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American Memory
November 30, 2005
Miami Model: ACLU Shysters Stab America In The Back Again by Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones
In response to the news that Miami police were going to conduct random sieges, checks of ID's and patrols of buses and trains, the ACLU stabbed America in the back again by shrugging their shoulders and stating that the new measures did not violate anybody's rights.
Cheerleading at Annapolis by Mike Whitney
It’s pathetic to see the world’s most powerful man, shunted into prearranged venues so he can pitch his snake-oil to college aged boys. That said, Bush’s appearance today at the Naval Academy has got to be a new low for the White House public relations team. Apparently the only people buying the huckster-in-chief’s bedraggled vision of a democratic Iraq are rosy-cheeked young men who dream of battlefields instead of girlfriends.
"President Bush's New Illegal Immigration Policy - 'I Oppose Amnesty'" by Sharon Hughes
As cited by WorldNetDaily, Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said: “This administration has a sustained track record of ignoring reality when it conflicts with what the corporate interests want it to do. The president’s plan is nothing more than a massive illegal alien amnesty on a six year time delay, while his temporary-worker program--which will be anything but temporary--is the death knell for America’s middle class...Unless the American people see real, tangible immigration law enforcement in the interior, no one will believe there is a serious commitment from this president.” His organization is urging the administration to back a “genuine immigration enforcement,” as in H.R. 4313, authored by Reps. Duncan Hunter and Virgil Goode.
November 29, 2005
Supreme Court denies FBI translator's case by TONI LOCY
The high court also rebuffed a request by Sibel Edmonds and media groups to rule on whether an appellate court improperly held arguments in the case in secret without being asked to do so by either side.
"When courts are sealed, the public may suspect the worst and lose faith in their government simply because they are prohibited access," wrote lawyers for media groups, including The Associated Press.
American Police State: The Frog Has Cooked by Paul Joseph Watson
The consequences of the next staged terror attack will make all this look like milquetoast and Americans have been carefully prepared for such eventualities like a vetenarian pets a dog before the lethal injection.
The frog has cooked and if we don't figuratively jump out of the boiling pot right now we're going to be devoured by the gaping jaws of the insane, maniacal, sociopathic, remorseless, bloodthirsty Globalists who see the creation of total and absolute despotism as their divine calling.
November 28, 2005
Anticipating a Terrorist Attack on Congress by Mike Whitney
Will there be a terrorist attack on Congress?
The strategy to militarize the country is moving forward as planned despite apparent setbacks in Iraq. As the Washington Post reported on Nov. 27 the Dept of Defense is expanding its domestic surveillance activity to allow Pentagon spies to track down and "investigate crimes within the United States".
Murtha's Strategy by Charley Reese
The problem is that here in America, far away from the blood and death in Iraq, the war has become a political debate. Rather than trying to find solutions to real problems over there, people here on both sides are only interested in scoring points in the political debate. But the debate here is not the war over there. By playing word games here instead of seeking real solutions over there, we are betraying the troops in the most profound way.
When Federal Deception Becomes Reality by Nancy Levant
The only American news is this - the current administration and their corporate backers are dismantling America. The pace is furious. Every federal bureaucracy is being re-maneuvered for continued crisis – every federal bureaucracy. Our government is so re-maneuvered that it is unrecognizable as our government. It is not our government. We did not vote for our current rules, economic enslavements, and regulations. Our current administration imposed them, and we had no say whatsoever. Now, it is suggested that our military (or someone’s military) is to be given policing powers in this nation, which is not our nation.
November 27, 2005
First Light: Representative John Murtha instigates Historical Upheaval by Chris Floyd
Thus, even if the Bush Regime collapses entirely, we will still face an uphill battle against “Bushism” and all the long-term currents it represents. We must also guard against something even worse rising in its place. For the Bush years have shown how fragile American democracy is, how relatively little it takes for a predatory faction to seize the state and manipulate the public, cow the opposition, intimidate the press and use violence in pursuit of loot and power. The template is there now, and it’s entirely conceivable, perhaps inevitable, that some new would-be dictator — more competent, more subtle, more adroit than the ludicrous klutz from Crawford — will use it to create a more efficient and durable instrument of domination.
