Posted on 09/27/2008 8:24:25 AM PDT by joanie-f
America is facing the most dangerous crisis in the history of our nation. It is not simply an economic crisis. It is a crisis whose outcome may well determine whether America continues to survive as a representative republic ... and whether America remains strong enough to face the massing, determined enemy outside of her borders.
The ‘economic’ portion of this crisis did not occur by accident. It occurred, in large part, as a result of leftist ‘social engineers’ who are intent on circumventing the Constitution to use pretended altruism in order to expand their power and further implement their left-leaning ideological agenda. And they cannot succeed unless the noble foundations upon which our republic was built are completely dismantled.
The current economic crisis, and all of its ramifications, represent a giant step in that insidiously evil crusade.
This economic meltdown is occurring largely as a result of socialist special interests pressuring their friends in congress to relax the underwriting standards for home mortgages. Those friends in congress used all manner of grotesque extortion and shakedown techniques, made legal through changes in law (most notably the Community Reinvestment Act), to pressure the banking/mortgage industry to grant hundreds of thousands of loans to low-income and minority citizens whose economic backgrounds exhibited little or no ability to repay those loans.
From the Ludwig von Mises Institute’s The CRA Scam and its Defenders:
When the CRA was created during the Carter administration, the administration also funded with tax dollars numerous ‘community groups’ that have helped the Fed, the Comptroller of the Currency, and other federal regulatory agencies to enforce the act. Under the CRA, if a bank wants to make virtually any change in its business operations — merging, opening up a new branch, getting into a new line of business — it must first prove to regulators that it has made ‘enough’ loans to the government's preferred borrowers. The (partially) tax-funded ‘community groups’ like ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) can file petitions with regulators that stop the bank's activities in their tracks, perhaps defeating them altogether. The banks routinely buy off ACORN and other ‘community groups’ by giving them millions of dollars as well as promising to make even more dubious loans.
Yes, there were other contributors to this meltdown, but years of such pressure and pandering to special interests were the major contributing factor in the crisis we are facing today (and tomorrow ... and beyond).
One of those special interest groups that participated broadly in this dramatic change in banking/mortgage procedures was indeed ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), one of the largest radical left-wing groups in America.
Barack Obama’s affiliation with ACORN is longstanding and deep. He ran an ACORN-sponsored massive voter registration effort (which was later accused, and continues to be accused, of engaging in massive voter fraud). He later became a trainer for the group, as well as its lawyer in numerous election law cases. He received strong financial support from ACORN in all of his election campaigns, and his affiliation with the group and its radical activities remains strong today.
Fast forward to September 26, 2008:
Many involved in the current congressional negotiations on the economic bailout proposal are attempting to make the public aware that the proposal being pushed by the democrats would have a large portion of the taxpayer-funded ‘bailout’ money diverted to whom?
ACORN.
Is the public becoming aware of this fact? No. Why? Because those in congress who are attempting to sound the alert are being righteously ignored by the mainstream media.
Lindsey Graham (R-SC) stated today, … this deal that’s on the table now is not a very good deal. Twenty percent of the money that should go to retire debt that will be created to solve this problem winds up in a housing organization called ACORN that is an absolute ill-run enterprise, and I can’t believe we would take money away from debt retirement to put it in a housing program that doesn’t work.
Wrap your minds around this concept, if you can.
Our current economic crisis threatens America’s existence on five major fronts:
(1) It threatens to plunder from the American taxpayers for generations to come, reducing their standard of living, threatening their hard-earned retirement security, and placing debt upon the shoulders of their children not yet born. And why? In order to correct the ‘errors’ made by our leadership, and brought about by the pressures of special interest groups.
(2) It is already succeeding in nationalizing major sectors of American private enterprise, in the banking and insurance industries ... with more to come.
(3) No matter the bailout plan that is adopted, more government regulation over the private sector will be enacted, dramatically increasing bureaucratic government interference in the free market system – i.e., placing yet another socialist anchor around the neck of our capitalist system.
