CHANGE!

I received this by e-mail. I don't have a clue who the author is. That's why there is no attribtution.... JDL

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CHANGE!

Not long ago I read a joke ... It said all the politicians running for president are promising change to the American people...
We send them billions and billions more tax dollars and they'll send us the change! Funny? Not really; there is too much truth in it to be funny.

That got me to thinking.....They all promise change. How about if they run on a promise of restoration rather than change. A restoration that would take us back in time to a place where things ran better, smoother and life was more enjoyable.

Change? That, in truth, is what they have been giving us all along.

* We used to have a strong dollar.....Politicians changed that.*

Life used to be sacred.....Politicians changed that.

* Marriage used to be sacred.....Politicians are changing that.

* We used to be respected around the world.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to have a strong manufacturing economy.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to have lower tax structures.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to enjoy more freedoms.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to be a large exporter of American made goods.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to be an openly Christian nation.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to teach Patriotism in schools.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to educate children in schools.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to enjoy freedom of speech.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to enforce LEGAL citizenship.....Politicians changed that.

* We used to have decent money in our 401K's....Politicians changed that (and now they are talking about a plan to confiscate them in exchange for $50/month plus 3% interest on whatever was in them).

* We used to have affordable food & gas prices.....Politicians changed that, too.....and one could go on and on with this list.

What hasn't been changed? Well.....politicians are promising to change that as well if you will elect them.

When, oh when, is America going to sit back with open eyes and look at what we once were and where we have come and say, 'enough is enough'?

The trouble is, America 's youthful voters today don't know of the great America that existed forty and fifty years ago. They see the world as if it has always existed as it is now.When will we wake up? Tomorrow may be too late.

When will America realize..that Politicians are what is wrong with America ?

(Author Unknown)

After America… Who Will Lead The World?

After America… Who Will Lead The World?

By J. D. Longstreet

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November 4th, 2008, will likely go down in the history books as the day America gave up her world leadership role and became another “has been” nation.

About two years ago when I first began to look seriously at this fellow named Obama, I recognized his overt socialism immediately. It wasn’t difficult. It was right there for everyone to see… if one wished to see it. But it now seems that millions of Americans are perfectly fine with assisting in the suicide of America by accepting his message of socialism, the destroyer of nations.

I’m an old codger, in my late sixties, and I have seen socialism as an enemy of the United States and what, back in my day, we called Americanism. Americanism is simply defined as democratic capitalism.

When I was in the US military we were taught to fight socialism. We trained to meet the socialists on the field of battle. There was no question that Americanism and socialism could not exist on the same globe without conflict, and, we rightly assumed, armed conflict.

Months ago, as I began to write about the dangers of socialism to America, (and how the Democratic Party has become a sort of Socialist/Democratic party) I was stunned when they, the democrats, did not refute it. I had expected democrats to deny any connection to socialism. But they didn’t. It was then that it struck me… they don’t deny it because they can’t. They have become socialist! They have embraced socialism.

Back in 1935, or so, FDR, a democrat, introduced Socialism to America with his New Deal. America has never been able to extricate itself from the New Deal. It is still with us today.

As hard as it is to fathom, there are millions of Americans today educated in America’s public schools who have no idea what socialism is. As the democrat party controls our public school system, the courses taught are favorable to socialism. American “scholars” are not taught that socialism is a cancer, which will eat away the core of a capitalist nation by simply removing any desire of the citizens to advance their station in life. It squashes all ambition to live better, to make more money, to manufacture better goods, to offer better services, to do/say/produce anything in which one could exhibit pride either in themselves or their country.

How can this be? Well, socialism demands the end of private enterprise. Under socialism there would be no small businesses, no Mom and Pop stores, no entrepreneurs. Socialism demands the redistribution of wealth. That means taking the money you earned and giving it to those who did not earn it. Socialism demands that all wealth in a nation, and that includes yours, will be controlled by the government. In other words, you will own nothing --- not even your own money. The government owns everything and everyone is given only what it takes for that person to survive. Socialism celebrates the lack of an upper class and a lower class. Under socialism there is only one class. And in THAT class all people suffer equally.

