Saturday, January 28, 2006

Call your senators today! Stop Alito!

Ladies and Gentlemen,

There is still time to stop the confirmation of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, a confirmation that would mean the death of our Constitution as we know it and the official institution of a dictatorship in the United States of America via Alito's belief in the so-called, "unitary executive".

Call every single senator on the list below and make your wishes known. There is still time. A cloture vote has been forced for Monday, January 30 at 4 PM, on an Alito filibuster. Call today. Call NOW! If you love your freedom and want to preserve it for your children and grandchildren - CALL NOW! The telephone numbers for every single senator are below. They, and a form to send emails to the senators, can also be found at nocrony.com/ and congress.org/.

Call them ALL!

Gang of 14:
Pryor (AR) 202-224-2353
Salazar (CO) 202-224-5852
Lieberman (CT) 202-224-4041
Inouye (HI) 202-224-3934
Landrieu (LA) 202-224-5824
Nelson (NE) 202-224-6551
Byrd (WV) 202-224-3954

Other Swing Democrats:
Lincoln (AR) 202-224-4843
Dodd (CT) 202-224-2823
Carper (DE) 202-224-2441
Nelson (FL) 202-224-5274
Levin (MI) 202-224-6221
Baucus (MT) 202-224-2651
Dorgan (ND) 202-224-2551
Conrad (ND) 202-224-2043
Bingaman (NM) 202-224-5521
Wyden (OR) 202-224-5244
Johnson (SD) 202-224-5842
Murray (WA) 202-224-5274
Feingold (WI) 202-224-5323
Kohl (WI) 202-224-5653
Rockefeller (WV) 202-224-6472

Republican Moderates:
McCain (AZ) 202-224-2235
Murkowski (AK) 202-224-6665 Collins (ME) 202-224-2523
Snowe (ME) 202-224-5344
DeWine (OH) 202-224-2315
Voinovich (OH) 202-224-3353
Smith (OR) 202-224-3753
Specter (PA) 202-224-4254
Chafee (RI) 202-224-2921
Warner (VA) 202-224-2023



If you're still in doubt about who Alito is and what he stands for, then re-read the clip of Jeffrey Steinberg's article that I included in a previous post:

Judge Samuel Alito and The `Fürerprinzip':


On Jan. 5, 2006, in a front-page story, the Wall Street Journal identified Judge Samuel Alito, President George W. Bush's nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court, as a leading proponent of the savagely unconstitutional doctrine of the "unitary executive." The idea of the "unitary executive," which forms the core dogma of the ultra-right-wing Federalist Society, to which Judge Alito belongs, is more properly identified by its modern historical name the Fürerprinzip, authored by the Nazi regime's anointed "Crown Jurist" Carl Schmitt. Schmitt's doctrine, that the charismatic head of state is the law, and can assert absolute dictatorial authority during periods of emergency, has been used to legitimize every totalitarian regime in the West, from Hitler, through Gen. Francisco Franco in Spain, through Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile, to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the United States.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Judge Alito from a November 2000 speech, delivered, appropriately, before a Federalist Society convention in Washington, D.C. The Constitution, Alito declared, "makes the President the head of the executive branch, but it does more than that. The President has not just some executive powers, but the executive power - the whole thing."

Judge Alito elaborated, "I thought then" referring to his 1980s tenure at the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, "and I still think, that this theory best captures the meaning of the Constitution's text and structure," adding that, in his view, the Framers "saw the unitary executive as necessary to balance the huge power of the legislature and the factions that may gain control of it."

After reviewing the Wall Street Journal account, Lyndon LaRouche declared, "If Judge Alito does in fact adhere to the views reported in the Wall Street Journal, he should not be allowed near any court certainly not the United States Supreme Court except as a defendant." LaRouche insisted that Alito's nomination must be decisively defeated in the Senate, or the Supreme Court will fall fatally into the hands of a cabal of outright "Schmittlerian" Nazis, led by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Alito all members of the self-avowed "conservative revolutionary" Federalist Society.

LaRouche counterposed the outright Nazi doctrine of the Federalist Society proponents of the "unitary executive" (Fürerprinzip) to the American System principles invoked by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he was confronted with the awesome responsibility of preparing the United States for world war. On Sept. 8, 1939, at a press conference following his Proclamation of Limited Emergency, as war was erupting in Europe, FDR assured the American people, "There is no intention and no need of doing all those things that could be done.... There is no thought in any shape, manner or form, of putting the Nation, in its defenses or in its internal economy, on a war basis. That is one thing we want to avoid. We are going to keep the nation on a peace basis, in accordance with peacetime authorizations."

Cheney and 9/11

FDR's respect for the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances, and separation of power, stands in stark contrast to the assault on the Constitution, launched by Vice President Cheney even before Sept. 11, 2001.

