LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: Tonight we have an unexpected guest, Mr. Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General under George W. Bush. Our “discussion” … Did Barbara Olson really call Ted Olson on 9/11?
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9/11: Did Barbara Olson really call Ted Olson on 9/11? “Discussion” with Larry King.
LARRY KING, HOST, LARRY KING LIVE: Tonight we have an unexpected guest, Mr. Ted Olson, the former Solicitor General under George W. Bush. Ted is here tonight under unusual circumstances. I say that because tonight we were planning on having another good debate about what really did happen on that fateful day back in 2001, 9/11. Popular Mechanics magazine was to send their top expert regarding the scientific evidence of 9/11 to debate a previous debater we had here a few weeks back. We had a Mr. GNIST here supporting the claim by NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, that “Heavy Dust Brought Down Twin Towers.” But after seeing the transcript from that debate — we thought it was only fair that Popular Mechanics be able to review it since they apparently had not seen the actual debate — they apparently had a change of heart, not to mention, change of mind. So we were fortunate that someone spotted Ted Olson down in the lobby reading the script of his arguments made to the Supreme Court back in 2000 and he was kind enough to join us.
King: Ted, thanks for coming up and filling in. When Popular Mechanics canceled out, or as I think someone said, called in sick, we were kind of stuck. Anyway, that case you argued in 2000, Bush v. Gore, is that how you say it Ted, Bush “vee” Gore or should it be Bush versus Gore?
Olson: Saying “vee” is just fine. And you are welcome Larry, I’m glad I am able to help out by filling in.
King: Does reading that transcript bring back a lot of memories, after all that was a really important case? And it was decided in favor of Bush by a narrow majority. There was even controversy among the justices the way it was handled. A lot of people say that changed the course of history. They say this would be a different world if they had been allowed to continue counting all of those ballots and Al Gore was elected. Anyway, I’m sure we at least would have heard a lot more about those drowning polar bears and melting ice caps. Someone showed me the cutest picture of a polar bear hugging a big dog the other day. But anyway Ted, thanks again for coming up. … Ted, you said something interesting back in 2002. You told the Supreme Court, “It’s easy to imagine an infinite number of situations where the government might legitimately give out false information.” What did you mean by that?
Olson: Well Larry, I think it speaks for itself.
King: I guess so but, “infinite” covers an awful lot of situations. And giving out “false” information is the same as lying, right?
Olson: You might say that Larry, but there are some things as you might imagine that its best for the people to not know.
King: Such as? … Well I won’t push you. But geez, when you say “infinite” that could mean we are being lied to all of the time. Doesn’t it? Something doesn’t quite feel right about that Ted. Maybe they didn’t mean “government of the people, by the people and for the people” applied all of the time. I don’t know. …. Ted I don’t think I gave you a proper introduction. Ted Olson of course for those of you watching, lost his charming wife Barbara who was in the plane that struck the Pentagon on 9/11. She had been a frequent guest here on Larry King live. I know everyone would agree she had a great smile. Ted, I Know you appeared to be holding up so well right after that happened. In fact you came on my show just, I think it was, just three days after that horrible day. Have you been able to completely get over it? I’m sure you miss her.
Olson: It took a long time Larry, and well, I guess I’ll never be completely over it.
King: I didn’t mean to say “completely” over it but, well … you know what I mean. We talked a little bit about this right afterwards …. you were able to speak with Barbara from the airplane.
Olson: Yes Larry, she called me twice. She told me the plane had been hijacked and the hijackers had herded everyone to the back of the plane, including the pilots.
King: That’s amazing. I mean, did the pilots simply get up and walk to the back of the plane? I mean the Captain, Charles Burlingame — I’m pretty sure that was his name, was described as a rugged, athletic guy. And he was a former Navy pilot. Those guys are really tough.
Olson: Well, Larry, all I know is what Barbara told me. But I’m sure pilots are just as afraid of cardboard box cutters as anyone else. And when someone points a cardboard box cutter at you, you surrender your airplane. After all, if they kill you, who is going to do the flying?
King: Beats me, but how do you fly the airplane from back in coach? ………….. CNN reported at 2:06 AM EDT that Barbara had called you on her cell phone. That was only what, 15 … 16, hours after her plane had crashed into the Pentagon? You got that information to us right away. Maybe because you were grieving about losing Barbara, you decided to call CNN after midnight. I’m sure you couldn’t sleep …. Then, on this show on September the 14th, we talked about the phone calls she made to you. That was lucky that she had her cell phone with her so she could call.
Olson: I guess you could say that, lucky I mean. Because she had her cell phone, I did get to talk with her. She was so calm and in control.
King: I remember too that you said the second call suddenly went dead. I have the transcript of that show here in front of me and you said, you thought the call went dead “because the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don’t work that well.”
Olson: Yes, that was no doubt the reason, Larry. I remember thinking the cell phone connection must have been lost.
King: Excuse me Ted. Timmy!! You made it! Tim I’m sorry we couldn’t get a hold of you. Popular Mechanics didn’t show up. It’s too bad your dad had to drive you all of the way down here. How are you? You haven’t grown any in the last few weeks I see.
Timmy: No sir. I’m still the second shortest in my class.
King: Tim, you are late again, ha ha. Maybe by the time you get to be eleven years old you’ll learn to be on time.
Timmy: Yea, my dad got lost again. He kept singing some song about, they’ll never find us caus’ we’ll be driiivin’ driiivin’ …. I thought he was going to be right. But at least we finally made it.
King: Timmy, this is Mr Olson. Coincidentally he has ties to 9/11 which is what you were going to debate tonight with those Popular Mechanics.
Timmy: Hello Mr. Olson. I’m very sorry to hear about Mrs. Olson. I was listening in to the show while my dad was singing.
Olson: Thank you Timmy. Nice to meet you.
King: I hear we have one very persistent caller so let’s get right to the phones. This is from … somewhere in Iowa. Go ahead caller…
Caller: No airplane cell phone calls in 2001.
King: I’m sorry, you say no airplane cell phone calls in 2001?
Caller: Correct. Airplane cell phone calls impossible. Even government agrees. Plus: FBI say ‘no cell phone call.’
King: That’s interesting. I hadn’t heard that before. Had you heard that before Ted? Caller how do you know this?
Caller: Moussaoui. Moussaoui trial.
Olson: Larry, I think I know where the caller is going with this. Its been a while, but I remember now. And yes, the caller is right. Its been proven that cell phone calls like this from airplanes were not possible back in 2001. In addition Larry, having been the Solicitor General I do tend to follow court cases. And in the Moussaoui trial, the FBI provided evidence that Barbara did try to call me only once. And in fact, that call lasted all of zero seconds.
King: Zero seconds!? Given all of the things she said to you she must have talked really fast.
Olson: No Larry, what they were saying was that she didn’t connect with me by cell phone.
King: That would explain then why ………….. we’ve got a really good staff here. I mean we didn’t even know you were going to be here for more than a few minutes Ted, and they managed to get all of this information to me. I’m sorry …. what was I saying? …… Oh yes, I guess that would explain why you said on Hannity and Colmes just before you came on with me that Barbara must have used an “airplane phone” and called you collect because as you said, “she somehow didn’t have access to her credit cards.”
Olson: Larry, I forgot, I’ve been through this before. She did call me from an airplane phone. I remember she called me collect because she didn’t have her credit cards.
King: Ted, this is getting confusing. First you called CNN only hours after the crash and said she called you on her cell phone. Then, just three days later you appeared on FOX and said she used an “airplane” phone. Right after that you came on here Ted, and said again she called you using a cell phone. Ted, I think you can understand why I’m confused. So which was it Ted, a cell phone or an airplane phone? Just curious.
Olson: It was a seatback phone, Larry.
King: You mean one of those phones in the back of the seat.
Olson: Yes Larry, that is what I mean.
KIng: It sounds like you remember because you remember she didn’t have her credit cards. Interesting.
King: Ok, back to the phones. From Dallas Texas, caller go ahead.
Caller: No seat back phones.
King: Excuse me, I think you said, no seat back phones. What does that mean?
Caller: American Airlines 757’s didn’t have seat back phones.
King: So you’re saying Barbara Olson could not have called using a seat back phone? Is that correct caller? How do you know this?
Caller: That is correct. No seat back call from an American Airlines’ 757. I work for American Airlines. Don’t give out my name.
King: Ted? No seat back phones.
Olson: Larry, as an ex-Solicitor General, I can follow the argument: FBI: no cell phone call, American Airlines: no seat back phone. Therefore, how two calls? Pretty good argument if I don’t say so myself.
King: And?
Olson: We’ll be right back after the break.
King: Ted, you’re not the one that says “we’ll be right back after the break,” I’m the one who says “we’ll be right back after the break.” We’ll be right back after the break!
(the break)
King: We’re back. Ted, how two phone calls?
Olson: Walkie Talkie.
King: I’m sorry, what did you say?
Olson: Walkie Talkie.
Timmy: Mr. King, I think he said, “walkie talkie.”
King: Thank you Timmy, I heard it the second time. Ted, you’re saying Barbara called you using a “walkie talkie?”
Olson: Must have been. What other option is there?
King: I understand, but “walkie talkie?”
Olson: They’re pretty good these days. Technology these days is incredible. Have you heard of “voice morphing?”
King: I wouldn’t know, Ted. But “walkie talkie?”
Timmy: This is pretty interesting stuff.
King: I would have to agree Timmy. Imagine, walkie talkies working from airplanes. If it weren’t for walkie talkies, I guess, how would we have ever known they used cardboard cutters? We would all be wondering how in the heck were they able to hijack those airplanes. By the way, here is an interesting fact I remember coming across: Did you know that on 9/11, it was the Airlines that operated airport security and their manuals prohibited box cutters? That’s right, box cutters weren’t allowed on airplanes! It makes you wonder how they were able to get all of those box cutters they must have had past those security people and those x-ray machines? And different ones at that! Screeners were told to call their supervisors if box cutters were found. … Timmy, you have something to say?