(4) No matter the bailout plan that is adopted, our national debt will increase beyond our ability to pay it down, to the point where our national priorities will, of necessity, be transformed from one in which our safety, security and sovereignty take a perilous second place to our need to merely pay down the money that we borrowed to get ourselves out of this economic meltdown.
(5) Unless those who played an activist role in fomenting this crisis are sought out, investigated, and prosecuted where called for, and unless the citizenry demands an accounting and a broad excising of the corruption in their leadership, once the dust settles -- and it will settle, temporarily, after any bailout program takes effect -- nothing will change. No reform will occur. And our future will be filled with more of the same -- adding to our debt, taking away from our liberties, and putting our survival in jeopardy.
Now reflect back on the fact that the current leader in the race for the presidency has had, and continues to have, close activist ties with a radical organization that played a major role in the above cataclysm.
Now ask yourself this important question:
Why is ninety-nine percent of the American electorate unaware of that connection?
President Bush delivered an address to the nation two nights ago. The subject of that address was the current economic crisis.
In his attempt to explain the causes of this crisis, he insinuated that it all started because America’s economy was considered so healthy that it attracted investors from all over the world. As a result, banks and financial institutions were awash in money, and that state of affairs planted the seed for this debacle.
Our President offered up the greatest whitewash of the reasons for this catastrophe imaginable.
John McCain and Barack Obama participated in the first of four televised presidential debates tonight. Because of recent developments, despite the fact that foreign policy was scheduled to be the topic of the debate, much of their debate centered on our economic ills.
Barack Obama pointed the finger of blame for those ills at 'eight years of Bush economic policies -- policies that were embraced by John McCain.'
Did John McCain refute that argument by finally educating the American public regarding his opponent’s personal affiliation with a radical leftwing organization that played a significant role in creating the sub prime debacle? No, he simply spoke in platitudes about how we must all work together, in a bipartisan way, in order to solve this monumental problem.
I am aware (as are many of you) of the major causes of this crisis. And if I am aware of the part that Obama and those of his political ideology played in this catastrophe, surely my President and my candidate are as well.
What is keeping them from making that association a major issue in this election?
At the bottom of this travesty (the magnitude of which I don’t believe we have seen in either our or our parents’ lifetimes) are four crucial, potentially deadly, considerations:
(1) The virtually unbridled power of the mainstream media – who routinely turn our focus (because we allow them to) toward superficial nonsense, and away from information that would be extraordinarily dangerous to those whose ideology they share.
(2) The fact that, even during their deliberations in attempting to solve this economic crisis, most of the democrats in Washington still do not consider the safety and prosperity of the people of this country to be their main focus. Their main focus, even in these troubling times, is the amassing of power and the implementation of a leftist ideological agenda. Why else, when the economic (and possibly physical) safety and security of every American is hanging in the balance, would they still be attempting to divert a large portion of this gargantuan, taxpayer-funded bailout into the pockets of a left-leaning organization bent on social engineering (and an organization that played an activist role in the catastrophe to begin with)?
(3) If republicans in congress resort to compromise, as they have so often done over the past eighteen years, they will have committed the final betrayal. They will have saddled the American taxpayer with an unbearable burden – in the form of financial extortion, the crumbling of our capitalist system through the nationalization of private enterprise, and the granting of oversight powers to the government that were never envisioned by our Founders – all of which conditions are expressly forbidden by our Constitution. Individual liberty will be the major casualty – with security and sovereignty to follow, a distant, but definite, second.
(4) Congress, bowing to the enormous pressure of powerful, radical left-wing special interest groups, started this crisis by pressuring, in an entirely unconstitutional manner, the banking/mortgage industry to do what their special interest lobbyists wanted. Yet among the major end results of any temporary bailout will be the granting of significantly more 'oversight' powers, this time made legal by 'post-meltdown' legislation. The government will be granted enormous additional power to look over the shoulder of private industry and dictate the parameters under which it can function. Talk about rewarding crime, and positioning the country for more of the same ... now legalized ... much deeper, and much more threatening to our capitalist foundations.
I have little faith that the electorate will recognize the genuine nature of the man they are about to elect to the presidency. The media will not allow it. And the citizenry is too lazy to look beyond the mainstream media for answers.
