Americans Are NEVER Alone 

Big Government Is Watching And Listening to EVERYTHING.

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Americans are no longer free.  You are kidding yourself if you continue to think that you, as an American, are free.

The US government has shredded the US Constitution and done away with American’s privacy.  It simply doesn’t exist anymore.

We are watched and listened to every moment of every day.  From the moment our feet hit the floor in the morning until we go to bed at night.  Even while we sleep, the looming hand of government hangs over us like a Damocles Sword.  Every movement we make is tracked.

The government monitors every phone call we make.  The government monitors every email we send.  Leave your home and facial recognition cameras pick up your movement on the city streets and highways. 

Even inside our homes, the government has the ability to see through the very walls and watch our movements. 

Driving on our streets and highways government agents with Back Scatter x-rays can see into your automobile, truck, or van, and see clearly what and who, is inside. 

Soon, the US government will be flying drones over America to keep tabs on its citizens just as the government already does to our enemies. In a matter of months,  local police department drones will join government drones in our skies – all WATCHING YOU (and ME)!

Send you kids to school with a lunch mommy prepared just for them, and some government bureaucrat snatches the bag and checks it to see if the child’s parents are feeding their kids the foods the GOVERNMENT wants their kids to have – not the foods mommy and daddy want their kids to eat and enjoy. 

I saw an article, the other day,  that noted that some cities are considering forbidding citizens from smoking on their own property if they are OUTSIDE the house. 

Americans dare not fill in a mud hole on their property for fear the federal government will arrest them for defiling a “wetland” of some sort.

The government has decided we are a nation of fat people.  Have you looked at the government Body Mass Index?  If I lived by that thing  -- I’d look like a stick!

On the Internet, your favorite search engine will soon know more about you than you very own family knows.

I have warned often in the past about RFID transmitters in the items you buy in your local big box store.  It is a radio transmitter which tracks the garment you purchased and will allow the person, or persons, or government, with a received tuned to that frequency to track wherever you go when you are wearing that garment. 

I have just scratched the surface in this commentary.  It is much worse than we "formerly" free Americans can even guess.

Look.  I am so old I can remember WHEN AMERICA WAS ACTUALLY A FREE COUNTRY.  So, every time the government twists the screws another turn I feel it more than most … my whole generation does. 

But we don’t matter anymore. 

We had our shot at life and now, as we approach the grave, heck, we’re just old fuddy-duddies muttering gibberish about an America that was once the greatest nation on the face of the earth -- precisely because we were free!

The conduct of America’s government today rivals and even “mirrors” that of the old Soviet Union, and 1930’s Germany under the rule of der Furher!  It sure as heck does not mirror the US Constitution!  But, then again, Americans have been brainwashed in our public school system, over the past two generations, that the US Constitution is a “living, breathing,” document that can be changed or ignored at the whim of the government.  Can you believe it?   Can you believe there are fully grown, adult, America men and women who actually believe the constitution is no longer relevant?  

Why, I even heard one of our Supreme Court Justices say recently that she would not recommend the US constitution as a model for new governments to consider when writing their own, and most likely, their FIRST constitution.

And you know the worst of it?  I don’t believe there is the chance of a snowball rolling clear across Hades, in the middle of August, that today’s Americans have the stones to confront the US government and demand that it (the government and all of American society) be ruled by the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights!

Like Pavlov’s dog, we have been taught to react when the government rings the bell. We’ve become a nation of lackeys for a government that is crushing freedom out of existence in America. It makes no difference if a velvet fist -- or a mailed fist is crushing America -- the end result is the same – crushing slavery.

Americans now belong to a single huge plantation stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border.  Our owners are in those two big white houses in Washington, DC.  But, hey, we are going to clothed, fed, and have our medical needs taken care of so – what’s to complain about?

Problem is – most Americans today do not know the answer to that fundamental question.  Ignorance of that answer has sentenced America to lifelong slavery for its citizens and a place in the dustbin of history alongside other grand experiments that also failed.

To learn who, exactly, is ultimately responsible for America’s failure – one has only to look in a mirror.

J. D. Longstreet

Freedom of Speech a Fantasy in America

Freedom of Speech a Fantasy in America

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

We have known for some time that the government was listening to our phone calls, landlines and cell phones, and we have suspected they were doing the same thing to our e-mail and to our blogs.  Now we KNOW.

“A privacy advocacy group has swayed Congress to hold a hearing next week into the Department of Homeland Security’s practice of monitoring social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as media reports and organizations, including The Drudge Report.”  (SOURCE)

How much longer will Americans allow our freedom to be eroded … taken away?  How long are we going to allow the desecration of the US Constitution? 

Since September 11^th, 2001 we have been trading our freedom for security.  It never works.  The end result has always been that a people who trade freedom for security eventually wind up with neither. 

“The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) recently obtained close to 300 pages of documents, as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, detailing the federal agency’s “intelligence gathering” practices on the web.

Among the documents were guidelines from DHS instructing outside contractors to monitor the web for media reports and comments that “reflect adversely” on the agency or the federal government.

As Reuters reported last month, in early 2010 contractors were asked to spend 24 hours monitoring news media coverage on popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks, as well as news sites including the Huffington Post and The Drudge Report.

The documents obtained by EPIC indicate that following the exercise, a procurement official awarded an $11.3 million contract to General Dynamics Advanced Information Systems in order to carry out the monitoring on a “24/7/365 basis”.” (SOURCE)      

What has happened to America’s guarantee that its citizens have “freedom of speech?”  Has that guarantee been revoked?  Indeed, it has.

Look.  America has a government run amok.  Like a giant vacuum cleaner, Washington is sucking our freedom up and leaving us vulnerable to a tyrannical central government with a socialist agenda.