Timmy: Excuse me Mr King. Mr Olson, let me see if I’ve got this straight; I know I’m short, but this isn’t that complicated. If it wasn’t a cell phone, and it wasn’t a seat back phone, and with all due respect Mr. Olson, I think its safe to rule out walkie talkies; then did she really call you at all? Mr. Olson, you seem pretty honest. So, if you are telling the truth, maybe it was that “voice morphing” you were talking about. I read that for a lot of years now, they have been able to copy and mimic someone’s voice really easy using computers so that it can be used in place of someone else talking. You know, so that I could talk and it would sound just like you. I guess its so good you can even fool a spouse. And you were Mrs. Olson’s spouse, so maybe you got fooled. Mr. Olson, I guess its either that or you are fudging the truth.
King: Ted, are you OK? Ted? Ted, the bathroom is over there.
King: Tim, its looks like we won’t have time to get a response from Mr. Olson. But I’m glad you were able to make it Timmy. GOOD NIGHT EVERYONE!
————– (OFF THE AIR)
King: Ted, are you ok? You were in there for a long time. Timmy and I have been talking about how “fishy” — Tim’s word — these phone calls are. It made me think again of that statement you made “It’s easy to imagine an infinite number of situations where the government might legitimately give out false information.” But why would they give out false information about Barbara’s phone calls only hours after the crash? I guess when you said “infinite” that could cover just about anything; I mean “infinite” is a big number. Not that I’m saying there is any lying going on, but Ted, you have to agree it is “fishy.” So why don’t we just agree to call it “fishy,” ok Ted? Ted? Are you ok? You look a little peaked.
Timmy: You know, I just thought of something: Since we’re in a “trillion dollar” war because of this 9/11 stuff, I’ll bet we can afford a thousand dollars or so to get the phone records and put this thing to rest? It sure seems pretty simple to me. Then if the phone records show that Mrs. Olson really did call, that would get Mr. Olson “off the hook” so to speak. Then, they can try to put to rest –( good luck!) — all of the other 9/11-light-bulb-“virtual proofs” I read about.
King: But what if she didn’t call, Tim? I mean, …. well, maybe we better leave it there.
Pentagon – no wing impact
Pentagon Hole
Tim: Mr. King, its enough to make you start thinking again about how DID that great big 757 that Mrs. Olson was supposedly on fit through that little hole in the wall? Here, look at this picture I brought along. I was going to show it to that “expert” from Popular Mechanics. It doesn’t look to me like a 757 could have fit through there. Maybe the 757 really did miss all of those light poles by a long shot and actually flew over the Pentagon without hitting it like the Flight Data Recorder showed according to the data provided by the NTSB; which is kind of like the government. You know Mr. King, that little white missile-like thing that didn’t look anything like a 757 in that one video the government finally let us see, I’ll bet that would have fit very nicely through that little hole. Boy, its funny how everything starts making sense when …
King: Like when Willie Nelson debated Bill Maher right here and explained why he’s sure the Twin Towers were ‘imploded.’
Tim: And like that “Heavy Dust” Mr. GNIST tried to say crushed those Towers.
King: And when the Italian ex-President said its common knowledge among global intelligence agencies that the CIA planned and carried out the attacks on 9/11.
Tim: And maybe all of this is why they are debating the truth about 9/11 in the Japanese Parliament. And what about the thousands of patriotsfor911truth, physicistsfor911truth, architechturalengineersfor911truth, veteransfor911truth, pilotsfor911truth, scholarsfor911truth, canadiensfor911truth, Irishfor911truth, Scottsfor911truth, Newfoundlandersfor911truth, Australiansfor911truth, people and scientists and politicians from all around the world for 911truth. …. I’m pretty good at memorizing lists.
King: Boy I guess! That was some list. But I think maybe we should stop here, Timmy. I think our mikes are still on.
King: There, I think the mikes are off now. Tim, thanks for recommending the book, “The Shell Game.” I couldn’t put it down, no kidding. That Ace Futrell, what a character. Ted, you want to read a great book? Ted? Are you ok?
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I hope you, the reader, realize this discussion never actually took place. However, the relevant facts themselves are true and verifiable. The “discussion” is meant to put the “phone calls” — if indeed they never took place as is almost certainly the case — into proper perspective and context. Other reasons to doubt that the phone calls ever took place can be found at http://www.pilotsfor911truth. And this, like SO many other suspect things relating to 9/11, could be easily addressed by the government, yet they refuse to do so.
Monday, March 31, 2008 Hope is a wonderful thing, without which we can achieve nothing of value. And that may be sufficient reason to sell it as a political commodity, but it’s not a good reason to buy it.
On the other hand, after seven years of being sold nothing but fear, the American people are ready to buy something different. So “hope” it is, and “unity” too — two hot-ticket items this year.
But hope for what? Unity behind what? Clearly Barack Obama is hoping the country will unite behind him; but what then would become of the country?
Obama explained his position as clearly as we could ask for in Pennsylvania on Friday, as reported by Devlin Barrett of the AP, via Chris Floyd:
Sen. Barack Obama said Friday he would return the country to the more “traditional” foreign policy efforts of past presidents, such as George H.W. Bush, John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan.
At a town hall event at a local high school gymnasium, Obama praised George H.W. Bush — father of the president — for the way he handled the Persian Gulf War: with a large coalition and carefully defined objectives. …
“The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional bipartisan realistic policy of George Bush’s father, of John F. Kennedy, of, in some ways, Ronald Reagan, and it is George Bush that’s been naive and it’s people like John McCain and, unfortunately, some Democrats that have facilitated him acting in these naive ways that have caused us so much damage in our reputation around the world,” he said.
Under the title “Hope Abandoned: Obama Stands Up for Murder and Plunder“, Chris Floyd goes on to explain just what it means to “return” to the “traditional bipartisan realism” that has marked US foreign policy since World War II, with the exception — according to Barack Obama — of George W. Bush, who has been — in Obama’s word — “naive”.
You should read the whole piece. But you won’t have to go far.
Obama is doing two things here, reaching out to two very different audiences, on different wavelengths. First, for the hoi polloi, he is simply pandering in the most shameless way imaginable, throwing out talismans for his TV-addled audience to comfort themselves with: “You like JFK? I’ll be like him! You like Reagan? I’ll be like him too! You like the first George Bush? Hey, I’ll be just like him as well!” This is a PR tactic that goes all the way back to St. Paul the spinmeister, who boasted of his ability to massage his message and “become all things to all men.” Obama has long proven himself a master of this particular kind of political whoredom — much like Bill Clinton, in fact, another champion of “bipartisan foreign policy” who for some strange reason got left off Obama’s list of role models.
But beyond all the rubes out there, Obama is also signaling to the real masters of the United States, the military-corporate complex, that he is a “safe pair of hands” — a competent technocrat who won’t upset the imperial applecart but will faithfully follow the 60-year post-war paradigm of leaving “all options on the table” and doing “whatever it takes” to keep the great game of geopolitical dominance going strong.
What other conclusion can you draw from Obama’s reference to these avatars, and his very pointed identification with them? He is saying, quite clearly, that he will practice foreign policy just as they did. And what they do? Committed, instigated, abetted and countenanced a relentless flood of crimes, murders, atrocities, deceptions, corruptions, mass destruction and state terrorism.
Obama is telling us — and the war-profiteering powers-that-be — that he will give us “realistic policies” like those of John Kennedy. These include his steady march into the quagmire of Vietnam, and the backing of a deadly coup in Saigon to replace one brutal junta with another; greenlighting successful coups in Guyana, the Dominican Republic and Iraq, where the CIA helped the Baath Party come to power; greenlighting the spectacularly unsuccessful Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, not to mention the terrorist operations and assassination attempts there. As Edward Jay Epstein noted (in John Kennedy Jr.’s magazine George, of all places):
While the Mafia continued its unsuccessful machinations, John F. Kennedy became President and, in April 1961, launched the Bay of Pigs invasion, an attack on a swamp in Cuba by CIA-trained Cuban exiles that ended in disaster. Furious at this humiliating failure, Kennedy summoned Richard Bissell, the head of the CIA’s covert operations, to the Cabinet Room and chided him for “sitting on his ass and not doing anything about getting rid of Castro and the Castro regime” (as Bissell recalled). Richard Helms, who succeeded Bissell, also felt “white heat,” as he put it, from the Kennedys to get rid of Castro.
By then, the Kennedys had set up their own covert structure for dealing with the Castro problem the Special Group Augmented, which Attorney General Robert Kennedy and General Maxwell Taylor effectively ran and which, in November 1961, launched a secret war against the Castro regime, codenamed Operation Mongoose. Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara, who was not a formal member of this group but attended meetings, later testified: “We were hysterical about Castro at about the time of the Bay of Pigs and thereafter. And there was pressure from JFK and RFK to do something about Castro.” It was a “no holds barred” enterprise, as Helms termed it, for which the Special Group Augmented assigned such “planning tasks” as using biological and chemical warfare against Cuban sugar workers; employing Cuban gangsters to kill Cuban police officials, Soviet bloc technicians, and other targeted people; using agents to sabotage mines; and, in what was called Operation Bounty, paying cash bonuses of up to $100,000 for the murder or abduction of government officials.
More of this kind of thing, then, from Obama when he reaches the White House?
