As recently as two years ago, Congressman Ron Paul introduced a bill to audit the Federal Reserve Bank that headed to oblivion. Year after year — beginning in 1983 — the bill never even won a committee hearing. Dr. Paul was ignored in Washington, and was a lonely voice for freedom back in his Texas congressional district.

Times have changed. Ron Paul is on a political roll. The bill Dr. Paul introduced in the current Congress to audit the Federal Reserve Bank (H.R. 1207) has more than 300 cosponsors — including every House Republican and more than 100 Democrats — and the backing of House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank. Frank has promised a committee vote, and it has a better-than-average chance of House passage this year. Dr. Paul’s new book End the Fed sailed into the top twenty of Amazon.com’s sales figures more than a month before it was available. It debuted on both Amazon.com and New York Times bestseller lists, and sales remain strong even today. His old presidential campaign has rolled over into a “Campaign for Liberty” that has raised more than $4 million since its founding in February of this year.

More importantly, his presidential campaign evidently inspired dozens of candidates for congressional office across the nation who seek to reform Congress from a constitutionalist perspective. And several of them are both well funded and being taken seriously by the political establishment.

Rand Paul
Prime among these constitutionalist “Ron Paul” candidates is the Congressman’s third child, Dr. Rand Paul. While the elder Dr. Paul was an obstetrician by trade before being elected to Congress, Dr. Rand Paul is an eye surgeon (ophthalmologist). The 46-year-old Dr. Rand Paul announced his candidacy for the open U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky in August. Days before Dr. Paul’s announcement, incumbent Republican Jim Bunning had bowed out of a reelection contest after Kentucky’s establishment Republican Senator Mitch McConnell (who is also the Senate Minority Leader) had made fundraising in Washington difficult for Bunning. “Over the past year,” Bunning said, “some of the leaders of the Republican Party in the Senate have done everything in their power to dry up my fundraising. The simple fact is that I have not raised the funds necessary to run an effective campaign for the U.S. Senate.” Time magazine on July 29 explained that the “some leaders” Bunning was talking about was his fellow Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell: “He quietly signaled to Republican moneymen that they ought to wait Bunning out. Party leaders in Washington met with a potential primary opponent…. McConnell’s strategy ultimately worked.”

Dr. Rand Paul is the founder of the conservative Kentucky Taxpayers United and has also campaigned for his father, so he isn’t a stranger to politics. But he hasn’t seen McConnell open the monetary floodgates from Washington on his behalf either. Politico.com has noted that “the GOP establishment has lined up behind Secretary of State Trey Grayson.” Perhaps Grayson is favored by the Washington Republican establishment because Grayson’s campaign website is bereft of mention of bringing the federal government back within the bounds of the U.S. Constitution. By way of contrast, Rand Paul has made the Constitution a centerpiece of his campaign. “The Federal Government must return to its constitutionally enumerated powers and restore our inalienable rights,” the younger Dr. Paul says on his campaign website, in an echo of his father’s principles. “America can prosper, preserve personal liberty, and repel national security threats without intruding into the personal lives of its citizens.”

The fact that the establishment isn’t behind him hasn’t hurt Rand Paul in the crucial fundraising part of the race; he raised more than $1.1 million by the end of the third quarter of this year. Grayson’s Washington fundraising, which included a $500 per plate fundraiser hosted by McConnell on September 23, has been matched by Dr. Paul’s vibrant Internet strategy dollar-for-dollar thus far. “We actually outraised both Democrats and our primary opponents this past quarter,” Dr. Paul told The New American.

Rand Paul is quick to say that his first problem was “name recognition,” though he told The New American “we are now probably very close to being on a par with our primary opponent now.” Of the two, Grayson has been far better known in Kentucky; he’s been the Secretary of State for five years. Therefore, even though Grayson’s polling numbers were stronger back in August, 40 percent to Dr. Paul’s 25 percent according to an August poll, Rand Paul is being given a good chance of prevailing by professional political observers. Dr. Paul has numbers to back up his statement that he’s pulled up to a par with Grayson. An October Rasmussen poll put Paul’s and Grayson’s “favorability” percentages within the poll’s margin of error, and a November WHAS11/Survey USA poll put Paul ahead at 35 to 32 percent.

If the younger Dr. Paul survives the Republican primary, he has a better-than-even chance of winning the GOP-leaning Kentucky general election. Democrats who face a Republican candidacy of Rand Paul would not only face a united conservative base but also significant crossover from some traditionally Democratic voting groups, especially those opposing unnecessary wars and assaults on civil liberties under the guise of the “war on terror.” Dr. Paul told The New American that he maintains a bipartisan appeal that criticizes both parties when they are at fault, “On the stump I promise that I will vote against any budget that is not balanced, either Republican or Democrat.” The crossover phenomenon may even impact the primaries, as many have changed from independents or Democratic registration to vote for him in the primary. “We re-register people a lot of the time, and there is a lot of crossover.”

Peter Schiff
Another well-funded Ron Paul presidential campaign supporter is Connecticut-based Peter Schiff, who had been an economic adviser to the Ron Paul presidential campaign. Schiff has become an Internet sensation on his own as president of Euro-Pacific Capital, largely because he accurately predicted the current economic recession with astonishing precision on a variety of financial television talk shows. He not only predicted the current recession in 2006 and 2007, he also explained why it would happen to pundits who often laughed at him for predicting the housing boom would go bust. In 2008, some of his friends put together a montage of his television clips called “Peter Schiff Was Right” and posted it on YouTube. The clips received several million views and dramatically increased demand for Schiff’s guest appearances on national television shows.

Schiff is an acolyte of the free-market “Austrian School” of economics, is for ending America’s military interventions abroad, and is emphatic about returning the federal government to the limits of the U.S. Constitution’s delegated powers.

Schiff announced in September that he would run for the U.S. Senate in Connecticut against longtime incumbent Christopher Dodd. Dodd would ordinarily be considered a safe incumbent. On paper, Dodd is an entrenched Democrat in a Democratic-leaning state, but the 28-year incumbent is considered highly vulnerable this time around. As chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee, he was the Senator who could have — and should have — raised the alarm about the housing bubble. But instead, Dodd built a cozy relationship with sub-prime lender Countrywide. Although technically cleared of ethics violations in a recent investigation concluded August 7, the Senate inquiry criticized Dodd’s efforts as less than cautious. “The committee does believe that you should have exercised more vigilance in your dealings with Countrywide in order to avoid the appearance that you were receiving preferential treatment based on your status as a senator,” the Senate Ethics Committee concluded. Dodd also has personal health issues to deal with this time around. Last summer he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, so he may not be able to wage as vigorous a campaign as in the past.

As a result of Dodd’s recent missteps, Schiff will have to get in line to have a crack at him. The Republican Party smells blood, and a number of other Republicans have declared their candidacies as well. Among the better known are World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon and former Congressman Rob Simmons, who appears to be the early front-runner. Schiff’s greatest challenge may be winning the Republican primary. With his financial background and his accurate economic predictions, he’s the perfect constitutionalist foil for the leftist Dodd in a general election. But despite already having raised more than $1.1 million in Internet donations for his campaign, he barely registers in polling data. That’s perhaps expected, since he’s a political novice in the Republican Party and outside his coterie of YouTube followers he’s virtually unknown in Connecticut.

Schiff will definitely need that impressive $1.1 million he’s already raised, and more, in order to introduce himself to more Connecticut primary voters if he wants to win. He’ll also have to mobilize a local army of volunteers in Connecticut. If he can do that, Schiff could become the next Senator from Connecticut.

