torch of freedom burning bright!As I awoke he vanished, in the mist from whence he came,
His words were true, we are not free, and we have ourselves to blame.
For even now as tyrants trample each God-given right,
We only watch and tremble -- too afraid to stand and fight.
If he stood by your bedside in a dream while you're asleep,
And wonder what remains of your right he fought to keep.
What would be your answer if he called out from the grave?
Is this still the land of the free and home of the brave?
author unknown
"Our Constitutional Republic was never created to be a leveler of men. It was created to be a lifter, a developer of men.
Our Constitutional Republic was created to let the gifted, the energetic, and the creative rise to new heights of achievement, and to let each man find his own level on the stairway of existence.
Our Constitutional Republic was created to encourage men to meet their personal responsibilities and to shirk no public duties. That is why our people have always been concerned about the honest needs of their fellow citizens, the chief of these needs being liberty, justice, and opportunity.
Our Constitutional Republic demands that the nation be governed by the capable, the honorable, the far-seeing, the clear-seeing, and not by mediocre men. In the beginning it was so. Mayit be so again!
Our Constitutional Republic demands more from men than any other system in the realm of self-discipline, dependability, cooperativeness, industry, thrift, and honor. For anyone to foster class consciousness, class conflict, misrepresentation, covetousness, violence, theft, and an open defiance of established law – even when done ‘legally’ – is to breed anarchy and tyranny.
Our Constitutional Republic was not designed to interfere with the unalienable right of its people to be masters of their own destinies.
Our Constitutional Republic was established to make men free!"
(Author unknown)
IS THERE ANY HOPE FOR AMERICA? IS THERE ANY HOPE for America? Can the Communist/Humanist/Hedonist forces be thwarted? Can their ability to influence and manipulate America's churches, schools, press, labour unions, business organisations, Congress, and the bureaucracy be countered? Are there any real prospects for preserving freedom and liberty in America--and extending it world-wide?
America's hope, humanly speaking, rests in a body of concerned, informed Americans developing and implementing the 'cadre concept.' This is the Communists' greatest fear.
The term cadre... is a military one. The cadre concept is the key to Communist efforts and successes. It is also the means through which a relative handful of dedicated Americans can reverse the Red tide--and provide leadership to other Americans, the vast majority of whom are still right-thinking although uninformed and unorganised. They are, in the words of the title of a bestseller of 25 years ago, A Nation of Sheep. Sheep wait to be led. Some 'cadre' will provide the leadership--for good or evil--into safety or danger.
A dictionary definition of cadre is 'a framework--particularly the key group of military officers and enlisted men necessary to establish and train a new military unit.'
If concerned Americans have any hope of turning back the revolution the Communists are working to bring to America, they must get a vision for the 'cadre concept.' To become an effective cadre ... individuals must:
(1) Become informed personally then work to stay informed.
(2) Develope (a) long-range goals for stopping Communist advances and extend freedom around the world and (b) have a short-range agenda for moving toward the long-range goals.
(3) Develope circles of influence in neighborhoods, churches, schools, business organisations, labour unions, political organisations, etc., through which they can exert leverage and multiply their outreach and effectiveness.
(4) Work continually to improve personal leadership and communications skills, and...
(5) Specialise and become expert in some area of the battle while standing ready to assist others who are concentrating on other aspects of the overall struggle.
(6) Develope and maintain contacts and communication with other concerned citizens with a goal of building a network of informed people which reaches into every type of community organisation and avenue of influence.
(7) Recognise that the battle will be a life-long one from which 'there is no discharge.'
The first goals of those who start forming the cadre must be......to understand, expose, and oppose the programmes and philosophies which aid communism's advance in the United States and around the world.
All forms of economic, diplomatic, military, and psychological aid to communism must be opposed and stopped.
Communist/Humanist/Hedonist influences and philosophy in America's basic institutions must be recognised and opposed and those who promote them must be rooted out of their positions of influence.
America's internal security system must be rebuilt. Congressional committees with responsibility for investigating Communist influence and activity in America must be re-established. The FBI must be again authorised to maintain surveillance on the Communist Party and its front organisations.
Work to recruit, train, and elect knowledgeable, dedicated pro-God, pro-American, pro-free enterprise candidates to school boards, city councils, state legislatures, and the U.S. Congress.
Assist ant encourage those who are elected in implementing sound, pro-freedom, anti-Communist legislation--and make them accountable and answerable for their actions and their votes.
Pray for those in authority (and their families) that they will seek and have God's wisdom and protection and have the strength to do right even when it may not be popular at the moment, (See I Timothy 2:1-5)
As Excerpted From
None Dare Call It Treason:
...25 Years Later
Chaptre 26
Pages 570 - 575
John A. Stormer
Copyright 1990, 1992
Published By
Liberty Bell Press
Fisher Ames: Defender of Liberty, Christian Educator Fisher Ames, one of America's "forgotten founding fathers," and a historical proponent of the Bible as the source of all wisdom.
Fisher Ames is best known for his opposition to Jeffersonian democracy. Pure democracy, he argued, would lend itself to the new nation's coming under the influence of the basest of human motivations: greed and a lack of public virtue. Left unchecked, Ames believed, pure democracy would itself swallow up the very freedom on which it was founded.
But Ames was no opponent of liberty. To the contrary, he argued forcefully that the new United States of America was to be constructed as a constitutional republic. To succeed, he believed, the United States must lash itself to a constitution of laws, not the whim of democratic preference.
In addition, Fisher Ames was among the outspoken supporters of the Bible's central role in all of education. As the Word of God, Ames held, the Bible should be at the very center of the curriculum.
We honor not only Fisher Ames' distinction between democracy and republican forms of government, but the fine intellectual rigor required to differentiate between the two.
