The Constitutional Matters Project - OpEd

Veepstakes

2008-07-01T04:37:27Z

This seems like a good time to talk about the race for the vice presidency. Not because of the overwhelming excitement involved in what is essentially a backstage safari. And not because of the dazzling personalities being rigorously vetted. Because nothing else is going on. Right now, the Veepstakes is the only game in town. The presidential campaign has entered what can only be described as its dormant hibernation phase. The whole damn thing has stalled like John Goodman over the dessert table at a 4 star casino’s Sunday Brunch on the Mississippi Coast. Think of an endlessly looping PBS pledge drive.

The candidates have abandoned the playing field and are sucking down Gatorade while the trainers search for additional wads of cash to stuff into the hollow portions of their uniforms. And the score at halftime finds Barack Obama leading John McCain by about 15 points. Which should excite Democrats. I mean the last time they had this kind of a lead, at this point in the race, was way, way back, 4 years ago when John Kerry enjoyed a similar lead over George Bush. Oh.

Meanwhile, welcome to silly season. To demonstrate their unity, former sworn mortal enemies, Senators Obama (Crips) and Clinton (Bloods) met up in a New Hampshire town named Unity where back in January, both received 107 votes. Get it? They’re not at each other’s throats anymore. They’re in Unity. You can’t make stuff up like this. And no, I have no idea if Truth or Consequences, New Mexico or Maggie’s Nipples, Wyoming were considered as alternates in case the civic fathers of Unity proved truculent.

We should relish these two months of campaign down- time before the conventions begin, and where just like now, absolutely nothing will happen. The only difference is then, that nothing will be reported upon at such a great length, that grown men are developing rashes on the insides of their thighs just thinking about it.

Who will be number 2? Nobody knows. And we might not for a while. This time around the VP picks are undergoing prodigious scrutiny due to the peculiar vulnerability of each of the nominees. John McCain is old and could nod off at any time and Barack Obama is black and will have to campaign in America, a country more comfortable with guns than library cards. No word as to whether that whole library card thing is scheduled for any future Supreme Court docket.

Both secondary races are wide open and the speculation is so thick you can hide small clusters of cherry tomatoes in the smoke coming out of Chris Mathews’ ears. You got your public short list and you got your private shorter list and then you got your slip of paper with Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney’s names on it, who only get the nod if every other politician in America co- incidentally trips and falls into an active lava tube.

Some people say that the Vice President doesn’t affect the general election. Maybe not, but the choice of the Vice President does have an impact. Do the names Eagelton, Ferraro, and Quayle have any meaning here? How bout Admiral Stockdale, Ross Perots’s running mate in 92. “Who am I? Why am I here?” A question never adequately answered. For him or for us. Or for our current presumptive nominees.

Political comic and author, Will Durst will be appearing at Rainbow Books in Madison, Wisconsin on July 2nd, on CNN’s This Week in Politics on July 5th and 6th, the Mason City Limits Comedy Club on July 11th & 12th, and at the Springfield, Illinois Barnes & Noble on the 12th.
His book, The All American Sport of Bipartisan Bashing, is available at Amazon and better bookstores all over this great land of ours. Better bookstores. Not Borders.

The Audacity of Arrogance

2008-07-01T04:19:33Z

Anyone who doubts the downside of hubris should think of the losing campaign of Hillary Clinton. Like cholesterol in arteries, extreme arrogance can block seeing political realities.

And Barack Obama is exhibiting horrendous hubris by, for example, flip-flopping on his pledge to use federal campaign financing for the general election, and for displaying an Obama seal in public events that closely resembles the official presidential seal.

Welcome to the audacity of arrogance.

But there is a lot more to this Age of Hubris.

At least 20 percent of Americans are on top of the economic ladder. Some 60 million people are not suffering because of high gasoline prices, are driving around in expensive $40,000+ cars, are living in sumptuous McMansions and vacation homes, have good health insurance, and are shopping in expensive stores and eating in luxurious restaurants that continue to do gangbuster business. They keep buying the most expensive products ever made available in human history. This elitist Upper Class benefits from the two-party plutocracy that through government policies takes care of them because the wealthy take of politicians. It is very likely that the vast majority of Obama’s small donors are part of this Upper Class.

About 3 million of these people comprise the super-rich that fly around the globe in private jets and are driven around in limousines, live in enormous well guarded homes costing tens of millions of dollars, and vacation on their yachts and private islands. They are members of the ruling plutocracy.

Meanwhile, the remaining 240 million Americans are suffering in a multitude of ways: millions lack health insurance and care, millions lack adequate food and shelter, millions more face economic insecurity and pain as they cope with extremely expensive gas and mounting food prices even as they increasingly recognize that enjoyable retirement is a disappearing dream and possible job loss puts them one step away from personal bankruptcy. With rising economic inequality, the vast majority of Americans are hurting, which explains why 84 percent say the country is on the wrong track.

So here is the logical question: Are all the rich and affluent Americans feeling nervous and increasingly afraid that their physical security may be increasingly at risk? Are they beginning to think about millions of suffering and furious Americans rising up in violent revolution against the status quo political and economic system? Are they thinking about the millions of angry Americans who own guns? Are they remembering that in human history economic slaves have risen up to openly and brutally overturn repressive regimes? Do they contemplate a populist revolt threatening their wealth? Do they ever think about another American Revolution?

Or are the rich and powerful thinking that all these millions of disenchanted Americans will continue to placate themselves by venting their anger on websites, participating in national and grassroots groups protesting societal ills, writing letters to newspapers and posting signs in their yards, and voting for politicians that promise CHANGE? Are they thinking that the masses of suffering Americans are just too distracted by all their hard work and pain, just too dumb, or just too pessimistic about fighting the SYSTEM to actually take up arms in pursuit of happiness? Are they confident that the police and military that THEIR government controls can and will protect them from violent revolutionaries? Or, are they confident that the two-party system will continue to prevent open rebellion with shallow promises of change? Do they believe that there are no limits to how the masses can be manipulated and brainwashed? Hubris can bite you.

In the past I wrote that despite revolting conditions, Americans seemed completely unready to revolt. But things have steadily gotten worse. Not that long ago few of us foresaw millions of Americans losing their homes because of the shenanigans of the financial sector, millions of people facing daily pain because of historically high gasoline prices, and millions more struggling with rising food prices. Lifestyles and quality of life are now tangibly impacted.

Support for change-politicians like Ron Paul, John Edwards and Barack Obama provide evidence of the populist pot boiling over. The current presidential race and upcoming general election are providing a peaceful venting of pent up anger and disillusionment with unshared national prosperity, at least for those that still believe voting matters. All elections offer is broken promises. This electoral bait and switch is what the two-party plutocracy uses to maintain status quo stability.

The post-election period will repeat history as the two-party plutocracy in service of the Upper Class uses its muscle to prevent true and meaningful systemic changes to alleviate the woes of most Americans. Even with Barack Obama as president.

What then? Will there be enough energy left among the bitter, anxious and angry to spark a revolution? Will people in this most violent and most gun-crazy nation on Earth finally realize that voting no longer works?