Adam Kokesh
Adam Kokesh is best known as an Iraq War veteran who returned opposed to the war and was a keynote speaker at Ron Paul’s “Rally for the Republic” that competed with the Republican National Convention in the summer of 2008. He volunteered for service in Iraq, where he witnessed the bureaucracy, waste, and corruption in the U.S. reconstruction of that country. According to his campaign website, he emerged from the military a strict noninterventionist in foreign policy and defender of Congress’ constitutional authority to declare war:

Inherent with the right to self-defense is the right to collective self-defense, and in the world that we live in, this is the most important function of the federal government. To ensure that this power is used responsibly, Congress, as the best representation of the people, was given the exclusive power to declare war…. The executive branch has set a dangerous precedent by taking powers that are supposed to be vested in the Congress. By not abiding by the Constitution and using the collective wisdom of the Congress to ensure judicious use of force, we find ourselves spending hundreds of billions more than is necessary for legitimate defense.

Kokesh has echoed Rep. Paul’s position on the Federal Reserve Bank, called for a smaller government role in the management of healthcare, and pronounced a nuanced view about the immigration issue.

Kokesh has an uphill battle as a Republican in New Mexico’s heavily Democratic Third District against freshman Democrat Ben R. Luján. Luján hasn’t had much time to dig in as an incumbent, but his northern New Mexico district hasn’t been won by a Republican since 1996. Kokesh, in his favor, was able to tell The New American that he has raised over $100,000 in donations in the first few months of his candidacy. “What was shocking for me was that for the third quarter we actually beat Luján,” he told The New American. That goes a long way toward making up for the $100,000 Washington, D.C., fundraiser Democratic Majority Leader Steny Hoyer hosted earlier this year for Luján. Neither candidate is even close to the $1 million or so they’ll have to raise to wage winning a House campaign, but Kokesh’s early fundraising numbers suggest that he won’t be at a financial disadvantage on this front.

Kokesh told The New American that the traditional political wisdom in New Mexico is that “if you want to play and you want to win, you’re going to run as a Democrat.” Yet, the state has elected conservative Republicans occasionally because “a lot of those people would be Republicans anywhere else.” Kokesh notes that the local Democratic Party still postures as pro-gun and as socially conservative, and he sees a “great potential for a crossover vote, just because of those Democratic voters that have been sucked into the machine.”

And Kokesh’s anti-war, noninterventionist foreign policy, and pro-civil liberties positions just may have the decisive bipartisan appeal he’ll need. “People [are] calling to say they are changing their party registration so they can vote in the primary” for him, he told The New American. But if people can see through to the principles of the Constitution, the liberal media is still seeing things in terms of the phony left-right spectrum. The local weekly news magazine Santa Fe Reporter published an article on congressional candidates called “The Early Birds” on July 29, labeling Kokesh a right-winger. “They gave me a 4.2 out of 5 for being true conservative,” Kokesh said, “then two or three months later, they wrote about how I had all of these liberal ideologies.” The Marine Corps veteran says, “To me … one of the biggest frustrations and also one of the most rewarding things about this race is taking on the left-right spectrum.”

Also in Kokesh’s favor is the expectation that most analysts believe 2010 will be a Republican year, just as 1994 and 1996 were. Count Kokesh as an underdog, but he may have a shot.

Other Candidates
These are only three of the better known among more than a dozen candidates nationwide who have been inspired by Ron Paul’s 2008 candidacy to run for the House or Senate. It has almost taken on the form of a slate in some quarters, as Internet fundraisers like ThisNovember5th.com are seeking to raise funds for more than a dozen candidates on the same day as Ron Paul’s 2007 “money bomb” when he raised a then-record $4 million in a single day. The idea of Internet “money bombs” has proliferated among the constitutionalist movement, often resulting in more frequent but smaller one-day fundraising numbers for candidates. This year’s money bomblets have netted from tens of thousands to several hundred thousand dollars on a single day for the better-known candidates. And while this article will be at press on November 5, tens of thousand dollars were pledged two weeks in advance of the day. But ThisNovember5th.com is only one of many independent efforts to raise funds for constitutionalist candidates and enable them to become independent of the Washington, D.C., fundraisers and not beholden to power-brokers in the same quarters.

Among the ThisNovember5th.com candidates is Marine Corps veteran David W. Hedrick, who is running against five-term liberal Democratic Congressman Brian Baird of Washington’s Third Congressional District. Before announcing his candidacy, Hedrick confronted Baird at an August 18 town hall, telling him: “I also heard you say that you were going to let us keep our health insurance. Well thank you! It’s not your right to decide whether I keep my current plan or not. That’s my decision.” But that’s not all. Directly confronting the claim made by some leading Democrats that attempts to “disrupt” town hall meetings display a fascist tendency, he also told Baird:

A little history lesson. The Nazis were the National Socialist Party. They were leftists. They took over finance. They took over the car industry. They took over the health care in that country. If Nancy Pelosi wants to find a swastika, maybe the first place she should look is the sleeve of her own arm.

Meanwhile, R.J. Harris is opposing three-term incumbent Republican Tom Cole in Oklahoma’s Fourth Congressional District. A veteran commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano’s Freedom Watch Internet show on Fox News’ website, Harris encapsulates his decision to run against a fellow Republican in a video advertisement: “How can we Republicans demand to replace the Democrat bailout voters without doing anything about our own? If we don’t clean our own house, we can expect the Democrats to do it for us.” Cole voted for the Bush bailout bill, the TARP legislation. Harris calls himself a “constitutional conservative Republican” and says, “I will never vote for bailouts, required servitude, taxation without representation or give your money to foreign governments. However, Tom Cole has voted for all of these things.”

Jake Towne of Pennsylvania’s 15th District will also try to make Republicans honest by running against liberal Republican incumbent Charlie Dent (The New American’s Freedom Index rating: 40 percent).

Minuteman founder Chris Simcox, though not a newcomer to politics as a result of the Ron Paul 2008 presidential bid, has announced a challenge against John McCain’s Senate seat in Arizona and has been put on the ThisNovember5th.com fundraising list.

Dr. Mike Vasovski in South Carolina’s Third District will run in a crowded Republican primary for an open congression-al seat.

Other House of Representatives candidates ThisNovemer5th.com will be raising funds for include John Dennis (California), Jaynee Germond (Oregon), David Ratowitz (Illinois), Bob Parker (Missouri), and both Collins Baily and Robert Broadus of Maryland.

* * *
Ron Paul and his dedicated followers were the tail of the GOP dog during the 2008 campaign, but a proliferation of “Paulite” constitutional candidates in 2010 may find the tail wagging the dog.

Pastor David Manning asking for support during these trying times he is experiencing, We do need to support him as he battles the dark side.

The secret underground work of intervention… ssshhhhh! Don’t tell the neighbors we are having an intervention.

Maybe you have seen A&E channels show “Intervention?  Maybe you watch the show “The Cleaner” ?  Even though more attention than ever is being  brought to the world of intervention, it is still a subject surrounding that damn social stigma of addiction – and nobody wants to admit they need to know how this works!

We have invited Travis Gardner, a licensed interventionist to share his expertise in our upcoming Resource Directory and as a preview, I am sharing it with you here.

Intervention Description and 10 Qualifying Questions

by

Founder- Travis Gardner B.C.I II, C.N.D.A.I, C.A.T II

Pathway Interventions- The Drug and Alcohol Intervention Specialists

Addiction affects millions of American families, businesses and communities everyday. This epidemic is not diminishing nor is it relinquishing its hold on our everyday life. So what do we do? How do we treat addiction and free the American people from this horrific disease?

Many of us are aware of drug and alcohol treatment programs. Residential or inpatient, outpatient, addiction counseling, medication and community outreach programs are part of a wide variety of treatment modalities available for treating addiction. Although some of the treatment modalities are more effective and successful than others when implemented for addiction help. Not everyone is willing to accept help for their addiction to drugs or alcohol. There are those who are in denial of their addiction, or opposed to seeking treatment, or have the attitude of not caring about their future. What can we do for them? What is available for the millions of families, friends and loved ones who have someone in this particular population?

