Wadda 'MO
Posted on 12/11/2007 11:56:46 AM PST by 1rudeboy
Pat Buchanan is too patriotic to come right out and say it, but the message of his new book, "Day of Reckoning," is that America as we have known her is finished. Moreover, Naomi Wolf agrees with him. These two writers of different political persuasions arrive at America's demise from different directions.
Buchanan explains how hubris, ideology and greed have torn America apart. A neoconservative cabal with an alien agenda captured the Bush administration and committed American blood, energy and money to aggression against Muslim countries in the Middle East, while permitting America's domestic borders to be overrun by immigrants and exporting the jobs that had made the United States an opportunity society. War and offshoring have taken a savage economic toll, while open borders and diversity have created social and political division.
In her new book, "End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot," Wolf explains America's demise in terms of the erosion of freedoms. She writes that the 10 classic steps that are used to close open societies are currently being taken in the United States. Martial law is only a declaration away.
The Bush administration responded to Sept. 11 by initiating military aggression in the Middle East and by using fear and the "war on terror" to implement police state measures at home with legislation, presidential directives and executive orders.
Overnight, the United States became a tyranny in which people could be arrested and incarcerated on the basis of unsubstantiated accusation. Both U.S. citizens and non-citizens were denied habeas corpus, due process, and access to attorneys and courts. Congress gave Bush legislation establishing military tribunals, the procedures of which permit people to be condemned to death on the basis of secret evidence, hearsay and confessions extracted by torture. Nothing of the like has ever been seen before in the United States.
The cancer might have metastasized if the Guantanamo detainees had actually been the dangerous terrorists and enemy combatants that the Bush regime declared them to be. Had the administration actually possessed evidence against the detainees, the Bush regime might have succeeded in dispensing with the Constitution. Conviction of the detainees could have led to what Wolf calls a "fascist expansion." Following the exercise of its new powers, the regime could have broadened the definition of terrorist to include the regime's critics, thus pulling citizens in general into tribunals devoid of civil liberty protections.
It could still turn out this way in the event of another 9-11 attack, whether real or orchestrated. But momentarily, the drive toward tyranny has been blunted because the vast majority of detainees turned out to be hapless individuals sold into American captivity by warlords responding to the bounty the United States paid for "terrorists." Any unprotected individual was vulnerable to being captured by Afghan and Pakistani warlords and sold as a "terrorist." The Americans needed to show results, and the Bush regime needed "terrorists" in order to feed the fear its propaganda had generated.
In Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, the absence of evidence would not have mattered, as the judicial system produced the results demanded by the tyrants. However, the U.S. military had not been sufficiently corrupted for the Bush regime's Guantanamo agenda to succeed.
Honorable officers, such as Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, were able to discern that the U.S. government had no information on the detainees and used interrogations in order to rubber stamp the a priori determination that a detainee was a terrorist or enemy combatant. Military officers made these revelations known to real courts before the tribunal process could establish itself.
Andy Worthington's recently published book, "The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison," proves that the regime's claim that it had hundreds of dangerous terrorists at Guantanamo was just another Bush administration lie.
Currently, support for Bush, Cheney and the neoconservative agenda is low. However, Congress, the press and elections have proven to be feeble opponents of the Bush regime's drive toward war and tyranny. It remains to be seen whether the regime has sufficient credibility or audacity to initiate war with Iran or a false flag attack that would revive the fascist expansion of which Wolf warns.
The Bush administration has been a catastrophe. Its failures are unprecedented. Energy prices are at all-time highs. The United States is deeply in debt and dependent on foreign creditors. The dollar has lost 60 percent of its value against other tradable currencies, and its reserve currency status, the basis of American power, is in doubt.
The United States has lost millions of middle-class jobs, which have been replaced with low-paid domestic service jobs. Except for the very rich, Americans have experienced no gains in real income in the 21st century.
As the ladders of upward mobility are dismantled and the middle class struggles and fails, America is left with a few rich and many poor. America's reputation and credibility are damaged perhaps beyond repair. Congress and the press have enabled the executive branch's disregard of the Constitution and civil liberty. The United States is mired in two lost wars, which are pushing Lebanon and nuclear-armed Pakistan into deepening political crises.
As Buchanan concludes, "Our day of reckoning is at hand."
Gee, I wasn't aware they released them all because they're innocent.
What do these two think? Do they assume if they just keep screaming their ignorance and their hate long enough they will magically change their emotion based ignorant fictions to fact?
Buchanan and Wolf should get married.
Wadda 'MO
Pat is a columnist. His Presidential bid was good for bidness. That is all. Over and out.
I’m guessing he is supporting Ron Paul.
Well, if the past twenty years or more is indicative of a trend, great optimism about the future is a denial of the reality around us. Things may get better. But they may not. Too many people have become lost and are willing to accept and believe just about anything; as long as it’s not good. The difference between Wolf and Pat is Wolf would rejoice and Pat would not.
No kidding. For the most part, I see an angry American citizenry, driven by lack of leadership and agendas that are anything but beneficial or supportive of the American middle class.
PCR lost it after 9-11. A few months ago he was claiming that Bush would either cancel or steal the 2006 elections.
Pat is promoting a book. I refuse to believe our country is lost and don’t accept that theory. Guess I don’t give up as easy as Pat does. One thing for sure, if the money people aren’t controlled, we will have bigger problems.
Oh, wait .....
“A neoconservative cabal with an alien agenda.....”
That one’s loaded. If the truth were only known by Joe Public.
Paul Craig Roberts is currently a contributor to Hustler magazine. You can draw your own conclusions from that.
Buchanan raises some good issues...some he is off on.
No doubt Globalist free trade doesnt work...and supporting any program that would take jobs from Americans and give them to our enemies...would have been called treason a few years ago. Also, when fewer good paying jobs go to Americans, those Americans still with decent jobs will pay the brunt of it in higher taxes and scoial costs.
The border does need to be secured...illegals need to be repatriated....and employers hiring illegals should be imprisoned.
Buchanan is wrong on the WOT. We needed to get Saddam...and need to be in Iraq in case Iran, Saudi Arabia, or one of the other Islamic Terrorist States go nutty. Israel should be supported, not sold out to the Islamic Terrorist States.
I have no problem w the Patriot Act. It was needed after 9/11. The only fear I have is that if Hitlery Clintler becomes President, she will start using it on political enemies
Hmmm...I wonder what her take on the Second Amendment is. I wonder if gun registration/confiscation is one of the 10 steps. If it isn't, then as far as I'm concerned, her book is nothing more than utter rubbish.
Get back to me in Nov. '08
Under normal circumstances (and setting aside the WOT, which they oppose for other reasons), the business cycle catches up with them in three or four years so they don't look like total fools. The last couple business expansions have run longer than normal, so they are sounding rather shrill.
Name ONE, Wolfie.
pat buchanan is a moron
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