MARRIAGE FRENCH STYLE CIVIL UNIONS
Economic conservatives in the Republican Party see no problem with Civil Unions believing that legitimizing sodomy under a government contract will not affect heterosexual marriages. They better think again. In 1999 the French created the Pacte Civil de Solidarite (PaCS) which in English is Civil Solidarity Pact. The PaCS granted those who signed them most of the privileges of marriage, including forcing companies to give vacations at the same time for the "partners". Five years later the newspaper La Monde declares the PaCS a "triumph." According to a French Parliament report 60 percent of the PaCS were concluded by heterosexual couples. "With its recognition in the civil code, the PaCS is putting an end to the monopoly marriage used to have in organizing the common social life of any two persons," the report gleefully concluded. The French government is happy because the weaker the family unit the stronger the state. Europe is moving fast toward totalitarianism with censorship increasing in virtually every aspect of society. European governments regularly jail people for their opinions, particularly if they are socially conservatives. Republicans who favor Civil Unions don't understand that such legally recognized alternatives to marriage hasten the death of the family wherever they are enacted.
Source: Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
- U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
- U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
- Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
- Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
- Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
- Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
- Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
- Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
- Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
- Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
- Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
- Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
- Do away with all loyalty oaths.
- Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
- Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
- Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
- Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
- Gain control of all student newspapers.
- Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
- Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
- Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
- Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
- Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
- Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
- Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
- Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
- Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
- Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
- Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
- Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
- Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
- Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
- Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
- Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
- Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
- Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
- Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
- Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
- Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
- Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
- Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
- Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
- Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
- Internationalize the Panama Canal.
- Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
Documentation
Note: The Congressional Record has only been digitized for years 1983 to Present, which are available on the Internet at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs/aces/aaces190.html
Each state university library is a federal repository and an excellent source for the Congressional Record and other government records.
Congressional Representatives can also supply page copies of the Congressional Record to their constituents that ask for specific information.
Microfilm: State University Library Federal Repositories
Congressional Record, Vol. 109
88th Congress, 1st Session
Appendix Pages A1-A2842
Jan. 9-May 7, 1963
Reel 12
State University Libraries will also have the book.Book title page:
Skousen, W. Cleon. Naked Communist,
The Salt Lake City, Utah: Ensign Publishing Co.
C. 1961, 9th edition July 1961.Reprinted under the Fair Use doctrine of international copyright law This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, government education, political, human rights, economic, republic Vs. democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper' By Doug Thompson
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
"I don't give a goddamn," Bush retorted. "I'm the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way."
"Mr. President," one aide in the meeting said. "There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution."
"Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!"
I've talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution "a goddamned piece of paper."
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that "goddamned piece of paper" used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the "Constitution is an outdated document."
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn't matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn’t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine – in the end – if something is legal or right.
Every federal official - including the President - who takes an oath of office swears to "uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a "living document."
'"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have-a 'living document,'" Scalia says. “We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.”
As a judge, Scalia says, "I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else."
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a "union between a man and woman." Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
"We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones," Scalia warns. "Don't think that it's a one-way street."
And don't buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just "a goddamned piece of paper."
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Dear President Bush; about that "goddamned piece of paper." "Stop throwing the Constitution in my face," Bush screamed back. "It's just a goddamned piece of paper!"
Let us start out with the fact that the Constitution is actually written on parchment, not paper. A trivial point, I grant you, but one that reveals (along with your inability to correctly pronounce the word "nuclear") a shocking lack of education in a head of state. But to get to the point, the Constitution is not the parchment itself, but the ideas written upon it; ideas which form the foundations of our nation, ideas which would carry equal weight if written on stone, glass, metal, or even paper. These ideas are the soul of the nation. They include the recognition that the people of this nation have certain rights, rights which the government does not have the authority to remove. These rights include freedom of speech, to say what we think about the nation at any and all times, to write that opinion down and share it however we choose to. These rights include the freedom to worship as we choose, free from coercion. These rights include the right to privacy, in our homes and businesses, free from government intrusions other than in very specific and well-defined circumstances.
Maybe those rights are inconvenient to you, as such rights are always inconvenient to tyrants, but you are not allowed the choice which rights you will abide by or not. That too is spelled out explicitly in the Constitution.
The Constitution isn't just a piece of paper or parchment. It's a contract; the original contract with America. It's the contract you yourself swore an oath to preserve, protect, and defend against all enemies both foreign and domestic. You attached your name to that promise. You swore that oath before a judge of the United States Supreme Court, with your hand on a bible. That isn't just scenery for the cameras. Swearing an oath before a judge carries legal obligations with that oath, and legal penalties for breaking that oath.
The election process by which you claim authority is defined in that Constitution. And as you claim authority by Constitutional process, so too are you limited by Constitutional process. If you act outside the limits of the Constitution, you are no longer acting as the President, but as a private citizen abusing the powers with which you were trusted. A government that acts outside the Constitution ceases to be the legal government of this land.
The Constitution exists not only to tell the government what it may do, but more importantly what it may not do. You, as the President, are not allowed to declare wars without the US Congress. You, the President, are not allowed to seize people at random and send them off to be tortured. And most of all, you, the President, and not allowed to lie to the people and to the Congress.
Every President before you, including your father, swore that oath to preserve, protect, and defend that Constitution. Millions of Americans died in wars in the firm belief that the form of government describes on that parchment was worth such a sacrifice. To state that the Constitution is just a "dammed piece of paper" is a slap in the face of every American who ever donned the uniform of the military forces of this country.
Go over to Arlington National Cemetery. It's not that far from where you live. Look at those tombstones. By your statement, you have written across and every one the words, "Died for a goddamned piece of paper."
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Appeals court says judge was right to scuttle suit
U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger
A federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld the dismissal of an American Muslim civil rights group's defamation lawsuit against former U.S. Rep. Cass Ballenger, who linked the group to terrorists in a 2003 interview. The Council on American-Islamic Relations sued Ballenger for $2 million, saying the congressman's comments damaged its reputation and good name. The group has denied any links to terrorism.
In the October 2003 interview with The Charlotte Observer, Ballenger blamed the breakup of his 50-year marriage partly on the stress of living near CAIR's headquarters, which was close enough to the U.S. Capitol that, he said, he and his wife worried "they could blow the place up." He also called CAIR "the fundraising arm for Hezbollah."
A three-judge appeals court panel in Washington upheld the March 2005 decision of a federal district court judge to dismiss the case.
U.S. District Judge Richard Leon agreed with Ballenger that the comments were made in his capacity as a federal employee and that the lawsuit should be converted into one against the U.S. government.
