Upon his inauguration in 2008, the chief executive Reagan would have announced his commitment of 120,000 US troops toward the  the cause of  finally ending  (what democrats have referred to as)  “the forgotten war”  in Afghanistan once and for all.  We know from history that upon hearing this, the Taliban would have capitulated immediately.  The conflict would have been rendered down to the level of a police action.  President Reagan’s  inaugural announcement would have proactively provided  an  end to  the conflict without ever having to send one single additional US soldier to Afghanistan.

That’s how strength, confidence, and faith  deal with the issues of conflict and the challenges of war ….others dither and give the enemy great confidence.

Having missed his opportunity, Obama has lost twice….he  can neither return to a strategy of strength nor can he retreat from the promise of weakness.  Thus,  he must send an inferior force to be ground up by a massing global army of  jihadists,  rushing  toward an opportunity for their eastern ideologies to succeed while western weaknesses are politically strong.

Lost twice…through strength…now get over your guilt.

In 2006, then Senator Barak Obama stated that ”Whatever we once were, we’re no longer a Christian nation.” He went on to say that “we’re a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a nation of unbelievers.”

This was an insult to the memory of all previous generations of Americans who were veterans, businessmen, factory workers, farm hands, Mothers, Fathers, white collar, blue collar, black tie, barefoot, industrialist, Founder — anyone who worked hard to do what’s right for themselves and those around them, to do what’s right for this country of ours, for America.

Declaring the end to the Judeo-Christian influence in this country in 2006 and again Barack Obama speaking* recently in Turkey, April, 2009, “We do not consider ourselves a Christian Nation.”

* I began the research for this post back on October 13th.  As of  8:10 pm 11/27/09, that vid is no longer available in its original place and I’ve had to search for it (probably because it is unbecoming to the president).  This is the full URL where it was:  http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DQIVd7YT0oWA&search_type=&aq=f.  I’ve found it below.

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=67735

He then dares to flippantly identify the Christian right as THE problem:

“Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it’s because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us.” (Source)

This is not only incorrect, but a blatant lie.  And those who are ignorant of the possibility of him ever making an error are unaware of the truth of anything.  Principle absent human compassion is nothing more than intellectual masturbation and Obama has his hand on it.

“[I]t is obvious that this is Obama’s way of ingratiating himself with Muslim audiences. But whatever his immediate goal, his sentiment is a popular one with Americans that sport left-wing, anti-religious ideology, people who look to Obama as their leader.” 

But is it true?  Did the Founding Fathers base this country on the Christian ethic or not?  When one reads the historical record, not the revised secular edition, it is apparent and indeed a resounding YES.  It is also quite clear that we are so very far off course from that original grounding.

As Ronald Reagan reminded us in 1988: “The First Continental Congress made its first act a prayer — the beginning of a great tradition. We have then, a lesson from the founders of our land, those giants of soul and intellect whose courageous pledge of life and fortune and sacred honor, and whose ‘firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence,’ have ever guided and inspired Americans and all who would fan freedom’s mighty flames and live in ‘freedom’s holy light.’ That lesson is clear: That in the winning of freedom and in the living of life, the first step is prayer.” Reagan was ever so right to guide us toward an understanding that the Founders of this country nearly to a man were steeped in religion — and that of the Protestant, Christian variety, at that. Even the ones against organized religion believed in a God, one that put us here and gave us certain rights as espoused in the Declaration of Independence from Britain. (Source)

But let us not use just the Declaration, as the Constitution is supreme law that guides this country [emphasis mine and throughout]. We must strive to remain strict constructionists of that document and hew closely to what the founder’s intended in all their wisdom. It is well considered proper, then, that we look to what the Founders and their contemporaries wrote to construe what they “meant” concerning the principles and ethics to which they hoped we’d remain forever faithful.

Let us begin with a quote from James Madison, the Father of the Constitution. “The belief in a God All Powerful wise and good, is so essential to the moral order of the world and to the happiness of man, that arguments which enforce it cannot be drawn from too many sources nor adapted with too much solicitude to the different characters and capacities impressed with it.” That sounds rather ominous, does it not? Of course Madison means that Christian concept of morality that he learned from the Anglican Church which was a required state religion in his home state, Virginia when he was a child.

Another stalwart driving force of the revolutionary days was Samuel Adams who, echoing James Madison’s idea, said, “Liberty will not long survive the total extinction of morals.”

George Washington who can be quoted bestowing Christian religious principles on many of his thoughts and actions he took on the battlefield and in government is very quotable on the subject. Here are a few quotes from the Father of our country.

• “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principles.”
• “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.”
• “And now, Almighty Father, if it is Thy holy will that we shall obtain a place and name among the nations of the earth, grant that we may be enabled to show our gratitude for Thy goodness by our endeavors to fear and obey Thee.”

Pretty straight forward, I believe.

How about Ben Franklin? Old Poor Richard himself was never considered the biggest religious fanatic of his day. In fact he is one of the few Founders that actually considered himself a Deist. But even he once said, “It is the duty of mankind on all suitable occasions to acknowledge their dependence on the Divine being.” Hardly sounds like he was against the morality of Christian ethics, does it?

John Adams, second president and indispensable founding father who was well known to be extremely pious both in religion and opinion said, “Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service, when it is violating all His laws.”

He sure did not say Allah’s service. Nor did he couple God and THEY. Adams said HIS laws. An obvious recognition of the Christian God of heaven and earth.

These quotes are all well and good but what did the early American theorists intend to pass on to the youth of America? As an answer to this I point to Benjamin Rush of Pennsylvania. Rush was a respected Doctor and was closely tied to most of the great figures of the early Republic and its national politics. He wrote, “I proceed…to enquire what mode of education we shall adopt so as to secure to the state all the advantages that are to be derived from the proper instruction of youth; and here I beg leave to remark, that the only foundation for a useful education in a republic is to be laid in religion. Without this there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”

Well, we could quote dozens upon dozens of such phrases from men like Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Henry Lee, George Clinton and a host of other revolutionary notables but that would tend to over burden the point.

Speaking of Thomas Jefferson, as a riposte to Christians, many half-informed secularists claim that Jefferson was a Deist that hated Christianity. But this is garbled history. Like many of the Founders, Jefferson disliked organized religion but was not in any way against religious sentiment, training and ideals. In fact, the older he got, the more religious he became. But even as our third president he regularly attended Bible class right in the halls of Congress and never once scolded the classes from meeting on federal property. He was not against Christianity in government at all.*

The point is that the men of the revolution, those very men that created our country, its mores and conventions based their ruminations upon the Christian God and his ethics and principles. They felt this base to be entirely indispensable to the stability of republican government. They warned that to dispense with them would be our undoing and we followed those predications faithfully up until the civil war and half heartedly until the presidency of FDR.

But today, civil Libertarians strive to remake the U.S.A. into a Godless and moraless society based upon an if-it-feels-right mode of thinking. The Democrat Party tries to replace religion with statism and socialism. Even Republicans all too often shy away from the question of the religious ethics of Christianity as if it is a backward ideal that would best be forgotten.

No, Benjamin Rush had it right when he said that without religion “… there can be no virtue, and without virtue there can be no liberty, and liberty is the object and life of all republican governments.”

Whether critics and secularists like it or not, we are at heart a Christian nation and if we cast off that ethic we will no longer be the United States, we will no longer have in us what made us great.

 ~αΩ~

*For an in depth discussion of Jefferson’s misinterpreted Danbury Letter from which the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” was derived, visit: http://www.publiusforum.com/oldopeds/hustonstoryseparation.html.  See also www.wallbuilders.org for their excellent resources on this wall that is supposed to guard the church from the government.

This was only one discussion of many in the argument for America’s Christian Heritage.  One of the best places for this kind if information is at the American Vision website.  They have a fantastic DVD, The Case for America’s Christian Heritage, vol 1 (Christian History).  The video clip on the next page after the description is the trailer for this DVD.

Christian Nation http://wp.me/pzfHB-eM

All of us need to be reminded that the federal government did not create the states; the states created the federal government.

Inaugural Address, West Front of the U.S. Capitol, January 20, 1981

Proud Reagan Conservative by PhraseCatcher
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November 25, 2009

ABC News’ Teddy Davis reports:

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is planning to headline an event which is being promoted as the “First National TEA Party Convention,” according to Palin spokeswoman Meg Stapleton.

The “TEA party convention”, which is taking place in Nashville, Tenn., from Feb. 4-6, is an understandable target for Palin.

In her new book, “Going Rogue,” Palin repeatedly heaps praise on a TEA party movement that vigorously opposes the tax, spending, and borrowing policies of President Barack Obama. …

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/palin-to-headline-tea-party-convention.html

And the neocons keep displaying their RHETORIC talents. Not  a one, starting from the original neocon has a positive, constructive performance to show to America. And likely none would want investigative reporters hanging around. But it’s ok for FOX News people to show up as cheerleaders in their FAIR and BALANCED coverage of the news. And if the FOX news family can KILL Google prior to the “event”, perhaps the world will be forced to PAY for the fair and balanced reporting of FOX News.

And apparently the neocons have decided that Ronald Reagan is the most brainy of their lot. They want to dedicate the Republican Party to the original neocon - Ronald Reagan. His administration, in addition to selling cocaine to America, must have sold the neocon idea.

