|
Obama DOJ Asks Court to Grant Immunity to George W. Bush For Iraq War In court papers filed today (PDF), the United States Department of Justice requested that George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Paul Wolfowitz be granted procedural immunity in a case alleging that they planned and waged the Iraq War in violation of international law. Plaintiff Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi single mother and refugee now living in Jordan, filed a complaint in March 2013 in San Francisco federal court alleging that the planning and waging of the war constituted a “crime of aggression” against Iraq, a legal theory that was used by the Nuremberg Tribunal to convict Nazi war criminals after World War II. “The DOJ claims that in planning and waging the Iraq War, ex-President Bush and key members of his Administration were acting within the legitimate scope of their employment and are thus immune from suit,” chief counsel Inder Comar of Comar Law said. The “Westfall Act certification,” submitted pursuant to the Westfall Act of 1988, permits the Attorney General, at his or her discretion, to substitute the United States as the defendant and essentially grant absolute immunity to government employees for actions taken within the scope of their employment. In her lawsuit, Saleh alleges that: – Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz began planning the Iraq War in 1998 through their involvement with the “Project for the New American Century,” a Washington DC non-profit that advocated for the military overthrow of Saddam Hussein. – Once they came to power, Saleh alleges that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz convinced other Bush officials to invade Iraq by using 9/11 as an excuse to mislead and scare the American public into supporting a war. – Finally, she claims that the United States failed to obtain United Nations approval prior to the invasion, rendering the invasion illegal and an act of impermissible aggression. “The good news is that while we were disappointed with the certification, we were prepared for it,” Comar stated. “We do not see how a Westfall Act certification is appropriate given that Ms. Saleh alleges that the conduct at issue began prior to these defendants even entering into office. I think the Nuremberg prosecutors, particularly American Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson, would be surprised to learn that planning a war of aggression at a private non-profit, misleading a fearful public, and foregoing proper legal authorization somehow constitute lawful employment duties for the American president and his or her cabinet.” The case is Saleh v. Bush (N.D. Cal. Mar. 13, 2013, No. C 13 1124 JST). 
“ Edward Snowden is both an American and an international hero for speaking out against tyranny and the conversion of America into a fascist state. He deserves commendation, not prosecution.” The espionage charges against Edward Snowden for informing the American people and the world that the NSA has been conducting the most massive spying operation in history are completely baseless and absurd. Snowden is not revealing information that places the national security of the nation at stake but information revealing the NSA has instead been tracking enemies of the national security state. Those who seem to be the real targets of this surveillance program include veterans, Constitutionalists, NRA members, 9/11 Truthers, Ron Paul supporters, and any one else who might have both the courage, the integrity and the ability to resist the imposition of a new military police state under DHS. The latest figures about the “Main Core” list of political dissidents stands at around 8,000,000 today. No domestic terrorist threat We know from a report released by a subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Intelligence on 3 October 2012 that, after surveying 680 “fusion center” reports gathered from 2009-2010, it had discovered that there were no indications of any terrorist activity: NONE. ZILCH. NADA. NOT ONE! Yet this astounding data has yet to be broadcast or published by ABC, NBC, CBS, or CNN. This sample, which was obtained under conditions that insured if any domestic terrorist activity had been taking place it would have been revealed, supports the statistical extrapolation that domestic terrorist activity in the United States is virtually non-existent. It also explains why DHS and the FBI have had to fabricate phony events such as those at Sandy Hook and the Boston bombing, which were staged. Unwarranted justifications Even the claim by General Alexander, the head of the NSA, that this program had foiled 50 terrorist plots appears to be hokum. Ron Paul, for example, explained that it was an ad hoc exaggeration and that it included some 40 trivial events that were alleged to have occurred not in the United States but abroad and a story of an attempt to blow up Wall Street that has all the signs of another FBI fabricated event. So the existence of a bona-fide domestic terrorist threat appears to be a cover-story to justify the most massive spying ever undertaking using enormous computer capabilities to accumulate information on our emails, our phone calls, our financial transactions and even (no doubt) our medical records. They want to know everything there is to know about each and every one of us to promote their own agenda. The executive branch coup has succeeded The executive branch coup against America has succeeded. The question is: will it stand? Today, the executive branch consists of liars, criminals, and traitors. The evil on earth seems concentrated in Washington. Washington’s response to Edward Snowden’s evidence that Washington, in total contravention of law both domestic and international, is spying on the entire world has demonstrated to every country that Washington places the pleasure of revenge above law and human rights. On Washington’s orders, its European puppet states refused overflight permission to the Bolivian presidential airliner carrying President Morales and forced the airliner to land in Austria and be searched. Washington thought that Edward Snowden might be aboard the airliner. Capturing Snowden was more important to Washington than respect for international law and diplomatic immunity. How long before Washington orders its UK puppet to send in a SWAT team to drag Julian Assange from the Ecuadoran embassy in London and hand him over to the CIA for waterboarding? Snowden challenges the illegal exercise of power On July 12 Snowden met in the Moscow airport with human rights organizations from around the world. He stated that the illegal exercise of power by Washington prevents him from traveling to any of the three Latin American countries who have offered him asylum. Therefore, Snowden said that he accepted Russian President Putin’s conditions and requested asylum in Russia. Insouciant americans and the young unaware of the past don’t know what this means. During my professional life it was Soviet Russia that persecuted truth tellers, while America gave them asylum and tried to protect them. Today it is Washington that persecutes those who speak the truth, and it is Russia that protects them. The American public has not, this time, fallen for Washington’s lie that Snowden is a traitor. The polls show that a majority of Americans see Snowden as a whistleblower. It is not the US that is damaged by Snowden’s revelations. It is the criminal elements in the US government that have pulled off a coup against democracy, the Constitution, and the American people who are damaged. It is the criminals who have seized power, not the American people, who are demanding Snowden’s scalp. The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, has no legitimacy. Americans are
oppressed by an illegitimate government ruling, not by law and the Constitution, but by lies and naked force. The whole clanking, medieval apparatus of Homeland Security that has sprouted like an enormous poison fungus since 9/11 with its brutal police state mindset; the odious Patriot Act with its flagrant subversions of the Bill of Rights; the endless, fantasy-based terror-peddling of the prostitute corporate media with its clowns and harpies churning irrational fear and anger in the uninformed: all this grim, repressive endeavor is a concerted attempt to distract Americans from the real causes of their injury, abuse, and oppression. And yet, even with the American Myth now totally and irreparably blown full of holes and exposed demonstrably for the tissue of lies, deceptions and frauds that it has always been, it somehow keeps its phenomenal hold on the great mass of the American people. The tragic reality is that, for the majority, their own identities have been so deeply and thoroughly infused with the myth that to disbelieve it is to disbelieve in themselves.  The National Defense Authorization Act NDAA ( Denies Individual freedom ) and HR 347 (Denies Mass Popular protest ) are the desperate acts of a corrupt and financially weakened American Empire that has lost the hearts and minds of its people and is desperately trying to protect itself from its real enemy ~ the people armed with the truth and demanding freedom and change. In the meantime, the Occupy Movement continues to build momentum this spring and Matt Taibbi & Keith Olbermann verify this on Countdown ~ with many new people and more highly visible and vulnerable targets scheduled in 2012. Six Minute video In essence, 2012 will eventually pit the Will of the People versus the Will of the Government (Establishment) and it will climax in Chicago ~ with the G8 and NATO meetings in May and the Republican and Democrat national conventions in late August in Tampa Bay, Florida for the Republicans and early September in Charlotte, North Carolina for the Democrats. It really doesn’t matter whether Obama or Romney win the Presidency because both are beholden to the financial elite and the status quo. Bill Hicks brilliantly explains that hiring process in this one minute video political satire ~ Both parties have sold their souls to the corporate elite (Establishment) and are rightfully held in scorn by the vast majority of the American people for one simple reason ~ The Republican and Democratic establishment no longer care what the majority of the American people feel now that the corpocracy has a vote (courtesy of the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court Decision) and the corpocracy can quite literally buy an election. So we find candidates speaking for their special interest groups, such as AIPAC and ignoring the will of their constituencies. Here’s a perfect example regarding the fact that assassination is not diplomacy. Even as it remains a CONSENSUS among the 16 US intelligence agencies that there is NO evidence that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapon ~ one of our own Presidential candidates (Santorum) is busy undermining any sense of diplomacy by basically announcing “We will kill you.” 
