The fall of our nation ~ By Patrice Lewis

I read Patrice Lewis' column with some sadness. It was very reflective of how I had been feeling about the things that she wrote about.

The column that Patrice wrote, as you will notice, was posted very early Saturday morning, August 28, 2010. Yes, that date, 8/28/2010, will mean something to many that will read this commentary. That is because on that day, on a beautiful August morning in our nation's capital, at the feet of the Abraham Lincoln Memorial, things began to change for many, many thousands of people. And for me. No, I wasn't there, but I was able to watch the "Restoring Honor" Rally in real time on my computer.

To make sure you will understand what I'll be discussing next, please watch the following short video:

Restoring Honor - Be the Change!

Video provided by RestoringHonorRally

The first words you will read in the blockquote below are: "The people who are fired up and ready to do something are fighting more than just their government. They're also fighting the collective spiritual sickness of millions of dumbed-down, apathetic sheeple who assume the government's role is to catch them when they fall or support them when they're down..." And did you just notice the words that I emphasized in bold? And were you aware that was exactly what the "Restoring Honor" rally was all about?

Glenn Beck became aware of that collective spiritual sickness over the last few years, and he is fighting that very affliction in our nation with great passion. The path that Glenn has been taking over the last few months, maybe even the last year, has been to get people to renew their spirit and their belief in America's greatness. And it's working.

Please, oh please, keep that in mind as you read Patrice's column today. I know that it so very easy these days to perceive that there is no possible way to change the direction this country has been going. I know, as I mentioned at the beginning of this piece, that I had been feeling that way. On 8/28/10, I finally began to believe that the direction we can take this country CAN change. It is going to take a lot of Faith. It means that we are going to have to get our heads out of the sand, and begin the process that may take generations. But it has to start somewhere at some point in time. It might as well start right now! Just sayin'...

The people who are fired up and ready to do something are fighting more than just their government. They're also fighting the collective spiritual sickness of millions of dumbed-down, apathetic sheeple who assume the government's role is to catch them when they fall or support them when they're down. The sheeple really don't give a rip about whether the federal government becomes a nanny state. This is just the kind of apathy the nanny state loves, so it's encouraged.

It was Alexander Tytler who noted, "The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependence; from dependency back again into bondage."

Perhaps this is just the natural evolution of things. Perhaps we're in the autumn of our nation. While I can't say for certain, it sure is beginning to feel like fall.

By Patrice Lewis

Posted: August 28, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Every time I read the news, the headlines get worse. Housing starts down, the stock market down, inflation this, unemployment that … It got my husband to wondering, why is the overall attitude in America as bad as it is?

Before you give a knee-jerk answer of "Because I'm unemployed, stupid!" or some such equally valid (but cursory) reply, hear me out.

There seems to be a curious apathy rampant in our country lately. Our overall attitude is lethargic, almost indifferent to the actions of our government.

We see astounding new threats to our liberties daily. Government agents can legally sneak onto your property and put a GPS tracking device on your car without you knowing about it. The EPA is petitioning to ban lead bullets as a back-door way to reduce the availability of ammunition. Rep. Pete Stark smugly admits at a town-hall meeting that "the federal government can do most anything in this country." And sadly, he's right.

Where's the outrage? The abuse of power has far surpassed the abuses of power imposed by King George III prior to the Revolutionary War. Yet most people merely yawn and say, "I wonder what's on TV tonight?" We're witnessing things that 40 years ago would have had people marching in the streets. And when people do march in the streets, millions strong, the government yawns and goes fishing.

So people are giving up. They're giving up the expectations that their children will ever have the success or stability of their parents' generation. The old formula of working hard and succeeding doesn't seem to work any more, so why try? Why not just let the government take care of us?

But even this attitude is more the symptom than the disease. For people to actually think that their children will never have it as good, they have to have made a tremendous mental shift. It's not so much, "My children will never have it as good," it's more like "We're not as good."

You can delve into nuts and bolts of why we're heading into socialism all you want, but none of those things could happen if a spirit of optimism and individuality were still intact in this country. But that spirit is eroding and almost gone. Our pride in being Americans is dissolving. When the president of the United States says, "Yes, we're exceptional, but so is every other country," then it indicates the certainty of America's greatness is evaporating.

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A nation divided ~ By Henry Lamb

There are some things I think that I should clarify before you read Henry's column.

The first clarification is that Henry wrote, in the second paragraph, that "Restoring Honor," Glenn Beck's 8/28 event, "was planned months ago to celebrate the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's 1963 'I Have a Dream' speech." Actually, no, that isn't what it was about at all. As seen on the "Restoring Honor" facebook page, there would be a much better explanation for the event:

Throughout history America has seen many great leaders and noteworthy citizens change her course. It is through their personal virtues and by their example that we can live as a free country. On August 28th, come celebrate America by honoring our heroes, our heritage and our future.

Join the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and many more for this non-political event that pays tribute to America’s service personnel and other upstanding citizens who embody our nation’s founding principles of integrity, truth and honor.

Our freedom is possible only if we remain virtuous. Help us restore the values that founded this great nation. Come join us on August 28th in our pledge to restore honor at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

Okay, now that we have THAT slight error in the column taken care of, there is one more little statement that needs to be attended to for the sake of clarifying what the liberal media want people to believe. Though I don't think that it was intentional, Henry wrote, in speaking about Sharpton's event called "Reclaim the Dream," that his people put out a call to "black organizations to come to Washington to out-demonstrate Beck's event". That somewhat distorts the meaning of the "Restoring Honor" rally. Glenn's event wasn't what should be called a "demonstration." Sharpton and the mainstream media would like you to believe that "Restoring Honor" was a political event, a tea party "demonstration," but that is very far from the truth. Actually, if they wanted to call the Beck event a "come-to-Jesus revival meetin'," I wouldn't have a problem with that. In fact, I would celebrate it! And I did celebrate it, and I did shout out to Jesus yesterday morning while watching it! Just sayin'...

