National Emergencies and the Secret Government

        On September 10, 2010 President Obama extended the National Emergency With Respect To Certain Terrorist Attacks until September of 2011, this being the ninth time the emergency has been extended since it was originally declared by President Bush on September 14, 2001. Each National Emergency must be extended annually by a notification to Congress, though it is the job of Congress to meet and decide when and if an emergency should end. In this case, the emergency can only be nullified or continued by the president because the authorization of use of force is included here.

   What does this mean?

    Officially, it means that sufficient conditions exist both domestically and internationally to warrant those policies, initiatives, and powers being extended to help safeguard the United States against terrorist attacks of any nature. Unofficially, it means an open-ended extension of such provisions as the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, the warrantless surveillance operations of the NSA, extrajudicial assassinations of suspected terrorists, and the oft-forgotten detaining of several hundred “enemy non-combatants” at the Guatanamo Bay concentration camp. These are all by-products of the attacks on 9/11 that killed 3,000 Americans and destroyed four buildings and four aircraft. However, they may also be deemed indirect results of the attacks since all of these provisions seem to have found their authority in the declaration of the National Emergency With Respect To Terrorist Attacks. This act, it should be noted, followed the authorization, on the morning of September 11, 2001, of Continuity of Government provisions as outlined by numerous executive orders. As any number of dedicated conspiracy theorists can attest, the Continuity of Government provisions essentially set up a condition of martial law while likewise initiating the “secret government” at Mount Weather, a mirror of the functioning government that operates in its stead in the event of an actual emergency. To what extent this “secret government” supersedes either Congress or the Constitution is unknown—literally. The fact is, no one who is not authorized to know the extent of its powers can know legally what they are, thus what is created is a kind of vacuous space between the obvious and the unknown.

     Whether this “secret government” has been activated or not is a serious question nonetheless. One need only examine the provisions to understand the seriousness of the situation. It would mean that there is no Constitution, no Bill of Rights, and no legal foundation whatsoever to safeguard the rights of the people of the United States. Thus the question of the National Emergency, the Continuity of Government provisions, and the “secret government” are absolutely essential to knowing where we stand with regard to ourselves, our rights, and our government as a whole.

      For this reason it is necessary to review what we know to be true about the actions, laws, and provisions set forth by the current and former administrations. To that end, we will examine the concept of the “Unitary Executive” as defined by the Bush administration, the USA PATRIOT Act, and the sprawling national intelligence apparatus that has ballooned since 9/11.

       As regards the concept of the “unitary executive”, this idea has a place in the Constitution. It’s basic premise is that the Executive Branch has all of the authority it needs to do what the Constitution says it should do—execute the laws as passed by the Legislative Branch: Congress. If any law is challenged as to it’s constitutionality, it is the Judicial Branch in the guise of the Supreme Court who decides on the legality of the said law. In that vein it is easy to see what and why the “unitary executive” is. Basically, if the president is charged with executing laws by way of himself and the various departments, it makes sense that he should have all legal authority to do so. However, such a provision does NOT provide for unlimited power for it’s own sake. This should be obvious to any Constitutional scholar. The limits on the authority of the president and the executive branch are the Bill of Rights, the powers of Congress, and the powers of the several states. Clearly the Founding Fathers did not create a system of checks and balances in order to vest unlimited authority in the seat of the president. That any president would decide to reach that broadly, especially George Bush with Dick Cheney in tow, would indicate that they envisioned some authority greater than that of the constitution giving them such allowances. Such an authority would be, in essence, the emergency powers granted them by the declaration of a national emergency, this made possible by the COG(Continuity of Government).

 http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/09/obama-declares-another-national-emergency-when-none-exists/

     Armed with these powers, the executive proceeded to present to Congress various underminings of civil liberties in the form of the USA PATRIOT Act, which basically gave full license to whatever actions the president needed to take against “terror”. This included warrantless wire-tapping and electronic surveillance of US citizens. Likewise, it gave the government the power to interfere with and manipulate markets and banks as it saw fit. Thus we not only see the source of the Federal Governments right to put armed Blackwater mercenaries in New Orleans after Katrina, but also the grounds for taking action when the financial crisis occurred(and it’s occurrence is itself a result of federal actions, actions that clearly made the crisis worse). The ideas behind the Toxic Asset Relief Program and the measures taken to curtail what appeared to be imminent financial ruin had everything to do with both the provisions under the Patriot Act and the powers under a national emergency, which only makes one wonder to what extent the cart is before the horse. Add to this President Obama’s assertion that the government has the right to target and assassinate any threat, even an American citizen, and the implications of living under martial law become very clear.