Free expression in all forms is fundamental in democratic societies. Without it, all other freedoms are at risk. Included are free speech, a free press, freedom of thought, culture, and intellectual inquiry. It also includes the right to challenge government authority peacefully, especially in times of war and cases of injustice, lawlessness, official incompetence, and abusive government behavior. Denying it risks tyranny. Voltaire defended it, saying “I may disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Howard Zinn called dissent “the highest form of patriotism.” It includes the right to speak and write freely, assemble, protest publicly, and associate with anyone for any reason lawfully. Democracy depends on it. Bill of Rights freedoms affirm it. Nonetheless, US history is strewn with abusive laws. The 1798 Sedition Act criminalized publishing “false, scandalous and malicious writing” against President John Adams or Congress, but allowed it against Vice President Thomas Jefferson. The 1917 Espionage Act imprisoned anyone convicted of “insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or (encouraging) refusal of duty in the military or naval forces of the United States.” It targeted First Amendment speech against WW I and American’s participation in it. The 1918 Sedition Act went further. It criminalized “disloyal, scurrilous (or) abusive” anti-government speech. The Supreme Court upheld the Espionage Act, notably in (Eugene) Debs v. United States. A five-time socialist presidential candidate, he served prison time for opposing militarism and America’s WW I entry. In 1968, the Warren Court disallowed draft card burning on grounds it would disrupt the “smooth and efficient functioning” of American recruitment. However, in 1969, the Court upheld student rights to wear black arm bands, protesting the Vietnam War. In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), it ruled government can’t punish inflammatory speech unless directed to incite lawless action. In Texas v. Johnson (a 1989 flag burning case), Justice William Brennan wrote the majority opinion, saying: “(I)f there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea offensive or disagreeable.” America has no Brennans today. As a result, speech and all other liberties are threatened. Under either major party, the nation’s hurtling toward tyranny. Forgotten is Jefferson’s warning, saying: “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance.” He also said free speech “cannot be limited without being lost.” Former US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall added: “Above all else, the First Amendment means that government has no power to restrict expression (regardless of its) ideas…subject matter (or) content….Our people are guaranteed the right to express any thought, free from government censorship.” Suppressing Free Expression Major media scoundrels are thought control gatekeepers. Instead of reporting vital information accurately, they suppress it. The free interchange of speech, ideas, and opinions suffers. Public opinion’s manipulated to support what people should oppose, denounce, and refuse to accept. Police state laws pass largely below the radar. They erode and destroy fundamental freedoms. The USA Patriot Act alone wrecked key constitutional protections, including: - Fifth and Fourteen Amendment due process rights;
- First Amendment freedom of association rights;
- Fourth Amendment protections from unreasonable searches and seizures;
- prohibitions against unchecked government surveillance powers to monitor virtually all our activities, and use secret “evidence” unavailable to counsel in prosecuting politically targeted defendants.
In addition, the Act created the federal crime of “domestic terrorism.” It applies to US citizens and aliens. It states criminal law violations are considered domestic terrorist acts if they aim to “influence (government policy) by intimidation or coercion (or) intimidate or coerce a civilian population.” By this definition, anti-war and global justice demonstrations, environmental and animal rights activism, civil disobedience, and dissent of any kind may be called “domestic terrorism.” As a result, Occupy Wall Street and other protesters may be arrested and so charged. HR 347 increases the likelihood. The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011: “Amends the federal criminal code to revise the prohibition against entering restricted federal buildings or grounds to impose criminal penalties on anyone who knowingly enters any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority.” “Defines ‘restricted buildings or grounds’ as a posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area of: (1) the White House or its grounds or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds, (2) a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting, or (3) a building or grounds so restricted due to a special event of national significance.” On February 6, a Senate amendment titled, “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011″ passed unanimously with no dissent. On February 28, the House suspended the rules and passed HR 347 388 – 3. The bill awaits Obama’s signature. Only the fullness of time will determine how much damage is done, but clear red flags are raised. On February 29, Russia Today reported how First Amendment rights are risked, saying: “Just when you thought the government couldn’t ruin the First Amendment any further,” this measure threatens legitimate protests near locations where US officials are present, even with no knowledge they’re there. Participants may be criminally prosecuted for exercising their First Amendment rights. Section (c) states: “the term restricted buildings or grounds means any posted, cordoned off, or otherwise restricted area - (A) of the White House or its grounds, or the Vice President’s official residence or its grounds; (B) of a building or grounds where the President or other person protected by the Secret Service is or will be temporarily visiting; or (C) of a building or grounds so restricted in conjunction with an event designated as a special event of national significance; and (2) the term ‘other person protected by the Secret Service’ means any person whom the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect under section 3056 of this title when such person has not declined such protection.’ ” In fact, they may be covered wherever they are any time for any purpose. Virtually any event may be designated “significant.” Among others, they include congressional sessions, party conventions, G8, G20, IMF, World Bank, and NATO meetings/summits, public appearances for any reason, funerals of prominent officials, locations with visiting foreign dignitaries or despots, and other events unrelated to government business. Vague language leaves it up for grabs how authorities will use this measure, and how courts will interpret it if challenged. OWS protesters target government, corporate, and related locations for redress. Many hundreds already have been harassed, violently attacked, arrested and detained. Expect worse if they’re criminalized for exercising their First Amendment rights. As a result, they may be subject to arrest, prosecution, imprisonment up to 10 years, and/or fines. Whether it turns out this way isn’t clear. However, numerous police state laws currently target First Amendment and other freedoms. Activists are wrongfully imprisoned on bogus domestic terrorism charges. A Final Comment Will sweeping anti-OWS crackdowns follow under HR 347 and other measures entirely destroying inviolable constitutional rights cast aside to enforce tyranny? Only the fullness of time will tell, but don’t bet against it. Remember Jefferson’s warning that “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.” In today’s climate of permanent war, corporate predation, and state-sponsored fear, if ordinary people don’t defend their rights, who will? Obviously, our leaders (and that includes President Obama) are out of touch with what is important to the American people. This must be the year we take back our lives and inherent freedoms ~ for we most certainly have the power to do that and history backs up that claim. Here are some excerpts from an interview with Jonathan Schell, author of “The Unconquerable World,” on how non-violence and the quest for freedom can topple the greatest of empires ~ and will eventually topple the current American Empire. The interview was conducted on March 1, 2012 by Andy Kroll, associate editor at Tom Dispatch and staff reporter at Mother Jones. Excerpt: Andy Kroll: You’ve written a lot before on the nuclear problem, and one feels that throughout the book. But The Unconquerable World also stands on its own as something completely original. How did you come to write this book? Jonathan Schell: It was a long time in the making. The initial germ was born toward the end of the 1980s when I began to notice that the great empires of the world were failing. I’d been a reporter in the Vietnam War, so I’d seen the United States unable to have its way in a small, third world country. A similar sort of thing happened in Afghanistan with the Soviet Union. And then of course, there was the big one, the revolutions in Eastern Europe against the Soviet Union. I began to think about the fortunes of empire more broadly. Of course, the British Empire had already gone under the waves of history, as had all the other European empires. And when you stopped to think about it, you saw that all the empires, with the possible exception of the American one, were disintegrating or had disintegrated. It seemed there was something in this world that did not love an empire. I began to wonder what exactly that was. Specifically, why were nations and empires that wielded overwhelmingly superior force unable to defeat powers that were incomparably weaker in a military sense? Whatever that something was, it had to do with the superiority of political power over military power. Actually, the National Liberation Front and the North Vietnamese understood this, and if you read their documents, they were incessantly saying “politics” was primary, that war was only the continuation of politics.” We are angry at a political system that favors incumbents with vested interest in a seniority system that is highly rewarded by special lobbies with no limitations on tenures and were members of the House or the Senate can stay in until they are in diapers and become senile and yet, they keep winning and keep raking up the special health and retirement plans denied to all Americans. We are angry at a political system that allows out of state and out of district money to influence local, congressional and senatorial elections and where money counts more than votes and where we as citizens as voters do not have much choice or influence over a corrupted political process where money is every thing. We need a party that stands against the one percent capitalism that rules, and for the 99% democracy that should. Whenever murmurs among the people indicate growing awareness that they are paying an exorbitant price in order to enrich a tiny minority, the terrified cry of “class war” is raised by the poor huddled masses of billionaires, millionaires and their corporate servants in politics and media. This contradicts the fictional notion that there are no classes in American society, that we are all “middle class” and oh, a few unfortunates are poor but that’s only temporary. As soon as their investments pay off they too will arrive at the exalted status of “middle”. That would be right after the Easter bunny delivers chocolate covered Tooth Fairies to all the little boys and girls. 
Shay’s Rebellion “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that the people preserve the spirit of resistance? … The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” ~ Thomas Jefferson In truth, this nation has been a stratified class society since its origins under the rule of rich Europeans who drafted a constitution ensuring their rights of property and assuring that the majority rabble would not threaten those sacred scriptures. It was Shay’s Rebellion, an uprising of the common people incensed over debts and foreclosures – sound familiar? – that brought about the first ten amendments to that document and saw to it that human beings and not just their property owning masters had some rights. Unfortunately, you still need lots of money to establish that equality in court but corporate mind management has done a great job creating illusions among a great mass of Americans that they are somehow equal to a very small group which earns (?)millions and even billions a year. In fact, while demonstrators at Wall Street and in other cities representing the 99% of us who live below the top 1% strive to create real democracy, it should be understood that only a fraction of that 1% are rich beyond the imaginations of ancient rulers who were seen as deities by the peasants of their times. 
