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Thursday, September 8, 2011

10 Years After 9/11, Is America a Better Place?

10 Years After 9/11, Is America a Better Place?
End of the American Dream

What is the true legacy of 9/11? Unfortunately, it may be how the American people have responded to that event. 10 years after 9/11, is America a better place? Sadly, the answer clearly is no. In the ten years that have passed, a fundamental shift in our culture has occurred. The American people have eagerly given up large amounts of liberty and freedom in exchange for vague promises of increased security. We were once the land of the free and the home of the brave, but now we are the land of the scared and the home of the slave and we seem to like it that way. Most of us don't even remember how to act like Americans anymore. American culture has moved so far in the direction of communist China, the USSR and Nazi Germany that it is absolutely frightening. When most of us were growing up, we were taught that the enemies of America were "totalitarian police states" that did not give liberties and freedoms to their people. Well, today nearly everything that we do is watched, monitored, tracked and tightly controlled. 10 years after 9/11, the American people are living in fear, the federal government is run by control freaks and paranoia has become standard operating procedure. What we have allowed to happen to this nation is absolutely shameful.

Do you enjoy living in a police state?

I don't.

Once upon a time, the police were generally friendly and trustworthy. You actually wanted to know police officers and be friends with them.

But today, police in most areas of the country are deeply feared, and for good reason. They are actually taught to be brutal and authoritarian.

All of this comes from the very top. Prior to 9/11, the Department of Homeland Security, "VIPR teams", the Patriot Act, body scanners, "enhanced pat-downs" and "fusion centers" didn't even exist.

A fundamental shift has taken place in America, and it is almost as if a severe mental illness has infected nearly the entire law enforcement community in this country.

The "big black boot" that was supposedly going to keep us all safe is actually destroying this country and everything that it means to be an American.

The following are some questions that you should ask anyone who believes that America has responded to 9/11 in a positive way....

Is America a better place when all of us ( including grandmothers and young children) must either go through a body scanner that reveals the intimate details of our naked bodies or endure an "enhanced pat-down" during which our genitals will be touched in order to get on an airplane?

Is America a better place now that TSA "VIPR teams" conduct approximately 8,000 "unannounced security screenings" a year at subway stations, bus terminals, seaports and highway rest stops? Should "out-of-nowhere" security sweeps by thugs in black uniforms at transportation centers and public events just be accepted as "the new normal" in America?

Is America a better place now that the FBI can demand to see your cellphone data whenever it wants?

Is America a better place now that the Patriot Act allows the federal government to secretly conduct surveillance on innocent American citizens, monitor the electronic communications of innocent American citizens and conduct warrantless searches of the homes of innocent American citizens?

Is America a better place now that the federal government has a " secret interpretation" of the Patriot Act that they won't even release to the general public? How can we possibly follow their rules if they won't even tell us what they are expecting of us?

Is America a better place when the federal government is so paranoid that it feels that it must issue " talking points" instructing government officials what to say about the 10th anniversary of 9/11?

Is America a better place when young schoolchildren in New Jersey are being taught to snitch on their classmates and police are being used to crack down on " bullying activity" in public schools?

Is America a better place when the federal government is so paranoid that they spend millions of dollars encouraging us all to spy on one another? The " If You See Something, Say Something" campaign looks like it could have been pulled right out of an East German security handbook.

Is America a better place when you must submit a " crop plan" and have your garden inspected by bureaucrats before you can participate in certain farmers markets?

Is America a better place when people living in this country can be labeled "enemy combatants" just for uploading videos to YouTube?

Is America a better place now that invisible "pain ray" weapons are being used in American prisons?

Is America a better place now that state police in some areas of the country are using " extraction devices" to download data from the cellphones of motorists that they pull over?

Is America a better place now that LRAD sound cannons are being used to break up college block parties?

Is America a better place now that local police forces all over the country have been federalized and militarized?

Is America a better place now that local police feel empowered to beat people until they are unrecognizable all in the name of maintaining "law and order"?

Is America a better place now that police officers are patrolling the halls of our public schools and are beating up our kids?

Is America a better place now that little children all over the country are being publicly arrested by police in their own classrooms and are being marched out of their schools in handcuffs?

Is America a better place now that children are being herded like cattle into mass vaccination centers?

