Another Lost Generation of Americans 

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Actually, they’re not lost geographically.  We see them every day on the cable news channels and the evening news of the broadcast networks.  This decade they call themselves the “Occupy Wall Street” Group.  I believe they are lost, unrecoverable, as productive, patriotic, Americans.  I’m no shrink, but I believe they will carry a degree of bitterness, for the reminder of their lives, as a result of America’s rejection of their attempt to force a socialist form of government on a nation of people who love freedom. The risk was theirs to take.  History will record their failure -- a failure they will never be able to put behind them. They will drag it like an anchor throughout their lifetime. They have made their choice and they now must live with the consequences.

These people have been around since Vladimir Lenin.  They are espousing the socialist/communist line and they are SOOOOO DUMB they don’t have a clue they are being used by the shadowy figures organizing and financing their infantile protestations.

Those dirty, smelly, boorish, idiots are disposable tools of the leftist power brokers, themselves the mortal enemies of capitalists and democracy.

They are supported by the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Nazi Party, the Democratic Party …… .  We should add the labor unions to this OUTSTANDING gaggle of anti-capitalist left-wingers.

They don’t know WHAT the want – but they want it NOW.  It is the primal cry of an infant seeking attention. 

If you are expecting anything good to come of the rent-a-riot crowd in our streets these days, you should reconsider.  This whole “OWS” movement is going to end in disaster.  This ain’t my first rodeo.  I have seen this before. It always ends in tragedy.

As the shrillness of the demonstrators mounts, the public’s tolerance level will fall.  At some point in the future, a tipping point will be reached and blood will be spilt and lives lost.  It is the nature of clashes between groups of human beings.  We call them wars, civil wars, insurrections, riots,

Demonstrations, and at their inception – “protests.”

Power brokers the world over always use the youth to fight their wars and secure their goals.  They use youth’s own overestimation of themselves and their intellect.  For the most part they are that point in life at which they are dumb as posts.  Their minds are mushy and pliable and easily melded into a gestalt or group mentality in which even a coward feels powerful.   They think and act as a single animal with multiple voices expressing thoughts not their own.  They are pitiful creatures. But then, so is a mad dog.

They are the flotsam of our society. They take pride in soiling themselves, our cities, and our society with their witless demands that Americans hand over their freedom and their wealth to an omnipotent government THEY believe will redistribute the collective wealth of America “fairly.”

Grown-ups understand that life is not “fair.”

Economic fairness equals socialism.  Under socialism, the government owns all the wealth of the nation.  The government then doles it out, as IT sees fit, in order that ALL its citizens suffer equally.  Winston Churchill understood that and said so many times.

The protesters we see in America’s streets today are a product of America’s failed educational system, including America’s institutions of “higher” learning.  They have no clear understanding of who they are as Americans.  They are no longer tethered to America’s history and heritage.   Like our current one-term President, Obama, they feel they are citizens of the world rather than citizens of America.  They lack the basic knowledge of the blood, sweat, and tears that went into founding and building this nation while, at the same time, winning its freedom from a despotic king -- and maintaining its freedom through the sacrifice of the lives of their forefathers. 

They are not “Americans’ in the truest sense of the word.  They are “Globalists.”  The blame for this lack of patriotism toward a country that nurtured them is, in my opinion, the fault of America’s failed educational system. 

As I said above – they are flotsam.  They have no attachments, no allegiance, to anything, or anyone, but themselves.  They give new depth to the meaning of “psychopath.”  They have no empathy or remorse for their behavior.

Freedom of speech is one thing.  But attempting to FORCE your will on a society that chose, long ago, to forsake a socialist form of government based on the historical record of socialism’s failure as a workable way to govern and for the pain and anguish it brings to those forced to live by it’s tenants.

America has been deeply wounded by the 1960’s forerunners of the OWS movement.  They have infiltrated our educational system, our clergy, and our government.  Today we are paying the toll for their infectious influence on all three institutions.

Be warned, America.  A second wave of leftist destruction is about to strike our foundational institutions.  It is already too late to turn the tide.  Now we can only face it and stand strong, refusing to give even one inch to the terminal disease that rots the soul of a nation and insures its demise.  Look upon the face of socialism.  Look upon the faces of those who would force YOU to bend to their will and betray your heritage as Americans… your precious freedom. 

J. D. Longstreet      

Killing Energy, Killing Jobs, Killing America ... Alan Caruba

Killing Energy, Killing Jobs, Killing America

By Alan Caruba

America has been under attack since Barack Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009. The primary target has been the nation’s ability to generate energy for electricity and transportation, without which this nation will slide into Third World status and economic decline.

This appears to be the goal of this administration from the President to his Secretaries of Energy and Interior, to his Director of the Environmental Protection Agency. There is no other rational explanation for what they are doing.

We are days away from the latest Environmental Protection Agency assault in the form of the “MACT” rule allegedly to reduce mercury and other emissions that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says will reduce electricity generation in America by about 81 gigawatts in the years ahead. A recent Wall Street Journal editorial said “this could compromise the reliability of the electric system if as much as 8% of generating capacity is subtracted from the grid.”

The Wall Street Journal reports that eleven Governors have written the EPA to ask that it delay the final rule in November. Twenty-five state Attorneys Generals have filed suit “to lift a legal document known as a consent decree that the EPA is using as a fig leaf for its political goals.”

As but one example, in Illinois, Ameron announced the planned shutdown of its Meredosia and Hutsonville energy centers, The Meredosia center generates 369 megawatts. The Hutsonville center has a generating capacity of 151 megawatts.

The EPA, even before the Obama administration, has been using the 1970 Clean Air Act to bludgeon the nation’s ability to access the energy resources required to generate electricity, primarily coal that provides 50% of such generation, and oil that fuels our transportation capability.

In late October, James J. Mulva, the CEO of Conoco-Phillips, addressed the subject of the growing discoveries of natural gas being found throughout the nation. “More than 600,000 Americans already explore, produce, store and produce natural gas, according to consultancy IHS Global Insight.”

At least 15 states now produce shale gas and others may join them,” noting that the largest shale area, the Marcellus which covers much of the Northeast” “already supports 140,000 jobs in Pennsylvania alone.”

The Obama administration, beginning with the president’s admitted goal of shutting down as much of the coal industry as possible, has demonstrated his intention of deterring the provision of energy. When the BP Oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, the administration imposed a moratorium on all drilling. The decreased production cost 360,000 barrels a day in addition to lost jobs related to oil drilling in the Gulf. Rigs that are needed to drill have since been moved to other sites around the world.

