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American Memory
January 31, 2005
The Emergence of the Homeland Security State by Nick Turse
In the U.S.A., too, things have changed as America became 'the Homeland' and an already powerful and bloated national security state developed a civilian corollary fed by fear- mongering, partisan politics, and an insatiable desire for governmental power, turf, and budget.
NAFTAtional ID card reintroduced
The current bill sets up a "rulemaking" commission compromised of the Transportation Department, Homeland Security, state governors, and state departments of motor vehicles. The commission will draw up the rules for turning driver's licenses into de facto national ID cards over the next nine (now eight) months and finalize them in 18 (17) months.
The New Freedom by Robert Kaercher
So there you have it-- Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Of course, in my mind, this begs a rather nagging question, that is, what the hell does liberty mean if not independence from one another? Just to make it a bit clearer, Bush declares just a few paragraphs later that all Americans are “bound to one another in the cause of freedom (italics mine).”
January 28, 2005
You Might Be A Constitutionalist If . . . by Chuck Baldwin
More than thirty years as a student of American history, constitutional government, and the Holy Bible leads me to the conviction that the two major political parties in this country are equally culpable in stripping America of its founding principles. In my opinion, both the Democrat and Republican parties in Washington, D.C., have zero fidelity to the U.S. Constitution and zero respect for America's foundational precepts.
January 27, 2005
Taking on the Asbestos Trial Lawyers by Dick Armey
Over 8,400 companies accounting for 85% of GDP have been targeted by asbestos lawyers. American companies have paid over $80 billion for asbestos lawsuits. Experts predict those costs could grow to $265 billion or more. Worst of all, studies show that only 43 cents of every dollar spent on asbestos litigation goes to victims. The rest goes to transaction costs and trial lawyer fees - fees they will use to manufacture new causes of action and fund new junk lawsuits.
Demand Accountability by Sibel Edmonds
Lets talk about these unconstitutional and un-American actions, shall we? Gagging the United States Congress, blocking court proceedings in my case by invoking the so-called state-secret privilege, quashing a subpoena for my deposition on information regarding 9/11, withholding documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act, and preventing the release of the entire report issued by the Department of Justice inspector general's office.
January 26, 2005
Changing of the Gavel by Timothy Lynch
Although the Constitution speaks of jury trials, they are, in reality, a rarity in the modern system. Some 97 percent of the persons sentenced in federal court enter into plea bargains with prosecutors. No judge or jury weighs their fate.
We have essentially adopted a system of charge-and-sentence bargaining. This state of affairs should trouble people on all points of the political spectrum.
America's Founding Principles in Peril by Michael Coblenz
To “protect” our nation, George Bush wants to ignore the values of our Founding Fathers and abandon their vision of America.
On Civil Liberties Myopia by Joshua Frank and Merlin Chowkwanyun
In short, ascribing all the civil liberties problems of this country to one date, September 11, 2001, and one administration, George W. Bush's, the liberal establishment has avoided any unpleasant analysis of our systemic civil liberties problems that might point back in its members' direction.
January 25, 2005
Teaching the Constitution in a post-democratic America by Mark W. Bradley
Not only have George W. Bush and his buddies diabolically bent, twisted and corkscrewed this nation's most revered document into a noxious Orwellian pretzel, they've managed to get the thing firmly lodged in the windpipe of the Republic. And just in case you're looking for Rehnquist, Scalia, Thomas and company to pull off a Heimlich Maneuver here, pardon the expression, but don't hold your breath.
Giant in decline by Marshall Auerback
The more things stay the same, the more they are likely to change ... for the worse. In that regard, compiling a list of potential threats to the US this year has a strangely deja-vu-all-over-again feeling. After all, such a list would represent nothing more than a longstanding catalogue of economic policymaking run amok. Virtually the same list could have been drawn up in 2004, or 2003, or previous years.
Freedom or Else! by Paul Hein
The American republic didn’t last very long. Probably some of the founding fathers were still alive when it began its disintegration. Can anyone today argue that our government bears even the slightest resemblance to the one contemplated by the Constitution? Does anyone who gets himself elected and swears an oath to the Constitution deserve our support, just because of that? If we are to have government at all, better to have the one envisioned by the founders. The fact that their inspired creation quickly succumbed to the lust for power should make one suspect that government, of its very nature, is a danger. The founders thought that the restrictions imposed by their Constitution would protect the people. They were wrong.