As LaRouche prophetically warned, in testimony delivered on Jan. 16, 2001 to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, opposing the nomination of John Ashcroft as Attorney General, the Cheney-led Bush Administration came into office committed to government-by-crisis-management, modeled on the Hitler Nazi dictatorship in Germany. LaRouche warned that the Bush Administration would seek, at the first opportunity, a "Reichstag fire" justification for dictatorship, all based on the legal theories of Hitler's Carl Schmitt. It was Schmitt, who wrote the legal opinion, based on the "unitary executive" Fürerprinzip, that justified Hitler's declaration of emergency dictatorial rule on Feb. 28, 1933, 24 hours after the German parliament was set ablaze by agents of Hitler's own Herman Gðring.

The aftermath of 9/11 proved that LaRouche was 100% right. On Dec. 19, 2005, in a press conference aboard Air Force Two, Vice President Cheney flaunted the fact that he came into office in January 2001, committed to rolling back the legislative safeguards, passed by Congress and signed into law by Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and the revelations about illegal FBI and CIA spying on American citizens. In calling for a rollback of those post-Watergate "infringements" on Presidential power, Cheney was, in effect, declaring war on the most sacred principles written into the U.S. Constitution. [....]















posted by K at 1:42 AM 1 comments

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Alito Confirmation: Something you can do to stop it


If Judge Samuel Alito is confirmed, it will be the fatal blow that puts an end to the US Constitution and what little democracy that may be left in the United States. It will only be a matter of time - perhaps a very short time - until a totalitarian regime is then fully ensconced in the US. It will only be a matter of time before every single freedom, every single right that US citizens may still hold will be taken from them indefinitely. It will only be a matter of time before free speech - which has already been taken from a number of people who have been imprisoned or received death threats for speaking the truth - is nothing but a memory for EVERYONE.

For those who see this, but don't know what they can do, here is something. Go to this website and they will assist you to send a letter to those congressmen who are leading the opposition against the Alito. All you have to do is write a letter. That's all. Just a letter.

It might not seem like much, but if enough people do it, it might very well tip the scales towards a future for ourselves and our children that is one of retained freedoms, rather than stolen ones.

Go to this OpEdNews.com article as soon as possible - there's no time to waste - and make your opinion known.

Time to do something about this situation, don't you think?

















posted by K at 2:18 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Alito, Fürerprinzip and the Freedom to Choose


These are indeed extremely frightening times we're living in these days. And the more I read about Alito, the scarier it gets. If this guy gets into the Supreme Court, all I can say is....God help us all.

Eleanor Clift of Newsweek wrote about Alito in her Abortion Politics:


The Alito hearing couldn't have come out better for the Republicans if the Supreme Court nominee himself had chaired the committee. Even though it was a Republican senator, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who brought Alito's wife to tears by asking her husband if he was "a closet bigot," the Democrats got blamed for hectoring the nominee with questions he wasn't going to answer.

The shock of the rhetorical ploy briefly drove Martha-Ann Alito from the hearing room and gave Graham the stage to defend the judge's character and bemoan the "guilt by association" tactics employed by Democrats. It turns out that Graham had a hand in helping prep Alito for the hearings, which raises the issue of whether the line was scripted.


Well, that wouldn't be surprising, would it? Considering Graham is a Republican and helped Alito prep for the hearings? Nothing like the old pity play to put people off their guard and bring them over to your side. A typical sosiopathic tactic, interestingly enough.

Clift addresses the abortion issue in her article, but women's freedom to choose is not the only issue we should be worried about at this point. Everyone's freedom is at stake here, and it has been in danger ever since Bush came to power. With Alito in the Supreme Court, it will only be a matter of time before Bush becomes the legal dictator of the United States.

Don't think so?

Then I suggest you read Jeffrey Steinberg's, Judge Samuel Alito and The `Fürerprinzip' , which I found while over at Signs of the Times, Steinberg states in his article:

On Jan. 5, 2006, in a front-page story, the Wall Street Journal identified Judge Samuel Alito, President George W. Bush's nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the U.S. Supreme Court, as a leading proponent of the savagely unconstitutional doctrine of the "unitary executive." The idea of the "unitary executive," which forms the core dogma of the ultra-right-wing Federalist Society, to which Judge Alito belongs, is more properly identified by its modern historical name the Fürerprinzip, authored by the Nazi regime's anointed "Crown Jurist" Carl Schmitt. Schmitt's doctrine, that the charismatic head of state is the law, and can assert absolute dictatorial authority during periods of emergency, has been used to legitimize every totalitarian regime in the West, from Hitler, through Gen. Francisco Franco in Spain, through Gen. Augusto Pinochet in Chile, to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney in the United States.

The Wall Street Journal quoted Judge Alito from a November 2000 speech, delivered, appropriately, before a Federalist Society convention in Washington, D.C. The Constitution, Alito declared, "makes the President the head of the executive branch, but it does more than that. The President has not just some executive powers, but the executive power - the whole thing."