Will the horrendous hubris of the Upper Class and the lying politicians that serve them be proven correct, because Americans remain unready to revolt despite revolting conditions? Will the suffering masses remain compliant and subservient, complaining and moaning, depressed and disillusioned, but not openly revolting?

You will decide.

Will you do more than vote, talk, read and write in the usual ways? Will the Upper Class fear activists, populists and progressives? Will dissidents on the left and right join together to fight a common enemy? Or with horrendous hubris will elites continue to feed their greed through economic tyranny?

Let’s start the revolution by not voting for either the Democratic or Republican presidential candidate, but instead voting for an independent or third party candidate. I recommend Ralph Nader, whose integrity and populist policy positions truly support we the people.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

What is Conservatism?

2008-06-25T23:43:31Z

To me, conservatism is about believing in the principles on which this country was founded. Those principles are grounded, not in the unlimited powers of government to regulate every aspect of our lives, but in our inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Everyone understands what’s meant by life and liberty, but the pursuit of happiness clause is not always clear to people. The government doesn’t guarantee anybody’s happiness. But what it does guarantee is that each of us has the right to pursue whatever happiness may mean to us, as individuals, in whatever way we see fit, as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of anybody else. That’s a powerful concept.

What makes this country unique among all nations is the fact that our founding fathers believed so strongly in individualism that they placed the rights of the individual above the rights of the collective society, or the “common good.” From its inception, this country was founded on the precepts of individual freedom and individual responsibility. As an American, you have the freedom to live your life however you choose to live it. But the corollary of that freedom is that you also have to take responsibility for your life, and the choices you make, and the consequences of those choices.

It’s not the role of the government to protect you from yourself, or from your own bad choices, poor judgment, or ignorance. That’s up to you. It’s also not up to the government to provide you with basic necessities, like food, shelter, medical care, employment, recreation, or anything else, save the protection of your individual rights. All those are your responsibility to provide for yourself and your dependents. But, by the same token, neither does the government have the right to take away what is yours to provide those things for others.

The concept of private property is fundamental to the realization of individual freedom. What you earn by the fruits of your labor, your mind, your creativity, talents, and the skills you’ve worked to develop, belongs to you and you alone. You may choose to share what’s yours with whomever you want, but that, too, is up to you. It’s not up to the government to take what you earn and redistribute it to those who can’t, or won’t, or don’t earn.

Our founding fathers recognized that, to maximize individual freedom, you have to limit the powers of government. The only truly legitimate role of the government is to protect your rights from being infringed upon by others. Quite simply, the purpose of government is to protect me from you, and you from me, and both of us from a common enemy. Locally, that means law enforcement and criminal justice. Nationally, that means a strong military. I support both.

I’m not against all taxation. I recognize that you don’t get something for nothing. The protection of my rights as a citizen, and our national sovereignty, is worth a lot to me. And I’m willing to pay for that. But I’m not willing to pay for everything else anybody wants that they can’t afford to pay for themselves. If you want something of value, you have to provide value in return. Just because you can’t afford something, doesn’t give you the right to take it out of my pocket. Nobody owes you anything, except what you earn.

The other fundamental building block of a free society is the free market. Some people confuse the phrase “free market” with “big business.” Those two concepts are orthogonal. A free market simply means that every transaction is entered into by the free will of the participants, with no coercion. A free market transaction is always win-win because, if either party doesn’t believe he’s getting more value than what he’s exchanging for it, he can walk away from the transaction. When the government imposes subsidies, tariffs, price controls, quotas, or other regulatory constraints upon the free market, it only serves to circumvent the free will of the people to choose how best to spend the money we earn, under the premise that the government knows what’s best for us better than we do.

The basic building blocks of freedom are free will, free markets, private property, and limited government. And that’s what conservatism in America is about.

Life Outside The Beltway

2008-06-25T23:29:44Z

Washington elites, pontificating pundits and media types would be very surprised to know: There is life outside the beltway. Millions of largely invisible, average Americans live there. And these Americans are living lives totally alien to the thousands of so-called experts and talking heads who claim to represent them.

For instance: These Americans, (I’ll call them ‘we’ Americans, as I belong to their ranks), aren’t waiting breathlessly for the latest word on high from Hillary. We really don’t care what she says, having learned long ago that much of what comes out of her mouth is designed for political expediency, not conveying truths.

We’re also not marveling over the new media messiah, Obama. We’ve been around awhile and we know what all the experts don’t, namely, that a 15 minute flash in the pan does not a president make. As far as we’re concerned, the job of running this, the greatest country in the world, requires more than being able to give a good speech. And even though some of us wear checkered shirts and have been known to drink beer on occasion doesn’t mean we don’t know the difference between socialism and capitalism.

Instead of spending all our time dissecting the nuance and context of the latest sound bite du jour, we have better things to do. Like earning a living, spending time with family or just plain having fun.

We have lives that are not dependent on political fortunes or government largesse. We live in the real world. A world, unlike the inside of the D.C. beltway, where hard work and merit are appreciated and rewarded. A world where a man’s word is still his bond and Christian values still mean something. A world where acquiring power and money mean less than earning an honest living and the respect of our neighbors.

The latest polls mean less than zero to us. We know that in politics, 24 hours can be a lifetime and there are many lifetimes to go before we cast our votes in November.

We ‘invisible’ Americans know when we’re being patronized and we have enough common sense to take with a grain of salt any pronouncements claiming to be ‘for our own good.’ We know best how to run our lives, not some yahoo who’s only accomplishment was fooling enough of the populace to get elected to a position of political power.

To most of us in flyover country, political correctness is the hallmark of a herd animal – one who follows the group and lets others do his thinking for him. One who is more concerned with group status than doing what he thinks is right. You know who I mean: the guys and gals that appear on TV, gravely giving us peons the benefit of their vast knowledge. The ones who claim the ‘truth’ is relative yet insist that their version is the only acceptable truth.

The difference between those that inhabit the rarified real-estate inside-the-beltway and us average Americans is, we are held accountable for the decisions we make. And when we endorse or promote a cause or an idea, we do it with our own money, not the taxpayers’. And we do it quietly, for the right reasons, knowing that the virtue is in the doing, not the talking about it.

Here in the heartland, we all practice capitalism without shame and we don’t apologize for making a profit. A lot of us still lower our voices to a whisper when discussing race, but we’re working on that.

Words still have meanings and we know that relabelling a donkey as a princess doesn’t make that ass a princess. We know a rose is still a rose, even if a self-annointed expert says it isn’t. We really don’t need or want all the inside-the-beltway experts telling us how to raise our own kids, what kind of car to buy, or how to celebrate diversity.

Mostly, we’d just like to be left alone by all the do-gooders who’s main talents are manufacturing crisis’ in order to save us from them. We’d sure appreciate it if you’d limit your mischief making to inside the beltway and leave us all alone. We can live our lives just fine without your help.

Tim Russert: Enough Already!