  www.globalresearch.ca/​index.php?context=va&aid=10473 

   Finally, the immense intelligence community that has grown since 9/11, as reported by the Washington Post in it’s story Top Secret America, indicates a level of intrusion, surveillance, and obscurity that seem to indicate something other than simple intelligence gathering and analysis. There are 1271 government organizations involved, 1931 private companies, and 17 million square feet of office space built or being built all over the United States To what extent is this massive, 840,000 person behemoth a substitute government? As far as the Post article is concerned, we don’t really know, and attempts to find out are thwarted by lack of clearance. Thus we have again a vacuous space between the obvious and the unknown.

projects.washingtonpost.com/top-secret-​america

     It would appear from the evidence above that there is indeed a secret government operating. It looks like the Constitution has been suspended indefinitely, or least until this national emergency actually ends. In the meantime, it is worth recognizing that much of what our government has done in the past nine years has been, technically, legal.

    Bush declared president by the Supreme Court in 2000.

    The 9-11 Terrorist Attacks and the resulting "coup d'etat" in 2001.

    The invasion of Iraq in 2003.

    Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath in 2005.

    The financial crisis in 2008.

    The Swine Flu scare of 2010.

    This series of disasters is bewildering, yet each instance has some kind of governmental abuse or exploitation in it's midst. They operate in a fog, but it is a legal fog. They have trampled on all of our rights, but they have done so by the rule of law. After all, since the Constitution allows for executive orders, and executive orders allow for national emergencies which allow, in turn, for Continuity of Government provisions, who am I to argue? What is disturbing, however, is the absolute silence that our people, our media, and our representatives have on all of this. No one seems alarmed. No one seems concerned. No one is riding through the night on horseback yelling “The Feds are Coming! The Feds are Coming!” Even now the alarm bells everywhere are saying that the current economic crisis is about to get far worse. Yes, the Titanic hit the iceberg, but only now is the ship breaking up and beginning to sink. I wonder, as they sat around those tables drinking that coffee and making their plans, whether the Project For A New American Century envisioned all of this. It is indeed the American Century so far, but not at all the way I would have imagined it.

    Still, I hear those cargo planes every day. One after another they take off and land at McGuire Air Force Base, bound for the Middle East or coming back, powered by fuel that is dwindling in supply and paid for with money that continues to lose it's value. The war goes on, the economy gets worse, the money disappears, the fatcats stashing their bundles while the poor struggle to make it through another day, all while we twitch under the awesome power of a beast so big we know we can no longer control it.

    Maybe that’s why it is so quiet.

    Everyone is too afraid to speak for fear they will be heard.

Put Your Nose in the Air, Determine Where the Herd is Going, and Head in the Opposite Direction

It is a ceasefire, a temporary cessation of hostilities. Why? Perhaps there is a need to recast strategy, to count the dead, to repair bulwarks, and to sharpen knives. I need to assess this war and determine if anything has been gained, if the aims are still true.


When did it begin? One could say at conception or at birth or when a level of self-awareness was reached. Was it any specific age, or did I just come upon the realization one day? Going from my own perspective, it was definitely being waged in earnest after 1983. For my adversary, I can see that I had excused battles in the past on account of race and circumstance, only to reflect later that these were indeed the first shots fired. I was chased home from school by the colored kids in kindergarten and first grade and spurned or ridiculed by the Jewish kids in Lakewood. I was looked down upon for my poverty, my uncleanness, and my stature in Point Pleasant and in Santa Cruz. I lacked direction, purpose, and any spark of self esteem. There were so many factors that contributed to the war, to its spawning, to its continuation, to its depraved sense of revenge and retribution that at times I was literally overwhelmed by my own burdensome inadequacies. But once I determined that I knew my enemy and that my enemy knew me, it was on. I can almost exactly pinpoint that moment or at least the context of it.