Is America a better place now that the U.S. Department of Agriculture is spending huge amounts of money to install surveillance cameras in the cafeterias of public schools all over the nation so that government control freaks can closely monitor what our children are eating?

Is America a better place now that lemonade stands run by young children all over the nation are being shut down by police?

Is America a better place now that large numbers of security cameras have gone up in nearly every major U.S. city?

Is America a better place now that authorities will pull you over for having the "wrong" political bumper sticker on your car?

Is America a better place now that the FDA is employing elaborate entrapment schemes against producers of raw milk?

Is America a better place now that FBI surveillance teams regularly employ warrantless GPS tracking to monitor the movements of peaceful activists – even if they are not suspected of ever committing a crime?

Is America a better place now that the NSA gathers an amount of information on all of us equivalent to the entire Library of Congress every six hours?

Is America a better place now that the FBI definition of "suspicious activity" includes making " extreme religious statements" and believing in " radical theology"?

The sad truth is that America is not a better place after 9/11. We have betrayed our founding fathers and we have cast aside many of our liberties and freedoms because we are so afraid that we can't even see straight.

Fortunately, a growing number of Americans is actually waking up. More Americans than ever are tired of being treated like garbage and this is starting to be reflected in recent polling. For example, according to a new Gallup poll an all-time record 63 percent of Americans have a negative view of the federal government.

Hopefully we will start to see a cultural shift back in the direction of increased liberty and freedom.

If not, we are in for a total nightmare. If we continue on the path that we are on, this nation is going to become an absolutely horrific place in which to live.

A totalitarian police state is not going to keep you safe.

But it will make your life a living hell.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archives/10-years-after-911-is-america-a-better-place

The Ron Paul Solution

The Ron Paul Solution
Sometime the answer is right in front of you
by Brian Wilson

Dealing daily with the bi-polar manic-depressive ADD schizophrenia of the American Electorate is driving me bats**t crazy!

Here is the narrative of the AAV (Average American Voter):

"I am tired of BOTH parties. I am tired of Professional Politicians. I am tired of the Washington 'Inside-The-Beltway' mentality. I've had it with Politics As Usual. I am done with the DC Double Standard: Elected Officials and their Buds break laws with impunity while Big Brother and Big Nanny micro-manage everything I do. I want to left alone. I want Washington out of my office, car, bank account, wallet, kid's school, kitchen, bedroom and hobbies. I want the TSA to keep their grubby mitts off me. I want Government to get out of the way and let the Free Market do its thing. I've had it with the illegal wars, smothered economy and the Entitlement Mentality. I want a President who will stand on principle, not K Street and won't run off to bomb some dictator with a funny hat; who will actually "…to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." And I don't care what Party he or she belongs to."

Well…..Sound like any one of the current crop of candidates???

"Mitt Romney has nice hair. And Gov. Perry has "swagger"! And Michelle Bachman is a hottie (in a proper Christian kinda way). Oh – and Ron Paul is an unelectable wacky uncle."

This from the same AAV plaintively wailing about the status quo. To borrow a phrase: Haul out the duct tape!

As my friend Walter Williams says, "Let's look at it."

"Unelectable"
To put it delicately: Bullsh*t. He's been elected and re-elected and re-elected Congressman from Texas 22nd District. Is there something strange and unique about the 22nd District that would somehow preclude his "electability" as President? Apparently a majority his constituents are happy with "Dr. No" and his record of voting "No" for any/all bills lacking Constitutional authority. What a concept! Or do we conclude if enough chuckleheads repeat the word enough, the polls will reverse and his growing – but somehow inexplicable – popularity will stop embarrassing FOX News & Co.?

"Nukes for Iran!"

Actually not. If one reviews the first debate and subsequent comments, Dr. Paul emphasized he was against Iran having nukes. Hell, he's against everyone having nukes. He explained how Iran didn't have any and, even if they did, they have no means – even gasoline – to deliver it. Then he mentioned the inconvenient truth of the "Sovereign Nation." Whoa! No snappy come-backs for that one (unless the Respondent owns the Tyranny franchise for the entire United States). Then "our sovereignty is better than your sovereignty" is a snappy one-liner infinitely less threatening than the old "Bombs Away!" enjoyed recently by the innocents in Iraq and currently those in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Libya.

Eliminate Social Security, Medicare, FEMA, and EPA, Depts. of Education, Agriculture, and Energy etc.