Judge Alito elaborated, "I thought then" referring to his 1980s tenure at the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, "and I still think, that this theory best captures the meaning of the Constitution's text and structure," adding that, in his view, the Framers "saw the unitary executive as necessary to balance the huge power of the legislature and the factions that may gain control of it."

After reviewing the Wall Street Journal account, Lyndon LaRouche declared, "If Judge Alito does in fact adhere to the views reported in the Wall Street Journal, he should not be allowed near any court certainly not the United States Supreme Court except as a defendant." LaRouche insisted that Alito's nomination must be decisively defeated in the Senate, or the Supreme Court will fall fatally into the hands of a cabal of outright "Schmittlerian" Nazis, led by Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Alito all members of the self-avowed "conservative revolutionary" Federalist Society.

LaRouche counterposed the outright Nazi doctrine of the Federalist Society proponents of the "unitary executive" (Fürerprinzip) to the American System principles invoked by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, when he was confronted with the awesome responsibility of preparing the United States for world war. On Sept. 8, 1939, at a press conference following his Proclamation of Limited Emergency, as war was erupting in Europe, FDR assured the American people, "There is no intention and no need of doing all those things that could be done.... There is no thought in any shape, manner or form, of putting the Nation, in its defenses or in its internal economy, on a war basis. That is one thing we want to avoid. We are going to keep the nation on a peace basis, in accordance with peacetime authorizations."

Cheney and 9/11

FDR's respect for the U.S. constitutional system of checks and balances, and separation of power, stands in stark contrast to the assault on the Constitution, launched by Vice President Cheney even before Sept. 11, 2001.

As LaRouche prophetically warned, in testimony delivered on Jan. 16, 2001 to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, opposing the nomination of John Ashcroft as Attorney General, the Cheney-led Bush Administration came into office committed to government-by-crisis-management, modeled on the Hitler Nazi dictatorship in Germany. LaRouche warned that the Bush Administration would seek, at the first opportunity, a "Reichstag fire" justification for dictatorship, all based on the legal theories of Hitler's Carl Schmitt. It was Schmitt, who wrote the legal opinion, based on the "unitary executive" Fürerprinzip, that justified Hitler's declaration of emergency dictatorial rule on Feb. 28, 1933, 24 hours after the German parliament was set ablaze by agents of Hitler's own Herman Gðring.

The aftermath of 9/11 proved that LaRouche was 100% right. On Dec. 19, 2005, in a press conference aboard Air Force Two, Vice President Cheney flaunted the fact that he came into office in January 2001, committed to rolling back the legislative safeguards, passed by Congress and signed into law by Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal and the revelations about illegal FBI and CIA spying on American citizens. In calling for a rollback of those post-Watergate "infringements" on Presidential power, Cheney was, in effect, declaring war on the most sacred principles written into the U.S. Constitution. [....]


Are we awake yet America?


[See also: Alito Confirmation Would Soon Establish Unitary Executive Theory (Fuehrerprinzip) As Law, Then Make Bush Dictator ]














posted by K at 1:20 PM 0 comments

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Did a Boeing 757 strike the Pentagon on 911, or did something else?

Surfing through some of of my usual news sites today, I came across this interesting article at Signs of the Times about what happened at the Pentagon on 911. It also discusses "damage control" by the government on those who say a 757 did NOT hit the Pentagon via certain people and/or websites. In this case, the author states that the forum at AboveTopSecret.com seems to be one of those places where such damage control is being carried out. It's a fascinating article, so I thought I'd pass it along. An excerpt follows:


Evidence That a Frozen Fish Didn't Impact the Pentagon on 9/11, and Neither Did a Boeing 757 by Joe Quinn

After the release of the QFG Pentagon Strike Flash Animation on August 23rd, 2004, a veritable onslaught of new articles were published that sought to dismiss the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory. One such article, that is frequently referenced by certain '9/11 researchers' was authored by a member of the forum at the "Above Top Secret" (ATS) website. Interestingly, the article was written just a few weeks after the release of the Pentagon Strike Flash animation, which by then, was winging its way around the world and into the inboxes of millions of ordinary citizens. Perhaps you were one of them...

The claim that promoters of the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory were doing immense damage to the truth/accountability movement was raised in Mike Ruppert's book Crossing the Rubicon. In a stunning piece of warped logic, Ruppert claimed that, while he is quite convinced that it was not Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon, he chose not to talk about or deal with the subject as part of his overall case for conspiracy because of the "implications". According to Ruppert, the "implications" are that anyone that suggests that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, is then forced to answer the question as to what actually happened to Flight 77. If that's the case, then we better just wrap up the whole 9/11 Truth Movement and go home and have a beer.