How in Hades can a political faction, start out selling cocaine and end up by crashing America’s economy – still picture itself as a viable political faction? One might reasonably wonder if they retained some of the cocaine that they intended to sell to minority Americans. The IN-DENIAL idea is inadequate to explain neocon behavior.

The Palin type neocons want to brainwash America into believing they are fiscal conservatives. If Americans believe that – then America deserves what it gets from the neocons. It is truly difficult to save America from itself! When we meet the enemy – and the enemy is us, then we have a problem.

Obama is spending on America’s population. Neocons are likely to call that socialism. What the neocons want is something that is the image of fascism. Putting money in the hands of America’s citizens rather than America’s businesses is not the idea of neocons even after the neocons bankrupted many in America’s population. The neocons, with perhaps one exception, are in a class by themselves.

Some politically connected companies “made out like bandits” as a result of the Iraq war. And the Iraq Oil! Anyone who believes the Iraq war was not about Iraqi OIL may be a neocon. The Halliburton Company made out nicely in Iraq’s hydrocarbon industry.

It is appalling how little the brains of the neocons thinks of the brains of Americans.

But, actually, the neocons are taking a page from Winston Churchill’s book: Never give up; Never Ever Give Up; Never Ever, Ever Give Up. However, the neocons are nowhere near Winston Churchill’s performance but – neither has Satan given up. And so long as the neocons have escaped prosecution for tons of illegal actions, why give up? Why not pull America DOWN to the neocons level?

Palin will headline – FOX News will likely byline. And America will once again be fed a dose of neocon RHETORIC. AT NO TIME WILL THE NEOCONS GIVE THEIR PERFORMANCE AS AN EXAMPLE OF HOW TO DO SOMETHING. And they have been leading America’s government for twenty-four years. Surely, they must have accomplished something of note – RIGHT?

A fool and his country are soon parted

Earlier today Sarah Palin posted the following message on her Facebook page:

Happy Thanksgiving

Over three hundred years ago, a group of settlers fleeing religious persecution decided to set a new course for human history in a new frontier. Those early pioneers chose a rocky shoreline to establish their way of life. Centuries later, America continues to set the example of what can come from a free and hardworking people. We truly remain the shining city upon a hill that the colonial leader John Winthrop implored us to be.

What started as a small colony in the territory that would eventually become the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has progressed into the greatest and most prosperous nation in history. Americans remain the freest people on earth because of our cherished Constitution and the system of government it establishes.

We have so much to be thankful for. We should recognize especially the sacrifices made on our behalf by those in uniform. Thousands of Americans will be spending Thanksgiving overseas in combat zones in order to protect our liberty and way of life. We should give thanks to those who willingly put their lives on the line for the rest of us. Where would we be without them?

We are also thankful for what God has granted us. We are truly blessed in America with rich natural resources, plentiful energy sources, fertile land, beautiful cities, and the talented and industrious people we call “our fellow Americans.” We pray that God will continue to bless us.

In his farewell address to the nation, President Reagan reminded us that “all great change in America begins at the dinner table.” Thanksgiving is an opportunity to discuss where we are as a nation at this moment in our history and where we should be heading in order to remain prosperous and free. Take time to discuss these things with each other, and take time to teach the young people in your family about our nation’s history so that they may never forget all that we have to be proud of and thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

- Sarah Palin

Just because all of America is busy, it is not a holiday shared by other countries. I will give you a history lesson if you don’t know why. I hate to admit this, but I have heard Sean Hannity’s Man On The Street and our culture knows who Brangelina is, but not who the Vice President is, so do not think I am being facetious with the topic. OK, this hot girl came out with something. She gave 2 different dates but she will be more interesting to watch:

A shout out to our troops serving the world. I hope they are safe and have a chance to communicate with their families. We support you! If anyone would like to do anything for the troops, I always recommend this website for great ideas! Do One Nice Thing

I am busy helping my grandparents get ready for Thanksgiving dinner, and in between I am busy learning something new right now, but I see so many interesting Tweets coming across. This is a normal working day for others outside of America (and for our service industry here in America) so I will do what I can today to keep the information posted.

The Tweets Report!

This is a great site regarding real action we can take and alerting us to businesses operating in support of Iran’s Nuclear ambitions.

United Against Nuclear Iran Website

United Against Nuclear Iran (Videos)

MINISTER OF DEFENSE, HUEY P. NEWTON- HE WON THE HEARTS AND MINDS OF THE PEOPLE

HUEY P. NEWTON: HIS REPUTATION HAD PRECEDED HIM

 

When I graduated from high school, I had been pretty much colonialized. I was a Manchild caught in a dilemma between being a street hustler, thug or a factory worker. My high school experience at a predominately white school had only reaffirmed and reinforced my interiority complex. Being Black, I truly believed that I had no other options.

I wasn’t a hustler. I truly loved my sisters. To me, my sisters were truly beautiful and fascinating. I didn’t have the heart or desire to live a life taking advantage of them.  I loved to read and write poetry rhymes. I was completely satisfied to find a dark counter at the public library with a stack of books and read my life away.

I couldn’t be a thug. I had gained a decent reputation as an accomplished street fighter, but I didn’t have the heart or desire to harm anyone. I was a good athlete too, but I didn’t have the money or resources to pay for a physical or the equipment to play high school sports.

I wasn’t a factory worker. Most of my in-laws made a pretty good living at the Chevrolet Plant in Fremont or other factories. I loved the outdoors. My favorite past time was being in the open air and basting in the sun at a local city park like Lincoln Square Recreation Center in Downtown Oakland. I loved exploring the shores of Jack London Square where I spent vast hours alone walking along the shores of the coastal waters. Growing up to be a self realizing Blackman wasn’t an option.  

After graduating from high school, I didn’t know what to do with my life. My dream was to be a railroad Pullman porter and melt away into a life of invisibility and interiority. I was hopelessly confused.

One day, I followed a couple of sisters that graduated with my class to a local college. They were twins, Brenda and Glenda. My cousin had married Glenda as a high school sweetheart joined the military and left for the Vietnam conflict in Southeast Asia. I had a puppy dog crush on Brenda. I had dreams of marrying Brenda and joining my cousin in Southeast Asia and returning home a decorated war hero. I had no idea what war was other than a stage show on a Hollywood set. I was in a fantasy and extremely naïve.

When I broke through the glass double doors of Merritt Jr. College at 59^th and Grove, my life changed. I had never been on a college campus in my life. There were girls of every description everywhere. It was another playground for a Manchild. I decided then that I wanted to be a college student.

I had absolutely no idea how to read a college schedule. I picked my classes regardless of the times, days, units or prerequisites. I picked my classes by looking at the titles, “hum-hum-this sounds good, this looks good, and this sounds good.” I had no idea what a prerequisite was. I had no idea what a class conflict was. One day, a couple of older sisters noticed that filling out a class schedule was beyond my understanding, and sat down with me and showed me how to fill it out properly. A white college counselor had signed my class schedule conflicts and all, like 25 class credit units. He didn’t care. He assumed that I wouldn’t be there long.

At Merritt, Brenda had found another brother as a suitor. I was somewhat broken hearted that I couldn’t join my cousin in matrimony and in Vietnam. My heart and attention then went to a beautiful young lady from Richmond named Johnnie. The word in the grapevine was that she was hard as rocks. She had come up hard, very hard actually fighting grown men off her. The amazing thing was she had been successful. Nobody got close to her. Johnnie was tough as nails, but we had a lot of laughs and good times.

A relationship with Johnnie was difficult if not impossible. She had been claimed by one of the most notorious thugs in Richmond. It was suicide to be caught anyplace near her. I found Johnnie regardless of her background, sweet, gentle, quiet and kind. Our affection was mutual. Our moments together were confined to campus. I wished that I could grow wings and fly her away from her troubles. I was a Manchild full of innocent fantasy and dreams and barely able to take care of himself.

It wasn’t long before Brenda, Glenda, and Johnnie dropped out. I found myself getting high, hanging out on campus and flirting with all sorts of young ladies of all races. The Manchild had found a new playground. I became a campus playboy, a campus clown.

One day, I had spent the day drinking and getting high with the brothers. That evening I was hanging out in the hallway in front of the campus cafeteria cutting it up with a couple of brothers.  One brother was giving me the campus lowdown.

That’s “Michael the Pimp.” Michael was a local fixture. Michael was a light skinned brother with a process hairdo. Michael was always good to stop, talk, laugh and for a conversation. He was a hapless heroin addict that hung around campus. I don’t think anyone took him seriously even the women found him harmless and most irrelevant.

“That’s Marcellus, he is a professional boxer.” Marcellus was a bully and a self centered individual with a head full of greasy Gerri-curls, God’s gift to women. He made a beeline straight to cafeteria to impress the young ladies without looking around.  

“That’s Huey.” Huey was a rather ordinary sized brother with an arm full of books. He was modestly dressed. I noticed that he buttoned his shirt all the way up to the neck. The brother suddenly straightened his back and became alert. He respectfully nodded, and the rest of us got the clue and straightened up real quick and nodded our heads in unison. In passing, Huey acknowledged us and nodded respectfully in return, and entered the cafeteria. “That’s Huey. Don’t mess with him!” 

Huey’s reputation had preceded him. From that day on, when Huey passed me in the hallway it always the same, straighten up and straighten up quick no matter how high you was. Huey didn’t talk much. He talked with his eyes. Huey’s girlfriend was a tall beautiful sister with long black hair named Laverne Williams. She was an opera singer and a serious music major. Huey was prelaw.