As for his other two foreign policy mentors, Reagan and Bush I, the rap sheet is far too long for even a brief accounting here. (And indeed, I’ve spent much of the past seven years detailing many of these crimes in various venues — because they involved so many of the same players now spewing filth and blood from the current administration.) We could begin, I suppose, with Reagan and Bush’s act of treason in negotiating with Iranian hostage-takers in 1980 to ensure that Teheran would not release the American captives at the U.S. embassy before the November election; in return, Reagan and Bush pledged to provide cash and military hardware to the extremist mullahs, which they duly did. (See here, and here.)
Or we could cite Reagan’s ardent support for mass-murdering militarist regimes in Central and South America; the arming and funding of the Contra insurgent army in Nicaragua, which received CIA training in terrorist tactics. Or the Iran-Contra affair, which saw Reagan and Bush ship weapons to the extremist Iranian regime in return for cash which they then gave to their Contra terrorist militia, in flagrant violation of the law. Or Reagan’s stupid and pointless invasion of Grenada, which he undertook solely to cover up the embarrassment of his stupid and pointless intervention in Lebanon, where 241 American soldiers were killed after having been dropped into the middle of a multi-sided civil war. Or Reagan’s vast expansion of a policy begun under Jimmy Carter of arming, funding, training and organizing a global network of violent Islamic extremists — a “foreign policy” masterstroke that is still paying dividends today. (Quite literally paying dividends for investors in the defense, security and military servicing industries.)
But at least Obama did qualify his embrace of Reagan’s traditional and realistic bipartisan foreign policy, saying that he would emulate “some” of Reagan’s approaches. So maybe he will skip on the election-fixing treason and go for supporting mass-murdering militarist regimes instead? Or are we being too cynical? Perhaps Obama means he will follow in the footsteps of some of Reagan’s more merciful and reconciliatory policies — such as the time the Great Communicator laid a wreath at a cemetery where Nazi SS soldiers lie in honored burial: a clear signal from the U.S. president to these dead mass-murderers that “all is forgiven” at last.
Obama offers no qualification at all to his championing of George Herbert Walker Bush however. Indeed, his was the first name uttered in the paean to bipartisan foreign policy. But here too one quails (and Quayles) at the prospect of toting up the high crimes and monstrous follies of this “traditional realist” whom Obama promises to emulate. Should we start with Bush’s arming and funding of Saddam Hussein — long after the latter “gassed his own people” — and Bush’s later perversion of the legal process to cover up his largess to the dictator? Or Bush’s pointless and unnecessary invasion of Panama, which killed hundreds if not thousands of innocent people and drove at least 20,000 people from their homes, all to remove a long-time U.S. intelligence “asset,” Manuel Noriega, who in the 1970s received fat payments of bribes from the director of the CIA — one George Herbert Walker Bush?
Or perhaps we should follow Obama’s example and point to “the way [Bush] handled the Persian Gulf War.” Yes, let’s take a closer look at that, since Obama clearly sees it as a model for his own presidency. Here’s an excerpt from an earlier piece, Scar Tissue: How the Bushes Brought Bedlam to Iraq (where you will also find much more on Bush’s backroom tryst with Saddam):
Then came Bush’s “Gulf War,” when he turned on his protégé after Saddam made the foolish move of threatening the Kuwaiti royals – Bush’s long-time business partners [in the oil business], going back to the early 1960s. Saddam’s conflict with Kuwait centered on two main issues: first, his claim that the billions of dollars Kuwait had given Iraq during the war with Iran was simply straightforward aid to the nation that was defending the Sunni Arab world from the aggressive onslaught of the Shiite Persians. The Kuwaitis insisted the money had been a loan, and demanded that Saddam pay off. There was also Saddam’s claim that Kuwait was “slant-drilling” into Iraqi oilfields, siphoning off underground reserves from across the border. These disputes raged for months; a deal to resolve them was brokered by the Arab League, but fell apart at the last minute when Kuwait suddenly rejected the agreement, saying, “We will call in the Americans.”
How worried was Bush about the situation? Let’s look at the historical record. In the two weeks before the invasion of Kuwait, Bush approved the sale of an additional $4.8 million in “dual-use” technology to factories identified by the CIA as linchpins of Hussein’s illicit nuclear and biochemical programs, the Los Angeles Times reports. The day before Saddam sent his tanks across the border, Bush obligingly sold him more than $600 million worth of advanced communications technology. A week later, he was declaring that his long-time ally was “worse than Hitler.”
Yes, the Kuwaitis had called in their marker. Like a warlord of old, Bush used the US military as a private army to help his business partners. After an extensive bombing campaign that openly – even gleefully – mocked international law in its targeting of civilian infrastructure (a tactic repeated in Serbia by Bill Clinton – now regarded as an “adopted son” by Bush), the brief 100-hour ground war slaughtered fleeing Iraqi conscripts by the thousands – while, curiously, allowing Saddam’s crack troops, the aptly-named Republican Guard, to escape unharmed. Later, these troops were used to kill tens of thousands of Shiites who had risen in rebellion against Saddam – at the specific instigation of George Bush, who not only abandoned them to their fate, but specifically allowed Saddam to use his attack helicopters against the rebels, and also ordered US troops to block Shiites from gaining access to arms caches. It was one of the worst, most murderous betrayals in modern history – and has been almost entirely expunged from the American memory.
Then came the Carthaginian “peace” of the victors – Iraq sown with the salt of sanctions, which led to the unnecessary death of at least 500,000 children, according to UN’s conservative estimates. The sanction regime actually strengthened Saddam’s grip on Iraqi society, as the ravaged people were reduced to surviving on government handouts of food….
Yes, these are truly worthy examples of the kind of traditional, realistic, bipartisan foreign policy that we need more of. And my stars, isn’t that Obama a breath of fresh air, promising to take us back to that golden age of yore!
Next up: “Sen. Barack Obama said today that he would appoint Supreme Court Justices ‘like John Roberts, Samuel Alito and, in some ways, Antonin Scalia,’ in ‘a return to a more traditional, realistic, bipartisan judicial philosophy…..'”
P.S. We’ve said it before and no doubt we’ll say it again: an Obama presidency, like a H. Clinton presidency, will mean some measure of genuine mitigation of some of the worst depredations of the Bush Regime. There’s no question about that. But no one who openly embraces the foreign policy of Ronald Reagan and George Bush I, or John F. Kennedy for that matter, is going to change in any substantial way the militarist-corporate machine that has already destroyed our democracy, gutted our Constitution, corrupted our system beyond all measure (and probably beyond all repair), and killed – and keeps on killing – hundreds of thousands of innocent people, decade after decade. Given this fact, every American voter must decide, in his or her own conscience, this question: Should I act to mitigate some small measure of the mass suffering wrought by this machine; or does that action, that participation, merely legitimize the machine, and strengthen it?
That is the only question at issue in this election. For none of the prospective presidents offer any hope – audacious or otherwise – of any kind of root-and-branch reform of the imperial system, which will continue to grind on — in its traditional, realistic, bipartisan way.
I almost always agree with Chris Floyd, but we disagree just a bit this time. My understanding of Kennedy’s position on Vietnam is closer to John Newman’s analysis (which Noam Chomsky calls “deeply flawed”) than it is to Chomsky’s (to which Chris links with approval).
In other words, I believe Kennedy was trying to get out of Vietnam, rather than marching into the quagmire there — certainly Kennedy didn’t march in with gusto, the way LBJ did. But this minor disagreement is of little consequence in the long run, and in all other respects (in my humble opinion), Floyd’s history lesson is right on the money — so much so that there’s very little left to be said. But that’s never stopped me before.
I want to point out that the word “realistic”, when used in this context, is meant in the political (i.e. false) sense. When did we ever have a “realistic” policy? We didn’t. But we have had some presidents who liked short, sharp wars against small, weak countries, and these are the presidents (if I am right about Kennedy) whom Barack Obama wants to emulate. They didn’t attack big countries all alone; if they couldn’t drum up a “coalition”, they subverted them quietly instead.
This is the “realistic” foreign policy that appeals to Barack Obama. He’s not against all wars, he’s just against long ones that we lose!
So there’s not much to return to. And a turn to something resembling sanity is unthinkable — not without a full and open investigation of 9/11 (and the subsequent anthrax attacks), and — even more unlikely — a full repudiation of George W. Bush’s so-called “reaction” to those events.
But Obama won’t have it, and there’s the rub, because investigating 9/11 and punishing the crimes of the previous administration would be just the first step. The next step would be a repudiation of the foreign policy Barack Obama wants to emulate.
One other point is absolutely critical in this regard: Because the so-called War on Terror has been declared a top-priority item (as opposed to so many of the “realistic, bipartisan” war crimes committed by JFK, RWR and GHWB) it will get all the money it wants, until and unless it is stopped. So Barack Obama’s domestic policies have no chance to get funded, unless he … What am I saying? There’s no money left anymore anyhow; even if Obama nuked the Pentagon and never gave the DoD another nickel, there would still be no way out of the mess his predecessors have made.
Not that he’s looking for a way out, mind you — he simply wants to abandon Bush’s “naive” ideas about invading and occupying big countries, and return to the traditional, realistic, bipartisan method of “picking up small crappy little countries and throwing them against the wall, just to show the world we mean business” …
… for as long as we can afford it …
… even if it means we can never afford anything else.
~~~
The perversion of the language is so severe that it’s almost impossible to write about these issues without lying. We’re in the realm of political “secret code”, where the words don’t always mean what they mean.
For instance, Obama calls the policies of three of his recent predecessors “realistic”, “bipartisan”, and “traditional”.
There’s no doubt that such policies were “bipartisan”. In fact, two of the three past presidents Obama mentioned were Republicans.
And there’s no doubt that such policies are “traditional” as well — after all, they’ve eaten everything in their path for the last 60 years. And that’s why we now have nothing left except a government of heinous criminals, a propaganda mill of blood-soaked liars, massively crumbling infrastructure, a crippling national debt, the enmity of the entire world, and these “realistic” policies. Oh yeah, and some private armies, too. I suppose they add to the realism.
