Drowning in Debt

Would you consider it over the top to call our government's handling of our national finances “Psychotic”? If not psychotic, then what shall we call it? Would “denial” be a more palatable term? Perhaps we could label it an “addiction” making them less accountable for their actions? However you choose to label it, we're a country that's in so deep in debt that we have reverted to simply pretending it doesn't exist, or used unsound accounting to convinced ourselves that our debt doesn't matter. More or less we have adopted a "grown-up" way of pulling the blanket over our head to hide from the monster lurking in the closet.


Liberals in this country, for the most part, will admit that we are running up “unsustainable” deficits. Yet, these same liberals adamantly oppose any and all serious efforts to do anything about it. If a private fiduciary did the same with a client's funds, we would call this a breach of ethical behavior and failure in their due diligence obligation, making the offending fiduciary liable for criminal and civil charges in a court of law. Among the general public, once again you'll find plenty of people who admit that this nation has a huge problem. Yet, when you leave generalities, get down to specifics, and start looking for programs to cut, then suddenly everyone gets nervous and says, “never mind.” At the other end of the perceived political spectrum, Conservatives claim a devotion to fiscal responsibility, but when given the opportunity to demonstrate their self discipline they fair no better than the Liberals. Regardless of what others may decide to call it, I will call it what it is, "treason."[1]

This fiscal foolishness is a natural outgrowth of ladling out public funds to special interests. There is so much collective money that few people feel or appreciate it even when billions are saved. Yet, if we yank even a few million away from special interest groups like PBS, Planned Parenthood, or the unions, they squeal like pigs that are about to accidentally be put in the wolves pen at the zoo.

In the face of that, people have to realize that this country is on pace to go bankrupt — and it could happen relatively soon if we don't start taking serious steps to control our spending. Mike Pence thinks we could be just ten to fifteen years away. Tom Coburn is less optimistic and thinks it could happen in as little as five years. If that happens, we’re not a tiny country like Greece — we’re the biggest economy in the world. That means there’s no cavalry coming to pay our bills for us because we ARE (or were) the cavalry.

What happens then? Well, we don’t know for sure, but we can make some educated guesses about what COULD happen and how it will impact YOUR life.

1. Your life savings will evaporate. Inflation is a fact of life. Thomas Sowell has noted, “As of 1998, a $100 bill would not buy as much as a $20 bill would buy in the 1960′s.” That’s under normal circumstances. However, the thing governments have traditionally done when they simply can’t pay their debts is print more money. The problem with this is the further you expand the money supply, the less the money you already have on hand is worth. This can wipe out the savings of a lifetime in a relatively short period. Imagine spending billions of dollars just to buy a loaf of bread. Sound far-fetched? Well, guess what? That has happened in the Weimar Republic, which was crushed under debts from WWI and decided to pay it off by printing more money. It could happen here, too, and all the money you’ve scrimped and saved could become worthless in a short order.

2. Your taxes will skyrocket. We've been conned into thinking that we can fund a massive government on the backs of the rich. This is simply not so. It’s not working today and it’s not going to happen in the future. We cannot tax the rich enough to pay off our debt or even enough to keep the government going long-term. Even if we could, the rich have the resources to flee the country for greener pastures if they're being taxed into oblivion. The middle class? Not so much. What that means is the more desperate the government gets, the more the average American is going to be hammered with new taxes. How much more of your income can you afford to send overseas to pay China for the money they've loaned us to keep PBS, Planned Parenthood, and the National Endowment of the Arts going? What about if the country goes bankrupt and your income tax rate shoots up to fifty percent? How are you going to pay your mortgage? How are you going to feed your kids? When the government runs out of cash and it can’t borrow any more money, then it will start leveling massive taxes on the American people.

3. Your life will be brutal. If the government goes bankrupt, you'll have an extremely angry, confused, and frustrated populace that has little faith in its leaders — combined with a horrific economy and a reduced ability of the government to keep order. Under those circumstances, widespread rioting and violent crime seem entirely plausible. When Argentina had its crisis, violence went up 142% and “young men began looting supermarkets.” Here’s some of what happened during the German hyperinflation of the currency in Weimar Republic after it started printing money night and day,

“The flight from currency that had begun with the buying of diamonds, gold, country houses, and antiques now extended to minor and almost useless items — bric-a-brac, soap, hairpins. The law-abiding country crumbled into petty thievery. Copper pipes and brass armatures weren't safe. Gasoline was siphoned from cars. People bought things they didn't need and used them to barter — a pair of shoes for a shirt, some crockery for coffee. Berlin had a “witches’ Sabbath” atmosphere. Prostitutes of both sexes roamed the streets. Cocaine was the fashionable drug.”