2008-06-16T23:15:09Z

NBC’s Tim Russert died of a heart attack on Friday. Only the deaf, dumb and blind can be unaware of this fact. Ever since the unfortunate death of one of the major players in the field of media and politics, non-stop media coverage has drummed this fact home to millions of Americans. Enough, already.

This media coverage, still going strong, is becoming quite unseemly. Granted, Russert seemed an affable, good man. I could see this in his eyes the few times I saw him on television. Granted, his death was a shock. A shock that affected me personally, even though I never met the man, as it rudely reminded me of the fragility of life and the importance of time. He died too soon, and if it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone. Life is not fair.

That said, the continuing coverage of his death has turned into a circus. It is no longer about Tim Russert.

In a frantic rush to burnish their own social credentials, scores of B and C list players are desperately maneuvering to get coveted national face time. “Tim was a good friend of mine” is the pass word of the day as the networks fill hour after hour with the burnished recollections of has-beens, wanna-bes and actual sorrowing friends.

These tales, the cute stories, the hitherto unknown tidbits issuing forth ad naseum are less about Tim Russert than about the blind scramble by hangers-on to be considered part of the story, to be considered ‘still relevant’ by virtue of their association with a beloved media figure.

The coverage of Russert’s death has ceased being about celebrating the life and mourning the death of Tim Russert. Instead, it has evolved into a platform designed to assure fragile egos that they, the media, are still relevant. Every morning talk show, every channel on every network is indulging in a mass celebration of their own importance. And they’re using Tim Russert’s death to do it.

This orgy of sentiment feels wrong to this writer. Sincere feelings of loss and sadness are to be expected when a respected personage dies before his time. But the orchestrated outpouring currently monopolizing the airwaves is saying more about the media itself than the death of Russert.

The rush to televise what should normally be private feelings of loss has cheapened Russert’s passing. Just as it cheapens every celebrity who decided to use his passing to bolster their own credentials.

If I had been lucky enough to have known Russert personally and been his friend, I would hesitate to make hay from his death. I most certainly wouldn’t use a personal tragedy to assure myself and the nation that I’m special by virtue of being part of his circle. Color me old fashioned.

I’d put my ego on hold out of respect. Respect for a man who accomplished much. Respect for a man who valued family and tried to be the best he could be. That’s all I know about Tim Russert. The cute stories and humble monologues from Russert’s supposed friends and colleagues tell me more than I want to know about them.

I’ll remember Tim Russert because of the look in his eye. He looked happy and at ease with himself and the world. That is one of life’s most important achievements. I’m sad for him and his family. His family that is rightly doing their mourning in private.

Environmentalists Orchestrating Our Oil Woes

2008-06-14T02:35:13Z

One of the very best columnists on the journalistic scene is Walter Williams. His articles aren’t filled with flowery prose or esoteric terms (like esoteric!); they just cut to the heart of the matter and provide simple, reasoned analysis. In fact, I can hardly think of an instance where he has written something with which I disagree. Every piece is a home run, including this one, about how Congress, at the behest of environmentalist extremists, is largely responsible for our high oil prices.

This is, of course, no revelation. Yet it cannot be emphasized enough. Sure, there are other reasons why oil is high, such as the burgeoning economies of China and India (the latter’s Tata Nano automobile, with a price tag of only $2500, will make car travel feasible for millions more Indians) and futures speculators. Yet, regardless of the impact of these factors, our failure to develop our own resources is inexcusable.

We hear conflicting reports about the impact exploiting our resources would have, with leftists claiming it would accomplish little. Yet I’m more inclined to believe what Williams cites:

According to ‘We don’t have to take $4 gas prices — we can drill,’ written by Sterling Burnett in the Houston Chronicle (5/21/08), ‘It is estimated that beneath America’s coast lies enough oil to fuel 60 million cars in the United States for 60 years and enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 160 years. … If allowed access to American oil reserves in Alaska and off our coastline, American oil companies could increase our country’s reserves an estimated fivefold, taking the United States from 11th place to fourth among the countries with proven oil reserves.’

But whether you believe this or not, something is undeniable: It’s difficult to make any definitive judgments in this regard when market forces have not been allowed to function.

First, Congress has placed 85% of our coastal waters off limits to oil exploration. Then there’s the fact that we haven’t built a new refinery in over 30 years. Now, since I can tell you off the top of my head that there were twice as many cars on the road in 1990 as in 1970 (just imagine what the figure is today), does this sound realistic to you? Is this a course that a sane, growing, modern nation would follow?

The good news is that, owing to conservation and better technology, our oil consumption is not really that much greater than it was decades ago. The bad news is, with a propagandizing media that won’t tell people the truth and grandstanding politicians who would rather score political points and advance leftist agendas than solve problems, most people won’t know enough to place the onus where it belongs. Instead, they’ll blame the oil companies, as if the latter just suddenly realized they could reap obscene profits by simply raising prices.

Lastly, Williams points out a very interesting but not surprising (not to me, anyway) fact. He writes:

. . . Burnett points out that the ‘two leading environmental groups, the Audubon Society and the Nature Conservancy, have allowed oil and gas production on several of their most important and unique nature preserves.’

Environmentalists come to their senses when non-drilling philosophy costs them something. It’s two-faced hypocrisy. At times I’ve suggested that the best way to get oil exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve is to give the land to environmentalists. You can bet they wouldn’t sit on billions of dollars of oil and gas.

This actually is quite typical of leftists. It’s another example of how they will give you the shirt off someone else’s back, of their “do as I say, not as I do” approach. And you can witness this phenomenon wherever they wield power. Just note how they often raped the land in the former Soviet Union, or how China today is ravaging its landscape. Why, in one region in China all the bees have been eliminated through pesticide use; thus, its fruit farmers now have to pollenate their own crops.

You see, sacrificing money for principle requires that you believe your principles have a basis in something beyond opinion. If you believe they derive from God’s law, you may be able to subordinate mammon to them (and, let’s face it, even then it’s difficult for most). If you’re talking about godless leftists, however, good luck. They will virtually never exhibit that kind of nobility.

Obama's First 100 Days

2008-06-13T20:24:26Z

Obamamania is sweeping the world as media types, aging hippies and socialists around the world quiver with delight over their new messiah. Barack Obama finally prevailed over the energizer bunny (Hillary), to win the Democrat nomination for president and a new world is coming. The Utopians now have a spokesman and his name is Obama.

These are heady days for the left. Finally, things are going their way. The economy is tanking right on cue, just in time for political contenders to validate their platforms, which consist of ‘its all Bush’s fault – so elect me.’ And now, with Obama as their party’s nominee, these same politicos are already planning the new world order. Finally, their vision of utopia realized.

World peace will probably be first on the agenda. Obama, as president, will give all those dictators a good talking to. He’ll make them see the error of their ways and during the first 100 days of his presidency, the first plank of the Obama World Peace Initiative will take hold: Peace through negotiation. Thugs will lay down their arms, Iran will halt their nuclear program and N. Korea will join the community of man.