November 25, 2005
Congressman Ron Paul Reiterates Danger Of Foreign Troops Being Used For Martial Law by Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones
"Obviously they shouldn't be permitted. What I'd like to see is that we don't have our troops in foreign countries and if we needed a national guard that they were back here at home, that's the bigger problem. Then if there were foreign troops on our soil maybe our state officials could deal with that with their own national guard."
November 23, 2005
Savaging the Law in the Padilla Case by Mike Whitney
Padilla should be released immediately even if he is guilty. His unjust imprisonment is more damaging to our security than any danger he may pose to society.
The rule of law protects us all from the abuses of the state, and the state has always been the traditional enemy of individual freedom. This case is no different. The law has been cynically manipulated by those who are sworn to defend it; purposely warped to increase the power of the president and bend it to his will. That is the real crime here.
Food for thought on the 42nd anniversary of JFK's assassination by Jerry Mazza
”There was the decision. It had been the result of a consensus of not that one meeting, but of many. This meeting was the climax. This man was a skilled professional. He knew the codes, how to use them and who to call. He knew exactly how to set the train of events into operation. He knew then that his biggest job would be to put a small cadre of the men in the world at work right away on the cover story and on the deception plan.”
Consensus for Antiwar Unity by Lloyd Kinder
My little dictionary says authoritarian means favoring obedience to authority instead of individual freedom. Actually to most of us, authoritarian means favoring coercion in human relations and that's what is opposite of individual freedom. The only real authority is one who is "all-good" and Jesus said none are good except God. Indeed, our one authority, God, wants us to have individual freedom, so we're being obedient to true authority by supporting such freedom. The Bible is called God's Word and James called the Bible the perfect law of liberty. And Jesus said his followers would not exercise dominion one over another, but would serve each other in loving brotherhood [Mat. 20:25–28, Acts 2:44 etc.].
November 22, 2005
Jose Padilla Charged With Conspiracy To Commit Murder
In a surprise legal development, the Bush administration announced Tuesday that Jose Padilla, a U.S. citizen held without charges for more than three years on suspicion of plotting a “dirty bomb” attack in this country, has instead been charged with conspiring to “murder, maim and kidnap” people overseas.
The Never-Ending War: The Battle Over America's Self-Meaning by Midge Dector
That is the recent determination of the likes of us, the American conservative community, to create a counterculture—it would not be good for us to forget just how very recent.
It is, I think, far, far too soon for us to celebrate our achievements. We are as yet too embattled— and, in my opinion, too caught up in the tides and turnings of electoral politics—to arrive at any judgment about the permanence of our successes.
What Do Democrats Stand For? by RALPH NADER
Corporatist Dems Won't Defeat Corporatist Repubs...and It Won't Change a Thing If They Did
November 21, 2005
Veni, Vedi, Mutuatus Sum by Bill Bonner
"We came, we saw... we borrowed!" Addison Wiggins proposed a suitable motto for the U.S. imperium.
But the dollar keeps rising. Dollar strength has surprised most analysts. We have no particular view about the dollar – except that we don't like it. We don't much like the euro either. All the world's paper monies are bound to be a disappointment over the long term. Our guess is that the euro will be less of a disappointment than the dollar, but it is merely a guess. Europe has less debt than America, and a positive current account.
Police State! Coming? Or Already Here? by Tom Rose
Remember American history: It is now proven that President Franklin D. Roosevelt intentionally sacrificed almost 3,000 U.S. servicemen as bait to entice Japan to attack Pearl Harbor with the goal of convincing a reluctant American public to enter World War II.
President Lyndon Johnson also lied to the American public about the alleged "Tonkin Bay Incident." He falsely claimed that North Vietnam had attacked two U.S. destroyers on August 2, 1964. Result: Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution on August 7, which got our country more deeply involved in the Vietnam War in which 58,000 Americans died.
November 20, 2005
Rise of the 'patriotic journalist' by Robert Parry
Will journalists return to the standard of an earlier time when disclosing important facts to the electorate was the goal, rather than Cohen's notion of putting the comfortable relationships between Washington journalists and government officials first?
Put differently, will journalists decide that confronting the powerful with tough questions is the true patriotic test of a journalist?
November 18, 2005
The Nature of Man and His Government by Robert LeFevre
Here is Robert LeFevre's classic argument (1959) for a purely free society, the essay that made him a leading, if controversial, spokesman for the libertarian position on government and society in the 2nd half of the twentieth century. He argues that government is in its essence a violation of rights, one that makes life brutal, poor, and short. He demonstrates that no government anywhere has lived up to its basic promises, and calls on all people to contribute to building a new kind of freedom.