One day, Huey and Laverne passed me in the hall. As usual, I was holding up the wall in the hallway high. Laverne looked at me and whispered something to Huey about me. I wanted to blend into the woodwork to avoid his attention. Huey glanced at me for a moment and continued down the hallway. Here it was, one of the most bad-assed brothers on campus and his significant one didn’t like me. I wanted to disappear into the walls.

One evening, I rolled around to the brothers in the hallway in front of the cafeteria. One brother told me, “man, you just missed it. Huey and Marcellus just got in it.” My heart sunk to my stomach, Huey got beat down by a professional middle weigh boxer, I thought. The brother continued in utter amazement, “man, Huey cleaned out Marcellus.”  My mouth dropped wide open. I said to myself, “this Huey P. Newton cat is for real!”

From then on each time Laverne passed me, she continued to whisper something to Huey about me. It made me feel so little, miserable, and a failure not to be able to live up to her and now Huey’s expectations. I wasn’t serious about my education. I was at Merritt to get high, play and clown around with the young ladies. She could see right through me. 

One day she passed me in the hallway with Huey, she said something about me again. Huey talked with his eyes. He never looked at me in a despairingly manner. On his day he sort of nodded and with reassuring look in his eye said, “He will be all right.” I knew that I had to get serious about education, and straighten my life out from then on.

 Laverne didn’t know it, but I had decided that I wanted to be like Huey, manly, quiet, respected, and a serious student. I would ultimately win her respect and friendship. That really meant a lot to me.   

THE BEGINNING: SOUL STUDENTS ADVISORY COUNCIL   

It was 1966. A new awareness was breaking out all over campus, each day there were spontaneous groups of black and white students engaging in vigorous political debates about Civil Rights, and the Vietnam War. One of several Black students that stood out in the debates in regards to having an incredible cyclopedia-like recall of references and historical details was Bobby Seale. I had never seen Black men stand up to debate whites regarding any subject, whether history, psychology, philosophy, it didn’t matter. There didn’t seem to be subject that the brothers weren’t aware of. The heated debates lasted into the evenings, and I tried not to miss a moment.

There was Isaac Moore, Ken Freemen, Leo Bazile, Ernie Allen, and others. They were brilliant and beautiful in debate. Isaac Moore and Ken Freeman became my wise, faithful and patient mentors and teachers. Bobby, Ken and particularly Isaac Moore, took time to school and mentor me through the draft. I wouldn’t have made it without them. I subsequently discovered that Bobby Seale was Huey’s closest confidents. They were a prefect match. Bobby was charismatic, outgoing, boisterous, and an extremely fluent public speaker. Bobby had once been a comedian. Huey was intellectual, modest, and extremely reserved.    

The brothers and sisters on campus began to find a common cause among them, and agreed that there was a need to organize on campus around their causes, issues and needs. Some of brothers reasoned that there were numerous student groups with a common union funded by student fees, but none of them addressed the needs and issues of Black people. Why not organize a student group that would meet on campus around a common cause and union to regularly discuss and address issues important to Black students and people of color. It was Bobby Seale that always constantly emphasized the significance and uniqueness of the “soul” of people of color; soul music and soul food. It carried the day. The brothers and sisters formed Soul Students Advisory Council of the Associated Students of Merritt Jr. College. I believe that Leo Bazile became the first president of the new student union. I was in another world. It was a beautiful educational experience for me. I was like a fly on the wall. I tried not to miss anything.   

One issue was common and pressing to most the brothers and sisters on campus was the unjust Vietnam War, and the draft. Ernie Allen called a press conference on campus, and publicly declared his opposition to the war and became one of the first to refuse to be drafted into a war against his conscious and the Yellow brothers and sisters of Southeast Asia fighting the same enemy that people of color were facing in this country. I was absolutely in wonder of these brilliant, courageous, and worldly brothers. 

Huey and Bobby wanted to take the group further beyond intellectualizing to take concrete and direct actions to help organize the community around issues that affected them. They wanted to expand the scope of the union to address police brutality, but most of the other brothers and sisters didn’t want to go that far. Unfortunately, some of the brothers began to assume that Huey and Bobby were too far out and militant for a campus organization.

Things came to a boil when Huey and Bobby used some of the union’s funds as bail money in regards to arrests that occurred protesting a police shooting in Richmond. It wasn’t that they pilfered the money it was that the brothers and sisters of the union demanded a democratic process before using the council’s money. They demanded the right to vote on it. Huey and Bobby argued that it was a time of the essence emergency and a paramount and revolutionary right existed to use the money to come to the aid of the Black community. It was Huey and Bobby on one side and the intellectuals like my mentors, Moore and Freeman and other brothers and sisters of the council, on the other side.

My heart was for unity with all of them. We needed the intellectuals and revolutionaries united for one cause, the liberation of our people. It was like a dark cloud had formed over my head. I was torn between them. I truly loved all of them, but for pragmatic reasons my soul had to go with Huey and Bobby. I was a young mis-educated and poor Manchild. I felt I had little to contribute to further the movement among the brilliant intellectuals. I had nothing to give the movement to liberate our people, but my love, body and soul.       

THE SPLIT: THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY FOR SELF DEFENSE       

Huey and Bobby branched out of the Soul Students Advisory Council and formed an off campus organization, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense (BPPSD) in October of 1966. Huey, Minister of Defense,  and Bobby, the  Chairman, developed the 10 Point Plan as the party’s platform to rally the people around. [1] The intellectual criticism was that the man could meet all the demands of the 10 Point Plan and we still wouldn’t be free. However, I thought it was a brilliant idea. Bobby and Huey targeted population were the ordinary brothers and sisters of the Black Community that Bobby called the “Lumpen.” The party’s platform was straightforward, comprehendible, and easy to universally embrace.

I was a fly on the wall. Huey and Bobby was right. That 10-Point Plan platform drew into the ranks of BPPSD some of the baldest, fiercest street thugs, gang members, and ex-servicemen of color on earth under one cause, the liberation of our people. 

The other criticism was that Bobby Seale was weak. In my world, Bobby was one of the boldest brothers on the planet. I didn’t quite understand that point. A couple of years later, I would have learned exactly what they had meant.  

I was unable to participate in the early activities of party like the police patrols. The internal policy was that brothers had to equip themselves with their own personal guns. During this time, most of the community thugs and serious hustlers had the need for guns. I, the Manchild, never had the need or desire for a gun. For a time, I didn’t have the resources to obtain a gun.

I missed Huey’s infamous February 21, 1967 confrontation with the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) while escorting Betty Shabazz, the late wife of Malcolm X, from San Francisco Airport to the Ramparts office for an interview with Eldridge Cleaver. One of the young brothers of the escort told me that a SFPD contingent confronted Huey and brothers outside the Rampart’s office. One of the officers demanded the surrender of the escort’s weapons. An officer stepped forward as if to take Huey’s shotgun; and all that was heard was “click-click.” Huey locked and loaded a shell in his shotgun. Huey meant business and that just wasn’t going to happen. The SFPD backed down. On that day, I lot of people besides the police found out that Huey P. Newton was for real.

I also missed the infamous May 2, 1967 march on Sacramento that put the Black Panther Party for Self Defense on the international map in infinity. I learned a great deal about my life as a Manchild from Huey. Naturally at first, I didn’t have the courage that Huey and some of the other brothers had. I thought we needed more brothers. I thought that there might be safety in numbers if only for myself.

Once on campus, I was trying to convince a high school associate, Danny Crockett, to join the party. The grapevine was humming that Danny had ended a notorious thug’s, John Singleton, reign of terror with a bullet. It didn’t kill him, but from John’s own mouth it had slowed him down, and changed his life from random acts of senseless violence and hurting others needlessly.

While I was talking to Danny, Huey passed. I called Huey over and told him I was trying to recruit Danny. You couldn’t coach Huey to waste any words. Huey looked at Danny and asked if he had a gun. Danny said, “Yes.” Huey asked Danny if he was willing to protect his family with that gun. Danny said, “Yes.” Huey told Danny, “You’re a Panther,” and walked away.  

Huey was right. We didn’t need a lot of brothers in the party. We needed only the few dedicated brothers and sisters that we had to be examples of un-selfness, undying and supreme love, sacrifice and courage for our people. We will ultimately win the hearts and minds of the people. Huey had been the perfect example. I wasn’t wrong to want to be just like Huey P. Newton. Slowly, the de-colonialization process of my mind and spirit was jellying.  The BPPSD was molding into a fearless and internationally respected Black Liberation Warrior Clan. 

HUEY P. NEWTON & Chinese Thought Reform

On October 28, 1967, at about 4:51 a.m., Oakland Police Officer John Frey allegedly at random spotted an automobile moving along his assigned beat in West Oakland. Frey ran a check on the vehicle, and within a minute it was identified as a “known Black Panther vehicle.” [2] Frey decided to the stop the car at Seventh and Willow Street. Officer Herbert Heanes heard the transmission and joined Frey to provide cover.

After the stop, Frey found the vehicle driven for Newton by a passenger, Gene McKinney. Frey attempted to arrest Newton for two parking ticket violations belonging to the car’s owner, Huey’s significant one, Laverne Williams. During the arrest, there was an altercation. Frey was fatally shot and Heanes was wounded in a brief exchange of gunfire. 

That night, I had accompanied brothers to Hunter’s Point for a memorial celebration of its rebellion of September 28 to October 1, 1966 after the SFPD shooting of an unarmed Black youth. We got the word that Huey had gone down.