4. Your government checks, housing, food stamps, and health-care will disappear. Contrary to what most people believe, Medicare, Medicaid, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), and Social Security are paid out of the same fund that pays for everything else. In other words, if the government goes bankrupt, there is no money in any lock-box set aside to pay for these programs. So, if you're receiving Social Security, , Medicare, welfare, food stamps, or any other similar programs, those checks could stop or be slashed down to nothing. That seems unthinkable to people, but if the government doesn't have any money, then it can't pay it out to people. As they say, “You can't get blood out of a turnip.”

5. You will be very poor. If taxes and inflation escalate dramatically, both of which are very likely if we go bankrupt, economic activity will slow to a crawl and we'll go into a depression. We're not talking about a “This is the worst economy since the Depression” situation that we hear every time there's a mild downturn in the economy; we're talking about a REAL depression. Established and well managed businesses will fail in record numbers, the stock market will topple, unemployment will soar to heights not seen since the thirties, and the government will be too concerned with maintaining its own power to be concerned with your needs. 

If that happens in a country like America, where people have been so prosperous for so long, it’s going to produce utter misery. It’s not a lot of fun to be poor under the best of circumstances, but it’s much worse to go from having a comfortable life with a bright future to stealing vegetables or a crust of bread to eat and wondering how you’re going to keep warm while homeless in the winter.

I know what you're thinking, "it couldn't happen here in the richest country in the world", but this only displays how ill-informed you are, when one does the real accounting (assets minus liabilities) to arrive at net worth, we are far from the richest country in the world...

US Total Household Value (Home Equity + Stock Value): $48.8 trillion
US Social Security, Medicare, and Prescription Liabilities (Does not include National Debt): -$119 trillion


US Net Worth: -70.2 trillion





Footnotes:

[1]  “Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” U. S. Constitution, Art III. My justification for calling their failure to address the debt issue is that by selling our debt to foreign powers, namely China, they are handing immense authority over our currency, property, and economy over to their whim.  

The Politics of Unintended Consequences

Who could shoot down a great idea based on sound research and motivated by the best of intentions?








If the idea crept out of the incestuous swamp we call Washington, I would summarily execute that idea. No blindfold, no last cigarette, no drum roll, as fast as they could foment new ideas; I would gun them down. 

Wait, I know what you're thinking...

"I just hate all government so it stands to reason I would hate any idea that came from government officials." 

I understand why you might feel that way, but my judgment is not based on knee-jerk emotional reactions or some visceral reflex. In truth, I have a great deal of respect for government so long as the government has a great deal of respect for the Constitution, and not a second longer. You see as long as the government respects the Constitution it is bound by the ideals it embodies. The foremost of which is, the government must respect my person, my faith, my privacy, my property, my liberty, and yours as well. When one takes the time for thoughtful deliberation rather than flying off on some rash tangent because it feels good at the moment it is a sign of wisdom. The virtue of wisdom, like all other virtues, are nearly extinct in Washington.


Unintended consequences are the political equivalent of Sir Isaac Newton's third law of motion, which states “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. 

1.      The Treaty of Versailles was not supposed to incite the German people to into provoking another world war, but it did.

2.      The “Great Society” programs were not intended to increase out-of-wedlock births and broken families, but it has.

3.      Extended unemployment benefits were not meant to discourage employment searches or dissuade entrepreneurship, but it has.

4.      Guaranteeing the solvency of the banks was not meant to make them more reckless in their lending and investing practices, but it has.

5.      Social Security and Medicare was not meant to nearly eliminate personal planning for retirement, but it has.

6.      Easy credit loans were not intended to create massive foreclosures, destroying families, and their finances, but it did.

7.      Student Loans were not intended to send tuition costs skyrocketing while trapping graduates in a crushing debt load which threatens to destroy their careers before they begin, but they did.

8.      Farm Subsidies were not intended to artificially raise the price of food and diminish the production so high that low income families required Food Stamps to eat, but they did.

9.      The welfare system was not intended to become a snare for the impoverished entrapping them at a serf like subsistence existence for generations, but it does.

10.   Public schools were not intended to produce the lowest common denominator of education with continuously declining standards, but it has.