November 17, 2005
Losing Habeas Corpus - "'A More Dangerous Engine of Arbitrary Government" by Thom Hartmann
But destroying habeas corpus will not "recapture the moral high ground" or "provide guidance for our troops." It may, however, throw our troops (and citizens) into a living hell if they're captured by other governments that have chosen to follow our example.
Congress Erodes Privacy by Ron Paul
From the 1970s forward, national security letters were used sparingly in circumventing the legal process and search warrant requirements. Since 9-11 and the subsequent passage of the Patriot Act, however, use of these instruments has skyrocketed, from 300 annually to over 30,000. There is essentially no oversight nor understanding by the U.S. Congress of the significance of this pervasive government surveillance. It’s all shrugged off as necessary to make us safe from terrorism. Sacrificing personal liberty and privacy, the majority feels, is not a big deal.
A New Federal War on Dissent? by James Bovard
Is the FBI now considering a similar order to field offices as the one it sent in 1968, telling them to gather information illustrating the “scurrilous and depraved nature of many of the characters, activities, habits, and living conditions representative of New Left adherents” — but this time focused on those who oppose Bush’s Brave New World?
November 16, 2005
Another Mistrial in the Ploughshares Case by Harry Browne
The Irish battle over the use of Shannon Airport as a stopping point for US troops and equipment has turned into a legal war of attrition: for the second time a judge has been forced to collapse the trial of the "Pitstop Ploughshares" because of his own "perceived bias".
November 15, 2005
Harvard's Court by Richard Cohen
Well, at a minimum, it means that the court's membership is not as variegated as it once was. Sure, Clarence Thomas (Yale) and Scalia (Harvard) hardly come from the old WASP establishment, but in some immeasurable sense they were formed or affected by Ivy League institutions. Gone, for one thing, are politicians like Earl Warren (Berkeley) or civil rights lawyers like Thurgood Marshall (Howard), whose life experiences informed their decisions.
What we now have is an intellectual elite, smart as hell, no doubt, but a bit short on political or, even, executive experience. It governs -- once from the left, soon from the right but more and more from the same place: the banks of the Charles.
John Dean's memory - and Scooter Libby's by James Lewis
The Libby case shows that prosecutors don’t need to prove any specific charge. They only have to ask their targets to try to recall that conversation from 700 days ago. Would you just tell the jury that story again? Are you sure you didn’t say anything else? Didn’t you really mean to leak Valerie Plame’s, Mr. Libby? Didn’t you?
Pretty soon any prosecutorial targets will be dead meat. And when the next terror attack occurs, will it be guided by today’s leaks?
November 14, 2005
CONGRESS IN POCKET OF BIG OIL by James P. Tucker
The American public has been in an uproar following news of windfall oil industry profits such as Exxon Mobil’s record-breaking 75 percent jump from last year. But the Senate, which has launched an “investigation” of the matter, seemed compromised by oil industry campaign contributions.
Racist Abortion Is Evil - but Eugenicist Abortion Is OK? by William Norman Grigg
Neo-conservative celebrity William Bennett made a handsome career as a political appointee -- first with the National Endowment for the Humanities, then as secretary of education, and finally as the first "Drug Czar." (Incidentally, all of those positions were in federal agencies not authorized by the Constitution.) He then spun off an even more lucrative career as a public tutor, as the credited author of a ghost-written compilation of stories entitled The Book of Virtues and later as director of various ad-hoc neo-con front groups, such as Americans for Victory over Terror.
November 11, 2005
Reliving the Crash of ’29 by Murray N. Rothbard
We are still pursuing the policies of the 1920s that led to eventual disaster. The Federal Reserve is still inflating the money supply and inflates it even further with the merest hint that a recession is in the offing. The Fed is still trying to fuel a perpetual boom while avoiding a correction, on the one hand, or a great deal of inflation, on the other.
November 10, 2005
The Shocking Trial of an American Citizen by Elaine Cassel
Abu Ali's case may be the beginning of the end of differences between the U.S. criminal justice system and those of repressive, undemocratic regimes like Saudi Arabia, its partner in this case. In terms of criminal cases, the Bill of Rights is being tested like never before in Judge Lee's courtroom. So far, the cherished rights are on the losing side.