He was being held at Highland Hospital in Oakland. The word came down that we were going in. I had lost the fear of a Manchild. I was prepared. Sometime later, word came down that the entire hospital had been surrounded by what seemed to have been an army. It would have been suicide to go in. The brothers called the mission off.

By July 1969, the Black Panther Party for Self Defense had become the primary focus of the FBI’s COINTELPRO and the CIA’s OPERATION CHAOS covert programs, and was ultimately the target of 233 of the total 295 authorized “Black Nationalist” COINTELPRO actions. The October 28, 1967 assault on Huey was part of the government’s secret coordinated counterintelligence operations to neutralize Huey and the BPPSD.

At a meeting of Federal prison administrators in 1962, MIT Dr. Edgar Schein, social psychologist, suggested using Chinese Thought Reform on prisoners as a policy. James V. Bennett, then Chief of the Bureau of Prisons thought it was a good idea. Dr. Schein:

This [thought reform] “model” of behavior and attitude change is a general one which can encompass phenomena as widely separated as brainwashing and rehabilitation in a prison or a mental hospital. I would like to have you think of brainwashing not in terms of politics, ethics and morals, but in terms of deliberate changing of behavior and attitudes by a group of men who have relatively complete control over the environment in which the captive population lives. [These changes can be induced by] isolation, sensory deprivation, segregation of leaders, spying, tricking men into signing written statements which are then shown to others, placing individuals whose will power has been severely weakened into a living situation with others more advanced in thought reform, character invalidation, humiliations, sleeplessness, rewarding subservience, and fear [emphasis added]. [3]

In 1945, James Van Benschoten Bennett , President of the American Prison Association, was in Nazi Germany visiting concentration camps and setting up American Military Government German prisons that at that time was involved in the illusionary “denazification” thought reform.[4] It’s ironic that Bennett’s thought reform program was too drastic for the BEAST, The World’s Greatest Racial Mass Murderers, but good enough for thousands of Black and Brown inmates who were guilty of struggling for freedom, and mostly economic and drug related crimes.

Dr. Schein was an S factor (Stanford University) fiend. He earned his masters at Stanford, and Ph.D at Harvard University in 1952 in social psychology. Dr. Schein is yet another scientist that migrated to the United States from Nazi-dominated countries to set national policy more consistent with Nazi Germany racial policies than American values of freedom and justice for all. He was born in Switzerland and moved into the United States in 1938, when the German General Staff and Reichsfurhrer SS Heinrich Himmler were moving in Nazi agents, the Fifth Column, into the Americas.

Dr. Schein was a disciple of German Psychologist, Dr. Kurt Lewin, head of the Tavistock Institute. Tavistock was the center of trauma-based-mind control research and engineering human behavior for the military-industrial complexes.

Dr. Schein was also an important CIA/MK ULTRA military intelligence asset that worked with clandestine neutralization teams along with Dr. Fred Williams of the Air Force Psychological Warfare Division, Nazi Doctor Expert, Dr. Robert Jay Lifton, Albert Bideman, and Psi specialist Air Force Lieutenant Colonel James Monroe. [5]

Dr. Schein’s Los Angeles and Bay Area military intelligence and CIA/MK ULTRA mind control colleagues were Dr. Louis Jolyon West and Dr. Margaret Thaler Singer. They all had worked on top secret and classified programs involving Korean and Chinese “brainwashing, “mind control” and “thought reform” techniques for the government. [6] 

Dr. Schein suggested that physical, psychological, and chemical techniques could be used on prisoners to deliberately alter behavior and attitude. Schein also proposed isolation, sensory deprivation, to destroy socialization among prisoners as well as to sever the links prisoners had to the outside world. Because humans validate their existence, their personality, through contact with others, isolation has a significant impact on the human psyche. This form of psychological disorientation, the removal of others for validation of self, came to be known as the “Muttnik Principle” (so named by psychologist Nathaniel Braden) and was also called the “Psychology of Invisibility.” [7]

In 1968, Huey P. Newton was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter for the death of Officer Frey, and acquitted of assault on officer Herbert Heanes. After the 1968 conviction, Newton was committed to the California Corrections Department to carry out his sentence. Newton was placed at the San Luis Obispo Men’s Colony on the isolated central coast of California between Oakland and Los Angeles. It was hundreds of miles from Huey’s comrades and supporters in the Bay Area. Under the Dr. Schein’s “Muttnik Principle,” it was an idea location.

During his incarceration at San Luis Obispo Men’s Colony, which was a department of corrections medical facility, he was subjected to experimental behavior modification techniques that the brothers called “Chinese Brainwashing Procedures.” It was Schein’s classified Chinese Though Reform Program.

The word came down that brothers and sisters had to make regular visits to San Luis Obispo to keep Huey’s mind together. At that time, I don’t believe very many brothers and sisters knew exactly what “Chinese Brainwashing Procedures” or ”Chinese Though Reform” really meant; and the state of art of behavior modification and mind control programs; and the government’s active covert involvement. I know I didn’t truly understand what it had meant.

By January 1969, I along with most of the original panthers and the national and internationally respected revolutionary-intellectual controversial rank of brothers like Stokely Carmichael, H. Rap Brown, and James Forman from SNCC were purged from the BPPSD, and harnessed by “goon squads” and ex-prison zombies with a governmental “License to Kill” us.  

HUEY P. NEWTON & Clockwork Orange

I, among others, eagerly awaited the release of Huey. We expected Huey would be able to sort out the COINTELPRO, OPERATION CHAOS, OPERATION GEMSTONE, HUSTON PLAN and MK-ULTRA penetrations of the BPPSD that had caused the deaths, imprisonment, assassination attempts, and polarization of so many brothers and sisters.  

On May 29, 1970, the California Court of Appeals reversed Newton’s manslaughter conviction. [8]  Shortly after August 5, 1970, Huey P. Newton was released from prison. I was there along with thousands when Huey was freed at the Alameda County Superior Courthouse. The man that I once knew bolted from the courthouse jumped up and onto a top of a car. He snatched off his shirt and flexed his muscles. I knew instantly that it wasn’t the quiet and modest and quiet warrior that I once had idolized.

I wasn’t the only one that noticed. In 1973, Kathleen Cleaver was traveling throughout Europe, after Eldridge Cleaver’s California parole was revoked and escaped. During a cocktail party in Switzerland, a reporter for the magazine ‘The Christian Century’ interviewed her about Newton. [9] She reported told the reporter, “Everyone who knew Huey before he went to prison, knows that he is not the same man any more. No one changes his views so radically as he apparently has after such a short term in prison. In fact, prison life has historically tended to make political prisoners more militant, not less so.”  [10]

Cleaver characterized Newton’s recent about-face in regard to establishment institutions, drug use, drug dealing, pimping and pandering as result of the “Clockwork Orange” treatment to which he was subjected to in prison.

“A Clockwork Orange” refers to a movie in which a young man serving a long prison sentence for violent and sadistic criminal activity was offered an early release in exchange for his consent to undergo experimental behavior modification, aversion therapy. The treatment was so effective that the young man was unable to function to normal human reactions and impulses to sex, violence, and self-protection.

In an interview with the reporter, Newton denied undergoing aversion therapy or behavior modification. However, Newton claimed to have witnessed the effects of shock treatment, and stress therapy during his imprisonment. He said, “They were like vegetables.” [11]  The article also noted that the Urban-Black Center of the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley directed a prison ministry program. Julius Thomas, director, said that he had observed several formerly strong-willed criminals come out of prison “acting like pussycats.” [12] The graduate union is linked to Dr. Schein’s military intelligence protégé, Dr. Margaret Singer.

PRISON STRESS THERAPY & THE CIA

There is little information exposed about the “stress therapy” at San Luis Obispo Men’s Medical Facility, but “Stress Therapy” is a code word for the CIA in other California prison medical facilities, particularly Vacaville.

Clifford Jefferson (Death Row Jeff) was confined with Donald Defreeze (Cinque) of the Symbionese Liberation Army at Vacaville. In a sworn declaration to Patty Hearst’s first lawyer, Terrence Harahan, he declared, “In the early part of 1971, Defreeze stated to me that the CIA was conducting tests to try out certain drugs…Defreeze stated to me that he gone through the tests and also knew of stress tests that were given to prisoners, in which they were kept in solitary, harassed and annoyed until they would do anything asked of them to get out; then they were given these drugs and would become like robots.” [13]

Columnist Jack Anderson further revealed the CIA’s “Stress Therapy” in the California men’s medical facilities, “CIA files confirm that this spy agency did indeed conduct drug experiments on Vacaville inmates. The experiments were designed to study the effects of stress and drugs on military prisoners of war, to determine the point which they would crack. Vacaville Superintendent T. Lawrence Clanon said that the CIA did not conduct any experiments after 1968. However, Superintendent Clanon acknowledged that Defreeze had volunteered for medical research in July 1970 and it is uncertain just when the agency ended its testing there.” [14]

The CIA Station Chief at Vacaville was Dr. James A. Hamilton, another S Factor (Stanford University) psychiatrist. Dr. Hamilton’s chief consultant at the Vacaville’s stress cohort group (Black Cultural Association) experiment was Dr. Schein’s military intelligence protégé, Dr. Louis Jolyon West of UCLA, the Maestro of Mind Control. 