The nation is sharply divided. The upcoming elections provide an opportunity to reject the Hobbes-Rousseau-Marx-Sharpton-Obama vision of a society enslaved by an omnipotent government. It may be our last chance.

By Henry Lamb

Posted: August 28, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

To see the nation divided, watch the people who gather today at the Lincoln Memorial to hear Glenn Beck and the people who gather at Dunbar High School to hear the Rev. Al Sharpton.. Beck and his group want to restore the principles of the founders; Sharpton and his group want to transform America into a progressive utopia.

Beck's demonstration, dubbed "Restoring Honor," was planned months ago to celebrate the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. Sharpton's coalition was outraged by the audacity of a white man – especially Glenn Beck – attempting to hijack King's dream. They immediately sent out a call to black organizations to come to Washington to out-demonstrate Beck's event with their own competing event they named "Reclaim the Dream."

Beck has used his national television program to promote King's idea that all people should be measured by the content of their character, not by the color of their skin. Were Sharpton and his colleagues following King's teachings, they would be attending Beck's event, not trying to belittle it by scheduling dueling demonstrations. King worked to achieve a color-blind society; Sharpton and his followers are working to secure special status for blacks. King worked to remove the social bonds that enslaved black people; Sharpton and his colleagues are working to enslave black people to ever-more government handouts.

Skin color, however, is not what divides Americans. Americans are divided by different visions of how society should be organized. Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" demonstration seeks to restore the vision held by the founders of this great nation. Theirs was a vision of sovereign individuals voluntarily selecting representatives from among their neighbors to create a government to do only those chores enumerated in the Constitution they wrote.

Sharpton and his crowd see another vision. They see a government empowered to take whatever resources it wants from the people who have resources, to make sure that all people have at least a home, adequate food, a job with a livable wage, health care and an education.

The founders' vision celebrates individual responsibility, hard work and successful accomplishment. Sharpton's vision assumes that an individual's success was gained unfairly by taking advantage of others. The founders' vision expects people to be responsible for their own needs and to give freely of their resources to help those in need. Sharpton's vision expects government to ensure that the earth's resources are distributed equitably to everyone.

Sharpton's vision, or what he and others like to call the "progressive" agenda, is actually a holdover from the philosophy of folks such as Thomas Hobbes, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Karl Marx. Hobbes believed that "The control of power must be lodged in a single person, and no individual can set their own private judgments of right and wrong in opposition to the sovereign's commands." This is the same philosophy Sharpton displays when he wants the control of power to be lodged in the federal government against which no private judgments of right or wrong may be lodged against the government's command. This is why it is so terribly important for Sharpton's Democratic Party to be in control of the government. When Democrats control government, the Hobbes-Rousseau-Marx philosophy always prevails. When Republicans control government, the Hobbes-Rousseau-Marx philosophy prevails only some of the time.

Glenn Beck is looking far beyond Democrats and Republicans, all the way back to the founders who constructed this nation on the principles of freedom they considered to be essential: 1) recognition that the right to life, liberty and property is a gift from the Creator, 2) that government is a creation of free people and is empowered only by the consent of the governed, and 3) government is best that governs least.

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A bloody ending for the GOP? ~ By Robert Ringer

There was a segment where Newt Gingrich was talking with Laura Ingraham from way back in February 2008 during the primaries that is a good teachable moment for the GOP:

Almost-liberal Republican Candidates Will Lose
    From the video as seen in the description:

"I don't think anybody on his [McCain's] team understands the Conservative movement. So I don't think they have any idea what the underlying pattern is. They don't like the Conservative movement. They didn't hang-out with it. They're offended by it. I don't think you can go to the center in this country and try to be sort of a, a, an almost-liberal and win an election. I think that turns off so many people that they just stay home. And I think it's very important to realize, there were over 14-million Democrat votes in Super-tuesday. There were about 8-million Republican votes."  (Emphasis mine)

Video provided by NoRepublicanWimps

Newt was right on the money in 2008, wasn't he? And so is Robert Ringer now. The establishment Republicans - the RINO Progressives - didn't learn their lesson in 2006 or 2008. They lost the Conservative wing of the GOP. Should the Republicans take back Congress in 2010, as Robert suggests, they can no longer be squishy Republicrats; no more compromising, no more trying to get along with the other side of the aisle. Just sayin'...

Either the hazing and indoctrination ("co-opting") of new members of the Republican wing of the D.C. Club will finally be brought to a halt or the United States of America, as we came to know it growing up, will never again resurface. Club members have got to be made to understand that the game is over. Term limits, a balanced-budget amendment and rigid adherence to the rule that all legislation be required to pass constitutional muster would be good starters.

If they win big on Nov. 2, Republicans will be faced with a choice: Hand the sword of power over to the new faces in the party – those who truly believe in freedom and free markets and are serious about putting an end to the never-ending sham of "compromise" – or use the sword to commit hara-kiri.

Let's hope it's not a bloody ending for the Grand Old Party.

By Robert Ringer

Posted: August 27, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

I was saddened, though not surprised, when former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott said (in referring to tea-party candidates) in a recent interview with the Washington Post, "We don't need a lot of Jim DeMint disciples. As soon as they get here, we need to co-opt them." It stirred my greatest fears about the Republican Party.