Then, because the doctrine of sovereign immunity bars most lawsuits against the federal government, Leon threw the case out.
Ballenger retired from his 10th District seat in 2004 after nine terms and was succeeded by fellow Republican Patrick McHenry.
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, any copyrighted material herein is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For further information please refer to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
The America We Lost By Mario A. Pei
Mario Pei, now deceased, was Professor of Romance Philology at Columbia University.
This essay appeared in the Saturday Evening Post of May 31, 1952, and was republished by the Foundation later that year.
When I first came to America in 1908, I learned a new meaning of the word “liberty”—freedom from government.
I did not learn a new meaning for “democracy.” The European country from which I came, Italy, was at that time as “democratic” as America. It was a constitutional monarchy, with a parliament, free and frequent elections, lots of political parties, and plenty of freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly.
But my native country was government-ridden. A vast bureaucracy held it in its countless tentacles. Regardless of the party or coalition of parties that might be in power at the moment, the government was everywhere. Wherever one looked, one saw signs of the ever-present government—in the uniforms of numberless royal, rural, and municipal policemen, soldiers, officers, gold-braided functionaries of all sorts. You could not take a step without government intervention.
Many industries and businesses were government-owned and government-run—railroads, telegraphs, salt, and tobacco among them. No agreement, however trivial, was legal unless written on government-stamped paper. If you stepped out of the city into the country and came back with a ham, a loaf of bread, or a bottle of wine, you had to stop at the internal-revenue barriers and pay duty to the government, and so did the farmers who brought in the city's food supply every morning. No business could be started or run without the official sanction of a hundred bureaucrats.
Young people did not dream of going into business for themselves; they dreamed of a modest but safe government job where they would have tenure, security, and a pitiful pension at the end of their plodding careers. There was grinding taxation to support the many government functions and the innumerable public servants. Everybody hated the government—not just the party in power, but the government itself. They had even coined a phrase, “It's pouring—thief of a government!” as though even the evils of nature were the government's fault. Yet, I repeat, the country was democratically run, with all the trappings of a many-party system and all the freedoms of which we in America boast today.
Freedom from Government
America in those days made you open your lungs wide and inhale great gulps of freedom-laden air, for here was one additional freedom—freedom from government.
The government was conspicuous by its very absence. There were no men in uniform, save occasional cops and firemen, no visible bureaucrats, no stifling restrictions, no government monopolies. It was wonderful to get used to the American system: To learn that a contract was valid if written on the side of a house; that you could move not only from the city to the country but from state to state and never be asked what your business was or whether you had anything to declare; that you could open and conduct your own business, provided it was a legitimate one, without government interference; that you could go from one end of the year to the other and never have contact with the national government, save for the cheery postman who delivered your mail with a speed and efficiency unknown today; that there were no national taxes, save hidden excises and import duties that you did not even know you paid.
In that horse-and-buggy America, if you made an honest dollar, you could pocket it or spend it without having to figure what portion of it you owed the government or what possible deductions you could allege against that government's claims. You did not have to keep books and records of every bit of income and expenditure or run the risk of being called a liar and a cheat by someone in authority.
Above all, the national ideal was not the obscure security of a government job, but the boundless opportunity that all Americans seemed to consider their birthright. Those same Americans loved their government then. It was there to help, protect, and defend them, not to restrict, befuddle, and harass them. At the same time, they did not look to the government for a livelihood or for special privileges and handouts. They were independent men in the full sense of the word.
Foreign-born citizens have been watching with alarm the gradual Europeanization of America over the past twenty years. They have seen the growth of the familiar European-style government octopus, along with the vanishing of the American spirit of freedom and opportunity and its replacement by a breathless search for “security” that is doomed to defeat in advance in a world where nothing, not even life itself, is secure.
Far more than the native-born, they are in a position to make comparisons. They see that America is fast becoming a nineteenth-century-model European country. They are asked to believe that this is progress. But they know from bitter experience that it just isn't so.
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The Coming Darkness A Warning for Americans: A message from South Africa 20th March 2004
People used to say that South Africa was 20 years behind the rest of the Western world. Television, for example, came late to South Africa (but so did pornography and the gay rights movement).
Today, however, South Africa may be the grim model of the future Western world, for events in America reveal trends chillingly similar to those that destroyed our country.
America's structures are Western. Your Congress, your lobbying groups, your free speech, and the way ordinary Americans either get involved or ignore politics are peculiarly Western, not the way most of the world operates. But the fact that only about a third of Americans deem it important to vote is horrifying in light of how close you are to losing your western character.
Writing letters to the press, manning stands at country fairs, hosting fund-raising dinners, attending rallies, setting up conferences, writing to your Congressman - that is what you know, and that is what you are comfortable with. Those are the political methods you've created for yourselves to keep your country on track and to ensure political accountability.
But woe to you if - or more likely, when - the rules change. White Americans may soon find themselves unable or unwilling to stand up to challenge the new political methods that will be the inevitable result of the ethnic metamorphosis now taking place in America. Unable to cope with the new rules of the game - violence, mob riots, intimidation through accusation of racism, demands for proportionality cased on racial numbers, and all the other social and political weapons used by the have-nots to bludgeon treasure and power from the haves - Americans, like others before them, will no doubt cave in. They will compromise away their independence and ultimately their way of life.
That is exactly what happened to South Africa. I know because I was there and saw it happen.
Faced with revolution in the streets, strikes, civil unrest and the sheer terror and murder practiced by Nelson Mandela's African National Congress (ANC), the white government simply capitulated in order to achieve "peace."
Westerners need peace. They need order and stability. They are builders and planners. But what we got was the peace of the grave for our society.
The third world is different - different peoples with different pasts and different cultures. Yet Westerners continue to mistake the psychology of the Third World and its peoples. Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe are perfect examples of those mistakes. Sierra Leone is in perpetual civil war, and Zimbabwe - once thriving stable Rhodesia - is looting the very people (the white men) who feed the country. Yet Westerners do not admit the same kind of savagery could come to America when enough immigrants of the right type assert themselves. The fact is, Americans are sitting ducks for Third World exploitation of the Western conscience of compassion.