Meanwhile, George W. Bush’s foreign policy features preemptive, aggressive war based on lies — not just one lie but a deliberately crafted, expensively packaged, constantly shifting story. It includes bombing defenseless residential neighborhoods. It involves the use of incendiary weapons on innocent civilians. It involves indefinite detention without charges, and torture as a matter of course. And when Barack Obama describes these policies, the word that comes to mind is “naive”.
having or showing unaffected simplicity of nature or absence of artificiality; unsophisticated; ingenuous … having or showing a lack of experience, judgment, or information; credulous … simple, unaffected, unsuspecting, artless, guileless, candid, open, plain …
Let’s get this straight: the president starts a war based on a pack of lies that kills a million people and destroys the lives of millions of others, and when his lie is exposed, he makes a big joke and laughs about it, and this happens because he’s “guileless, candid, open, plain …”??
showing contempt for accepted standards of honesty or morality by one’s actions, esp. by actions that exploit the scruples of others … selfishly or callously calculating: showed a cynical disregard for the safety of his troops in his efforts to advance his reputation.
CIA chief Michael Hayden claims al-Qaeda is taking on ‘western-looking’ agents in order to facilitate their entry into the United States.
Hayden passed the remarks in a rare television appearance, along with his comments on the current state of affairs in Pakistan’s federally administered tribal areas.
“They are bringing operatives into that region for training; operatives that, a phrase I would use, wouldn’t attract your attention if they were going through the customs line at Dulles (airport near Washington DC),” said the director of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Hayden, earlier in the interview, raised concerns that the border region between Afghanistan and Pakistan had turned into a safe haven for militants.
He also said Bin Laden, whom he described as an ‘iconic figure’ did no longer have operational control over the al-Qaeda network, although he confirmed that Bin Laden was still hiding out near the Afghan-Pak border, AFP reported.
Hayden went on to refer to the “absolutely disastrous” non-interfering policy of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in 2006 that gave way to the group’s greater latitude.
This looks like one of those western looking al-cia-duh agents that are trying slip into the U.S. If I were a TSA agent I would search her very throughly.
This is the beginning of CSM101’s work (he’s a guy from New Saxon) on a comprehensive boycott list of Jewish owned, held, or controlled businesses. I hope to finish the project by August 8th (8/8/08). Unless otherwise noted, most sources for the research are from Wikipedia.
Any contributions (with source materials) for inclusion in the list are most welcome.
You knew it had to come… an unseen hand of circumstance has ripped the smiling Kabuki mask away and it’s clear that there is no Iraqi government. There is no Iraqi army, there is no Iraqi police. The surge didn’t work. There is never going to be any ‘mission accomplished’. It’s as empty of substance as the space between Bush’s ears and as much of a pumped up fantasy as the crotch-shot on the deck of the carrier.
Now they are offering money for weapons in Iraq. Let’s see, you got a job working for a powerful crime boss from across the water who took over your country and you thought you’d flex your muscles and go after one of the big guys in your back yard and then he not only kicks your ass but some of your guys take off their uniforms and go over to the other side. The big crime boss sends in some tactical help; some on site, out of town boys with heavy artillery and… the financial comptroller for the powerful crime boss who took over your country and who is across the water in another direction sends in some heavy hitters too and they wack some families that are ‘connected’ to the big guy in your back yard but that doesn’tmean anything because that happens every day anyway and… you, you decide that you’ll offer the guys who kicked your ass some money in exchange for the weapons they used to defend themselves against you. Have I got it right?
Yeah, that’ll work. How about some short term, no interest loans for houses? It worked in the United States. Of course, the United States doesn’t have an insurgency unless you count an entire nation of people with their heads turned, scuttling down the street like crabs looking for a hole in the ground.
America, “land of the free, home of the brave” should be called, “Land of… who me? Home of the slave.” It’s got a nice ring to it.
For a long time now I have been trying to trouble shoot my way around, under, through, any which way, to understand how three hundred million people turned into ambulatory lumps of Jello that tremble and shake like rats on Warfarin every time somebody coughs in the back of the subway tunnel.
America has had trouble before and risen to the challenge. Even if the Civil War was caused by European bankers there was a mad rush to save the country from itself. People were willing to give their lives. When the bankers went to work again to create the First World War, everybody pitched in again to help them out. When they engineered the Second World War, Johnny went and got his gun again. Now they’re working on the Third World War and this time Johnny Anonymous is shouting in all caps across the new frontier of the internet.
The way they do it is they mess with the money and create fear and turmoil just like you are reading about now. Did you think I was coming to some kind of a point? Actually I was but the point was to make a sharp right turn without signaling and pull into this empty parking lot here so that we could have a little chat. You see, this post is not about what it was supposed to be about, just like everything you are being told is not what it is about.
You’re being squeezed by these same money men so that life will become so intolerable that you’ll be glad to run through the bloody trenches and razor wire to free yourself from the conditions created by the people who sent you running in the first place.
There’s too many of you. You’re taking up too much space. Over here and over there people are breeding like rabbits because that is what people do when they are starving and short of resources, shelter, food, opportunity and the value of their labor has disappeared because they already dug up and sold everything they had to the people who bought off their leaders and created the unbearable debt they find themselves in. Maybe they’ll get lucky and these people will find something else they want and they can start all over again.
Yeah, yeah… I’ve got a point. It’s in here somewhere. Let’s just sit here for awhile. It’s quiet here in the back-lot of Best Buy; just you and me and the homeless, foraging in the dumpsters behind the Sack and Save. I’ve eaten in a lot of fine restaurants in my life but I’ll tell you, some of the happiest days of my life were spent barbecuing rats on an old refrigerator grill down by the river. Afterwards we’d share a gallon of wine and sing Woody Guthrie songs.
Well, I may be back down by that river one of these days singing my own songs. The Recording Industry Association of America thinks I’m getting too much money but I understand we’re all going to be okay if we just shake like Jello and let them tap our trembling for a new energy source. They’ve already put generators between the legs of all the obese people who now make electricity from the friction of their legs rubbing together and that’s all going to Las Vegas. They solved the water problem too. Did I tell you about that? They’re going to harvest all the human tears and can you imagine what that’s going to come to?
Well… it didn’t take that long. Everybody in the car with me has fallen asleep so I’m going to run a hose from the exhaust in through one of the windows. I’m glad I gassed up before I started this composition. I’ll just close the door softly and walk away. It will be a kindness I think.
I don’t know how much space I’ve got left to say something meaningful here or how long anybody reading this anywhere is going to be able to stay awake with that gigantic hose that’s pumping carbon monoxide through the vents of the nation.
Okay… let’s pretend it’s not like this. I know it’s a bummer when I talk this way. I want to end on a high note, let the right hand travel some distance over from middle C.
We could have had a better world and I suppose we still can but it’s so much harder to accomplish it when so many of us with the talent to lead and inform are working for the people who made things the way that they are. I don’t know what their payoff is. They’re going to wind up down by the river too. It may be a better section of the river with a better class of grilled rat. They might have paper cups for their wine but… they’re still down by the river.
What did they promise all of those congressmen and senators when they agreed not to impeach the president for high crimes and treason? Did they promise them blowjobs or just show them some of the photos of their own blowjobs in the past? What did they do to stop everyone who might have made a difference from pointing out that 9/11 was an inside job? What goes on in the minds of everyone who knows the truth as they go thought their days on their way to the river?
I hope you can hear me speaking right now. I’m telling you, you need to get out of the car because something doesn’t smell right. Is that true that you can’t smell carbon monoxide? Just take my word for it. You need to learn what Al Sadr knows. You can’t reason with these people and you can’t trust these people. You’ve got to learn what Al Sadr knows, you’re stronger than these people. I do believe a lot of you are getting out of the car. I don’t know where it’s coming from but there’s fresh air coming in from somewhere. We just need to get a little distance and clear our heads for a moment. Then I think we’ve got to see that the right people head down to the river and don’t come back.
President Bush stated last week in his news conference, “America is at a defining moment in the Iraq War….”
He might add that to his now infamous and false statement, “Saddam Hussein hides weapons of mass destruction that are an imminent danger to the safety of the United States….”
Soon after his personal invasion in an unprovoked war, Bush strutted across one of our aircraft carriers after the ‘fall’ of Baghdad with his “Mission Accomplished” speech.
Since then, 4,000 young American men and women died. Another 30,000 suffer horrific amputations, burns, emotional mayhem, depression, failed marriages, alcoholism, drug use, fatherless children and homelessness. American soldier suicides reached an all time high in 2007. Thousands more return to lives living on the edge of despair with post traumatic stress syndrome. Doctors expect thousands if not tens of thousands of post Iraq War suicides. In a recent column, I documented some 150,000 to 200,000 Vietnam American soldier suicides after active duty.
Yet, Bush again made his statements at the news conference like he repeats year after year. “We will not let their deaths be in vain,” Bush said in his news conference. Every year, more deaths, more killing, more money wasted and more lives destroyed. Johnson and Nixon said exactly the same words in different phrases. “Peace with honor,” Nixon said. “I will not send our boys to fight on foreign soil 10,000 miles away,” Johnson said.
Bush’s idea of making those 4,000 deaths valid is to go out and kill another 4,000 of our young people and wound another 30,000! Brilliant logic Mr. Bush!
While the Vietnam War raged, the draft snagged my roommate Phil James and floor-mate Mickey Jackson. They wrote regularly from their perches on rice paddies. After two months of patrols, Phil said, “If I get killed, it will be for nothing. This war is stupid beyond belief. It’s as worthless as crapping in a toilet.” (Phil did get killed.)