The U.S. is home to more than 150 billion barrels of conventional oil that has the capability of generating thousands of new jobs if access to it was permitted. The most immediate result has been the rise in the cost of gasoline at the pump. Two courts ordered that the moratorium be lifted.

Oil companies currently pay more than $30 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Meanwhile the Obama administration has been wasting billions in loan guarantees to essentially useless solar and wind power companies, the latest of which, Solyandra, will cost taxpayers millions when the solar panel producer went belly-up. Others will follow.

Meanwhile, the President crisscrosses the nations demanding higher taxes on companies engaged in coal, oil and natural gas. When Jimmy Carter imposed a windfall tax on oil companies many ceased to explore for new sources here, moving their efforts to other nations. Today, by withholding the necessary permits to produce energy in Alaska, the Trans Alaska Pipeline System is operating at one third of its capacity.

A proposed pipeline from Canada still awaits approval and, on November 6th, led by the Sierra Club, the largest protest against its tar sands is expected to draw thousands to Washington, D.C. to join hands and circle the White House to ensure the Keystone XL pipeline is kept from providing the U.S. with the oil extracted. The proposed pipeline would reduce the U.S. dependence on Middle East oil. The U.S. already has more than 50,000 safely operating oil pipelines to support our transportation and other needs.

In January 2010, Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, warned that the Obama administration “continues to embrace Washington-dominated, command-and-control energy policies focused on mandates, subsidies, and political favors—not market forces.” He criticized “subsidizing one form of energy,” wind and solar, “while restricting the exploration of another,” warning that it “will lead to several measurable outcomes, increasing energy prices across the board, fewer jobs, and a weaker footing in the global economy..”

Nearly two years later, that warning has come true with a vengeance.

Oil, coal, or natural gas, it doesn’t matter to an administration and a president determined to restrict the amount of energy Americans need for their present and future needs. The result, in part, has been a stalled energy sector and a contributing factor in an economy with an estimated 20 million unemployed or under-employed.

The losses in income taxes and the taxes paid by this industry sector, in addition to the hideous borrowing and spending by the Obama administration is doing enormous harm to America and yet Barack Obama wants a second term in office.

Little wonder that Americans fear for the future of the nation.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit. 

Big Brother is Listening To Phone Calls And Reading Text Messages

Big Brother is Listening To Phone Calls And Reading Text Messages

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

On November 9^th, 2011 Americans will get an up close and personal demonstration of the new powers the US government has given itself over America’s broadcast services.

There will be a complete take over of the nation’s air waves, both television and radio – plus -- cable television systems, wireless cable systems, satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) providers, and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers.  The power to do this is now in the hands of the President.  Only he has the authority to do this. (SOURCE)

On November 9^th there will be a test of how effectively the system will work whenever the President decides he must speak to the American people reference an emergency that threatens the nation.

Who exactly, decides when there is a national emergency?  I would expect it to be the President himself.

I am a 30-year veteran of the broadcast business (retired) and this sends chills up and down my spine.  I have visions of Big Brother taking control of the nation’s broadcast systems any time the President feels the need.

But that is not the worst of my concerns. 

There is no such thing as “privacy” in America any longer.  The moment I press “send” on my e-mail, the government scans it.  Every time I make a phone call, whether on my land line, or my cell phone, the government monitors it.  If I send a fax on an instant message, the government scans the wording of the fax.  If and when I send a text message, the government reads it, too.  UNBELIEVABLE, right?  Believe it.

This is a combined project referred to as “Echelon” (or The Echelon Network – sometimes called “The Five Eyes.”) involving the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, with listening posts that span the globe.  Every phone call, e-mail, text message, wire, fax, instant message, computer, and even satellite phone calls is/are intercepted 24-hours a day, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year.   Listening posts are located in Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Cyprus, Hungary, Pakistan, India, Oman, Kenya, and, yes, in Israel.   And – there may well be others, and there probably are.

Ollie North has said the only kind of message communication not intercepted by the government is – smoke signals!  (Page 400 of “The Jericho Sanctions” by Ollie North.)

When you consider all this, then the TV show “Person of Interest” is not so far fetched – now, is it?

“The system has been reported in a number of public sources. Its capabilities and political implications were investigated by a committee of the European Parliament during 2000 and 2001 with a report published in 2001, and by author James Bamford in his books on the National Security Agency of the United States.

Intelligence monitoring of people in the area covered by the AUSCANZUKUS security agreement has caused concern. Some critics claim the system is being used not only to search for terrorist plots, drug dealers' plans, and political and diplomatic intelligence but also for large-scale commercial theft, international economic espionage, and invasion of privacy.

In 2001 the Temporary Committee on the ECHELON Interception System recommended to the European Parliament that citizens of member states routinely use cryptography in their communications to protect their privacy, because economic espionage with ECHELON has been conducted by the US intelligence.” (SOURCE)

NOW, do you wonder why Americans stand close and whisper in public places, in 2011, yet mindlessly say anything to anyone online, or on a telephone or by text message? 

Call me old fashioned, if you will, but it ticks me off to know that the government has the power to do this.  By the time you read this, the government’s interception center has already read it!

Does this not concern Americans, Brits, Canadians, Aussies, and New Zealanders???  And PLEASE don’t give me the song and dance about protecting us from terrorists.  Terrorists know about Echelon and use “runners” to deliver their messages – live human beings and word of mouth.

Now the government has given the Office of the President the right to simply turn off your radio and TV reception just so you and I can listen to the President of the US warn us of a national emergency, which, most likely,  the regular TV and cable networks have already told us about!

As an American citizen, I feel violated.  I used to have a right to privacy.  No longer.  Right along with a huge chunk of our freedom and liberty, privacy has been flushed down Big Brother’s toilet and into the “government septic tank.”

Come to think of it, every few years you have to clean our your septic tank.  Seems to me, America’s national septic tank, in Washington, needs cleaning out!

J. D. Longstreet

EPA Attacks The GOP

EPA Attacks The GOP

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

The Environmental Protection Agency has begun to feel our breath on their necks and they are lashing out. 

  

An article by Lisa P. Jackson entitled “Too Dirty too Fail -- House Republicans' assault on our environmental laws must be stopped.” appeared in the L. A. Times October 21^st, 2011.  In the article, the author says the following:  “Since the beginning of this year, Republicans in the House have averaged roughly a vote every day the chamber has been in session to undermine the Environmental Protection Agency and our nation's environmental laws. They have picked up the pace recently — just last week they voted to stop the EPA's efforts to limit mercury and other hazardous pollutants from cement plants, boilers and incinerators — and it appears their campaign will continue for the foreseeable future.”  (Ms. Jackson is the administrator of the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency.)