Ruppert balks at the idea of offering an answer to this question to his readers because, he claims, most people would be unable to accept it, and, he suggests, 9/11 researchers serve only to alienate the public support that they wish to attract by stretching the boundaries of the collective belief system. What Ruppert doesn't explain is why any member of the public would happily accept that U.S. government officials participated in the slaughter of the passengers on Flights 11 and 175 and the occupants of the WTC towers (as he details in his book) yet would be unable to accept the idea that the same government officials played a part in disposing of the passengers of Flight 77 in a much less imaginative way. Let's be honest here, in the context of 9/11 being the work of a faction of the US government and military, the answer to the question as to what happened to Flight 77 if it didn't hit the Pentagon is quite obvious - Flight 77 and its occupants were flown to a specific destination and “disposed of” by the conspirators. That's pretty simple; cut and dried; no need for much stretching there! But, for some reason, Ruppert (and others affected by this paramoralism) seems to think that killing thousands of citizens by crashing airplanes is easier to accept than cold bloodedly murdering them "in person," as it were.

Since Ruppert's declaration about the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory, many other "9/11 researchers", such as Mark Rabinowitz and Jim Hoffman, have seized upon Ruppert's idea and even expanded upon it by suggesting that the "no planers" are actually government agents trying to discredit the REAL 9/11 researchers with the 'kooky' "no plane" theory.

In order to really understand the insidiousness of this patronising claim that the public could not accept the implications of the idea that a Boeing 757 did not hit the Pentagon, let's look at the "evidence" as presented by the ATS member that it really was Flight 77 that impacted the Pentagon that bright September morn.

First, however, I would like to make a few observations about 9/11 research in general.

Anyone who takes on the formidable task of digging into the events of 9/11 is immediately at a disadvantage because the US government has already declared the case closed. The government knows how it happened and who did it and have informed the entire world. As a result, there is no possibility of access to the raw data, to the crime scene or analyses of same. Here is where we meet the major obstacle: since the US government is the prime suspect, we cannot simply take as truth everything - or anything - that they say in relation to the case.

Investigation of the 9/11 attacks should be approached like any murder investigation. When confronted with a murder case (like 9/11) and a suspect that has a history of deceit and murder (like the US government and its agencies) and who had an opportunity and a motive to commit the murder, do you take as fact any claims by the suspect that he did not commit the murder? Do you seek to fit the facts around his claim that he did not commit the murder? When you confront evidence that suggests that the suspect is lying about his account of where he was and what he was doing, or you find inconsistencies and logistically impossible scenarios in his account, do you ignore these and focus only on the fact that he said he did not commit the murder and try to find and present evidence that backs up his claim to innocence?

The fact is that researchers coming to the 9/11 investigation after the fact, and after the case has been officially closed, are not only confronted with the task of trying to find out what actually happened - they also face the already well established public belief, by which they themselves are also influenced, that the official story is the truth. The best approach for any 9/11 researcher with honest intentions is to, if possible, wipe from their minds the official version of events and take the attitude of someone who has just returned from a 5 year trip to the outer reaches of the solar system, during which time they had no communication with planet earth. Start with a beginner's mind, turn off the sound of all the conflicting voices and their claims, and just LOOK at the evidence without prejudice.

Now, if the person with a truly open mind is given all of the publicly available evidence and has been additionally furnished with knowledge of the effects of airplane crashes and that of missile impacts, what would such a person conclude about the most likely cause of the Pentagon damage? Of course, not all of the evidence was made available to the public, but there is still sufficient visual evidence from "ground zero" (both in terms of place and TIME), to form a pretty good "best guess". For a definitive conclusion to be reached, the "private" evidence, like the video tapes of the event that the FBI confiscated, would have to be released, and we don't expect that to happen any time soon. Of course, the fact that the definitive evidence of the videos has not been released is in itself a key piece of evidence that suggests that the official story of what hit the Pentagon is not the real story.

The purpose of this small introduction is to prepare the reader for the fact that, in his attempted rebuttal of the no 757 at the Pentagon theory, the ATS article author, CatHerder, appears to have succumbed to the influence of the mainstream media shills that have incessantly parroted the official government story about what happened on 9/11 for the three years prior to the writing of the article. As such, he has failed to don the mantle of objective observer of the available evidence that is so crucial to finding the truth, and instead exerts a lot of effort to make the available evidence fit the government claim that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon on the morning of September 11th 2001. Either that, or he/she is part of the "official government cover-up." After you read everything below, you can make a call on that one yourself.

Here is the ATS article as it appears on the ATS site with my comments interspersed in blue text. [....]



For the full article, go here.















posted by K at 2:27 AM 1 comments

Wednesday, December 28, 2005

A Call to Action II: Feedback

I received two comments today to "A Call to Action", which was inspired by an article by Newsweek's Eleanor Clift
, and I thought I would make a blog post out of my response, rather than hiding it away in the comments section.

Firstly, let me just thank both Real Speck and Truth Seeker for their comments. It's so nice to read how others think about things!

Real Speck wrote:

For the most part, K, I like the thinking.

I've always held that that "goddamned piece of paper" is the most powerful revolutionary tool ever created. Far more effective that Mr. Malatov's famous brew.