Sixth grade history was where I first learned about the Japanese internment camps. Why this was a trigger exactly, as opposed to any others, has to do with being in school in Santa Cruz. There, in California, you learn California history first, which means you learn about the missions that were built in various west coast towns, you learn about the Native American tribes, and you learn about the states geography. It isn’t until later that I learned something about United States history, and when I first found out that thousands of Japanese-Americans were systematically rounded up and put into concentration camps, it didn’t change what I felt, but instead reaffirmed it. It was as if the scales dropped and I could suddenly see that I was not a solitary victim, but that my enemy, who I now knew to be no single class, no single race, and no single facet of government, was the entirety of all that was American society and that I was but one of countless victims. I realized that I was at war with the United States of America on every relevant level, and that that war had been going on long before the day I was born. When you are outcast, when you are kicked aside literally and figuratively by your own neighbors, classmates, family, and peers, you take a perspective that the average individual never has. You are on the outside looking in, and from that vantage point you gain an appreciation for the dimensions of that society. Aside from that, you discover that all the laws and rules and traditions of that society do not apply to you. Sure, they are there, but when you have been effectively thrown out you tend not to internalize sentiments like patriotism, loyalty, honor, and justice as being attributes of a system you are a part of. Rather, you take these as your own, and on your own terms. I don’t need the Bill of Rights to tell me what I am allowed to do. I am allowed to do whatever I want because I am the enemy of the society. I operate within it as an adversary, not as a compatriot. All of these flag wavers with their red, white, and blue and their glorified pride are aliens to me. They are not “real” people but simple caricatures from a cartoon. The cartoon is comedic at best, the story banal and humiliating, the plot predictable and lame.

And so I waged war. I went at odds with anything and everything about that society. I instinctively took whatever was touted as good and knew it was bad while taking whatever they called bad and seeing to what extent it was good. I was not lazy about this. I learned a tremendous amount about United States history, about world history, and about peoples, governments, cultures, and belief systems. This war taught me to question everything I was told, to be suspicious of those in power, whoever they were, and that as soon as someone or something was being applauded by the ignorant masses to scrutinize it to its deepest and darkest roots. I was skeptical of everything and so I became cynical, sarcastic, cruel, selfish, and stubborn. I led with my sword at all times, waiting for the ambush, waiting for the bomb. And after all of this, when I came to a point where I could lower my sword, wipe my brow, and sit down easy with my back resting against a wall, I realized that all of these fears and doubts were well-founded. I realized that despite my reasons and the factors that contributed to it, this war was just. This war was true. This enemy I had discovered was every bit as evil as I had ever imagined, if not more so. This society of the United States should be fought against, should be challenged, and should be overcome by the will of those who oppose it because they are just in their opposition. Like every human society it is fickle, crude, bigoted, petty, discriminatory, greedy, vain, pious, and ultimately empty. It is a reflection of the very soul of humanity, and that reflection is one of all that is dark, horrid, and evil.

Thus, whenever popular opinion put a stamp on an issue, I first refuted it and then investigated. Whenever a song or movie or artist or “thing” was being cheered by the multitudes, I set myself against it. I was not always correct, but I was always just on account of my purposes. If I am not them and they are not me, what they love I must hate, and what they hate I must love. Well beyond standard education this was the case, and was the reason I took to reading Napoleonic history, to studying Black Power and appreciating it, and to understanding not only the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s but also the Far Right Movement of the same period. The critical point came in 1990 when I was working for my friends father at an auction. In a box of books I came across Revolutionary Notes by Julius Lester. It was a compilation of articles he had written between 1967 and 1969, and the introduction alone solidified who and what I was at that time.

“Revolutionaries are not born. They are made by taking the suffering of the oppressed and making it their own.”

This was my introduction to the Left, to the anti-Establishment groups, radio stations, and voices. I learned and read of Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, George Orwell, Huey P. Newton, and Ernesto “Che” Guevarra. Ironically, however, this was likewise another group. I had officially joined only one group ever in my life that was “political”, and that the John Birch Society. I have since left them, right after their mailer was emblazoned with the World Trade Center attack. The idea of immediately using this horrible attack as a money-maker was sickening. I had similarly canceled my subscription to Z Magazine when they refused to take me off of a mailing list was sending abortion rights information to me. Nevertheless, I was turning poet, and around that time I was regularly reading publicly, waging the war, shouting down my enemy, and undermining his position. I would not allow myself to become officially connected to any group or movement. I could consider myself an ally, but never a "member". As much as there are millions who are set against the very things I am set against, they are not me, and I am not them. I am an army of one and I needed neither recruits or to be recruited.

