http://www.floppingaces.net/2009/04/19/cnn-trying-to-hide-the-embarrassing-evidence/
For as long as it is still available, I will have it here for all to see. CNN is trying to keep this from being viewed because they are embarrassed by it or they don't want people to see how blatant their bias is.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The significance of Atlas Shrugged
Having read Ayn Rand's Anthem, the following book was brought to my attention.
"Atlas Shrugged continues to gain popularity during this financial crisis, recently selling more copies than ever since its publication in 1957. Atlas Shrugged provides a vivid depiction of an America similar to today's and provides the ideological causes of today's failing policies." Ayn Rand Institute
"Atlas Shrugged continues to gain popularity during this financial crisis, recently selling more copies than ever since its publication in 1957. Atlas Shrugged provides a vivid depiction of an America similar to today's and provides the ideological causes of today's failing policies." Ayn Rand Institute
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Tea Party Goodness
“Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.” (emphasis mine)
Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment
Department of Homeland Security
*******
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment X
“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”
http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/12227/
*******
I have apparently begun the dangerous slip into radical right-wing extremism, along with the Governor of Texas, millions of tax-paying citizens and the authors of the Bill of Rights. I took the radical and dangerous step today of going to a “Tea Party” here in Texas, and I had a wonderful time. Like myself, millions of tax-payers and the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, also went to Tea Parties not just here in the Nation of Texas, but all across these United States to vent their spleens over the egregious over-stepping of federal authority and uncontrolled spending and taxation that have become the modus operandi of this current Regime and Congress in Washington. The authors of the Bill of Rights, however, likely could not attend, but WOULD HAVE if they had had the opportunity.
Part of my inspiration to stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow citizens was the release of the Department of Homeland Security’s document Rightwing Extremism. It is not a long piece, and it is certainly not difficult to understand, but some of the implications made me see red. The same Administration that proposes to triple our national debt paying for cradle-to-grave socialist programs also defines a right wing extremist as a person that holds state’s rights over federal authority.
As in, say, the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights? Most people, including you, dear reader, likely remember this ancient document fondly known as the Constitution of the United States. I do. I carry a copy with me, and in there are defined the rights of the Federal Government. Nowhere in that document does it say that the Federal Government has the right to place our grandchildren and great-grandchildren under the servitude of a national debt of an unbelievable size. Nowhere in there does it say that a President has the right to dictate salaries to private institutions or to fire CEO’s of private companies. The Constitution does not allow the Government to oppose free speech. The current Administration has made it clear that talk radio that opposes them is “dangerous” and an “obstacle to progress.”
Many of these issues were discussed at the Tea Party today. They were discussed by obviously radical right-wing elements such as grey-haired grandmothers, businessmen in suits, middle-class families with children present, veterans, flag waving teens and people that had tears hearing hundreds of people pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. I did not see any swastikas, KKK hoods, burning effigies or rock-throwing. I did not hear voices raised in anger, but I did hear voices raised in determination. This was not a protest by morons at a G7 meeting, but rather a gathering or people that you would usually meet at the supermarket, or at church, or at w
ork that have had enough of Federal social engineering and domination. They are tired of a Federal Government that makes mandates to the 50 states at the drop of a hat, but cannot balance a budget.
I predict that these meetings today, that took place all over the states and were attended by huge numbers of people, are going to be ridiculed and castigated by the press and Administration. They are going to say that we are all being ‘programmed’ by the right-wing ‘echo-chamber’ and that if we had not had that medium we would never have had these thoughts ourselves. My answer to that is that my ancestors had these ideas before there were even radios to be had, and that we were simply raised correctly when we learned these conservative ideals. Opposition to wrong ideas is not radical; it is necessary and required in a republic.
God bless this Country.
*Note by Kelly: the last two pictures (thanks to a cousin) are from a Tea Party held at the Federal Building in Salt Lake City, Utah. Those in attendance endured the rain, snow and cold to show their support for this cause.
Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment
Department of Homeland Security
*******
"Opposition to wrong ideas is not radical; it is necessary and required in a republic."