There are two options for dealing with the defiant addicts in the population; 1) do an intervention or 2) do what we have already been doing and hope something changes before something tragic happens. Only one of these two options has the highest opportunity to a happy and successful ending. That option is to do an intervention on the addicted individual.

Many of us may not fully comprehend an intervention or how they work and if they even work at all. Surprisingly, interventions have an 85% or higher success rate. So, what is an intervention?

An intervention is an orchestrated, family attempt to get their loved one into treatment for a harmful addiction. There are typical questions about the process: How does an intervention work? What does an interventionist do that can help? The intervention process is a very delicate and strategic approach that is best executed by a professional interventionist. Addiction interventionists teach families how to confront their loved ones’ addiction with full intention that the intervention ends with the addict entering treatment. The Interventionist does this by educating the family on what causes, perpetuates and treats addiction. They will teach every intervention team member what works and does not work regarding verbally, physically, and emotionally confronting the one they love about their problem. Most Interventionists will have a list of a multitude of treatment centers across the country from which the family can chose, based on geographical suitability and financial resources, as well as feasibility for transporting the candidate to treatment.. Verification of insurance benefits will be tracked and implemented into the process used to choose the best facility for the addict by the interventionist when insurance is available.

Interventionists will also teach the family how to stop enabling the addict and being co-dependent. They will work with the family members on maintaining their emotional stability by providing references, tools and introducing new behaviors and beliefs about dealing with addiction. The newly found behaviors, beliefs and agreements that the family introduces into their life will ultimately free them from the grips of addiction, and allow for maximum family support for the addict.

The job of an interventionist is not just getting the loved one into treatment, their job is to fully secure every opportunity for them to accept treatment and to allow the family to receive the freedom from the addictive behavior and destruction. The Interventionist helps the family develop a systematic and structured letter from each team member to the addict which ensures proper communication. Recognition of avenues towards identifying acceptance, proper intervention procedures and lines of communication will be rehearsed and practiced prior to the intervention. If the addicted individual objects to accepting help, the interventionist will have prepared the team with methods for how to overcome those objections which leave the addicted individual no avenues of escaping the opportunity for treatment.

The preparation for the intervention may take up to two days. The length of the intervention is determined by many variables, and can take a minimum of an hour, or up to a couple of hours to facilitate.

An intervention is a process! The intervention is not an event! Therefore, when choosing a drug or alcohol Interventionist there should be specific qualifications to look for when choosing the professional you will use, in order to maximize the effectiveness of the process. In the selection process, when researching intervention companies and private entities, you must ask ten questions before you choose the professional who will facilitate your family intervention.

1. Are they a Board Certified Interventionist or Nationally Certified?
   1. a. They should be board certified or nationally certified as an interventionist. Therapists, Medical Doctors and counselors are not trained in interventions and this lack of specialized training will minimize the chance of success.

1. Do they have documentation of their credentials?
   1. a. Have the documentations sent to you via fax, mail or email to ensure creditability.

1. Are they in recovery from drugs or alcohol themselves?
   1. a. The experience gained by first hand knowledge of addiction can not be taught in school. You must hire someone who is in recovery themselves so they may relate to the intervention candidate.

1. How many interventions have they facilitated?
   1. Look for a minimum of 100 interventions performed with a success rate of 85% or better.

1. Do they have references from families or clients that they have worked with?

1. a. Ask them for permission to speak to a family member or client that they have worked with.

1. Do they offer any type of guarantee for the services they provide?
   1. a. Some Interventionists will work with the family until the individual enters into a program, no matter how long it may take.

1. Does their intervention process include locating treatment, family support and ensuring the safety of the candidate?

1. a. You want to make sure that treatment options, family and client support and safety is provided by the Interventionist.

1. Do they offer the family free life-time support and consultation following the intervention?

1. Addiction recovery is a life-long process that may require the opportunity for follow-up and consulting to assist in their recovery success and the families’ emotional stability by the Interventionist.

1. Do they use ultimatums or threats to produce a successful intervention?
   1. a. Threats and ultimatums are not usually successful tools to use with addicts. Find out if they use ultimatums as a tool for gaining acceptance or do they offer the addict a gift and teach the family how to protect themselves from the destructive behavior of the active addict.

10.  Why and how did they choose this profession?

1. This will give you the opportunity to use your intuition and emotional feelers to determine if this individual is compatible with your values morally and spiritually in such a way that they are connected to your family system and can facilitate a family intervention.

Kurt Nimmo / Infowars – November 23, 2009

Globalist minion Al Gore and the United Nations climate change shysters led by Phil Jones are in trouble. Last week hackers uncovered a pile of email and documents revealing what many of us already knew — the climate change agenda is based not only on easily debunked junk science, but outright lies and deception.

In the wake of the damning revelations exposed by these anonymous hackers, the climate change snake oil salesmen Gore and his complaisant entourage of now discredited scientists are in full retreat. Even the corporate media — guilty of peddling the fabrication of man-made climate change for years with the best propaganda money can buy — are desperately scrambling to put the best spin possible on the emerging travesty.

In the above video, Alex Jones examines the startling revelations of the CRU files and spells out what it means for the global elite who have planned to use the ruse to impose crippling carbon taxes and put the finishing touches on their global totalitarian super-state and its accompanying control and slave grid.

Infowars and Prison Planet are now feverishly going through the documents and will post the result in the hours and days ahead. In the meantime, here are a few quotes from the perpetrators:

Link to entire article below…

http://www.infowars.com/alex-runs-down-man-made-climate-change-hoax-exposed-in-cru-emails/

Months ago I warned people, that if the Government runs health care it would be the downfall of this country. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s $848 billion health care reform legislation passed a key test on a partisan 60-39 vote that sends the bill to the Senate floor for debate.

No big surprise, many who feel the same way as I, knew it would pass. It had to in order for the nightmare changes to come for this country. Kiss America the Free goodbye.

This Health Care Bill will change forever, Americans citizens rights to have their own choices when it comes to their Health and that of their children.

Lets start with breast cancer issue and women shall we?

Millions of women get mammograms each year. We have been told for years that at 40 we need a baseline mammogram to make sure we can monitor lumps and bumps in breast tissue. This was told to us women by a board of doctors endorsed by the Government.

This board is the: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Now this SAME government medical board comes out a week ago and says women who don’t have any problems will not need a mammogram till 50. EXCUSE ME?…. To save us women the stress?

This is just another way our new government health care plan will CUT COSTS and put women’s lives at risk. What a bunch of propaganda this new statement is. Couldn’t they come up with something better than this poor excuse? America currently leads the world in breast cancer research and it is because of EARLY DETECTION!

Do you know how much money the Federal government will save if they cut mammograms down?

Most of the mammograms the health insurance companies will CURRENTLY cover, but if they are now a part of the government run health care plan why should they? They may drop that little bomb on you yet.

Mammograms generally costs between $100 and $150 for each screening. Add that up with the millions of women that get screened every year.

Then, count the extra cost to the government of women who have no insurance or who are in financial difficulty and need assistance like Medicaid. We are now talking millions of dollars. This is where our Federal Government will start curtailing expenses to pay for their bogus plan.

This picture is just the beginning of what’s to come folks. Stay tuned for massive protests and more than likely civil violence.

Next on the list will be men’s prostate screening. I believe that’s already being discussed. Hey guys I didn’t forget about you, after all the government will need to make sure you die off too.

Will it also mean that premature babies will now have to go before a medical board that will decide if they get to be taken care of or not in a hospital?  Premature babies in a hospital cost A LOT of money, especially if you are receiving government assistance. We don’t want to burden the new health care plan anymore excess monies do we? You can have another baby right?

The Government will help females pay for abortions on this bill too. It isn’t because they care about you either. Population culling has begun and this just helps that plan. I fear at some point we will be told we are only allowed to have a certain amount of children and any other pregnancies must be aborted. The Chinese already have the ONE CHILD POLICY. Look out America we could be next.