And then, six months after 9-11 happened, I married a woman I have known for many, many years. The war continued, of course, but today, with four children, a mortgage, and a salaried position at a manufacturing company the conflict has been largely defensive. I am 40 years old now. Some would say I am a very part of this society I am at war with, and in some ways it is true. But for some time it has been more of a low-intensity conflict. It is time to weigh the battles, consider the casualties, and see, after this ceasefire, in what direction I am to go in next. Whether or not I “win” is, as always, irrelevant. It only matters that I know my enemy and know myself—as Sun Tzu would say—and thus have a better chance of success in my operations. But whether I charge forward or fall back, outflank or echelon, there will always be this Society vs. Me.

This is my enemy. This is my war. This is my story.

Who Says "Freedom Isn't Free"?

This often conjured idiom has been thrown around quite liberally ever since, ironically, the US government felt the need to advance unjust wars in the Middle East. It is used as a sign of gratitude to the military servicemen who “risk their lives” so that we can “remain free”. Aside from the dubious assertion itself that somehow the mass slaughter of the people of Iraq and Afghanistan secures our liberty, the phrase itself rings along the lines of a Third Reich slogan crafted by Goebbels. It is often used by those who care nothing for the inherent bedfellows of this “freedom”, that is Justice, Righteousness, and Liberty.

One cannot insist that “freedom” is being defended when the aggressor is that state which is depriving others of freedom. It makes no sense. I cannot storm into my neighbors house, rape his wife and kill his children, and proclaim that I am defending my freedom by doing so because he poses a threat to me. Indeed, if a sufficient threat exists, one consults an authority who can readily diffuse the situation and find a way to ease whatever conflict there is.

On a global level, we call such an authority the United Nations.

Freedom isn’t free? Really?

And yet it was Thomas Jefferson who insisted that man has the “inalienable right” to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. These are God given rights, he asserts, and not rights handed down or allowed—nor defended—by a federal government. Certainly the principle that our nation operates under is the “idea” of freedom, but to what extent this actually manifests itself is certainly doubtful. Rather, we are assessed taxes, fines, conditions, and licenses in order to pay homage to federal and state authority. We are, in a sense, charged for whatever allowances our government makes for us, and our taxes seem to be paid in assurance that the government will leave us alone. Is this what is meant by “freedom isn’t free”?

Of course not. As much as it is evoked as a gratitude to sacrifice by the military, it conversely is used as a hammer against those who would argue the justification for continued wars of aggression, as if these people were ungrateful for the military. Worse still, it implies that my own day-to-day exercise of my God-given rights I somehow owe the military for. If I drive my car down any road I choose, I should thank the military for this? If I shop where I choose, eat what I please, read what I prefer, or think whatever thoughts I feel like, this is something I could otherwise not do without the armed forces?

The role of the military in the context of “Freedom Isn’t Free” thinking becomes removed from the reality of the situation. The situation is this: that the armed forces, the Department of Defense, are the very muscle behind the power of the federal and state governments. The threat of the use of force is evident and has been displayed on numerous occasions. The Bonus Army was none too quick to assert that “freedom isn’t free”. They knew damn well it was, and no one should say otherwise. So when the military came charging in, guns blazing, and drove these pensioners from Washington, D.C., it was clearly not the freedom of those men that was being secured.

The military is the guard dog of the government, which is, in turn, the hand-puppet of big business. To attempt to say that really the military is here to defend our own rights and liberties is to completely misunderstand the entire history of the United States. The American Civil War, for instance, was not fought to end slavery, though that ran a close second. The Civil War was fought to deny the freedom of succession to the Confederacy. In most cases in US history, the military is employed for the purpose of undermining, restricting, denying, and eliminating the freedoms of people, especially those people who resist the US business model for the world(see Philippines, Nicaragua, Panama, Vietnam, Mexico, Cuba, et. al).

