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Something of historic proportions is happening
Atlas Shrugs | A reader comment over at Dollard's place

Posted on 11/14/2008 6:32:48 AM PST by freedom9

"I am a student of history. Professionally. I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life. I think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is just a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten - fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?

We learn just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has “loaned” two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the 700B we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of “we the people,” who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (now violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it wants marriage to remain between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?). We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is medicare and our entire government, our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and know precisely what I am talking about)–the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth. It is potentially 1929 x ten. And we are at war with an enemy we cannot name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And now we have elected a man no one knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla, Alaska. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin’s pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe is more imporant.)

Mr. Obama’s winning platform can be boiled down to one word: change.

Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning.

And I thought I would never be able to experience what the ordinary, moral German felt in the mid-1930s. In those times, the savior was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they did know was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory and promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his “brown shirts” would bully them into submission. And then, he was duly elected to office, a full-throttled economic crisis at hand [the Great Depression]. Slowly but surely he seized the controls of government power, department by department, person by person, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The kids joined a Youth Movement in his name, where they were taught what to think. How did he get the people on his side? He did it promising jobs to the jobless, money to the moneyless, and goodies for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe, and across the world.

He did it with a compliant media–did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and . . . change. And the people surely got what they voted for.

(Look it up if you think I am exaggerating.)

Read your history books. Many people objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and made fun of. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though.

Don’t forget that Germany was the most educated, cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And in less than six years–a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency–it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me.

Some people scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. Perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe–and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am."


TOPICS: Your Opinion/Questions
KEYWORDS: 30sgermany; acorn; brownshirts; change; federalreserve; germany; nazi; obama; obamanation; obamatruthfile; thecomingdarkness
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When they started shutting down military bases, downsizing the forces and enacting firearm registry in my country, Canada, I also got the feeling that "Something of historic proportions is happening"
1 posted on 11/14/2008 6:32:48 AM PST by freedom9
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To: freedom9

>I also got the feeling that “Something of historic proportions is happening”

All I can say is that with all these people with experiential knowledge warning us in various ways I’m getting kind of apprehensive.

A new Hitler?
A second Civil War?
What?!


2 posted on 11/14/2008 6:35:05 AM PST by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: freedom9

Who wrote this? John Galt?....


3 posted on 11/14/2008 6:35:56 AM PST by Red Badger (Never has a man risen so far, so fast and is expected to do so much, for so many, with so little...)
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To: freedom9

Extremely suspicious that the Fed would ‘loan’ Two Trillion and then not tell where the money went. Several things about that that I haven’t gotten my head around yet.


4 posted on 11/14/2008 6:37:21 AM PST by BlueStateBlues (Blue State for business, Red State at heart..)
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To: BlueStateBlues

They don’t want to cause a bank run on the insolvent banks. Simple as that.


5 posted on 11/14/2008 6:39:43 AM PST by refermech
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To: freedom9
< bookmarked for posterity's sake >
6 posted on 11/14/2008 6:41:10 AM PST by tomkat ( . . preparing to shrug . .)
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To: refermech

Makes sense, and I hope that’s ‘all’ there is to it, although it’s enough.


7 posted on 11/14/2008 6:41:42 AM PST by BlueStateBlues (Blue State for business, Red State at heart..)
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To: freedom9

psst I know what it is.

SomeOne very important is coming!

Quickly, I hope!


8 posted on 11/14/2008 6:42:44 AM PST by kimmie7 (***sigh***)
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To: freedom9

link to source please?


9 posted on 11/14/2008 6:42:53 AM PST by silverleaf (Fasten your seat belts- it's going to be a BUMPY ride.)
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To: OneWingedShark
Straight from Chairman Hussein's mouth:
"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
There's your what.
10 posted on 11/14/2008 6:43:46 AM PST by Dahoser (America's great untapped alternative energy source: The Founding Fathers spinning in their graves.)
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To: LS

Did you write this?

;-)


11 posted on 11/14/2008 6:44:16 AM PST by savedbygrace (SECURE THE BORDERS FIRST (I'M YELLING ON PURPOSE))
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To: freedom9

Concisely stating my sentiments exactly. In every respect.

The ultimate enigma to me is: We read his words, we look into his history, such as is available, thinking that they will give us insight into his thinking. But we’re not permitted to take him at his word nor criticize his actions nor to object on any of those grounds.

So, either we no longer know how to read; or we know how to read, and we’ve been taken over by a liar and a mob of people who voted for being lied to. It all seems so very delusional.


12 posted on 11/14/2008 6:44:29 AM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder (No longer wondering whether we wake up in the newest socialist country tomorrow.)
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To: freedom9

The world is re-arranging itself in economic terms.


13 posted on 11/14/2008 6:44:54 AM PST by durasell
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To: freedom9
"I am a student of history. Professionally. I have written 15 books in six languages, and have studied it all my life."

"I am extremely impressed with myself, and I wasn't paying attention when they covered pronouns and antecedents in English class."

14 posted on 11/14/2008 6:45:12 AM PST by Tax-chick ("I thank Thee, dear Jesus, that Thy will and not mine has been done." ~St. Frances Cabrini)
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To: OneWingedShark
A new Hitler?

yup, der volks have spoken

A second Civil War?

CW II...lock and load

15 posted on 11/14/2008 6:45:29 AM PST by Vaquero ("an armed society is a polite society" Robert A. Heinlein)
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To: BlueStateBlues

I heard about this a couple of days ago-is there a news article about it? Two TRILLION$ is an eye-opener- where is it?


16 posted on 11/14/2008 6:46:03 AM PST by SE Mom (Proud mom of an Iraq war combat vet)
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To: refermech

This guy could use a roll of tin foil


17 posted on 11/14/2008 6:46:17 AM PST by woofie
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To: OneWingedShark
A second Civil War?

We can only hope!

18 posted on 11/14/2008 6:46:31 AM PST by unixfox (The 13th Amendment Abolished Slavery, The 16th Amendment Reinstated It !)
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To: freedom9

Nothing to see here, move on and spend your time in the supermarket deciding between the dozens of toothpaste brands you’re offered. /sarc


19 posted on 11/14/2008 6:47:16 AM PST by Troll_House_Cookies (Ironically, Chancellor Obama's first re-education camp will be in Alaska.)
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To: freedom9

It’s not “we”, who has done these things. Jeesh, identify the enemy.


20 posted on 11/14/2008 6:51:09 AM PST by Jabba the Nutt (Barack Obama, the American Salvador Allende.)
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