After all, one of our American politicians (ANITA DUNN) admire the former Chinese leader Mao Zedong (Tse-tung). Anita Dunn did say that her two favorite political philosophers are Mother Theresa and Mao, seemingly as a joke, but how much of a joke was it really? How much does she really admire this killer. Someone needs to find out and probe her background. What a hypocrite you are ANITA DUNN!

You cannot put a beautiful, giving, loving and SELFLESS being like Mother Teresa anywhere near someone as hateful as Mao Tse Tung.

Here is a brief run down on this communist leader:

Mao Zedong (Tse-tung) Born (December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) was a Chineserevolutionary, political theorist and Communist leader.  His theoretical contribution toMarxism-Leninism, military strategies, and his brand of Communist policies are now collectively known as Maoism.

Mao Tse Tung, was one of the most prolific mass murderers of the twentieth century. Oh and while you are considering what I am writing let me give you a couple of quotes from Mao Tse Tung:

“Communism is not love. Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy.”

“Passivity is fatal to us. Our goal is to make the enemy passive.”

“Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

“Politics is war without bloodshed, while war is politics with bloodshed.”

“The atom bomb is a paper tiger which the United States reactionaries use to scare people. It looks terrible, but in fact it isn’t.”

Shouldn’t Americans be LISTENING CAREFULLY and paying CLOSE ATTENTION to what comes out of Anita Dunn’s mouth too? After all, she claims to represent “The American people” or does she?

No one was watching the American Born Military Officer at Fort Hood with his Jehad ideals and look what he ended up doing to his “So called Fellow Americans.”

WAKE UP AMERICA. Get a clue for goodness sake.

Back to the Health Care Issue and the taxes involved in it.

What happened to NO NEW TAXES?

The new health Bill has about 15 new taxes in it.

You will not get to use any of these health care plans till 2014, but guess what?

The Federal government plans to tax YOU now in order to get you ready for 2014. You will not be able to afford this plan in 2014 as your pockets will have been bled dry from paying the taxes involved in this idiotic bill.

Oh I know …ask me how much America’s Trade Deficit will be in the year 2014?

We are already at 12 trillion dollars in 2009 so you do the math.

Um and while I’m acting all smart and stuff, guess what?

That trade deficit figure for 2014 does not even include health care costs!

Oh wow, we will be so up to our eyeballs in debt you may as well just take yourself out behind the shed and pull the trigger right now.

At current trends Cumulative Trade Deficit will equal GDP by 2014, but current trends won’t continue. The economy will collapse well before that. This above graph was done in 2006 and it did NOT include the Health Care Bill.

If I had a politician giving me a choice of reading their Health Care Bill and the Constitution, I would take 17 constitution pages any day over some 2000 congress pages in Health Care that have NOTHING to do with the great American Constitution.

Besides, trying to understand this Health Care Bill is like playing game of twister. All physically twisted up and still have NOTHING to show for it.

The only thing I did get out of this whole health care bill is that WE AMERICANS are going to have NEW TAXES that will cost Americans MORE money and BANKRUPT THIS COUNTRY. Ask me again, how much our deficit will be again in 2014?

Lets see…(estimated at)$18,350.0 Trillion dollars % of GDP 99.8 and those figures DO NOT have the Health Care Costs Included in them.

2009: 12 Trillion that’s a WOW to begin with.

2010: (est) 14,456.3,

2011 (est.)15,673.9,

2012 (est.)16,565.7,

2013 (est.)17,440.2,

WE ARE IN A LOT OF TROUBLE FOLKS!

Sometime between 2030 and 2040 spending will exceed Government Revenues and that’s the truth so wake up will you. I hope you pay attention before it is too late. Make a decision NOW, time is up.

Love and Blessings

Victoria

When you have had enough and want to join us …

Click the link here

Check it out…can’t hurt right?

Glenn Beck – Current Events & Politics – Glenn Beck: The Plan.

Marjorie Mazel Hecht / Infowars – November 22, 2009

“Global Warming” is, and always was, a policy for genocidal reduction of the world’s population. The preposterous claim that human-produced carbon dioxide will broil the Earth, melt the ice caps, and destroy human life, came out of a 1975 conference in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, organized by the influential anthropologist Margaret Mead, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), in 1974.

Mead—whose 1928 book on the sex life of South Pacific Islanders was later found to be a fraud—recruited like-minded anti-population hoaxsters to the cause: Sow enough fear of mancaused climate change to force global cutbacks in industrial activity and halt Third World development. Mead’s leading recruits at the 1975 conference were climate scare artist Stephen Schneider, population-freak biologist George Woodwell, and the current AAAS president John Holdren—all three of them disciples of Malthusian fanatic Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb.

Read entire article (PDF)

Link to original article below…

http://www.infowars.com/where-the-global-warming-hoax-was-born/

DeeSpeak> : And again, the government plays their theme song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, and tells people that the benefits outweigh the risks… which is an easy position to take, for  people who are NOT affected negatively by the vaccine.  If  it were THEIR children, or themselves, suffering from this vaccine, they’d be singing a different tune, as are those reporting adverse events on our reporting page .

Meanwhile, why was GLAXO the bell-ringer on this? Why did health authorities not pull the plug on the vaccine the moment they knew the side-effects were outrageous? Our own officials received the reports BEFORE Glaxo did, so where was THEIR outrage? Where was THEIR call to protect the people from unnecessary damage?

HOW CAN WE TRUST THEM?

Canada: The Killer H1N1 Vaccine

by Michel Chossudovsky

“It is a serious thing [vaccine] that has the potential to kill” according to Dr. Neil Rau, an infectious disease expert, in a CTV interview, but do not worry: “leading experts insist, the benefits of the H1N1 vaccine vastly outweigh the risks” (Swine Flu Support Center, emphasis added)

A new development in the H1N1 Vaccine Saga is unfolding in Canada.

Whereas health officials are pushing for an acceleration of the vaccination program, there is evidence of so-called “unusual adverse reactions” including three recently recorded deaths directly resulting from the vaccine.

In the meantime, health authorities have called for the withdrawal of 170,000 (higher risk) doses of the vaccine produced by GlaxoSmithKline. The initiative, of which the importance is being downplayed, is said to have come from the manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline, which expressed concern on higher than normal adverse reactions to the vaccine.

“Canada’s H1N1 flu vaccine manufacturer has asked the provinces to temporarily discontinue vaccinating Canadians from a lot of vaccine shipped in October due to a higher risk of adverse reactions, says a Manitoba health official.

Dr. Joel Kettner, Manitoba’s chief public health officer, said Thursday that GlaxoSmithKline has asked that the October batch be taken out of circulation because it produced serious and immediate anaphylactic reactions in one out of 20,000 vaccinations, compared with one out of 100,000 in other shipments.

“We’ve been asked by the manufacturer GSK to not use this vaccine at this time pending further investigation,” he said. (Winnipeg Free Press, 20 November 2009)

The government is involved in a cover-up. The initial headlines stated “more than 100,000 doses”, but then read on, the number is 170,000 doses.

The CTV report admits that “it is a serious thing, it has the potential to kill”.

Too Late to Withdraw the 170,000 Defective Doses

The question is whether the doses can be withdrawn or whether they have already been used. The first news reports from Manitoba indicate that:

Of the 63,000 doses shipped [to Manitoba], only 630 remained unused by the four regional health authorities in Manitoba that received them. (Ibid)

This report would suggest that the risky GSK vaccine doses have already been used.

A subsequent report confirms that out of the 63,000 doses, 900 unused doses of the H1N1 vaccine were withdrawn by health authorities “after health authorities received word other vaccines from the same batch have been causing higher rates of allergic reactions than expected.” (Flu vaccine batch pulled in Manitoba, Winnipeg Sun, 20 November 2009).

The question is what happened to the remaining 62,100 doses of the higher risk vaccine batch, which were used to vaccinate people in Manitoba?