Author Naomi Wolf and her partner Avram Ludwig are arrested in New York at an Occupy Wall Street protest. Photograph: Mike Shane That these modern god-like creatures can manipulate citizens of an alleged democracy into thinking they are just like common working people is indication of how successful their faithful servants in media and politics have been at warping the collective mind. But those days are nearing an end. Even though the “class war” label still draws negative response from subjects who have been on their knees for so long they may never be able to stand up, a majority of citizens who refuse minority masters ruling their world into what could be a terminal state are indeed on their feet loudly saying, no way. That scares the hell out of rich owners of a fiction they have been calling democracy. It’s threatening to become just that and they and their minions are in desperation that the majority rule they fear may soon become reality. In defense of inequality, hand wringing pleaders for the opulent weep about their enormous tax bills, leaving out the massive amount of dollars they maintain after taxes. Even with the old 90% top tax brackets of the 1950s republican Eisenhower administration, a poor soul with a billion dollars would be left with a measly 100 million. Oh dear! And rest assured that after their well compensated accountants took massive deductions and did other book juggling, nobody ever paid anything remotely close to 90%. And now we have tax rates on the wealthy that are so low even some of them are embarrassed.  When the 400 richest Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 150 million Americans – about half the population – and use that wealth to buy politicians and government power , only corporate mind management and slack jawed imbeciles can call that a democratic system. Our income disparity is greater than at any time since 1928. As evidence, over the past twenty five years 80 percent of increased income in America went to the top 5 percent, while the bottom 60 percent lost 7.5 percent. The US has the most billionaires in the world (413), and among those global deities with $5 billion or more there are 57 from the US. If you’re not weeping in pity but in rage, you’re part of the 99%.
The last major crisis of capitalism, the Great Depression, ended with what was called the New Deal. It simply replaced private investment with public investment in order to create jobs, avoid social revolution and save the capitalist profit system for the wealthy minority. This time the crisis is even more serious and it calls for something greater than a New Deal. In fact, we need a whole New Deck. 
OCCUPYING WALL STREET The increased problems of warfare, environmental destruction, unemployment, poverty and a besieged public sector cannot be solved by relying on the market lust for private profit which created them in the first place. These universal crises call for radical transformation of the political economics at their core. It does seem that more people the world over are demanding change but the forces of reaction will try to channel those demands into further acceptance of a status quo. We need a party that stands against the one percent capitalism that rules, and for the 99% democracy that should. Republicans boldly stride toward soft-core fascism while Democrats mince closer to hard core neo-liberalism. Not just America but humanity cannot accept anything less than wholesale, radical restructuring of the system that threatens all into one that benefits everyone. We are angry at a financial and economic system that favors the very rich, favors Wall Street, its bankers, its lawyers and financial analysts. A financial system that simply sucks the blood out of the hard working people of America and take us to the cleaners every few years if not every day. The ills of our economy and loss of jobs did not start with the working people of America; it started and ended with a corrupt Wall Street that has nothing but contempt for the working class of this nation. We are angry at a political, economic and financial system that allows more than 45 million Americans to live below poverty line. We are angry at a political, economic and financial system that denies 45 million Americans medical care and health insurance. We are angry at a political, economic and financial system that allows more than 15 million American children to go hungry every day. We are angry at our system of government that till this day does not recognize education as a basic human right guaranteed by the US Constitution and are angry at a political system that discriminates between children who live in poor and rich areas and does not equalize the funding of our schools so that children, irrespective of the district they live in, can have access to the same education and same funding, and once again, we perpetuate inequality that starts with kindergarten and continues through high school. America, with its great world class institutions of higher learning, does not count education as a right? Why? We are angry at a political system that forces our children seeking college educations to go into debt to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars simply to get a 4-year college education. Unlike countries in Europe and the Far East were education is within the reach of every one who is smart enough and diligent enough to want a college or graduate education. Our Congress makes its so easy for greedy investors to make a killing on student loans. Its’ criminal! Simply ask any graduate of medical, law or graduate school how much debt he starts his working career with? It’s appalling! We are angry at a political system that is out of tune with the country, its needs, and its heart beat and its people, a political system that is driven by and managed by media tycoons who own and control politicians and with enough power and influence to take us to wars that we have nothing to do with. War organized by self-serving groups of ideologues who wanted to test their theories and ideology with the blood of our brave men and women and special groups who wanted to test their loyalty to other nations with our tax dollars. We are angry at a political, financial, economic and legal system that simply rewards greed and corruption, where big time corporate managers and owners can cheat the government and us of course us tax payers out of tens billions of dollars, only to get a slap on the wrist, and a few millions of dollars in fines and have an audacity to run for and win political office. We are angry at such a system that so far, after years of the economic meltdown of the nation and ruined us as citizens, as taxpayers and homeowners. Yet no one has gone to jail for the crimes committed in trillion dollars of fraud perpetuated by banks, Wall Street and the Federal Reserve of course with collusion from a very appreciative Congress happy with the billions in financial contributions to election campaigns. How many millions of Americans lost their homes to foreclosures, seen their only saving disappear as their property values took a nose dive? How many millions of people lost their retirement plans, hard earned dollars they put in their 401Ks and in pension funds in major corporations while Congress and Wall Street enjoyed the good life. Did our politicians and the Justice Department ever wonder how and why such big companies and corporations simply go out of business or go bankrupt wiping out billions of dollars of the people investments only for Wall Streets and their buddies to resurrect these corporations making a windfall profit for certain groups of people and individuals? Did any one wonder how General Motors or Chrysler simply went under and then resurrected and did any one wonder the role Wall Street played in all this? We are angry at a political system that does not hold politicians accountable for their votes to take us to wars, to take the nation and its citizens to financial ruin and deny us our basic rights of decent life and a decent opportunity in a country we built with our hard work and sweat. We are angry with a Congress that put the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of this nation and its people. A Congress were candidates must make the pilgrim to Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv seeking blessings and endorsements while forgetting to visit the ruins of small towns, factories shut down, the tens of millions of unemployed. We are angry at a Congress that and administrations that provide loan guarantees to a foreign nation like Israel to build first class housing for its criminal trespassers on stolen land while tens of millions of Americans live in poor substandard housing all over America. A tour of South East Washington is a good example of this. Yes, America you have every reason to be angry and we the people have every reason to be angry with our political, economic and financial systems that stopped rewarding hard work, honesty and decency and rewards incompetence, greed, fraud and scruples behavior and conduct among politicians, bankers, and lawyers. Perhaps it is time to overhaul our entire political and economic system that failed us as people, as taxpayers and as a country and go back to the very basic ideas and principals that made this country a great nation. We need a new social, economic and legal contract with our government and our representatives and for sure we need to put Wall Street, its bankers, its lawyers and financial analysts out of business and take back our economy. We need to give business managers the right to manage their companies for the benefits of both stockholders and workers independent and free from the daily interference and dictates of Wall Street where young ambitious and scruples financial annalists’ have a God say over the value of our stock and investments if not our jobs and our lives. We need to take back America from our Congress, from our politicians and from our Federal Reserve, certainly from Wall Street and once again empower the “we the people”. The video below is on the “must see” list. This is not just because of what it says but because so many are being counted now. More and more “mainstream” voices are ready accept social disruption, even violence as the only solution to the covert economic war that has collapsed the world, the “magic act” that has made the earnings of the world’s producers, the earners, business, labor, those who are alive for a reason disappear into the secret accounts of financial criminals and speculators. You won’t hear Brzezinski tell you that some people no longer deserve to live, not unless you listen very carefully. Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy The real target of yesterday’s broadcast is the “1%.” Expressing strong support for worldwide revolt against economic injustice, even where rioting and violence have taken place, Brzezinski sees this movement, one he predicted in 2009, as totally inevitable and a true assertion of human will. While the “slogan makers” talk about cutting social security and veterans benefits, the “mysterious” money world created what is called “toxic derivatives” in place of the “real money.” Money quit being real when America went off the gold standard. 
The Real Meaning of Being Under Water In a world where few really make anything and real commerce seldom reaches the past a few million dollars except in the oil and arms industry, an imaginary world of equally imaginary money has created a super-class of criminal elite, “Ponzi-schemers” and hucksters whose hidden wealth dwarfs that of even the Saudi princes. How much money is out there, how big a figure? America’s national debt, in the billions during the Carter Era will hit $16 trillion any day now. This, however, isn’t the real figure. The banks hold “derivatives,” actually unauthorized “mystery money” estimated at $240 trillion dollars. Where is that “mystery money.” The “1%” have it and are enjoying it as though it were real, that and the money that used to be your 401k or the value that should represent the home you worked for. That $240 trillion they have will also be the money your children and grandchildren will never earn, not unless they become banksters and hedge fund managers, trading “mystery money” in endless cycles, hoping the merry-go-round won’t stop again like it did in 2007. 