INHUMANE TREATMENT & California’s Expermental Medical Psychiatric Diagnostic Units (MPDU)

At the time of Huey’s incarceration at San Luis Obispo, Raymond K. Procunier was head of the California Department of Corrections. Procunier was one of Governor Ronald Reagan’s fascist department disciples that turned the California prison system into little Auschwitzes to experiment on Black and Brown inmates by every imaginable scientific experimental method with mind altering bending drugs; psychosurgery and lobotomy; and electroconvulsive treatments to modify and engineer human behavior.

On November 19, 1971, the California Department of Corrections invited a group of psychologists, psychiatrists, researchers and prison officials to meet at the University of California at Davis to discuss prison violence and a possible new psychiatric unit at Vacaville. Dr. Edward Opton, senior research psychologist at the Wright Institute, attended the sessions.

At the meeting, corrections officials were vague about what treatments they had in vision for inmates confined at the new MPDU. The corrections research director was Dr. Lawrence Bennett, who refused to discuss moral or ethical questions in regards to MPDU. The head of MPDU was Dr. Stephen Sheppard.

After the Davis meeting, the press picked up the story that corrections officials were planning to carry out experimental brain surgery on inmates at the new MPDU. When this information was exposed, the corrections officials maintained that that it was considering only electrocauterization (by inserting needles into the brain).  However, inmate support groups obtained a copy of a letter, dated September 8, 1971, from Procunier, to the California Council on Criminal Justice, which would arrange the financing of the project. Procunier’s letter spoke of brain surgery for “aggressive”, destructive” inmates. The proposal was submitted on November 11, 1971, a week before the Davis meeting. Procunier proposal referred to “serious management problem inmates” as one of its main reasons for setting up the MPDU at Vacaville:

“The control and management of these segregated inmates have become a serious problem, as shown by the recent episodes of violence and disturbance in different prisons where Adjustment Centers had been inadequate and the problem remains unsolved. New ways and perceptions are now urgently needed to provide a better approach for handling of these cases.” [15]

Under Reagan and Procunier, the electric shock and aversion therapies that Huey witnessed at San Luis Obispo was common in California prisons. Electrical shock therapy was administered at Vacaville approximately 500 times in 1971; Prolixin was injected 1, 093 times in 1970. Drugs like Prolixin are described by users as “sheer torture” and “becoming a zombie”.

Shock treatment, a form of aversion therapy, is also torture. Bear in mind that one electrical shock therapy session may include up to 40 electrical shock charges per therapy session. Reports out of the California State Hospital for the Criminally Insane at Atascadero repeatedly mentioned that genital electroshock was used on sexual offenders as aversion therapy.  It was reported that inmates were shown movies of explicit sexual content. If they began to display sexual arousal, their genitals were shocked. The program was entitled, “Errorless Extinction of Penile Responses.”[16] 

The late Attorney Faye Stender, and the late prison activist Popeye Jackson and others viewed the MPDU as a laboratory of behavior “torture”, which in practice was designed to be performed primarily upon militant Black and Chicano organizers in prison populations.

Dr. George Bach-y-Rita, an electrocauterization specialist, was one of the research psychiatrist heavily involved in developing the MPDU. Dr. Bach-y-Rita said that the MPDU treatment would involve little more than intensive diagnosis through electroencephalogram and traditional doctor-patient and group therapy discussions; also perhaps training in Alpha-wave meditation.[17]

Dr. Bach-y-Rita was a Harvard trained psychiatrist who was a member of the American Psychiatric Task force on Violence. Dr. Bach-Rita was a Spaniard educated in Mexico. Dr. Bach-y-Rita had been slyly slipped into the department of corrections through the backdoor along with Dr. Frank Ervin to secretly advance CIA-MK ULTRA involved electrical stimulation of the brain (ESB) research.  

Dr. Bach-y-Rita and Ervin were part of the medical team of Dr. Vernon Mark, Dr. William Sweet of Massachusetts General Hospital and Boston General Hospital; and the notorious mind controller Spaniard, Dr. Jose Manuel Rodriguez Delgado. These doctors invasively implanted electrodes in the brain (ESB) to experimentally control and engineer behavior for the CIA and the military-industrial complex.  

In 1967, psychiatrist Frank Ervin and neurosurgeon Vernon Mark proposed to prevent (Black) urban riots by brain implants. The movie, The Terminal Man, was based on one of Dr. Mark’s psychosurgery victims. Their theory was that Blacks engaging in civil disobedience were suffering from damaged brain cells.

These doctors were also to be involved in Dr. Louis Jolyon West’s UCLA Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence funded by the Federal Law Enforcement Assistance Administration (LEAA), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the Bureau of Prisons, and the CIA that was to target children and inmates of color for secret eugenic based hideous and inhuman mind control and behavior modification medical experiments.

Dr. Bach-y-Rita sent a letter to his correction department superiors that exposed the shocking truth that the California Departments of Corrections under Reagan and Procunier were not only involved in psychosurgery, electroshock, Prolixin and Anectine therapy experimental research, but they were involved in torturing inmates with sex hormone injections, brain cauterization, sound-wave control techniques, and lithium carbonate. [18]

Dr. Joseph Tupin was alleged to have used lithium carbonate treatments on Vacaville inmates for years. Dr. Arthur Nugent administered Anectine (terror drug: a sensation “worse than dying”) to prisoners at Vacaville. The MPDU funding proposal read: “There has been, for example, a study in the California Medical Facility to determine the usefulness of lithium carbonate in treating hyperaggressive, acting-out patient. Further follow-up in this area would make a significant contribution.” [19]

They, the group of fascist men, like Reagan, Procunier, Doctors Schein, West, Bach-y-Rita, Delgado, Ervin, Mark, Turbin, Bennett, Sheppard and others had relatively complete control over Huey’s prison’s environment. They could have by electrical shock, aversion, sleep deprivation, etc., so radically in a short term, transform Huey P. Newton, the modest warrior, into flamboyant drug abuse, drug dealing, pimping, murder and pandering. They had the technology, means, opportunity, and COINTELPRO motive.

PSYCHOLOGICAL TORTURE OF HUEY P. NEWTON: A Crime Against Humanity   

DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, Article 5:

No person shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treating or punishment.

In 1948, The United Nation’s Declaration of Human Rights was created following World War II. The horrific atrocities committed by Germany through the Nazi’s racial mass murder campaigns caused the world to cry out and demand for justice. The Nazis discredited and made a mockery of notions of absolute state sovereignty which the Hitler state asserted and used to commit mass genocide as a matter of sovereign state right. The Nazis and their allies’ massive inhuman transgressions and crimes against humanity changed the worldview on human rights.  

The Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture goes the farthest of any human rights instrument in directly prohibiting the use of techniques aimed at the disintegration of the personality or reduction of physical or mental capacities, which would include psychotropic drugs and brain-damaging procedures like electroshock and psychosurgery. [20]

Pursuant to Operation Paperclip, 10,000 or more Nazis and SS (Knights of the Black Sun) fiends were brought to the United States to continue their campaign of racial mass murder and genocide, and pass on their hideous and baseless pseudo- racial medical theories and practices. The neophytes, apprentices, and apostles of the BEAST were Dr. Edgar Schein, Dr. Louis J. West, Dr. Jose Delgado, Dr. Bach-y-Rita, Dr. Frank Ervin and Dr. Vernon Mark. All of these doctors had direct and secret access to the American prison-inmate population at their disposal for crimes against humanity hideous pseudo-racial medical experiments.  

Even if Huey being the subject of psychological terror and a secret behavior modification/mind control program is discounted, then one must concede that while at San Luis Obispo, he had witnessed the effects of shock treatment and stress therapy during his imprisonment that turned inmates into “vegetables.” Who were the staff psychiatrists at the prison? Who was doing the shock treatment and CIA stress therapies? Who were torturing the men into vegetative states and for what reason and means?  What happened to these inmates? The behavior modification and mind control operations at San Luis Obispo’s Men Medial Facility has not been disclosed or been open to public scrutiny.

The California Department of Corrections’ torture, cruel, inhuman, degrading treatment and punishment of Huey P. Newton and inmates of color has to be exposed, disclosed and confronted. As with other human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed by a sovereign state, justice dictates prosecuting those responsible for the psychological rape and torture of inmates through the reinterpretation of existing laws and the establishment of peoples’ tribunals, and “truth commissions.”

Oakland has an ugly history and dark secret regarding the persecution of the BPPSD; and the setup, prosecution, transformation and assassination of Huey P. Newton. It has an ugly history and dark secret regarding the clandestine activities of the CIA and the military-intelligence complexes in assassinating and neutralizing prominent and independent men and women of color like Charles Alex Gregory, Dr. Marcus Foster, and Dorothy King that also has be to driven to the “Light of Day.”     

By the way, with Huey P. Newton and Laverne Williams as an inspiration to a Manchild Lost in the Promised Land, I graduated from Merritt Jr. College and two other colleges to earn a doctorate.

[2] People v. Newton (May 1970) 8 CA3d 359; 87 Cal Rptr 394, 367

[3] Schein, Man Against Man: Brainwashing, 8 Corrective Psychiatry & J. Social Therapy 90 (1962).

[4] http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Archives+and+Manuscripts/fa_bennett.htm

[5] http://www.xs4all.nl/~sm4csi/nwo/MindControl/Search.for.the.Manchurian.Candidate.htm#_ftnref23

[6] http://www.freedomofmind.com/stevehassan/refuting/

[7] http://www.1union1.com/shucontrolunits.html

[8] Supra at Footnote 2

[9] Rogers, Cornish, ‘Clockwork Orange’ in California: Fact or Fancy?, The Christian Century, August 1, 1973

[10] Supra

[11] Supra.