The seeds of change have been sitting there for 200+ years. So Scalia is wrong; the document is alive. It's just been taking a little nap since we repealed prohibition.

But I differ on the tactics for regime change.

To my mind, focusing energy on getting those guys out is not nearly as important as getting 'our guys' in. Specifically, if 'our guys' are Kerry, Daschle, Hillary, etc., then they flat-out suck!

Our real problem is finding 'our guys' (who are probably mostly gals) and convince them that running for office -- so every two-bit media outlet can put a Beta-cam up their sphincter -- is a good thing for their life.

Are you one? (How's that for a sudden, bold and unexpected question?)

I have the growing suspicion that I might be one, too.

And we should take a page from the Republicans' playbook and start small. Let's get some traction at the state and local level before thinking about the national game.

Check me out:
http://leftwingbiz.blogspot.com/
http://realadvertising.cc/


Then Truth Seeker responded:

There is no time to start small. Changing teams does not change the status quo, imho. It does not matter which side of the fence any of "our guys" are from, just as long as they value truth and justice and are willing to sacrifice the backing of corporate masters.

And if we eliminated the ability for money to rule government, then maybe, just maybe, we would be able to have a truly representative government.

To me, that is why the "taking a page from the Republicans" will not really change anything, except the faces of our leaders.



I tend to agree with Truth Seeker, in that there really does not seem to be enough time to "start small" at the state and local levels, although I imagine that these levels would be included and affected by any changes. In addition, the government that is doing the most damage to the nation and globally exists at the top, the national level, not at the state and local levels, so that is where the changes must begin. If you have cancer, you don't go in for an appendectomy. The point being, you have to go to the source or location of the disease and give the appropriate treatment. In this case, the main source doing the most damage is at the top, not the bottom. Moreover, the "disease" is at such an advanced stage that extreme "emergency measures" seem to be required, and this means that something needs to be done, and done rather quickly, before the disease that is fascism takes an even stronger foothold and what was merely "creeping" turns the US to into a full-blown dictatorship.

As for being someone who would run for office, I sincerely doubt it. Not unless the miracle being discussed here should come to pass, and a new, innovative system is put into place in which government officials aspire to their posts - not for wealth and power - but to genuinely serve the people and do what is right, honorable, just and best for them. Not unless government ceases to be the haven for war mongers and those whose thirst for wealth and power is insatiable. Not unless "kings become philosophers, or philosophers become kings", and the present system becomes a government that is truly "for the people and by the people". No, I don't think so.

Sure, I think I am of the sort to "serve", and try to do so in whatever way presents itself to me day by day, but as Raphael said to Sir Thomas More in his Utopia, after telling Raphael that he was a "generous and philosophical soul" that would be a great counsellor to any king:

"You are doubly mistaken," said he, "Mr. More, both in your opinion of me and in the judgment you make of things: for as I have not that capacity that you fancy I have, so if I had it, the public would not be one jot the better when I had sacrificed my quiet to it. For most princes apply themselves more to affairs of war than to the useful arts of peace; and in these I neither have any knowledge, nor do I much desire it; they are generally more set on acquiring new kingdoms, right or wrong, than on governing well those they possess." [...]


There is more, but the general point is that, in the present system, those who truly want to "do some good" or serve others, cannot do this in the political arena because they simply do not "fit", and their efforts would be for nothing. They generally have to find other ways apart from politics in order to do this.

Like blogging.

Until the system changes.















posted by K at 3:30 PM 5 comments

A Call to Action

It's time for a change.....and Americans know it. They see it, they feel it and they know it.

If the majority of Americans no longer trust nor want the current government - as the polls are telling us - then it is, quite simply, time for a new one. One that truly represents the people and the will of said people.

It is time then, not only for a new President, but a new government, and changes in the election system that will safeguard against rigged elections that put people in power who do NOT have the best interests of the populace at heart, but only their own self-interest.

I came across this commentary over at Signs of the Times in response to Newsweek journalist, Eleanor Clift's article, Big Lies: Who told the worst political untruth of 2005? It’s a shame the list of contenders is so long.
 , which makes some excellent suggestions for actions that should be taken to save America from the fascism that has been creeping up on her ever since 911.

If you love America - and more importantly - love Justice, Truth and Freedom, and wish to protect them all, then take these suggestions to heart and spread them far and wide. Write to friends, family and co-workers. Write your congressmen - whose salaries YOU pay - and make your wishes known. Demonstrate.

Stop the erosion of our civil rights that is slowly putting us all in a prison. If we do nothing, then that prison will be of our own making. Our own responsibility. We will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Stop government eavedropping and surveillance of it's citizens.

Stop the murder of innocents in our names.

Stop the tyranny.

Stop the sosiopaths in government from fully taking over America, and succeeding in their goal of total world domination.

And start making the changes that will preserve and protect the Lives, Liberty and Well-Being of both American citizens and people the world over who will suffer from the bullying and domination of the current US government. Do this for all of us who live today, and for future generations.