January 24, 2005
‘Torture Judge’ Is Rewarded By President by Greg Szymanski
Bybee’s “tortuous views” sat well with President George W. Bush. They sat so well with the president that in March 2003 Bybee was given a life-time six-figure post on the influential Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, the largest judicial circuit in the land serving California among other states.
Remarks at the Founding Meeting of Primary Challenge by James Ostrowski
Let me go out on another limb and warn against the fallacy of reformism. Those who think we can reform our way out of this mess don’t realize the danger we face.
For the first time in modern American politics, let’s form a populist alliance with the young, saddled with huge federal debts when they were born; with the poor and powerless shut out of the system, with the working class struggling to survive in a declining economy, and with the independent business class being driven to extinction, to take this community back from the politicians and the power elite who have ruined a once-great community while lining their own pockets.
January 22, 2005
'My Fellow Americans . . . ' by Gary North
The test of the relevance of an inaugural address is whether the problems addressed in it are solved four years later, and the programs created to solve them are no longer being funded. 'Mission accomplished!'
January 21, 2005
What Conservatives Can Expect From Bush's Second Term by Sam Francis
Wilson also resembles Mr. Bush in that he campaigned in the 1916 election on the slogan, 'He kept us out of war.' Then, a few months later, he helped bring us into war. Like Wilson, Mr. Bush is rapidly acquiring a reputation for violating the commitments of his last presidential campaign. That, perhaps, is his most notable contribution to American political history so far.
What Chance for Reality? by Alan Bock
The idea that freedom with a chance to last arises most often from forces within a country, that when it is based on indigenous aspirations, experiences, and desires it is likely to be sturdier than when it is imposed from outside, was almost absent from the speech, and from a broad spectrum of American thinking.
January 20, 2005
Unthought Through by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.
That progressives rarely hear ideas displeasing to them I think explains their present dazed condition regarding the drift of American society. It also explains their anger. What is to be their fate? Allow me a suggestion, unwelcome though it may be. They are going to go to their graves dazed and angry and thinking they are right. They are going to cause a great deal of unpleasantness but they are going to disappear. The First Amendment will outlast them all. They have seen their last ascendancy.
The Bush Administration's "Enabling Act"
In early December, without a word of public notice, the Justice Department placed on its website a lengthy September 25, 2001 memorandum entitled "The President's Constitutional Authority to Conduct Military Operations Against Terrorists and Nations Supporting Them." That document sets out, on behalf of the Bush administration, a plainly totalitarian view of presidential power.
January 19, 2005
Apply 'Ownership Society' to Government Schools by Terence P. Jeffrey
As in all socialist regimes, this one redistributes wealth in perverse ways. America's education bureaucracy takes money from working and middle class families who sacrifice to send their children to religious and private schools (because they prefer the values and perspectives taught there to those taught in government-owned schools) and spends it for the benefit of those rich families who don't mind sending their children to the government-owned schools in their neighborhoods.
To Whom Does the Bill of Rights Apply? by Harry Browne
The important point is that the Constitution doesn't apply to Americans, it doesn't apply to citizens, it doesn't even apply to "people." It applies to the federal government. The body of the Constitution tells the federal government what it is allowed to do, and in some places it explains how to do it (election procedures and such). The Bill of Rights tells the federal government what it is not allowed to do . . .
January 18, 2005
The Dark Lady, And Other Intellectuals by Joe Sobran
Every dogmatic assertion lost me, and I could only move on to the next dogmatic assertion. Her early prose was a kaleidoscope of obscure overstatements, delivered in unmeasured words. You couldn't even argue with it. Any attempt to refute her might expose you as a hopelessly linear, dessicated creature of print culture.
January 17, 2005
Murray N. Rothbard on States, War, and Peace: Part II by Joseph Stromberg
If full-scale state-level warfare breaks out between the interested parties, both states will increase their assaults on person and property at home in the name of fighting the war. This is a net loss to society (meaning actual people). The worst case would involve widening the two-state war into some kind of cosmic coalition struggle in the name of "collective security" or some other abstraction. Damage – heretofore limited – is maximized and these higher costs will affect the societies involved, long after the nattily dressed foreign reporters have filed their upbeat, first-person propaganda pieces and gone home.
January 16, 2005
Big Brother is Alive, Well and Watching Your Travel Habits
The bureau is keeping 257.5 million records on people who flew on commercial airlines from June through September 2001 in its permanent investigative database, according to information obtained by a privacy group and made available to The Associated Press.