Those in the West who forced South Africa to surrender to the ANC and its leaders did not consider Africa to be the dangerous, corrupt, and savage place it is now in Zimbabwe and South Africa. Those Western politicians now have a similar problem looming on their own doorsteps: the demand for power and treasure from the non-western peoples inside the realm.
It is already too late for South Africa, but not for America if enough people strengthen their spine and take on the race terrorists, the armies of the "politically correct" and, most dangerous of all, the craven politicians who believe "compassionate conservatism" will buy them more votes, a few more days of peace.
White South Africans, you should remember, have been in that part of Africa for the same amount of time whites have inhabited North America; yet ultimately South Africans voted for their own suicide. We are not so very different from you.
We lost our country though skilful propaganda, pressure from abroad (nor least from the USA), unrelenting charges of "oppression" and "racism" and the shrewd assessment by African tyrants that the white man has many Achilles heels, the most significant of which are his compassion, his belief in the "equality of man" and his "love thy neighbor" philosophy - none of which are part of the Third World's history.
The mainline churches played a big role in the demise of Western influence throughout Africa, too; especially in South Africa. Today's tyrants were yesterday's mission school protégés. Many dictators in Africa were men of the cloth. They knew their clerical collars would deflect criticism and obfuscate their real aims, which had nothing whatever to do with "brotherhood of man."
Other tyrants, like the infamous Idi Amin, were trained and schooled by the whites themselves at Oxford, Cambridge and Harvard. After receiving the best from the West, they unleashed a resentful bloodlust against their benefactors.
From what I have seen and read this far, I fear Americans will capitulate just as we did. Americans are, generally, a soft lot. They don't want to quarrel or obstruct the claims of those who believe they were wronged. They like peace and quiet and they want to compromise and be nice.
A television program that aired in South Africa showed a town meeting somewhere in Southern California where people met to complain about falling standards in the schools. Whites who politely spoke at the meeting clearly resented the influx of Mexican immigrants into their community. When a handful of Chicanos at the back of the hall shouted and waved their hands at them, the whites simply shrunk back into their seats rather than tell the noisemakers to shut up. They didn't want to quarrel.
In America, the courts are still the final arbiters of society's laws. But what will happen when your future majority refuses to abide by court rulings - as in Zimbabwe. What will happen when the new majority says the judges are racists, and that they refuse to acknowledge "white man's justice"? What will happen when the courts are filled with their people, or their sympathizers? In California, Proposition 187 has already been overturned.
What will you do when the future non-white majority decides to change the names of streets and cities? What will you do when they no longer want to use money that carries the portraits of old, dead white "racists" and slave owners? Will you cave in, like you did on flying the Confederate flag? What about the national anthem? Your official language?
Don't laugh. When the "majority" took over in South Africa, the first targets were our national symbols.
In another generation, America may well face what Africa is now experiencing - invasions of private land by the "have-nots;" the decline in health care quality; roads and buildings in disrepair: the banishment of your history from the education of the young; the revolutionization of your justice system.
What would you think of the ritual slaughter of animals in your neighbor's backyard? How do you clean the blood and entrails that litter your suburban streets? How do you feel about the practice of witchcraft, in which the parts of young girls and boys are needed for "medicinal" purposes? How do you react to the burning of witches? Don't laugh. All that is quite common in South Africa today.
Don't imagine that government officials caught with their fingers in the till will be punished. Excuses - like the need to overcome generations of white racism - will be found to exonerate the guilty.
In fact, known criminals will be voted into office because of a racial solidarity among the majority that doesn't exist among the whites. When Ian Smith of the old Rhodesia tried to stand up to the world, white South African politicians were among the westerners pressuring him to surrender.
When Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe murders his political opponents, ignores unfavorable court decisions, terrorizes the population, siphons off millions from the state treasury for himself and his friends, South Africa's new President Thabo Mbeki holds his hands and declares his support. That just happened a few weeks ago.
Your tax dollars will go to those who don't earn and don't pay. In South Africa organizations that used to have access to state funds such as old age homes, the arts, and veterans' services, are simply abandoned.
What will happen is that Western structures in America will be either destroyed from without, or transformed from within used to suit the goals of the new rulers. And they will reign either through terror as in Zimbabwe today or exert other corrupt pressures to obtain or buy votes. Once power is in the hands of aliens, don't expect loyalty or devotion to principle from those whose jobs are at stake. One of the most surprising and tragic components of the disaster in South Africa is how many previously anti-ANC whites simply moved to the other side.
Once you lose social, cultural and political dominance, there is no getting it back again.
Unfortunately, your habits and values work against you. You cannot fight terror and street mobs with letters to your Congressmen. You cannot fight accusations of racism with prayer meetings. You cannot appeal to the goodness of your fellow man when the fellow man despises you for your weaknesses and hacks off the arms and legs of his political opponents.
To survive, Americans must never lose the power they now enjoy to people from alien cultures. Above all, don't put yourselves to the test of fighting only when your backs are against the wall. You will probably fail.
Millions around the world wait your good life. But make no mistake: They care not for the high-minded ideals of Jeffferson and Washington and your Constitution. What they want are your possessions, your power, your status.
And they already know that their allies among you, the "human rights activists" the skillful lawyers and the left wind politicians will fight for then and not for you. They will exploit your compassion and your Christian charity, and your good will.
They have studied you, Mr. and Mrs. America, and they know your weaknesses well.
They know what to do.
Do you??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
By Gemma Meyer
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THE TORCH OF LIBERTY...TAKE IT! Tuesday, June 27, 2006
By David A. McElroy
July 4th is upon us. Oh say, can you see our national sovereignty being threatened as President Bush collaborates with Mexico and Canada to form a North American Union modeled on the socialist European Union? This is only one of many breaches of the contract with America, the Constitution, meant to destroy our independence. You know it. The facts are published.
