Posted on 11/27/2008 7:16:07 PM PST by BCW
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.
Obama is not president yet.
Anyone else notice the story about two weeks ago, when Obama and Bush met last time ... they’re said to have shaken hands, then an assistant offered Bush a dab of alcohol-based hand cleaner. Bush then offered the same, to Obama.
It seemed so strange at the time. Now I wonder whether Bush was testing. Vetting, the next president.
I say BS to you. I deal with folks daily who have real money and you dont pass the muster son.
And when you fall overboard (and you will), no one will lift a finger at 60 cents per hour to fish you out.
Yeah it makes you a liberal troll and not a very good one.
lol whatever.
This is how the system is gamed. At the moment Congress shirked their responsibility to coin money and abdicated to a private, for profit banking cartel known as the Federal Reserve bank. Those ass clowns aren’t in any way looking out for you or me or any free American. Their end game is to steal as much as they can from us by way of taxes in order to fund their outrageously leveraged bets and relegate us all as no better than economic slaves to the government through taxes on every aspect of our lives including all private property which was one of the major founding influences of our Constitution. There is no coincidence this abomination came into existence in 1913 and six months later the American “subjects†were forced to start paying taxes for things other than the National Defense or common welfare. Our tax system today is designed to bail these assholes and their crony bankers out every time they get burned in market. The bailouts are an outrage and will do nothing to help the economy at all. This money is going right into the the pockets of those “connected” to government and the Fed. This is beyond the worst of organized crime! We will possibly need a second American Revolution in order to save ourselves from this treason and the irony of it will be to reestablish the principles of the founding fathers that the first American Revolution put in place. We can’t in any way expect our governmental leadership to hold anyone accountable since they were also blatantly complicit in this theft from the citizens of this country. The situation we find ourselves in is like Alice in Wonderland. How far down the rabbit hole are we willing to go? People need to be prosecuted!...start with the Federal Reserve bankers and then get their congressional enablers. If the people running our government are incapable of bringing justice, then they are incapable of leading us. So be it. We can try to vote them out in two year but I suspect the it’s all rigged since you don’t even have to prove citizenship to vote or run for President. You have socialists and outright communists running our government and the illegals and immigrants from third world toilets are all too keen to vote them in power in order to get their free goodies at the expense of actual American workers and as a bonus these infiltrators don’t even have to assimilate. We don’t need an outside enemy to bring us down, our political leadership is doing it for them. If you read most literature from the days of the first American Revolution you find uncanny similarities to our present situation only in a different time period. People need to decide whether they are just going to B and moan, wring their hands, lament on how bad things have become, or get tough and stand up for the principles of the US Constitution as well as the moral values that this country was founded upon. How much does it mean to you? Does the Constitution and morals merit saving? Does your freedom matter? Or will you just lament the loss and go along for the ride. Now is the time to decide where you stand and what your willing to do. It’s blatantly obvious we can not and should not rely on any of of the two major political parties to get us out of this mess..they were both complicit!!! and still work to protect the status quo which seems to be pass the law du jour that screws honest hard working Americans. We should not let them get away with it.
When you make comments like that, I am ready to believe you are posting this dreck here so people can quote 'the eeevil Capitalist' on Free Republic.
On some of the other discussion forums we call 'em 'mobys'. A peculiar type they are.
There. That's how I meant to post it.
google prison labor in America, do you think is doesnt happen.
I did not say it did not happen, it does. Here, the profit from prison industry goes into the state's general fund. Most of the products created are not for/by private companies, but are used by government agencies.
Our enemy is apathy, allowing our ruling class in Washington to change what is America, unabated and unchallenged.
Stupidity is a big part of it too. A lot of otherwise smart Amercians are just plain stupid about a lot of things & very shortsighted as well. These people may be good at their jobs, but they can’t balance their budgets or understand why what feels good today might end up destroying us tomorrow. As we see on Wall Street, even “the Smartest Guys in the Room” turn out to be idiots who are not in touch with reality. I see this every day—people making short term decisions to make themselves look good (and get that next promotion), but will be disasterous longterm. Lastly, Americans used to make decisions based (in part) on what was good for the country. Those days are dead and gone.
I didn’t know they had computers in Creedmore
You're on FR. You have no idea with whom and what you're dealing.
Take the advice or not. This isn't just some podunk blogsite.
Who wants us dead are the greenies, they want to save the world and if that means killing off people, so what, unless it is them.
Would you mind sharing with the board, your line of work?
Something more specific than “capitalist”?...
Thanks.
(I’ll start, I’m a programmer)
I agree with your assessment of the newish poster.
Try reading the responding posts. That may explain the "why".
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