[12] Supra.

[13] Jack Anderson, Strange CIA Tale, Oakland Tribune, October 1978

[14] Supra, footnote 9.

[15] Weiner, Bernard, The Clockwork Cure, The Nation, April 3, 1972, page 433

[16] Supra, page 434-435

[17] Supra, page 435

[18] Id.

[19] Id.

[20] See Organization of American States, Inter-American Convention to Prevent and Punish Torture, Sept. 12, 1985, O.A.S.T.S. No. 67, 25 I.L.M. 519.

Torture shall also be understood to be the use of methods upon a person intended to obliterate the personality of the victim or to diminish his physical or mental capacities, even if they do not cause physical pain or mental anguish.

The concept of torture shall not include physical or mental pain or suffering that is inherent in or solely the consequence of lawful measures, provided that they do not include the performance of the acts or use of the methods referred to in this article.

The neocons now want to claim the Republican Party for Ronald Reagan

Man has never been short on ideas. Some ideas, once adopted, made a positive statement to the world. Some did not.  But what kind of a statement would claiming the Republican party for Ronald Reagan make?

Would it make the statement that “government selling of cocaine is ok – if done in minority neighborhoods”?  Should selling the illegal drug cocaine be something that a political party should embrace. Should Christian America embrace the selling of illegal drugs to its own people by a legitimate American political party?

No, the devil did not make them do it(sell cocaine). The neocons sold the illicit drug cocaine to American citizens in order to fund a war in the jungles of South America.  Neocons love wars. Wars are destructive and that is in line with the kind of work the neocons do – even when they are attempting to do something constructive.

Now the neocons want the Republican conservatives to de-emphasize the party that did not sell  cocaine to its citizens and emphasize the party that did sell cocaine to its citizens.

A fool and his country are soon parted

It’s no secret that Washington DC is corrupt and dysfunctional.  8th Congressional candidate Marc Savard had a recent posting on this very issue.  He also shares some of what he will be doing over the coming months to distinquish himself in a crowded field, while working to become the candidate residents of the 8th district can trust to represent them Washington.

Voters will have to work diligently to sort through who will earn and deserve their support over the coming months.

In my travels on the campaign trail over the last year talking and listening to residents of the District, one of several common questions arise, and that is how can we possibly change such a dysfunctional and corrupt system in Washington?My answer is that you change it one person at a time.

You don’t support candidates who just  tell you what you want to hear, and who make promises that you know they can’t and won’t keep. You look for a candidate who is living the life that you live with all of the struggles and cares that the vast majority of us deal with every day.You also watch how the candidates conduct their campaigns. What kind of folks do they have on their staff? Who are their volunteers? And most importantly of all, how do they raise and spend the funds needed to operate their campaign. Because how they do all of these things will be a good indicator of the values and judgments they will take to Washington on your behalf. You deserve a candidate who will not only work for you and our country’s well-being, but will also honorably represent you with his behavior when you are not able to follow his every move.

A key indicator of that, from Marc Savard’s perspective is how they raise campaign money.

I believe that how a candidate raises and spends money is one of the key indicators of how he will operate in Washington. Where is he getting his money from. Who is he beholden to for tens of thousands of dollars of contributions. You know as well as I that when Political Action Committees (PACs), or what is generally described as special interest lobbying, gives tons of money to a candidate  ,they expect something in return. It is fundamental to our human nature that when someone does you a favor or gives you something, you are predisposed to return the favor or  give them something in return. You know in your gut for that to be true.

So if “special interest” money is a key to the corruptness of the political system, one way to change that is to not accept such donations.

The only way to break that corrupt Washington cycle between politicians and lobbyists is for a candidate for Congress to not seek out, and not accept, such donations, so that he can go to Washington clean and clear of the attachments such contributions create.

That is something 8th Congressional District candidate Marc Savard is apparently prepared to do.

I will be making just such an announcement in a detailed and formal way before the end of the year. I will also give you the information and tools readily available to you so, as Ronald Reagan aptly put it when dealing with the Soviet Union, you can “trust but verify” my pledge.

So watch my team run in the coming months and see that I will be the candidate who will earn your trust to be your Representative in Washington DC. (Source: Saturday morning on the farm – Savard for Congress)

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We must make it clear to any country that is tempted to use violence to undermine democratic governments, destabilize our friends, thwart efforts to promote democratic governments, or disrupt our lives that it has nothing to gain, and much to lose.

Message to the Congress Transmitting Proposed Legislation To
Combat International Terrorism, April 26, 1984

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our readers! Here’s a Thanksgiving treat for you…

May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey be plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
Have never a lump.
May your yams be delicious
And your pies take the prize,
And may your Thanksgiving dinner
Stay off of your thighs!
- Unknown

And a great Thanksgiving message from former President Reagan:

“Bob” Seldon Lady, l’ex capo della stazione della CIA a Milano, colui che comandava i 23 agenti della “super agenzia” yankee condannati in Italia per aver sequestrato, torturato e poi fatto “scomparire” l’iman egizio Abu Omar nella città italiana di Milano nel 2003, era una figura chiave nella rete che dall’Honduras ed El Salvador scambiò armi per cocaina a sostegno della contra nicaraguense negli anni ‘80.
(…)
Lady, un nordamericano di 52 anni, è nato nell’Honduras e partecipò insieme a suo padre in operazioni dell’Agenzia Centrale d’Intelligence degli Stati Uniti nella guerra sporca contro i sandinisti nicaraguensi, prima di arruolarsi dopo il 2001 in una “Operazione Condor” in versione mediorientale.
Tra i 26 imputati della fase iniziale della causa in Italia, si trovava una donna – Betnie Medero – ora presuntamente residente in Messico che è stata a capo del comando così come una misteriosa funzionaria del Dipartimento di Stato, Mónica Courtney Adler.
(…)
Tra i membri del comando di sequestratori, è di particolare interesse il caso di Betnie Medero. Questa donna di 33 anni aveva l’incarico di seconda segretaria nell’ambasciata degli Stati Uniti a Roma. E’ arrivata in Italia nell’agosto 2001 con credenziali diplomatiche e – secondo il Corriere della Sera – ha personalmente diretto il sequestro in situ, oltre ad avere poi assicurato il trasferimento dell”ostaggio fino alla base statunitense di Aviano, nel nord del paese. Ora si ritiene che sia in Messico, con legami con la locale ambasciata USA, secondo lo stesso quotidiano italiano.
Medero ebbe due complici principali in quest’azione, che sembra ripresa da un film di Hollywood: James Thomas Harbison, di 58 anni , e Vincent (o Vicent o Vicente) Faldo, di 57 anni. Comunque, le caratteristiche del capobanda, Robert “Bob” Lady, illustrano l’estensione delle operazioni dell’agenzia nordamericana in tutto il mondo. Figlio di William “Bill” Lady, un vecchio agente della CIA radicato in Honduras, “Bob” Lady diresse insieme a Manuchar Ghorbanifar – un sulfureo negoziante iraniano – la vendita segreta di armi all’Iran che, insieme alle operazioni di narcotraffico dirette da El Salvador da Félix Rodríguez Mendigutía e Luis Posada Carriles, hanno provocato il più grande scandalo che colpi l’amministrazione Reagan.
Lady portò avanti i suoi loschi collegamenti sotto gli ordini del tenente colonnello dei marines Oliver North, che ha anche comandato le operazioni ad Ilopango, anch’esse allo scopo di fornire illegalmente armi alla contra nicaraguense.
Queste operazioni si svilupparono anche in parallelo con la rete di contrabbando del multimilionario Gerard Latchinian, padrino dell’imprenditore Yehuda Leitner, attuale fornitore di armi ed di equipaggiamenti per reprimere della dittatura Micheletti.
“Bob” Lady continuava ad operare in America Centrale nel 1994, quando la spia Aldrich Ames “lo bruciò”, rivelando il suo nome all’intelligence sovietica, secondo quanto sostiene la stampa nordamericana. Il suo nome fu poi associato al “Nigergate”, quell’operazione di disinformazione che giustificò l’occupazione dell’Iraq con il pretesto – completamente inventato – che Saddam Hussein tentava di acquisire uranio in Niger.
Lady è fuggito precipitosamente dall’Italia nel giugno 2005, quando seppe che la magistratura di quel paese si interessava del sequestro di Abu Omar. Avvertita, sua moglie, cancellò tutti i files del suo computer, ma gli specialisti della polizia riuscirono a recuperarne una buona parte. Anzi, gli inquirenti trovano prove del soggiorno di due settimane di Lady in El Cairo, proprio quelle in cui cominciò l’interrogatorio dell’iman di Milano.
Alcune fonti assicurano che “Bob” Lady si trova ora di ritorno in America Centrale.
(…)

Da L’ex capo della CIA a Milano coinvolto nella rete terroristica di Posada Carriles, di Jean-Guy Allard.

Cleveland Republican Examiner

September 24, 2009

Democrats are up in arms that Republicans have the gall to want to actually nominate, fund and elect Republicans to public office.

Ten Republican National Committee members are submitting a plan to impose what’s being called a purity test on future Republican candidates. According to the proposal, anyone who doesn’t agree with at least 7 of the 10 statements could be denied campaign funding.