Let us be clear, when calling on God and calling out “freedom”, that if freedom isn’t free, it only exists because of the taxation of millions of American workers. It is paid for by the sweat of the construction worker, the blood of the fisherman, the toil of the miner, the steelworker, the assembly line hand, the cook, the cleaner, the doctor, the lawyer, and every individual who must involuntarily surrender a percentage of his earnings to the State, Federal Government, Disability, Unemployment, Social Security, and Medicare. If freedom isn’t free it is because it is on the backs of the protesters, the defiant dissidents, the poets, the philosophers, the social workers, and the free presses that research the truth, record the facts, and preserve an unseen, unacknowledged history that lives beneath the bloated rhetoric of bureaucrats, bigots, and buffoons in business suits and Congressional campaign committees.
The sacrifice is that of the common man and woman whoes courage is getting up everyday to mundane and unfulfilling labor, to traffic jams, to police cars, crowded streets, cold eyes, and incompassionate multitudes. They sacrifice for the love of their children, the sanctity of their households, the security of their persons, and the betterment of their lives. Yet we find that government surveillance, satellite monitering, internet spying, and general suspicion by the very system we are paying for is targeting us everday as well. Where then is the gratitude? How can the DoD expect our thanks on one hand but be collecting data on us on the other? Are we the enemy? And if we are, how then do we owe any gratitudfe at all to those who sacrifice in order to allow this Beast to continue violating the very rights these soldiers are supposedly protecting?
No, my freedom is my own. All men are created equal, and endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. If the paltry infringments by King George were enough to drive the colonists to open revolt, what is it today that is taken from the common man and given to bankers, corporations, and conglomerates? My freedom is my own, as my body is my own, my thoughts are my own, and my life is my own. I owe no soldier for my existence, nor will I be brow-beaten into believing so.

Freedom IS free!

It always has been.

One need only express it to see whether or not the authorities actually believe in it.

You Beck Ya!

One would think that when the two most challenged minds on the right join hands and word substitution in an effort to rally a nation back to it's "roots", the earth would move, the light would dawn, the chasm would somehow begin to close between perception and reality. Unfortunately, the only result was to see that that chasm is far wider and deeper than anyone could have imagined.
But then, according to Glenn Beck, who held his "Restoring Honor" rally yesterday in Washington DC, "Something beyond imagination is happening. America today begins to turn back to God."
As any viewer of Beck's FoxNews propoganda spread well knows, he teeters conspicuously on the side of righteous conservatism and evangelical statism. He has built an aura of pseudo-Christianity, using the names and verses of that faith(he is a Mormon) to stir the political pot and ominously warn of "thing to come". He is 100% political, and when he tried to characterize his rally,  "Restoring Honor", as unpolitical, it was not to be taken seriously, especially with the likes of Sarah Palin headlining.
As ex-governor of Alaska Sarah Palin said, "Sometimes our challenges seem insurmountable."
Certainly.
We have 18% unemployment, a recovery that never happened for roughly 80% of all working Americans, a rising deficit, an economy that goes in fits and starts, and a government that, as ever it has been, is in the clenched fist of business interests.
That's what a "jobless recovery" means---corporations profit while workers go poor.
Of course, that isn't what Sarah Palin was talking about. She was talking about that black guy in the White House, the Muslim scourge that is tearing around the USA building mosques like they're going out of business, and wars that we can't seem to convince anyone that we are winning.