The Constitution of the United States of America was written as a binding contract, binding government rather than people, to create a federal government based on home rule. Our home. For government officials to simply disregard it as an "archaic" impediment without consulting the people is a callous crime. Our forefathers sacrificed their blood, sweat, and tears, their time, treasure, and sacred honors to purchase our independence and civil liberties. Our governing officers now take it upon themselves to discard that heritage in treasonous pursuits, without consulting these united states who are signatories to that contract. The administration goes so far as to consider those faithful to the Constitution as enemies to be closely watched and vilified. We must act now...while some still remember what principles "OLD GLORY" stood for in 1776.
Let's face it...we now have a King, er, a President, who claims to be above the law and advocates torture just like the King George Americans rebelled against fighting for freedom. He displaces American workers with millions of illegal alien invading our nation, and rewards them with preferential treatment rather than deport them. He defames today's Minutemen as "vigilantes". We, the people, are delared by law to be the enemy in the President's "War Powers" portfolio...under the "Trading With The Enemy Act"! Dissent is increasingly limited to "Free Speech Zones" as in Red China (which people like Bill Clinton & Henry Kissinger laud as a model society). People are going to jail for simply displaying a t-shirt or poster critical of der Fuhrer, and rights to due process or an attorney can be waived under the "Patriot Act".
We have a Supreme Court openly talking of submitting our nation to a World Court and foreign laws, with complete disregard of their oaths to uphold the U.S. Constitution. Our system of "Checks & Balances" is now check-mated, with no checks and no balances in the federal system. The black-robed "Gang of Nine" refuses to support the public posting of God's Ten Commandments, the basis of Western Law so prominently displayed in their own historic courthouse.
Both Houses of Congress have delegated many of their constitutional duties to private interests like the Federal Reserve Bank, who serve their own interests at our expense. Our Social Security funds are stolen in the one part of the Constitution they uphold...the right to pool all public money in one big pork barrel they can spend like drunken sailors. These "public servants" are too busy to represent we, the people. They are so busy they don't even read the bills they vote on, like the "Patriot Act". Their zeal is in meeting corporate lobbyists bearing gifts along the campaign trail.
Our Bill of Rights has become a list of rights denied, a heritage trampled by brazen bureaucrats and politicians alike. Hard evidence exists for massive vote frauds fostered by the wonders of black-box technology in voting machines. "Big Brother" wants to track us all with microchips and make cash worthless historical notes. Bush claims we are a "nation of law" while he makes a mockery of our Constitution in the quest for absolute power absolutely corrupt. The government that says "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" hides everything. When a g-man's lips are moving, you know he's lying. Tryanny is now at home in America. Let's not forget those July 4th fireworks commemorate much more than entertaining bursts of light in the darkness!
We, the people, must pressure our state legislatures to bring suit against the federal government for breach of contract. The list of breaches is far longer than this space allows. Only these united states, as signatories to the U.S. Constitution, can sue the federal government for breach of contract. Even one state would be enough. Time is short. Speak now or forever hold your peace in fear and loathing!
For Truth, Justice, & Liberty for All!
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Billionaire Atheist And Homosexual Activist Are Busy Building A Shadow Government August 1, 2006
The Washington Post did conservative voters a favor two weeks ago by running a feature on the newest venture of billionaire atheist/socialist George Soros and his ally, millionaire homosexual activist Tim Gill.
Soros and Gill (who made his fortune as founder of Quark), have formed Democracy Alliance, a group that lavishes millions upon radical liberal groups that are willing to tow the Soros/Gill party line.
Democracy Alliance is part of a whole network of organizations that form part of the Soros shadow government in the U.S. The Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank run by former Clinton staffer John Podesta, is one of these power groups. Media Matters for America and Air America are two additional groups in this shadow government and others include: Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington; Center for Progressive Leadership and many others. Twenty-five groups have received the blessing of Democracy Alliance and are receiving funding.
Soros and Gill hope that their millions will buy them far left control of Congress and the White House in 2008.
Soros’ front organizations typically use words “progress” or “progressive” in their titles. These words are code for socialist or internationalist ideologies and amorality. Soros pours money into efforts to legalize marijuana, euthanasia, and other anti-life activities.
Tim Gill has used his millions to try to defeat marriage protection amendments all over the U.S. The Gill Foundation is an artesian well of money for homosexual activist groups. His foundation is targeting our nation’s public school children for pro-homosexual brainwashing programs through its funding of “Gay Straight Alliance” clubs on junior high and high school campuses. These groups exploit sexually confused youth into believing they’re “born gay” and that they must become a liberal political force in America.
The Soros/Gill shadow government is effectively funding all sorts of 527 organizations in an effort to influence the elections in 2006 and 2008. They want to defeat conservative candidates and fill Congress and the White House with Howard Dean-type Democrats.
In order to effectively fight the Soros/Gill shadow government, the Congress must remove regulatory shackles imposed on political parties, PACs, and non-profit groups if they are to compete against this shadow government. In Congress’s misguided efforts to bring about election reform, they have tied the hands of those opposed to a Soros/Gill cultural revolution.
Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has stated the problem well. In enacting campaign reform legislation, Congress put restrictions on how much money could be given to political parties and PACs, but 527 groups were generally free of onerous regulations. Money flowed to these groups in record amounts during 2004. In testifying before a congressional committee in April 2006, Pence observed: “Because political speech and the money supporting such speech will always find a home in a free society, Swiftboat Veterans and MoveOn.org dominated the 2004 election airwaves, leaving political parties, political action committees and the campaign committees of George Bush and John Kerry with very little control over their own messages.”
Rep. Pence and other conservative legislators know what must be done to create a level playing field against the Soros/Gill shadow government. The question is whether they will have enough votes to bring about meaningful legislative solutions to fix the damage done by previous campaign reform bills.
If our democratic system is to work the way the Founders envisioned, American politics cannot be dominated by a Soros/Gill network of 527s designed to undermine traditional values. Political parties, PACs, and non-profits should have just as much political power as the shadow government.
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Today's anti-American leftists betray their own radical heritage Tuesday, July 4, 2006
By Michael Medved
Today’s militant leftists not only spread lies about America’s present but generate even more damaging distortions about the nation’s past – and in so doing differentiate themselves from the radical idealists of yesteryear.