The Bill of Rights, the leash our founders placed around the neck of government in America has been slipped and like a ravenous junkyard dog, that government is devouring the liberty and freedom of all Americans. 

The Obama Regime has been the worst violator of the government restraints placed on them by the constitution since the Lincoln Administration.

The corruption within the current government is as bad, or worse, than that of the Grant Administration.  Government -- and the power of government -- has grown exponentially under Obama’s leadership  -- and he is asking for another term to complete the job.

Consider this:  As we observe the degradation of American liberty under the Obama Regime’s first term, what do you think will happen when Obama is not restrained by an impending election?  Can America survive as a free constitutional representative republic with a capitalist society?  In my opinion, the answer is an emphatic, resounding NO!  America cannot survive.  At least a FREE America cannot survive.

America is facing the very real threat of becoming another socialist dung heap where all its citizens suffer “fairly” or, as the socialists and Marxists say, … equally.

Ginger McCall, the Director of EPIC is reported to have said:  “The idea that the government is constantly peering over your shoulder and listening to what you are saying creates a very chilling effect to legitimate dissent.”  (SOURCE)  

I agree with Ms. McCall, except that I would take it a step farther.  Not only does government eavesdropping chill freedom of speech … it THROTTLES it!    

This whole mess is just another indication of how America has slipped into the Post Constitution era.  The “fabled” US Constitution is a thing of the past.  It is a myth born in the dim mists of yesteryear and is no longer applicable today. 

Just as history records that Nero burned Rome, history must record that Obama presided over the destruction of America. 

Look.  A nation like America can only be successful if it has a God-fearing populace, not a people who celebrate infanticide and behavior that God has proclaimed an abomination. America is more like the latter than the former today.  As a result, we have sold ourselves into slavery.

The distant bell we hear is tolling America’s death knell.  The last best hope of mankind is breathing it’s last, felled by it’s own hand.

J. D. Longstreet

UN Seeks “World Tax” To Fund Global Socialism

UN Seeks “World Tax” To Fund Global Socialism

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

“No one should live below a certain income level,” stated Milos Koterec, President of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations. “Everyone should be able to access at least basic health services, primary education, housing, water, sanitation and other essential services.”  (SOURCE)  We recommend that you click on the “source” and read the entire article by Paul Joseph Watson.

Why is the US still a member of the United Nations?  The UN is, in my opinion, the single greatest threat to American freedom and liberty on the planet today … and that’s saying a lot!

The UN has been finagling for decades to construct a global government (a one-world government) and rule over all the peoples of the earth.  National sovereignty be damned. 

For the people of the United States it would mean the abrogation of the US Constitution.  Our loyalty would be to the UN -- not to the US Constitution.  UN law would prevail in America, not US law.

The UN has delusions of grandeur.  I mean REAL delusions.  Unfortunately, except for the late US Senator Jesse Helms, of North Carolina, nobody has been willing to stand up and call them on it.

Any attempt to rule the world is destined to end in utter and abject failure. The people of this planet are far too diverse -- and just plain ornery -- to agree to live under one government.  Any attempt to force a one-world government on earth will lead to wars all over the planet.  The earth would be in a constant state of world war.  Any FOOL can see that.

And yet they continue to mold a receptive mindset in the less educated, less sophisticated, and the less fortunate peoples of the earth in order to create a creature so banal, ignorant, weak, and vulnerable as to be completely reliant on them for their very existence.  It is akin to the modus operandi of the Democratic Party in the United States.

And now the UN wants us to pay for it, too!

Once again they are seeking a “World Tax” to fund their global socialism.  It is pure socialism/communism.  Of course,  they want to tax the wealthier countries more than the less wealthy countries.  It other words – it is

redistribution of the wealth or, as we have come to know it … socialism.

“ A 2010 UN blueprint for putting the organization back at the forefront of global governance alarmingly revealed the agenda to re-brand global warming as “overpopulation” as a means of dismantling the middle classes while using “global redistribution of wealth” and increased immigration to reinvigorate the pursuit of a one world government.”  (SOURCE)

The UN has even put forth “a plan under which the west would be mandated to respect “the rights of Mother Earth” by paying a “climate debt” which would act as a slush fund for bankrolling an all-powerful world government.” (SOURCE)

Oh, the utopians will love this idea … until they grow up.  By then, of course, it will be too late -- because the world will already be enslaved.

If the US is the subject of an act of God, and conservatives manage to grasp control of the Congress and the Presidency, then Americans should insist that one of the first acts of the new government should be to pull the United States of America out of the United Nations.

As an American, I am embarrassed that my country is a member in such a corrupt organization.  For good measure, Americans ought to insist that the United Nations move its headquarters to a country more accepting of the UN’s corrupt socialist agenda. 

The UN is a festering carbuncle on the posterior of the world. Its stench reaches unto heaven.

By the way:  that “world tax” the UN wants to levy would be  … “a minimal financial transaction tax (of .005 percent). This will create $40 billion in revenue.” (SOURCE)

In a recent report by Olivier De Schutter, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, “Mr. De Schutter blames the free market system for threatening the livelihoods of “peasants, fishers, pastoralists, and indigenous peoples.” He emphasizes “the importance of land redistribution for the realization of the right to food.”   (SOURCE) 

De Schutter goes on to say:  “Rather than focusing on strengthening the rights of landowners, States should encourage communal ownership systems, strengthen customary land tenure systems and reinforce tenancy laws to improve the protection of land-users…” (SOURCE)

What he is advocating, dear reader, is doing away with private ownership of land and replacing it with collective farms, or socialist communes.  YOU will not be able to own land.  The STATE will own all the land.

The United Nations is a socialist organization and the United States of America has no business even associating with it let alone being a dues paying member.