What Do You Mean - Too Much for Me ?? Brzezinski’s real attacks, politely veiled, are on our national character itself. With 1% of America’s rich controlling more wealth than 90% of our population, money he points out is generated through economically and socially unproductive means, through mysterious manipulation of markets, unregulated, unaccountable, purely destructive, Brzezinski calls for tight controls on worldwide financial activity. As for American politics, he views the disposition to turn to “slogans” instead of substance as something he hope the current waves of social unrest sweeping America can end. A key issue pointed out, congress is almost entirely made up of the “1%” that vast majority of Americans view as their enemy. You will also find, among this list, the governors and mayors, the judges, whose political lives are spent punishing Americans that don’t share their love of greed. Look at Michigan, Wisconsin and Ohio, just three of many. Think of the 5 Supreme Court justices that overthrew every rule of g-d and man by making “corporations,” not into humans but into feudal nobility, ruling over America 
Zigggy With Osama bin-Laden - 'Once Upon a Time' Brzezinski’s demand: Lists of those who take, those who have grown wealthy beyond measure on speculation but who have given nothing, donate nothing to charities, pay no taxes, give nothing to the world. Brzezinski points out that these are the “norm” of the wealthy, the vast majority, not the few. He calls for lists to “shame” those who have brought America to it’s current level of collapse and the people to their current level of suffering. Behind this is an unheard and unseen subtext. What if “shame” doesn’t work? In New York, off duty cops are getting $50 bucks an hour, some paid in cash, working for the banks. They are working “private security” with pepper spray and full arrest powers which they are using. We call it corruption, a department now  falled into the same sewer it was during the Serpico years, the Knapp Commission of the 70′s and the Mollen Commission of the 90′s. Now NYPD is even worse, never having gotten out of the sewer of the Kerick/Giuliani days. There is a reason I mention Afghanistan. There were no “hijackers” there. Solid sources went public awhile ago, Osama bin Laden was never a terrorist and has been dead for nearly 10 years. I heard it from his CIA handlers, I heard it from top Marine Corps officals, I heard it from those who briefed General Petraeus, Secretary Gates and Secretary of State Clinton. I know they had been told, those who told them, told me. We went to Afghanistan to create a war, not to free people. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan because America wanted the Taliban to rule Afghanistan. This is the history, the real history. When it was profitable to run up hundreds of billions in a useless war, we attacked on no premise whatsoever, starting a war that would last even longer than Vietnam. It is a war where a billion dollars a month in “nation building” funds is stolen, according to the General Accounting Office, and a billion dollars a week of heroin is shipped out of the country, according to the Russian government. Vietnam was started by Wall Street. The “Global War on Terror” was orchestrated there, the real planners of 9/11 work there, part of the endless “revolving door,” Wall Street to Washington and back. When an American fights for America he has to fight Wall Street, he has to fight Boston too. The Koch Brothers, the dark center of the worldwide conspiracy against America live there, Rupert Murdoch, homes in dozens of countries, he is “Boston” too. What have we learned? 
Bernie Showboating in Iraq - Catch the AK-47's !! We know that the Department of Homeland Security gives guns to the cartels. It does more, much more and law enforcement officials are now facing investigation. Funny thing, for those who don’t remember it, the original nominee for Director of Homeland Security was Bernie Kerick, a New York Police Commissioner, nominated by President George W. Bush on the recommendation of former New York mayor, former prosecuting attorney Rudy Giuliani. Instead, Kerick went to prison. We didn’t just create the Department of Homeland Security, a two edged sword, equally capable of creating acts of terror, of phony terror warnings, of the “Chertoff effect.” Editors Note: When Bernie went to Iraq as a police consultant the troops learned real quickly that he was just polishing up his resume to charge high fees for his services when he got home. He sucked up a lot of security personnel for his big photo op tour and left our people disgusted… Jim W. Dean You don’t know what that means? Imagine a doctor who passes out diseased and poisoned candy to patients who go to a hospital he owns. I am actually describing the real nursing home business, doctors who put patients on Haldol, a major cause of dementia, then put them in nursing homes because of the dementia brought on by Haldol. On more than one occasion, we find the doctors own the nursing homes. I have taken elderly patients, family members, one my own mother, out of such facilities, had them taken off these drugs. They recovered from their “treatment,” no “dementia,” only greed. 
Whose Homeland Are They Really Protecting? When the Department of Homeland Security was created, when the Patriot Acts were passed, the mechanisms for seizing America’s guns was created, oddly by the party of the National Rifle Association, who oversaw every aspect of it. The organizations that talk the most about the constitution, about saving American freedoms, about the right to bear arms, are fronts for Wall Street, dictated to by them. Time to clean these groups out as well. We are told that everything decent we create will be bought, controlled, used against us. We’ve seen it. We can stop it. The Tea Party movement, originally created to investigate 9/11 was hijacked and rerouted to save us from “socialism.” There was no “socialism,” only Wall Street pumping in their cash. Now we watch Republican candidates fall all over each other, they can’t say enough about protecting the banks or giving money to finance Israel’s wars or about “winning” our own, wars we lost before they even began. No war is ever won, not by anyone but Wall Street. The demonstrators who are in the streets across America, the “99%” that really represent the people of the United States, what the Tea Party should have been, are there for us. Against them is the “1%” with their congress, with their unconstitutional laws, with their crooked courts, with their rigged elections and with their police departments whose only real purpose anymore is looking the other way. I said “police departments,” not “police.” Many real police are veterans, blackmailed into lives of crime to feed their families. They too are one paycheck from homelessness, like nearly every other American that make up the 99%. 
The JFK Days - To be Replaced by Johnson's During the 60s and 70s, America still had a free press. That is gone. We still had a constitution, that went away in 2001. The 8 years of “Bush the Lesser,” a coup de etat against America, the installation of the police state, detention without trial, blanket wire tapping without court orders (overturned eventually), illegal wars, torture made “legal,” and, of course, Wall Street behind it all. 
Barack Obama addresses the media from his holiday home on Martha's Vineyard. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP What are you thinking, Mr President? Is this really the legacy you want for yourself: the chief executive who trampled rights, destroyed privacy, heightened secrecy, ruined trust, and worst of all, did not defend but instead detoured around so many of the fundamental principles on which this country is founded? And I voted for you. I'll confess you were a second choice. I supported Hillary Clinton first. I said at the time that your rhetoric about change was empty and that I feared you would be another Jimmy Carter: aggressively ineffectual. Never did I imagine that you would instead become another Richard Nixon: imperial, secretive, vindictive, untrustworthy, inexplicable. I do care about security. I survived the attack on the World Trade Center and I believe 9/11 was allowed to occur through a failure of intelligence. I thank TSA agents for searching me: applause for security theater. I defend government's necessary secrets. By the way, I also defend Obamacare. I should be an easy ally, but your exercise of power appalls me. When I wrote about your credibility deficit recently, I was shocked that among the commenters at that great international voice of liberalism, the Guardian, next to no one defended you. Even on our side of the political divide, I am far from alone in urgently wondering what you are doing. As a citizen, I am disgusted by the systematic evasion of oversight you have supported through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) courts; by the use of ports as lawless zones where your agents can harass anyone; by your failure on your promise to close Guantánamo, and this list could go on. As an American often abroad, I am embarrassed by the damage you have caused to our reputation and to others' trust in us. I find myself apologizing for what you are doing to citizens of other nations, dismissing the idea that they have rights to privacy because they are "foreign". As an internet user, I am most fearful of the impact of your wanton destruction of privacy and the resulting collapse of trust in the net and what that will do to the freedom we have enjoyed in it as well as the business and jobs that are being built atop it. And as a Democrat, I worry that you are losing us the next election, handing an issue to the Republicans that should have been ours: protecting the rights of citizens against the overreach of the security state. Surely you can see this. But you keep doubling down, becoming only more dogged in your defense of secrecy and your guardians of it. I don't understand. The only way I could possibly grant you the benefit of doubt is to think that there is some ominous fact about our security that only you and your circle know and can't breath or the jig will be up. But I don't believe that anymore than I believe a James Bond movie or an Oliver Stone conspiracy theory. You can't argue that Armageddon is on the way and that al-Qaida is on the run at the same time. No, I think it is this: secrecy corrupts. Absolute secrecy corrupts absolutely. You have been seduced by the idea that your authority rests in your secrets and your power to hold them. Every attack on that power, every questioning of it only makes you draw in tighter, receding into your vault with the key you think your office grants you. You are descending into a dark hole of your own digging. But you know better, don't you? In a democracy, secrecy is not the foundation of authority; that is the basis of dictatorships. Principles and their defense is what underpins your office. First among those principles is the defense of our freedom. Security is only a subset of that, for if we are not secure we are not free. Freedom demands the confidence that we are not under attack, yes, but also that we are not being surveilled without our knowledge and consent. The balance, which we are supposedly debating, must go to freedom. Transparency is another principle you promised to uphold but have trammeled instead. The only way to assure trust in your actions is if they are overseen by open courts, by informed legislators, by an uninhibited press, and most importantly by an informed citizenry. As political and media attention turn away from you, you have an opportunity to rise again to the level of principles, to prove that your rhetoric about change was not empty after all, to rebuild your already ill-fated legacy, to do what is expected of you and your office. You could decide to operate on the principle that our privacy is protected in any medium – not just in our first-class letters but in our emails and chats and calls – unless under specific and due warrant. You could decide to end what will be known as the Obama Collect it Alldoctrine and make the art of intelligence focus rather than reach. You could decide to respect the efforts of whistleblowers as courageous practitioners of civil disobedience who are sacrificing much in their efforts to protect lives and democracy. If they are the Martin Luther Kings of our age, then call off Bull Connor's digital dogs and fire hoses, will you? You could decide to impress us with the transparency you still can bring to government, so that the institution you run becomes open by default rather than by force. You could decide to support a free press and stop efforts – here and, using your influence, with our friends in the UK – to restrain their work. You could decide that whether they are visiting our land or talking with our citizens by email or phone, foreigners are not to be distrusted by default. You could try to reverse the damage you have done to the internet and its potential by upholding its principles of openness and freedom. You could. Will you?
