This one's good:

from www.workingforchange.com

Seeds of your Oppression

From the book "The Sorrows of Empire" by Chalmers Johnson:
"
During the summer of 2002, the Bush administration directed lawyers in the Departments of Justice and Defense to review the Posse Comitatus Act and any other laws that might restrict the military's ability to participate in domestic law enforcement. At the time, the Defense Department was creating a new regional command to defend North America, comparable to those for Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and the Pacific. The Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, is intended to better position the military to respond to terrorism close to home and to prevent the introduction of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons into the United States. (Even during World War II, the federal government did not create a centralized command for the American mainland, because of concerns that it could become the basis for a military dictatorship.)
"

More on Northcom:
http://www.oilempire.us/northcom.html

I highly recommend "The Sorrows of Empire" by Chalmers Johnson.

Hey DLC: Grow a Pair! Go with Murtha!

Go with Murtha. Stop selling us out! Get us out of this mess. We can't afford to be trying to set up colonies in the Middle East. Turn it Off!

NO, Freedom is NOT Free

I recently saw a poem entitled "Freedom is not Free". When I read it I felt a pull at my heart regarding the ultimate sacrifice noble soldiers and victims have made. I could not wish such a thing as death on anyone. A second or two later, I felt the anger. I hate to see death and destruction. I have seen it up close and it saddens me. It bothers me to no end when it is for stupid reasons, and it enrages me when it is for lies and corruption.

So here we go:

Freedom is not free, you say, while attempting to justify the needless sacrifice and slaughter currently raging overseas? No, Freedom is not free and it will be stripped from us if we stand by idly while those in power further rig the game, leech our industry to China, bankrupt our system of government, trash the Bill of Rights and make a mockery of our flag. Freedom is certainly not free. The price is in our duty to demand accountability and justice.

There are forces in the world that would like to see our republic destroyed. There are forces that would like to make slaves of us. Our forefathers knew this and they gave us a republic ("If you can keep it" -- Franklin) in which, by our attentiveness, our liberty would be protected.

For this liberty a free Press is needed, to monitor our own government. With our taxes we pay for three constitutionally-defined, intentionally-balanced branches of federal government including an executive administration which now features a "department of defense", whose alleged purpose is to protect us from attacks by malevolent forces.

Much of our previously free press has succumbed to the collusion of lobbies such as the National Association of Broadcasters, with the armaments industry. Its bias is in favor of wars and a domestic police-state.

The "Department of Defense" failed in 2001, resulting in the 9/11 attacks. The leaders of that department, as well as the leaders of the Executive branch, remain in power as of this writing (November, 2005).

The administrators of our republic failed again in 2004 by conducting corrupt, un-verifiable national elections. This is an affront to, and a theft from, every American.

It failed yet again in 2005 when it couldn't mobilize local militia for hurricane-relief in New Orleans. Those citizen-soldiers, meant for domestic emergencies, had been shipped overseas to a corporatist campaign of imperial conquest in the Middle East, as had been the monies originally earmarked for maintenance of the levees that could have prevented the disaster in the first place. As a result, private mercenaries, "locked and loaded", roamed the streets of that struggling American city while a complicit broadcast industry dusted off such time-tested devices as racism and class-hatred to ensure that the victims were blamed for their misfortune. Yet another division of our Executive Branch, Our Federal Emergency Management Administration, headed by inept, incompetent and carelessly-chosen political appointees, failed to provide the most basic support for the people there, and even hindered voluntary efforts by other concerned citizens to take up the slack.

No, freedom is not free. The cost of freedom is vigilance. The cost is the careful election of, and the responsible scrutiny of, those we endow with power. The cost of freedom is to monitor the activities of our governing organizations and officials, to ensure that they don't become corrupt or ineffective. In a republic that is being sold out to moneyed interests (I.E. "privatized"), and with a press that has been monopolized and maligned largely beyond any true usefulness, our duty as American civilians is to seek out the facts, to learn and organize, and to effect reform. As the citizens of this republic, we are charged with returning our hired government to its original purpose: to support and defend the Constitution.