Mickey wrote a poignant letter, “We don’t belong here and nothin’s gonna change after we leave. It’s all a crock of s***!” (Bob suffered an AK-47 bullet through his chest and today, his body looks like strips of bacon where they cut him up to save him. He suffers plastic tubes for arteries, cold fingers and eyesight problems.)
Fast forward to Iraq with CBS camera crews interviewing soldiers patrolling in armored Humvees. “I’d like to see just one senator spend a few weeks with me and see if he thinks this war is worth it,” one soldier said.
That’s the problem! Dick Cheney enjoyed five draft deferments out of the Vietnam War. Bush II drank himself or never showed up through his time in the Texas National Guard. The poor and unfortunate fought and died in Vietnam while corporations made billions of dollars. The Silent Majority sat on their apathetic butts without a word in protest.
I thought we would never enter into another useless foreign war again.
But I was wrong! The Nazi Goebells said, “No one wants war, but if you keep making up enemies, everyone will soon agree to war.”
Another Nazi, Hermann Goering said, “Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. Why would a German farmer want to go to war when the best he could expect is to come back with his body in one piece. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
What’s the difference 33 years after the end of the fraudulent Vietnam War as we move into the 6th year of this deceitful and immoral Iraq War?
First of all, Bush enjoys his own private volunteer army to sacrifice year in and year out. Second, our Congress doesn’t have the guts or personal integrity to stop this incompetent president.
Third, I see incredible American Silent Majority apathy mirroring the Vietnam War! Our own congressional members watch the death tolls mount while they yawn their way through their work weeks.
If you look across the American landscape, virtually no one give a rats rear-end about the war.
Last week in Denver, a city of 2.3 million, a mere 300 people showed up at an anti-war protest. We send hapless kids off to war who think they serve their country for freedom—when in fact—they serve as a private army for international corporations making billions off this war.
Are we trying to win this war? Not a chance! We would have to kill off the entire civilization of Iraq because they are fighting their own civil war. We cannot and will not stop their tribal cultural antagonisms today, tomorrow or 10 years from now.
This corporate war rages because Bush dances to the same strings as Pinocchio. Except, I don’t think Bush can match Pinocchio’s brain power.
Finally, the American people–equating Goering and Goebells’ words—stand by year in and year out in total apathy as their sons and daughters die in this amoral and unprincipled war.
When history looks back at the vanity, the deception, the lies, the immorality, the depleted uranium filled bombs and atrocities of this war—it will report that a madman from our era replaced another madman of another era. Mr. Bush provides us with this defining moment of madness.
Monsters In Our Midst – The US, Britain, & Israel Commentary By John Kaminski skylax@comcast.net 10-27-3
Sometimes, after a long storm, the wind eventually blows the clouds away, and the sunlight shines through, revealing a familiar landscape that has never looked so different to us, which comes as a tragic and emotional shock when we realize the time we’ve squandered refusing to see the beauty right in front of us and the lives we’ve wasted believing things that in this new light of day we now know for certain were not true.
As I have said many times before in an inarticulate and unformed way, the great tragedy of the 9/11/2001 debacle – in which thousands of Americans lost their lives in a cynical stratagem designed to increase the bloody profits of the weapons makers – was a failure to see how this evil pattern of treason from within was actually the design template of American political behavior throughout the 20th century.
First, by covert financial assistance followed by widespread aspersion and calculated provocation, we create our desired enemy, always with the ultimate aim of reaping fabulous profits from the sale of weapons and the theft of resources down the line.
This design template realizes itself most recently in the creation of Osama bin Laden and the so-called Muslim terror threat, which has now culminated in the disaster in New York City and a schedule of endless wars, now underway, that threatens to destroy the entire planet with its spread of radioactivity and the reduction of all humans everywhere to economic prisoners of this evil game.
Saddam Hussein as well was a creation of the American CIA, which nourished him as a reliable, dual purpose lackey who when the time was right could either be counted on to assist in the repression of those from whom the Western tyrants wanted to steal, or morphed into an evil villain who could then be conveniently destroyed, each course achieving the same objective – total control of the hapless dupes in possession of the coveted resources.
Though it’s crystal clear now to many who realize that American aggression throughout the world is always kindled from the devious minds in Washington who put profit before principle, it is not so clear – owing to the multi-layered media mindlock that forever keeps Americans blocked from seeing objective political reality – how the U.S. has accomplished and perfected this demonic practice of creating conflict as a way to sustain its own affluence.
Again, the great tragedy of 9/11 is that people were afforded the opportunity to look through a window at America’s political behavior in real life and in real time, but instead decided to look the other way.
America’s corporate and financial leadership participated in the formulation, execution and coverup of these fake foreign invaders for the purpose of profit, much in the same way as Vietnam was created out of fiction, as Nicaragua was oppressed based on propagandistic fairy tales, and as hundreds of other foreign incursions were triggered by public relations schemes emanating from Washington. This sorry lineage goes all the way back (if not further) to the Spanish American War of 1898, in which an accidental (or perhaps self-inflicted) explosion in Cuba led to the creation and worldwide ejaculation of what we now know as the American war machine.
But the clearest – and most horrifying – glimpse connecting 9/11 to America’s past deceptions goes directly to World War II – the so-called ‘good war’, which paralyzes the American psyche in a way no other event has before or since.
Like all the other American military interventions overseas, World War II was about reviving the American economy after a devastating depression had reduced the vast majority of U.S. residents to painful poverty.
Today, the object lesson of World War II manifests itself most vividly in the obscene proliferation of Holocaust museums, which constantly remind us that Jews were victims of Aryan genocide. It is a perfect psychological cover for the one thread that connects all the major wars of the 20th century.
Few people today remember the pivotal event of World War I, an event known as the Balfour declaration. President Woodrow Wilson campaigned for re-election in 1914 on a peace platform, and vowed to keep America out of the Great War then consuming the European continent. After he was re-elected however, he changed his mind. Why is a question that can be traced to a single document.
England was losing the war, badly. In a letter to Lord Rothschild, power behind the budding Zionist enterprise, Arthur Balfour promised Britain would look favorably upon a plan to create a homeland in Palestine for the Jews.
Suddenly, Wilson changed his mind. Some say it was because he was blackmailed over a secret lover. Others insist it was his Jewish handlers. Whatever the cause, many tens of thousands of Americans lost their lives in World War I because of a promise by Britain to Zionists to steal Palestine from its Arab inhabitants and create a Jewish homeland.
Few people today remember the seminal causes of World War II, either. After a demonstrably unfair settlement to conclude World War I (some say engineered by Wilson’s Jewish adviser, Colonel House) depriving Germany of all its gold, Hitler came to power and resuscitated the German economy at the very moment the entire rest of the world was ravaged by a bank-created economic meltdown, now known as the Great Depression.
Using a barter trade system that completely circumvented control of the Jewish-dominated banking system (and getting help from American quislings among whom were the ancestors of George W. Bush), Hitler made Germany into an economic power when the rest of the Western world had been reduced to poverty-stricken chaos.
Because of the unfair treatment Germany had received during the creation of the Treaty of Versailles concluding World War I, and because Jewish bankers engineered that ripoff, Hitler began systematically stripping Jews of the their power in Germany. In 1933, world Jewry declared economic war on Germany, a fact well-documented in the history books. The move did little to curb Germany’s economic success, as I say, at the exact time America was suffering the dire consequences of its Great Depression.
Further, Zionists worked out a deal with Hitler to not only fleece Jews in Germany, but to help some of them emigrate to Palestine, but only the Jews who Zionist officials deemed worthy to help start a new Jewish state were eligible. The remainder of the Jews were abandoned by the Zionist enterprise.
The epiphany that connects 9/11 to World War II is that there does not exist any non-Jewish written evidence supporting the contention that Hitler had a plan to exterminate Jews. It is true that once Hitler realized in 1942 that the Zionists with whom he had a working arrangement to help colonize Palestine had switched their allegiance to the British that he began rounding up Jews with renewed zeal.
But there is no written evidence among German documents (and Germans were and are notoriously meticulous record-keepers) that there was any plan for what is now known as the Holocaust. Nor is there any hard, non-Jewish evidence of so-called gas chambers. Most of the Jews who did die – certainly not 6 million – perished from either malnutrition or typhus, etc.
Now, in many European countries, there are laws prohibiting anyone from voicing these assertions. Freedom of speech around the world has been killed by Zionist Jews.
In fact, the Holocaust industry (as it is known today) did not really begin to capture the popular imagination until after the first Kennedy assassination, almost 20 years after WW II ended. (See ‘The Holocaust Industry’ By Prof Norman Finkelstein).
Sad to say – and it will horrify many so-called conscious and compassionate observers – but you can’t clearly see the horrendous deception force-fed to the world about Arab terror and the Muslim threat without first seeing the colossal hoax of World War Two’s so-called Holocaust, which gives the architects of the Jewish homeland a free pass to work their sinister strategies against the entire world.
And when you do see the Holohoax and 9/11 in the same wan light, you can also see how the Soviet threat was fabricated in the late 1940s to accelerate the profits of the arms makers. And possibly – if you research it – you can understand how Wall Street funded Hitler and the Bolshevik revolution was triggered by a batallion of Jews from Brooklyn.
Hitler, bin Laden, Saddam. Targets created by the Western powers to reap huge profits from the sale of armaments and the robbery of resources. The cost in innocent lives has never been a concern to those who reap those profits, and is of no concern today.
This is what we should have realized two years ago when we watched the rubble in downtown New York City being carted away and dispersed to foreign countries before a proper forensic investigation could be conducted.
Arabs in an Afghani cave (built with CIA money, by the way) could not have dreamed up this complex a scheme, involving the deliberate standdown of America’s air defenses, the bribery of a plethora of American officials who assisted in a very profitable manipulation of the stock market, and the planting and endless regurgitation of the fantastic fable by the Jewish media.