If this were the total of the unintended consequences produced by the short-sighted, herd-mentality policy makers we seem to have no shortage of in Washington it wouldn't be so bad, however it isn't the total and it is worse... 

 And yet more unintended consequences...

 

And more...

I could go on but at this point I'm too disgusted to write...

PRINCIPLES without Interest

 

 

My Response to: Confessions of a Flip-Flopper November 21, 2011 - 1:18 am - by Roger L Simon

 

Changing one’s mind as we go through a process of gathering more information is an intellectual right, however there is a very clear line where matters of PRINCIPLE are non-negotiable.

I am not speaking of a choice between which deficit financed budget is more palatable to one’s own constituency be they conservative or liberal.

I AM speaking of, for instance, the PRINCIPLE that theft is wrong. There is no time, situation, or scenario when you will be found to have commissioned a "justifiable theft".

With blatant disregard, we are daily passing on debt we cannot by any reasonable means repay to our unborn future generations who have no voice or roll in these obligations other than to pay the bill.

That is THEFT and that is WRONG!  Furthermore, looking at the global debt crises, it is an act of global inter -generational suicide upon our species! We, by the power of the printing press, are eating our own children. It is mass psychotic behavior on a scale which makes the Holocaust look more like a temporary FLIP-FLOP of good judgment for German citizens on their national policies.

I do not mean to offend the survivors of the Holocaust by trivializing their suffering. My intent is to elevate awareness to the eventual consequences our current course of action will have upon our children and their children for generations to come.

The Burden of Shame

 
Do you feel the people inhabiting the modern day city of Rome should bear the burden of shame for the Roman decimation of the native (Indigenous) peoples who once resided, presumably peacefully, on that portion of the present day Italian Peninsula?

They were a pre-literate agrarian society known as the Etruscans, who were so thoroughly snuffed out by the Romans that not much more than this is known about them. The picture to the left is what a common Etruscan Sod and Stone Dwelling from the First Millennium BC would have looked like.

Perhaps, my initial question is premature since the Etruscans at the very least displaced, but more likely conquered and possibly enslaved, a previous civilization. This unnamed pre-Etruscan civilization built basic tombs and had developed religious rights for their dead. They crafted tools from not only elk bones, but had and developed metallurgy to the point of producing numerous bronze artifacts such as rings and axes specifically designed for war as well as others designed for hunting.

Wait, the evidence of war axes made of bronze indicates that even these ancient indigenous people had the blood of some other previous occupants of the real estate that the Pope calls “home” on their hands.

We really don’t need to creep around in the dark recesses of history where Stone Age people may have pounced upon one another for the nicer cave with all the modern conveniences (e.g. - access to hunting grounds, water, less bat shit, or what have you). What of the bloody Roman Empire? People flock from all over the world to see the Coliseum where the blood of millions of subjugated peoples was spilled for fun of the common Roman. Aren’t the People of modern Rome, as well as the modern nation of Italy as a whole, at this very moment not only enjoying the spoils of these murdered people, but they are profiting from the tourist trade. Hundreds of millions of Euros flow to Rome every year, should they not hang their heads in shame for their crimes against humanity?

No!
From Beijing to Machu Picchu and from Ireland to Polynesia everyone wiped out or enslaved someone else to take their resources or real estate. This process isn’t a recent occurrence either. It was not brought on by over-population of the virus, more commonly known as humanity. It is not caused by Capitalism, Western civilization, some murky inherent dehumanization within industrial society, or the religious “Right”, as many Social(ist) Studies textbooks in use today would have you and your children believe. These tools of  "Critical theory" believe that the American people as a whole are culpable for an offence given by generations long dead against a people who are no longer living. Their ill-concieved rant fails to note that the vast majority of American citizens today are not descendants of those who profited from either slavery or the near extermination of the indigenous peoples of North America.

In truth, while the atrocities of African slavery and tribal genocide were being carried out, the majority of our European ancestors were living under near Medieval feudalism in Europe. The life of a serf is arguably equal to if not worse than that of a slave. A slave was purchased at a cost and considered valued property, while a serf was merely another mouth for the noble lord to feed once his crops had been harvested and when he needed no bodies to impale against another feudal lords pikes in his ambitious plan to take something that did not belong to him.

Once, again if anyone is to blame or to be called into account, it is not the People of the United States, Western culture, Capitalism, or Christendom, but government controlled by the few and claiming to be acting on behalf of a cause much higher than their own naked ambition.