I've always liked Trent Lott. Even though he's establishment to the core, by and large he's been one of the good guys – kind of an unperfected free-marketer. But I was very disappointed at his playing the role of loyal club member and dutifully stepping down as Senate majority leader when his well-intended remarks at Strom Thurman's 100th birthday party exploded into a left-wing fiesta.

Prior to that, in 1992, Sen. Lott had sent me a lengthy letter complimenting me on the content of a mockup magazine I was planning to publish (which I later decided to shelve), and I always appreciated his kind comments. So much so that when I started the Liberty Education Interview Series, I contacted his office to invite him to become one of my first interviews.

After a couple of back-and-forth e-mails, I spoke to a young man ("Joshua") who handled Lott's media commitments. He wanted to know the kind of questions I would be asking the Senator, and when I mentioned the recently passed TARP bill and other big-spending government programs, he said, "I can tell you right now that Senator Lott would not be agreeable to do an interview about such topics because he has paying clients who support those bills."

In a follow-up e-mail, I responded, "I appreciate the fact that Senator Lott has clients, but I'd like to believe that he is still deeply concerned about the future of this country."

In a final response, Joshua said that even though Lott "applauds your efforts in promoting free markets and capitalism … his schedule simply does not permit him the opportunity to participate in this effort. However, rest assured that he is doing his part in the cause."

And, in all honesty, I believe Trent Lott, in his own way, really is doing his part to promote freedom and free enterprise. In fact, a majority of Republicans are, in their own way, working to promote freedom and free enterprise. The problem is that they are conflicted by their desire to 1) stay in office as long as possible and 2) make as much money as possible.

As one of my longtime congressional friends told me bluntly, "You don't start making big money until you leave office." (Yes – he, too, is now a lobbyist.) Interestingly, my friend is behind the times, because the Democrats have boldly taken it to the next level and now make big money while still in office!

So, Sen. Lott has the right idea when he talks about co-opting, but he has it backwards. It's the tea-party people – the massive majority of libertarians, conservatives and libertarian-centered conservatives – who need to co-opt the Republican Party. If they cannot accomplish that, you can look for the near-term extinction of the Grand Old Party and the emergence of an official Tea Party.

In his interview with the Washington Post, Lott also said he is not expecting a tea-party sweep, explaining that "I still have faith in the visceral judgment of the American people." Say what? Attention Sen. Lott: The visceral judgment of the American people is what the tea-party movement is all about!

As I have written about so often in the past, if Barack Obama and his criminal cronies in Congress are not able to prevent free and fair elections in November, I believe the Republicans will overwhelm the Democrats in a tidal wave of victories beyond what even the most optimistic conservatives are expecting.

It's going to be like a political earthquake and tsunami hitting simultaneously. The day-in-day-out lies of Barack Obama and the Democratic leadership in Congress will be laid bare for all to see in one historic night.

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Green religionists are waging war on you ~ By Phil Elmore

In Phil's column, he explains how the green religionists have used tyrannical rules, regulations, and penalties to push their agenda. You will need to read the full article (click on the link at the bottom to get there) to see how various cities have instituted draconian fines for not "complying" with their green agenda. It is sad that those cities have done that, because there are better ways to promote recycling, as Phil mentions.

In the city where I live, they have the perfect system that makes sense. It works so well that they now give out very LARGE recycling containers that can easily be picked up by their recycling trucks. The cost of their recycling trucks is mostly offset by the savings they have in needing less property for landfills. It takes me weeks to fill mine up, it is so large. On the other hand, it also takes me weeks to fill up a normal size garbage can. If for some reason you have extra garbage, like when you get around to cleaning out the garage, you can buy extra garbage tags for around $1.50 and you just put the tags on the extra garbage bags. I've only had to buy 3 tags in the last five years when I threw out some things that were damaged by some extra water in my basement. So, as you see, our city realized that people would use their recycling much more by giving us the incentive to recycle. There are no fines that I know of. If they find garbage (non-recyclable) in your recycle container, they simply don't take it, and leave a notice for you to explain why not.

So, that is the part that got me about what Phil wrote. There was no need for the cities he mentions to use tyrannical methods to MAKE you recycle. But then, that is the thing about the green religionists, who are mostly going to be liberals: They just aren't that smart, I guess! That, and worse yet, I guess the liberals are addicted to the power that they can wield over their "subjects." Just sayin'...


UPDATE ~ August 27, 2010:

I happened to see this segment on Fox & Friends Thursday a.m. just a few hours after posting the column:

The Green Police - A true example of how they think, in their own words

Video provided by TheREALjohnny2k

In a free society, public service announcements encourage that society's citizens to act for the common good by appealing to their better natures. In a totalitarian society, governments slap the governed until the pain makes the ruled class comply. This is the critical difference between what our recycling laws and regulations should be and what they are increasingly becoming. Unless we stand up to the green religionists, unless we demand to know by what authority they presume to declare innocent American citizens heretics, we will increasingly feel their open-toed shoes on our necks. These heavy-handed recycling mandates are part of a greater problem. They are a few hundred of the thousands of cuts that will eventually bleed us all dry.

These draconian recycling laws are garbage, and so are the people who force them down the throats of the American people.

By Phil Elmore

Posted: August 26, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Did you recycle this week? Did you bow before the altar of the "green" movement? Did you show proper deference to the secular religion of environmentalism? Did you do, not as you were asked, but as you were told by brainwashed, sanctimonious hippies and their puppets in your government? No? What are you, some kind of heretic? Do you hate the Earth? Maybe we'll have to teach you the benefits of recycling. Maybe we'll have to re-educate you. Maybe we'll have to punish you.