January 14, 2005
Rangel to reintroduce notorious draft bill
Rep. Charles Rangel intends to reintroduce legislation calling for resumption of the draft during the current Congressional term, according to a memo circulated by Bill Galvin of the Center on Conscience and War.
Sentencing Made Simple
The Supreme Court's ruling said those guidelines allowed judges to impose extra sentencing based on evidence that no jury had found to be true. This practice violates a Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial - including sentencing.
Theophobia - Part 1 by Michael P. Tremoglie
There is a continuing campaign to bowdlerize religion from American society. This is manifest most recently by attempts to remove the word God from the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments from being displayed at courthouses, and Christmas from the lexicon of public school holidays.
January 13, 2005
Recalling the Anti-Imperialist League by Stephen Bender
In order to get a better notion of the Anti-Imperialist League's rhetoric, below are excerpted passages from its platform. Recall that this was the largely "conservative" critique of imperialism and that even former Presidents Harrison and Cleveland lent their names to it.
The Great Conceit of Democracy by Bill Bonner
Another of the great conceits of the Western civilization, circa 2005, is that democracy makes people more peaceful and more prosperous. The evidence for the peaceful part is blemished by the history of the 20th century – in which nations that were democratic (at least at the beginning) fought the bloodiest wars in history. But how about prosperity? Does voting really make people wealthier?
January 12, 2005
Uncle Sam wants your data - all year 'round by Dorothy Korber
"It's a historic shift for the U.S. Census Bureau, since the American Community Survey will replace the old 'long form' questionnaire that went to one household in six in the 2000 census."
Patrick Henry on the Battle for Christianity by Lance Hurley
"I wonder what God is thinking as He looks down upon America? A nation that was conceived and dedicated to Him, a nation who has been blessed above all else because we have put Him first. A nation that has a minor element who appears to weild all the power, that is dedicated to eradicating Him from our nation. A nation where pornography flourishes, a nation that has kicked God out of the classroom."
What States Rights Really Mean by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
Ask the typical undergraduate to discuss the ideas advanced in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 and you may as well be asking for an overview of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum physics. Yet these nearly forgotten documents fully merit a place among the most important political writings in American history, both in terms of the ideas they put forth and the influence they had on subsequent generations of American political thinkers. That’s why William Watkins’ new book is something to celebrate.
January 11, 2005
OKC Bombshell Implicates Feds In Murrah Blast by Pat Shannan
"One of the problems with that theory was the fact that the columns remained standing directly across the sidewalk from the truck as opposed to those that had collapsed more than 50 feet away. A retired air force brigadier general with 30 years experience compiled an irrefutable report on this subject, which showed exactly where the charges were placed inside the building. "
January 10, 2005
Radicals and the Two-Party System by James Leroy Wilson
The libertarian idea also offers something for both traditional Democrats and Republicans – to all Americans. That’s why right-wing libertarians should neither wholly defect to the Democratic Party, nor remain loyal to the Republican. Rather, the libertarian message should be molded to fit the values of one’s own community and its dominant Party. I can’t think of a better way, today, of resisting Leviathan and advancing real reform in the direction of freedom.
Murray N. Rothbard on States, War, and Peace: Part I by Joseph Stromberg
While attending Columbia University Rothbard became a member of what he would later refer to as the Old Right. Gathered together mainly in the right wing of the Republican party, the Old Right was a loose coalition which opposed the policies of FDR’s New Deal, at home and abroad. Their chief spokesman was Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio, who was – as Rothbard saw things – too prone to compromise. Congressman Howard Buffett (R., Nebr.) and writers such as Frank Chodorov, John T. Flynn, Isabel Paterson, and Felix Morley were considerably more "hard-core." Their "line," so to speak, reflected a strictly American combination of classical liberalism and republicanism.
January 9, 2005
State Capitalism by weebies
State capitalism is a real problem that people who advocate the free market would be wise to confront head on. Many corporations now openly operate as a microcosm of the state. Those in power use their power to advance their own agendas at the expense of others and use the assets of the corporation to transfer wealth to a select few. Like their state counterparts, executives of corporations are not held accountable for their actions. Like the state, failure to perform is rewarded.