Debt Limit Drama

 

They had us, didn't they? It was griping, dramatic, emotional, and the shocking conclusion left us feeling much like the series finale of Alf. Do you remember that? No of course not, I was one of the 11 viewers who tuned in for that television event. I had to see how the writers could bring a show as asinine as Alf to anything resembling a logical conclusion. The answer is they couldn't and it ended with, 

“To be continued…” 

I kid you not, and that is how the debt limit deal ended as well. There was no genius 11th hour catharsis, no remarkable turn of events that set us down the road to a bright or even sane fiscal future, and nothing to demonstrate that “The Tea Party” remains a force to be reckoned with. What we got was “To be continued…” and when the next debt limit ceiling looms near, it will terminate in yet another capitulation to the lure of reckless spending. This “compromise” could have been cut weeks ago. What was the point of running the budget cutting football all the way to the one yard line on fourth down only to take a knee and surrender the game?  The drama? The photo ops? The lack of any useful work to perform?

 

Regardless of how you analyze this play by the Republicans, the final score read:

Conservatives: 0           
Liberals: 2,400,000,000,000

Sure, there is the estimated $917 billion in initial "cuts", which in fact are reductions in spending increases.  There is an additional $1.5 trillion to be carved from the bloated budget later. However, both of these adjustments will be implemented by the same pack melodramatic miscreants on a bi-polar spending spree who created the 14 trillion dollar national debt that precipitated this Stand-off Showdown in the first place. Create the beast, then play the white knight coming to slay the beast, mount your trusty stead and charge! charge! charge another two and a half trillion bucks.

Somehow this scenario seems strikingly familiar, doesn’t it? Of course, we have been the victim of these creative government financing arraignments repeatedly for the past 75 years. It was 1936 when the first Balanced Budget Amendment, House Joint Resolution 579, was introduced by Harold Knutson (R–MN) and summarily executed in Congress. Mr. Knutson must have appeared a serious killjoy that early in the game with only 16 Billion in public debt to be concerned about. Today the government will spend 16 billion dollars before noon tomorrow, and 6 Billion of that will have to be borrowed!

I must admit my disappointment the Tea Party is shared with the Obama Dream Team. I expected more from the "Smartest People on the Planet" as they were touted in the opening days of the Administration. With the large number of former Goldman Sachs executives in the Obama administration, I'm dismayed that they couldn't structure a magnificently pitched, highly leveraged, poorly labeled, and remarkably incomprehensible market security out of the national debt. Current debt could be exchanged for unsecured equity.  When this house (and senate) of cards comes crashing down, the US stock price drops to zero, and the stockholders (China, Saudi Arabia, and anyone else but us) get screwed instead of our children! I suppose that only works for investment banks, insurance companies, labor unions, and other major campaign contributing types.

Inevitably the results of the hundreds of similar  compromises in the past have yielded tax increases which materialize in multiples of the original figures and spending cuts which disintegrate in to the ether. Year after year the deficit recorded on the bottom line will grow inexorably and the National Debt will deepen exponentially. The chance of the horrific "default" will engulf the Treasury and become a mater of inevitability. The American Dream and our children's futures pass into history. The same Esteemed Members of our Distinguished Congress who produced this grand "compromise" will hastily resolve to retire internationally in a tropical land with no extradition treaty.

I hope you don't think I am being entirely cynical, because I'm really not completely pessimistic on the future. I'm sure our children will look back on this debt limit hullabaloo some day and laugh about our fuss and bother over the matter. They will have more pressing concerns to attend to as they huddle together for warmth against the freezing wind in the dirty alleyways they will call home.

Consent of the Governed?

What gives some people the right to rule others? At least since John Locke’s time, the most common and seemingly compelling answer has been “the consent of the governed.” When the North American revolutionaries set out to justify their secession from the British Empire, they declared, among other things:  “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed.” This sounds good, especially if one doesn’t think about it very hard or very long, but the harder and longer one thinks about it, the more problematic it becomes.

One question after another comes to mind. Must every person consent? If not, how many must, and what options do those who do not consent have? What form must the consent take ― verbal, written, explicit, implicit? If implicit, how is it to be registered? Given that the composition of society is constantly changing, owing to births, deaths, and international migration, how often must the rulers confirm that they retain the consent of the governed? And so on and on. Political legitimacy, it would appear, presents a multitude of difficulties when we move from the realm of theoretical abstraction to that of practical realization.