Has there been a followup regarding those people in Manitoba who received the higher risk H1N1 vaccine injection? What is the situation in other provinces in which the higher risk vaccine does were distributed?

Manitoba Health authorities casually confirm, in this regard, that “most of the vaccine Manitoba received from the suspect lot had already been used by the time the province received the alert on Wednesday” [November 18, 2009]. (Winnipeg Free Press, 20 November 2009, emphasis added)

Manitoba and Quebec : Three deaths resulting from the H1N1 Vaccine

The news reports have highlighted deaths resulting from the H1N1 flu (often unconfirmed), while obfuscating several recorded deaths resulting directly from the vaccine. These vaccine related deaths are occurring at the very outset of the vaccination program,

According to CTV News, 20 November 2009) “The province is currently investigating two deaths — both adults who died within seven days of getting the H1N1 shot” (Family questions if H1N1 shot caused Manitoba woman’s death, November 20, 2009, emphasis added).

Manitoba officials acknowledge 69 “adverse events” after people received the swine flu shot, including the two deaths. (CBC.ca report, 17 November 2009)

However, unless the families speak out, the authorities will not provide details. CTV interviewed the family of one of the victims. No details on the other death in Manitoba are available:

“The family of a 38-year-old Manitoba woman who died five days after receiving the H1N1 vaccine are looking for answers as to why it happened.

Soo Lee Wong and her daughter, Angela Truong, both got the H1N1 shot on November 5th.

The family says Wong, who had diabetes, started getting sick a day after getting vaccinated and died a few days later.

Doctors told the family Wong died of a blood infection. More tests will be done to see if the vaccine played any role.

Wong’s husband, Thoon Truong, is also caring for his seven-year-old daughter Angela, who has been in the hospital with a fever and swollen, painful legs.

He wants to know whether the two cases related to the vaccine or to something else.

The province is currently investigating two deaths — both adults who died within seven days of getting the H1N1 shot.

Although it’s still early, Manitoba’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Joel Kettner says immunizations were not likely the cause of the deaths. CTV News | Family questions if H1N1 shot caused Manitoba woman’s death, November 20, 2009)

It should be noted that these two deaths in Manitoba may have been associated with the injection of the higher risk H1N1 vaccine doses, which health authorities had called for withdrawal.

Quebec: One Death
An 80-year-old Quebec man was reported dead after taking the H1N1 Swine Flu vaccination. Health officials have dismissed the case, “stating that it’s too soon to link the death and vaccine.” Quebec man dies after taking H1N1 vaccine, Digital Journal, 18 November 2009).

The Quebec health authorities have refused to provide details:

“Quebec’s Director of Public Health Protection, Dr. Horacio Arruda, did not know why the man took the vaccine and that final test results, which are expected to come in December, will determine whether or not the man died from the vaccine.

Canada.com reports the man died in the last three weeks but provincial officials declined to reveal details, citing confidentiality concerns. Arruda has said that most allergic reactions occur right away, which is the reason why many patients are asked to stay in the centers, “We can’t say there is a causal association between the death and the flu shot.”

Nevertheless, Arruda is confident that the death will not discourage people from taking the vaccine but urged that serious reactions to the H1N1 shot are rare, “I understand that everyone is worried.”” (Quebec man dies after taking H1N1 vaccine, Digital Journal, 18 November 2009)

The statements by senior health officials are notoriously ambiguous: while they concur that: “there is no evidence the vaccine is dangerous.”, they nonetheless acknowledge the deaths resulting from the vaccine (Statement of Quebec’s Director of Public Health Protection, Dr. Horacio Arruda, (The Canadian Press: Quebec health officials investigating possible death from H1N1 vaccine. November 18, 2009).

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16192

Local Government

Spartanburg County to spend more than $80,000 for tourism consultants

http://www.goupstate.com/article/20091123/ARTICLES/911231007/1083/ARTICLES?Title=Spartanburg-County-looks-at-tourism-action-plan

Newspaper demands more fiscal accountability in Oconee County

http://www.upstatetoday.com/news/2009/nov/21/more-fiscal-accountability-needed/?opinion

Many Charleston County students are far behind in reading when they enter high school

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/nov/22/some-likely-graduates-lack-reading-skills/

Federal Stimulus Watch

Stimulus funds used to hire reading specialists in Charleston schools

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2009/nov/23/specialists-work-to-raise-reading-skills/

Simpsonville builds new walkway on Main Street with stimulus funds

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20091123/NEWS/911230311/1004/NEWS01/State-expands-Simpsonville-sidewalk-project

Fountain Inn receives $21,000 in stimulus funds to hire traffic officer

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/article/20091123/NEWS/911230312/1004/NEWS01/Grants-promote-traffic-safety-in-Fountain-Inn

Family Health Centers Inc. in Orangeburg will fund new building and equipment with $1.18 million in stimulus funds

http://www.thetandd.com/articles/2009/11/23/news/doc4b073e745fca8388876272.txt

Stimulus money provides key funding for Sandy Island ferry project

http://www.gtowntimes.com/local/Key-funding-approved-for-Sandy-Island-ferry-service

Roya was an afghan student I met at Jamia Milia Islamia in 2007 at a screening of Osama(2003). She told me over cups of tea about doing Women’s Studies in India, of her family which wants her to be educated and a Taliban regime that doesn’t. Unfortunately I lost touch with her, but she is in my thoughts.

Dear Roya…

What is it like?

To wake up every morning to a shattered world…

To know that your life is caged.

Within the twisted lies,

men -make

of God’s truth.

How does it feel? …

To peer through the darkness of a blue shroud

and  find the entire sky,

opening up inside of you.

What do you think…?

When alien ideas turn like keys inside your head.

Tell me,

Do you sometimes stand and stare at the light…

shining behind forbidden doors?

An international crackdown on the use of woods from the world’s rain forests to make musical instruments bubbled over to Music City on Tuesday with a federal raid on Gibson Guitar ’s manufacturing plant, but no arrests.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Webb said the search warrant was obtained based on information in a sealed affidavit outlining the investigation.

Agents of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service made a midday appearance and served a search warrant on company officials at Gibson’s Massman Drive manufacturing plant, where it makes acoustic and electric guitars.

Some hardwoods traditionally used in making premium guitars, such as rosewood from the rain forests of Madagascar and Brazil, have been banned from commercial trade because of environmental concerns under a recently revised federal law.

Under the U.S. Lacey Act, trading in such banned woods is a federal offense, punishable by civil and criminal penalties or the seizure of property. Last year, the U.S. Congress amended a turn-of-the-century wildlife protection law (the Lacey Act) to extend its reach to endangered timber species and plants. See the next post Where Were You When Wood Became A Felony?

Plato’s Prisons of Techne

I repost here the quote from the Republic that in usual Platonic, imagistic language is full of potential truths. Here we find Socrates discrediting primarily the sophists, but really by virtue of a who class of technically skilled [techne] workers, those whose power and knowledge consists in their experiences, and standing, as workers. In condensed fashion he runs the gambit from prisoners to technicians to mere machine workers. All of these he tells us, wish to gravitate, actually more, leap or fly to the prestige of philosophy:

Just as men out of prisons into holy sanctuaries are fleeing, so these joyous men out from technical arts are leaping into Philosophy, as if those being most intricate would hit upon the little art of themselves. For in comparison with the other arts the honor of philosophy even though abandoned is more magnificent. This is the flight of the many unaccomplished by nature, who from the technical arts and even workmanship, their bodies have been mutilated and their souls envined and even crushed through the mechanical arts.