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”Constitution of the United States of America, Amendment X
“I believe that our federal government has become oppressive in its size, its intrusion into the lives of our citizens, and its interference with the affairs of our state,” Gov. Perry said. “That is why I am here today to express my unwavering support for efforts all across our country to reaffirm the states’ rights affirmed by the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. I believe that returning to the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution and its essential 10th Amendment will free our state from undue regulations, and ultimately strengthen our Union.”
http://governor.state.tx.us/news/press-release/12227/
*******
I have apparently begun the dangerous slip into radical right-wing extremism, along with the Governor of Texas, millions of tax-paying citizens and the authors of the Bill of Rights. I took the radical and dangerous step today of going to a “Tea Party” here in Texas, and I had a wonderful time. Like myself, millions of tax-payers and the Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, also went to Tea Parties not just here in the Nation of Texas, but all across these United States to vent their spleens over the egregious over-stepping of federal authority and uncontrolled spending and taxation that have become the modus operandi of this current Regime and Congress in Washington. The authors of the Bill of Rights, however, likely could not attend, but WOULD HAVE if they had had the opportunity.Part of my inspiration to stand shoulder to shoulder with my fellow citizens was the release of the Department of Homeland Security’s document Rightwing Extremism. It is not a long piece, and it is certainly not difficult to understand, but some of the implications made me see red. The same Administration that proposes to triple our national debt paying for cradle-to-grave socialist programs also defines a right wing extremist as a person that holds state’s rights over federal authority.
As in, say, the Tenth Amendment in the Bill of Rights? Most people, including you, dear reader, likely remember this ancient document fondly known as the Constitution of the United States. I do. I carry a copy with me, and in there are defined the rights of the Federal Government. Nowhere in that document does it say that the Federal Government has the right to place our grandchildren and great-grandchildren under the servitude of a national debt of an unbelievable size. Nowhere in there does it say that a President has the right to dictate salaries to private institutions or to fire CEO’s of private companies. The Constitution does not allow the Government to oppose free speech. The current Administration has made it clear that talk radio that opposes them is “dangerous” and an “obstacle to progress.”
Many of these issues were discussed at the Tea Party today. They were discussed by obviously radical right-wing elements such as grey-haired grandmothers, businessmen in suits, middle-class families with children present, veterans, flag waving teens and people that had tears hearing hundreds of people pledging allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. I did not see any swastikas, KKK hoods, burning effigies or rock-throwing. I did not hear voices raised in anger, but I did hear voices raised in determination. This was not a protest by morons at a G7 meeting, but rather a gathering or people that you would usually meet at the supermarket, or at church, or at w
ork that have had enough of Federal social engineering and domination. They are tired of a Federal Government that makes mandates to the 50 states at the drop of a hat, but cannot balance a budget.I predict that these meetings today, that took place all over the states and were attended by huge numbers of people, are going to be ridiculed and castigated by the press and Administration. They are going to say that we are all being ‘programmed’ by the right-wing ‘echo-chamber’ and that if we had not had that medium we would never have had these thoughts ourselves. My answer to that is that my ancestors had these ideas before there were even radios to be had, and that we were simply raised correctly when we learned these conservative ideals. Opposition to wrong ideas is not radical; it is necessary and required in a republic.
God bless this Country.
*Note by Kelly: the last two pictures (thanks to a cousin) are from a Tea Party held at the Federal Building in Salt Lake City, Utah. Those in attendance endured the rain, snow and cold to show their support for this cause.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
A Libertarian Point of View
It is finally time to get something off of my chest that has bothered me for a great many years. I can sum it up in one word that every citizen of the United States has burned into our psyche:
Vietnam.
I was born in 1963, five days after Kennedy was shot in Dallas. I was born in a small town in the Texas Panhandle, and most of my childhood memories are centered around the places that we lived and the small town that my Mom and Dad both went to High School in, a great place (that is mostly gone now) by the name of Quitaque, TX. It was in Quitaque that I learned my values for the most part. I spent many days there during the summers with both sets of grandparents, and a host of small-town personalities that grew to know me over the years, and I learned to love and appreciate them in ways that are hard to understand if you come from a big-city background. This was one of the last places in Texas where you could meet “sure enough” pioneers and the direct descendants of pioneers that came to that part of the southern plains right after the Civil War. My people were these people. They were cotton farmers and they were ranchers, and many of them still do these things. They are a hard people, seasoned by hard climate and a hard economy that has not changed since the Comanche were forced into Oklahoma reservations.
They are a patriotic people, make no mistake. My Grandfather’s brother lost his life in the Argonne in WWI while my grandmother’s uncle, named Jefferson Davis Chalk, Jr., also fought in France there and managed to come back. My grandmother lost two brothers in WWII. One died in Patton’s army, and another died in a plane that exploded in the Pacific over Tarawa. My mother had an uncle that flew 45 missions over Germany in a B-17 as a radio operator and gunner for the 8th Air Force. These are not a cowardly people, and my family has spread their blood over every American war since the time of the French and Indian Wars.