I raise this question because in regard to the so-called social contract, I have often had occasion to protest that I haven’t even seen the contract, much less been asked to consent to it. A valid contract requires voluntary offer, acceptance, and consideration. I’ve never received an offer from my rulers, so I certainly have not accepted one; and rather than consideration, I have received nothing but contempt from the rulers, who, notwithstanding the absence of any agreement, have indubitably threatened me with grave harm in the event that I fail to comply with their edicts. What monumental effrontery these people exhibit! What gives them the right to rob me and push me around? It certainly is not my desire to be a sheep for them to shear or slaughter as they deem expedient for the attainment of their own ends.

Moreover, when we flesh out the idea of “consent of the governed” in realistic detail, the whole notion quickly becomes utterly preposterous. Just consider how it would work. A would-be ruler approaches you and offers a contract for your approval. Here, says he, is the deal.

 

I, the party of the first part (“the ruler”), promise: (1) To stipulate how much of your money you will hand over to me, as well as how, when, and where the transfer will be made. You will have no effective say in the matter, aside from pleading for my mercy, and if you should fail to comply, my agents will punish you with fines, imprisonment, and (in the event of your persistent resistance) death. (2) To make thousands upon thousands of rules for you to obey without question, again on pain of punishment by my agents. You will have no effective say in determining the content of these rules, which will be so numerous, complex, and in many cases beyond comprehension that no human being could conceivably know about more than a handful of them, much less their specific character, yet if you should fail to comply with any of them, I will feel free to punish you to the extent of a law made my me and my confederates. (3) To provide for your use, on terms stipulated by me and my agents, so-called public goods and services. Although you may actually place some value on a few of these goods and services, most will have little or no value to you, and some you will find utterly abhorrent, and in no event will you as an individual have any effective say over the goods and services I provide, notwithstanding any economist’s cock-and-bull story to the effect that you “demand” all this stuff and value it at whatever amount of money I choose to expend for its provision. (4) In the event of a dispute between us, judges beholden to me for their appointment and salaries will decide how to settle the dispute. You can expect to lose in these settlements, if your case is heard at all. In exchange for the foregoing government “benefits,” you, the party of the second part (“the subject”), promise: (5) To shut up, make no waves, obey all orders issued by the ruler and his agents, kowtow to them as if they were important, honorable people, and when they say “jump,” ask only “how high?”

 

Such a deal! Can we really imagine that any sane person would consent to it?

Yet the foregoing description of the true social contract into which individuals are said to have entered is much too abstract to capture the raw realities of being governed. In enumerating the actual details, no one has ever surpassed Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who wrote:

 

To be GOVERNED is to be kept in sight, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.  (P.-J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, trans. John Beverley Robinson. London: Freedom Press, 1923, p. 294)

 

Nowadays, of course, we would have to supplement Proudhon’s admirably precise account by noting that our being governed also entails our being electronically monitored, tracked by orbiting satellites, tased more or less at random, and invaded in our premises by SWAT teams of police, often under the pretext of their overriding our natural right to decide what substances we will ingest, inject, or inhale into what used to be known as “our own bodies.”

So, to return to the question of political legitimacy as determined by the consent of the governed, it appears upon sober reflection that the whole idea is as fanciful as the unicorn. No one in his right mind, save perhaps an incurable masochist, would voluntarily consent to be treated as governments actually treat their subjects.

Nevertheless, very few of us in this country at present are actively engaged in armed rebellion against our rulers. And it is precisely this absence of outright violent revolt that, strange to say, some commentators take as evidence of our consent to the outrageous manner in which the government treats us. Grudging, prudential acquiescence, however, is not the same thing as consent, especially when the people acquiesce, as I do, only in simmering, indignant resignation.

For the record, I can state in complete candor that I do not approve of the manner in which I am being treated by the liars, thieves, and murderers who style themselves the Government of the United States of America or by those who constitute the tyrannical pyramid of state, local, and hybrid governments with which this country is massively infested. My sincere wish is that all of these individuals would, for once in their despicable lives, do the honorable thing. In this regard, I suggest that they give serious consideration to seppuku. Whether they employ a sharp sword or a dull one, I care not, so long as they carry the act to a successful completion.