 To this I say: “Hallelujah!”  If America is fortunate enough to actually have a Congress and White House controlled by Republicans, after next year’s election, one of its priorities should be the abolishment of the EPA.

 The EPA is the “Vatican” of the pagan religion “Environmentalism.”  In this century, and the last, so many have turned from the worship of a supreme being, we call God, to what we used to call “paganism”… the worship of nature, or the environment, or… more specifically… Environmentalism.

 Yes, Environmentalism HAS become a religion.  Well, actually, it always was, it has just come back into favor in the past 100 years, or so.

 I do feel it is incumbent on the Republican Party to “put down” the EPA.  After all, it was the administration of a Republican President, Richard Nixon, which established the Environmental Protection Agency in the first place.  So the GOP owes it to America to put the EPA out of its misery … or rather, relieve America’s misery by abolishing the EPA.

 The EPA is the government agency from Hell.  It has grown in size and power like an insatiable beast.  Its tentacles have spread throughout America and reached into nearly every aspect of American life.  No one in America is safe from the EPA.

 And it continues to gorge and grow.  Just last November The Wall Street Journal published an editorial entitled: “The EPA Permitorium.” In the article the WSJ said: “The scale of the EPA’s current assault is unprecedented, yet it has received almost no public scrutiny. Since Mr. Obama took office, the agency has proposed or finalized 29 major regulations and 172 major policy rules.”

 Look.  It was bad enough that the EPA declared CO2 a greenhouse gas. Many in my generation learned in their elementary school science class that CO2 is absolutely necessary for everything on earth to … LIVE. 

 Then the EPA decided to look into regulating DUST … you know … DIRT tossed into the air and carried on the wind currents.

 “The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so 21 Senators signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations.

 The letter dated July 23 to the EPA states, "If approved, would establish the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history." It further states, "We respect efforts for a clean and healthy environment, but not at the expense of common sense. These identified levels will be extremely burdensome for farmers and livestock producers to attain. Whether its livestock kicking up dust, soybeans being combined on a dry day in the fall, or driving a car down the gravel road, dust is a naturally occurring event." (SOURCE.)

Consider this from an editorial in the Oil & Gas Journal: “EPA, acting under authority of a loopy decision in 2007 by the Supreme Court, started down this wayward path in part to press Congress into action on climate change. Lawmakers should consider that an institutional affront. In the face of last year's collapse of cap-and-trade legislation in the Senate, in fact, they should see EPA's persistence as the potential for a constitutional crisis.

This is an Executive Branch agency claiming control of a major dimension of the US economy in contradiction of the will of the people as expressed through Congress. Congress must stop it. Congress must set clear and permanent limits on the maverick agency's authority and behavior. Congress must act soon.” (SOURCE.)

Just reining in the EPA will not do.  It is not nearly enough.  The agency needs to be permanently put out of business. No government agency should ever have the power or the reach of the current EPA.  Shut it down, lock the doors, board-up the windows and throw away the key.

J. D. Longstreet

Global Warming: An Obituary ... Alan Caruba

Global Warming: An Obituary

By Alan Caruba

I used to write obituaries when I was a young journalist and I daresay they are one of the best read sections of any newspaper. We have arrived at a time when the obituaries for global warming (now falsely called climate change) are increasing.

The October 25th edition of The Wall Street Journal sports an editorial titled “The Post-Global Warming World” commenting on the fact that the 17th annual United Nations-sponsored climate change conference in November is likely to be an even greater flop than recent ones. Few, if any, nations will sign on to the huge hoax of reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) to save the world from burning to a crisp.

Considering the long years of media-driven drivel about global warming, the hoax should have been over by now, given the exposure in 2009 of thousands of emails between the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conspirators and growing body of evidence that everything they asserted was a great steaming pile of horse manure.

If there was ever a reason for the U.S. to stop funding the U.N., this is it.

I have predicted the death of global warming several times, but like a Hollywood zombie global warming is kept alive by its massive propaganda machine and useful idiots in the media.

Since the late 1980s The New York Times has engaged in the most horrid effort to convince its readers and the world that the IPCC should be taken seriously even though its successive reports have proven to be an offense to real science and the truth. No opportunity was ignored to advance the hoax even in the face of incontrovertible facts of every description.

Global warming has become a green religion to be taken on faith, but its claim to legitimacy was the “science” it put forth. That science began to come into question when a natural cooling cycle began in 1998. Glaciers began to noticeably grow along with the ice shelves of the Arctic and Antarctica. Snow arrived earlier and in greater abundance than previous decades.

Global tropical cyclone activity has been at historic lows and the frequency of U.S. hurricanes has declined. The latest, Irene, was rapidly downgraded to a tropical depression by the time it made landfall.

So, naturally, when Elisabeth Rosenthal, a blogger on “Green” topics for The New York Times wondered out loud “Where Did Global Warming Go?” I was curious to know her answer. Turns out that, despite being heralded on the covers of Newsweek, Time, The Economist, and countless other “news” magazines, in TV documentaries, et cetera, it hasn’t gone anywhere

After lamenting that, since his visit to the 2009 Copenhagen UN conference on climate change, President Obama has failed to mention global warming every day, Rosenthal wrote “But two years later, now that nearly every other nation accepts climate change as a pressing problem, America has turned agnostic on the issue.”

No, nearly every other nation has concluded it was a massive and very expensive fraud. That is why the forthcoming UN conference is going to implode. Policy makers are trying to extricate themselves from the useless solar and wind projects to which billions were committed. As soon as Obama is out of office and the Environmental Protection Agency is scaled back to its original 1970 objectives we can begin to attend to the rebuilding of the nation’s economy.

Note Rosenthal’s use of the term “climate change” rather than “global warming.” Note, too, that the 2009 Copenhagen conference was a huge failure with none of the nations in attendance agreeing to do much more than get together again, preferably in Cancun, Mexico, 2010, where the weather, unlike Copenhagen’s was not at risk of the huge blizzard that forced Obama to leave early lest he be trapped there until the snow melted.

“Though the evidence of climate change has, if anything, solidified,” Ms. Rosenthal lamented that “Mr. Obama now talks about ‘green jobs’ mostly as a strategy for improving the economy, but not the planet.”