It would seem that America has made the decision to turn it’s back on everything good the forbearers made and sacrificed to give us… an America, unique in all the world and in all the world’s history. What, then, is America about to do? America is about to join the mediocrity of the remainder of the world. No longer desirous of the leadership role, no longer willing to do the heavy lifting required by freedom, America has decided to join the pack of “has been” nations now embarrassed by their past glory years.

If I am right, and I am convinced that I am, tomorrow will begin the” Post-America” period in world history. Which leads to the burning question, at least for me. That question is: after America, who will lead the world?

J. D. Longstreet

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Obama+Liberal+Socialist+America

Afghanistan Will Be Another Vietnam ... by Alan Caruba

Afghanistan Will Be Another Vietnam
By Alan Caruba
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The next President of the United States of America must decide whether to withdraw our troops from Afghanistan or expand our involvement there. Having lived through the long years of the war in Vietnam, I can tell you that Afghanistan looks and smells like Vietnam. It is the classic wrong war in the wrong place.

In late October, I read a small news item about Parwiz Kambakhsh, 24, an Afghan journalism student who had downloaded and circulated an article about women’s rights under Islam. The news was that his sentence of death had been overturned by an appellate court that reduced it to a mere twenty years in prison on the charge of blasphemy. He can still appeal to the Supreme Court of Afghanistan. This is the state of freedom of speech, press, and thought in Afghanistan.

If you want to know what life was like in the seventh century, Afghanistan is the place to go. It is largely devoid of anything passing for modernity, by which we mean medical facilities, schools, roads, and such. Never mind the telephones and other detritus of modern life, the conversations have not changed in centuries.

Afghanistan shares a long border with Pakistan and Iran. Also bordering it is Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Turkistan, and Tajikistan. None of these places is a tourist destination. All are Islamic.

The only reliable element of Afghanistan’s economy is poppy cultivation for the opium trade which the CIA estimates generates “roughly $4 billion in illicit economic activity.” This is another way of saying that none of this money reaches what passes for a central government except in the form of bribes. It is a major source of funding for the Taliban.

Few Americans were interested in Afghanistan until September 11, 2001. We have had a military presence there for seven years, along with NATO nation components. Much like the “military advisors” that initiated our involvement in Vietnam, today’s generals are calling for more troops.

Afghanistan has been conquered and occupied since the days of Alexander the Great. Nothing much comes of it. It remains a mystery why they bothered. Putting too few or too many troops into Afghanistan does little except to demonstrate the futility of trying to impose one’s will on people who have resisted every such effort for centuries.

Founded as a nation in 1747 when Ahmad Shah Durrani unified the Pashtun tribes, Afghanistan was primarily seen as a buffer between the British and Russian empires. Democracy, as in most Middle Eastern nations, has never taken root there.

It became the graveyard of the Soviet empire after they intervened militarily in 1979 to support a tottering Afghan Communist regime. After they withdrew in 1989, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It is now known as the Russian Federation. It is still run by the former KGB. And one wonders why anyone in the U.S. government thinks any good can come of being there?

The Taliban took control after the Russians left and Osama bin Laden found a congenial place in which to plan 9/11. That’s why the first U.S. response to the attack occurred in Afghanistan as U.S., allied, and an anti-Taliban Northern Alliance of tribes were able to drive the Taliban across the border into the frontier provinces of Pakistan and elsewhere.

The U.S. effort to create a democratic government there began with a new constitution and, in December 2004, the election of Hamid Karzai as president. He barely controls Kabul, the capitol. The southern and eastern regions are still beyond control.

In essence, the rule of law barely exists in Afghanistan, if at all, unless you factor in Sharia law which reflects a seventh century approach to justice. The government and all aspects of official life in Afghanistan are so corrupt that even President Karzai’s brother is allegedly on the take.

I am not a military strategist, an expert in foreign affairs, or can lay claim to much more than common sense, so I confess it defies my understanding why the United States and our NATO allies are in Afghanistan. Expecting democracy to succeed in such a primitive and hostile place seems more a justification for military occupation than anything else. The whole place is tribal.