Yes, that's it ... we'll punish you. We'll do it in the way that hurts you most in an economy still reeling under President Barack Hussein Obama's socialism. We'll punish you financially, fining you a hundred dollars here, a hundred dollars there, until you've suffered so badly you either comply or we break you.

What's that? You don't have a hundred dollars? Oh, stop crying. No, sit down. That's quite enough of that. All we want you to do is recycle. It's good for the planet. It's good for everyone. Think of the children. There, there. Have you calmed down? Good. Now go take your recycling bin to the curb. That's a good boy. That's a good, whipped dog. That's a good, servile subject of an ever-more invasive and all-powerful government. Good lad. Maybe we won't have to punish you after all.

Did you enjoy reading the preceding three paragraphs?

I didn't ... and I wrote them. I don't enjoy them because I'm very worried. I'm worried because no matter how far-fetched are the seemingly endless schemes of "progressives," left-wing power-mongers and statists always seem to exceed my expectations for their dictates.

Previously in Technocracy, I described the Orwellian world our government functionaries, our inexorably marching legions of mindless and largely unaccountable petty bureaucrats, are dragging us toward. In that column, written almost exactly one year ago, I warned you of a nightmarishly totalitarian world in which even your garbage is suspect. At the time, I spoke most vehemently about a British campaign encouraging neighbors to inform on their fellow subjects:

"A new London Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism campaign," the post reads, "is encouraging law-abiding citizens to look through each others' bins to check for 'suspicious' items such as chemical bottles, and to report any troubling findings to the police." Troubling findings. Suspicious trash. Does anyone wish to place any wagers as to how many people will find themselves facing police interrogations based solely on their busybody neighbors' unfounded hysteria?

Declaring ordinary people, law-abiding citizens, to be heretics because they do not share the zeal of adherents to the "green faith" is becoming more common -- and more serious. Already, green religionists have helped spread the propaganda of global warming as prophesied by Al Gore, encouraging industrial and trade policies that would hinder American industry in the name of saving the Earth. While Gore and his willing accomplices in both "science" and among the press have been jeered and opposed, this opposition is not enough. This front is not the battle that will win this war. This is because such campaigns are far more abstract, far less personal, far less real than is the war that the green religionists are waging on you as an individual. Such environmental cultists will not be satisfied until you either toe the line and sort your garbage, or you are made to suffer for believing and acting in opposition to their mandates.

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Global currency around the corner? ~ By Henry Lamb

Before you read Henry's column about a coming global currency, it's educational movie time. Please be sure to watch both videos:

John Maynard Keynes and Economic Fascism (by MDJarv )

From the description for this video:

To quote something Keynes said back in 1920:

"There is no subtler, no surer means of overturning the existing basis of society than to debauch the currency. The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose."

What is stated above is both an incredibly alarming and important statement from a very dangerous psychopath, as it highlights the elite agenda almost perfectly. This agenda entails the destruction of national currencies to usher in a totalitarian police state and a completely managed global economy, with a one world currency and central bank (something Keynes was advocating back in the 1920s and 30s).

Video provided by rozovo

The World Bank (WB) & The International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Video provided by Darganot

Some of the readers that come to this space on occasion have probably noticed that I have posted many of Henry Lamb's columns here. Many of his columns discuss global governance, and the loss of the sovereignty of the United States. This column explains something very important about the desire to have a one world government. The goal is something that people have been working toward for nearly a hundred years, if not longer. It has been an incremental process, orchestrated by small groups of elites in positions of power, many that have been involved in banking and government. And I am sure that many people still take this lightly, as if they don't believe it will or can ever happen.

It is my feeling that what is taking place since Obama became President is a signal to us that their goal is closer than ever. It is like they are now down to the one yard line, and another financial crisis could punch the ball over the goal line. New World Order, here we come (kicking and screaming). Just sayin'...

Those who advocate global governance have changed their tactics, but not their goal. They have made great strides through a variety of treaties, and particularly through the implementation of Agenda 21 and the concept of sustainable development. The erosion of freedom that is inevitable under any system of global governance has been painted green, packaged in a bundle labeled "social justice" and sold to a generation of Americans eager to make the world a better place.

The global currency proposed by the IMF is just the latest step toward that ultimate utopian vision pursued for so long by so many. The freedom that powered America's rise to greatness cannot exist in a system of global governance. Individual freedom, granted by the Creator and guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution is at best diminished by global governance, and at worst completely denied.

Global governance in any form must be rejected.

By Henry Lamb

Posted: August 21, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

If the International Monetary Fund gets its way, the U.S. dollar will be replaced by the "bancor" as the world's reserve currency. According to a report published April 13, the IMF would like to adopt a plan of action that would expand the use of SDRs (Special Drawing Rights) to replace the U.S. dollar as the storehouse of value and eventually create a global currency called the "bancor."

"Bancor" is the name suggested by John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who headed the World Banking Commission that created the IMF during the Breton Woods negotiations, which preceded the United Nations.

The new global currency would be issued by a new global central bank that would have the authority to levy taxes for various infractions. The bank would have to be, according to the report writers, "accountable to member nations, but remain independent." This statement sounds much like the defenders of the Federal Reserve, which was created by Congress and is supposed to be accountable to Congress, but refuses to allow Congress to audit its activities or even to answer congressional questions about to whom it lends U.S. dollars.

A global central bank has long been a goal of those who advocate global governance. America's school system has failed to teach students about the century-long conflict between those who want a global governing authority and those who do not. Schools barely teach that Woodrow Wilson and his colleagues created the League of Nations, or why this institution failed. Schools never explain that many of the same people who promoted the League of Nations continued their efforts through non-government organizations such as the Council on Foreign Relations until Franklin Roosevelt was elected president.