People who worry about “the planet” and not about real problems such as how to feed seven billion of its human inhabitants or how to provide enough electricity to keep the lights on in the world’s cities or who think “improving the economy” is a poor choice to make when more than 14 million Americans are out of work are seriously out of touch with reality.

“He did not mention climate in his last State of the Union address,” said Rosenthal, pouting over something about which neither Obama, nor anyone else on planet Earth can do anything except to clean up the mess left behind by hurricanes, floods, and other forces of nature..

The climate, measured in hundreds of years, as opposed to the weather which is unpredictable more than a week from now, is the result of the activity of the Sun, the oceans, volcanoes, clouds, and cosmic rays. It is determined by the immutable laws of physics.

“The fading of global warming from the political agenda is a mostly American phenomenon,” wrote Rosenthal, apparently unaware that the European Union is about to collapse because several of its member nations are so deeply in debt that makes the U.S. look like a paragon of prudent fiscal policy. Rosenthal appears to be unaware of the rapid political changes occurring across the northern tier of African nations called the Maghreb and elsewhere throughout the Middle East.

Like the urchins “occupying Wall Street”, Rosenthal chides Americans who “prefer bigger cars and bigger homes. We value personal freedom, are suspicious of scientists, and tend to distrust the kind of sweeping government intervention required to confront rising greenhouse gas emissions.”

Since when is valuing personal freedoms, many of which are protected by the Constitution, and being suspicious of those scientists who have been claiming we’re all going to die, or questioning sweeping government intervention anything other than a deeply embedded American tradition and a very good idea under any circumstance?

For the past six years, the Heartland Institute has sponsored International Climate Change Conferences, the last in Washington, D.C., June 30-July 1. Haven’t heard about them? Maybe that’s because the mainstream media has gone out of its way to ignore them. The conferences, however, have contributed to the growing body of knowledge disputing global warming to the point where, even in the nation’s capitol, the topic has become little more than the slow revelation of the utter mendacity of the hoax and its perpetrators.

Where has global warming gone? Onto the ash heap of the history of the last twenty-plus years of bad policies, wasted billions of the public treasure, and all of it driven by the UN’s mendacious “science.”

© Alan Caruba, 2011

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 Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Thou Shalt Not Covet

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Exodus 20:17 "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that [is] thy neighbor’s."

No.  I am not about to turn my collar around and climb back into my pulpit.  If this piece turns out to be a sermon, then – so be it.

The Bible verse above is, in fact, the Tenth Commandment. Those of the Judeo-Christian faith understand covetousness to mean: reprehensible acquisitiveness, excessively and culpably desirous of the possessions of another, or -- just plain envious of the possessions of another.

I can think of no better example of human beings trampling on the Tenth Commandment than the current asinine display of covetousness by those protesting Wall Street and America’s financial institutions. 

The motley, rag-tag, battalions of socialism are openly LUSTING after the wealth of others, wealth they have not earned – but -- through some warped feeling of their own inferiority, expressed by their inability to compete in the marketplace of capitalism, they feel entitled to the wealth of others.  It is wealth to which they have no right.

The founding Fathers of America saw this coming and spoke out against it.

Samuel Adams stated: "The utopian schemes of leveling [redistribution of wealth], and a community of goods, are as visionary and impracticable as those that vest all property in the Crown. [These ideas] are arbitrary, despotic, and, in our government, unconstitutional."

Later, James Madison, author of the Constitution, wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."  

What we are witnessing in the streets of the nation is only the latest attempt by sluggards in this country to take property from those who have earned it and give it to those who have NOT earned it.  No matter how you frame it -- it is out and out thievery.

It has been known for countless centuries that when a nation’s leader takes from Paul to pay Peter, he can always count on the support of Peter.  America’s current leader knows this all too well and shamelessly employs it in his campaign for another term in office.

The current protest movement is not new.  The mobs seeking to take what is not theirs are not new. They fouled the streets of Rome centuries ago.  History is replete with records of frenzied mobs seeking to steal the wealth of the prosperous.

America was founded on the idea that anyone could become prosperous by applying one’s self, working, and investing in one’s future. America offers the OPPORTUNITY.  It is up to the individual to take advantage of that opportunity to better him/herself and secure a more prosperous future for their offspring. 

The dream of pulling one’s self up by one’s bootstraps cannot be realized when one exists solely on the labor/wealth of others.  When the source of their sustenance dries up, as it is bound to do, the entire society will founder and fail.

Someone once said:  “When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.” (Author Unknown)

Coveting that which is your neighbor’s is a cancer of the soul. It will eventually consume that which makes us human.  It lies at the root of most of a society’s troubles. It has brought down, and will continue to bring down, entire nations.  It can be brought to bay only by the efforts of each solitary individual. 

The greatest exhibition of “transference” is the protesters in New York, and around the country and world, transferring their own greed onto those they are protesting against.

Our government has taken huge sums of wealth from the prosperous in America and given it to America’s less fortunate in a “hand-up” effort only to see it accepted as a “hand-out.”   The fact is, this massive transfer of wealth has gone on for so long that the government continues it out of stark fear that the moment they stop the “handouts,” there will be revolution in the streets.

Much like the “bread and circuses” of ancient Rome, the system has been turned on its head and is now, in fact, a reverse form of blackmail. The threat is implied – and the message is received, loud, and clear, in our nation’s capital.

Coveting our neighbor’s wealth is but an excuse for not expending the same energy in earning one’s own wealth. 

As I look at the writhing mobs, I am fascinated at how many Americans are willing to allow themselves to be used as a tool by ambitious men who seek to direct America’s attention away from a failed President and his administration, for a few months, until the election.  They have no idea that their impact on American history will be less significant that of a bug on the windshield of a car speeding down I-95.

Sad.

J. D. Longstreet

The Value of a Single Israeli Soldier ... Alan Caruba

The Value of a Single Israeli Soldier

By Alan Caruba

The Talmud, a record of rabbinic discussions on Jewish law, says “Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed the entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved the entire world.” (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)

Every Israeli soldier knows that, if captured, his nation will move mountains to secure his return. It’s not just a slogan. It’s a reality.

Since 1982 Israel has engaged in eight such swaps, the latest being the release of Gilad Shalit, kidnapped five years ago and denied the most basic rights as defined by international law. Hamas even refused to permit visits by representatives of the Red Cross.