One fact about the so-called Arab hijackers that is rarely mentioned nowadays is that they were shadowed during their entire flight school follies by a complex network of Israeli “art students” who were quickly spirited out of the country after the dirty deeds were done. Also, many of the “hijackers” have been found alive, living comfortably in other countries, and no attempt has been made by American authorities to rectify this transparent error in the cynical cover story about 9/11.
Now, I am not so naive as to believe that naked power does not rule this world. It has since the Assyrian war machine first massed its phalanxes against the feckless villagers of the Fertile Crescent some five millenia ago.
The sad part is that in 5,000 years later, human nature has not evolved one iota, and in the very villages where Sargon and Nabonidus and Xerxes once slaughtered innocent families simply trying to live their lives, now two George Bushes have continued the same primitive practice of killing without mercy in order to steal without conscience.
I am not so naive as to believe that if America, Britain and Israel weren’t busily trying to co-opt and prostitute all the nations of the world, then somebody else would be attempting the same stunt. It still doesn’t make it right.
From our own so-called modern perspective, it was Britain that first mastered this evil strategy, and built up an empire on which the sun never set by claiming they were bringing civilization to unenlightened regions, but really they were just smuggling drugs, opium, to be precise.
Perhaps to be fair, the British learned this technique from the Spanish, the Dutch, or the French, or the Romans, the Greeks or the Persians.
The Americans simply copied the British model, but there exists strong evidence that the U.S. didn’t adopt this model until the Zionists began to enter into the halls of public power at the end of the 19th century.
Since that time, in what has been called the American century but might better be termed – considering Einstein, Freud, and the New York Times et al – the Jewish century, we have seen the continuation of mass murder covered up by lies, of oppression masked as economic opportunity, and of a so-called civilized society slaughtering innocent indigenents for profit, and then sitting back smugly while praising their own humanitarian self-satisfaction.
The real axis of evil (to borrow a phrase from a certain low IQ politician who brays about his religion but has no real concept of its principles, like Thou Shalt Not Kill) is the United States of America, Great Britain, and the Jewish homeland.
The U.S. is the triggerman, which trumpets its hallowed legacy of individual freedom as an excuse for depriving others around the world of that very thing.
Britain is the architect, which perfected its colonial plan and then exported it to America, and retained real wealth in a subterranean way even as it pauperized its own people (something America is doing right now).
Israel, the Jewish homeland, is the tumor that facilitates the cancer’s spreading, working its malevolent deceptions so greed triumphs over compassion and survival is everything, even though because of that philosophy the planet is dying, and so is every species on it.
It is wrong to blame Jews for inventing this kind of behavior, because they have only copied it from the other tyrannies of history. But with the sanction of their holy books, particularly the notorious Sanhedrin, which approves of their lying and sanctifies the robbery and killing of non-Jews with no penalty, we can all be sure that this conscienceless behavior will not be corrected as long as Judaism exists.
There are other, lesser accomplices in this great crime, like France, Australia and Japan, feigning fits of conscience while all the while remaining alert for trickle-down largesse, like perverts dawdling outside the brothel door, hoping for glimpses of flesh that will trigger their pathological spasms of voyeuristic satisfaction.
Once upon a time, America had no real enemies, only friends wanting to be just like us, a land of freedom and opportunity where everyone could get a fresh start.
Now it comes to pass that America has no real friends, only embittered former allies, resentful of the exploitation America has made them suffer with its wars and its graft. Now they all want to destroy us, and justifiably too.
In a way it’s ironic. Now that America has revealed itself as a killer nation eager to steal and plunder from every other nation on earth, every other nation on earth still wants to be just like us.
This is the world we have wrought, and the dark future we have charted for ourselves, as a result of the shrewd governance of the real axis of evil, which is the U.S., Britain, and Israel.
John Kaminski is the author of “America’s Autopsy Report,” a collection of his Internet essays. For more information, go to http://www.johnkaminski.com/
A second collection, titled “The Perfect Enemy,” and featuring the popular essays “9/11 Is A Hoax” and “Arrest The President Now,” is just about ready for publication. For more information contact Dandelion Books.
“You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. You are a slave…, like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.” – Morpheus. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/quotes
Never before have so few invested so much, for such long a time, to confuse so many people, about so many things. Never before have so many free people willingly betrayed their own country, their own religion, even their own family, in order to gamble for the opportunity to serve the interests of the powerful few, who are known to reward loyalty so extravagantly. This is typical behavior for a country that gambles enough to support its public school system with proceeds from lottery ticket sales.
Our government, with the help of the psychos and sycophants who worship at its feet, has created a police state, which the people allow to masquerade as a democracy. The various wars against this or that problem in America, but more specifically, the “war on drugs,” have been used successfully by our overlords as an excuse to create a police state apparatus, and with it, new omnipresent agencies which made illegal searches and the invasion of privacy in America commonplace, long before the Patriot Act applied it to every facet of our lives.
The American government, in bed with the magnates of big business (the dictionary definition of “fascism”), have been at war with the American people for a very long time. Fat cat Republicans, who regularly bankroll both parties, have long plotted to replace democracy with a fascist dictatorship. (SEE: THE PLOT TO SEIZE THE WHITE HOUSE) http://mparent7777-1.blogspot.com/2008/03/plot-to-seize-white-house.html Corporations have invested billions in foundations to study the people, in order to make more efficient war upon their minds.
America has the largest prison population in the world, not by accident, but by design. Many years ago it became apparent to the masters of our government that the American people would never submit to the involuntary slavery that awaited them. One day, when the people realized what was being done to them, circumstances would devolve into a military confrontation between Washington and the people. When that day comes, it would be better for government mercenary forces if most young men of fighting age were either overseas, or in jail.
Like the revolutionary movie “Matrix,” every totalitarian state will eventually produce an underground resistance, which will find its own charismatic leaders, who can convince enough fellow slaves to rise-up into an irresistible critical mass. It will be the same way here in America, once Internet researchers finally manage to blow the lid off the 911 cover-up, or one of the other pressure cooker political cover-ups that are now being brought to a boil on the stove. When the people can finally get a clear glimpse of the totalitarian state rising around them, they will throw off all pretense of self-serving self-restraint.
The nature of the overthrow will depend upon the length of time required to alert the masses to the dangerous truth. If the people can be aroused to perform their patriotic duty to restrain their government from destroying the world, before it crosses the nuclear threshold, then peaceful change is still possible. The lunatic-in-chief and his supporters in both the political parties are prepared to use nuclear weapons against vast civilian populations, if We the People are unwilling to stop them. This new phase in the war that is allegedly being fought in America’s defense will represent the final transmutation of that war into a totally new war, fought to prevent alleged nuclear weapons construction, by unleashing actual nuclear destruction. Strangelove’s “wet dream,” a nuclear free fire zone.
The disaster unfolding in Washington is like nothing the earth has ever seen. The highest form of government ever produced by man is putting the final stages of planning on freedom’s demise, and yet the freest people in the history of the world believe that they are powerless to change anything, as they watch excitedly from the sidelines, screaming patriotic hymns to Clinton and McCain. The planners and their stooges ultimately believe in their own ability to carry forward the grand “success” stories of Iraq and Afghanistan into the rest of the Muslim world. The illusion that they can destroy select areas of the rest of the world without destroying us, helps to calm the delirious worry-free psyches of an immoral society, ready to kill the world to save their own sorry asses.
The war on terrorism uses our beliefs against us. It has been exposed as a holy war between Christianity and Islam, at least that is evidently what the Jewish neocon authors of the war want it to be. It is only a matter of time before it becomes obvious to everyone that the war of the new world order is a war against all religion. Religious belief and basic human morality must be allowed to serve as the basis for the fight against this war, because it is a war on life itself. The inherent evil of the whole operation must become the rallying point for the people to oppose the war. It is nothing less than an egotistical human attempt to overthrow the moral basis of international law, replacing it with the inhumane law of parasitic capitalist Darwinism. Kill everyone who refuses to be made into a slave!
Religious extremists are primary tools for manipulating religious populations into embracing false violent beliefs, in direct contradictions to the peaceful books they were taught from. In both politics and religion, it is the extremists who stand-out, commanding attention, if not respect. It is through the various targeted extremists that the false religious and political beliefs are introduced into the mainstream of ideas. It is within this flow of ideas that we must wade, to fight the false ideas of a war of civilizations and its counterpart a “holy war” between Christianity and Islam.
It is time that extremists in the cause of religious truth and freedom took the fight to our corporate government. We do not have to bow before a form of Zionist-sanctioned political correctness, which leaves no room for truth in an entertainment/indoctrination bureau which masquerades as a free press. Our “free press” has allowed itself to become the greatest threat to freedom our nation has ever faced. It is impossible for a free people to defend itself against an administration of deadly lies when the truth is so easily buried. The American people must become their own press, in order to get around the main obstacle to freedom.
The revolution must be a national rejection of a political system based on lies and cover-ups. Our national resistance movement must take the form of a fight for truth, and it must take place in the national arena. The truth we have learned from the rest of the world, through the alternative media, must become common knowledge. You would think that the way Americans love ironic, sarcastic humor, the majority would eagerly join us over here in the alternative media, to share our fascination with the hypocritical stage theater now being performed for our national amusement, which masquerades as politics and foreign policy.
The national debate has been strangled because of the news blackout over American/Israeli relations and American duplication of Israeli tactics in the war. Criticism of Israel or its tactics which are used by American forces will not be found anywhere in the “legitimate” American press. This news “dead zone,” which is geographically centered on Israel, is certain to be where the planned conflict against Iran and everyone associated with Iran will break-out. We have to overcome this news blackout over the selected zone of conflict.