Once Obama has shown these bad boys the error of their ways, he’ll be ready to tackle his next big job -saving the earth from melting. Of course, this will require a temporary halt to capitalism but hey, ya gotta break a few eggs, right?

Obama will explain that saving Mother Earth will require both blind faith and lots of cash. And we’ll believe him because he sounds so, well, so passionate and truthful. The United Nations has already laid the groundwork and come up with a price tag. According to the IEA, a mere $45 trillion bucks should do the job.

Obama will explain how sacrifices are necessary and everyone should pay their dues. Then, he will unveil his PR masterpiece, a national competition (run by the NEA) to see who can make the most sacrifices. The kids will love it.

For those that object to the extra $7,000 investment per household required to save Mother Earth, well, they’re either deniers or racists. Or just plain old meanies. Obama will summon Hillary from her post on the Supreme Court to explain to all the peons that it really does take a village to make change.

Next up, Iraq. With a fistful of newly forged treaties backed by heartfelt promises from Iran, the Palestinians and assorted terror groups, Obama will finally bring our troops home from Iraq. The Iraqis, thanks to Obama, will now be free to explore and determine their own culture without the destructive influence of the West. Iran will be effusive in praise of the United States and the rest of the world will like us again. Take that, George Bush.

While Obama is otherwise engaged in saving the planet and ensuring world peace, First Lady Michelle Obama, (who’s pet project will carry the catchy label of ‘We’re All One’) will be busy planning a reconciliation fete for all those guys we’ve dissed in the past. Like Chavez, Castro, and whoever is running Africa at the time. The theme of this week long ‘multicultural’ celebration is being kept secret but rumors are afoot that Elton John is burning up Google looking for words that rhyme with Kumbaya. Another gold for Elton?

While Obama and Michelle are busy changing the world, Obama’s Cabinet won’t be letting any grass grow under their feet. Former Congressman and new ‘Director of Equity,’ Paul Kanjorski will be implementing his new “Reasonable Profits Board” in which the government will determine whether or not a companies profits are excessive. And Maxine Waters, (title still being determined) will be working out the mechanics of nationalizing the oil companies and the airline industry.

Meanwhile, Vice-President Jesse Jackson will be working feverishly on his 10 point plan to abolish racism, having promised Michelle to have it ready in time for her ‘multicultural fete.’

Finally, with Obama leading the way, America will experience real change. The politics of meaning will replace reality. The playing field will be levelled and America will stand alongside all the diverse cultures of the world as their equal. Finally, America will get what it deserves.

Denial of the Fittest

2008-06-03T22:01:27Z

Something very strange is happening in the hallowed halls of the old media. From the Washington Post to the New York Times, articles are starting to appear actually acknowledging that the Iraq war may be, gasp, winnable. Even the United Nations went on record=, with Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon saying Iraq has made “notable progress” in the security, political and economic fields.

This recent acknowledgment of the obvious has yet to extend to the Democrat Party. Despite the recent CIA assessment that portrayed al-Qaeda as essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, the Democrats continue to cling to the notion that the Iraq war is unwinnable, a quagmire, and a lost cause.

Despite the fact that the he commander of British forces in Iraq announced yesterday that missions by special forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have “decapitated” the Taliban and brought the war in Afghanistan to a “tipping point”, Democrats continue their time-worn mantra of U.S defeat, hoping that non stop repetition will continue to let them get away with defining their own reality. A reality totally at odds with the facts. In psychological circles, this is called cognitive dissonance.

Obama’s presidential platform continues to rely heavily on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, as he vows to immediately withdraw American troops from Iraq the second he is elected president. Democrat Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, continues to spin any vestige of positive news from Iraq into either an indictment of the U.S military or a boost to our enemies.

In the face of the unprecedented and unwelcome success of the surge in Iraq, Nancy Pelosi claimed the U.S. troop surge has failed to accomplish its goal. Apparently, Democrats have redefined the word ‘goal’, kinda like Charlie Brown. She then partially credited the success of the troop surge to “the goodwill of the Iranians.” Right.

For forty years or so, the left has been able to get away with calling a rose a weed. With the backing of the liberal media, their tried and true tactics of repeating a lie often enough until it is accepted as truth has worked. Essentially, Democrats have been able to define reality to their own liking, dismissing any inconvenient truths as the delusions of a vast right-wing conspiracy.

By suppressing inconvenient facts, large portions of the left have been able to keep alive the fiction that Alger Hiss was innocent, despite incontrovertible evidence to the contrary – that Reagan was stupid, despite the fact that his position of peace through strength won the Cold War – that Che Geuvera was a hero of the people instead of a murdering thug, and that Castro is living proof that socialism works. Tammy Bruce calls this ‘magical thinking.’ I call it denial.

Ignoring and/or denying reality is the easiest way to cope – for alcoholics, drug addicts, and the mentally challenged. For these poor souls, the first step toward recovery is acknowledging that they are powerless. For liberal politicians like Pelosi however, to admit that any of her premises are faulty would be catastrophic. To admit powerlessness, to admit her world view is not valid, would be a complete refutation of a lifetime spent seeking and using power. This is not an option.
The good news is, it appears the liberal Democrats might be losing their willing allies in the media, where market forces demand adherence to reality in order to survive. Just as the media has turned against their recent darlings, the Clintons, it now appears likely they will soon question the democrat version of reality they have followed and supported for so long.

Whether or not the left actually believes their own rhetoric is a question beyond my pay grade. The real issue remains, what are the consequences for America if fully half of our elected officials continue to insist on adhering to an alternate reality of their own making? I have an inquiring mind. I’d like to know.

Conservatives, Take Back Your Party!

2008-06-01T18:38:40Z

Until this year, I’ve never registered as anything but Libertarian. This year, for the first time, I decided to register as a Republican. At a time when the Republican Party is experiencing “right flight,” and conservative Republicans are leaving the party in droves to register as Libertarians, Constitutionalists, and Independents, why am I going in the opposite direction? I am still (and will always be) a libertarian, but I foresee an impending disaster resulting from conservatives fleeing the Republican Party.

Throughout our history, the Republican Party has been the bulwark of conservatism in this country. The more conservatives turn away from it, the weaker the party grows. The weaker the Republican Party grows, the longer it will be before we have a true conservative administration in our government. Splintering off into third parties is ultimately harmful because, like it or not, this is a two party system. No candidate from any third party will ever be elected president. (Practically speaking, voting Libertarian is like mailing your ballot to Santa Claus.) Splitting up the conservative vote can only hurt us in the long run. Restoring the Republican Party to its conservative roots is our only hope.

The current Republican leadership seems to believe the country is moving to the left and they’re floundering around pathetically, trying to move the Republican Party left with it. But the current Democratic Congress has the lowest satisfaction rating of any Congress in history — even lower than Bush’s satisfaction rating. The latest Rasmussen survey reports that 62% of voters would prefer fewer government services with lower taxes. 29% would rather have more government services with higher taxes, and 10% are not sure. Apparently, despite the fears of the current Republican leadership, the majority of American voters agree with core conservative principles.