Plato, Republic [495d]

Leaving the question of the sophists aside and picking up the word-image, we really have something here. There is the interminable sense that our experiences as workers confined to the techniques of our knowing and doing, caught within the demands of an economic and thereby psychic necessity, contort us, alter us. And Plato’s image is quite strong as he evokes the worker or technician (and some editors have thought that he had the military arts in mind, but the image carries through) whose body is maimed by the arts he practices. We see vividly the industry worker, or other friends of the ”machine” who has lost fingers or received other bodily harm, even desk workers whose time in the chair have changed their posture. All of these graftings of a machinic upon the human body are rolled up into the image of the prisoner at the beginning of the passage, the one who is confined, shackled by circumstances of every degree. And all of these make for Socrates those who are unqualified to the seat of Philosopher. This is because, as the body is the image of the soul, it is not only bodies that have been exacted upon, it is souls, and here in the end forming a bookend to the prisoner the image is striking. The mechanical arts (by which we are to see mean arts, perhaps those of low craftsmen, even with the association of the weaver who is feminine), actually “envine”, they envelope and slowly twist and choke the soul, even eventually crush or pulverize it. What comes to mind for me is of a gear-working, a rack that out of its unnatural nature incrementally destroys the cognitive powers of the soul. Here “work” in every mechanical gradient becomes the equivalent of torture.

At a certain level we have condensed here all of the reasons why the economic freedoms of others become a high priority for us. For it is not just in political restriction that the voice and soul becomes contorted, but also that the very lived mechanical – and we read mechanical even in the most abstract sense of purposed and productive repetitions - states of workers are binding and cognitively contorting devices. At least that is the rhetorical picture. Aside from Plato’s political aim, the freeing of cognitions from devices remains a kind of halo of a hope, an attractor.

Scholastic Silence: How to Comtemplate

But in this ethical picture stands its opposite, the idea that the Philosopher is he (not she, one supposes) is the one not contorted, maimed or crushed. The one whose body and soul stands relatively whole, unpressured, the one who can see clearly, from a distance. It is there that Bourdieu’s critique of the “scholastic point of view” which I brought up in my last post, occurs. The production of the quietude of the Philosopher, the near monastic, let us say scholastic isolation from the contortions of mechanical art pressures, is, Bourdieu wants us to know, artificial. The cocoon and buffer that creates the gap between a world of devices and techniques exacted, and the imagined realm of reasons, has to be built. It has been constructed through labors which themselves are structured. And then it too is structured by internal devices and arts. What Bourdieu wants us to know is that when the philosopher adopts the scholastic point of view, he/she is likely carrying with him/her the vast train of social constructions (literal constructions) which enable that monastic cell of contemplation, and there is both a social and epistemic responsibility towards the excavation of those inherited and largely unconscious relations (an excavation that in some sense is retarded by flat ontologies who know only their surface).

The One Machinist of the 17th Century

In a way it is the Philosopher who knows least the mutilations of his/her body, the envinings of his/her soul, the pulverizations, due to the very quietude of contemplation. And to this great dis-orientation of thinking towards the mere mechanical, my mind turns towards the rise of the philosophy of the mechanical, the Dutch flowering of Cartesian mechanism. It seems here that most, if there was to be a philosophy that embraced the mechanical nature of thinking it would be found here. I wrote some time ago about the “hand of de Beaune” a brilliant mathematician who was working hard in the service of Descartes on the production of a fantastic automated lens-grinding machine :Descartes and Spinoza: Craft and Reason and The Hand of De Beaune. With somewhat of a coincidence de Beaune’s hand was severely cut just as Plato’s technician’s body was maimed. Descartes’ dream though was of producing machines which no hand would touch, pure, abstract machines, concretized maths, in a sense, those which would free the otherwise fettered human mind. Plato’s dichotomy duplicates itself, the machine as enemy to the mind because of the body, as well as its instrumental aid. As I have pointed out in my investigation of Spinoza’s lens-grinding, Spinoza was the only “worker” of the period, and in fact the only craftsman per se. While lens-grinding and machine fascination was an elite hobby among the new scientist riche, Spinoza was actually a worker, and engaged his lens lathe daily as a matter of his economic sustainance. Deep in this machinic age, only Spinoza new the machine in a fashion Plato’s Socrates could not. He knew it with his hands.

In an interesting fashion, Spinoza’s “scholastic point of view” embodies a unique self-reflective awareness that is encapsulated in his worker, machine status, as well as one might admit, his standing as an ostricized Jew. He occupied a position at the border, a stand-point, that made of his quietude a different sort of awareness. Born of the age of the machine, Spinoza understood the human being too as a device, a complex series of ordinations, to which other complex serieses of ordinations are connected, a “spiritual automaton” he called the human being. In this awareness the “worker” takes on a different place: Not that of “prisoner” to stand in dialectical opposition to the unmutilated man, but of machinic degree. Our work becomes an expression of machines, machines of which we never extricate ourselves. It is only that we need to choose our machines (those of which we are made) more carefully, with an eye to liberation. The gaze of leisure is to be questioned.

Blogged Quietism

In this view blogging of course becomes a significant phenomena. Some philosophical bloggers write out of a self-created cocoon to escape the twisting techne of university or college, forming however brief a contemplation of respite, engaging the machinic of the internet. Some blog in order to be able to speculate, to freely exhibit what they might be able to think, if they were allowed to. Yet, as we produce our ideas and disseminate them, to the degree that we do not embrace the machinic, we are fraught with generating the modes that have produced our monk-cell, unconsciously, not recognizing the shapes of our bodies and souls.

Atop this image of the mechanical arts that contort there is the artist, we might say, is also the self-artist. The one that grasps the inherent machinic character of the human, and purposely undergoes specific machinic contortions upon both body and soul, not to perfect, but to express (and to some degree soterologically free themself and others from) the specific techne of the world, as it stands. To take on the machine, in the way that a poet takes on a complex meter.

The following is a excerpt from the Classical Values Blog. It is very interesting and I highly recommend you read the entire article at http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2009/10/where_were_you_2.html

The 2008 Farm Bill (also known as the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008, aka Public Law 110-246).

This amendment [to the Lacey Act] deals with illegal plants — the primary thrust being illegal wood. Henceforth, all wood is to be a federally regulated, suspect substance. Either raw wood, lumber, or anything made of wood, from tables and chairs, to flooring, siding, particle board, to handles on knives, baskets, chopsticks, or even toothpicks has to have a label naming the genus and species of the tree that it came from and the country of origin. Incorrect labeling becomes a federal felony, and the law does not just apply to wood newly entering the country, but any wood that is in interstate commerce within the country. Here are some excerpts from a summary:

The Lacey Act now makes it unlawful to import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, or purchase in interstate or foreign commerce any plant, with some limited exceptions, taken in violation of the laws of a U.S. State, or any foreign law that protects plants. The Lacey Act also makes it unlawful to make or submit any false record, account or label for, or any false identification of, any plant.

The definition of the term “plant” includes “any wild member of the plant kingdom, including roots, seeds, parts, and products thereof, and including trees from either natural or planted forest stands.”

[...]

Anyone who imports into the United States, or exports out of the United States, illegally harvested plants or products made from illegally harvested plants, including timber, as well as anyone who exports, transports, sells, receives, acquires or purchases such products in the United States, may be prosecuted. In any prosecution under the Lacey Act, the burden of proof of a violation rests on the government.

[...]

Violations of Lacey Act provisions for timber and other plant products, as well as fish and wildlife, may be prosecuted through either civil or criminal enforcement actions. Regardless of any prosecution, the tainted plants may be seized and forfeited.

Everyone means everyone, which includes every reader of this blog.

Obviously, this means that in the future, the Fish and Game guys will be able to accompany SWAT Team raiders to check all wood in homes and businesses for possible violations. Even if they’re wrong in their suspicions about the wood, it can still be confiscated. (Might that be a goal? To beef up employment at Fish and Game?)