J. D. Longstreet

Democrat Code Words for Socialism

Democrat Code Words for Socialism

Fairness, Fair Share, income inequality, etc

A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

Wouldn’t it be nice if the Democrats would simply drop their façade and admit they have morphed into some sort of American breed of a socialist political party?

In the past few months, even years, my teeth have been set on edge when I have listened to their rhetoric about “fairness,” in this or that, and their use of the words “fair share” to drive a wedge between the American classes, and especially the words, or phrase, “income inequality” which seals the deal.  

When a nation seeks income equality it is assuming socialism as its core philosophy.  Income inequality is the clarion call for redistribution of a nation’s wealth. It is as simple and as basic as that.

In the past two decades I have slowly come to the realization that the dumbing down of Americans is near completion.  It has taken approximately 50 years to realize, but the leftist movement in America successfully infiltrated and gained control of America’s public education system.  Now we have a full generation and most of a second generation who have no clue what America is about.  They don’t have a clue what their freedom cost.  They don’t have a clue that the federal government was created by the states to serve the states as an agent.  They have been taught -- and they believe -- that the people of the states are subservient to the federal government.  They do not understand that the Bill of Rights is a protection for the American people from their federal government.  Those ten amendments restrain the federal government in the interest of the people. 

Most of our young Americans today don’t know the difference between the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.  Don’t believe me?  Ask ‘em!

I have mentioned in previous articles that as a solider in the US military I was trained to meet and combat socialism on the battlefield.  It was rightly recognized as an enemy of freedom.  It was recognized as a form of government that was destined to fail, but before its demise, it would enslave the people of any nation that was so utterly stupid as to even try it.  No nation has yet survived socialism.

Europe is teetering on the edge of complete disaster simply because they have run out of other people’s money with which to pacify their populace after decades of coddling and teaching them to depend on their government for their very existence.

The USSR is now a footnote in history.

Yet, despite the fact that America was nearly crushed under the weight of a mere sampling of socialism, the left persists in their socialist agenda for America.

In 2008, they managed to elect a socialist as President of the United States.  In 2010 the people of the political right in America successfully blunted the socialist left’s endeavor to shove America deeper into socialism.  Conservatives were successful in retaking a majority of the Congress.

Now we have a chance to solidify conservative control of the American government by refusing to reelect the socialist in the White House this November. 

It was clear after the President’s State of the Union address that their next step is to incite a class war in America.  The great-unwashed masses in America must be taught to hate the “patricians” and the “plutocrats” – the very people who financed -- and continue to finance -- America’s success as the greatest nation in the history of mankind. 

The wealthy Americans must be brought low and their wealth confiscated and redistributed to the – ahem – less fortunate among us.  That is what I like to refer to as: BOVINE SCATOLOGY!

Nevertheless, their efforts to incite class warfare has been more successful than most think. It ought to be.  It has been an underground movement for at least nine decades now.  With the left’s capture of the Oval Office the socialist were emboldened to rise to the surface and ram their agenda through the national legislature. 

But the right stopped them in 2010.  That, dear reader, is why we now see the President’s abuse of the power of the Executive Order.  Obama is intent on diluting democratic freedom in America by infusing socialism into every agency and administration under the control of the executive branch of the government.

Americans must retake control of their government in November and free it from the clutches of the socialist elite who have dipped their fangs into America’s bloodstream and are sucking her dry.

America needs a champion who will lead from the front.  A leader who take a stand on the deck of our sinking ship of state, much as the Father of the US Navy, Captain John Paul Jones, when his ship was blown to bits and sinking from enemy fire.  When asked if he was prepared to surrender Jones famously replied:  “I have not yet BEGUN to fight!” Against all odds, Jones won the battle and took the enemy ship.

THAT is the spirit we need, indeed, the spirit it will take to lead America out of the muck and mire of socialism, put her back on course, trim her sails, and stir for the safe harbor of capitalism and freedom.

It is a life or death decision we Americans will make in November -- the life or death of America.

J. D. Longstreet

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      

A Horrible Week for Global Socialism ... Alan Caruba

A Horrible Week for Global Socialism

By Alan Caruba

Over the weekend of August 6-7, the Wall Street Journal’s lead headline was “U.S. Loses Triple-A Credit Rating.”

On Monday, August 8, the Journal’s headline was “Markets Brace for Downgrade’s Toll.”

By Tuesday, August 9, it was “Downgrade Ignites a Global Sell-Off.”

On Wednesday, August 10, it was “Markets Sink Then Soar After Fed Speaks.”

Thursday, August 11, the Journal cast its eyes across the Big Pond noting that “Italy’s Woes Weigh on Europe.”

On Friday, 12, the headline said, “Stocks Swing Up in Wild Week.”

A week after the Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. credit rating from AAA to AA+, in the August 13-14 edition, the Journal took note of a “Global Crisis of Confidence”, adding that “World Policy Makers’ Inability to Agree on Fixes Led Markets on Wild Ride.”

As the new week dawned on August 15, the Journal said, “Markets Gird for Fresh Drama.”

It was a great week for dramatic headlines and a horrible week for the rest of the world. Mostly, though, it was a fulfillment of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s observation that socialism works just fine until you run out of “other people’s money.”

That is a perfect definition of “redistribution” or, as President Obama once observed, “At some point you’ve made enough money.” A more un-American statement has rarely been uttered by an American President.

The U.S. has been engaged in a huge experiment in redistribution since the years of the Great Depression when Franklin D. Roosevelt, a man who knew absolutely nothing about running a business and who had spent most of his life living off an allowance from his mother, tried everything he could think of to get the economy going again.