At the risk of Choir Preaching, Candidate Paul has stated repeatedly: Yes, these socialist programs and alphabet soup agencies have no Constitutional sanction but realistically, they cannot be dismantled overnight. How "wacky" is that? But looky here! Freedom, Liberty and Individual Responsibility have better, more successful ways of providing excellent results without the government waste, fraud and dependency. The boondoggles that are the by-products of these extra-Constitutional excursions into unauthorized largess and Machiavellian altruism have brought America to the brink of financial and societal implosion. No one who understands the severity of the problem can argue successfully – or morally – for the status quo. No doubt you've heard the punditry saying "It's simply not sustainable."

Amen. The Choir may be seated.

Wacky etc.

Finally, let's do away with the ad homonyms: "wacky uncle," crackpot, insane, too old, not a Republican/really Libertarian, "foreign policy," ad ridiculum. Ask yourself – or the person who claims to believe that tripe: what is wrong with a constitutionally obedient government? As noted in my previous LRC piece, the "Kimber Basketball Game" wager, without The Rules, anarchy and tyranny, socialism, communism, fascism, collectivism and Ism-ism stand at the door. Some of their body parts are already inside doing unspeakable things to Lady Liberty and Uncle Sam. Those who lob the ad homonym stink bombs are those who refuse to comprehend the Constitutional cure for the Welfare/Warfare State.

Like analogies? Similes? Metaphors? Parables? I do, too. They simplify things and put them into bite-size easily digestible nuggets of fact.

Take my old one about the Two Cars:

Before you are 2 cars. Same make, model, equipment. Different colors. The Blue car – with a big D on the hood – is being driven by our current President Zero. The Red one – with the big R on the hood – will be driven by Perry, Romney, Bachman or some other late-comer the Media Moguls will anoint and appoint as the Designated Driver.

Here is what's going to happen: Prez Zero is going to drive the Blue "D" car at 150MPH into that large brick wall just over yonder. Upon impact, there will be a big explosion; he will die a fiery, gooey death. And so will America.

Whomever the MM's eventually designate – Perry, Romney, Bachman, Palin (?) – will drive the Red "R" car at 102MPH into the same brick wall with the same unsightly and terminal results.

By your support and vote, you select in which car you will ride.

OK? Choose…….

What's that? Not much of a choice? You die either way?? Well…that's exactly right!

Not much of "choice," is it??

But wait!

Wanna know a secret?

There's a third car! It's being driven by that "wacky uncle," Ron Paul. It's going to go 200MPH – but not toward that brick wall. Paul's "car" is heading in the opposite direction – toward Freedomville and Liberty Town and Free Market City where the Government leaves you alone, stays out of your way and your life. You keep more of what you've worked your butt of for! There are no illegal, immoral, expensive wars! America is secure at home enjoying trade and commerce with friends and neighbors. The government obeys its Constitutional restraints. Markets flourish! Business explodes! Employment soars! Political Correctness is banished to a small un-named atoll somewhere in the Aleutians!

Still think that "wacky" guy is "unelectable"? Or are you ready to buckle up in the hot Blue "D" car? Or would you prefer something in a fiery Red?

http://lewrockwell.com/wilson-brian/wilson-brian27.1.html

Re: [Hope4America] Pol Toons by Pookie on 9-7-11

Who's Pookie?

On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Bruce Majors <majors.bruce@gmail.com> wrote:

Subject: Pol Toons by Pookie on 9-7-11
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This Thread Brought To You By The Letter P:

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In Case You Missed It Dept.:

Carney On 0bama's Leadership (video) <http://vimeo.com/27546027>

Welcome Back, Carter (video) <http://blip.tv/play/AYLQzwQA.html>

0bama Uncle Actually U.S. Citizen <http://peacemoonbeam.typepad.com/bighairynews/2011/08/obama-uncle-actually-us-citizen.html>

Bachmann and Palin Schedule Live Pillow Fight for Sept. 8th <http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=92097>

What They Told Us <http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/09/what-they-told-us.html>

The Tax Tax <http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/09/tax-tax.html>

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Mofak
Back to Back We Face the Future
www.mofak.com <http://www.mofak.com/>
www.mofack.com <http://www.mofack.com/>
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Worried About Big Government? Then You Should Worry About War

Worried About Big Government? Then You Should Worry About War
The the national security state is the biggest threat to American liberty, but the tea party is blind to the danger -- and so's the Obama left
By Conor Friedersdorf
Sep 7 2011, 2:38 PM ET

War is the health of the State. -- Randolph Bourne

In the United States, there is a collective myopia about war and its effect on the power of the state. Ten years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, the most vocal faction in American politics, the tea party, insists that the steady increase in the size and scope of the federal government puts us at risk of tyranny. On those grounds, it opposes President Obama's health care bill, stimulus spending, and financial industry bailouts (all positions I share at least in part). But most tea party partisans are either silent or (more often) uncritically enthusiastic about the War on Terrorism, the policy that has aggregated more power to the state in the last decade than any other.