Clamping Down on Freedom of the Press by Charles Lewis
At the Center for Public Integrity, we have found that nothing resonates more with the American people than the straight skinny itself about the powers that be. When we obtained a secret draft of the Domestic Enhancement Security Act of 2003, better known as "Patriot II," we posted it in its 100-plus page entirety on our Web site, www.publicintegrity.org, over the objections of the Justice Department. Because of the public furor over some of its controversial provisions—including internal GOP frustration on Capitol Hill that the secretive Attorney General and his staff had kept them in the dark for nearly half a year—the draft bill was dead within months (although the Bush administration has been trying to push a few provisions separately).
January 7, 2005
Conservatives Push for Psychiatric Diagnosis of 'Loony Leftists'
Still thinking about election fraud in Ohio? Worried that voting machines in Florida may have been hacked? If some Republicans get their way, there may soon be an official diagnosis of what really ails you: political paranoia disorder.
We have met the enemy and it is US (corporate media) by Mark Drolette
A few real journalists still exist (Seymour Hersh comes to mind). I'm sure there are also still some mainstream reporters who have what Webb possessed (in spades): integrity, and an obsessive need to ferret out the truth and then report it. But, as his terrible tale amply demonstrates, anything deemed too hot is going nowhere. At some level, when names are named, the story will be quashed.
ACLU backs off challenge to intelligent design
"Right now, it's clear the ACLU is re-evaluating the case and now looks at it as a more complex matter," Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, told WorldNetDaily.
January 6, 2005
A Contempt for Civil Rights: Supporting Torture is not Gonzales' Greatest Sin by Brian J. Foley
Focusing on torture as the main objection to Alberto Gonzales' taking over as Attorney General distracts us from his greater sin: his attempt to give the president the power to imprison Americans incommunicado and indefinitely, without recourse to courts or lawyers. Such contempt for our civil rights shows that Gonzales cannot be trusted to protect them.
Washington Is a Sledgehammer; We Are Nails by William L. Anderson
Not surprisingly, RICO ultimately came to be the ultimate weapon that federal prosecutors could use against individuals and business owners who decidedly were not part of "organized crime," but the provisions of the law are so powerful that a RICO indictment almost guarantees a conviction of some sort. (And, surprise, surprise, the ACLU itself dropped its official aversion to RICO after pro-abortion groups successfully used the civil portion of RICO to win huge monetary judgments from groups protesting abortion.)
January 5, 2005
They Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial by ELAINE CASSEL
Dana Priest, writing in the Washington Post, described the plans of the Pentagon and the Justice Department to imprison indefinitely, perhaps for life, persons it wants "removed" from society. Having committed no crime, but believed to be associated with "terrorism" however that is defined at any given moment in time "the people will live in prison camps modeled on American prisons.
Defeating the Republican Police State Mandate by Sergei Hoff
Our government, which is indeed dominated by the Republican and Democrat parties, is determined to enforce bureaucratically prescribed social and political standards regardless of lost lives. Three short statements by President Bush are absolutely true: "This is a new age." "We are at war." "We must be vigilant." The responsibility falls upon the people to determine the true identity and strategy of their enemy.
Why Does The Religious Right Ignore Civil Liberties Issues? By Chuck Baldwin
The sad truth is, Americans have lost more constitutional protections of personal freedoms under President George W. Bush than under any president in modern memory. And the Religious Right is either totally oblivious to this reality or party to it. How can this be?
January 4, 2005
The undemocratic party by Terence P. Jeffrey
As this undemocratic system of government-by-judges has become the settled way Americans decide major social issues, the primary role of the national Democratic Party has shifted from making sure liberal legislation gets through Congress to making sure constitutionalist judges do not.
A melding of the minds increases collaboration at two spy agencies by Bob Drogin
For the first time, NSA specialists are working with analysts from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, a newer organization that studies data from spy satellites. The specialists share the NSA's latest bugged phone calls and e-mails by suspected terrorists. They study NGA infrared scans and radar images of Baghdad and other trouble spots.
January 3, 2005
Our gun rights have been eroding since the turn of the last century. Is the pendulum finally turning? by David Codrea
Now is not the time to rest, but to understand how we got to where such clear infringements of the Second Amendment were considered politically feasible. Be forewarned: more "gun control" laws are waiting in the wings the instant we let down our guard. Where we will be 50 years from now, when GUNS will hopefully observe its centennial, is up to us.
January 2, 2005
DARK PREDICTIONS FOR COMING YEAR by Bill Gallagher
"Actually, predictions in politics are probably more difficult than in physics. The hard sciences do have some eternal laws and immutable principles -- unlike politics, where principle and truth are rare and actually inhibit political success (See: Karl Rove's biography). And if you're wrong in political predictions, so what? "
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