Silence is complicit consent. To stand by, idle, and accept the lies foisted upon you through the megaphones of corrupt power, while your nation's overall financial and physical security are compromised due to reckless and un-necessary campaigns of plunder overseas as well as rampant theft by deception here at home, is not only irresponsible and juvenile: it is outright contemptible. It is entirely un-American. To avoid, discourage or try to silence the earnest exchange of ideas between citizens, regarding matters of public concern, is also entirely un-American.

You're grown up now. It's your country now. No more excuses. Do your job as a citizen. Seek out the truth and help your neighbors rescue your republic before it's too late. Do it for the people you love. Don't think for a minute that it is wise to passively endorse the lies you get from the corporatist press, when living human beings will be sacrificed for it. You owe, to those who serve in uniform in your defense, a thoroughness of consideration. This is your true duty as a civilian citizen in the world's first true democratic republic. Democracy requires more than just voting and it is not a spectator sport. Putting a magnet on your car, like a flag cheering your favorite football team, is a sorry excuse for the true discussion, debate, consideration and communication with your public officials that should go on at any time we consider sending our young in uniform out to kill and be killed. Don't shirk your duty. Mindless compliance is killing our soldiers and countless other victims AS YOU READ THIS. It is bankrupting our republic, it has made a mockery of our electoral process, and it is further endangering our physical safety and our future as a nation.

Open your Eyes! Defend your constitutional republic and DEMAND JUSTICE! Be a REAL American!

Mark Frankenberg
Former Noncommissioned Officer and Combat Veteran

Find out what YOU can do to truly serve your country
www.AmericanWisdom.org

Contemptible

The issue is Dumb Capital versus Righteous Human Beings. "Corporate Persons" have seized our former republic, which is now violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Nurnberg Charter.

Watch the Documentary: Fallujah - The Hidden Massacre
(Caution: Contains graphic images and disturbing subject matter)

A Double Standard, and What's good for the Goose:

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/08/1516221
"
The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest churches it could lose its tax-exempt status because a priest gave a sermon criticizing the Iraq war two days before last year's presidential election. The IRS has sent the All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena a warning that the federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.
"
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/08/1516221

Oh Come ON, Gimme a Break..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5394682,00.html


What do you guys take us for? Sad part is, there are suckers across the land who will swallow this:
"
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush, reacting to the indictment of a high-level White House aide in the CIA leak case, has ordered his staff to get a refresher on ethics rules.
...
"
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5394682,00.html

An example of collusion between corporations and government

Halliburton (Dick Cheney’s [and Lyndon Johnson’s, in effect] company) and its subsidiary, KBR are a textbook example of corporatism. View a detailed chronology of their pursuits over the last decade or so here:
http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/about_hal/chronology.html

Ayn Rand and the Angels of Industry

I enjoyed "Atlas Shrugged"; particularly the "money speech" in it.

Ayn Rand is an object of worship for many corporatists and even some honest business-people, due to her focus on self-interest and the reduction/elimination of government and the idea that institutionalized altruism can be a cover for oppression. Her heroes are inspiring and "Atlas Shrugged" is one of the best books I've ever read.

That said, Ayn Rand focused on the good guys among captains of industry, and paid scant attention to cronyism, collusion between corporations and governments, monopoly and other forms of large-scale lying, cheating and stealing. A refugee from the turmoil resulting from the Russian Revolution, and useful to those in the United States who wanted to increase powers of the corporate elite while reducing the influence of the unionized working class, Ayn Rand paints a wonderful picture of un-regulated capitalism.

The flaw I percieve in this puristic portrayal is that she fails to account for the fact that all men are not angels, and that if there is no referee in the business-game, capitalism will naturally tend towards such forms of destruction as monopoly, much in the same manner that an un-contained nuclear reaction in a power-plant will result in disaster. There must be an effective, fair, regulatory referee to ensure that productive competition is maintained. This should be the purpose of our government, not oppression under the disguise of altruism or security. Thomas Jefferson said we should have "...a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned."

With no constitutional democratic republic, we are doomed to corporate feudal slavery and wars. I think Ayn Rand tended to ignore that truth, but I still highly recommend "Atlas Shrugged".