Since 1982, more than 10,000 Palestinians serving prison sentences for terrorist and other hostile actions have been released. In 1983, more than 4,500 Palestinians prisoners were swapped for six Israeli soldiers being held in southern Lebanon. In 1985, 1,150 prisoners were exchanged for three Israelis.

The value that Israeli places on its soldiers includes even casualties of war. In 2008, it released Samir Kuntar, convicted of murdering four Israelis in 1979, plus four Hezbollah fighters in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers seized during a cross-border raid.

The swap for Shalit, also the victim of a cross-border raid, demonstrates a fundamental difference between the Israelis and their enemies. They believe that each of their soldiers is more valuable than those who war against them.

Naturally, the most recent swap evoked a wide range of views. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum welcomed Shalit’s reunion with his family as did thousands of Israelis, but said that “joy is tempered by the bitter realities of statecraft” calling the Israeli policy “the sentimentalization of strategy.” He thought the swap “poison(ed) the future” for Israel.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu disagreed. “As a leader who sends IDF soldiers every day to defend Israeli citizens, I believe that mutual responsibility is not just a slogan, but one of the foundations of our existence here.”

Netanyahu knows that Arabs have been kidnapping and ransoming people for the whole of Islam’s 1400 years and that it was standard practice among the desert tribes where the religion first took root. Islam is based on the promise of paradise for its adherents when they die; particularly its jihadist warriors.

Hamas and Fatah indoctrinate Palestinian children to want to be suicide bombers, but Judaism is based on the premise that life is God’s greatest gift and is to be valued above all else. Former Prime Minister, Golda Meir, said, “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Bill Levinson, writing about the swap, had perhaps the best interpretation of what occurred. He referred to the famous Chinese tract, Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”, suggesting that “Hamas might have played squarely into the hands of the Mossad and/or Shin Bet”, Israel’s highly effective and feared intelligence agencies.

“Israel might have just planted 50, 100, or even more double agents among the Palestinians who will cooperate, for example, in setting up Hamas terrorists to be killed or locating Palestinian rocket batteries for destruction whenever Israel considers this necessary.”

Sun Tzu wrote, “The enemy’s spies who have come to spy upon us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service.”

Had the Israelis merely released one or a few prisoners their return would evoke suspicion, but with more than a thousand such prisoners it will prove impossible for Hamas to know which among them are double agents.

No people survive more than three thousand years against the greatest of odds and a multitude of enemies without learning a few lessons along the way. Hamas will pay the price in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.

Gaddafi is Dead. Now What?

Gaddafi is Dead.  Now What?

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

First allow me to establish that I am glad the world is rid of Gaddafi.  He was a tyrant and a terrorist.  “Sic Semper Tyrannis!”

It cost Americans a little over a billion dollars to send Mr. Gaddafi to his eternal reward where, no doubt, he is stoking the furnaces as we write.

But this is not the end. In fact, it is the “beginning of the beginning.”

I have never been totally satisfied that a democratic form of government will actually work in an Islamic country such as Libya, or Iraq or even Afghanistan, for that matter.  They are tribal nations. Even their religion has at least two separate factions, Sunni and Shiite.  Unlike Baptists and Methodists – they don’t seem to be particularly fond of each other.

There are a number of folks complaining that the US is taking entirely too much credit for ridding the world of Gaddafi. Frankly, when one considers that Obama decided to “lead from the rear” on this operation it does leave a distinct unpleasant taste in my mouth.

However, we did learn it was a US Predator drone that attacked the Gaddafi convoy accompanied by a French warplane. And even though it was a NATO Operation, it IS interesting to note that US taxpayers foot the bill for some eighty percent of NATO’s budget. And, believe me when I declare that I am not trying to excuse Obama’s crowing about the US involvement in the Libyan operation to lend assistance to the Libyan rebels in their now successful, overthrow of the Gaddafi regime.

The British and the French, I believe, should be getting a huge amount of praise and credit for their tireless efforts to bring about Gaddafi’s overthrow and eventual death.  My observation is that they are getting short shrift in the American media for their exemplary military effort, which, no doubt, saved the lives of many Libyan civilians as well as Libyan rebel fighters.

I tend to agree with a number of US Congressman and Senators that the Libyan operation could have been over much sooner had Obama released the full force of American military might on Gaddafi’s forces, thereby saving many more lives of innocent Libyans and bringing the conflict to a satisfactory conclusion much sooner with less casualties and deaths.

So now, as the dust begins to settle, we are beginning to see that we have a nation, essentially destroyed, and having never experienced Democracy clearly have no idea what to do in the weeks and months ahead.

Will the new Libya finally settle for the suffocation that will result if they choose to become an Islamic state, or, will they take the plunge and make an honest attempt at the establishment of a truly democratic government of some form for their new fledgling nation?  The latter will be the most difficult, no doubt. 

Libya has 140 tribes.  And every one of them will be seeking a share of influence in the new government.  How, exactly can that ever happen?

Libya has absolutely no experience with democracy.  They are used to kings and dictators and strongmen.  A transition to some form of democratic government will be a wild and wooly experience. It is going to cost the US a lot more money if we take it upon ourselves to go nation building again.  Frankly, Americans have had their fill of nation building in Islamic countries where the governments appear to corrupting the new government faster than the US can build it.

Many Americans feel certain that both Iraq and Afghanistan will quickly abandon democracy and revert back to some sort of dictatorship with another strongman in charge in order to pacify all the tribes.  Chances are very strong that Libya will do exactly that.

If that happens Europe will again be at the mercy of the Libyan government for the light sweet crude oil they prefer and that Libya has in abundance.

Now that practically every Libyan is armed, suppose they decide they actually liked their little war and make an effort to continue it within Libya or a neighboring country?  

How do we get their guns back?  We never will get all of them and I’d be surprised if we go anywhere near 50% of them back under lock and key in our armories.

These are extremely dangerous times in Libya.  It’s going to take a heck of a lot of American money to prop up some sort of democratic government   …   if ever.  America will have one chance to get it right.

J. D. Longstreet

Three Quarters Of GOP Voters Do Not Support Romney

Three Quarters Of GOP Voters Do Not Support Romney

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Mitt Romney’s polls seem stuck in the low to mid twenty percentile. As the weeks and months have passed Romney’s polling numbers seem steady in that range.  There’s a reason for that.  The conservative voters within the GOP do not support Romney for President of the United States.

That, dear reader, is why Herman Cain’s numbers have been skyrocketing

There are recent reports stating that Herman Cain is the candidate the Tea Party has thrown its support behind and Cain is the top choice from the GOP field by SOUTHERNERS.  As a conservative southern gentleman – none of this comes as a surprise.