Just think about the law enforcement possibilities alone. After kicking through and impounding your illegal wooden door, a federalized army of government termites could literally strip all wood paneling and flooring from every raided house as suspicious contraband, and haul away all the furniture, wood carvings, picture frames, tools, musical instruments! I can’t think of a better harassment tool. The list of potentially regulated items is mind-boggling:

the scope of products that will require a declaration under the Lacey Act is broad and includes certain live plants, plant parts, lumber, wood pulp, paper and paperboard, and products containing certain plant material or products, which may include certain furniture, tools, umbrellas, sporting goods, printed matter, musical instruments, products manufactured from plant-based resins, and textiles.

[...]

After September 30, 2009, based on experience with the implementation of the electronic system for declaration data collection, we will phase in enforcement of the declaration requirements for additional chapters containing plants and plant products covered by the Lacey Act, including (but not limited to) Ch. 12 (oil seeds, misc. grain, seed, fruit, plant, etc.), Ch. 13 (gums, lacs, resins, vegetable saps, extracts, etc.), Ch. 14 (vegetable plaiting materials and products not elsewhere specified or included), Ch. 45 (cork and articles of), Ch. 46 (basket ware and wickerwork), Ch. 66 (umbrellas, walking sticks, riding crops), Ch. 82 (tools), Ch. 93 (guns), Ch. 95 (toys, games and sporting equipment), Ch. 96 (brooms, pencils, and buttons), and Ch. 97 (works of art). We will announce a specific phase-in schedule for those chapters in a subsequent Federal Register notice.

Did they mention shipping pallets and cargo braces? Wood is not only in stuff, it’s in the stuff that the stuff comes in! Nearly everything is regulated.

Oh, and you firearm owners out there, let’s not forget gun handles!

Ch. 93 Headings (arms and ammunition).
9302 — Revolvers and pistols.
93051020 –Parts and accessories for revolvers and pistols.
Ch. 94 Headings (furniture, etc.).
940169 — Seats with wood frames.
Ch. 95 Headings (toys, games, & sporting equipment).
950420 — Articles and accessories for billiards.
Ch. 97 Headings (works of art).
9703 — Sculptures.

Glad I don’t own an art gallery, but my picture frames are not labeled, which means there are probably multiple potential felonies in progress in my home. (Perhaps I should be more careful about what I say.)

And while the NRA might not have noticed the impending crackdown on gun handles, at least IKEA is starting to speak up.

Between Wood Control and the Consumer Product Safety Nazis, I pity anyone in the secondhand business, including all Ebay and Craigslist sellers as well as people holding garage or yard sales.

In short, I pity the American people. This is not their fault, though, for no one has any control over what is going on. Not even the despicable fools we call “legislators” who cannot read the “laws” they pass because they are not meant to be read. As to the enforcers, they are only doing their job. They have to earn a living. And we are supposed to respect them, because they lay their lives on the line, “protecting” the public! From felonious wood!

Obviously, the full implications of this dramatic loss of freedom are beyond the capacity of a single post. After all, I am just one blogger, doing this by myself, without the kind of access to data that media organizations and think tanks might have. So, I cannot possibly hope to analyze everything. As things stand, I became exhausted last night just reading through the Lacey Act Amendment stuff pertaining to wood — and that was one mere fraction of an execrable, unreadable monstrosity. I don’t mean to whine, but slogging through such horrors is not exactly my idea of Saturday night fun. But who the hell else is going to do it? Flooring and furniture industry blogs? Who the hell reads them except people in the business? They’re all greedy tree haters and have no credibility. Besides, all big business is the enemy right now. We need to stand up not only against Big Cereal, but now Big Flooring! Big Siding! Big Furniture! (Is there such an industry as Big Chopstick?)

To read the entire article please go to: http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2009/10/where_were_you_2.html

upside down upside down upside down blah blah blah

blah blah blah

Here is an article that everyone should read, and then read again. Please ponder what you read and then read it one more time. The body of that writing presents facts but then opines about a conclusion as if it is a bona fide fact.

It is true that there are differing viewpoints within the so called Tea Party movement. That piece implies that this is something new, but those of us participating from the start have known about this reality all along. Indeed, we have always understood that coming together with these differing viewpoints, and staying together cordially while working through them, is the example we have intended to set for our elected officials all along. This example is what has scared those in government and in media to no end. It is exactly why demonizing and dismissing a lumped together movement has been their chosen action to this point. Because that tactic failed so miserably, they are now seeking to exploit what they decry as division. What we view as honest disagreement and diversity of opinion, they view as a wedge to drive between us.

It is noteworthy to realize that this is the exact tactic that Osama Bin Laden himself employed on 9-11. He viewed a fractured nation, as a result of the 2000 election, ripe for splitting by driving between us what he views as a wedge that would shatter us completely. War. Some folks will not like this, but, to a certain extent he succeeded. We shall not fall into that trap again. Never Again. Never Forget.

Such wedge issues are viewed by some as a tool that will ensure that something they oppose fails. This failure is desired so that they can retain or augment their existing power structure. There is one quality that such a tactic cannot defeat no matter whether it is employed by a terrorist, a politician or a media outlet. Resolve.

Even when something of a moment of insight occurs, some still refuse to open their minds to the reality of what has actually occurred and what will continue to occur. A fire has been rekindled and it cannot be extinguished with “old ways” antics. Planting the seeds of discord and then watering them religiously may have worked in the past but it shall succeed no more. Patriots are standing up, all in our own ways, and quality change is afoot as a result. Freemen will always rise to defend freedom itself when it is attacked. It is precisely these so many ways that those with power today fear the most. In the end, they know that freedom cannot be defeated. They know that the only way they can accomplish their goal is to trick people into standing down their own freedoms willingly. That is what the article intends to do. It seeks to have people think that the movement is all falling apart so they stop participating now or decide not to begin participation in the future.

As much reading as I do, I find a tidal shift in what is admitted within that article. For one of the first times, 9-12ers are referred to directly as 9-12ers – as opposed to being lumped together as just “Tea Partiers”. There has always been a difference between these entities and that is a great thing. More than one group going more than one direction toward the same or similar goal is diversity that brings about worthwhile accomplishment. That writing tries to present a strength as a weakness. It is the old “up is down” strategy. There is more than a pinch of of Saul Alinksy in that writing, to be sure. This is how some folks are trying to rationalize missing such a very important point from the very beginning. It is how they admit they were wrong without actually admitting they were wrong.

Another thing I noticed within that article is the never ending aversion to free market principles. That writing finds free and open competition to be a fault rather than a strength. Nothing could be further from the truth, even if some folks refuse to admit it. A free exchange of ideas and information is taking place at what this author determines to be a grassroots level. It is driving the power brokers in media and government crazy because this is happening outside their control at the individual level. It befuddles them that this can be happening without a top dog celebrity to pin it on by creating a poster boy to chide or praise. The closest thing they have been able to create depicting this movement is a poster girl who is currently nothing more than a private citizen. You might have heard of her, her name is Sarah Palin. Ask yourself, why are they hammering her today as they did when she was a sitting and running politician? Their own fear is the answer. As I talked about already, it is the individual free Citizen exercising their rights that they fear the most.

Within this charge to defend freedom, some folks think that a third party is the answer, while some people think that cleaning up the two main established parties is the answer. Some folks think that fund raising for particular candidates is the answer. Some think that protest after protest is the answer. Some think that top down leadership is the answer, while others think that bottom up leading of ourselves is the answer. Some think that PACS are the answer, while others think that making campaigns about information instead of about money is the answer. I could go on and on with this list, but I think you get the general idea.

Here is the actuality, the unbridled, unbiased and straight truth. All of these things combined is the answer. Each group of individuals pursuing their own means toward the protection and defense of Liberty is the answer. Each of us leading ourselves to membership and participation within each of these group endeavors is the ultimate example of the true power that the exercise of Individual Liberty contains. Freedom is ringing loudly today and I implore everyone to continue to ring their own bell over and over again. We will all ring our common bell together, at the same time, when we go vote. This will be the moment that honest disagreement about the how is shown to be a strength pertaining to accomplishing the what.