Contemporary followers of Noam Chomsky and Ward Churchill view the entire American experience as a disgrace, even a crime. They stress the nation’s guilt in committing “genocide” against Native Americans, enslaving millions of Africans, stealing Mexican land, despoiling the pristine environment, oppressing working people everywhere, and blocking progressive change with an imperialist foreign policy. One Jake Irvin of Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington recently told the Wall Street Journal: “My political belief is that the U.S. is a horrendous empire that needs to end.”
In contrast, the radicals and revolutionaries of the past cloaked themselves in patriotic symbols and proclaimed their desire to call the nation back to its own highest ideals. From Eugene V. Debs and Norman Thomas to Paul Robeson and Abbie Hoffman, these agitators proudly quoted Jefferson, Lincoln, or Tom Paine, and agreed with the nation’s mainstream that Americanism (at least as they defined it) represented the “last, best hope of earth.” Even the Communist Party USA unblushingly honored national heroes: when they dispatched their fighters to support fellow Stalinists in the Spanish Civil War, the volunteers called themselves “The Abraham Lincoln Brigade” not the “Vladimir Lenin Brigade.” Stalin’s personal friend Paul Robeson achieved mainstream popularity with his “Ballad for Americans,” treating the Revolutionary War as a heroic struggle – not a malevolent conspiracy by greedy slaveholders (as it’s often portrayed today).
Despite his personal dalliance with the Communist Party, composer Aaron Copland crafted loving tributes to the American spirit, achieving vast popularity with works from his nationalist period (“Appalachian Spring,” “A Lincoln Portrait,” “Rodeo,” “Billy the Kid”), inventing a distinctive musical language of pioneers and open spaces without nods to multiculturalism or self-pity. Woody Guthrie, another embattled radical, proudly penned “This Land is Your Land,” an unblushing love song to his native soil.
Today’s radicals feel embarrassed by the leftwing flag-waving of 70 years ago, and insist that Americans should feel guilty rather than proud of their nation’s past and its role in the world. Cindy Sheehan, who became a worldwide celebrity by exploiting her son’s combat death in Iraq, recently posted a heart-rending rant on Michael Moore’s website, declaring: “I often have to ask myself why we, as Americans, so blindly follow our leaders down this path of violent destruction, and it has always been so. From the genocide and virtual extinction of our native population to dehumanizing black people so they could be used as human chattel and still be oppressed, even today, to still be the only so-called ‘civilized nation’ that executes people…Before we can change the world we have to look in our hearts and change ourselves. Before Casey was KIA in Iraq I led the life of rampant consumerism that wreaked havoc on my soul and the environment.”
Her personal guilt conforms to Colorado University professor Ward Churchill’s belief that the people who died in the World Trade Center could rightly be classified as “little Eichmanns” who deserved their violent, painful demise. Like Sheehan, he goes back to America’s “original sins” – maltreatment of Indians and enslavement of blacks- to argue against any sense of pride or patriotism for what this nation accomplished.
This negativity about the past directly threatens the nation’s future: spreading the idea among the younger generation that the entire American project isn’t worth sustaining or defending. Of course, the idea of conscious “genocide” again Native Americans is absurd – despite Cindy Sheehan’s claims of “virtual extinction of our native population” there are more self-identified Indians alive today than a hundred—or even two hundred – years ago.
Moreover, the assimilation and massive intermarriage with white people (even Bill Clinton claimed to be “part Cherokee”) erased far more self-identified Indians than the relatively rare (but undeniably loathsome) massacres by whites. Concerning slavery, Americans never invented it or instituted it – we inherited it, and with such great discomfort that anti-slavery activists were far better represented among the founding fathers (Franklin, Adams, Hamilton) than those who made an active case for slavery. David Brion Davis, the Yale professor who’s written magisterially about the history of the peculiar institution, makes clear the positive role of the American Revolution and its ideals in giving life (after many millennia of slavery) to the abolitionist movement around the world that ultimately put an end to this savage oppression. The United States, in other words, played a unique, prominent role in ending the institution, but played no role in establishing it.
These arguments matter because a nation embarrassed about its past, apologetic about its very existence, is a nation unable to defend itself from its enemies. The Fourth of July offers a unique opportunity to tell true stories about the land we love: not as a flawless paradise, but as a uniquely blessed haven that has provided more opportunities for more disparate populations than any nation in human history. In terms of our role in the wider world, one need not defend every decision by past leaders to recognize that no country has ever benefited the rest of humanity as consistently and abundantly as the United States.
In other words, the best response to America bashing radicals involves celebration, not castigation – an emphasis on joy, gratitude and pride rather than guilt and despair. Among other things, it’s simply more fun to be a patriotic American than a doom-embracing, “anti-imperialist” internationalist. There’s not better occasion than the anniversary of our independence to emphasize our uniqueness and, yes exceptionalism – to light a few firecrackers, eat some cherry pie, and join our neighbors in rejoicing in the Glorious Fourth.
China hails satellite killer -
and stuns its rivals in space
· International outcry over first such test since 1985
· Scientists have warned of dangers of debris in orbit
Friday January 19, 2007
By Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
China has given notice of its increasing power in space - and provoked widespread international concern - with a successful test of an anti-satellite weapon that could be used to knock out enemy surveillance and communications craft. In the first such test since the cold war era, the White House confirmed that China had used a medium-range ballistic missile, launched from the ground, to destroy an ageing weather satellite more than 500 miles into space. "We are aware of it and we are concerned, and we made it known," the White House spokesman, Tony Snow, told reporters.
The test, on January 11, was the first of its kind since 1985 when Washington halted such exercises because of fears of damaging military and civilian satellites with large clouds of debris.
The test was especially troubling because it exposed the vulnerability of America's dependence on low-orbiting satellites, which are used for military communications, smart bombs and surveillance. In theory, last week's exercise could give Beijing the capability to knock out such satellites - a realisation that underlay the protests from Washington.
Australia and Canada also voiced concerns; Britain, South Korea and Japan were expected to follow. "The US believes China's development and testing of such weapons is inconsistent with the spirit of cooperation that both countries aspire to in the civil space area," Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said. "We and other countries have expressed our concern regarding this action to the Chinese."