What are these core conservative principles? True conservatives believe in maximizing individual freedom and individual responsibility. We favor small government, with less regulation and lower taxes, because we believe individuals should be free to make their own choices and should take responsibility for the choices they make. We believe the primary legitimate purpose of government is to protect its citizens, both from each other (law enforcement/criminal justice) and from external enemies (the military). We recognize that some taxation is required to support that function. However, we believe the taxes collected should not exceed the amount that’s necessary and sufficient to carry out that role. We don’t believe in taxing the ants to support the grasshoppers.

If we can get strong candidates who represent core conservative principles, I believe we can not only take back the Republican Party, but we can win over the majority of the country who, according to the Rasmussen poll, would also rather have lower taxes and less government. Our country is in a downward spiral because we’ve abandoned these core principles, and most of the Republicans in office today are just as guilty as the Democrats. To return America to the status of the most successful and progressive, — in terms of true progress (i.e., economic and technological progress, rather than socialist double-speak), we need to return to the core principles and values on which our nation was founded. Those are the principles that made this the greatest nation in the world.

First, we need to reunite the Republican Party. We cannot do that by serving up lukewarm oatmeal, in the form of RINO candidates trying desperately to pander to liberals while turning their backs on the conservative base. The Republican Party needs to go back to being the party of conservative principles and ideals, so conservatives can once again feel proud to belong to it. The Republican Party is facing a crisis. Something’s got to change. I believe the time has come for conservatives to take back the Republican Party and restore it to its former glory. By abandoning it, we abandon any hope of conservative government along with it.

Crocodile Tears And Cow Farts

2008-05-28T09:18:37Z

Our government is jumping aboard the global warming bandwagon in a big way. Ignoring any facts to the contrary, they continue to fuel a juggernaut that will result in more government, more taxes, more ‘crises’ and more useful idiots.

Even Republicans are on board, with John McCain turning green with a twist guaranteed to garner liberal votes. He’s proposed a ‘cap and trade’ system (called redistribution of wealth) to help battle climate change. It used to be only liberals who had the hubris to think man can control climate.

Meanwhile, Democrats are crying crocodile tears as more Americans are paying more and more money for gas. And more and more poverty stricken countries are seeing food riots and starvation as a direct result of Democrats latest solution (ethanol mandates) to this faux crisis.

As Democrats gin up phony outrage at the designated villain, the evil oil companies, behind the scenes they are actively working to prolong this situation. The Senate just rejected a plan that calls for opening the Alaska Wildlife refuge and some offshore waters to oil development. A solution that, if not vetoed by Bill Clinton back in 1995, would now be supplying Americans with 1 billion barrels of oil a day. The Democrats instead, rely on ethanol mandates, even though it takes 1.25 gallons of gas to produce 1 gallon of ethanol.

Helping these Democrats along are their friends in the Interior Department, who just designated the polar bear as a threatened species because of the supposedly declining Arctic sea ice. Caused by, you guessed it – global warming. Now Democrats have moral cover for voting to keep vast areas of America’s oil off limits to drilling. Very cool. As long as no one finds out that the polar bear population has actually tripled since 1960. Or that, while some Arctic ice is melting as it has been for centuries, other Arctic glaciers are expanding.

The Democrats got yet another reason to high-five each other. The Environment and Public Works Committee just voted out ‘cap and trade’ legislation that is expected to reach the House floor in a couple weeks. This bit of legislation, according to the EPA, will increase the cost of gas by $1.50 a gallon.

All this recent legislation will dramatically increase the already astronomical prices Americans are paying at the pump. This is the Democrat solution. And it is a solution. A perfect solution designed to make Americans more dependent on government. A solution designed to keep greedy citizens from buying SUVs. A solution that vests in government increasing power to legislate how we live, what we drive, what we eat and how and when we procreate.

These Democrat solutions have the added benefit of keeping alive the windfall taxes the government receives on each gallon of gasoline sold. As our elected officials propose a ‘windfall tax’ on oil companies to punish them for making a profit, the government is reaping three times the windfall profits they demonize the oil companies for.

We’re talking mucho money flowing into government coffers. Money that Dems can use to fund ever more social engineering programs designed to alter our behavior to their specifications.

Another measure designed to prolong and extend the ‘oil’ crisis has just finished working its way though Congress. The Senate voted overwhelmingly to approve a five-year, $307 billion farm bill, despite a veto threat by Bush. Said farm bill, besides containing a few tons of pork, also retains the enormous subsidies paid to farmers not to grow food. Some farmers are actually foregoing these handouts as the market is now offering them more money to produce than our government is paying them to not produce.

Democrats will soon be jumping on the coming ‘food crisis’ with joy. They will demand even more control over the economy in order to save starving people. They will call on Americans to sacrifice (code word for more taxes) as a moral imperative. After all, people are dying. The government will be there to help. The fact that they are the ones that caused the crisis will again be ignored.

America is not alone in this gigantic scam. Other countries wholeheartedly endorse global warming. What better way to undermine the U.S., to say nothing of the massive proposed ‘redistribution of wealth’. Global warming is the perfect excuse to legislate everything from population control, to obese people, (who are said to be causing the global warming crisis), to…well, just about anything a government wants to do. Any issue, any legislation can now be steamrolled to fruition under the wide umbrella of ‘global warming.’ Pretty neat, huh?

Just last week, Estonia farmers received a tax notice for methane emissions on their cattle. Yup. Estonia is now taxing cow farts in order to save Mother Earth. In way of context, Chile’s Caiten Volcano recently released a gigantic cloud of emissions composed of steam, ash, smoke, and various gases whose estimated amount equals to one trillion cow farts. Just try taxing that.

With God being phased out of the public square, many Americans are left searching for higher meaning. The Democrats have provided them a perfect solution. Faith in Mother Earth as a religion. Faith that doesn’t require facts. Faith that relies exclusively on whatever information elites decide to foist on a gullible public. Faith that willfully disregards the growing evidence that the earth started cooling ten years ago. Faith that labels as apostasy any facts that don’t align with majority opinion (as defined by Democrats).

Guys, we’re in trouble. The only solution I can see is massive doses of sunshine. Either that or start taxing the hot air issuing forth from ‘elites’ anxious to undermine our country for their own political ends.

Goldilocks and the Republican Party

2008-05-28T09:18:15Z

The Republican Party is steadily losing its base. Republican leadership is obviously concerned, and is attempting to solve the problem by leaning as far to the left as possible without turning blue. Presumably, this is because they figure, if the voters don’t want Republicans, they must want Democrats. So, if the country is leaning to the left, the party “leaders” figure they’d better lean with it. (How’s that for leadership?) However, I have a different theory. I believe the real reason the Republican Party is losing its base is because it’s lost its direction. It’s no longer the party of conservatives. It’s the party of confusion. The Republican Party is having an identity crisis.