The idea borrows an idea from Conservative icon Ronald Reagan, who once said that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent.
Here’s the list:
(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;
(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare;
(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation;
(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;
(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;
(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;
(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;
(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;
(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and
(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership; and be further.
Liberals are jumping all over this, proclaiming Reagan wouldn’t pass his own test, that the GOP is excluding those with diverse points of view, that the Republicans are crazy, that all we love are guns and pollution, etc. etc.

http://www.examiner.com/x-28387-Cleveland-Republican-Examiner~y2009m11d24-Five-key-points-about-the-GOP-Purity-Test

The neocons have been in power for 24 of the last 28 years. Why is there a need to TELL AMERICA about their “CORE” beliefs now. America has been a victim of their performance for 24 years – why is there a need to TELL AMERICA who the neocons are? America has experienced who the neocons are.

1. The neocons are the ones who fired 11,000 control tower workers for an illegal strike in the 80’s. The “business-centric neocons are closer to fascism than socialism.
2. The neocons are the ones who sold cocaine to America’s minority neighborhoods to fund an adopted war in the jungles of South America.
3. The neocons are the ones whose VOODOO ECONOMICS crashed America’s economy.
4. The neocons are the ones who gave tax breaks to the wealthy claiming that will revitalize the economy.
5. The neocons are the ones who started the Iraq war.
6. The neocons are the ones who de-regulated the financial industry.
7. The neocons are the ones who claimed outer space
8. The neocons are the ones who looked silly after Russian mini-subs planted the Russian flag on rich mineral deposits in Arctic Ocean
9. The neocons are the ones who had to play catch-up after the Chinese military shot down their ageing satellite in Mr. Bush’s outer space
10. The neocons are the ones who made jokes about President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize.
11. The neocons are the ones who were MUM about Mr. Bush “TWO SHOE” prize from an Iraqi citizen.

The neocons are by no means – strangers to America. Why the attempt to have RHETORIC betray all that PERFORMANCE has done? Is it to PURGE the Republican party of centrists and bona-fide conservatives? The neocons are the worst political operatives America has seen during its short history.

For the Republican Party, the gap between image and reality widened again yesterday, with the RNC’s decision to promulgate a “test” for whether or not a candidate can be properly termed a “Republican,” and receive the party’s blessing. Apparently, following a bit of complex calculus derived by Pres. Reagan himself, any candidate ought to meet eight of  the ten following criteria before asking for RNC money, or thinking themselves safe from inevitable betrayal, without regard for the nuances that animate American regional politics (“Scozzafava-ing”). Without further ado, the requirements:

1. Smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill
2. Market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style government run healthcare
3. Market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade legislation<!–
4. Workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check
5. Legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants
6. Victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges
7. Containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat
8. Retention of the Defense of Marriage Act
9. Protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion
10. The right to keep and bear arms by opposing government restrictions on gun ownership

Well, let’s see how recent leaders stack up!

• Pres. Ronald Reagan (FAIL): loses 1 (increased deficit); 7 (met with Soviet leaders without preconditions, funded terrorists); 9 (did little but talk on abortion).
• Pres. George W. Bush (FAIL): loses 1 (increased deficit); 5 (pushed for “amnesty”); 6 (stalled on “the surge” until McCain pushed him into it).
• Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) (PASS): loses 1 (voted for the bailout); 5 (pushed for “amnesty”).

This is easy, because almost every Republican in the last 20 years will fail #1, at least. Remember, contrary magazine-style “purity quizzes” notwithstanding, Republicans treat McCain as the emblematic “RINO,” and Reagan as God himself. Please, add your own!

You really can’t blame the withering right-wing base of the Republican Party (as if anything but the withering right-wing base exists within the GOP) for feeling powerless and backed into a corner.  These conservative purists are completely inconsequential in the House, and as proven over the weekend with the landmark vote to move forward on the health care debate, they’re really quite weak in the Senate as well.  If they hadn’t overseen the destruction of this country’s middle class, economy, and international reputation, one would almost be inclined to feel sorry for these poor bastards.  Now, any decent political strategist within the Republican Party would undoubtedly want to focus on ways to grow the party, to bring in those moderates who agree on some but not all of the GOP’s platform (which has really been the key to establishing the Democratic Party’s supermajority status).  That’s the rational approach.  But people – especially Republicans – are not rational.

Instead, conservatives’ idea to make the party more successful is to make the party…well, even more conservative.  In a strategy almost as senseless and backasswards as trickle-down economics, the RNC is actually considering adopting a purity resolution.  In other words, fewer members = more members (which is just as logical as lower taxes = higher revenue).  If you thought the Salem-esque burning at the stake of Dede Scozzafava was entertaining, just you wait.  The Great Republican Purge has just begun.

The resolution is an eerie document that manages to include virtually every Republican wet dream, all in one place (talk about “big tent” conservatism).  It establishes ten planks of conservatism, ranging from opposition to “Obama-style government run health care” to support for “the retention of the Defense of Marriage Act,” and it makes clear that any GOP candidate straying from three or more of these core “conservative principles” will be denied funding by the RNC.  If that doesn’t scream “big tent,” I don’t know what does!  The resolution does this while at the same time decrying “Obama’s socialist agenda” and (intentionally, I’m sure) never once using the title “President” when referring to President Obama (though “President” preceded Ronald Reagan’s name without fail).

One must wonder, though, where these conservative principles came from.  Presumably, since the resolution is sprinkled with glorified references to Ronald Reagan, they came from him.  But when one actually looks back into the annals of history and researches the Reagan Administration (which conservative ideologues who masturbate to the “Tear Down This Wall” clip never do), one finds that the Gipper himself would not be considered a true Republican.  The RNC would actually have to deny funding to the very deity that conservatives cite as the one true voice of conservatism.  Let’s break it down:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill.

On Ronald Reagan’s watch, despite the “small government” rhetoric spewing from his mouth, the federal government actually grew.  The myth that states otherwise is false.  Federal spending increased (mainly in the “defense” sector), and an entire new department was added to the executive branch.  Reagan’s illogical policies led to a fiscal nightmare.  Nobody can make the serious claim that Ronald Reagan shrank government or decreased spending.

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants.

Ronald Reagan was a proponent of amnesty for illegal immigrants.

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care rationing, denial of health care and government funding of abortion.

If one believes that a zygote is a “vulnerable person” (as conservative wingnuts do), Ronald Reagan’s record on the issue is not exactly stellar.  As the Governor of California, he signed the Therapeutic Abortion Act of 1967 (even Free Republic admits it);  as President, (again) despite rhetoric, he was not a champion for the anti-choice movement and really did nothing to advance the cause.

Way to go, RNC – you’re about to adopt purity standards that your purest conservative can’t even meet.  And, just as trickle-down theory decimated the economy, these purges of moderates will continue to keep the Republicans in a permanent fringe minority.

Not that I’m complaining.

The blogger, Kristofer Paul, can be reached at bottomleftpolitics@yahoo.com.

The coverage that Sarah Palin has received in recent weeks is remarkable for a private citizen who holds no office.  While much of this publicity is due to her book tour for “Going Rogue“, a lot of the noise is being made by those who have a profound dislike for the woman.  Understanding what is behind this irrational reaction helps show insight into the American Left.

Let’s start with history.  Senator John McCain took a gamble when he chose newcomer Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running-mate.  While Palin was an instant success with conservatives, she just as quickly became the bane of liberals.  During the campaign Palin showed a lack of experience that presented itself in a few weak interviews with the press.

McCain lost the election and those on the left were almost gleeful at placing the blame at the feet of Palin.  That was undeserved.  With the economy heading rapidly south and a strong dislike of the Republican president, a Cocker Spaniel could have defeated any Republican ticket.

Two examples show a gross double standard that the Leftist media has taken with Sarah Palin involving experience and fact check.

Experience

As soon as Palin was nominated for the vice presidency, the main talking point from the Democrats was her lack of experience.  At the time I thought the approach was ill-conceived since it should have also pointed to a similar weakness in Obama, especially compared to McCain.  Here we had Sarah Palin who was the mayor in Alaska and then became its governor.  While light on experience, it was no lighter than Obama’s whose resume included a Community Organizer, a state senator with little voting record, and a US Senator for less than a year when he began running for the presidency.  If experience was important, then too Obama was a lightweight.  But the press didn’t even raise this Obama weakness while brutalizing Palin on it.

Fact Check

A more current issue revolves around fact check.  The Associate Press obtained a copy of Palin’s book, Going Rogue, prior to its official release.  According to AP’s spokesman Paul Colford, they dedicated 11 employees to read this 432 page book to do fact checks.  While the independent press should check the accuracy of published material by public figures, they have not held other politicians to the standard they hold Palin.  Where was the fact checking on Joe Biden’s or Ted Kennedy’s books?  Where was it for Obama’s book?  Don’t look too hard; you won’t find it in the mainstream media.

********

While the Left and their friends in the press continue to the attack Palin, they sing the same tune about her lack of political skills and intellect.  However, as Darth Vader so ably put it: “Their thoughts betray them.”  They fear a populist who is likable by middle America.  They fear that Palin may gain traction and become Ronald Reagan-like to the public.  They were right to fear Reagan’s potential to reinvigorate middle America.  It’s too early to tell whether this fear is justified with Palin.