FDR could have tried cutting taxes. He could have encouraged Congress to avoid voting for trade barriers in a fit of protectionism. Instead, he came up with Social Security, among an alphabet soup of government programs which were a disaster when it came to encouraging private sector job creation. Not unlike President Obama's "stimulus" and other doomed-to-fail experiments

The history of Social Security is one long succession of lies that Americans have been told. By the time Lyndon B. Johnson was President, the funds set aside for Social Security payments were moved to the general fund where they could be plundered by Congress. Under President Clinton Social Security payments began to be taxed as income.

World War Two arrived in the U.S. on December 7, 1941, and full employment followed to defeat the fascists in Germany and Japan. The government that had expanded during the FDR years continued to expand.

Americans emerged from the war without a scratch on the homeland. With the exception of Hawaii’s Pearl Harbor, none of our cities were bombed. We had a million battle-tested young men returning home in 1945, the GI bill let them go to college if they wanted, and by the 1950s we were on our way to being the greatest military power in the world and the greatest economy ever known.

And the federal government never stopped expanding. It needed more money, but the stock market, with occasional recessions, just kept growing too. As time went along, Great Britain and Western Europe rebuilt, alliances such as NATO were created to thwart the Soviet Union’s ambitions, while Eastern Europe stagnated under Soviet imposed communism.

In Asia, Japan became an economic powerhouse and South Korea too. China which had suffered under Chairman Mao waited until he died to convert its economy to a capitalist model, while retaining all the worst aspects of an Orwellian communist government. In the Middle East, oil allowed nations led by a handful of tribal chiefs and assorted despots acquire wealth beyond belief. Their populations remained oppressed. Now they are in the streets demanding freedom and justice. They will get Sharia law and more oppression.

Economies became increasingly global and interconnected. Europe became the European Union, a huge bureaucratic mess with the Euro as a common currency. Western bankers purchased Europe’s securities and vice versa. When the housing market imploded in September 2008, they discovered that most were de-linked from the original mortgage assets and were essentially worthless to the tune of billions.

The Federal Reserve responded by shipping $600 billion to prop up European central banks and Congress responded by authorizing the Treasury Department to “bail out” U.S. banks and the huge insurance company, AIG, with public funds--your money.

So what have we learned from all this? Foremost of all, socialist economies are inherently unfair and disconnected from the real world of hard work, property ownership, and capital investment. We learned that bankers are greedy and take greater risks than they should.

Great Britain, which has become one of the greatest welfare states in the world, was rewarded for its generosity with looting and rioting by youths whose families had lived on the dole their entire lives. Greece had already had its spate of riots.

Everyone keeps saying that the U.S. must not become Greece, but the U.S. has become Greece and that accounts for all those horrible headlines from last week.

The Obama administration, which has steadfastly ignored every previous “commission” that has studied the economy, has now engineered “a super committee” in Congress. It is composed of the twelve worst ideologues on either side of the economic policy divide in an effort to cut some spending, any spending! Failure has been baked into that cake.

The old way of conducting the affairs of nations, particularly their economies, is coming apart at the seams. It has exposed the hypocrisy of socialism here in the United States and everywhere else it has been practiced.

© 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.

A World That's Coming Unglued ... Alan Caruba

A World That's Coming Unglued

By Alan Caruba

After you’ve read history for a number of years, you begin to realize that the world goes crazy every so often. People and nations just lose their wits. It’s usually in times of great change when old truths or old ways of doing things are thrust aside by new discoveries, new technologies, or just the renewal of old pathologies.

Instances of this include the Crusades, the Industrial Revolution, and the rise of fascism in the last century.

I think we are in a comparable period, for how long or short I cannot say, but to quote from Star Wars, “There’s a disturbance in the universe” or, to be more specific, among the nations of planet Earth.

Part of the problem is the sheer size of the human population. We now number in excess of six billion and there are serious issues of how to feed all of us, ensure clean water, employment, and, of course, the provision of the energy that fuels societies dependent on electricity.

Photos from space of the Earth at night tell one everything about which parts of the Earth are enjoying the benefits of electricity and which are not.

In the past, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, war, famine, disease, and death could be counted on to keep populations in check, but advances in technology, medicine, and agriculture have tipped the balance in favor of humanity.

Beyond sheer numbers, there is the problem of profligate spending that has several European nations, as well as the United States of America, in deep financial trouble. The merry-go-round of borrowing to keep bloated budgets afloat cannot continue indefinitely despite the efforts of central bankers to do so. Merely printing money has always led to bad events from riots to wars.

The financial problems are tied to the worst economic systems ever created, first as Communism, then its modified version, Socialism. Neither work. While politicians of every stripe like Socialism as a way to “redistribute” wealth, the entire system is confiscatory and based on coercion. It usually impoverishes the middle class of workers while creating an ever-growing class of those who will not or cannot work.

As harsh as Capitalism can be, it does work. It involves high levels of risk, often large amounts of investment, and it allows for failure. It is also the greatest engine of growth and the development of new industries, new technologies, and improved lives. Like fish in water, we are oblivious to the miracle a single supermarket represents.

All economic systems must strive to cope with corruption and, so long as there are three humans on Earth, there will be corruption. Having recently descended from the trees to walk upright, humans are subject to their aggressive nature.

Communism and Socialism promise equal misery. Capitalism offers the opportunity to enjoy the benefits of making the right investment guesses or developing new and better things people want to own. Competition improves life for everyone.

In sum, the clash between economic systems is still being worked out with nations that grant as much liberty as possible to their populations doing best. Where power is concentrated in a few, their populations and their nations do not prosper. As regards the world’s population, a huge cohort is young, unemployed and combustible.

It is the quest, the demand for more personal and political liberty that is causing much of the upheavals extant and no where is this more obvious than in those nations where Islam has been the prevailing religion. Islam translates as “submission.” It is based in seventh century strictures on how life should be lived. It is at war with modernity. It cannot prevail, but until it reforms or fails, there will be terrorism and war.