I still support McCain, but I don’t think he’s doing the party any favors by his constant attempts to “reach across the aisle” and pander to the left. Nor is he doing his own campaign any favors. When he tried to become the Republican Al Gore, the liberals to whom he was trying to pander just laughed at him, while many conservatives who were starting to come around to grudgingly support him, stopped, shook their heads, and turned away again in disgust. McCain, like the rest of the Republican Party, cannot seem to keep his core base intact. When you have a solid base, you can afford to reach out and try to bring in those on the fringe of your constituency. But when your base is crumbling underneath you, it does you no good to reach for those who are beyond your reach anyway and firmly entrenched on the other side.

I picture McCain climbing a tree, reaching for an apple on the outermost branch, while the trunk bends and groans and finally splinters beneath the awkward distribution of weight. That’s what’s happening to the entire Republican Party. If it leans any further to the left, it’s going split its core right down the middle. And then what?

Wake up Republicans! Nobody wants a watered down Democrat. The Democrats want a full strength Democrat, and the Republicans want a real (and by that, I mean conservative) Republican. What do the independents want? Well, if there were a real Republican party, maybe there wouldn’t be so many independents, because a lot of those independents used to be Republicans. And, if there were a real Republican Party, maybe the Libertarians and Constitutionalists would even get behind it.

Why is the Republican Party losing its base? Because the old die-hard conservatives are getting disgusted and wandering away, and the new crop of young conservatives are looking for something to believe in, to get excited about, to make them feel a surge of pride in their country and their leadership. The Republican Party today isn’t offering that. They’re offering lukewarm oatmeal instead. So the idealists are turning to the Libertarian Party or the Constitution Party, or registering independent, or coming up with new parties, splintering into sects and diluting the conservative vote. All because the Republican Party has put them on hold while it desperately tries to reach out to voters who don’t even share its core values.

The Republican Party used to be the party of ideals, the party of principles; now it’s the party of compromise. — Not thoughtful compromise, reached through strategic negotiation, but seemingly random compromise with people who aren’t even paying attention. What has happened to the Republican Party? How did it come to this pass? And is it too late to take it back?

Lukewarm oatmeal doesn’t inspire people. It may appeal to Goldilocks, but Goldilocks doesn’t vote.

Top Twenty Reasons Hillary Clinton Should Stay in the Race

2008-05-28T07:40:12Z

Even though the dogged Hillary Clinton is being encouraged by friend and foe and pundit alike to drop out of the Democratic Presidential Primary, there is a contingent that thinks her best move is to dig in her heels and bite the hand off of anyone who tries to restrain her. Admittedly, that contingent is mostly made up of me and a couple other guys in the editorial cartoonist world. But seriously, what the hell, she’s come this far. Who quits within sight of the finishing line of a marathon? It’s like climbing 890 steps of the Washington Monument, then turning around and going back down after the gun sounds. No. Walk the final three.

And in an attempt to nudge her steadfastness into calcifying unity, I’ve doubled your usual top ten list, and come up with twenty reasons why the Junior Senator from New York should stick it out the bitter end, and when I say bitter, I mean bitter. No need to thank me, I’m here to help. Although, tips are always appreciated.

20. With the May Sweeps over, you and Barack are the only serial left on air worth watching.
19. WWERD. What would Eleanor Roosevelt Do?
18. You’re faster and you outweigh him. He wouldn’t last three rounds in a ring.
17. What kind of message does throwing in the towel now send to America’s youth?
16. If they want you out, let them try something.
They’ll soon find out, it’ll take more than a village.

15. Meteor showers. Lots and lots of meteor showers.
One of which could strike Barack right in the head. At any time.
14. For posterity’s sake. Or is it posterior’s sake?
13. You going to waste all those months training for Denver’s altitude?
12. Summer vacation coming and it’s too expensive to go overseas.
11. Who knows? Maybe Puerto Rico will tap into a vast pool of undiscovered oil and get ratified as a state in time for the Convention?
10. It’s either this or you go home and listen to Bill bitch bitch bitch. “I could have been !st Gentleman”
this. And “I could have been Attorney General” that.
9. Grrrl Power!
8. What’s that old saying: as go Montana and North Dakota, so goes the world?
7. Now, people can look at Chelsea and say, “Well, it’s easy to see which side of the family she got her stubbornness.”
6. You want that Vice Presidential nod, you get it the old fashioned way: you earn it.
5. From now on, whenever people speak about the
hardest- working woman in politics, they’re talking about you, little lady.
4. For the healthy and nutritious road food.
3. Staying in the race guarantees your knitting circle will never call you a quitter.
2. Be honest: What else you got going on?
1. Spite. Just do it for spite.

Obama: Hey There, Sweetie...

2008-05-23T18:46:41Z

Obama called a reporter ‘sweetie.’ Gasp. The pundits are divided on whether he should attend sensitivity training to correct his thinking or whether his coerced apology will suffice. The debate swirls, the opinions proliferate. The lesser pundits anxiously await the position paper from the National Organization of Women before committing themselves to a firm stance on this vital issue. The rest of the world news takes a back seat.

Welcome to another national conversation. Non-stop news coverage of experts, pundits and elites opining on someone else’s opining. As in, “What he really meant to say was…”, and “He said that but what he really meant was…”

I’m one of those dull people in flyover country that accepts what a person says at face value. I know this is outdated thinking, but there’s something stubborn in me that just refuses to accept group think as opposed to forming my own opinion. Especially when the majority of group opinions invariably prove faulty or agenda driven. Color me old fashioned.

Obama has been suitably chastened for speaking naturally. Yeah baby! Never again will he risk insulting and offending females with such a spontaneous, cavalier phrase. He’s learned his lesson. You bet. Thank you, feminists for shielding me from this sexist insult.

Obama has now earned his inclusion in the ranks of Stepford politicians. He will now say only what people want to hear, carefully couching his language to conform to the latest politically correct thinking. Pretty soon when you scratch Obama’s surface, you’ll find the same thing you’ll find under the surface of other elected elites: The politically correct talking points of the day wrapped around the latest poll numbers. The masters of this game have learned to mask their desperation and uncertainty under a veneer of being above it all. A look of sneering condescension usually does the trick.

The 5% of elites in this country have succeeded in setting the agenda for the rest of the country. Their take on any issue is the only acceptable interpretation allowed in polite society and they have carte blanche to define and analyze what lies in another person’s heart. Thank God I had the courage to leave polite society five years ago and settle in flyover country.

Here in flyover country, when someone addresses me as sweetie, I don’t have to wrestle for days to know what he means. Elites would be surprised to know that the little people also know how to evaluate…well, context.

In a business situation, being addressed as sweetie gives me valuable insight into the person I’m dealing with. Advantage: mine. In a social situation, being addressed as sweetie can mean any number of things. The person wants to flirt or is unsophisticated or is intimidated or naive…whatever. I form my own interpretation and react accordingly.

For the record, I like being called sweetie. Usually it is a term of affection and familiarity. I don’t need legions of pundits to tell me its sexist. If I wasn’t so busy living my life, I would ask these pundits two questions: How do they know?, and, According to who? Followed by a big so what.

Most people in my neck of the woods aren’t so insecure that they spend precious time probing the inner meaning of words. Unlike polite society, words in flyover country are usually taken at face value. Unlike polite society, what you see is what you get. I wouldn’t trade that for money, power or fifteen minutes of fame.