Other than his distaste for our invasion of Iraq and disposal of Saddam Hussein, it is baffling that Barack Obama says that Afghanistan is the “central front” against al Qaeda. The CIA says it has no bases there. The Taliban—outsiders just like us--have their own agenda as seen in their effort to render the place a complete and total Islamic hellhole.

Little wonder, therefore, that word keeps getting out that both English and French military leaders regard Afghanistan as virtually beyond any hope without putting a far greater number of troops there. Millions are being spent as it is. Between 2002 and 2007, Germany spent $80 million to reform its police corps. The U.S. has budgeted $800 million for 2008 to assist its security forces.

In early October, General Jean-Louis Geogelin, France’s military chief, confirmed that British Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith remarks that “there is no military solution to the Afghan crisis” reflected his own views. The Brigadier recommended that NATO lower its expectations regarding a happy outcome to the conflict. It was, he said, “unrealistic and probably incredible” to think that the multinational forces in Afghanistan could rid the country of armed bands.

There are two occupations available to the Afghans. One can either be a farmer raising poppies or one can join an armed band, be it either the government’s, one’s tribe, or the Taliban’s.

In an October 1, 2008 Christian Science Monitor article, it was reported that “The U.S. military is working to put a new strategy in place for Afghanistan and Pakistan that could allow it to expand airfields, preposition military forces and equipment, and prepare for a more robust effort soon against Islamist extremists in the region.” Four more U.S. brigades are poised to be sent to Afghanistan, including one that will deploy in January.

I have my own military strategy. Let’s pull our troops out of Afghanistan and, with their permission, let’s keep enough troops in Iraq to ensure that its government can maintain its security and as a deterrent for any conflict Iran might initiate in the region.

The United States of America has a full plate of problems right now. Expending troops and treasure in Afghanistan strikes me as a bad investment in a very nasty place. It is an invitation to repeat the all the errors of Vietnam.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

© Alan Caruba, November 2008

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conservative+democrats+military+war+Iraq+ Afghanistan

American Citizens Had Best Get Ready!

(August 2006)
American Citizens Had Best Get Ready!
By J. D. Longstreet
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Looks like the Democrats may make some (MORE) gains in the Congress (in Tuesday's election) November 4th. I predicted that might happen. This is one of those times when I hope I am wrong. But, it sure looks that way now. So what to do?

Well, I suggest you clean your guns, test fire them, clean them again, and stock up on the various calibers of ammunition you will need for your weapons.

WHOA!!!!!

Now… I not proposing a revolution here! What I AM proposing is that we go ahead, now, and prepare for the war between Americans and Islamists, which may take place here, in the streets of America… if the Democrats gain (full) control of our government.

Extreme, you say? Hold that thought! Get back to me in a few years when we finally beat the terrorists back and get a respite.

I’m not advocating the start-up of the Militias, as happened during the Clinton years. On the other hand, I have no doubt they will spring up again. Americans feel so vulnerable when Democrats are in control of the government. That’s because America IS vulnerable when Democrats are in control! They have no concept of National Defense. None. They will talk, and talk, right up to where the terrorist puts the gun to their temple and pulls the trigger.

Now, I can’t speak for my Northern brethren. But the South has known invasion, and we have known defeat, and we have known occupation. The only reason our Southern ancestors allowed it then was… because Robert E Lee asked the Confederates NOT to take to the hills, and the swamps, and fight a guerilla war. He asked our ancestors to go home and be good citizens. They did. He was probably the ONLY man alive, at that time, who could have said that… and had our ancestors comply.

Not this time.

Like Israel, we Southerners have vowed “never again”.

If the Islamists think once they start their terror war, in the Southern states, that Southerners will sit back, as the Iraqis, and the Afghans, and the Lebanese civilians did, and allow them to have their way… they are sadly mistaken. The Southerner will fight them with the ferocity of a whirlwind. We will not wait upon the US Military.

Let me give you an example of just how deeply Southerners take the safety of their homes and families.