The Zionist censorship of American debate relies upon the accusation of “anti-Semitism” as their primary weapon, to silence fair-minded Americans, who would normally refuse to remain silent in the face of such massive cold-blooded murder on this scale. This instantly has the effect of elevating whatever position they are defending from debate to an (so far) unassailable position beyond debate from the “racist” rabble, otherwise known as “anti-Zionists.” By openly making Israel’s war America’s war, the magical talisman of “anti-Semitism” insulates the Israeli roots of the war on Islam from criticism. Israel must be exposed as the progenitor of this war and the even bigger battle about to be let loose upon the innocent Muslims of the world.
The real racists are the Zionists. It is impossible to fight the racist basis of the war, without exposing this cold hard fact. Ideas of Jewish superiority based on Biblical accounts of ancient Israel are embraced by “Christian” leaders, who ignore the obvious ethnic cleansing and state policies of today’s “Israel” that easily match the accepted international definition of “genocide.” The ongoing “Shoah” (holocaust) being inflicted upon the Palestians is ignored by the loyal press, while the most cynical Zionists seek to derail true debate by mislabeling feeble homemade rockets as genocidal weapons. http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1206632348924&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull Once again, the Zionists turn truth on its head, with its genocidal weapons claim, while denying that the truly horrific thermobaric, phosphorus and uranium-based weapons it has used in Gaza and Lebanon were used in contravention of international law. http://uruknet.info/?p=m42553&hd=&size=1&l=e
If the indigenous people of Palestine are not made to seem inferior, as somewhat less human than the citizens of the “Jewish state,” then it becomes much harder to rationalize a “Shoah” upon them, or to “broom them” from their land, like an infestation of vermin. The war against Islam is based on this false position of superiority over all the Muslim people, just as it has been in previous American wars against other non-white populations, who had land or lives available for the taking. The would-be tyrants of the world have always looked at the American genocide of Native Americans as the ultimate example to follow.
For those of you still on the sidelines, who have never been baptized by the fires of vitriol and accusations of “anti-Semitism” that always come from criticizing our government for fighting catastrophic wars to enshrine Israel’s security above our own, I invite you to wade into the political waters and be baptized in organized hatred, for daring to speak-out. For I guarantee that the first comments you will hear for breaking the taboo and telling the truth will be very abusive in a special mad dog sort of way. The Jewish extremists (who call themselves Zionists) have manipulated Christians, (who also call themselves Zionists) into fighting a genocidal war against Muslims (whom the Zionists call Islamists), so that the Jewish extremists in Israel could safely, openly, remove all Muslims from “Greater Israel,” the land coveted by “the chosen people.”
It is wrong to allow a new holocaust of one people to fulfill the territorial ambitions of the descendents of the survivors of the last holocaust.
(Sean Connery is my first choice to play the dead OBL. He’s a great actor. K)
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Mossad Studios, the video arm of MOSSAD–‘by deception shalt thou make war’–,is now holding casting calls for an actor to portray one of our best creations, Osama Bin Laden.
The actor must have the ability to seamlessly read script lines, without using his voice, since we at MOSSAD studios will later dub in the sound track.
The physical requirements for the actor are: To be about 55 yo; have the ability to grow a full, shaggy-looking beard and speak Arabic. Height is not that important, since the actor will be filmed sitting at a table next to an AK-47. Note: Beard color is not important, since we at MOSSAD Studios can dye the beard.
Starting salary is 150,000 shekels (NIS) per year, which will be deposited in a Tel Aviv bank that is a front for the MOSSAD. This salary is to be paid upon our receipt of our yearly funding allotment from the US Treasury.
The actor must also be able to scowl and look menacingly, when reading the script, anytime he mouths the words, “Jews”, “9/11” and “USA.”
Once a contract is offered, it must be signed by the actor. The contract will be in force for one year, or until the U.S. starts bombing Iran or until the untimely death of the actor, which ever comes first.
Acting skills are not as important as the physical ability to look like the Bin Laden portrayed by our numerous media outlets in the USA.
Acting coaches, like Daniel Pipes and Rita Katz, full time employees of MOSSAD, will be on hand to help with the actor’s performance.
If you like working in a fast paced field, in an environment that will test your acting skills, then apply today at the nearest Israeli Embassy or contact in person, MOSSAD HQS located in Herzliya, Israel.
WASHINGTON—Approximately 550 mongers in the fields of war, hate, and fear mongered together at the Washington D.C. Marriott last week as part of the 34th annual mongering conference. According an itinerary released by the National Mongering Council, the three-day summit featured monger-building activities from 9 a.m. to noon, optional night-mongering seminars, and three meals a day to promote social mongering. “This is the greatest collection of mongering minds in our generation, making the conference a prime target for any number of horrific biological and terrorist attacks,” fearmonger Gerald Sachs mongered. “Of course, with the current political and social climate, the main question is whether next year will be anywhere near as mongerly.” None in attendance could confirm whether they would be present at next week’s fish- and whoremongering conference in El Paso, TX. http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/fearmongers_warmongers
“Yet those new supporters, many of whom are first encountering libertarian ideas through the Ron Paul Revolution, deserve a far more frank explanation than the campaign has as yet provided of how their candidate’s name ended up atop so many ugly words. Ron Paul may not be a racist, but he became complicit in a strategy of pandering to racists – and taking “moral responsibility” for that now means more than just uttering the phrase. It means openly grappling with his own past – acknowledging who said what, and why. Otherwise he risks damaging not only his own reputation, but that of the philosophy to which he has committed his life.”
“The art of politics, under democracy, is simply the art of ringing it. Two branches reveal themselves. There is the art of the demagogue, and there is the art of what may be called, by a shot-gun marriage of Latin and Greek, the demaslave. They are complementary, and both of them are degrading to their practitioners. The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. The demaslave is one who listens to what these idiots have to say and then pretends that he believes it himself.”~ H.L. Mencken, from “Notes on Democracy”
Ah, politics.The more things change, the more they remain the same.I knew there were reasons why I stopped voting and/or caring about national politics a while back, and now I remember what they were.I’ve ridiculed those involved in the mysticism that surrounds politics, and will very likely continue to do so.Hell, I’m not even a voter!I’ve heard voting described as the “suggestion box for slaves” or “two foxes and a sheep deciding on dinner,” and while I love a catchy line as much as the next guy, the simple fact of the matter is this:The people vying for control of the guns of the state don’t give a large rat turd about what I think.Always trying to be fair, they don’t care about your thoughts either!They never did.They never will.Welcome to my world.
Still, the pageantry of politics is illustrative occasionally.I spent just a little time recently, mulling over one bit of recent hysteria – the “discovery” of supposedly racist-sounding prose in some old Ron Paul newsletters from a few years back, and with it, the possible implication that the Ludwig von Mises Institute (LvMI) and LewRockwell.com (LRC), among various other libertarian websites, are bastions of racist activity.Imagine my shock with finding this out, when I’ve had several columns published there that were, shall we say, rather critical of racism generally and libertarian racism specifically.How did those articles get through?For as long as I’ve been reading the libertarian blogesphere, and thoroughly enjoying the content, I guess my racist-dar must have been malfunctioning.
And then, before I could really settle my thoughts, it comes to light that Barack Obama’s minister thinks that Amerika’s government might have some ‘splainin to do about all the people they’ve killed.The nerve!Clearly Reverend Jeremiah Wright wants the terrorists to win!If Obama really wants to occupy the big chair at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue , he must make sure no one would place him in the category of “scary black man.”Any black man with the stones to say, openly and honestly, that the U.S. government has no moral standing to teach any other state about democracy is clearly pretty scary.(From my standpoint, Wright is also right on point, but my readers probably already know that.)
Sarcasm aside, let us tackle some of these issue head-on.I’ll take the Ron Paul newsletters first, since they came out first.Then I’ll look at the Wright fiasco.I think it is instructive to examine both from the same standpoint.That standpoint is this:Fighting over the guns of the state is a game for fools.As the old saying goes, when you wrestle with a pig, you cannot win.You just get dirty and the pig likes it.
Is Ron Paul A Racist or Do I Even Care?
Allow me to come out of the closet regarding a few of my own views regarding racism within the ranks of radical libertarianism, although I seriously doubt that these will come as any real surprise, particularly for anyone who has read either of the pieces I mentioned above:“Tell Me Again, Why Are You a Libertarian?” or “Say, Can I Borrow Those Moccasins?”To wit:
·I think there is occasionally a little bit too much South-will-rise-again-ism expressed in ostensibly libertarian columns, wherever they might be published.My feelings about this fact?Whatever.I’m willing to bet not everyone who reads STR, LRC, JBS, etc. hangs on every word I write either.(Yes, this is a shock to us all.)Newsflash: Liberty generally allows for anyone with an opinion to express it.
·I think there is occasionally an air of racial superiority in some ostensible libertarians I’ve met, read, or “spoken to” online.I still don’t care.See previous newsflash.More importantly though, let me mention that I’m originally from the South, North Carolina , to be exact.Having now lived in the North for a quite a while, I’ve noticed that Northerners are sometimes a little taken aback by any expression that might be construed as overtly racist.Me, I sort of appreciate it.When I was growing up and my friends and I heard an older white guy say something along the lines of, “I don’t like Negroes” – only with a more, shall we say, colloquial pronoun – we knew that his house probably wasn’t a good place to stop during Halloween, and moved on, giving it and him, no further thought.For example, I can assure you that the e-mail addresses from racist responses I’ve gotten to my pieces are not stored in my address book.(Hey, I’m just sayin’!)
·I think the time a market anarchist spends promoting a political candidate might be better spent otherwise.However, I have no idea what strategic moves are best for moving our society closer to general and widespread market anarchism.I also know it’s not my job to decide for anyone else.By way of full disclosure, let me also say that back when I was a disgruntled liberal, I voted for Ross Perot, twice, so clearly, I’m capable of a mistake or two.(I’m out of therapy now, thankyouverymuch.)