| Thomas Jefferson opined of the Rothschild-led Eight Families central banking cartel which came to control the United States, “Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day, but a series of oppressions begun at a distinguished period, unalterable through every change of ministers, too plainly prove a deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery”. Two centuries and a few decades later this same cabal of trillionaire money changers – mysteriously immune from their own calls for “broad sacrifice” – utilizes the debt lever to ring concessions from the people of Ireland, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and now the United States. In their never-ending quest to subjugate the planet, the bankers’ IMF enforcer – chronic harasser of Third World governments – has turned its sites on the developed world. To further advance their dizzying concentration of economic power, the whining banksters take a giant wrecking ball to the global middle class as they prepare to eat their young. No one can argue that the US deficit is not a problem. Much of it accrues paying interest on the $14 trillion debt. Stooped-over Congressional cartel shills with names like Cantor and Boehner argue for slashing entire government departments to satiate the bloodthirsty bond-holders. Liberals argue for higher taxes on the rich and massive Pentagon cuts. I agree with these latter proposals. The super-rich paid 90% under Eisenhower and 72% under Nixon. Both were Republicans. They now pay 33%. Most corporations and many elites utilize offshore tax havens and pay nothing. The argument for progressive taxation is that those who benefit more from government should pay more. Cartel apologists propagate the fiction that the poor soak up middle-class tax dollars, sowing division between the poor and middle class. Meanwhile, the Eight Families financial octopus feeds mightily at the public trough be it the SEC (rich investors), the FCC (Gulfstream jet fliers), the USDA (the richest farmers get the biggest checks), Medicaid (insurance fraud, Big Pharma gouging) or the Pentagon (Lockheed Martin, Halliburton, Blackwater). Still, $14 trillion is an insurmountable debt. Increasing taxes on the super-rich combined with a global American military withdrawal from its current role as Hessianized mercenary force for the City of London banksters, while welcome, will not be enough to deal with this monster debt, what Jefferson termed, this “deliberate, systematic plan of reducing us to slavery”. The belt-way dialogue on the deficit remains locked in a tiny intellectual box created by the corporate media and their Federal Reserve cartel owners. But there is another way. It is a myth that most of that $14 trillion debt is owed to the Chinese or other “governments”. The vast majority – around $10 trillion – is owed to the Eight Families Federal Reserve crowd. In a June 9, 2011 article for Marketwatch, Unicredit’s Chief US Economist Harm Bandholz stated that the Federal Reserve is the largest holder of US debt with around 14% of the total. This does not include debt held by Rothschild-controlled central banks of other nations – including China, Japan and the GCC oil fiefdoms. Through the recent QE2 program, the Fed purchased another $600 billion in Treasury bonds. They claimed it was a last ditch attempt to save the global economy from deflation. Instead, the banksters who got the interest free taxpayer-backed money pushed us further towards deflation by refusing to lend their welfare bonanza to potential homeowners or small business. Conversely and inherent in the printing of zero-interest money, they created inflation – speculating in oil, food and gold futures and rolling this increased US debt on the roulette tables at their various wholly-owned global stock exchanges. Is it any wonder the financial parasite class is now clamoring for QE3? What follows is a ten-step proposal which President Obama and the Congress could enact to lift the $14 trillion debt from the backs of future generations of Americans. These should be done concurrently as part of a single sweeping financial reform bill. Modeled after last week’s release of strategic petroleum reserves by twenty-seven nations, this measure should be enacted in tandem with as many willing nations as possible. The same Rothschild-led cabal controls the central banks of most every nation and there is power in numbers. If these measures are enacted separately or by only one nation, the Eight Families cartel will use their financial clout to target and destroy the US: 1) Introduce a Treasury Department-administered infrastructure investment fund, which workers should be strongly encouraged to opt into using accrued funds from their private 401K plans. This is important because the banker’s stock market casino will crash due to the next nine steps and workers must be shielded from this event. This fund can be used to rebuild America’s infrastructure, with American workers acting as lenders and receiving a fair rate of interest in return. 2) The US needs to withdraw from the Bank of International Settlements, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, the IMF and all Eight Families-controlled multilateral lending facilities. We would save billions funding these banker welfare schemes while freeing ourselves from rules which prevent our financial emancipation. 3) De-link the dollar from all currency baskets and IMF special drawing rights. Ban trade in dollars on all global exchanges. This will create a demand for dollars and strengthen our badly devalued currency. Impose currency controls by fixing the dollar at 1:1 euro, Chinese yuan, Canadian dollar and Swiss franc; 100:1 Japanese yen. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad fixed the nation’s currency – the ringit. It was the only currency in the region that did not crash when Rothschild front-man George Soros took aim at the region. 4) Nationalize the Federal Reserve. According to a London barrister I have been in contact with, under the Federal Reserve Act there is a provision that allows for the US government to buy back the Fed’s charter for $4 billion. We should pay this fee, revoke the Fed charter and launch a new US dollar issued by the Treasury Department. With the dollar fixed, the vampires cannot crash it. 5) Cancel the $10 trillion debt to the Illuminati bankers. Debt obligations to foreign governments and small bond-holders should be honored at par. 6) Arrest the perpetrators. Prosecute to the fullest extent of the law all fraudulent transactions involving the Fed cartel. Send the FBI to the New York Fed. Seize all documents. Confiscate the world’s largest gold reserves which are stored there. These were stolen from various governments including from our own Ft. Knox reserves. 7) Forget just repealing the Bush tax cuts on the rich. The top tax rate on people who make more than $1 million/ year should be raised to 75%. People making more than $500,000/year should pay 50%. All tax brackets below $75,000/year should see tax cuts. If you get more from government you need to pay for it, instead of soaking the middle-class and blaming it on the poor. 8) Slash Pentagon spending. Shut down all US military bases on foreign soil, including those in Europe, Japan and South Korea. Withdraw ALL troops from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately. Use the savings to pay off government and small bond-holders. 9) Outlaw offshore banking by US citizens and corporations. Bring your money home and pay taxes on it or surrender your US passport/corporate charter. The dramatic increase in tax revenue would be enough to pay off the remaining debt to sovereign governments and small bond-holders, while keeping our obligations to the Social Security trust fund. 10) Introduce single-payer health care and price controls on prescription drugs. The current corporate for-profit health care bonanza depends upon sickness and ill health for its hefty profits. In 2006 Canada government spent $3,678 per person for free single-payer coverage for all its citizens. The US government spent $6,714 per person covering the insurance, pharmaceutical, hospital and AMA cartels. The savings attained from eliminating insurance/pharmaceutical/hospital chain/doctor-perpetrated Medicare/Medicaid/Social Security fraud will save the US Treasury billions. It is the only solution to skyrocketing and unsustainable health care costs. Using this methodology the US could wipe out both its deficit and its debt within a year. These measures should be planned in secret and introduced swiftly and in rapid succession. Social security and Medicare will be saved. The middle class will see their tax rates go down, while their retirement fund finances the rebuilding of a 21st Century America. Manufacturing jobs will come home, since the Chinese yuan will have seen a dramatic appreciation. Our national security will be enhanced by withdrawing from the role of global policeman. If we keep thinking inside the banker-manufactured beltway box, our children have no future. They will live in a Third World country which produces nothing, lorded over by debt-collector parasites known as the “financial services industry”. The wealth-destroying Eight Families banker elite are the perpetrators of the US debt crime. Should a woman who is raped serve the sentence of her rapist? That’s absurd. Then why should Americans or any other nation pay a fraudulent debt foisted upon them by con-men? It is time for Obama and the Congress to get a backbone and force the criminal Federal Reserve cartel to make the “broad sacrifices”. Now senior citizens and veterans take to the streets in Occupy Wall Street demonstrations -
Washington protesters build on momentum of New York -
Video of cop boasting he looks forward to using nightstick sparks furious reaction among protesters -
Protesters 'storm the barricades' at Stock Exchange, prompting police to use pepper spray -
Herman Cain: 'If you are not rich it's your own fault' -
Obama addresses protesters in economic speech -
Protests held across the country from Jersey to Washington and Dallas It started as a student protest, led by the disgruntled and disenfranchised youth. But as the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have gained momentum, it has quickly become clear that fury against bankers is not a feeling restricted to just one demographic. Among the protesters marching as part of the angry and struggling '99 per cent' were many older faces - one so elderly he required a zimmer frame to walk. Scroll down for video 
Energy: Jaime Vazquez, left, a Vietnam war veteran, chants during a protest outside the Goldman Sachs building in New Jersey, while Charles Helms displays a sign 
Energy: Protestor Julia Botello, 85, shouts as she leaves a Bank of America branch in downtown Los Angeles Others held up banners and yelled with voices just as strong as their young counterparts. Protesters calling themselves 'the 99 per cent' continued to gather momentum in several cities across the country yesterday, with groups descending on on Washington D.C., Jersey and Texas. The marchers - campaigning against America's richest 'one per cent' with perceived tax breaks and other perks - have swelled their ranks since mid-September, leading President Barack Obama to call the demonstrators a 'movement'. Never too old: One man, a war veteran, joins the protests in New York with the aid of a zimmer frame The protests became even more furious after an NYPD officer was caught bragging about using his nightstick on the group just hours before violence broke out between demonstrators and police on Wednesday night. In the video, which appears to have been shot just hours before the clashes, the officer can be heard saying 'my little night stick's going to get a work out tonight' as he saunters past a police barricade. The protests have slowly grown in size and attention over more than two weeks, with the president's acknowledgement at a news conference a sign they might be jelling into a political movement. 