The greatest threat to humanity is the presence and continued quest for nuclear weapons. They are genocidal, capable of killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Allowing Iran, a nation led by a handful of crazed theocrats, to acquire nuclear parity poses a threat to humanity that has never existed before. Permitting North Korea or Pakistan to retain their nukes can only result in a bad outcome.

Like a rumbling volcano, the tremors felt as the result of the United States being led by a dedicated Communist and likely Muslim is a destabilizing factor not only for its citizens, but for others around the world.

It is up to the present leaders of the world to thread their way through the upheavals and divisions causing growing instability. Some will do it better than others. Some will cling to failed systems and philosophies of the past. Some will simply pursue power for power’s sake.

Alliances will change. Allies will become enemies. Enemies will become allies. Nations will pursue their shifting interests.

For the world in general, a good start would be the abandonment of the United Nations, an institution that failed initially as the League of Nations, and which is now so putrid with corruption and schemes to impose a one-world government that it poses a threat to the sovereignty of all nations.

Just as neighborhoods thrive when the common interests of neighbors for security and peace are observed, international organizations designed to concentrate power inevitably fall short of their heralded benefits.

In the same way shifts in the Earth’s tectonic plates, volcanic eruptions, and the latest cooling cycle are posing massive challenges for humanity, the nations of the world are trying to cope with changes in the financial universe they have created as well as outmoded concepts of security.

How the present upheavals, financial, religious, and demographic work themselves out remains unknown. In a neighborhood people find it best to “get along.” In a world beset with rival systems of belief and governance, the outcome is far more murky and, ultimately, more threatening.

© Alan Caruba, 2011
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The Fannie Mae Mess ... Alan Caruba

The Fannie Mae Mess

By Alan Caruba


It was a relatively short Wall Street Journal article on Saturday, May 7th. “Fannie Mae Falls Back Into the Loss Column.”


“Fannie Mae reported a net loss of $6.5 billion for the first quarter as a weakening housing market dashed hopes that the company had stabilities,” wrote Nick Timiraos. “Fannie said Friday it would ask the government for a fresh taxpayer infusion of $6.2 billion after paying dividends to the Treasury.”


What we are witnessing—and paying for—is the way this “government-sponsored enterprise” (GSE) has distorted the nation’s housing market since it came into being. Freddie Mac is another GSE that shares the blame.


In a Cato Institute Policy Analysis by David Reiss, the author notes that “Fannie and Freddie are extraordinary large companies: together they own or guarantee more than 40 percent of all the residential mortgages in the United States. This amounts to more than 4.2 trillion dollars in mortgages.”


In a free market economy, when did anyone ever imagine that the government would “own or guarantee” the vast bulk of home mortgages? And why? This is the result of socialist policies that assert that everyone should have an imagined “right” to own a home when common sense says that not everyone could qualify for this.


The result was a storm of “ninja loans”, no job, no assets, and in many cases no down payments to secure the loan. The full story, however, is much worse. In an April Business Week commentary, “The Destruction of Economic Facts”,  economist, Hernando de Soto, noted now the development of systems to record facts regarding the ownership of property that “organized, standardized, recorded, continually updated, and easily accessible” ensured that the essential trust required to engage in commerce have been destroyed.


“Over the past 20 years,” wrote De Soto, “Americans and Europeans have quietly gone about destroying these facts. The very systems that could have provided markets and governments with the means to understand the global financial crisis—and to prevent another one—are being eroded.”


“The results are hardly surprising. In the U.S., trust has broken down between banks and subprime mortgage holders; between foreclosing agents and courts; between banks and their investors—even between banks and other banks.”


Little wonder, then, that Reiss, an associate professor at Brooklyn Law School, says the “current state of affairs presents an opportunity to reform the two companies (Fannie and Freddie) and the manner in which the residential mortgage market is structured.” His answer is that both should be privatized so they can compete on an even playing field with other financial institutions.”


While acknowledging that, during the 1970s, Fannie and Freddie, along with Ginnie Mae, “effectively created the secondary mortgage market”, Reiss warns that “the two companies have two of the most powerful lobbying machines in Washington” citing them as “poor agents of public policy…with unmatched influence.”


Fannie and Freddie are classic examples of why government should be restricted to its role of protecting consumers and kept from engaging in commercial enterprises. Alice Rivlin, when she was the director of the Office of Management and Budget, warned that GSE’s were created because wholly private financial institutions were believed to be incapable of providing an adequate supply of loanable funds at all times and to all regions of the nation for specified types of borrowers.” That, however, is not a function of government.


As we have seen in the financial crisis of 2008, the combination of untraceable owners of “bundled” mortgages as securities and the inability of the GSE’s to meet their accumulated obligations—the 40 percent of mortgages they owned—combined to force the government to provide billions in public funds to protect and sustain them. And Fannie is back, hat in hand, asking for $6.2 billion more!


The U.S. government has to get out of the business of guaranteeing the investments of GSEs because, as Reiss notes (1) the cost of the government’s guarantee is hidden because it is off-budget; (2) the cost is particularly difficult to quantify; and (3) the guarantees are not capped by the government.


This nation is sharply divided between unrealistic liberal advocates of programs and agencies such as the GSEs and conservatives who correctly fear the growth of government, particularly into sectors of the economy that should remain in the hands of private institutions that must act with a measure of prudence that open checkbook of government does not permit.


Reiss’s analysis states that “Fannie and Freddie reflect what is worst in GSE design.” Like all elements of government, “After fulfilling their purpose of creating a national mortgage market, they have taken on monstrously large lives of their own.”


It is going to require a lot of political courage to take the steps necessary to save the economy and protect it against future abuses such as Fannie and Freddie.