Until the mid-nineteen-seventies North Carolina had an “Outlaw” law on the books. If we had a particularly bad criminal, on the loose, and law enforcement was unable to apprehend him, a judge would sign a document declaring that criminal an “Outlaw”. Once that was done, any citizen could shoot and kill that criminal… on sight. No questions would be asked. No charges could be brought against the person who killed the criminal.

Many times I have broadcast the description of an “Outlaw” on the air. I have no recollection of any of those Outlaws actually being shot. Every last one of them quickly made their way to the nearest law enforcement office and turned themselves in because… they knew they were walking dead men until they did. They knew their ONLY chance of survival was to get to a law enforcement agency and turn themselves in.

Understand… that with Democrats in control it will be every man for himself. Americans had better prepare. Democrats have no sense of national security. They have no sense of self-defense. The have no sense of closed and secure borders.

The private American citizens will be on his, or her, own!

You had best get ready!

J. D. Longstreet
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Obama+Liberal+Socialist+America+Vulnerable+Terrorism

The Obama Commercial ... by Alan Caruba

The Obama Commercial
By Alan Caruba

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The Wednesday evening half-hour, $4 million dollar television commercial for the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama was a masterpiece of imagery.

It was also entirely devoted to class warfare, class envy, and most of all to fear.

This has been the Democrat message since Franklin D. Roosevelt took over the White House in the midst of the Great Depression—the real one, not the Recession the economy has encountered today. We don’t have 15% percent unemployment as was the case in the 1930s, but we do have a vast matrix of costly government programs left over from those times.

Obama’s message and the theme of his campaign are those the Democrat Party has always used to acquire political power. They are the promises about tax cuts that mysteriously never occur once they are in office.

They are about protecting people from every kind of change that could harm them and they promise “change” as a government that will come to their aid in sickness, in their old age, to help their children attend better schools, to help them go to college, and on, and on, and on.

The Obama commercial focused entirely on people struggling against changes in their lives over which they had no control. For example there was a Ford Motor Company couple laid off from their jobs, but no mention is made of the endless federal mandates imposed on all auto companies that drove up the cost of every automobile for everyone, nor the massive union pension and health programs those companies had to agree to in order to stay in business. These and other factors have killed the auto industry in America.

The Obama commercial talked of more teachers and better schools, but ever since the 1960s, the creation of the Department of Education, and the rise of the control over all schools by teachers unions, education in America has declined so sharply that we rank behind many other nations and produce students programmed to believe government is the answer but it has been federal government that has destroyed local community control over schools and their curriculum.

At one point, Obama said, “I will always be honest with you” and I recalled Jimmy Carter’s promise that “I will never lie to you.” Both candidates arrived out of the political wilderness with very thin resumes to suggest they had the knowledge or ability to run a nation. Carter’s one term in office was a failure in so many ways, but worse, we continue to pay for those failures in foreign and domestic policy.

And wasn’t it Obama who promised to accept public funding for his campaign only to renege on that promise?

At the end of the Obama commercial the scene shifted to the now familiar large crowd of adoring supporters. How long will that last if Obama cannot make the Recession go away? How long will his popularity last if the homeland comes under attack again and we see a weak response? It was the decade of the 1990s during which a two-term, Democrat Clinton administration failed to respond with strength against al Qaeda’s bombing of our embassies and other targets. By 2001, the targets were the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

It is the unanticipated problems that test a presidency, not ones that have been around for decades. And, if Americans think that government is the answer, they need to remind themselves of Hurricane Katrina.

On so many levels, the commercial will have appealed to lots of people, young and old, struggling to pay bills, but the American government works best when it gets out of the way of Americans and let’s them begin new businesses, expand existing ones, and conduct business with the least amount of paperwork and other distractions.

That’s not how the government functions these days and, under Obama, the effort to “change” America will continue to add thousands of new laws and regulations to the Federal Register, but the class warfare and class envy will not end, nor will the fear.

Alan Caruba writes a weekly column posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com/. He blogs daily at http://factsnotfantasy.blogspot.com/.

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Obama+Liberal+Socialist+America