Since 2001, we've created a new cabinet level super-agency, the Department of Homeland Security. We've waged foreign wars whose ultimate cost will easily reach into the trillions of dollars, all of which will be born by taxpayers. Fourth Amendment protections against government searches without due process have been significantly weakened, as has the expectation of privacy enjoyed by the average citizen. Traveling on an airplane is now deemed just cause for agents of the state to look underneath our clothes and to feel our genitals, making thousands deeply uncomfortable. The president himself now asserts that he possesses the unchecked power to put American citizens on assassination lists if he deems them to be a terrorist.

Given all that, it is remarkable that so many conservatives regard Obamacare as the biggest threat to liberty, that they fret about deficits while staunchly opposing any cuts to defense spending, and that their paranoia about big government and the endemic corruption, inefficiency, and power hungriness that characterizes it somehow never extends to the military or national security state. Equally remarkable are the liberals who are outraged when gays are denied the right to marry (a position I also share), but who are silent as the standard-bearer for the Democratic Party imprisons people indefinitely without due process, spies on an unknowable number of innocent Americans, and normalizes the worst excesses of the Bush years, sometimes by amassing a record that's even worse.

This cross-ideological refusal to confront the actual consequences of war is hardly confined to the way that we grapple with the decade following 9/11. In terms of cost to the treasury and civil liberties lost, the War on Drugs has been even more costly. Yet it still enjoys bipartisan support, despite its utter failure to achieve its ends. Or consider the ways that liberals and conservatives remember the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. For the left, he is regarded as a hero, the prototype for what a Democratic president should be, despite the fact that he perpetrated one of the most egregious civil liberties violations in American history. The right, meanwhile, nods along with judgments like the one I just rendered, but they do so imagining that I am talking about the New Deal. You'll never hear a conservative say, "Wasn't FDR's tenure an affront to liberty -- I can't believe he interned all those innocent Japanese Americans."

The waging of World War II is something that most Americans regard as necessary and just. I do. It is nevertheless the case that the war did far more to empower the federal government and change the character of America than did the New Deal. And sure, paying into Social Security and Medicare decreases our liberty -- supporters of the programs can acknowledge that cost along with the many benefits -- but that lost liberty is inconsequential when compared, for example, to the price paid by the many Americans who were forced against their will to fight in Vietnam, a war of choice that didn't have to be waged to protect American security.

Excepting slavery and Jim Crow, all the most oppressive laws and extra-legal measures in American history have been passed in the name of war or national security: the Alien and Sedition Acts, Abraham Lincoln's suspension of habeus corpus, the Espionage Act and Woodrow Wilson's other radical World War I era excesses. You'd think that the advent of another war would cause left and right alike to be on guard against excesses. Throughout American history, during just, necessary wars and wars of choice alike, civil liberties have suffered in the most extreme ways.

Yet today's left is almost willfully blind to President Obama's continuance of this trend, even despite its general tendency to be more skeptical of war; and the right, blind to the historical wartime excesses even of its least favorite presidents, is currently invoking the language of liberty and fealty to the constitution without any recognition of what is most likely to undermine it. What else but irrational blindness can explain a tea party movement that says it values liberty and fealty to the constitution, but that thinks less of David Brooks than Dick Cheney and John Yoo?

Ten years after the September 11 terrorist attacks, this blindness is the most notable feature of American life, and the one that represents the gravest danger to our future. After past periods of overzealous attacks on civil liberties, there has always been a backlash. Alas, the tea party is insufficiently enamored with liberty to do the job.

When does the 9/11 generation's backlash begin?

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/09/worried-about-big-government-then-you-should-worry-about-war/244675/

[Hope4America] Pol Toons by Pookie on 9-7-11