Look.  Sophisticated republican voters already know it would take an act of God for Mr. Cain to receive the anointing the GOP as the Republican nominee to run against Obama. Nevertheless, they have seemingly flocked to Cain, a real conservative, and are looking much more approvingly at Newt Gingrich.  (Mrs. Bachmann is finished -- kaput. She flamed out the moment Rick Perry entered the race.) 

There is a very clear message being sent to the GOP hierarchy:  We want a CONSERVATIVE candidate – not another moderate RINO!  All the other candidates are “also rans.”

Mr. Cain simply does not have the financial means to run a head-to-head campaign against Romney for very long. His star will begin to fade very soon and conservative voters will be told, once again, they must “settle” for another moderate nominee … Romney.

There are two dangers for the GOP in this scenario.  One – that Romney will win the nomination, and two – that conservative voters will stay home on Election Day in November of 2012.

The GOP is betting that conservative voters will vote for practically any candidate running against Obama.  The GOP is WRONG!

Conservative voters practice their politics with conviction and with passion.  Many, like yours truly, will simply stay home or write-in another candidate’s name at the polls.  Conservatives have the courage of their convictions and they are not afraid to act on them.

I know it is not popular to express doubt that the GOP will wrap the 2012 election up with a red ribbon but -- I think republicans are being far too optimistic about the outcome of that all important contest. 

Raining on the GOP parade is distasteful, to say the least, but I simply do not believe the south will support Mr. Romney at the polls and, frankly, I am not convinced that Romney is strong enough to govern a country as divided as America is today. 

If I am right, and I believe I am, then Mr. Obama will be reelected and given four more years in which to practice his program for the destruction of America.

Look.  There is a slim-to-none chance that republicans will win enough seats in the Senate to reach the needed sixty seats that would insure the democrats cannot lock-up the Senate (as republicans are doing right now) and leave a republican Congress just as bogged down as our current divided Congress. 

America MUST have a strong President who can carry his case to the voters for their support in prodding a foot-dragging Congress -- even a Congress of his own party.

Even if Romney is elected without the southern electorate, he will not have enough support from the grassroots to bring the over-powering weight of pubic pressure to bear on a lagging legislature.  Alas, America will have another weak President.

Weak Presidents are dangerous – not just to America but to the world.  We have seen it with Carter and with Obama. Its as if the “Global Police,” America, goes on an extended vacation for four years.  All the bogeymen come out to play.  The rogue nations have a field day.  Nations are invaded, people are slaughtered in their thousands, while America’s allies sweat through the nightmare until the American people become fed up and place a new sheriff in office. 

The record is written, oftimes, in blood.  When America elects a President, the world holds its collective breath. 

America really needs to get it right this time -- not just for America -- for the world.

J. D. Longstreet

Obama's First Thousand Days ... Alan Caruba

Obama's First Thousand Days

By Alan Caruba

After the brief period of intoxication with candidate Obama’s rhetorical skills, the promise of “hope and change” became the business of governing a nation still reeling from a major financial crisis and issues of war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As the euphoria subsided, reality in the form of growing numbers of unemployed, the homes that continued to be foreclosed, and the growing realization that Obama’s attitudes toward America and his view of the world were antithetical to our well-being and completely out of touch with what was actually occurring.

John F. Kennedy’s first thousand days in office included continuing and expanding the nation’s space program. Obama has, in effect, shut it down. The Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba was sobering and the expansion of U.S. participation in Vietnam’s civil war became a national tragedy, but Kennedy’s assassination, his martyrdom, as well as the myth of Camelot that included his beautiful wife, Jackie, lives on.

By contrast, Obama’s first thousand days, a marker in time he recently passed, has been one long series of astonishingly bad judgments that have his polling numbers heading south. There is a widespread and persistent view that he has taken America in the wrong direction.

As the 2012 campaign begins to gain momentum it is worth taking a moment to briefly review the record.

He has overseen the tripling if the national debt. It stretches to the Moon and back. For the first time in the nation's history its Triple-A credit rating has been reduced.

Billions spent as a “stimulus” to the economy have done little more than waste taxpayer’s money. It was and is a political slush fund, not much different from similar programs during the New Deal era of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It is distinguished by its emphasis on “green jobs” that are best symbolized by the Solyndra scandal; jobs created that are each measured in millions “invested.”

Obama’s focus from the beginning, however, was the imposition of universal health care in the form of a 2,000 page piece of legislation dubbed “Obamacare” which has already been repealed by the House and will be the subject of a Supreme Court case to determine its constitutionality or lack of it. Americans hate it.

All administrations have their scandals and Obama’s is no exemption. Still festering is the ATF program, “Fast and Furious”, that actually facilitated the sale and transfer of guns to the drug cartels operating out of Mexico. The Attorney General appears to have been caught in a lie regarding his knowledge of it. It cost the life of at least one Border Patrol officer and who knows how many victims of the cartels.

In addition to the many “czars” Obama appointed to oversee public policy---many of whom not vetted by Congress---his cabinet appointees have proven to be ideologues more interested in advancing the global warming hoax and restrictions on America’s access to its vast energy reserves than facilitating a greater degree of energy independence and job creation.

The Environmental Protection Agency has literally gone rogue, requiring Congress to constantly pass legislation to restrain it from further damage to the economy.

Obama’s greatest contribution to life in America has been to make Americans so jaded that they no longer even ask if he was or is eligible to be President. He has boldly hidden virtually all of the paper trail of his life from public examination and the “birth certificates” he has offered have been, according to experts, forgeries.

Throughout his first thousand days, he has expressed contempt and disdain for almost every aspect of American society; its “millionaires and billionaires”, for the “corporate jets” used to facilitate travel in the pursuit of business expansion, for Wall Street "fat cats", for the entire medical profession who he suspects of recommending expensive treatments to patients when a cough drop will do. But oh how he loves those unionized teachers!

More recently his support of thuggish union behavior has been on display along with support of the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters that mock American values in favor of vague demands for “social justice.”

In pursuit of a second term, he is using class warfare and the race card. He is claiming falsely that Republicans have never offered him a jobs program when it is perfectly obvious they have.

He has gone from having a Democrat-controlled Congress from 2009-to-2010 that had to be bribed and threatened to pass his Obamacare law to the loss of the House of Representatives, largely due to the spontaneous rise of the Tea Party movement. His latest “jobs” legislation, introduced in an unprecedented joint session of Congress, was unable to secure even the support of Democrats.