Stand: About one thousand people gather and form a large "99%" in the middle of Freedom Plaza. The chant refers to the richest 1 per cent of Americans which the political right are trying to protect . As Americans anxiously wait for an economic recovery to surface, numerous myths have been disseminated in order to justify policies favoring the wealthy. For instance, the right-wing arm of the establishment has fooled many into thinking that lowering corporate taxes will resolve the unemployment picture. A similar argument has been made by the same masters of propaganda in order to keep taxes low for the wealthy. Neither of these strategies will help the economy recover. What Americans have not been told is that the effective corporate tax rate in the U.S. (the net rate paid after all deductions, credits and other allowances) is one of the lowest in the world. If this seems hard to believe, consider that corporate tax revenues as a share of economic growth are at record-lows despite record-high profits. For the majority of Americans, there has been no “trickling down” of the fruits of productivity. Most of financial gains over the past three decades have gone to the top 5% of wage earners. Large corporations and their ultra-wealthy shareholders have been the biggest beneficiaries over this period. The less money paid in the form of corporate taxes boosts profits, which goes to shareholders; not you or me, but the ultra-wealthy who own millions of shares. It’s amazing how people still buy into the “trickle down” deceit from the Reagan era. You know you’ve reached the pinnacle of your career as a con artist when you are able to convince those who have received the short end of the  stick that the wealthiest Americans and largest corporations should keep paying the lowest tax rate through financial trickery. Americans are exposed to various shills and snake oil salesmen who preach the same myths on a daily basis. They are introduced as financial or economic “experts” in the print and broadcast media. In addition to their poor track record and questionable credibility, financial interests serve as motivation for their delusional views. Unfortunately, these views are in opposition with those of the American people. On the other hand, the left-wing arm of the establishment has fooled many Americans to think that “big government” offers a much better alternative. These idealists believe that everyone should be taxed to the max so that the government can provide for the people. What they fail to recognize is that government spending primarily goes to fund corporate profits in the form of uncontested contracts, industry subsidies, tax breaks and many other arrangements.  Finally, both arms of the establishment continue to insist that unfair rules of trade serve the best interests of the American people. On the contrary, it is an absolute fact that U.S. trade policy has been the single largest factor accounting for income inequality in the United States.
The strategy utilized by Washington to maintain control over the people is simple. Create the illusion of democracy, freedom and free market economics, all while running a fascist economic and political regime. All that’s required to achieve this control is to convince voters that one political party has all of the answers, while the other has caused the problems. Accordingly, Americans will continue to vote for candidates from one of the two fascist parties in Washington. Thus, Americans get the same results regardless which party is in power. This is specifically why America’s rich continue to get richer at the expense of its working and middle class. When it comes to trade policy, monetary policy and foreign policy, both parties always agree. They are going to ship U.S. jobs overseas, allow the Federal Reserve and Wall Street crime syndicate to commit massive fraud, and fight wars for Israel. Regardless who they vote for, Americans always lose. Thus, heading to the voting booth serves no purpose other than to endorse America’s fascist regime. On rare occasion when fraud has been exposed, none of the establishment crime bosses goes to jail. At best, one or two scapegoats are pulled from the bottom of the criminal food chain to serve as the “fall guy.” But even the fall guys come out of the deal shining. In most cases, after a couple of years in club fed, they are rewarded by their colleagues for taking the heat. [Take for instance, the $104 million pay day received by this low-level Wall Street crook. News of this award was published AFTER this article had been written. Whistleblower awards should NOT be provided to those who commit crimes when these awards are directly related to the crimes they committed! Notice that this scoundrel is Jewish. Would he have received this ridiculous sum of money if he were not Jewish?] The only viable solution that will realign the U.S. economy with promising long-term growth is one that strikes a healthy balance between economic equity and optimal resource allocation. In order to achieve this, at the very least the U.S. must stop spending trillions of dollars on wars, redesign its healthcare system for the people rather than profiteers, restructure trade policy, and demand accountability from both the public and private sector. Looking at the big picture, one cannot help but to blame the American people for their nation’s decline. Americans whine like babies after being defrauded of trillions of dollars by Wall Street and corporate America, but they don’t do anything about it. Soon after the crooks have made off with the loot, Americans go back to self-indulging activities, while giving into mass media control. Year after year, the American people sit back while the criminals in Washington commit treason, facilitate corporate and banking fraud, keep U.S. borders open to the third world, destroy the U.S. Constitution, spy on and murder innocent Americans. And now they are permitting Washington to slash entitlement benefits in order to pay for wars in the Middle East. Nothing has changed. The same criminal gang has been pulling the same stunts for decades. Yet, with each wave of criminal activity, Americans have allowed the crime bosses to escape prosecution. Until Americans stand up and take action, they will continue to be exploited by Washington, Wall Street and corporate America. This is guaranteed. The time has come for Americans to take back their country from the criminals. Otherwise, they can blame no one for their misery other than themselves. 
Spread: Participants march with signs past the White House to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce during an "Occupation of Washington" protest in Washington 
March: Protesters march in front of the Federal Reserve Building in Dallas today JOE BIDEN: PROTESTERS ARE LIKE THE TEA PARTY For the left-wing students and unionists marching to ‘occupy Wall Street’, it may not be a comparison they much appreciate. In an unusual observation, Vice President Joe Biden has likened protesters camping out in the financial district to the Tea Party movement – saying they share anger over federal programmes which favour the richest in America. ‘There's a lot in common with the tea party,’ he said. ’The tea party started why? TARP [The Troubled Asset Relief Program, which bailed out the banks in 2008]. They thought it was unfair - we were bailing out the big guy.’ He added: ‘What is the core of that protest, and why is it increasing in terms of the people it's attracting? The core is the bargain has been breached with the American people. ‘The American people do not think the system is fair or on the level.’ Local protests against corporate America are planned in New Jersey on Thursday as a show of solidarity with demonstrations that started last month outside the New York Stock Exchange. Rallies met at the Statehouse in Trenton and in Jersey City. Protesters are expected to call for an end of corporate control of government. The movement has surged in less than three weeks from a ragged group in downtown Manhattan to protesters of all ages demonstrating from Seattle to Tampa. 'I am a mother. I want a better world for my children,' said Lisa Clapier, 46, a producer who lives in Venice, California, who joined protesters in Los Angeles. In Seattle, where protesters had set up an encampment in a city park, about two dozen people were arrested for defying police orders to dismantle their tents. 'The cops are doing their job, and we're going to let them do their job. Then we'll come back and occupy the park again,' said Michael Trimarco, 39, an unemployed carpenter. On Wednesday night, unions lent their muscle to the long-running protest against Wall Street and economic inequality, fuelling speculation about how long the camp-out in lower Manhattan - and related demonstrations around the country - will continue. As around 5,000 protesters marched toward the New York Stock Exchange on Wednesday, demonstrators tried to storm the barricades but were stopped by police about two blocks away. There were multiple reports of police using pepper spray to try to ward off the marchers. A video posted on Youtube shows officers swinging their nightsticks at protesters and has sparked a furious reaction among demonstrators. Police said about 28 arrests were made, mostly for disorderly conduct. One person was arrested for assaulting an officer; police said the officer was pushed off his scooter. 
Famous: Tim Robbins speaks to Occupy Wall Street protesters at the start of a rally held at Foley Square, Manhattan 
Spray: A Protester gets pepper sprayed at Occupy Wall Street March 
Barricades: Protesters attempt to break through police lines at Wall Street and Broadway 
Violence: A video posted on Youtube shows officers swinging their nightsticks at protesters has also sparked furious reaction on blogs and across the internet 
Swinging: Police can be seen laying into protesters around Wall Street Thousands of protesters, including many in union T-shirts, filled lower Manhattan's Foley Square on yesterday and then marched to Zuccotti Park, where the protesters have been camping since September 17. Earlier Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain told protesters in a Wall Street Journal interview: 'Don't blame Wall Street, don't blame the big banks, if you don't have a job and you're not rich, blame yourself.' But labor leaders say they will continue to support the protests, both with manpower and donations of goods and services. 'The great thing about Occupy Wall Street is that they have brought the focus of the entire country on the middle class majority,' said George Aldro, 62, a member of Local 2325 of the United Auto Workers, as he carried the union's blue flag over his shoulder through lower Manhattan. 
Line: Police officers try to restore barricades after Occupy Wall Street protesters tried to get past them and march to Wall Street 
Cuffed: The protests have gathered momentum and gained participants in recent days as news of mass arrests and a coordinated media campaign seeded protests around the country 'We're in it together, and we're in it for the long haul.' The protesters have varied causes but have spoken largely about unemployment and economic inequality, reserving most of their criticism for Wall Street. 'We are the 99 percent,' they chanted, contrasting themselves with the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans. Ed Figueroa, a janitor in a public school in the Bronx and a shop steward with Local 32BJ of the Service Employees International Union, said the march was 'the first time in these weeks that unions have shown their face.' 'But it won't be the last time,' he said. 'We'll be back.' 
Force: People watch from the steps of Federal Court (L) as members of trade unions join "Occupy Wall Street" protesters The unions were donating food, blankets and office space to the protesters, said Dan Cantor, head of the Working Families Party. But he said the young protesters would continue to head their own efforts. The movement lacks an identified leader and decisions are made during group meetings. 'They're giving more to us than we're giving to them. They're a shot in the arm to everybody,' Cantor said. 'The labor movement is following the youth of America today and that's a good thing.' Victor Rivera, a vice-president for the powerful 1199 Service Employees International Union, which represents health care workers, said the union had donated 'all the food they need for this entire week' to the Zuccotti Park campers. Union leaders had also assigned liaisons from their political action committee to work with demonstrators. 'We are here to support this movement against Wall Street's greed,' he said. 'We support the idea that the rich should pay their fair share.' 