Sexism will always be with us. As will racism, homophobia and a long list of traits Mother Nature and upbringing have instilled in us. These are the traits that make us who and what we are. Its called character, worms and all. And instead of spending a lifetime trying to modify or legislate these traits to conform to someone else’s expectations, I accept them. I don’t have to be perfect. Nor do my friends. What a load off.

Here in flyover country, we’re all allowed to be who we are. There is no uniform standard of behavior. I believe this is called individuality. Which is probably why the self-anointed and political elites look down their politically correct noses and curl their lips in what polite society has deemed acceptable as a non-verbal indication of superiority.

My reaction to this elitist behavior is usually pity. Pity for the individual who is so insecure that he must spend his lifetime trying to be someone he is not – ever looking outward instead of inward for direction. And pity mixed with contempt for those who sacrifice their principles while doing so.

What Are We Waiting For?

2008-05-23T18:45:28Z

Long before the disastrous George W. Bush administration, I had been waiting for profound, systemic changes in our political system. Perversely, I saw the upside of Bush as motivating more Americans to demand political change. And that happened. But the national yearning for change was co-opted by Ron Paul on the right and Barack Obama on the left while John Edwards with the most authentic populist change message fizzled out early.

It is not enough to want, demand and support change, not when change is more of a campaign slogan than a carefully detailed set of reforms. Critically needed is a firm understanding of what specific changes can restore American democracy and remove the privileged rich plutocrats and corporatists running and ruining our nation.

A huge fraction of Americans have bought into the Obama candidacy because of his polished and effective rhetoric. But Obama does not offer the changes I have been waiting for, or the ones the public needs. A great speaker does not necessarily have the courage or intent to fight for deep political reforms.

Our nation’s Founders did not create the United States of America just with smiles and slick rhetoric; they were bold, risk-taking revolutionaries fighting tyranny. Obama has not defined our domestic tyranny and told us how he will try to abolish it. Obama is no dissident or revolutionary. The change he mostly seeks is moving from senator to president. Not what I have been waiting for.

There is no evidence in Obama’s brief political career that he is a champion for deep political reforms to transfer power from the plutocrats to the people. To the contrary, the more you learn about Obama’s history the more he appears as just another super-ambitious politician making friends, using people and cutting deals to get ahead.

To begin with, I have been waiting for a potential president that speaks out against the over-powerful two-party system that sucks up money from all countless corporate and other special interests. I have never heard a word from Obama to indicate he understands the many harmful effects of the two-party plutocracy and the need to open up our political system to a much wider spectrum of beliefs and strategies. Instead, Obama cleverly talks about bipartisanship just as many other Democrats and Republicans have, because that maintains the two-party status quo.

If Obama believed in opening up the political system he would, for example, advocate opening up televised presidential debates to third party candidates and removing the many obstacles the two parties have built to limit ballot access to third party and independent candidates. He would also openly call for replacing the Electoral College with the popular vote for president.

If Obama truly wanted to get rid of big, corrupting money from corporate and other special interests, then he should be advocating a constitutional amendment that would remove all private money from political campaigns and change the US system to totally publicly financed campaigns. Only a constitutional amendment can accomplish this. Campaign financing reforms by Congress are a distraction and next to useless.

And if Obama really supported universal health care, then he would have concluded as nearly all experts have that the nation needs a single payer insurance system that puts an end to the rape of the public by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

Change? Absolutely. But real systemic, root changes that reform and transform the current system by changing the power structure that both major parties have nourished over many decades. What is so clear to millions of people highly skeptical of the Obama-as-political-messiah fiction is that he has not earned the presidency through diverse political and leadership accomplishments.

Sure, none of the other candidates are any better than Obama – not Hillary Clinton, not John McCain. More worthy candidates based on experience and authenticity succumbed to many bizarre forces and media disinterest. It is too late to enlighten ardent Obamatons, but millions of voters will justify voting for Obama as the lesser evil candidate. That proves how bankrupt our political system really is. Now is the time to reject the two-party plutocracy and vote for third party and independent candidates, such as Ralph Nader. Yes we can! Voters that define themselves as independents should assert their independence by rejecting candidates from both major parties.

With a longer view of history, there really is something worse than John McCain becoming president. It is once again upholding the periodic shift of power between the two major parties that stabilizes their tyranny. Just as the Bush administration has built demand for change so too would a McBush presidency. Maybe then in 2012 a true, trustworthy and proven agent of change would have a shot at the presidency. However, electing Obama will set back things back. He will only disappoint us and drain all the pent up demand for change by delivering, at most, some cosmetic actions. Just like his recent decision to wear a flag lapel pin.

The right question is not whether this African American can win the general election, it is SHOULD he be president?

After a few years as president, millions of people would realize that Obama is not the political salvation people have been waiting for. Of course, he would then focus on getting a second term, with more seductive smiles, empty platitudes and false promises. Why not? It worked the first time.

[Contact Joel S. Hirschhorn through www.delusionaldemocracy.com.]

Everybody Knows about Dick Cheney

2008-05-19T19:30:28Z

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded.
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed.
Everybody knows the war is over.
Everybody knows the good guys lost.
Everybody knows the fight was fixed.
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich.
That’s how it goes. Everybody knows.
~~Leonard Cohen

The fate of millions was sealed the moment Dick Cheney selected himself as The Destroyer whose charge to keep for the next eight years would be — as Capitol Hill Blue’s Doug Thompson so succinctly described George W. Bush — a “criminally insane, pill-popping dry drunk.” I don’t know about that. I’ve seen some drunks in my time — even dry ones — and George Bush appears to be more than a little moist.

Bush was the perfect foil for Cheney. The Scalia-driven 2000 election coup catapulted Bush to the top of the political heap. For the first time in his worthless, impotent, cruelly indifferent life, Bush was suddenly important — the most powerful man on the face of the earth — and all because he had been told to scream, “Jezus! Jezus is my philosopher!” to the swooning masses. Makes one wonder at the rigid consent of those same “believers” for the ensuing slaughter of so many innocents — when murdering even one in the name of Jesus should have sent a collective shriek reverberating throughout the religious universe. (See Matthew 18:14; Mark 9:42; Luke 17:2)

Everybody knows that Bush isn’t remotely qualified to be at the helm of the world’s superpower. He can neither think nor speak coherently; barely can find Texas on a map; has completely torpedoed every business venture he attempted, and admittedly was a hard-partying sot until he was 40. Cheney was another matter. He was a household word. He had been a public servant throughout his career. He served as President Gerald Ford’s chief of staff, earned six terms in the House of Representatives where he ascended to the position of minority whip and, finally, was the elder Bush’s Secretary of Defense.

We trusted Cheney to keep Bush from making rash decisions. Was it not Cheney who, at the conclusion of the 1991 Desert Storm assault, made the assessment that to expand the exercise to include regime change in Iraq was not morally sustainable because of the chaotic bloodletting — the needless toll on our uniformed military?