There is a word to describe his first thousand days. It is “failure.” As this is being written, he has some 460 days left of what is surely his first and last term in office.

© Alan Caruba, 2011

Nazis, Communists, and Socialists Support Occupy Wall Street Protest

Nazis, Communists, and Socialists Support Occupy Wall Street Protest

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

The GOP has a wonderful tool to use in defeating Obama in 2012.  It is the unruly crowd called the Occupy Wall Street Movement. It is a gift to the GOP on a silver platter… if they have the common sense to use it.

Obama is creeping ever closer to supporting the out and out socialist/communist/ nazi/labor union movement.  He can’t help himself.  Obama and the modern Democratic Party are drawn to the unruly rabble as moths to a flame.  Why?  They believe the anarchic socialist/communist philosophy espoused by the raucous rabble littering America’s streets with their socialist utopian ideology.

Middle America views the antics of those useful idiots as disruptive, distasteful, and a clear and present danger to America’s security.

We have warned many times of the Democratic Party’s embrace of socialism and yes, even communism. Now it is on display for the world to see.

America is under attack… from inside. It has been a dream of the socialist/communist parties to destroy American capitalism and they now believe that THIS is the time. There is a weak American President who supports their philosophy and, they feel Americans are mentally prepared to toss aside capitalism, which built this nation into the most prosperous and powerful nation on the globe, and replace it with a system of government that will most certainly destroy America in record time. They want a socialist/communist government in America and THAT’S what all the infantile empty-headed antics in the streets of America is all about.

  

Human events has an article entitled: “Nazi Party and Communist Party Support Occupy Wall Street --- So does Obama.” Jim Hoft wrote the article.

 In the article, at Human Events, Mr. Hoft says: “The American Nazi Party likes what it sees.” (SOURCE)  We recommend you read the entire article at Human Events.

 Here is an excerpt from the American Nazi Part website: 

 “Racial Comrades: I am going to address the issue of this "Occupy Wall Street" fervor that has been sweeping the land like a breath of cleansing air!

THE NATIVES ARE GETTING RESTLESS, AND ZOG FEARS IT MIGHT HAVE A POPULAR UPRISING ON ITS HANDS - finally!

This issue is TAYLOR MADE for National Socialists, as well as WN who are serious about DOING SOMETHING - MORE - than shouting "racial slurs" and acting like "poster boys of hate" loons.

After all - JUST WHO - are the WALL STREET BANKERS? The vast majority are JEWS - and the others are SPIRITUAL JEW materialists, who would sell their own mother's gold teeth for a PROFIT. And MORE and MORE people are AWARE of this truth, are not only NOT afraid to TALK ABOUT IT - they're shouting it on WALL STREET!

I urgently URGE all of you to TAKE PART and JOIN IN when these protests hit your neck of the woods. Produce some flyers EXPLAINING the "JEW BANKER" influence - DON'T wear anything marking you as an "evil racist" - and GET OUT THERE and SPREAD the WORD!   (SOURCE)

Are you beginning to understand what is going on in the Occupy Wall Street Movement? 

There’s more.

At the Communist Party USA website there is the following:

“The movement is the newest wrinkle in the all-people’s upsurge against the banks and corporations and reflects a new level of class-consciousness.

While there is a wide range of political and ideological trends, there is a consensus against corporate greed, getting money out of politics, taxing the rich and putting people before profits.

A big challenge for the CPUSA and left, progressive movements is to link these demonstrations with the labor led all-people’s coalition and help deepen understanding that the path to progress must be through electoral and political action including defeating Republican Tea Party reaction in 2012.

Of primary importance is linking it with the burgeoning fight for jobs and especially passage of the American Jobs Act.

We can also play a role in offering more advanced programmatic ideas like nationalizing the banks and socialism.

To have a positive impact, the CPUSA and YCL must be a part of the “Occupy” movement, participating at every level and building greater local support for the actions among labor and progressive forces.” (SOURCE)

The Socialist Party is VERY deeply invested on the Occupy Wall Street movement.  They are asking their supporters to stand with protesters, listing events and times in various cities. (SOURCE)  In a statement on their website they say the following: “The Socialist Party USA supports the mobilizations to occupy Wall St. in New York and various cities across the US and encourages our locals to take part in these actions.”  Then there is a listing of the various protest locations.  You really need to read this site for yourself to grasp the depth of the Socialist Party involvement in the Occupy Wall Street movement.  You will find it HERE.

Socialism is a condition that is terminal to any nation -- and America is no exception.

The GOP has a grand opportunity to show the Occupy Wall Street movement up for what it is – a wanna-be Bolshevik Revolution such that in Russia in 1917 by what became know as the Russian Communist Party.

As time goes on the connections between the Democratic Party, the Obama White House, and the Occupy Wall Street movement will become very clear.

If the GOP has the sense God gave a gnat they will use that evidence and irrefutably expose Obama for the socialist he really is and his socialist/communist agenda for America. It is an agenda America cannot survive.

J. D. Longstreet 

Obama Versus The Lord’s Resistance Army!

Obama Versus The Lord’s Resistance Army!

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Where, exactly, is the threat to the National Security of the United States in, uh, Uganda?  

Maybe its just my natural paranoia, or, it could be that after nearly three full years of watching Obama’s slight of hand, and misdirection of America’s attention, I suspect something more going on than we are led to believe.

Now we are learning that US troops are already on the ground in Uganda, AND, will (according to an ABC News report) ultimately go to South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, with the permission of those countries.

If my math is correct, the US is now currently engaged in military actions in four countries… simultaneously. If, and when, the US troops move across the borders in Africa, we will have military operations in not four, but SEVEN countries.

Is Obama now on a crusade to save the “dark continent?”  What’s really going on … I mean besides Obama sucking up to leftists bleeding heart groups that will not accept that no one can save Africa but AFRICA!

Obama says: “although the U.S. forces are combat-equipped, they will only be providing information, advice, and assistance to partner nation forces, and they will not themselves engage LRA forces unless necessary for self-defense.”   Uh-huh.    

Can you say VIETNAM??? 

Is the average age of Americans now so young that we must deduce that America no longer remembers the colossal mistake, humongous blunder, in Vietnam that cost the lives of over 50,000 US servicemen and women?  In the event that you do not remember… THIS is the way it began.