Scientists have long warned of the dangers of space debris - which can remain in orbit for many hundreds of years - on existing space programmes. Among the items lost in space are lens caps, tools and nuts and bolts. Some former Soviet satellites leak fuel which solidifies into balls up to 3cm in diameter. Tiny pieces, including flecks of paint from eroding satellites, can travel at 17,000mph, and gain enough momentum to damage a medium-sized spacecraft.
Despite yesterday's protests, the Bush administration has opposed a global ban on such tests, arguing that America needs to reserve its freedom of action in space. Arms control experts said it was not immediately clear whether the Chinese test was a ploy to try to press the Bush administration into a global weapons treaty, or whether China was asserting its own interests in space.
News of the test, first reported by the magazine Aviation Week and Space Technology, comes months after the Bush administration unveiled a doctrine asserting America's right to take action against any perceived threat in space. The missile relied on the force of impact rather than an exploding warhead to shatter the satellite.
Estimates said the destroyed Chinese satellite could have shattered into tens of thousands of fragments that would remain in orbit for more than a decade.
The magazine said on its website: "Details emerging from space sources indicate that the Chinese Feng Yun 1C (FY-1C) polar orbit weather satellite launched in 1999 was attacked by an asat (anti-satellite) system launched from or near the Xichang space centre."
Last August, Mr Bush laid out an even more robust vision of America's role in space, asserting Washington's right to deny access to any adversary hostile to US interests, and some arms control experts have accused the administration of conducting secret research on laser weapons to disable and destroy enemy satellites.
In public, Mr Bush has sought to revive the national interest in space by calling for Americans to return to the moon in 15 years, and even use bases there as a launchpad for Mars. However, almost all of those costly military space programmes are over budget and behind schedule.
Officer Rizzo of the 17th March 7, 2007
JPFO ALERT: UN Ignores Own "Declaration of Human Rights"
Supporters of globalization often point to the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.htmlas being equivalent or even superior to the US Bill of Rights. Once again, we are being lied to.
One of our supporters recently sent us this chilling email. As you read it, ask yourself if such a thing could happen in a country with a Bill of Rights Culture.
---- (begin excerpt) ----
Today I was handing out JPFO anti-U.N. pamphlets in front of the United Nations visitor's entrance. I was behaving peacefully and orderly, and I thought that I might be protected by the United Nations' "Declaration on Human Rights" and the U.S. constitution, which are supposed to protect political speech and free expression.
The U.N. guards immediately started harassing me and trying to get me to leave, and claimed I had no right to hand out literature there. I explained to them that I had consulted with a lawyer, and all sidewalks in the city are city-owned, and I have a right to hand out literature there. A U.N. superior officer immediately went across the street and summoned a New York City police officer to order me to leave.
I explained to the NYPD officer that I had consulted a lawyer and I was breaking no laws by distributing literature here. The NYPD officer, Officer Rizzo of the 17th precinct, said he didn't care about the law or lawyers, and claimed the U.N. was a "National Security Area" and I was not allowed to hand out any literature here, and I had to go across the street; and he went on to say that I could only hand out literature in certain places across the street, and not others, including that I was not allowed to hand out literature in front of any consulates or embassies, including not in front of the U.S. Embassy.
When I tried to explain to him again that my lawyer had confirmed my project was legal, he again said laws and lawyers are meaningless, and he ordered me to leave and tried to intimidate me physically. I left and walked away, but then went back to ask him some questions for my incident report.
Officer Rizzo started to threaten me and menace me, refused to answer any questions, and he and two other officers followed me up the street, threatening to arrest me and throw me in jail.
So I walked away, and came home, but I immediately filed an online complaint with the Complaint review Board, and I am planning to call up some TV stations to see if they'll do a report on this phenomenon (of police harassing conscientious citizen-activists who are exercising their rights).
---- (end excerpt) ----
Article 19 of the UN's "superior" Declaration states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." And Article 20 states, "Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association."
And yet here is an activist, peacefully assembling and imparting information and ideas _in front of the UN building itself_ ... and at the UN's request, he is harrassed and threatened until he is forced to leave. So much for human rights. Or the American Bill of Rights, for that matter. The First Amendment specifically states, "[Congress shall make no law] abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble..."
It should be stressed that the UN is not the only villian in this incident. An American, a New York City police officer, played the thug at the UN's behest. He bullied and intimidated another American -- one who was not breaking any laws -- in order to please his UN masters.
What kind of world can we expect if the UN's "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" supercedes the Bill of Rights? And what kind of world can we expect when our own countrymen put their pensions and welfare ahead of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, turning against us to slavishly enforce the UN's demands?
For more information, see our Gran'pa Jack #5 Booklet, "The United Nations is Killing Your Freedoms!" at http://www.jpfo.org/gj.htm#5
Funding Bill Undermines
War on Terror
Today the Democrat majority is bringing a bill to the House floor that would dangerously undermine our position in the Global War on Terror, while significantly increasing the national debt.
H.R. 1591, the Emergency War Supplemental, would limit the President's constitutional authority as Commander-in-Chief and require nearly all U.S. Armed Forces personnel to withdraw from Iraq by August 2008. This arbitrary and artificial deadline for retreat does not recognize the reality in Iraq and would embolden terrorists around the world.
Our brave and dedicated U.S. soldiers are helping the Iraqi people overthrow the oppression and tyranny of Saddam Hussein and Islamofascism. To leave unilaterally next year at a scheduled time without considering the situation on the ground is to accept defeat, pure and simple. It would mean our soldiers' sacrifices were in vain, and it would leave the Iraqi people to suffer through the ensuing, but preventable civil war.
By retreating and ignoring our gains and accomplishments, the United States would be unable to control the rise of fundamentalist governments and terrorist organizations. Even if we pull out of the Middle East, our enemies will not lay down their arms, but will instead set their sights on our homeland with renewed confidence.
The Founding Fathers of this great country created a constitution that rightly gave just one person, the President, supreme authority over military decisions. Our President is currently sending U.S. reinforcements to Baghdad in a new plan to "take and hold" parts of the country. This plan is having some initial success, but it will take time for results to develop fully.