·I think Abraham Lincoln was a racist, white supremacist, psychotic asshole who didn’t give a rat’s ass about slavery or black people.Any credit he gets for freeing the slaves is truly misplaced, misapplied, or frankly, stupid.That I’m not the only black person who feels this way, while comforting in some regard, does not affect my opinion.( Lincoln was, however, apparently one helluva politician.Is that a compliment?)
·I think NFL quarterbacks get both too much blame and too much credit, and that Donavan McNabb might whine a little too much.(Wait, that’s for another essay!)
OK, so those last two admissions were a little off-topic, but they’ve been on my mind recently.Consider them gifts.
Is Jeremiah Wright Right About America and If So, Who Cares?
There have been many great pieces that place Reverend Wright’s comments in context, particularly as they relate to the libertarian view of the actions of the U.S. government.I won’t belabor those points here.Frankly, my reaction when I heard the snippets of Wright’s sermons on “Countdown with Keith Olbermann” was one of disbelief.I could not believe anyone was upset.As I listened to each video clip in succession, I found myself thinking, “OK, so when is he going to lie?” I wondered if I was the only person listening to that broadcast who found much, if not all of what is being called, “inflammatory” from Wright’s sermons to be, well, largely factual.
For example:
·Wright said that the U.S. was “the world’s number one killer” particularly with respect to our support of terrorist nations when it suits the goals of the government. (That’s a big 10-4, good buddy.)
·Wright said, “We’ve got more black men in prison than there are in college. Racism is alive and well. Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run.” (That’s another unvarnished truth.)
·Wright said, “We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns, and the training of professional killers . . . . We bombed Cambodia, Iraq, and Nicaragua, killing women and children while trying to get public opinion turned against Castro and Ghadhafi . . . . We put [Nelson] Mandela in prison and supported apartheid the whole 27 years he was there. We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God.” (While one could debate with the use of “importing” with respect to drugs, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that drugs get into the United States generally – and into the inner city eventually – via boats and planes.Not many folks in the inner city have either!Given that agents of the state supposedly control all access to the U.S. via boats and planes . . . well, you can see where this is going.)
·Wright said, “We supported Zionism shamelessly while ignoring the Palestinians and branding anybody who spoke out against it as being anti-Semitic . . . . We care nothing about human life if the end justifies the means . . . .” (Quoting ESPN’s Stuart Scott, “Boohah!”One could find a similar sentiment regarding our respect for human life in many, if not all, of my writings here and elsewhere.)
I admit though, that I nearly swallowed my tongue when Jonathan Alter, an analyst on Olbermann’s show, said Wright appeared to be hysterical at points. The U.S. government kills people all over the globe, arguably on the behalf of its citizens, all while playing it off like it’s “par for the course” and when somebody calls them on it, it’s “hysterical”?What a load of industrial-strength B.S.(Half a million children died in Iraq just from the sanctions.Do you reckon that might piss off a few folks?)
What the Debate(s) Should Be About
It strikes me as unfortunate that the debate over the historical contents of Ron Paul’s newsletters is actually just a chance for competing factions within the broad banner of libertarianism to snipe at each other.Make no mistake:that is absolutely all that situation entailed.The larger political landscape (read:statists) got to watch and enjoy, kinda like watching a debate on Faux News – lots of heat, but not much light.
If further strikes me as educational that the awesome power of the state is so revered by those who wish to claim it that even those who are supposedly on the same side – like Obama and Clinton – would stop at nothing to have it, even if it means they have to mortally wound each other.Talk about wrestling with pigs.
Has Ron Paul, as per the statements of Sanchez and Weigel, “become complicit in a strategy of pandering to racists”?I’m not convinced.Frankly, I really haven’t the faintest clue how anyone can actually become complicit regarding to whom their ideas might appeal and for what reasons.Is a candidate for office to be blamed if someone with views to which he might not otherwise subscribe decides to support his candidacy?I rather doubt it.
Does Barack Obama have to “clean up” his association with Jeremiah Wright?Apparently he does, but only if he’s interested in getting elected.Is that a good reason?Well, not from where I sit.The obvious bottom line is this:Obama is presenting himself as a Negro the white people don’t have to fear. While that may actually be politically expedient, would anyone really interested in truth and freedom embrace such logic?Not so much.
As a practical matter, it strikes me as duplicitous, if expected, for Obama to have to distance himself from the words of his minister, particularly when white evangelicals such as Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell have said almost exactly the same kind of thing. That is, unless different rules apply to different candidates. For example, McCain hasn’t had to distance himself from his spiritual advisor, who said ” America was founded to rid the world of Islam” or words to that effect. Bush hasn’t had to distance himself from white preachers who have said “9/11 was caused by the wrath of God” or words to that effect.You see the pattern.
“The Republican Party long ago adopted as a central strategy aligning itself with, and granting great influence to, the most radical, “America-hating” white evangelical Christian ministers in the country. They’re given a complete pass on that because political orthodoxy mandates that white evangelical Christian ministers are inherently worthy of respect, no matter how extreme and noxious are their views. That orthodoxy stands in stark contrast to the universally enraged reaction to a few selected snippets from the angry rantings of a black Christian Minister. What accounts for that glaring disparity?”
Indeed. My suspicion:race accounts for that disparity.Yet Obama has to elevate the discussion? I beg to differ. There’s been too much B.S. passed off as truth already.The truth of the matter is this:Obama has to prove that he hasn’t forgotten his “place” lest the white folks interested in proving that racism is dead in Amerika might decide that it’s a little more alive than they thought and/or hoped.
Let us be clear, I’ve never really been that much of a Ron Paul supporter, per se.Nor have I been that much of an Obama supporter.The reasons for these stances are identical.(And maybe that’s why it puzzled me so much for libertarians to be fighting amongst themselves about Paul.)I don’t want a “leader of the free world” who looks like me, sounds like me, thinks like me, or reads the books I read.I want no leader, and I want a truly free world.In other words: no state.
Still, something about the piece from Sanchez and Weigel didn’t resonate fully with me, even outside the paradigm of anarchism.It is strangely ironic for the amount of attention Jeremiah Wright is receiving to have at its root, the same pathology.I think Brian Doherty hits much closer to the mark, in a relatively recent Reason Hit & Run posting.As he so eloquently states, the epigram often attributed to Voltaire expresses the true notion of “freedom of speech” and liberty with:
“I disagree with what this man has said, but I defend to the death his right to say it.”
Doherty goes on:
As ugly and embracing of intolerance as such an epigram may seem in practice, perhaps there are reasons, reasons vital to the flourishing of an interesting, varied, free world of expression, that those summing up the spirit of Enlightenment tolerance did not choose to express the appropriate attitude toward things said with which he disagreed—even strongly and passionately disagreed—like this: “I disagree with what this man has said, and I consider him evil for saying it; furthermore, I consider him having said it the most significant thing about him, and that it overshadows any other accomplishment or statement he has ever made. I fervently wish to have him driven from polite society, and consider that anyone who does not enthusiastically join me in so driving him to themselves be evil, or at least incredibly idiotic and not to be trusted—but don’t worry, I don’t think he should be arrested for saying it.”
This paragraph is the clincher:
It may be that the more famous saying indeed embodies the spirit of a lovable, valuable, rich world of discourse; and that the second one perhaps embodies a less open, free, and dynamic, and thus less valuable and interesting, world of discourse.
What Doherty is asking – and what I find the most interesting and instructive regarding both these issues – is this:What kind of discourse do we want to have?We can be open or we can be politically correct but we are unlikely to be both.It occasionally appears that few in Amerika – including Democrats, Republicans, and many others – have heard of Voltaire.
Are there other points of view?Certainly.Wendy McElroy, another libertarian columnist, makes a vital point in a piece that she did not write, but quotes:
I will state my main thesis again. It is lethal and destructive for any libertarian to be associated with bigotry and racism. Not only is it destructive to the cause of liberty but I would assert that it is morally wrong and contemptible . . . . Libertarians need to take back their movement from the racists and the bigots and let them know they are not welcome. Maybe the bad publicity associate[d] with the Paul debacle will do that but I won’t hold my breath.
Since I believe that libertarianism – or whatever designation one chooses to use – is about individualism, I’m not even sure that I have a movement.Isn’t the terminology “movement” collectivist in origin and application?As I mentioned previously, given the responses I’ve gotten after certain columns, I’m pretty certain that many racists and bigots don’t like everything I say. If I’ve given the movement away, these people must not know about it.Anyway, guilt by association does not an accurate impression make.
Conclusion
There is yet another take-home message, I think, again from both these debacles.People don’t take kindly to anyone threatening to take away their toys.The White House specifically, but big-time politics generally, are really fun toys!
As I’ve heard it best said, U.S. politics can be accurately described as: Two guys who look very much alike, fighting over a really fun, one-player video game, trying to decide who gets to play first.Despite the fact that a couple of the current contestants don’t fit the old paradigm – that is, they look very different from historical contestants – it still seems to me that we’ve got a good case of same crap, different day.
My position, for quite some time now, has been this:Getting involved in the cesspool of national politics tends to get everyone who tries a little dirty.Both of these situations are illustrative in that regard.It appears now that the back-splash of partisan politics and the strange bedfellows it brings will have to be scraped off the fenders of radical libertarianism.Well, pass the spatula and let’s get to it.
As for the Obama-Wright dust-up, it simply shows what should have been apparent from the start.Lao Tsu said it best:“Only fools seek power; and the greatest fools seek it through force.”Whether you apply force through guns or via brow beating and playing the race card, it is indicative of your true character and your motives.
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