Start making the changes that will remove those from power who refer to the Constitution as just a "Goddamned piece of paper".

If you feel any sense of responsibility to others. If you have any love at all living in your heart. If you have any semblance of a conscience at all.

Then start making the changes today, America.

Before it's too late.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


Signs of the Times commentary in response to Newsweek journalist, Eleanor Clift's article, Big Lies
:

Comment: It's a strangely schizophrenic state for the United States to be in: on one side, you have Bush, Cheney and the gang loudly proclaiming "their reality," and on the other, you have more and more mainstream media outlets loudly proclaiming that Bush, Cheney, and the whole White House gang are out and out liars.

Two years ago, almost NONE of the mainstream media sources were calling Bush and Cheney liars; that was the purview of the alternative news sites and bloggers. But the issues have grown so large, so frightening that even the moderates and former Bush supporters are joining the general clamor for something to be done.

There's a problem, however, as Eleanor Clift points out above:

"The polls show that a majority of Americans no longer trust this team, which is why Bush and Cheney are hitting back hard at their critics. ... We have no mechanism to deal with a president who has lost the trust and confidence of the American people and has three years remaining in office. Impeachment is a nonissue; it’s not going to happen with Republicans in control of the House and Senate."

Recent polls (uncooked ones, that is) show that over 80 % of the American People want Bush impeached. But, as we pointed out a day or so ago, that's not the answer. If you impeach Bush, you get Cheney, if you impeach Cheney, you get Hastert, if you impeach Hastert, you get Stevens.

What we need is a way to get rid of an entire government.

The problem seems to be that our Founding Fathers did not include in their deliberations, any situation such as the United States is faced with today: a gang that has fixed elections, assassinated opposition, blackmailed and stacked the Congress to pass laws that essentially create a dictatorship.

Some other democratic governments have made provisions for just such contingencies. Typically, when parliaments vote 'no confidence,' or where it fails to vote confidence, a government must either: 1. resign, or 2. seek a parliamentary dissolution and request a General Election. We think that such provisions still leave something to be desired in that there is no way to factor in the voice of the people

In view of the situation, we here at Signs do have an idea. Since it is now obvious that 80 % or more of the American people want Bush OUT, it is not very likely that any of them will be voting Republican in the next congressional elections. If a Republican majority is returned to Congress, we can then be almost certain of vote rigging. So, the thing to do first is deluge all state governments with demands for voting systems that have a paper trail to ensure that no more elections are stolen.

Then, the people must put their energy into demanding new legislation. This legislation should be a bill introduced in Congress to the effect that a petition of citizens can invoke a national referendum of confidence/no confidence. Such a referendum will be 1 person = 1 vote, no "electoral college," no steps between the will of the people and the representatives of the people. If the will of the people is "no confidence" in the reigning government, they must all resign and a new election will be held. There ought to also be new legislation regarding elections, election financing, Congressional perks and power brokering.

So, here are some general ideas:

Government Should Be In The Hands Of Those Who Wish To Serve And Who Are Qualified By A Thorough Psychological Testing Program As Well As Extensive Background Investigation by something equivalent to a Grand Jury. Governing powers should certainly never be in the hands of those who are evaluated according to "electability" in terms of looks, or budget. Government should be made undesirable to those who seek money and power. Honor and the High Regard of the People should be the main rewards of statesmanship. Therefore, the following should be enacted as Constitutional Amendments:

A. Outlaw Expensive Political Campaigns. The Top Five qualified candidates should be given equal media representation gratis so that each can clearly state their positions and platforms. Money must be divorced from power in a Democracy.

B. Outlaw Lobbying And Special Interest Groups. Each Act Of Legislation should be clearly written so that all people can understand it,and no bills should be "conglomerates" where an unpopoular measure can be piggy-backed on a popular one.

C. All Elected Officials should be elected by Majority Vote of the People only. The Electoral College needs to be dismantled.

D. Salaries Of Elected Officials should reflect an average of the incomes of their constituents. In this way, they will have a better idea of how everybody else lives and will be more motivated to solve the problems of the people they serve.

Legislators and government officials should be provided with simple apartments, paid for by the government, where they can live while performing government functions if they must live away from their normal homes while doing so. Expensive residences, parties, cars, trips, and other so-called perks must be outlawed. Entertainment for visiting heads of state from other countries can be handled via special programs for same.

E. Outlaw Honorariums, Speaking Fees, Consulting Fees, Gifts etc, for elected officials while in office. If they can't live on their salaries, how do the expect anyone else to do so?

Such measures as the above are simple and would quickly result in social adjustments relating to government. With individual riches and power eliminated from the government equation, only those who truly seek to serve will be motivated to run for government office.

Naturally it is to be expected that great resistance to such ideas will issue from those possessing great wealth and power. The wealthy and powerful control not only the government, but also religions, social customs and social institutions. They have access to very clever theoreticians who invent very clever theories to justify everything they do. The result of these machinations can be seen all around us today. Never before has humanity been so precariously balanced on the edge of a chasm of fire, from which no one will emerge if we fall in.