I have little faith that our ‘leadership’ in Washington will once again begin to represent the best interests of the people. The corruption is too deep, and the power of special interests is too unwieldy and unaccountable, and growing moreso every day.
There are enemies at the gate. Enemies of the sort that the world has never known – who see it as their destiny to conform us to their image, or see us dead. When they decide to break down that gate in a brutal manner that goes far beyond the taking of three thousand innocent lives in two skyscrapers, an office building, and a commercial airplane, they will find little resistance. Not because the people within the gates weren’t once rugged individualists who valued freedom ... but because they no longer are.
I pray, fervently and daily, that I am wrong, or that He will somehow intervene.
~ joanie
That would qualify as the most eloquent, poetic imagery I have read in recent memory, if it didn't bring tears.
~ joanie
~ joanie
....now if they’ll all READ it!!!
I had a rather heated (to put it mildly) discussion earlier this week on an investment forum in which I take part. My 'opponent' claimed to be a die-hard conservative, but was chastising me for criticizing Bush.
The following is a part of one of his last private replies to me, after we had both settled down a bit:
In families, villages, or political parties, you don't get to pick your relatives neighbors or fellow party members. If you are to be of much value to them, and especially if you wish to have sway outside the fold, you don’t strengthen your position through gratuitous attacks on your mates.
When such attacks are used as an introductory device to a statement of position in an attempt to prove bona fides, they are only destructive to the argument. They only prompt questions of loyalty of the writer without supporting the position. They have become hackneyed, ludicrous habitual among "nominal" conservatives and the "country club Republican" crowd. Such attacks are ineffectual at best, cowardly at worst.
There are Republicans I despise. There are no (living) Democrats I admire. What do I gain for conservatism or the party by attacking Republicans? Would I thusly be considered smarter or more thoughtful or erudite by Democrats?
If you don't get it yet, just file it away, and some day it may dawn on you.
You seem young women. You might be my daughter's age. I love her, she is a passionate, “rock ribbed” conservative, highly educated and fairly accomplished, but her political skills and arguments are not yet fully developed either.
To which I replied:
I appreciate the more cordial tone of your message, as opposed to the previous ones.
I know that neither of us wants to begin a long-term ‘correspondence’, but it also appears that each of us appears to want the final ‘rebuttal’. So, for what it’s worth, here’s mine:
I very much doubt that I am the age of your daughter. As a matter of fact, I am probably older than you.
I have been involved in politics all of my adult life: as an activist, a newspaper political columnist, a campaigner, a freelance political writer, and a local office holder. I have served as an elected township official in our township for the past twenty-five years, and have learned, at least on the local level, how best to deal with the heavy-handed edicts handed down ‘from above’ (on the state and federal level).
I agree that we do not get to pick our party members. But neither do we have to support those who have gone astray.
The Republican Party has lost its way. The amount of damage that the two Bushes have done to the Reagan Miracle is mind boggling. I met Ronald Reagan on two occasions, and spoke with him briefly both times. There are no words to describe the concrete-ness of the vision that man embraced, and his eight years in the White House were testimony to his constant effort to achieve a return to representative republican government, whose basis is a reverence for individual liberty, accompanied by a prescribed minimal role for government.
The list of ‘accomplishments’ that both Bushes have achieved include countless ‘accomplishments’ that both eroded Reagan’s achievements and compromised with the left so significantly that it was often difficult to discern the ‘R’ behind their names.
I am an American first, a conservative second, and a Republican third. And if I see a fellow ‘Republican’ working against the conservative credo I will speak out. If I see a ‘conservative’ working against what is best for America, I will speak out. If I see an American working against our republic, I will question his allegiance.
We appear to be in general agreement as to the path down which our republic should be heading. But we vehemently disagree on where our ‘allegiance’ must lie in order to set her back on that path. I do not bear allegiance to a party, but rather to the vision of our Founders. Far be it from me to speak for them, but I suspect they would be terribly disappointed in George Bush’s lack of courage in not attempting to use the bully pulpit to educate the people as to the treason being committed in Washington every day. Instead, he himself is whitewashing, and compromising with, criminal behavior. His speech last night was a glaring example of that, and it is that kind of weakness that got us into this mess in the first place.