Surveillance Society by Ivan Eland
Since 9/11, the FBI, once organized to fight crime, has been undergoing a makeover to focus its efforts on preventing future terrorist attacks. To help the agency in its efforts, in 2001, the Congress recklessly passed and is now about to renew the USA PATRIOT Act, which dramatically increased the surveillance powers of law enforcement. Yet, the truth is that terrorism (even including the 9/11 attacks) is a rare phenomenon in North America that kills far fewer people than ordinary crime, car accidents, or medical problems. As tragic as the 3,000 deaths from the aberrant 9/11 strikes were, the worst effect of those incidents was the self-inflicted wound from the conversion of America from the “land of the free” to the “land of the watched.”
Congress May Curb Some Patriot Act Powers by LAURIE KELLMAN
A budding House-Senate deal on the expiring USA Patriot Act includes new limits on federal law enforcement powers and rejects the Bush administration's request to grant the FBI authority to get administrative subpoenas for wiretaps and other covert devices without a judge's approval.
Even with the changes, however, every part of the law set to expire Dec. 31 would be reauthorized and most of those provisions would become permanent.
Under the agreement, for the first time since the act became law, judges would get the authority to reject national security letters giving the government secret access to people's phone and e-mail records, financial data and favorite Internet sites.
Constitution doesn't matter on federal bench by Jon E. Dougherty
This is what the federal judiciary nomination process has become – a political popularity contest in which the players attempt to gauge a nominee's penchant for the party line (whatever it happens to be at the time) and not whether said nominee can consistently, fairly and accurately interpret the supreme law of the land – as our Founding Fathers envisioned.
November 9, 2005
Surrender Your DNA to the State by Kurt Nimmo
New York governor George Pataki is an enemy of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In particular, Amendment IV, which states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Martial Law in a Nutshell - 15 Questionsby Mary Maxwell, Ph.D.
1. Q: Is it likely that martial law is imminent in the U.S.?
A: Yes. The way has been partially cleared for it legally by the Homeland Security Act, that 'grandfathered in' the whole of a secret 1979 executive order dealing with emergency rule. One legal hurdle to martial law still remains, namely, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which explicitly forbids soldiers to participate in domestic law enforcement. However, Congress could easily annul the Posse Comitatus Act, and is being pressured by the attorney general and the Pentagon to do just that.
Federal Hate Bill Now Virtually Dead by Rev. Ted Pike
Although we have won again in Congress, ADL/B,nai B,rith are establishing a network of hate crimes bureaucracies in more than 55 nations of the world. They will undoubtedly reintroduce this spring the federal hate crimes bill we have just defeated. It is time to get educated about hate laws!
November 8, 2005
Full Marx for George Bush by John Laughland
Like Marxists, indeed, and like many of his European friends, George Bush appears to believe both that freedom is an ineluctable "force of history" and also that it requires constant struggle to achieve it. He argues, like Hegel, Marx’s precursor, that humanity is one, and that a free state like the USA is not really free if other states live under tyranny. In his mind, old-fashioned American Puritan millenarianism marries easily with the missionary mentality of world revolutionists: "The survival of liberty in our land," he said in January, "increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." A true conservative, by contrast, would say that there is much evil in the outside world – and that the duty of a statesman is to hold it at bay.
The FBI's Secret Scrutiny
The FBI came calling in Windsor, Conn., this summer with a document marked for delivery by hand. On Matianuk Avenue, across from the tennis courts, two special agents found their man. They gave George Christian the letter, which warned him to tell no one, ever, what it said.
Our liberties under siege by Nat Hentoff
Writing in support of "constant review" of Patriot Act powers, Mr. Lilienthal emphasizes: "Many conservatives understand full well how future policymakers can take laws intended for an important reason -- combating terrorism -- and try applying those powers to other areas. Not only should the existing sunsets (clauses in the Patriot Act) be retained, they should be added to such far-reaching powers as the Section 213 delayed notification searches ('sneak and peek') that short-circuit the Fourth Amendment because (those powers) extend well beyond fighting terrorism." The Justice Department recently conceded that 88 percent of Section 213 search warrants have been executed in non-terrorism cases.