Popular Theory holds that, while concentrated wealth may seem unfair, it is "good for economic prosperity." A couple of con-artists once made an Emperor a New set of clothes, too.

We believe in prosperity and comfort and freedom from want for all. Indeed, those who are more industrious and ambitious will naturally have more than others: that is the nature of a free market. We have no issues with that. However, we believe that those individuals who are less "equal" in terms of intellect or ambition, but who are still the majority of humanity, should be able to establish and maintain a basically comfortable and fulfilling lifestyle. The people who are content flipping burgers and collecting the trash should be able to live without stress, too.

Since our current major problems are actually Economic, we think immediate measures must be taken. These measures are based on the ideas of Dr. Ravi Batra, Professor Of Economics at Southern Methodist University.

A. Enact taxation in proportion to benefits received from the government. Since "Defense Of Our Way Of Life" is the Primary Benefit we receive, and is the major part of the Federal Budget, those who have the most to protect should pay the most taxes for that service.

Those who have accumulated great wealth in the United States have been vigorously protected at great expense of life limb by the common people from the time of The Revolutionary War until the present. That is to say, that the wealthy have been protected at the expense of the poor and middle classes and yet, the poor and middle classes are getting poorer and less able to survive while the rich are getting richer and sending more of the sons of the poor and middle classes off to die to enable the rich to get richer. For this reason, such a Wealth Tax should be retroactive when possible.

This Tax should be imposed on net worth including Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, Precious Metals, Paintings Etc. An Exemption of an amount to equal twice the average cost of living in a given region should be allowed for everyone for personal and living expenses. The next double amount of the average cost of living would be taxed at 2%, the third at 3%, the fourth at 4%, and so on up to 10% of everything above 10 times double the average cost of living.

As can easily be seen, this would instantly remove the tax burden from the poor and Middle Classes entirely.

This Tax Rate would also generate revenues amounting to well over $300 Billion, based on $15 Trillion in total wealth.

This tax would apply to all foreign investors as well. This money should be used to immediately balance the Federal Budget. At the same time, government spending must be frozen and capital controls against moving money out of the country enacted.

Several things would result from this plan.

1. The tax would only fall on those who could afford to pay.

2. It would stimulate those of wealth to divest themselves of speculative paper and invest in actual industry. REAL jobs would be created and expanded.

B. Financial Institutions Must Be Regulated, and not by themselves as is the current situation with the so-called "Fed."

C. Charge Foreign Countries For Defense. It is cheaper for foreign governments to pay the U.S. than to establish and maintain their own standing armies. That is one of the reasons the U.S. has so many military bases all over the world. Ten years agoa, as much as $290. billion of the U.S. Defense Budget was spent on defense abroad. Today, that figure is so unbelievable that the U.S. is in imminent danger of economic collapse.

Following WW II, America offered a sefense umbrella to impoverished allies. At that time it was the world's largest banker. Those surpluses have declined turning America into the world's largest debtor. We can no longer compete in world trade because of our defense spending. Charging 1 To 2 percent of other nation's GNP for defense would bring in hundreds of millions annually. It can be said that the Iraq War is being fought on behalf of Israel, therefore, Israel should pay for it. Any wealthy individuals in the U.S. holding dual Israeli/American citizenship ought to pay double the Wealth Tax: once for the U.S. and once for Israel.

If other countries imposed a wealth tax as well, they would easily be able to bring their books into balance. But, as we have noted above, it is the wealthy who have risen to power on the blood, sweat and tears of the common man with the predictable result of today's embarrassing situation of the U.S. being stuck for the next three years with a president and administration that over 80% of the people do not want. It is the "love of money" for its own sake that has brought this evil on America.

In closing we would like to say: We believe in government of the people, by the people, and for the people - and we desire to see that it does not perish from the Earth!















posted by K at 2:32 AM 3 comments

Monday, November 14, 2005

US lawmakers want to wall up Mexico border

Geez. This brings to mind what Israel is doing with their "security wall", doesn't it? Which they are apparently building to "keep Palestinians out" - or is that, to "keep them in"? That is, imprison them, corral them up like so many cattle? Anyone familiar with WWII history might also recall the wall that was built around a Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. The world just keeps getting more and more insane.

US lawmakers want to wall up Mexico border

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Republican lawmakers have introduced a bill to build a 3,200 kilometer (2,000 mile) wall along the US border with Mexico to keep illegal immigrants out.
 
The legislation aims to "create a border security fence from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico," said House of Representatives members Duncan Hunter of California and Virgil Goode of Virginia in a statement.
 
"Prior to September 11, 2001, illegal immigration was considered a regional issue without national implications. We quickly learned on that day, however, that this is a national issue, affecting each and every American, not just those living in border communities like San Diego County," Hunter said.
 