Schools do credit Roosevelt with helping to create the United Nations, but they never explain that Roosevelt brought into his administration dozens of people from the Council on Foreign Relations to draft his "New Deal," as well as plans for the United Nations.

Schools do not teach that President Kennedy planned to turn over U.S. military power to the United Nations to give the emerging global government the power to enforce its policies. People who refuse to accept this statement are encouraged to read "Freedom from War: the United States Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World," Department of State Publication 7277, released September 1961.

The people who believe the world should be governed by a global authority have been working toward this goal for more than a century. They are relentless; they are driven; they are convinced that they know best how people should live. They believe that all nations and all societies should be controlled by an elite, benevolent intelligentsia that can ensure social justice by enforcing what has now become known as sustainable development. These people are closer to achieving their goal than at any previous time in history.

Woodrow Wilson assumed his political power would be sufficient to impose the League of Nations. He underestimated the determination of freedom-lovers such as Henry Cabot Lodge and other senators who refused to ratify the treaty that created the League. Roosevelt assumed that the devastation of World War II would be sufficient to usher in the era of world government under the authority of the United Nations – and he was right, until political reality crushed his utopian socialist dream of a global community.

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Senate fumbles EMP protection

There is really very little I need to say about this column, except that you probably had not heard about this in the lamestream news. However, WorldNetDaily DID cover the story in an article written by Bob Unruh on August 7, 2010, "Senate dumps strategy to prevent EMP damage".

So that you know what kind of damage EMP can do, I have included the video below. Apparently, though, some U.S. Senators don't seem to have watched the video. I am not sure they even have a clue about EMP. Or, maybe it was because they wanted their own plan, S. 1462, which promotes "clean energy." Oh, brother... Can you believe that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee thought that was more important than spending a mere $100 million to "protect the national electric grid from 'all hazards' – including EMP from geomagnetic storms, nuclear EMP from terrorists or rogue states, cyber threats, sabotage and natural disasters? Do ya think? Just sayin'...

EMP - Segment from "33 Minutes"

Video provided by EMPACTAmerica

But the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee chose to ignore the EMP Commission, the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Energy. Every member of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee received a personal appeal from the EMP Commission and other prominent experts to pass H.R. 5026 with its provisions for protecting against EMP and "all hazards" intact – but those appeals were ignored.

H.R. 5026 may yet be saved when the Senate and House go into conference.

Perhaps in this election year the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee would heed a demand from the American people to restore the original H.R. 5026.

By Peter Vincent Pry

Posted: August 19, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

The Earth dodged a bullet from the sun the week of Aug. 2, a bullet in the shape of a solar flare that could have had catastrophic consequences for the existence of our modern civilization – a threat that was barely noted in the press.

On Aug. 1, NASA reported that satellites detected a coronal mass ejection, or CME, "heading in the Earth's direction." According to NASA, CMEs "are large clouds of charged particles that are ejected from the sun. … They expand away from the sun at speeds as high as a million miles an hour. A CME can make the 93-million-mile journey to Earth in just three to four days. … When a coronal mass ejection reaches Earth, it interacts with our planet's magnetic field, potentially creating a geomagnetic storm."

On the same day, the federal government issued a warning that an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, from a gathering solar storm might damage the electric grid in the United States. The Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned, "There is a 10 percent chance that this CME will result in a severe geomagnetic storm."

The EMP from a severe solar geomagnetic storm can have disastrous consequences. A severe geomagnetic storm in 1989 collapsed the electric grid in Quebec, destroyed a transformer in a nuclear plant in New Jersey, caused $2 billion in damage and left 5 million people living in the dark.

A "great" geomagnetic storm, a rare but inevitable phenomenon, could have truly catastrophic consequences that would imperil the existence of modern civilization. In 2004 and 2008, the congressionally mandated EMP Commission warned that every hundred years or so an exceptionally large solar flare will generate a "great" geomagnetic storm. The EMP from such a storm would collapse the national electric grid and the critical infrastructures – transportation, communications, banking and finance, food and water – that sustain modern civilization and the lives of 310 million Americans.

The last "great" geomagnetic storm was in 1859, called the Carrington event. Modern civilization, so dependent upon electronic systems, has not yet experienced a "great" geomagnetic storm. Many scientists think we are overdue. Some scientists believe that, as we approach the solar maximum over the next two years, since the solar maximum brings increased solar flare activity, the possibility of a "great" geomagnetic storm will also increase.

In 2008, the National Academy of Sciences produced a report for NASA that confirmed the EMP Commission's warning that a "great" geomagnetic storm could have catastrophic consequences for modern civilization. According to the NAS report, if the 1859 Carrington event happened today, it could destroy nationwide the electric grid, collapse the critical infrastructures and take 4-10 years to recover – if recovery is possible at all. In June 2010, the Department of Energy and North American Electric Reliability Corporation released a joint report that, again, confirmed the EMP Commission's warning about the catastrophic threat from a "great" geomagnetic storm.

Fortunately, Earth dodged the bullet from the sun. Fortunately, NOAA's estimated 10 percent chance of a severe geomagnetic storm did not materialize – this time. We may not be so lucky next time.