Fall guy: Protesters affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street movement rally with a photo of JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in Foley Square 
Point: Occupy Wall Street protesters posing as billionaires stage a protest near Wall Street 
Agitation: A police officer grabs the arm of a woman at the Occupy Wall Street protest The Occupy Wall Street protests started Sept. 17 with a few dozen demonstrators who tried to pitch tents in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Since then, hundreds have set up camp nearby in Zuccotti Park and have become increasingly organized, lining up medical aid and legal help and printing their own newspaper. On Saturday, about 700 people were arrested and given disorderly conduct summonses for spilling into the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge despite warnings from police. A group of those arrested filed a lawsuit Tuesday, saying officers lured them into a trap before arresting them. Several Democratic lawmakers have expressed support for the protesters, but some Republican presidential candidates have rebuked them. Herman Cain called the activists 'un-American' Wednesday at a book signing in St. Petersburg, Florida. 
Mass: Yesterday at new York's Zuccotti Park and Foley Square, Occupy Wall Street protesters were joined by local students and unions 'They're basically saying that somehow the government is supposed to take from those that have succeeded and give to those who want to protest,' the former pizza-company executive said. 'That's not the way America was built.' On Tuesday, CBS reported that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney called the protest "class warfare" at an appearance at a Florida retirement community. Activists have been showing solidarity with the movement in many cities: Occupy Providence. Occupy Los Angeles. Occupy Boise. More protests and sit-ins are planned across the country in the days ahead. 
Ride: A participant in the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstration displays a "pink unicorn" ride during a march to join teacher's unions near Wall Street yesterday 
Camp: The demonstrators are protesting bank bailouts, foreclosures and high unemployment from their encampment in the financial district 
Multitude: Thousands of protesters including union members and college students from an organized walkout joined the rally On Wednesday, more than 100 people withstood an afternoon downpour in Idaho's capital to protest, including Judy Taylor, a retired property manager. 'I want change. I'm tired of things being taken away from those that need help,' she said. In Seattle, demonstrators tussled with police officers and clung to tents as they defied orders to leave a park. Police said they made 25 arrests. The reception was warmer in Los Angeles, where the City Council approved a resolution of support and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's office distributed 100 rain ponchos to activists at another days-long demonstration, according to City News Service. In Boston, hundreds of nurses and Northeastern University students rallied together to condemn what they called corporate control of government and the spiralling costs of education. The students banged on drums made of water jugs and chanted, 'Banks got bailed out, and we got sold out.' 'This is an organic process. This is a process of grassroots people coming together. It's a beautiful thing,' said David Schildmeier, spokesman for the Massachusetts Nurses Association. Many of those protesting are college students. Hundreds walked out of classes in New York, some in a show of solidarity for the Wall Street movement but many more concerned with worries closer to home. Protests were scheduled at State University of New York campuses including Albany, Buffalo, Binghamton, New Paltz and Purchase. Danielle Kingsbury, a 21-year-old senior from New Paltz, said she walked out of an American literature class to show support for some of her professors who she said have had their workloads increased because of budget cuts. 'The state of education in our country is ridiculous,' said Kingsbury, who plans to teach. 'The state doesn't care about it and we need to fight back about that.' Occupy Wall Street protests across the nation resulted in arrests on Friday. In Denver early Friday, police in riot gear herded hundreds of protesters away from the Colorado state Capitol, arresting about two dozen and dismantling their encampment. In Trenton, N.J., protesters were ordered to remove tents from their encampment near a war memorial. New York police arrested 14 people, including protesters who obstructed traffic by standing or sitting in the street, and others who tuned over trash baskets, knocked over a police scooter and hurled bottles. 
1 Colorado State Patrol officers drag a Occupy Denver protester away as the group is evicted from its home since September 22. Joe Amon, The Denver Post # 
2 Protesters march around Civic Center Park, defying an 11 p.m. curfew as part of the Occupy Denver movement in downtown Denver across from the Colorado Capitol building on Thursday, Oct. 13, 2011. (Daniel Petty, The Denver Post) # 
3 Occupy Denver protesters remove anything that might be mistaken for a weapon from their security tent at Lincoln Park Friday before Colorado State Patrol officers arrive to break up the protest. Joe Amon, The Denver Post # 
4 Occupy Denver protesters wait for Colorado State Patrol officers to break up their protest. Joe Amon, The Denver Post # 
5 Colorado State Patrol takes to the streets to oust Occupy Denver protesters from Lincoln Park Friday morning as the group is evicted from its home since September 22. Joe Amon, The Denver Post # 
6 Colorado State Patrol officers roust Occupy Denver protesters from Lincoln Park Thursday from night as the group is evicted from it's home since September 22. Joe Amon, The Denver Post # 
7 Colorado State Patrol officers destroyed the tents of Occupy Denver protesters before ousting them from Lincoln Park Friday morning. Joe Amon, The Denver Post # 
8 Several hundred Occupy Denver protesters remain in Lincoln Park, across from the State Capitol building in Denver early Friday morning, Oct. 14, 2011, even as the park was deemed closed by executive order. Dozens of police in riot gear advanced early Friday on the last remaining cluster of protesters supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement at the state Capitol in Denver. The demonstrators retreated without resisting, but some were arrested. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Joe Amon) # 
9 A Occupy Denver protester tries to block a dump truck before they were evicted from Lincoln Park in Downtown Denver. Joe Amon, The Denver Post # 
10 Demonstrators with Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park hours before a scheduled clean up, in New York, Oct. 13, 2011. The cleanup of the Lower Manhattan park that has been occupied by protesters for nearly a month was postponed Friday, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts to evict them from their encampment. (Robert Stolarik/The New York Times) # 
11 Colorado State Patrol separate Occupy Denver protesters that are arm-in-arm in Lincoln Park early Friday, Oct. 14, 2011 in Denver. Dozens of police in riot gear advanced early Friday on the last remaining cluster of protesters supporting the Occupy Wall Street movement at the state Capitol in Denver. The demonstrators retreated without resisting, but some were arrested. (AP Photo/The Denver Post, Joe Amon) # 
12 Registered nurse Patricia Hughes is escorted by police from the medical tent as Occupy Denver protesters were ousted from Lincoln Park Friday morning as the group is evicted from its home since September 22. Joe Amon, The Denver Post # 
13 Demonstrators with Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park react to the news that a scheduled clean up was cancelled, in New York, Oct. 14, 2011. The cleanup of the Lower Manhattan park that has been occupied by protesters for nearly a month was postponed Friday, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts to evict them from their encampment. (Victor Blue/The New York Times) # 
14 Demonstrators associated with the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement face off with police in the streets of the financial district after the deadline for their removal from Zuccotti park was postponed on October 14, 2011 in New York City. Many of the 'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrators have been living in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District near Wall Street. The activists have been gradually converging on the financial district over the past three weeks to rally against the influence of corporate money in politics among a host of other issues. The protests have begun to attract the attention of major unions and religious groups as the movement continues to grow in influence. Dozens of protesters were arrested in the morning demonstrations. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 
15 Demonstrators associated with the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement face off with police in the streets of the financial district after the deadline for their removal from Zuccotti park was postponed on October 14, 2011 in New York City. Many of the 'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrators have been living in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District near Wall Street. The activists have been gradually converging on the financial district over the past three weeks to rally against the influence of corporate money in politics among a host of other issues. The protests have begun to attract the attention of major unions and religious groups as the movement continues to grow in influence. Dozens of protesters were arrested in the morning demonstrations. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 
16 Demonstrators associated with the 'Occupy Wall Street' movement face off with police in the streets of the financial district after the deadline for their removal from Zuccotti park was postponed on October 14, 2011 in New York City. Many of the 'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrators have been living in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District near Wall Street. The activists have been gradually converging on the financial district over the past three weeks to rally against the influence of corporate money in politics among a host of other issues. The protests have begun to attract the attention of major unions and religious groups as the movement continues to grow in influence. Dozens of protesters were arrested in the morning demonstrations. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) # 
17 Demonstrators with Occupy Wall Street march in New York, Oct. 14, 2011. Many demonstrators started marching through the winding streets of Lower Manhattan after learning that the cleanup of Zuccotti Park had been called off, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts. (Robert Stolarik/The New York Times) # 
18 A protestor participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests screams while marching towards Wall Street Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. At least ten people were arrested during the march, which began after protestors heard the news that the owners of Zuccotti Park had withdrawn their request to have the park cleaned by the New York Police Department. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
19 Police create a barrier near demonstrators with the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York, Oct. 14, 201. Many demonstrators started marching through the winding streets of Lower Manhattan after learning that the cleanup of Zuccotti Park had been called off, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts. (Robert Stolarik/The New York Times) # 
20 A New York City police officer shoves a demonstrator affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests as they march through the streets in the Wall St. area, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011 in New York. The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them.(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) # 
21 Protestors participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests lock arms as they sit down in the road in protest of the police during a march towards Wall Street Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. At least ten people were arrested during the march, which began after protestors heard the news that the owners of Zuccotti Park had withdrawn their request to have the park cleaned by the New York Police Department. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
22 Demonstrators with Occupy Wall Street march in New York, Oct. 14, 2011. Many demonstrators started marching through the winding streets of Lower Manhattan after learning that the cleanup of Zuccotti Park had been called off, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts. (Robert Stolarik/The New York Times) # 