Our ends are the same. Our means appear to be vastly different.
Having your list at the ready should prove very helpful in future confrontations. Thanks.
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
There is no more powerful reminder. Thank you.
~ joanie
I wish I had either begun or ended my essay with that brilliance. I have it filed away to use another time.
A sincere thank you.
~ joanie
The American people, as in the rest of the world, have stuck their noses in the “boob tube” every available waking moment. They have been acclimated to the point where they implicitly trust the MSM. The MSM beat the drum of “hate Bush” with every lie possible to get this Democrat Congress in control. Now, two years after the Pelosi bunch took control, things have been steadily going to heck in a handbasket daily - and yet, “Bush” is still blamed for it all, and the Republicans seem incapable of countering it. I can understand it somewhat, with a largely rabidly liberal media hellbent on getting the first liberal black (semi-black) man elected President. If Obama were a conservative black man, he would be treated as Clarence Thomas was treated with any scandal, lie or rumor paraded around for all to see with their help. As it is, the alarming truths about Obama have been ignored and pooh-poohed by the now worthless media. They shore up “their” liberal boys as they did with the disgraceful Clinton.
People need to get their noses out of those irresponsible, liberal, tawdry TV shows and so-called “news” shows and FIND ANOTHER SOURCE OF NEWS and “ENTERTAINMENT”. This country is circling the bottom of the old commode hole and is about to flush on down. WAKE UP, ALL!
Thanks for well-deserved the comeuppance.
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
I would rather have NO bill come out of these "negotiations" than ANY bill that funds ACORN. Rather than that, I'd prefer the economy to go down in flames, and let the chips fall where they may. Enuf is enuf.
I am so glad to hear you say that. So many of my conservative friends keep repeating the mantra, 'But the government has to do something!'
The government has already done enough. It's time to 'let nature take its course'. Doing so would be painful, but it would stop the cycle of rewarding criminality and corruption, and that's the first (baby) step in reclaiming our republic from the scoundrels.
I'm glad, as always, that we're 'on the same page', dear sister. :)
~ joanie
~ joanie
Short, but profound!
~ joanie
Good points.
“Leadership”
in Washington???
Leaders have said a lot of things since 1900.
Their gloablist goals, intent, means are clearly stated in their pronouncements . . .
post #76
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2031425/posts?page=77#77
They are ‘leading’ the land to hell at an increasing speed.
Here is a cut and paste from a previous post I wrote on this thread that I think completes the 'reasons why Americans are ignorant of the facts in this election':
Our public education system is nothing more than an indoctrination facility anymore -- teaching children what to think rather than how to think.
I am a teacher, and I have discovered over the last twenty years or so that, unless they are provided a road map detailing how to get from Point A to Point B, American children are no longer able to navigate any intellectual pathway.
That state of affairs came about purposefully. The left needs to keep the masses in a condition where they need to be led around by the nose in order to move from day to day.
Critical thinking, and the ability to analyze a situation, widespread among the people, are majors roadblocks to the imposition of socialist rule. So filling children's heads with politically-correct 'facts', rather than teaching them to think on their own, is a distinct goal of the current public education system. And they're well of their way to achieving that goal.
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
I have it saved to read (every word) later this weekend.
Thank you for providing a priceless resource! Have you considered posting it as a stand-alone piece?
Best to you and yours in these troubling times ...
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
It's been proven, time and again, that the amount of money spent on education has little to do with the quality of that education.
Both my husband and I have substitute taught in several local school districts on and off over the past few years, and what we saw and heard there was demoralizing, to say the least.
Your Orwell reference is right on the mark.
~ joanie
Allegiance and Duty Betrayed
I'm increasingly coming to that realization norraad.
In theory, since both houses of Congress are in the hands of the Democrat majority, one would think that this bail-out package could pass without Republican votes. But the Dems are scared to death to do that. They NEED Republican cover; i.e., Pubbie votes to make this pig in a poke look "bi-partisan."