So it is incomprehensible why the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee on Aug. 5 – just days after NOAA warned about the possibility of a severe geomagnetic storm actually striking our planet – would gut H.R. 5026, "The Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act," that is designed to protect the United States from the effects of a geomagnetic storm. H.R. 5026 would protect the national electric grid from "all hazards" – including EMP from geomagnetic storms, nuclear EMP from terrorists or rogue states, cyber threats, sabotage and natural disasters. H.R. 5026 embodied the recommendations of the EMP Commission, the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Energy.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

RELATED STORY:
Senate dumps strategy to prevent EMP damage

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Economic judgment day ~ By Robert Ringer

Just in case you aren't frightened enough by Robert Ringer's column, "Economic judgment day," I have added the two videos below. I am basically doing what I can to make sure that people are aware of what could face us. I say that, because as Robert points out, there is an alternative to just heading for the hills because of the coming economic storm: "Stay put, dig in your heels and do your part to spread the truth – about inflation, about entitlements, about the sanctity of liberty and about the loathsome nature of government."

The Warning Signs (I guess Glenn Beck isn't the only one sounding alarms)

Video provided by TheREALjohnny2k

Beck: The Hindenburg Omen

Video provided by FoxNewsChannel (Youtube channel)

Yep, I think that Glenn Beck's segment, "The Hindenburg Omen," is the perfect video to sandwich between the first video about the warning signs, and Robert's column, which discusses what might happen in an economic meltdown. Glenn has it right. Maybe it is time for this nation to turn to God. And as Robert writes, "I've already made my choice. What about you?"  I have. Just sayin'...

Just as communists are wrong to believe they can change human nature and "convince" people to willingly give up their freedom and property, so, too, is it a mistake for defenders of liberty to believe they can convince those who worship big government to believe in freedom.

Contrary to the "summer of recovery" blather we are being fed on a daily basis, the truth is that the economy is getting worse by the day – and the worst, by far, is yet to come. Economic judgment day may be a bit late in arriving, but it is coming. So you have only two choices: Fight or flight. I've already made my choice. What about you?

By Robert Ringer

Posted: August 20, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

Ever since Barack Obama fooled independents into giving him the keys to the car (his metaphor), the talk about economic judgment day has increasingly intensified. But what, exactly, would have to happen to bring about a total collapse of the U.S. economy?

One path to economic judgment day is for the government to allow market forces to rule, which, because of decades of government meddling in the economy, would surely bring about a full-scale deflationary depression. Though the iPod, flat-screen-TV, eat-out-four-nights-a-week crowd doesn't want to hear about it, the truth is that a deflationary economic judgment day would be a good thing because it would cleanse the economy of artificially high wages, profligate spending and malinvestment.

In a deflationary scenario, most people, to be sure, would be much worse off, but a small percentage of folks would actually come out ahead. That's because a deflationary depression is a time when, in effect, property is returned to its rightful owners.

The second possibility for economic judgment day is runaway inflation, which I have been predicting for the past 30 years. This would almost certainly lead to social chaos and anarchy, more likely than not followed by a dictatorship. The reason runaway inflations tend to result in dictatorships is because the natives become restless when they discover that government's paper money is worthless.

Having said all this, I must admit that I sometimes feel like Wile E. Coyote. Every time I believe the government is trapped by economic reality, I hear that infamous "Beep Beep" and end up scratching my head. With its high-speed printing presses, its ability to borrow virtually unlimited sums of money and a monopoly on the use of force, government always seems to escape the consequences of its actions and lives to see another day. But unless someone figures out how to make gold out of paper money real soon, the inevitable is already written in stone.

It is American entrepreneurs who have held up the U.S. economy for all these years by doing what they have always done best: create wealth. It is they, not government, who create jobs and increase living standards. But if BHO continues to press the welfare pedal to the floor – which he clearly has every intention of doing – an inflationary ending is virtually assured.

Remember, the continued onslaught of valueless paper money disrupts the market and causes confusion, apprehension and, eventually, panic. People are afraid to enter into long‑term contracts, because they have no idea what money will be worth in the future.

Businessmen decrease investments in new plants and equipment (as they are now doing), because they do not know if their real profits will be worth the risk. The latter causes shortages, which leads to even higher prices.

If inflation is not eventually curtailed, a final collapse of the economy begins when people start to guess at what future prices will be. This sets off a chain reaction where sellers increase prices even faster than the supply of money increases.

At that point, government faces its last chance to avoid a total collapse of the economy. Henry Hazlitt put it well when he said, "Every inflation must eventually be ended by government or it must 'self‑destruct.'" This self‑destruction is exactly what has happened to nation after nation throughout history.

The case most of us are familiar with is Germany's runaway inflation in 1923. Consider these figures: Between 1914 and 1923, the German government issued an additional 92.8 quintillion (92,800,000,000,000,000,000) paper marks, a 245 billionfold increase in the money supply. Prices, in turn, rose 1.38 trillionfold. Interest rates rose as high as 10,000 percent per annum on some debt instruments.

As you would guess, people eventually refused to accept paper money in exchange for goods and services. The economy collapsed and chaos and crime ensued. And waiting in the wings, preparing hysterical answers for hysterical people, was Adolf Hitler, who understood all too well that only an authoritarian police state could restore order.

Nevertheless, I'm glad the Obamessiah was able to fool the public and win out over Mush McCain. Why do I say that? Because if McCain had ended up on the throne, no matter how liberal he may have been, the Democrats and their left-wing allies in the media would have had a field day blaming the inevitable economic collapse on the evils of capitalism. (Remember, Obama has been in power going on two years and he's still blaming George Bush for everything!)

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

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Ray Bradbury's call for revolution ~ By Phil Elmore

In the last few weeks, I had been looking for videos that related to the columns that I have been posting in this space. There was a great video that I had found for this column that I thought would fit right in, but unfortunately, the embedding code had been disabled by user request. (You can see it by clicking on the link).  Fortunately, I was able to find the video below, that may actually fit more with what Phil Elmore is discussing in his column.

What is "Fahrenheit 451" & why should you read it?