We were wrong. Had we bothered to check the “other priorities” that allowed Cheney to dodge the draft five times on his rise to power, his chilling congressional voting record, his efforts to enrich the military industrial complex by privatizing defense duties and granting massive contracts to Halliburton, we would have known that Cheney was consumed with lust for power and money. We would have known Cheney had been champing at the bit for more than a decade to impose a new order wherein the American Empire controls the world and its resources.

Had we checked, we would have known Dick Cheney was the wrong babysitter for a kid who gets his jollies by blowing things up.

Cheney Unbound

In 1991, Cheney was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But the upheaval of the following decade, the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress, and the expanding manipulative power of the corporate media created the axis of corruption necessary for a Cheney reign of terror. Cheney was ready, as were the militant warmongers of the Project for the New American Century who had been demanding Saddam Hussein’s head for years. At least 12 of the 18 co-signers of the January 1998 letter to President Bill Clinton, and another letter four months later to then House Speaker Newt Gingrich, demanding the overthrow of Saddam were given key positions on Cheney’s destructive team.

The fix was in. Four days before the 2001 inauguration, PNAC’s deputy director, Thomas Donnelly, wrote a memorandum to “Opinion Leaders,” reminding them that “the task of removing Saddam Hussein’s regime from power still remains…Many in the incoming Bush Administration understand this challenge…”

Four months after the inauguration, the White House issued a press release warning that the threat of terrorist-nations using weapons of mass destruction against the American “homeland” was very real. To counter this danger, Cheney put himself in charge of the entire government — departments of Defense, Justice, Health and Human Services, Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, FEMA, and “other federal agencies,” which would naturally include both FAA and NORAD. A new department — the Office of National Preparedness — was created so Cheney could protect us from catastrophic harm and deal with “consequence” management.

The next four months were busy ones. With malicious indifference, Cheney set about screwing the American people; destroying 225-year Constitutional protections, passing secret laws to seize unlimited executive power, and locking both Congress and the public out of the legislative process. Bush provided cover by regaling us with hilarious “Benny Hill” bits of linguistic derring-do, strutting from one presidential photo op to another, falling off couches and bicycles, choking on pretzels, and attacking brush with a chainsaw at his Crawford ranch.

Cheney in Charge

Then it was 9-11. Suddenly Bush was no longer a spoiled, bumbling, schizophrenic little president. In an instant, he was transformed into a loaded codpiece — The Commander in Chief, The Decider of life and death — a modern-day Caligula towering above mankind with lighted depleted uranium firecrackers gripped in both fists. Cheney could not have picked a more willing accomplice to export death and violence to the four corners of the earth…

With smoke still rising from the ashes of Afghanistan, the drive to topple Saddam, who was demanding Euro for his oil, quickly turned into a crusade. It was Cheney-orchestrated and Cheney-driven. Under the deepening shadows of mushroom clouds, administration neoconservatives teamed up with ecstatic corporate media co-conspirators to terrify an already traumatized public. Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith launched a separate intelligence unit, the Office of Special Plans, to create the propaganda needed to invade Iraq.

Since Bush can’t be trusted to maintain a single train of thought in one-on-one interviews, he hit the campaign trail with a prepared speech he delivered over and over — is now delivering about Iran — frantically catapulting the propaganda that Saddam was “threatening America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.” Bush convinced a majority of Americans that the Iraqi dictator was allied with Al Qaeda and provided a “safe haven” for terrorists, and if we didn’t wipe him out, he would “strike us again without leaving any fingerprints.”

Cheney’s fingerprints are all over every aspect of the drive for war. For a year and a half, Cheney bullied the entire intelligence apparatus, especially the CIA, into making a false case that Saddam was an immediate nuclear threat. He denigrated the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report that there was no evidence, sneering that the intelligence was faulty, and IAEA Director-General Mohammed El-Baradei had no credibility where Iraq was concerned.

But it was Secretary of State Colin Powell who rolled the loaded dice at the UN Security Council on February 8, 2003, in a presentation even he admitted was “bullshit.” Powell, who is adept at leaving no fingerprints, but whose shadow lingers over decades of slaughtered innocents, carried the water for his masters one last time. When Powell completed his somber charges that Al-Qaeda was in Iraq running “poison camps” full bore, that Saddam was obtaining magnets for uranium enrichment — charges backed up with photos and vials of poison — we were sold. Because we trusted him.

A Moral Fork in the Road

I don’t want to go off on an Aristotelian rant here, but thanks to Cheney and those around him obsessed with world government, this nation appears to be running on empty where morality, or ethos, is concerned. Values such as compassion, sympathy, prudence, virtue, decency, ethics — cannot thrive in a nation controlled by war criminals who force its citizens into submission through fear, violence and propaganda. How can a society be “just” when natural laws have fallen by the wayside and nobody is held accountable for crimes against God and humanity?

We are under the control of the criminally insane. Cheney has turned the greatest democratic republic ever conceived into a world corporation and anointed himself its Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He has supplanted two centuries of protections afforded by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with executive orders and secret laws. In their lust for power and riches, Cheney and Bush have managed in just seven grueling, sadistic, morally corrupt years to destroy entire nations, including their own. And they accomplished this in the only way possible. Because we permitted it. Because we lost our moral compass.

So we stand here in the blood-sodden mess of two lost wars. Millions — millions — have been displaced, destroyed, dishonored in Cheney’s quest for oil. Tens of thousands of our own citizens are injured, maimed — 4,077 dead — an entire generation of Americans lost in a depleted uranium wasteland. “So?” Cheney says, “They were all volunteers.” He admitted that losing sons or daughters could “be a burden” on families, but reminded us sternly that “the biggest burden” is on the President, who has to send even more to their deaths.

We’re at the crossroads. We can no longer remain neutral nor mill around in confused acceptance of the genocidal madness into which we have been swept. Thomas Jefferson said, “When once a republic is corrupted, there is no possibility of remedying any of the growing evils but by removing the corruption and restoring its lost principles; every other correction is either useless or a new evil.”

Everybody knows the folly of the treasonous “corrections” made to counter the Iran-Contra evil in the 1980’s and early ’90’s — the flurry of Presidential Christmas-Eve pardons allowing convicted criminals to recede into the shadows only to return and metastasize throughout the current Cheney/Bush administration.

Cheney, Bush and their co-conspirators throughout the three branches of government must be removed. Indicted. Convicted. Imprisoned. Voting records of the 435 members of Congress and 33 Senators up for re-election in 2008 must be vetted, and those who do not reflect the will of the people must go. No exceptions. The remaining 17 Senators must either stand or fall on their voting records. If those who are guilty of the same breach of trust as their cohorts refuse to budge, they must be impeached and removed from office.

They have left us with but one choice, and one last chance to make that choice. We have reached a point in the “course of human events” where it is not only our “right but our duty” to throw off this destructive government and institute one which remembers it “derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.”

The time has come for Americans to blink. Because the Abyss is staring back at us.

Sheila Samples http://sheilastuff.blogspot.com/ is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at rsamples@wichitaonline.net