I hope that no Republican in Congress or the Senate will fall into this trap. One hears of all the yelling and screaming on Capitol Hill today. I imagine the reason for that is Pubbie Congress members are reminding the Dems that this "tar baby" is of their own exclusive manufacture, at the behest of the Congressional Black Caucus and their social-engineering enablers.
The Community Development Act (vintage Carter) is the Dem chicken that has finally come home to roost. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are merely "slush funds" for carrying out their social-engineering designs, and the thoroughly corrupt ACORN has been their enabler.
Further, the Dems are probably apoplectic about the prospect that the public (read: voters) will find out their presidential candidate is up to his armpits in this mess; for he is a "community organizer" with deep connections with ACORN.
So they've been trying to hang all this mess on the Bush Administration and the putative Republican mania to deregulate. Obama did this as late as last night, in the debate. This is a total fantasy! Then they claim that the "regulators" were asleep at the switch. But there was regulation of Fannie and Freddie, plus supposed congressional oversight of the regulators; the regulations were just ignored — which folks like Raines and Gorelick and Johnson probably thought they could safely do, because the Dems in Congress would give them political cover. Meanwhile, they looted the joint.
The inconvenient truth is that Republicans in both the Congress and the Senate have been making dire warnings (e.g., McCain, Shays, et al.) for years now about the impending implosion of those institutions. These warnings were poo-pooed by such as Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Maxine Waters, and the CBC.
Meanwhile, you have ACORN out there threatening to sue mortgage originators for "redlining"; i.e., applying sound fiduciary standards in the qualification of credit-worthy applicants. Much earlier, the Reno Justice Department had done likewise. The whole point was to put lower-income and minority people (including illegal aliens!) into homes they could not possibly afford.
Now if you're a mortgage originator who is threatened with being sued for not pushing loans on unqualified applicants; and you know that you are only required to hold the mortgage instrument for 45 days before you can palm it off on somebody else (usually Fannie and Freddie, who can further resell packages of such stinky loans to investors as mortgage-backed securities with implicit taxpayer guarantees behind them); then you don't care anyway whether the applicant has the ability to repay his obligation, because that's somebody else's problem (the person or institution that bought the mortgage backed security). The bad loans were off the books of the mortgage originator just as soon as the stipulated holding period expired; the sale proceeds were then in his hands; and so he's then flush with cash to repeat this maneuver, over and over again....
Thus was a house of cards constructed. Now that it's finally come crashing down — taking the housing market, the banks, and Wall Street along with it — we taxpayers are being presented with the bill for cleaning up the mess, which was not of our own making in the first place.
So much for the "socialization of risk": Let the whole people pay for the losses and evil deeds of a relatively few greedy miscreants.... Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea!
We'd continue to receive "bills" like this forevermore, unless the CORRUPTION IN CONGRESS ends, and the persons responsible for it are publicly exposed, tried, and punished.
All things considered, I think the best thing Congress can do right now is: Do nothing at all. Let the system blow up. And then people are going to start asking "Why, HOW did this happen?" And then the TRUTHFUL HISTORY of what led to this shocking debacle must be made public.
Hang the blame on who deserves it. If we don't do that, then the same kind of "stuff" is going to continue to happen forever, and the demands on the taxpayer would become infinite.
It looks to me, all things considered, that to pass this bailout would represent the final, complete socialization of America, which would instantly become a reality — in a silent, bloodless coup.
The public needs to understand that the root cause of this financial meltdown was the unconstitutional social engineering desires of a relatively small group of extreme Left progressives in Congress. They should be impeached for derilection of duty (i.e., breach of their oath of office), or at least NEVER returned to office.
As for Raines and Gorelick and Johnson, they should be prosecuted for gross fraud and malfeasance. I mean, if Ken Lay of Enron is in jail for doing just the same things as they did, then I think it's only just and fair that they should join him.
My two cents worth, FWIW.
Thanks so much for writing, norraad!
BTTT
No, that isn’t my quote. I read it on FR.
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