From the description of this video:

The novel presents a future American society in which the masses are hedonistic, and critical thought through reading is outlawed. The central character, Guy Montag, is employed as a "fireman" (which, in this future, means "book burner"). The number "451" refers to the temperature (in Fahrenheit) at which a book or paper supposedly autoignites, though the actual temperature is just short of twice that. Written in the early years of the Cold War, the novel is a critique of what Bradbury saw as an increasingly dysfunctional American society.

Video provided by TheConstitutionMan

As seen in the video above, a school district was considering a ban of Bradbury's literary classic, "Fahrenheit 451." For heavens' sake, the book would offer "conflicting thought!" It was way too much to handle for a student and her father. Bradbury warned about that day coming. What caused the stir was when Bradbury said, "I think our country is in need of a revolution," and going on to say, "There's too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people." Have we come to the point, then, that conflicting thought should be banned? Just sayin'...

"We stand against the small tide of those who want to make everyone unhappy with conflicting theory and thought," said Montag's antagonist, ominously, before concluding an interview that was equal parts threat and admission. To Obama, Bradbury's recent statements are that conflicting thought – and you are the thinkers.

The reaction to Bradbury's public words testifies to the success of the sociopolitical movement Bradbury warned us about. Our popular culture, our media, our left-leaning technologically saturated real-time news and infotainment industry, facilitates control while it preaches passivity. Every time a news anchor interjects her biased political opinion to defend and protect her Democratic fellow travelers, you should hear, "Peace, Montag." Whenever a scripted drama contains gratuitously left-wing political commentary, you should hear, "Serenity, Montag." Whenever the incessant squawking of your radio, your television, your laptop, your smartphone, your tablet, your technologically interconnected life pummels you with Obama's opinions, you should smell the flame-throwers' liquid fire.

By Phil Elmore

Posted: August 19, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

"Colored people don't like 'Little Black Sambo.' Burn it. White people don't feel good about 'Uncle Tom's Cabin.' Burn it. Someone's written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag. Peace, Montag. Take your fight outside. Better yet, into the incinerator. Funerals are unhappy and pagan? Eliminate them, too. Five minutes after a person is dead he's on his way to the Big Flue, the Incinerators serviced by helicopters all over the country. Ten minutes after death a man's a speck of black dust. Let's not quibble over individuals with memoriams. Forget them. Burn all, burn everything. Fire is bright and fire is clean."

Years after I first read those words, "Peace, Montag ..." still echoes in my head whenever I see or hear a "progressive" politician preaching government control. Decades after I first finished Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451," "Serenity, Montag ..." flits across my consciousness whenever a Democrat speaks. When liberals attempt to silence political dissent on talk radio through re-enacting the euphemistically termed "Fairness Doctrine," I think I see the coiled and merciless mechanical hound of Bradbury's story, waiting to inject its poison into dissidents. When the Obama administration seeks to control the Internet through governmental fiat, I picture Bradbury's firemen rushing for their petrol-laden truck. When the leftists at Time magazine sneer that there is no "Internet kill switch" – even as they admit that vaguely written, sweeping, centralized, command-and-control legislation carries great potential for harm to individual liberty – I see the nozzles of the flame-throwers glow orange.

Earlier this week, Ray Bradbury – now 90 – said, "I think our country is in need of a revolution." As you can imagine, his comments caused quite a stir. He didn't stop at calls to revolution, either. He went on to say, "There's too much government today. We've got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people." He also complained that we have "too many cell phones" and "too many Internets." We need to rid ourselves of some of these machines, he declared.

To any right-thinking American who holds his or her civil liberties dear, these are not earth-shattering revelations. (Bradbury also groused that we need to return to the moon and then colonize Mars; I have written in support of the space program in Technocracy.) The fact that a brilliant 90-year-old writer happens to share these opinions is not surprising so much as it is refreshing. What was truly interesting about Bradbury's comments, however, was reaction to them.

Susan King murmured diplomatically that Bradbury's comments were the result of "his imagination" taking him "to some dark places when it comes to contemporary politics." Scott Thill was less professional; in Underwire he wrote, "Some mornings you wake up and realize your sci-fi heroes might have lost the plot." He characterized Bradbury's comments as the author's "latest political rant," one filled with "diaphanous criticism" – before stating that the problems Bradbury decried cannot be solved without "too much government." Graeme McMillan, writing in Techland, called Bradbury's comments "depressing." He said, "Maybe I'm expecting too much of Ray Bradbury. ... But there's really something dispiriting about the curmudgeonly portrait of the 'Fahrenheit 451' author from the L.A. Times. ... When did Bradbury become such ... well, such an old man?" Reason magazine, contributing to "Before It's News," called Bradbury's statements "hysterical theater," condemning Bradbury's as a "Luddite old fart" whose comments delved "into the Grandpa Simpson zone of Larry King-esque observational complaints."

It should bother us that so many people across the Web were so quick to condemn Bradbury as an old man – to make fun of him for standing on the front lawn of the Internet and yelling at you kids to get off it. Yes, there is a streak of the Luddite in anyone who complains that we have too many cell phones and Internets, amusingly using the plural of the latter and the slightly antiquated terminology for the former. But is Bradbury so wrong? Is he so outrageous? Are his words those of a curmudgeon ... or are they the opinions of the majority of Americans, suffering under the yoke of Glorious Leader Obama's increasingly socialist, increasingly totalitarian and increasingly indifferent rule? Should not Bradbury be lauded as a hero for saying as much?