© Alan Caruba, 2011

I Don’t Celebrate Labor Day

I Don’t Celebrate Labor Day
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Today is Labor Day in the US. Labor Day is a celebration of Labor Unions. I don‘t support labor unions; therefore I do not celebrate Labor Day.

In case you doubt me on the original intent of the Labor Day holiday, read the following excerpts directly form the Department of Labor’s website at: http://www.dol.gov/opa/aboutdol/laborday.htm

“Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union.

The form that the observance and celebration of Labor Day should take were outlined in the first proposal of the holiday — a street parade to exhibit to the public "the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations" of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day. Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.” (SOURCE)

The original intent of the Labor Day holiday has been largely lost in the drive to revise and sanitize American history.

Labor Unions have been referred to as the “shock troops of socialism.” (SOURCE)

Today most American families will celebrate with picnics cookouts, etc, completely oblivious to the fact that they are celebrating the labor unions in America.

I cannot do that.

My uncle, a lawyer, and high up in one of America's largest and most powerful labor unions, would get down on the ground and look under his car, then raise the hood and look carefully -- every morning -- before he would ever get in the car and start it up. He was looking for bombs. I don't know, to this day, exactly how important his job in the union was, but at his death, of natural causes, the US Secretary of Labor was in attendance at his funeral.

So, enjoy your family outting today. Just be aware of what Labor Day is actually about.

J. D. Longstreet

The Shining City on a Hill Lacks Luster.

The Shining City on a Hill Lacks Luster.
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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The push for a new constitution for America has begun.

We have all heard the expression: “A Living Constitution.” It means the constitution our Founding Fathers gave us is a document that should be interpreted by taking into consideration that we Americans live, today, in a different time, a different world, than did our forefathers of the 18th century. We live in the 21st century.

Those who believe this – and there is a frighteningly large number of them – are in high places of power, including judicial power, as well as everyday working class Americans. They are flat-out WRONG.

Before I go on, allow me to assure you that I am not among those who advocate a “living constitution.” I am of the opinion the original constitution says what it means and means what it says. That makes me what is referred to today as an “originalist.” That is fine by me.

See, I believe the original constitution has made this country unique -- and great in its uniqueness. It has made Americans the freest people on the face of the planet. It has allowed Americans to become the most prosperous people in history. Even our poor are light years better off than the poor of other nations.

The constitution placed restraints on the government of America allowing the American citizen to be all they could and can be – and then some. As a result, we became one of the most creative nations ever in the history of civilization.

For many decades, there has been a portion of Americans who have sought to crush America’s liberty, America’s freedom, and create a New America. They seek to create a collectivist society in America. We call it socialism.

For many decades these people have pulled the strings of their marionettes from the shadows. Now THEY are in positions of ultimate power in the US Government.

Their intentions are to kill off the America we know and replace it with a government not shackled by the democratic process and free of the burden of acting as a representative of the people. Ultimately, they will replace the constitutional republican form of government America has enjoyed since her founding. They envision themselves taking the reins off the government, which is simply another way of saying -- they intend to by-pass the restraints on the government enforced by the original constitution.

Most Americans know that today’s America is not the America of 50 or 60 years ago. Slowly and quietly, those who seek to change America have been maneuvering a judicial form of government into place. Today, the federal judiciary, not the Congress, is making more and more of the nation’s laws. In many cases, judges, legislating from the bench, have been appointed to those positions for life. They have little to fear from the electorate. You see, they have never been elected. They are, in effect, un-elected legislators.

While the form of our government remains the same, the making of America’s laws has slowly shifted from the national legislature, the Congress, to the federal judiciary, the federal judges.

For evidence we have only to look to California. The people of that state went to the polls and decided that the marriage of two adult homosexuals, of the same gender, would not be allowed in their state. The voice of the people of California had spoken. That was that.

But wait! A judge has now ruled that the people of California were wrong. Just because they spoke through the ballot box (in accordance with the laws of their state) against gay marriage in the state of California, did not make it legal, in the opinion of that judge, and he simply ruled the law -- the people of the state had just agreed to -- out of existence, forcing them to accept a way of life they do not want in their state. One man over-ruled the votes of the citizens of state of California. One man did that. It is a clear case of “Rule by Judges.” It is also known as oligarchy, which means the rule of a few over the many.

Recently, we replaced a liberal Supreme Court Justice with another liberal Supreme Court Justice. So – we are even, right? Not so, in my opinion.

The new Justice is much younger and I am afraid we are going to learn she is far more likely to view the constitution as a “living document” and far more likely to consider outside opinions. That is to say -- we feel she will consider the rulings of judges in other lands, lands quite unlike America, in forming her own opinions on similar cases before the US Supreme Court.

She was appointed for life, so she has nothing to fear from American citizens who may disagree with her opinions and/or decisions.

I am of the opinion that America stands at a crossroads today. The direction we choose will determine the life or death of that once “Shining City on a Hill.”

Every generation of Americans has faced their own threats to the nation’s survival. They not only faced the threat, they summoned up the will, and they took the action necessary to overcome the threat – thus preserving America for the next generation.

This generation, in my opinion, is NOT demonstrating the depth of will their predecessors did, however. And it is worrisome because it is they who will either save America, this time, or allow it to crumble and fall and, eventually, wind up on the ash heap of history, as did the great Roman Empire.

On November 3rd, of this year, we will have a better understanding of this generation’s will to live free. Will they save America? We will know their intentions on the morning of Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010.

J. D. Longstreet

(Note to readers: We do not publish anonymous comments on this site.)

Common Sense = Healthcare Rationing A Sure Thing

Common Sense = Healthcare Rationing A Sure Thing
Obama’s Imperial Presidency
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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Common sense, (unhappily) not very common these days, dictates that under ObamaCare healthcare rationing in the US is a given. Even Obama’s new Czar of Medicare and Medicaid has said so.