23 Protestors participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests face police during a march towards Wall Street on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. At least ten people were arrested during the march, which began after protestors heard the news that the owners of Zuccotti Park had withdrawn their request to have the park cleaned by the New York Police Department. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
24 A protestor participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests is tackled and arrested by police officers during a march towards Wall Street on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. At least ten people were arrested during the march, which began after protestors heard the news that the owners of Zuccotti Park had withdrawn their request to have the park cleaned by the New York Police Department. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
25 Two men affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests are arrested by police officers during a march towards Wall Street in New York, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. The official cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from a crowd that had scrambled to scrub the park on its own out of fear the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
26 Police officers arrest an Occupy Wall Street protestor as hundreds march towards Wall Street after being heartened by a postponement of a scheduled cleanup of their camp at Zuccotti Park that many saw as a de facto eviction, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. Some arrests have occurred after a few hundred protesters left Zuccotti Park and marched to the area around the New York Stock Exchange. There are barricades and mounted police around the exchange. About a half-dozen arrests were seen in the surrounding blocks. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) # 
27 Protestors participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests march towards Wall Street Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. At least ten people were arrested during the march, which began after protestors heard the news that the owners of Zuccotti Park had withdrawn their request to have the park cleaned by the New York Police Department. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
28 A man affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protests tackles a police officer during a march towards Wall Street in New York, on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011. The official cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending up cheers from a crowd that had scrambled to scrub the park on its own out of fear the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
29 Protestors participating in the Occupy Wall Street protest pull a garbage can of brooms during a march towards Wall Street on Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. At least ten people were arrested during the march, which began after protestors heard the news that the owners of Zuccotti Park had withdrawn their request to have the park cleaned by the New York Police Department. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
30 Protestors participating in the Occupy Wall Street protests march towards Wall Street Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. At least ten people were arrested during the march, which began after protestors heard the news that the owners of Zuccotti Park had withdrawn their request to have the park cleaned by the New York Police Department. (AP Photo/Andrew Burton) # 
31 Demonstrators with Occupy Wall Street march on Water Street in New York, Oct. 14, 2011. Many demonstrators started marching through the winding streets of Lower Manhattan after learning that the cleanup of Zuccotti Park had been called off, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts. (Victor Blue/The New York Times) # 
32 A New York City police officer runs over a National Lawyers Guild observer as Occupy Wall Street demonstrators march through the streets near Wall Street, Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in New York. The cleanup of a plaza in lower Manhattan where protesters have been camped out for a month was postponed early Friday, sending cheers up from a crowd that had feared the effort was merely a pretext to evict them. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) # 
33 An Occupy Wall Street demonstrator is detained by police while others march nearby, in New York, Oct. 14, 2011. Many demonstrators started marching through the winding streets of Lower Manhattan after learning that the cleanup of Zuccotti Park had been called off, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts. (Victor Blue/The New York Times) # 
34 Alexander Higgins, left, of Bricktown, N.J., and Justin Phillips, of Cranford, N.J., work at their computers at a table across from the Statehouse Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in Trenton, N.J., after the participants affiliated with the Occupy Wall Street protest complied with an order to remove tents from New Jersey's World War II Memorial. State Attorney General Paula Dow on Thursday ordered those occupying the memorial can stay as long as they like, but they must remove any signs of permanency. Higgins says a state trooper arrived around 2 a.m. and the group removed most of the material. (AP Photo/Mel Evans) # 
35 New York Police officers check the workplace ID cards of people walking down Wall Street, after "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators marched in the financial district on October 14, 2011 in New York City. Many of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators have been living in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District near Wall Street. The activists have been gradually converging on the financial district over the past three weeks to rally against the influence of corporate money in politics among a host of other issues. The protests have begun to attract the attention of major unions and religious groups as the movement continues to grow in influence. Dozens of protesters were arrested in morning demonstrations. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images) # 
36 NEW YORK -- OCTOBER 14: "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators rest in Zuccotti Park after marching in the financial district on October 14, 2011 in New York City. Many of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators have been living in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District near Wall Street. The activists have been gradually converging on the financial district over the past three weeks to rally against the influence of corporate money in politics among a host of other issues. The protests have begun to attract the attention of major unions and religious groups as the movement continues to grow in influence. Dozens of protesters were arrested in the morning demonstrations. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images) # 
37 Occupy San Diego protesters form a human barrier as San Diego police officials remove tents and structures from the Occupy San Diego movement Friday, Oct. 14, 2011, in San Diego. One man was arrested Friday as police officials removed the tents, where protesters have been camping out for days. (AP Photo/ Gregory Bull) # 
38 "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators sleep in Zuccotti Park after marching in the financial district on October 14, 2011 in New York City. Many of the "Occupy Wall Street" demonstrators have been living in Zuccotti Park in the Financial District near Wall Street. The activists have been gradually converging on the financial district over the past three weeks to rally against the influence of corporate money in politics among a host of other issues. The protests have begun to attract the attention of major unions and religious groups as the movement continues to grow in influence. Dozens of protesters were arrested in the morning demonstrations. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Getty Images) # 
39 Protester Leigh Statum sits in her tent she has been living in at Freedom Plaza, on October 14, 2011 in Washington, DC. The United States Park Police, who oversees Freedom Plaza, has allowed the groups Occupy DC and Stop The Machine to camp there temporally. (Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images) # 
40 Demonstrators with Occupy Wall Street at the encampment in Zuccotti Park, in New York, Oct. 14, 2011. The cleanup of the Lower Manhattan park that has been occupied by protesters for nearly a month was postponed Friday, averting a feared showdown between the police and demonstrators who had vowed to resist any efforts to evict them from their encampment. (Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times/The New York Times) # 
41 Members of Occupy Wall Street are arrested as they clash with police during a celebration march after learning that they can stay on Zuccotti Park in New York, October 14, 2011. Occupy Wall Street protesters and the New York Police Department avoided a potential clash as the real estate company that owns Zuccotti Park, where the protests began, decided to put off its planned cleaning of the square. Amid what was described as a celebratory march by a small group of protesters, scattered clashes with the police broke out, who bulked up their presence at the Zuccotti Park location, which has been home for hundreds of the protesters. (EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images) # 
42 Occupy Seattle protesters prepare to be arrested by Seattle police at Westlake Park on Thursday, October 13, 2011. Ten protesters were arrested for refusing to move from a makeshift structure in the park. Earlier, city officials said that people needed to clear from the park at 10 p.m. when it closed. Eventually police withdrew, causing the crowd gathered to erupt in cheers. (AP Photo/seattlepi.com, Joshua Trujillo) # “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” Alexis de Tocqueville (From Democracy in America) The extensive Constitutional republic they envisioned, in reality, became a place of liberty and opportunity for countless millions of people from all over the world. The experiment has worked because the ideas put forth were based on enduring principles which recognized human imperfection and the need to structure a limited government of laws, dependent upon the consent of a people who, themselves, understood the principles.
• Our Constitution acknowledged that individual rights are derived from a Creator.
• Our rights are based on enduring principles compatible with “the laws of nature and of nature’s God”, and not granted by government.
• The Founders knew all about human imperfection and that a tendency to abuse power is ever present in the human heart.
• To limit the power of government through the remarkable document called the Constitu¬tion they carefully divided, balanced, and separated the powers granted to government and then delicately balanced them equally with a system of checks and balances.
• Power was left to the people, except those which, by their consent, the people delegated to government ¬and then made provision for their withdrawing that power, if it was abused. They even foresaw the need for such protection by maintaining the God given right to self protection by the implementation of the 2nd Amendment. When asked by a curious citizen after the adjournment of the Constitutional Convention what kind of government had been structured by the Founding Fathers, Benjamin Franklin is said to have answered: “…a republic, if you can keep it”. By comparison yesterday’s Founders were far more brilliant than today’s politicians. The U.S. Constitution contains just 34 Articles and is comprised of just 4543 words, while the still non-ratified Constitutional Charter of the European Union contains over 200 articles and exceeds 250 pages in length. I believe this to be the propensity of politicians to micro-manage all phases of government with minute detail that only a bureaucrat can understand. So…how have we strayed from the path of righteousness? As Andrew Jackson observed: “It is well known that there have always been those amongst us who wish to enlarge the powers of the general government…and…overstep the boundaries marked out for it by the Constitution”. The very nature of bureaucracy is to try to expand influence and power which become so entrenched as to be unchangeable without herculean measures. Add to the creeping desire for power of the central government the deterioration of society by the ever increasing dependency upon government for that which should be done by the individual, and we have a formula for the demise of our way of life. The saddest of all realities however, is that we have allowed our way of life; our freedoms; our independence; to be stolen out from under us by those we elect to hold office. We allow them to ingratiate themselves at the public trough; enrich themselves at taxpayer expense; continue to reelect them; and allow them to retire with benefits fitting a god. We the voters have been the enablers here, and must share much of the blame. 
|
No comments:
Post a Comment