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

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Licking the 'hands which feed you' ~ By Patrice Lewis

I am starting you out with a video and it's description in order to prepare you for this column:

VIDEO: The Second American Revolution Has Begun

Produced By Edward L. Daley

"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have... a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge, I mean the characters and conduct of their rulers." - John Adams

"Government is like a baby: an alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." - Ronald Reagan

"A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned... this is the sum of good government." - Thomas Jefferson

"Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys." - P. J. O'Rourke

"We are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of Nature has placed in our power... the battle, sir, is not to the strong alone it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave." - Patrick Henry

"A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take everything you have." - Barry Goldwater

"The marvel of all history is the patience with which men and women submit to burdens unnecessarily laid upon them by their governments." - George Washington

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." - Samuel Adams

"It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood." - James Madison

"If 'pro' is the opposite of 'con' what is the opposite of 'progress'?" - Paul Harvey

"Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." - Abraham Lincoln

"Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." - Mark Twain

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one." - Thomas Paine

"Ancient Rome declined because it had a Senate, now what's going to happen to us with both a House and a Senate?" - Will Rogers

"It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace, that they are incapable of exercising their sovereignty." - James Monroe

Video provided by the BRILLIANT DarcPrynce

I think that when you read this column, you will understand why I used the above video, along with Edward's description, for the introduction to it. It is almost as if the video, along with the writing of her friend, was what inspired Patrice Lewis to write this ingenious opus.

As Patrice wrote, "The time has come to decide what you are, a patriot or a loyalist."  And I leave you with this advice that I believe originated with Glenn Beck. Be sure that you always remember these famous words: "Not racist, not violent, just no longer silent." Just sayin'...

The time has come to decide what you are, a patriot or a loyalist. Do you love your country, or do you love your government? As Samuel Adams would say, "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you."

I don't have a crystal ball. I don't know if a second American revolution is in our future. But I do know the circumstances are eerily similar to what the patriots of 234 years ago endured.

If and when a revolution comes, I will proudly call myself a patriot. If you don't, then "may your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

By Patrice Lewis

Posted: August 14, 2010 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2010

I have a wise friend who recently posted something on her blog that stopped me in my tracks. She wrote a piece called "Loyalist or Patriot?" and it's one of the more insightful and truthful analyses I've read in a long time concerning the split in philosophy that is dividing our country. I'll pause here for a moment to let you read her words of wisdom.

Now that you're back, can you understand why I think patriot vs. loyalist is a far more intelligent distinction than the silly categories of Democrat vs. Republican, or even progressive vs. conservative? My friend wrote, "The definition of a loyalist is: 'One who maintains loyalty to an established government, political party, or sovereign, especially during war or revolutionary change.' Conversely, here is the definition of a patriot: 'One who loves and loyally or zealously supports one's own country.' Do you see the difference?"

I don't know about you, but I can see that difference clearly.

Even more telling, the terms patriot and loyalist harken back to the days of the Revolutionary War. During that time, of course, patriots were in favor of forming our own government where our rights would derive from Nature and Nature's God, not the whims of an increasingly tyrannical king. The loyalist wanted to remain under the rule of England, laboring under laws and taxes that, while hateful, were at least familiar.

Have we really progressed so little in the past 234 years that we are still loyal to the "king," or are we merely coming full circle where we find ourselves in nearly the identical situation?

I believe it's the latter. Because here's the thing: We have progressed in the last 234 years. Tremendously. Astoundingly. It is only when we again fettered ourselves with chains of servitude that our progress slowed and then (apparently) ceased altogether, and we find ourselves facing a bitter decision, just as those patriots faced so long ago. Fight or fold?

Looked at in this light, I do not believe it is an accident that the symbolically named tea party sprang to life in the last couple of years and called itself what it did. Nor is it an accident that patriots are uniformly and routinely called racists, domestic terrorists and other evil and undermining epithets by the loyalists.

Concerning the Revolutionary War, the history books tell us the states "collectively determined that the British monarchy, by acts of tyranny, could no longer legitimately claim their allegiance." Substitute "American government" in the above quote and you've got our present circumstances. Oooooh, gives me goose bumps. We're back to where we started.

One thing to keep in mind about the Revolutionary War that often gets forgotten in the mists of time: The patriots were not fighting against an oppressive and tyrannical foreign government. They were fighting their own government. I have no doubt that many Revolutionary patriots were torn up inside because, although they opposed what their government was doing to them, they loved England and they loved the English people. If they embarked on a revolution, they would be fighting their own countrymen.

Sound familiar?

And yet the patriots fought. They fought because they had to. They fought because they could see what lay in store for them if they did not "dissolve the political bands which … connected them with another."

"As I watch our state and federal governments in action," wrote my friend, "I see a wholesale group of loyalists. They are loyal to their programs, they are loyal to their pet projects, and they are loyal to their pocket books. Ultimately, they are loyal to themselves. Nowhere do I see a loyalty to their country or their countrymen." (Emphasis my own)

She's right. When our collective voices of outrage are ignored during the forced and clandestine passage of Obamacare, when our federal debt is ratcheted so high that the interest couldn't be paid even if all of us were taxed 100 percent, when the inhabitants of the White House yawn and shrug and pretend they don't see 1.2 million protesters outside their doors, well, I'm sorry, but these loyalists are as bad or worse in their inventory of outrages than even those listed in the Declaration of Independence 234 years ago.

Increasingly over the past several decades, our governmental elites have demonstrated their loyalty only to themselves and their agendas, not to the best interests of our country as outlined in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

Worse, loyalists are usually getting something out of their slavish dedication to increased government, either a direct or an indirect personal gain. They are loyal to their pet projects, their pocketbooks and themselves. They don't give a damn about our country. If they did, then (by definition) they would be loyal to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

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