Donald Berwick having been installed in the position by the Obama Regime’s “Recess Appointment” (While Congress is out of session) will hold that position, come hell or high water, until the end of the year 2011 (roughly 17 months).

With the use of the Recess Appointment Obama managed to get HIS man in the position HE wanted him without a Senate hearing or even a Senate vote on his nomination.

See how easy it was for tricky Obama to by-pass the Senate and, even more importantly, the American people, to get his way?

You know, I remember when folks used to complain and accuse President Richard Nixon of being an Imperial President! Can you imagine that? I mean, compared to Obama, Richard Nixon was a choirboy and a presidential piker!

Of course, Obama had good cause… very good cause. The very last thing Obama wants is for the American people to actually understand what Obamacare is going to do to the practice of medicine and healthcare as a whole in the United States. So, he HAD to recess appoint Berwick. There was no question of him ever going before a Senate hearing.

You can bet that had Berwick been subjected to a Senate hearing he would have been hit, immediately, by republican interrogators about his support for rationing of healthcare for the American people. Think Obama could risk that? Hell, NO!

Here is the Berwick quote they would have leaped upon instantly: “The decision is not whether or not we will ration care, the decision is whether we will ration with our eyes open.” Oh, it gets better (or worse – depending upon your viewpoint!).

Here is a quote taken from a speech Berwick made to a British audience back in 2008: “Any healthcare funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must, must redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition redistribution.”(SOURCE)

Redistributional? Is that like, you know, S O C I A L I S M?

NOW do you understand why Obama and his regime had to keep Dr. Donald Berwick under wraps until Obama could make the recess appointment a done deal and the American people would have no chance to stop him?

All this time I thought America had no king! How utterly stupid of me! I suspect if you look up “Imperial President” in a dictionary you will find Obama’s photo.

Look, if the American people are to rescue the healthcare system in America from socialized medicine then we have to defund and repeal ObamaCare. We can only get that done if we toss out as many democrats at the polls in November as we possibly can.

Remember in November!

J. D. Longstreet

Is Barack Obama the Ultimate Sleeper Agent? ... Alan Caruba

Is Barack Obama the Ultimate Sleeper Agent?
By Alan Caruba

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Not far from where I live in New Jersey, in Montclair, Richard and Cynthia Murphy were arrested as Russian sleeper agents, allegedly in the employ of the SVR, the successor to the famed Soviet KGB intelligence services that waged a covert war throughout the Cold War.

Much of the media attention was focused on a beautiful redhead, Anna Chapman, a Manhattan socialite who was charged as an unregistered agent of a foreign government, but largely unnoted was Mihail Semenko, a 28-year-old Seton Hall University graduate. I live in the same community where the university is located.

In all, ten people were arrested by the FBI, suspected of carrying out long-term “deep cover” assignments in the U.S. for Russia.

The ultimate “deep cover” agent, however, may well be Barack Obama.

My friend, Henry Lamb, writing on October 8, 2007 at Canada Free Press.com, said, “It is getting increasingly difficult to distinguish between the agenda of the Democratic Party and the agenda of the Communist Party.” He quoted Joelle Fishman, chairman of the Communist Party USA Political Action Committee and chairman of the Connecticut Communist Party.

“Our Party has an important role to play in keep the focus on the fight for a new direction in our country for jobs, healthcare, and an end to the war. This is how the 2008 elections will be won.” Universal healthcare, a major objective of the Obama administration, has since become the law of the land. The emphasis on withdrawal from Iraq and a specific date for withdrawal from Afghanistan has been another objective.

The campaign team, several of whom now serve as advisers to Obama, was composed of people with deep ties to the “progressive”, i.e., communist movement in America. Valerie Jarrett, a senior advisor, was aware that former Green Czar, Van Jones, had a long history of involvement in Communist Party causes. When this was exposed, he resigned.

Jarrett married into a family with Communist Party involvement. Her father-in-law, Vernon Jarrett, worked closely with Obama mentor and a Communist Party leader, Frank Marshall Davis, who was a member of a number of front groups during the Cold War years. It was Davis whom Obama’s grandparents enlisted to mentor him during his formative years growing up in Hawaii.

Political advisor, David Axelrod, has a long history of working for socialist causes. His mother wrote for a New York City tabloid, PM Magazine that often promoted the Communist Party line. Much of the publication’s funding came from Marshall Field, a leftist millionaire who also funded Saul Alinsky’s training school for community organizers.

Carol Browner, the energy and environmental advisor, was a former director of the Environmental Protection Agency under President Clinton. Significantly, she was a member of the Commission for a Sustainable World Society of the Socialist International until that was revealed and her name was scrubbed from the organization’s website on January 7, 2009. Both she and Todd Stern, the Environment Czar, are strong advocates of Cap-and-Trade legislation.

A litany of high level advisors with strong socialist agendas surrounds the President.

Experts in spy craft are not inclined to regard the arrested agents as a small group to be dismissed as bumblers in the employ of the Russian Federation, the successor to the failed Soviet Union. None, however, have been charged with espionage.

Nina Khrushcheva, the daughter of former Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev, and a professor of international affairs at the New School in Manhattan, said, “We are pretty sure there are some dark forces overseeing Russian security. That’s how we do things. That’s how we used to do things. And people don’t think that it has changed.”

In a memo to the Murphy’s, their Russian handler reminded them, “You were sent to USA for long-term service trip. Your education, bank accounts, car, house, etc—all these serve one goal: fulfill your main mission, i.e., to search and develop ties in policymaking circles in U.S. and send intel (intelligence reports) to (center).”