My memories of the Vietnam conflict are those that come from a boy watching events that come from those times. I remember watching campus riots with my mother on a small black and white television in the kitchen in Dallas in 1969. I remember watching the news about the December bombing of North Vietnam and the talks that followed. I remember with particular clarity the returning soldiers and POW’s walking off of airplanes to crying families.
I remember other things.
There were examples of people hating the soldiers that came back shocked and destroyed by that place. I remember listening to proud soldiers that came back to be despised and rejected by the very Republic that had sent them there, whether they had wanted to go or not. I remember families that would never be the same because the people that had gone did not return. I remember a nation divided by the blood of their children and fathers, and a national draft that forced college boys to pass courses at school or be sent into a jungle hell that ate boys like them like potato chips. I also remember that my family was and still is greatly angered about how that conflict was handled.
The neo-conservative movement of the late 90’s to the present wants to tell us that hating the Vietnam War is the same thing as siding with “Hanoi Jane” or John Kerry, the Benedict Arnold of the modern era. Hating the Vietnam conflict is, ergo, the same thing as being a liberal. This is simply not true. The egregious over-reach by the federal government that creates these kinds of wars is not a truly conservative viewpoint, and opposing that war was and is not the sole territory of the liberal camp. The anger that the Vietnam War created here in these United States cannot be simply written off as the result of kooks and vicious socialists that had the command of the national press.
So great was that anger that when Bush senior invaded Kuwait in 1991, remember that a great deal of attention was paid to the idea that this time, at least, we were going to get it right. A great deal of attention was paid to how the press was going to get information from the military. There was no way that we were going to live through the Vietnam conflict again.
Now we have to ask ourselves if we are doing it again.
Before you curse me as a liberal, allow me to explain. I am looking back from a conservative community that is mourning the loss of their children and fathers, and we are not happy about what happened there. The great lie of the “Domino Theory” was put to shame, and no matter how fervently the Kennedy and Johnson administrations might have believed it, the rest of Southeast Asia did not, in fact, fall to communism after South Vietnam fell to the North. Did bad things happen after the fall? No doubt that they did. The regime of Pol Pot was a humanitarian disaster. The slaughter of southern Vietnamese was a calamity. The point of anger came when we realized that all of the men and women that were lost in that conflict amounted to exactly ZERO. In fact, our intervention most likely caused a much greater slaughter than if we had just let the French fail to keep their colonial empire and let it go as such. Rather than let the military of this great nation fight that war to win it, we allowed the Cold War mentality to rule the day and the powers that were there decided that politics was the final arbiter of conflicts that claim thousands upon thousands of lives.
We cannot rewrite the past, and it does little good to even think about it unless we learn from our past mistakes. Ah, yes, and therein lies the rub, doesn’t it?
George Bush faced serious skepticism and sometimes outright opposition to invading Iraq not just from liberal elements, but also from the conservative elements. Why is that? I posit that not all of us that remember the Vietnam War dimly are necessarily liberals. I posit that the true and righteous anger over that calamity comes from a deep-seated and correct attitude about what a government of a Republic does and what it does not do. In a true republic, there is a sense of responsibility to the lives of citizens that are lost as a result of government action.
If this current regime pulls out of Iraq before we truly win, and we send others into Afghanistan to die with no clear goal, we are doing no less than re-inventing the Vietnam conflict in our own time. If there is no clear goal for the loss of life other than the political gain of one party over another, the righteous anger of the citizens asked to fight in these wars is not going to be just great, it will be, I predict, overpowering. I ask the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to both consider the loss of life as being other than something that happens because we have a military. If we are going to fight terrorism, we must declare what the goals are in a succinct and clear terminology.
In closing, I ask the readers to reflect on the words of the late President Eisenhower. If we bow to the wishes of an industrial war machine without thinking about the consequences, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Vietnam.
I was born in 1963, five days after Kennedy was shot in Dallas. I was born in a small town in the Texas Panhandle, and most of my childhood memories are centered around the places that we lived and the small town that my Mom and Dad both went to High School in, a great place (that is mostly gone now) by the name of Quitaque, TX. It was in Quitaque that I learned my values for the most part. I spent many days there during the summers with both sets of grandparents, and a host of small-town personalities that grew to know me over the years, and I learned to love and appreciate them in ways that are hard to understand if you come from a big-city background. This was one of the last places in Texas where you could meet “sure enough” pioneers and the direct descendants of pioneers that came to that part of the southern plains right after the Civil War. My people were these people. They were cotton farmers and they were ranchers, and many of them still do these things. They are a hard people, seasoned by hard climate and a hard economy that has not changed since the Comanche were forced into Oklahoma reservations.