Slide Presentation and Book Signing, St. Petersburg, FL

Mark Frankenberg, author of "Just Say NO to Fascism: A Fable" will give a slide presentation and talk at Panera Bread Restaurant, 1908 4th St N, St Petersburg, FL 33704 (across from Sunken Gardens, parking behind the restaurant) on Tuesday, December 6th, 2005 at 7:30 pm.  Admission is free and signed volumes will be available for $13.00 each.  You can let us know you're coming HERE.

Some Common Ground

First of all, let me be clear: The current corporate oligarchy represented by today's "Republican" party (as well as many of the "Democrats") is a danger to the free world. That said, I like the following article, as would other REAL democratic-republicans:

http://www.friesian.com/errors.htm#note-2

The Left, of course, has every reason to turn against Jefferson. He would have
absolutely despised modern Big Government social welfare "liberals" and
all their works. It is also obvious that the present federal government
would retain no legitimacy whatsoever in his eyes, and that he would never
regard anyone as morally bound to obey the decrees of the sort of dictatorial bureaucracy, with pseudo-legislative and pseudo-judicial authority, that has been spawned in government at all levels. As Jefferson did say [Notes on
Virginia, 1784]: "An elective despotism was not the
government we fought for..."

Since most people don't know or care what Jefferson, or any
other architect of American government, actually said or thought, it is
easy for the Left to ignore the reality of his sentiments (just as the
Right can ignore his Unitarianism and Epicureanism) -- fraudulently
speaking in his name when the fraud is unlikely to be uncovered.
Nevertheless, the more knowledgeable and honest are liable to be
uneasy. A sign of how this can occur comes in a new book, The Long
Affair, Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800, by
Conor Cruise O'Brien [U of Chicago Press, 1996].

O'Brien seems to have suddenly realized how far "progressive"
opinion has drifted from Jefferson's ideals. The basic attack, of
course, must be from the nuclear arsenal of leftist rhetoric:
Jefferson's racism discredits everything about him. This kind of attack is usually enough to dispose of contemporary political enemies. Its grotesque anachronism alone would not disqualify it. But the target is rather too large even for this weapon, so more substantive and revealing arguments must be
used. These seem to be along the lines that, were Jefferson alive
today, he would probably side with "extremists" and the "Militia"
movement, i.e. all those (who are probably racists anyway) who are
willing to use force against governmental Authority, even as Jefferson
sympathized with Shays' Rebellion (1786-87) and remarked that something
of the sort could be hoped for every 20 years or so.

Such a complaint is far more revealing about people like
O'Brien than about Jefferson. The American institutional Left, having
achieved so many of its political goals, has clearly come to advocate
the sort of blind obedience to Established Authority that used to be
associated more with the Catholic Church. This is the crowd willing to
chant, "We are the government," even while we are mercilessly
jerked around by every unaccountable and megalomaniacal bureaucrat and
judge in the country. Thus, anyone who, belatedly enough, comes to
perceive that the Constitution has been grotesquely twisted into
justifying just the sort of government that it was intended to prohibit,
and that this development, together with the practice of courts,
legislators, and executives, actually contradicts the purpose of
government as stated to justify the American Revolution in the
Declaration of Independence, now may be seen as "extremists" who simply
put themselves beyond the pale of reason and good will, whether or not
they think that armed resistance is called for.

This is an all too familiar leftist rhetorical strategy: What
they have gained is off limits, but what we retain is open to
negotiation. Thus, a centralized government of arbitrary and nearly
absolute powers is a fait accompli, while there is still a
problem with my remaining property rights and personal liberties.

O'Brien's book, then, is at least honest in the sense that it
mercilessly applies all the politically correct sophistries of current
debate to Jefferson. This would be salutary if it disillusioned
Americans with the faithfulness of current politics and practices to
the ideals of the Founding Fathers. Were the United States to be
explicitly transformed into a People's Republic, and the Constitution
discarded, then at least people could see that a rupture had taken
place. As it is, "moderate" opinion is suspicious of O'Brien's book,
perhaps because the policy of deception and misdirection, intentional
or not, has been so successful.

Return to text

http://www.friesian.com/errors.htm#note-2

New Wal-Mart documentary

Find a screening near you:
http://www.walmartmovie.com/watch.php

PBS also did a show about Wal-Mart, which can be viewed HERE.