 The folks over at Department of Defense tell us that US troops will be Special Ops troops and  “will be traveling out to field locations in the areas affected by the LRA where they can interact with and advise those forces that are actively pursuing the LRA.” The spokesman went on to say: “they will not be engaging in direct combat against the LRA.”  Again, I am having flashbacks about the line of bull America was fed when we sent Special Ops troops into Vietnam to “advise” and not engage with the enemy except in self-defense.  Remember the Green Berets in Vietnam… not to mention Laos and Thailand? This is all so familiar that it is truly disturbing. 

Is anyone actually fooled by the seemingly small; number of troops Obama is committing to Africa…   100 troops… right? Not on your life!  In my day it took nine support troops for every combat soldier you had on the ground not to mention the material to conduct operations and the supply lines, by way of ship and aircraft, to keep them supplied while in the field.

What about air support for the troops in combat on the ground?  US troops ALWAYS have air to ground cover when engaging the enemy. It is one of the reasons our combat troops are so effective in battle.  They can call on air support when they need it.

“US Africa Command” says US forces are prepared to stay as long as necessary to enable regional security forces to carry on independently.    

Look.  The Lord’s Resistance Army is a rag tag bunch of tin pot desperadoes who have wreaked havoc in that part of Africa for years.  But … they present NO THREAT to the national security of the US.  I am convinced this is more of the UN’s “Responsibility to Defend,” policy, which will keep the world in a constant state of war.  (By “the world,” I mean, of course, the United States and the US military.)

The loss of the lives of US soldiers in Uganda, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, will quickly turn Americans against this President’s seemingly whimsical approach to war. Consider, too, the cost of our treasure… in money.  It is one more expense the US taxpayer simply cannot afford.   

Another reminder.  The President is hanging his authority to commit troops to this hopeless situation on a law passed by a democrat controlled Congress in May of 2010 called “The Lord’s Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act.”  The bill passed both houses of Congress, overwhelmingly, which is not surprising since liberal guilt has a long, long, history of leaving it’s bloody imprint of the pages of history through what we now refer to as “unintended consequences.”

The bill contained these words:  “… providing political, economic, military, and intelligence support for viable multilateral efforts to protect civilians from the Lord’s Resistance Army.”

We know the left does not understand the military …  and …  they sure as heck do not understand the application of military force.

Africa is the quick sand of the world.  It will suck a nation in and, eventually, under.  Ask Great Britain, France, Germany, or even Belgium.

The current Congress should immediately cut off all funding for this foray into foolishness at the expense of American lives and American money.

J. D. Longstreet 

Occupy Wall Street: Communism's Clueless Foot Soldiers ... Alan Caruba

Occupy Wall Street: Communism's Clueless Foot Soldiers

By Alan Caruba

Norman Thomas, a U.S. Socialist Party candidate for president, once famously said, “The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism’, they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Thomas ran for president six consecutive times from 1928. He needn’t have bothered as Franklin Delano Roosevelt and subsequent Democrat Presidents introduced most of the planks of the Communist Manifesto and we live with them to this day.

The Occupy Wall Street youngsters are the latest foot soldiers of Communism, though it is likely most are too ignorant to realize it. They have been so thoroughly indoctrinated in government schools and by Hollywood and the media that they have no idea how they are being used by labor unions and other leftist organizations.

The protesters are likely unaware of the misery and murders Marx’s Communism imposed on Russia courtesy of Lenin, Stalin, and those who followed in their footsteps. Mao's Red China murdered thousands as well in the pursuit of the “equality” that is the alleged goal of Communism and liberalism.

In 1848, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote “The Communist Manifesto.” Marx never held a job in his life, living off of donations from Engels and others. He failed miserably at every enterprise he tried, including publishing newspapers.

The Manifesto had ten planks. The first was the abolition of property in land and the application of all rents to public purposes. Anyone who owns land in America for their homes or any activity such as farming or mining knows that they must pay fees to various levels of government. Even in death, inheritance taxes are a penalty imposed on passing property to one’s children. These taxes were the subject of the Manifesto’s third plank which called for the abolition of all rights of inheritance.

The second plank is one that is very much in the news. It is a heavy progressive or graduated income tax. Everyone pays income taxes and there are demands that “millionaires and billionaires” pay more than others. Corporate income taxes in the U.S. are among the highest in the world. In the Supreme Court decision, McCulloch v Maryland Webster, Chief Justice John Marshall said that the power to tax is the power to destroy. Too much taxation is one of the reasons the nation finds itself in its current financial crisis as it is directly connected to whether people will invest in new businesses or existing ones and destroys job creation.

The Manifesto called for the centralization of all means of communication and transportation in the hands of the state and the U.S. government is replete with commissions that achieve this goal. The fifth plank called for the centralization of credit in the hands of the state and, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Federal Reserve, a system of privately owned banks that have a monopoly on the creation of money backed solely by the credit of the government. Standard & Poors recently downgraded the nation’s credit rating. Is there really any gold in Fort Knox? One hopes.

Most famously the Manifesto called for the state to own all factories and instruments of production. Instead of merely permitting the standard practice of bankruptcy to occur so that they could be restructured, the Obama administration stepped in and “bailed out”, i.e. took ownership of General Motors and Chrysler companies. Creditors were kicked to the curb.

The Manifesto called for government control of all labor and agriculture. The federal government has a matrix of departments that exercise control of these sectors of the economy; a Department of Labor and a Department of Agriculture.

The tenth plank of the Manifesto called for “free education for all children in public schools and the combination of education with industrial production.” The Occupy Wall Street protesters are the result of government schools whose purpose is to create a docile work force that, along with various government “entitlement” programs provides for a cradle-to-grave submissive workforce.

But the Occupy Wall Street protesters, you say, hardly seem submission, nor do the unions that we’ve seen occupy the state house in Wisconsin, call for strikes, and other forms of worker protests. Intimidation in the quest for the Manifesto's objectives is a Communist tactic.

The protesters are calling for free college educations. The unions were protesting against the loss of collective bargaining with governments that determine their pension and health benefits, all paid for with public funding.

Little wonder the protesters are being embraced by the Democratic Party and unions, and that those spoiled brats befouling the walkways, streets, and alleys of New York and other cities are totally oblivious to the way they are being used.

Americans better insist that Capitalism emerges stronger from this latest spate of organized anarchy. If not, Karl Marx and the foolish liberals will succeed in destroying what is left of the nation.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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 Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" his popular blog and thereafter on dozens of other websites and blogs. If you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. To visit his Facebook page, click here For information on his professional skills, Caruba.com is the place to visit.