The attack on Palin comes three main power groups:

Radical Left – The Radical Left’s agenda is to bring Euro-style socialism to America.  With the Liberal Democrats taking control of both houses of Congress as well as the White House, for the first time in modern history the Radical Left has a chance realize its goal.  A populist conservative would endanger that journey.

Fake Feminists – There is nothing that angers Fake Feminists more than a woman with middle America values.  And if she happens to be attractive, that send them into orbit.  Here we have Sarah Palin who has done it all.  She raised a family, became the most powerful person in her family and for that matter in all Alaska, only to be shunned by the so-called women’s movement.  They have they fallen a long way baby!

Elitist Intelligencia – The elites from the Blue-Blood colleges have a superiority complex that clouds good judgment.  To these folks the name on a diploma trumps all, including integrity.  While a high IQ can be an attribute, let us not forget that a good percentage of those in Washington and on Wall Street that helped create the current economic mess come from this group.  A bit more morality would have served the country better than the pedigree of these folks’ education.

It is too early to judge Sarah Palin’s skills on the national level.  Over the coming months the test of time will show whether or not she has substance to match her great personal skills.  Like Ronald Reagan, if she is to be successful at this level she will need to connect with middle American in both parties.  In the meantime it would serve the country better if the “independent media” would chill out on Ms. Palin and focus on those that are now in power.  Some fact checks on this groupould be more productive than a witch hunt on a private citizen who holds no public office.

Did you think they were doing a pretty good job? Well think again. All you have to do is look at the following Resolution that is making the rounds of Republicans called “RNC RESOLUTION ON FINANCIAL SUPPORT OF CANDIDATES,” and you’ll see why they have only begun to place the gun to their collective foot:

Proposed RNC Resolution on Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed that the Republican Party should support and espouse conservative principles and public policies; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan also believed the Republican Party should welcome those with diverse views; and

WHEREAS, President Ronald Reagan believed, as a result, that someone who agreed with him 8 out of 10 times was his friend, not his opponent; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies and Republican solidarity in opposition to Obama’s socialist agenda is necessary to preserve the security of our country, our economic and political freedoms, and our way of life; and

WHEREAS, Republican faithfulness to its conservative principles and public policies is necessary to restore the trust of the American people in the Republican Party and to lead to Republican electoral victories; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee shares President Ronald Reagan’s belief that the Republican Party should espouse conservative principles and public policies and welcome persons of diverse views; and

WHEREAS, the Republican National Committee desires to implement President Reagan’s Unity Principle for Support of Candidates; and

WHEREAS, in addition to supporting candidates, the Republican National Committee provides financial support for Republican state and local parties for party building and federal election activities, which benefit all candidates and is not affected by this resolution; and

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee identifies ten (10) key public policy positions for the 2010 election cycle, which the Republican National Committee expects its public officials and candidates to support:

(1) We support smaller government, smaller national debt, lower deficits and
lower taxes by opposing bills like Obama’s “stimulus” bill;

(2) We support market-based health care reform and oppose Obama-style
government run healthcare;

(3) We support market-based energy reforms by opposing cap and trade
legislation;

(4) We support workers’ right to secret ballot by opposing card check;

(5) We support legal immigration and assimilation into American society by
opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants;

(6) We support victory in Iraq and Afghanistan by supporting military-recommended troop surges;

(7) We support containment of Iran and North Korea, particularly effective
action to eliminate their nuclear weapons threat;

(8) We support retention of the Defense of Marriage Act;

(9) We support protecting the lives of vulnerable persons by opposing health care
rationing and denial of health care and government funding of abortion; and

(10) We support the right to keep and bear arms by opposing government
restrictions on gun ownership; and be further

RESOLVED, that a candidate who disagrees with three or more of the above stated public policy position of the Republican National Committee, as identified by the voting record, public statements and/or signed questionnaire of the candidate, shall not be eligible for financial support and endorsement by the Republican National Committee; and be further

RESOLVED, that upon the approval of this resolution the Republican National Committee shall deliver a copy of this resolution to each of Republican members of Congress, all Republican candidates for Congress, as they become known, and to each Republican state and territorial party office.

Chief Sponsor:
James Bopp, Jr. NCM IN

Sponsors:
Donna Cain NCW OR
Cindy Costa NCW SC
Demetra Demonte NCW IL
Peggy Lambert NCW TN
Carolyn McLarty NCW OK
Pete Rickets NCM NE
Steve Scheffler NCM IA
Helen Van Etten NCW KA
Solomon Yue NCM OR

Wow! If you disagree with three or more of these things (I disagreed with 6 of them right off) then the Party would give you no funds to run. Moderate Republicans, like those running in Primaries in Florida or California could kiss the Big Elephant goodbye.

If this hadn’t been distributed by REAL Republicans, you could have easily convinced me that it was a Democratic practical joke.

But it’s not.

It’s not yet clear that the resoultion will actually be formally introduced. RNC Committeeman Jim Bopp, Jr., the author of this resolution, is general counsel to the National Right to Life. He confirmed that he and others are considering proposing this resolution at the winter RNC meeting, which will take place in late January.

I would encourage them to get this through… like most Democrats I will cheer on their endeavor!

If you love tongue-in-cheek fashion like I do, you might die over these t-shirts from Retro Campaigns.

You’ve seen the old-school designs for Obama and the Abercrombie and Urban Outfitters vintage-inspired tees, but did you know that now you can show off your support for the likes of Teddy Roosevelt or William Henry Harrison?

Check out this graphic tee for Lincoln, aka “the rail splitter;” Reagan’s ‘76 t-shirt-worthy logo; an “RFK for the U.S.A.” tee; and the classic peace-lovers’ slogan: “1-2-3-4, W.D.W.Y.F.W.”

Maybe you have to be a bit of a U.S. history nut to want to walk around with “Tippecanoe and Tyler too” across your chest, but there are so many underlying messages wearing a faux (or is it real?) vintage political tee that it’s just too much of a temptation.

Platon - Griechischer Philosoph (427 - 348/347 v. Chr.)

Es ist erstaunlich, dass immer mehr Menschen nicht einmal die eigene Staatsform kennen. Im folgenden Artikel wird behandelt, was eine Demokratie ist, woher sie kommt und und und…

Der Name Demokratie leitet sich, wie so vieles, aus dem Griechischen ab. Übersetzt bedeutet Demokratie so viel wie “Herrschaft des Volkes“. Demokratie bezeichnet einige politische Ordnungen, in denen das Volk seine Beteiligung zeigt.

Auch in der griechischen Antike hatte Demokratie eine Bedeutung, die erstaunlicherweise der heutigen Bedeutung etwas fremd ist. Damals hat man als Demokratie wirklich die Abstimmung des Volkes zu politischen Entscheidungen gesehen. Damit waren die Griechen anderen Völkern um einiges Voraus, denn in anderen Staaten herrschte Oligarchie (die Herrschaft eine Gruppe) bzw. Monarchie (Herrschaft eines Einzelnen, z.B. König, Kaiser, usw.). Ein wichtiges Detail darf jedoch nicht vernachlässigt werden, weder Frauen noch Sklaven durften an den Abstimmungen Teilnehmen, was die Mehrheit der Bevölkerung ausmacht.

Heutzutage versteht man unter Demokratie folgendes: Wenn man das Mindestalter erreicht hat, stimmt man für eine Gruppe, wie z.B. eine Partei, die, wenn sie an der Regierung ist, die Meinung des Wählers vertreten sollte. In Deutschland beträgt dieses Alter 18 Jahre. Diese Vorstellung von Demokratie hat Abraham Lincoln, US Präsident von 1861-1865 aufgestellt.

Abraham Lincoln hat einmal gesagt: "Government of the people, by the people and for the people", was so viel bedeutet wie "Herrschaft des Volkes, durch das Volk und für das Volk"

Weitere Merkmale werden jetzt durch Zitate übermittelt:

(Bindung der Staatsgewalt an Verfassung und Gesetze)

“Verfassung – ein Dokument, das das Volk vor der Regierung schützt”, von Ronald Reagan.

Art. 20 (2) GG:

“…alle Staatsgewalt geht vom Volke aus.” (Volkssouveränität)

Art. 97 (1) GG:

(Unabhängigkeit der Gerichte) “Die Richter sind unabhängig und nur dem Gesetz unterworfen.”

Heutzutage unterscheidet man übrigens zwischen verschiedenen Formen der Demokratie. In deutschland haben wir eine förderalistische, parlamentarische Demokratie, dazu später mehr. Zunächst befassen wir uns mit der direkten Demokratie, hier stimmt das Volk, wie im antiken Griechenland, noch selbst ab. Hauptsächlich werden solche kostenspielige Abstimmungen bei politischen Entscheidungen gemacht. Auch die einzelnen Ämter werden so gewählt. Ein Staat der noch heute so abstimmt wäre die Schweiz.

Bei der repräsentativen Demokratie werden vom Volk Vertreter, sogenannte Repräsentanten, gewählt. Diese bekommen die politische Entscheidungsmacht und können so Regieren, sind jedoch nur in einem bestimmten Zeitraum in ihrem Amt tätig. Das Volk ist hier nur durch die Wahl von Abgeordneten am Staat beteiligt (politisch gesehen).

Bei der parlamentarischen Demokratie wird ein Parlament gewählt, dass erneut befristet Abstimmungen zu Entscheidungen treffen soll. Im Artikel 20 GG (1) steht: “Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland ist ein demokratischer und sozialer Bundesstaat.”