Since the majority must convince hesitant Members of Congress to support this reckless evacuation, Democrats are unapologetically buying votes by including over $24 billion of non-emergency funding in their so called "Emergency War Supplemental" bill. To buy the votes they need, they have included federal funding for numerous unrelated items including:
$283 million for milk subsidies $25 million for spinach growers $74 million for peanut storage fees $3.3 billion for crop and livestock losses $500 million for wildfire activities $400 million for rural schools $400 million for low income energy assistance $5 million for aquaculture assistance $120 million for the shrimp industry $100 million for citrus growers $80 million for Indian housing $20 million to repair frozen farmland 50 million for vaccine compensation Including these non-emergency programs that have nothing to do with the War on Terror is blatantly irresponsible for a bill designed to support our fighting men and women. Future generations should not have to suffer through the burden of spiraling debt because the majority party ignored their fiscal responsibilities just to round up a few more votes.
Our commanders and soldiers in the field protect our country every day and deserve better than this bill. If Democrats are successful in cutting or placing restrictions on military funding, our Armed Forces personnel will be endangered. I voted against H.R. 1591, and will vote against any bill that does not fully fund our troops serving in harm's way. I am honored to represent America's committed men and women fighting on the front lines for freedom and we owe them an opportunity to accomplish their mission by securing victory in Iraq. On behalf of the people of District Seven in Houston, I thank every man and woman in uniform for their dedication and service.
Sincerely,
John Culberson
Houston Office:
10000 Memorial Drive Suite 620 Houston, TX 77024-3490 |
p/(713) 682-8828 | f/(713) 680-8070
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p/(202) 225-2571 | f/(202) 225-4381
Privacy & Security Policy
Here is a quick look into 3 former Fannie Mae executives who have brought down Wall Street.
Franklin Raines
Was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Fannie Mae. Raines was forced to retire from his position with Fannie Mae when auditing discovered severe irregulaties in Fannie Mae's accounting activities. At the time of his departure The Wall Street Journal' Raines, who long defended the company's accounting despite mounting evidence that it wasn't proper issued a statement late Tuesday conceding that 'mistakes' and saying he would assume responsibility as he had earlier promised. News reports indicate the company was under growing pressure from regulators to shake up its management in the wake of findings that the company's books ran afoul of generally accepted accounting principles for four years.' Fannie Mae had to reduce its surplus by $9 billion. Raines left with a 'golden parachute valued at $240 Million in benefits. The Government filed suit against Raines when the depth of the accounting scandal became clear.http://housingdoom.com/2006/12/18/fannie-charges/ . The Government noted, 'The 101 charges reveal how the individuals improperly manipulated earnings to maximize their bonuses, while knowingly neglecting accounting systems and internal controls,
misapplying over twenty accounting principles and misleading the regulator and the public. The Notice explains how they submitted six years of misleading and inaccurate accounting statements and inaccurate capital reports that enabled them to grow Fannie Mae in an unsafe and unsound manner.' italic"> These charges were made in 2006. The Court ordered Raines to return $50 Million Dollars he received in bonuses based on the miss-stated Fannie Mae profits.Tim Howard
Was the Chief Financial Officer of Fannie Mae. Howard 'was a strong internal proponent of using accounting strategies that would
ensure a 'stable pattern of earnings' at Fannie. In everyday English - he was cooking the books. The Government Investigation determined that, ' Chief Financial Officer, Tim Howard, failed to provide adequate oversight to key control and reporting functions within Fannie Mae,'On June 16, 2006, Rep. Richard Baker, R-La., asked the Justice Department to investigate his allegations that two former Fannie Mae executives lied to Congress in October 2004 when they denied manipulating the mortgage-finance giant's income statement to achieve management pay bonuses Investigations by federal regulators and the company's board of directors since concluded that management did manipulate 1998 earnings to trigger bonuses. Raines and Howard resigned under pressure in late 2004.
Howard's Golden Parachute was estimated at $20 Million!
Jim Johnson
A former executive at Lehman Brothers and who was later forced from his position as Fannie Mae CEO . A look at the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's May 2006reporton mismanagement and corruption inside Fannie Mae, and you'll see some interesting things about Johnson. Investigators found that Fannie Mae had hidden a substantial amount of Johnson's 1998 compensation from the public, reporting that it was between $6 million and $7 million when it fact it was $21 million.' Johnson is currently under investigation for taking illegal loans from Countrywide while serving as CEO of Fannie Mae. Johnson's Golden Parachute was estimated at $28 Million.
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
FRANKLIN RAINES ? Raines works for the Obama Campaign as Chief Economic Adviser.
TIM HOWARD? Howard is also a Chief Economic Adviser to Obama
JIM JOHNSON? Johnson hired as a Senior Obama Finance Adviser and was selected to run Obama's Vice Presidential Search Committee
IF OBAMA PLANS ON CLEANING UP THE MESS - HIS ADVISERS HAVE THE EXPERTISE -THEY MADE THE MESS IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Do you trust these men?
Educate and Inform the Masses...
Thought you'd be interested...
Bailout looks bought and paid for, no surprise here!...Any MORE Questions???COMMERCIAL BANK CONTRIBUTIONS:
Obama, Barack (D) $2,102,643
McCain, John (R) $1,890,574
Clinton, Hillary (D-NY) $1,573,558
Dodd, Christopher J (D-CT) $527,444
Cornyn, John (R-TX) $220,098
Coleman, Norm (R-MN) $197,850
Bachus, Spencer (R-AL) $171,300
McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $163,300
Roberts, Pat (R-KS) $149,640
Biden, Joseph R Jr (D-DE) $143,650v Sununu, John E (R-NH) $137,800
Durbin, Dick (D-IL) $133,900
Boehner, John (R-OH) $131,450
Rangel, Charles B (D-NY) $130,450Goldman Sachs Paid for this Bailout!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek7zc0lJxbM just over 5 minutes...By Debbie Lewis debbie@bridgestonemediagroup.com