Many questions regarding Obama’s past remain hidden. Beyond the issue of whether he is a natural born citizen eligible to hold the office, most of the paper trail concerning his education at Occidental College in Los Angeles, followed by Columbia University and Harvard, and the funding for his tuition, his travel to Pakistan as a youth, and other factors normally made public during a campaign are still kept secret.

In his memoir, “Dreams of my Father”, Obama wrote, “To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully. The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors…”

Perhaps most telling is his political rise that began in the Chicago living room of former Weatherman domestic terrorists, William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, who held a fundraiser for his campaign to become a senator in the Illinois legislature. In a book, “Sixties Radicals”, Ayers described himself, saying “I’m a radical, leftist, small ‘c’ communist.”

Obama and Ayers had spent three years together serving on the board of the Woods Fund. Obama’s campaign claim that he knew the Ayers only because they lived in the same Chicago neighborhood was patently false.

The members of the Russian spy group lived a false life while allegedly serving the interests of their handlers. One can only wonder if Barack Obama’s life has also been devoted to the same communist agenda as the ultimate agent of influence?

© Alan Caruba, 2010

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Alan Caruba writes a daily post at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com. An author, business and science writer, he is the founder of The National Anxiety Center.

Obama’s Socialist Hammer Comes Down on the Internet!

Obama’s Socialist Hammer Comes Down on the Internet!
Conservative Bloggers: LOOK OUT!
A Commentary by J. D. Longstreet

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CNSNews.com reports the following: “The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted on Thursday to begin the formal process of bringing the Internet under greater federal control – a move sought by both President Barack Obama and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski--even though federal law calls for an Internet "unfettered by Federal or State regulation." The report goes on to say: “The FCC is now trying to reclassify the Internet to broaden its authority over the Web.”

How is Obama’s FCC planning to get their mailed fist around the throat of the Internet? It is very simple, really. CNSNews informs us in their report how they will do it. The report says: “The 3-2 party-line vote on Thursday at the FCC began the formal process of reclassifying the Internet as a telecommunications service instead of an information service – its current classification. This is necessary because, as an information service, the government has little power to regulate Internet networks. But the report goes on to explain: “As a telecommunications service, such as a telephone network, the Internet would fall under a much broader regulatory scope – giving the government the power to enforce universal service requirements, making them pay into a federal universal service fund used to provide communications services to poor areas.”

Please, we URGE you read this article in its entirety. You will find it at CNSNEW.COM HERE.


If there was ever a case of the “camel’s nose under the tent,” this is most assuredly IT!

Look, I worked in the broadcast industry for nearly 30 years. I can tell, from experience, that, in my day, the broadcast industry was one of the most government-regulated industries in the country, if not THE most regulated.

To the broadcast industry, the Federal Communications industry is G O D! They say: “JUMP!” and the broadcaster says: “How high?” And he does it while jumping!

So, bloggers enjoy your freedom of speech for a few more months. Experience tells me the end is in sight.

The old soviet KGB has nothing on the agents of the FCC. Expect them to monitor the Internet much as they did the AM and FM broadcast bands. If they hear something they don’t like, you WILL get a visit. It could be a costly visit.

We are convinced that Obama’s FCC is a political machine, a club to be wielded against those who speak out against the Socialists, Marxists, Statists, Progressives, Liberals, and/or Democrats controlling the US government today. Unless the Supreme Court stops them they WILL swing that club and conservative sites, conservative bloggers, especially, will be the very first targets.

See, the Obama Regime must gain control of the communications networks in America. The broadcast networks apparently have voluntarily made a gift of their fealty to the socialist agenda of this regime, as have many in the major print media – that which we often refer to as the Mainstream Media.

As we have so often reminded our readers, Obama promised to “fundamentally change” America. He cannot do that as long as the Internet hosts conservative bloggers who insist on pointing out the socialist agenda of the Obama regime. I am convinced this administration would nationalize the broadcast and print media -- and the Internet -- if they thought they could get away with it. Believe me – if we give them that time, they WILL do it!

Think I am paranoid? Let me assure you, there may be times I would agree with that assessment of my scribbling – but NOT THIS TIME! I KNOW what the FCC can do when they decide to bring the hammer down.

CNSNEWS informs us: “The FCC will now begin the mandatory public comment period, where it will solicit input from private companies and citizens about whether it should reclassify the Internet and, if so, how it should do it.”

If you value a free and open Internet then let your voice be heard. Write the FCC and tell them so -- and demand they back off and leave the Internet alone. Write your Congresspersons and Senators and explain your feelings on this matter to them and ask for their support of a free and open Internet.

I have warned for months, yea, years, that this was coming. I have seen no sense of alarm among fellow bloggers. Maybe it was/is there and I have somehow missed it. I sincerely hope that is the case. I fear it is not.

Believe me, t will take a MASSIVE effort to stop this particular power grab by the Obama Regime. Frankly, I don’t expect those of us who value a free and open Internet to be victorious.
But we have to try!

My close friends refer to me as the original Man of La Mancha. I have a penchant for joisting with windmills. I have been “un-horsed” and knocked on my behind so many times I cannot count them. I have learned a valuable lesson from those painful encounters. That is -- you cannot hope to win, if you don’t attack, and continue to take the battle to the enemy, time and time again for as long as you have the strength to press the attack.

There is the famous story, among we descendants of Confederate soldiers, of the Confederate general who sent a dispatch to General Lee in which he declared that he was totally surrounded by the enemy, cut off from any reinforcements, his troops were decimated, out of ammunition, and their rations were gone. The brave general declared that his situation was hopeless. Therefore, he informed General Lee, he would attack at dawn!

THAT is the attitude we must have as we gear up to fight this attack on the First Amendment of the Constitution.

We must take a stand for freedom and we must do it NOW!

J. D. Longstreet