Their True Enforcement and Border Security Act would also "authorize thousands of new border patrol officers, immigration investigators, attorneys and immigration judges," they said.
 
Hunter told CNN it was important to identify who crosses the border and who helps them do it, adding that four North Koreans were among those arrested trying to enter the US illegally in the past few months.
 
About the cost and difficulty of building a wall along the entire border with Mexico, Hunter simply said: "It's a simple construction."
 
While Hunter assured skeptics that a fence would work in keeping out unwanted immigrants, pointing to a successful 22-kilometer (14-mile) stretch of fence near San Diego, California, other Republican lawmakers were not so sure.
 
Representative Jeff Flake (news, bio, voting record), of Arizona, was quoted as saying in Friday's issue of The Washington Times that a fence would not work for half of the 400,000 immigrants that enter the United States every year and overstay their legal entry visas.
 
While the administration of Republican
President George W. Bush has vowed to do more to enforce the borders.
 
It was unclear whether the fence building bill would receive sufficient support to pass in both houses of Congress.
 
Homeland Security Secretary
Michael Chertoff on Tuesday announced that 1,000 additional border guards would be recruited to help stem the tide of illegal immigrants.
 
Two weeks ago, Chertoff said his goal was to deport all illegal aliens caught crossing the border.
 
The conservative Washington Times newspaper on Friday said Republican lawmakers were also considering a bill ending birthright citizenship, or jus soli, which is a right granted under the US constitution.
 
"There is a general agreement about the fact that citizenship in this country should not be bestowed on people who are the children of folks who come into this country illegally," said Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado.
 
A group of Republican lawmakers trying to find consensus on immigration is studying whether the issue of jus soli would require a constitutional amendment or a congressional statute.
 
A constitutional amendment would require approval by three fourths of the 50 US states, a very difficult undertaking. The last amendment, the 27th, establishing congressional pay increases was passed in 1992.

 












posted by K at 3:50 AM 6 comments

Friday, October 21, 2005

Military Blocks Commercial Email Sites: First Sign of a Public Internet Lock-down in the Name of "Safety" and "Security"?

Well, I can't say that I'm really surprised about this one.

Navy, Marines Block Commercial Email Sites

Stars and Stripes
By Sandra Jontz
October 19, 2005

Hotmail account not working? Or Yahoo!? It's not a glitch with the computer connection.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps blocked all access to
commercial e-mail services, such as Yahoo!, Hotmail, America Online
and Google, from overseas government computers.

And not just at office workstations.

The block includes access to e-mail services from computers at base
libraries and liberty centers that are connected to an official
government network.

"This concerns us, because so many of our patrons won't be able to
access their e-mail, and many come to the library to do just that,"
said Ciro Giordano, supervisory librarian at Naval Support Activity
Naples, Italy.

But access to such services leaves the unclassified government
network too susceptible to hackers and computer viruses, said Neal
Miller, a senior plans and policy manager with Naval Network Warfare
Command in Norfolk, Va.

"By going through some of the commercial Web-based e-mail accounts,
it opens up vulnerabilities to government-run networks and presents
too high [of a] risk to be acceptable," Miller said. [....]



Here's a thought: Maybe the access has been blocked - not as protection against hackers and the like - but as protection, for the government, against too much of the truth - the "antibody" against the "virus" of mainstream government propaganda - being exchanged. Truth, for example, about the war in Iraq, what is really going on in the prison camps, and in Afghanistan. Truth about the real death tolls, about human rights violations, etc. For example.

Maybe some of those marines have seen a few things that the government doesn't want leaked out to the general public. Things that the marines are perhaps reporting to family and friends via email? Maybe that's the real reason for the access to these accounts being blocked? Maybe?

It's really amazing what governments can get away with - all in the name of "safety" and "security", isn't it? They can take away civil liberties - albeit in slow increments so that you don't notice too much, and by the time you do, it's too late. All in the name of "safety" and "security". They can bomb the hell out of and occupy other countries, and institute new governments of their choosing in them. They can murder innumerable innocent civilians while doing so. They can build massive walls around borders, imprisoning the residents within. All in the name of "safety" and "security".

Before long - and I think it may be sooner rather than later - the general public may find itself that access will be blocked to many sites - normal webpages, news sites, blogs, chatrooms and discussion groups - on the internet that are considered "subversive" simply due to the fact that they are speaking out against the actions of governments. Simply due to the fact that they are voices of dissent. Alternative voices to the mainstream propaganda. These sites will be labelled "dangers to safety and security", and access to them will be denied.

All of which essentially amounts to a modern-day version of "book-burning" and all-encompassing state control over dissemination of information.

I also have to wonder if maybe the blocking of access to commercial email accounts in the marines may be a sort of "experiment" to gauge just how much of a reaction - if any - they might eventually get by taking away free access to information and communication on a wider scale.

Some things to ponder, anyway.













posted by K at 2:24 PM 0 comments