It should not come as a shock to anyone that media elites and government elites would enlist any method to discourage the happenings, in all their forms, seen around this country these days. After all, what all the various groups are doing is expressing the fact that to be governed justly we must offer our consent to be governed. We are shedding power long held over us by refusing to consent to an overreaching government and a media that fabricates and steers news instead of honestly reporting news as it is, thus returning that power, that Liberty, to it’s rightful owner. The individual.

To this end, I quote a good President who had war foisted upon his administration and his countrymen; “We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.”

I ask that each person remember these words and feed upon them in times of trial. They are the sustenance that will see Individual Liberty defended for us and for our posterity.

The dishes are dirty and they are on the countertop.  Someone must do something about this.  I am too busy to rinse off the dishes and put them in the dishwasher and after all that put soap in it, and close it and then turn it on.

It is too much.  It a shackle around 30 minutes.   There are more important things for me to do.   I would very much like to address a much needed bath and bottle of Spanish wine.  As well, I have the important task of briefly looking at papers and then putting them in order of importance, and then finding a place to put the papers somewhere until they become irrelevant.

There are other serious problems.  The fact I can’t command my coffee cup to fill itself and come to my beckoning is very disturbing.  It is not the worst problem but it is a good indicator at how bad things really are.  No one I’v talked to can order their coffee cup full.

Don’t think I’ve forgotten the bathroom.  Or caring for clothes and other fabrics.  It is almost too much to bare   – think about it.  How can I be expected to get any of this done while I am in the tub watching the soft flicker of candles as I listen to public radio’s jazz hour and reread “The Marching Drum”?

As a move toward solidarity and progress, we should seek to end these horrendous problems that infect billions of people with chronic suffering through these problems tedious continuality and lasting residue on their lives’ time.

No one should turn their eyes away from these atrocities that cripple time and force people into predictive patterns of humdrum behaviors.  No one should have to clean a toilet again!   Can you imagine a world where all tasks of maintenance  are performed automatically?  The windows clean themselves?

When objects do as they are commanded?  “Come here keys!”  could be heard all over the world.  We the American people need to be a good example for rest of the world and move forward to solve these problems of human life.  How much suffering should people be expected to endure?  All possible resources should be put into these problems. The inefficiency of these problems is costing us too heavy a price.   We are supposed to happy with automated vacuum cleaners or airplanes or radios that don’t even work well?  I tell you now -these sloppy quick fixes are not enough.

The Empress was home to a whole lot of folks, for a hundred years or more,

She had a diner,a barbershop,an old-time saloon,rooms to rent,and a five and dime store,

Her boarders sought jobs,from far away places,at the Empress there was always a room,

They flooded into Akron from near and from far,back when tire plants celebrated  the boom,

The Empress’s dark halls hid years of grime,naked bulbs offered very little light,

A shared bath on each floor,caused a long waiting line,where impatience could turn into a fight,

She sheltered a colorful kaleidoscope of characters, back in seventy-three,

A home away from home, for sad weary wanders, one of those lost souls was me,

You could learn quite a lot, in a place like the Empress, with her dingy paper-thin walls,

As you lay in you bed, door barred with the chair, hearing voices echo down the hall,

Well one thing I learned is “I don’t want to be here,” too much sorrow for a girl of sixteen,

For by then She was home to drifters and drunks, a hiding place for those with lost dreams,

So I gathered my clothes, in a bag on my back, and headed for route twenty-one,

Determined not to spend another night at the Empress, I smiled and stuck out my thumb,

By the end of the day, I had crossed the Ohio, and was well on my way home,

I swore when I got there I’d settle down, and never again would I roam,

Now only in memories, do I ever travel back, the sights and sounds to recall,

I wonder if the old Girl, still shelters the weary, or is the Empress still standing at all.

                                                                                C.D.M   11-19-09

1. $493 Billion In Tax Increases On Health Insurance, Medical Innovation, Payroll And Small Businesses Would Pay For The Bill. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

2. Americans Won’t See Benefits Of This Health Care Experiment Until 2014, But They Start Paying For It In 2010. (Page 13, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

3. Reid’s Bill Allegedly Reduces The Deficit By $130 Billion In Ten Years, But The Obama-Reid-Pelosi Spending Agenda Produced Deficit Of $176 Billion Last Month Alone. (Table 3, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

4. $465 Billion In Medicare And Medicaid Cuts Would Pay For Two New Unsustainable Entitlements. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

5. Health Care Costs For The Federal Government – And Your Family – Would Increase, Not Decrease. (Page 16, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

6. A New Medicare Commission Of Unelected Bureaucrats Would Ration Care.(Sec. 3403, H.R. 3590, Amendment In The Nature Of A Substitute, “Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,” Introduced 11/18/09)

7. The “Doc Fix” Provision That Would Add $250 Billion To The Deficit Is Not Included In The Democrats’ List Price For Their Health Care Experiment. (Page 17, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

8. Taxpayer Dollars Would Fund Abortions. (Sec. 1303(a), H.R. 3590, Amendment In The Nature Of A Substitute, “Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act,” Introduced 11/18/09)

9. A New Entitlement Program For Long-Term Care That One Democrat Senator Called “A Ponzi Scheme” Would Be Created. (Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09; Shailagh Murray & Lori Montgomery, “Centrists Unsure About Reid’s Public Option,” The Washington Post, 10/28/09)

10. States Burdened With $25 Billion In Unfunded Mandates From Medicaid That Would Force Them To Increase Taxes. (Page 7, Douglas W. Elmendorf, Letter To Senator Harry Reid, 11/18/09)

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about my discovery of the Incarnation Figure as an archetype in storytelling. There are obvious connections between this and the Christ Figure that w are so familiar with given that the Christ that the figures tend to emulate began being Christ through incarnation, the embodiment of something greater in than our world in our world. But the difference that I pointed out is that Christ Figures tend to have death and resurrection or sacrificial element to them and Incarnation Figures don’t always express that.
As intriguing and powerful as Christ Figures can be, I find them troublesome at times. I have seen too many Christians try to grade a story’s value on the presence or lack of Christ Figure. If it has one, it’s a good story, if not it fails. And this is whether the story is told well or the characters are believable or if there is any suspense to make us care what happens.
The other problem I frequently see is when a Christ figure is imposed in attempts to co-opt a story and make it a Christian tale. Take “The Matrix” for example. Certainly there is the element of sacrifice on Neo’s part as he stays behind to let the others escape. And there is something of death and resurrection. But did he really die? OR did he simply, finally understand the Matrix well enough to know that he didn’t have to die there? To me this story is more about faith and finding out what can happen when you truly believe more than it is about a Christ figure and the redemption that follows.
People often describe Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings as a Christ figure. Again there is a certain validity to that in terms of his death and resurrection. But as much as he is a Christ Figure, he is also an Odin Figure, at least up until the resurrection point. It’s almost as if Gandalf starts as Odin and finishes as Christ. And that’s not much a of a stretch given that Odin is a bit of Christ Figure himself, sacrificing himself unto himself.
But my favorite example of the failings of the overstressed Christ Figure is Hell Boy. In the second Hell Boy movie, the story follows the typical Christ Figure arch, as he sacrifices himself to save another, descends into the pits to eradicate the forces of evil and save all the Earth. Powerful stuff. But how many Christians stumble on this because he is a demon – and not just any demon, Satan’s son who’s true destiny is to bring ultimate destruction on the Earth? Is such a character an acceptable Christ Figure?
I think this is one of those examples that parallels the story of the Bronze Snake from scripture. God commanded Moses to make a bonze statue of a snake. This statue heals anyone that looks at it. The odd part is that most times that snakes appear in scripture, they are symbols of evil, demons or Satan himself. Jesus later tells us that the snake was an image of him. The image of evil expresses the ultimate good. Perhaps Hell Boy falls in this same category.

U.N. Declaration of Human Rights