Nonetheless, the rally was not political and though it was attended by Tea Party members and the crowd was unmistakably white, there was nothing about specific parties or candidates. It was a good example of how to rally conservatives without rallying the conservative vote--explicitly.
No, Glenn is out to milk God for all he is worth. Of course, because he has no idea, personally, what to think about God, and any honest investigation of the values of this God--be he Jehovah, Allah, or Christ--would demonstarte the obvious charlatanism of Becks campaign, Beck has to fall back on the audiences perception, as he often does on his show. He uses what are termed "connoctation words" to his benefit. That is, it doesn't matter whether he believes it, he uses the terminology in the context of the viewer.
A good example is this: "Really the only place you can really find honor is our military now, where you find it in abundance."
He was refering to his feature of the Special Operations Warrior Foundation, a group of Special Forces families committed to supporting the families of those who fell in any given campaign. But notice his use of the connoctation word "honor".
Does he mean sacrifice?
Does he mean honesty?
Does he mean a kind of truth, justice or merit?
Truth is, Glenn Beck doesn't know what he means and doesn't care either. If you choose any one of the available definitions of honor, you would find that his statement is a bloated generalization that devalues the word "honor" while it devalues both the SOWF, the military, and every America who ever thought they maybe possessed a little "honor" of any kind. Clearly policemen, firemen, rescue workers, doctors, pastors, teachers, community leaders, etc. have no "honor" because they aren't in the military and that's the only place you can find it, according to Glenn Beck.
So what you find is that he takes the power of the word, manipulates it to get his point across--while doing his best to appear distressed, exasperated, emotionally fatigued by the intensity of his concerns--and places it out there like a kind of subjective magnet for his ideas to draw into. Yes, subjective. Subjective words are perfect for connoctation because they often have broad perceptions of their meaning: democracy. freedom. liberate. just. true. fair. equitable. love. These are all very subjective words in that their exact meaning is predicated upon the context of the sentence and the perception of the reader.
Thus we have a rally of 150,000 white folks to "Restore Honor".
So what was the point?
To reclaim the civil rights movement?
To restore honor?
To get back to God?
To get "our country back", as one supporter insisted?
Or is it to "Go to church. Restore America with peace", as another declared to Al Sharpton marchers nearby?
No, it was a launching point. It definately, at the end of the day, was a kind of political rally in that it was a red-state jihad that paves the way for the November elections and scares the hell out of Democrats. But it also illustrates the power of Fox propoganda, of conservative christianity, and of grass roots organizing. It also shows that the middle of country is plenty disenfranchised and disconnected, but about all the wrong things. If there is a question of honor in America, one need look no further than the past few decades. Politicians and businessmen have never been honorable, and they have exploited any ill-deserved trust in order to engourge themselves while impoverishing the rest of us. Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, and Obama have all had similar programs, similar goals, and similar results.
Restoring honor?
Honor certainly has some relation to justice and to integrity. A nation that spends more than the entire world combined on defense to maintain the greatest killing machine ever known has a long walk toward any shade of  HONOR. A nation that tortures children, blows people up by remote control, and uses devastating disasters as a hook to keep the poor on a leash certainly has no relation whatsoever to HONOR. And a people who would hustle down to DC and talk about civil rights and God while showing not one ounce of love or compassion for the poor, the minority, the homeless, or the hungry in their country, and instead bemoan their black president, the healthcare bill, and the banker scam as some injustice done to rural, white, christian America and not ALL OF US surely are clueless about church, God, justice, truth, and HONOR.

Glenn Beck has no honor. He is a mouthpiece. A clown. An actor.
A charlatan.

Why You Gotta 'Mosque-at-Ground-Zero' Me, Man?

You know what it's like, right? You give a hitchhiker a ride and then he wants a cigarette, too. You go an extra mile and somebody wants another three past that. It seems like we all have had a situation when we've politely extended our hand only to have it bitten for our generosity.
Here's a great example of a 'mosque-at-ground-zero-me' moment. My co-worker is minding her business, getting product out, doing her job, and all of a sudden she hears Latino music playing nearby. What? Not only does she have to work with Mexicans here in New Jersey, but now she has to listen to their "musica Espanol" on top of that?
"This is America!" she sharply insists.
Yup. The whole darn hemisphere.
What is behind this xenophobic reaction to the proposed Islamic worship center? Is it just 9/11 and the soreness it engenders? Is it a real fear? Or is it what one could call "replacement bigotry"? This reaction seems to me to be severely overblown, so much so that I have come up with a few reasons for it:

1. November Elections: No doubt the peaceniks over at Fox are drooling over the chance to unseat the evil socialist/liberal cabal that has succesfully continued most of the more controversial programs of the previous conservative administration. This is one way to seperate the wheat from the chaff. Anyone who crosses that line is clearly batting for the wrong team!
2. Exhausted Homophobia: It's fair to say that US citizens are more or less tired of the gay marraige scare, at least as much as it could be a voting issue. What worked in 2004 with a Republican regime doesn't play as easily to  Democratic sympathizers. That leaves whatever victim you can grab onto and drag to your local polling place. In this case, it's the regurgitated Muslim menace.
3. Pre-Revolutionary Fervor: This may be the most serious possibility, in conjunction with doses of the above two. It is worth recognizing the extreme agitation Americans are experiencing today, especially those who are more right-leaning. Consider what they have endured; a Black president, Socialist healthcare, regulated financial institutions, and a failure on the part of our military to nuke Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, OR Iraq. This is all VERY disappointing. But this is, of course, just the Glen Becks. The grassroots voters, the Tea Party people, are folks who have been raised in middle America on factories, pensions, farms, small towns, and that familiar "rugged individualism". And this should be admired, I think. Unfortunately, all of these things are evaporating, and the timing is just such that there are few good scapegoats. Those that can and should be blamed always seem to be out of the spotlight(because the pundits have no use for those without political capital). Confused, abandoned, and angry, they are led along by countless conservative mouthpieces who use hate and fear as tools to capture and harness all of that negative energy. They haphazardly glue together one frightening scenerio after another, along the lines of "If we let this happen, our RIGHTS, our FREEDOMS, will be GONE!" Those things are already gone, of course, for the few who have bothered to investigate. And it is not because our president is a different color or because the Islamic population edged up a fraction of a percent. It is because those in power we were told to trust proved untrustworthy--whether they be bankers, lawyers, CEO's, or congressmen. They were predominantly rich, white guys in any case, not brown-skinned Arabs. Christian, largely, and not Muslim.

It becomes a bit unnerving, I have to say, when it seems like the anti-Islamic pitch is getting to dog-whistle decibels. It means people are frightened enough and angry enough to react in ways they normally would not, such as the uptick in anti-Muslim attacks we saw after 9/11. With this supposed afront to good white people two blocks from the ex-World Trade Center, there is a virtual revenge motif about to play itself out.
What is most bewildering--and disturbing--is that these "mosque" foes don't seem to take into account the amount of damage the United States has already done to Islam and Islamic peoples. Over 3 MILLION Iraqis have died one way or another since March of 1991 as a result of US actions. To this day that nation is a toxic cesspool of depleted uranium, contaminated drinking water, deformed babies, and unbreathable air. In Afghanistan the toll of civilian dead continues to rise, the pilotless drone strikes taking 5, 8, 10, or 15 at a time, always "suspected" terrorists.
How many dead is enough dead? What level of bloodlust, what degree of utter humiliation and destruction is enough to satisfy the 3,000 victims of 19 radical hijackers?
That we can peruse these numbers and still have folks upset about a building anywhere near that fatal crime scene is a testament not to the "violence of Islam" but rather to the extreme prejudice and violence festering in the minds of a good many US citizens. What that means, as our economy seems to hobble down to both knees, is the potential for a very ugly brand of what we call "democracy"--perhaps the very brand that allowed a depressed and angry people to find a future in the election of an obscure Austrian artist in 1930's Germany and make him their god.
I hope we have not so easily come to that.

And So It Begins

Introduction: The blog name says it all.
If you know me, there you go. If not, you will soon enough.
I am a bit of a kook at times, alternately brash and insightful. I have a good backround for "useless information", as it were, but as it tends to be more facts and figures, I use it to my advantage. I have a nasty tendency to speak my mind in most situations, especially when offered inaccurate or misguided statements from people in general. Am I a soap-boxer? I suppose so.
As far as whether I am liberal, conservative, religious, or whatever, it really depends on the topic and the context.
Let's just say I am "fair-minded". That is, I take that point of view which seems to me to be the most just and equitable for all concerned. However, I am also likely to dig for the facts if challenged, and will readily admit my own false position or statement if I find I myself am wrong in a point or opinion.

I offer this blog as my thoughts and opinions on what we are doing here, where we're going, and what I think can be deduced from the people and events we come across in these extremely interesting and difficult times. I will aim not to be adversarial if possible, but I will not promise that I will not be livid at times, despondent at others, or just down right pissed off some days.
What I do offer is honesty, as sincerely as I can.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this blog ends up as good as I hope it will be for me, for you also.

Chuck Moon