They are a patriotic people, make no mistake. My Grandfather’s brother lost his life in the Argonne in WWI while my grandmother’s uncle, named Jefferson Davis Chalk, Jr., also fought in France there and managed to come back. My grandmother lost two brothers in WWII. One died in Patton’s army, and another died in a plane that exploded in the Pacific over Tarawa. My mother had an uncle that flew 45 missions over Germany in a B-17 as a radio operator and gunner for the 8th Air Force. These are not a cowardly people, and my family has spread their blood over every American war since the time of the French and Indian Wars.
My memories of the Vietnam conflict are those that come from a boy watching events that come from those times. I remember watching campus riots with my mother on a small black and white television in the kitchen in Dallas in 1969. I remember watching the news about the December bombing of North Vietnam and the talks that followed. I remember with particular clarity the returning soldiers and POW’s walking off of airplanes to crying families.
I remember other things.
There were examples of people hating the soldiers that came back shocked and destroyed by that place. I remember listening to proud soldiers that came back to be despised and rejected by the very Republic that had sent them there, whether they had wanted to go or not. I remember families that would never be the same because the people that had gone did not return. I remember a nation divided by the blood of their children and fathers, and a national draft that forced college boys to pass courses at school or be sent into a jungle hell that ate boys like them like potato chips. I also remember that my family was and still is greatly angered about how that conflict was handled.
The neo-conservative movement of the late 90’s to the present wants to tell us that hating the Vietnam War is the same thing as siding with “Hanoi Jane” or John Kerry, the Benedict Arnold of the modern era. Hating the Vietnam conflict is, ergo, the same thing as being a liberal. This is simply not true. The egregious over-reach by the federal government that creates these kinds of wars is not a truly conservative viewpoint, and opposing that war was and is not the sole territory of the liberal camp. The anger that the Vietnam War created here in these United States cannot be simply written off as the result of kooks and vicious socialists that had the command of the national press.
So great was that anger that when Bush senior invaded Kuwait in 1991, remember that a great deal of attention was paid to the idea that this time, at least, we were going to get it right. A great deal of attention was paid to how the press was going to get information from the military. There was no way that we were going to live through the Vietnam conflict again.
Now we have to ask ourselves if we are doing it again.
Before you curse me as a liberal, allow me to explain. I am looking back from a conservative community that is mourning the loss of their children and fathers, and we are not happy about what happened there. The great lie of the “Domino Theory” was put to shame, and no matter how fervently the Kennedy and Johnson administrations might have believed it, the rest of Southeast Asia did not, in fact, fall to communism after South Vietnam fell to the North. Did bad things happen after the fall? No doubt that they did. The regime of Pol Pot was a humanitarian disaster. The slaughter of southern Vietnamese was a calamity. The point of anger came when we realized that all of the men and women that were lost in that conflict amounted to exactly ZERO. In fact, our intervention most likely caused a much greater slaughter than if we had just let the French fail to keep their colonial empire and let it go as such. Rather than let the military of this great nation fight that war to win it, we allowed the Cold War mentality to rule the day and the powers that were there decided that politics was the final arbiter of conflicts that claim thousands upon thousands of lives.
We cannot rewrite the past, and it does little good to even think about it unless we learn from our past mistakes. Ah, yes, and therein lies the rub, doesn’t it?
George Bush faced serious skepticism and sometimes outright opposition to invading Iraq not just from liberal elements, but also from the conservative elements. Why is that? I posit that not all of us that remember the Vietnam War dimly are necessarily liberals. I posit that the true and righteous anger over that calamity comes from a deep-seated and correct attitude about what a government of a Republic does and what it does not do. In a true republic, there is a sense of responsibility to the lives of citizens that are lost as a result of government action.
If this current regime pulls out of Iraq before we truly win, and we send others into Afghanistan to die with no clear goal, we are doing no less than re-inventing the Vietnam conflict in our own time. If there is no clear goal for the loss of life other than the political gain of one party over another, the righteous anger of the citizens asked to fight in these wars is not going to be just great, it will be, I predict, overpowering. I ask the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to both consider the loss of life as being other than something that happens because we have a military. If we are going to fight terrorism, we must declare what the goals are in a succinct and clear terminology.
In closing, I ask the readers to reflect on the words of the late President Eisenhower. If we bow to the wishes of an industrial war machine without thinking about the consequences, then we have no one to blame but ourselves.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
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