Deficits at Home, Welfare Abroad by Ron Paul
Since American foreign aid programs began in earnest decades ago, tens of billions of US tax dollars have been given to nations around the globe. The utter failure of this money to change things for the better in those nations is no longer in question; even the most earnest advocates deep down must admit the obvious. Most of the recipient nations remain endlessly mired in poverty, political and legal corruption, and cultural malaise.
November 7, 2005
The United States of Torture by Mike Whitney
Dana Priest's article "The CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons" paints a sobering picture of an administration that has abandoned any trace of integrity and completely run amok. The United States has become the number 1 exporter of torture in the world today with Bush serving as its foremost champion.
The Myth of Energy Deregulation by Adam B. Summers
Proposition 80 would be a step backward for California. It would restrict consumer choice, discourage competition, and impose more of the kinds of regulations that got the California power industry into trouble in the first place.
November 4, 2005
The Supremes, Alito and Stare Decisis by Jan LaRue, Esq.
If precedent were the equivalent of constitutional text, the Court would, in effect, be amending the Constitution at will and, by virtue of reversing its own prior rulings, repealing its amendments. So much for Article V, which limits amending the Constitution to “We the People.” Consider the words of the late Justice Hugo Black in his dissenting opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut (1965):
Fascists-R-Us by Mark Davis
The United States of America is the premier modern Corporate State in the world today. This system of government we have today is not the result of a foreign power instituting a regime change but purely due to domestic politics. The Dutch/English creation used to provide a means for an oligarchy of elite financial interests to rule America is fundamental to our system of political government. From the origin of American political systems, these tools of aggression were not just Colonies, they were corporations; Corporate Colonies that became Corporate States.
November 3, 2005
How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID by Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre
But chipping inanimate objects is just the start. The endpoint is a form of RFID that can be injected into flesh. Pets and livestock are already being chipped, and there are those who believe humans should be next. Incredibly, bars have begun implanting their patrons with glass-encapsulated RFID tags that can be used to pay for drinks. This application startles many Christians who have likened payment applications of RFID to biblical predictions about the Mark of the Beast, a number the book of Revelation says will be needed to buy or sell in the "end times."
November 2, 2005
No Cause for Celebration by Robert Kaercher
Frankly, I’m not so sure that the United States of America ever was a proper Republic in the first place, at least not for very long. During its secession from the British Empire, the U.S.A. adopted Articles of Confederation that essentially amounted to a treaty between the states regarding commerce and mutual assistance in the face of an external threat, and not much more than that. The fact that the Articles could be altered only if every single one of the state legislatures agreed to the alteration pretty much assured that the national government could never gain very much power over the states and the people. Now that was a Republic, perhaps. But it had lasted for barely seven years when a convention of men called by the Confederation Congress met behind closed doors and overreached its charge to amend the Articles and instead wrote a completely new compact, the Constitution of the United States, which centralized political power in the national government far more than the Articles did, and in the Federal judiciary created the means by which the Federal government would itself be the ultimate judge of that power. It could very well be argued that the adoption of the Constitution marked the birth of the Federal tyranny that looms over this country today like a vast and dark storm cloud, randomly emitting bolts of lightning hither and yon, wreaking destruction at will.
Nationalism and Anti-Americanism by Anthony Gregory
Now, let us be clear about this. Not just any leftist qualifies as anti-American. To hate the U.S. government’s rapacious foreign policy is not "anti-American." To condemn the acts of terror conducted by the government in the so-called "war on terror" is not "anti-American," either. There are, however, people on the left who are genuinely prone to this unfortunate disposition, and although they tend to portray themselves as antiwar, in their rare case, it is in fact their country that they despise.
November 1, 2005
The 'Founding Fathers' by Ryan McMaken
The invocation of the Founding Fathers as a unified group singularly uncritical of the Constitution and godlike in their wisdom is quite convenient in creating myths of American exceptionalism. While we today lament the loss of an American consensus on the virtues of liberty, we can at least take refuge in the thought that in days long past, the American government and the Founding Father who created it, respected the liberties of the people.
Keep the Canary Alive by Charley Reese
Before America's exceedingly excessive number of lawyers corrupted the civil-court system, the principles involved in liability were simple and logical. You can't be held liable for something over which you have no control. A manufacturer has no control over or even knowledge of the behavior of the end user of his product. The fact that these lawsuits were politically motivated is shown by the absence of such suits against other manufacturers.
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