10 Answers to the 10 Questions for 911 Truthers

 

DEDICATED WITH LOVING RESPECT TO THE MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS, FIRST RESPONDERS, AND VETERANS LOST AS A RESULT OF THE 9/11 ATTACKS. THE GREATEST HONOR WE CAN EVER OFFER TO THEM IS TO DISCOVER THE TRUTH.

 

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These are just a few of the grass roots groups of decent, honest, hard working, intelligent, and patriotic Americans who demand the Truth of their government.

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John Hawkins runs Right Wing News and recently published and article on Townhall.com entitled 10 Questions for 9/11 Truthers. These are valid questions that have been asked by various people in the past and in turn have been replied to with valid answers by numerous respected experts whose exhaustive research corroborate and supports each others findings. The way to avoid asking the one simple question which really matters at this time, “What is the truth of the 9/11 attacks”, is by repeatedly asking the same inane 10 questions as if they have never been addressed by the Truth Movement. As an independent  Truther, I will take the time to answer all of these questions once again in the hope that somehow, someday, the debunkers will come to see that the Truth Movement is not about Right vs. Left, but Truth vs. Lies…

 

1) If the United States government was actually behind 9/11, hundreds, thousands, and maybe even ten thousands of people would have to be involved. Do you really believe that many Americans would stay quiet about the murder of 3,000 citizens by our own government?

Mr. Hawkins is making a statement of his own assumption which is not an assertion made by any respectable Truther of whom I am aware. The idea that "hundreds, thousands, and maybe even tens of thousands of people would have to be involved” is simply untrue. Those knowingly involved and complicit may number in the dozens, perhaps even less. Many others many have just been following orders, manipulated, or deceived into action or inaction without ever understanding their roll in the matter.  Ultimately, regardless of how extraordinarily large or absurdly small the number of individuals involved may be, the number will never be known so long as we continue to fail to seek the truth.

Furthermore, the idea that a conspiracy involving a potentially large number of individuals is preposterous to suggest does not stand up to scrutiny. The recent Climategate scandal demonstrates that not only individuals but respected institutions throughout the world can and have been knowingly involved and complicit in conspiratorial collaboration. The Gulf of Tonkin incident which was the grounds used for the Vietnam War which took 56,000 American lives did not happen as it was reported in every major American media source, and those knowingly involved and complicity involved (a relatively small number) were only exposed long after their deaths had placed them beyond the reach of justice. The sinking of the USS Maine used as a pretext to Spanish American War also stands as evidence that a few self interested individuals can and have murdered thousands of their countrymen without conscience.

Millions of Americans believed with absolute certainty in the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, this belief was originally fostered by a very few, albeit highly influential, individuals. However the assertion that Iraq possessed any significant quantities of WMDs remains unfounded.  Some claim the WMD allegations were a premeditated lie to provide a pretext to war, others will defend the call to war as being justified by prudence and necessary to our national security.  Still others believe that the WMDs in question were and still remain in Iraq somewhere beneath the ancient shifting sands of the fertile crescent. We may never know the fate of Iraq's WMDs or whether they ever existed. Whether factual or fictitious, as a pretext or prudence the impact of those WMDs is tangible in that they moved this nation to war. A war which has resulted in a nearly decade long occupation at a cost of more than $3 trillion dollars, and 4,446 of our sons and daughters lives, with another 30,000 Americans wounded and half of those seriously. Whether the reader considers this cost justifiable or not is a matter of perspective, but all perspective is abandoned along with reason when one compares the costs of the Iraq war in search of elusive, if not imaginary, WMDs to the paltry sum of perhaps a few hundred million dollars to fund an exhaustive inquiry into 9/11 that the Truthers have been (quite reasonably) been asking of the Congress for more than a decade.

 

2) Some Truthers believe a car bomb or a missile hit the Pentagon instead of a plane. So how do they explain the witnesses, like James Robbins, who saw a plane hit the Pentagon?

There are some Truthers who do make this allegation and they do so with good cause which I will explain momentarily. I do not claim that a car bomb or missile hit the Pentagon, but we have no video evidence of a plane hitting the pentagon which is at the very least odd since the Pentagon is one of the most video monitored buildings in the world. The video that was released by the Pentagon has the wrong date and time, and adding to the videos veracity is the complete absence of an airplane impacting the building. Eyewitnesses are often the least reliable form of presentable evidence as is demonstrated in the book Eyewitness testimony By Elizabeth F. Loftus. The testimonies of eyewitnesses becomes increasingly unreliable in traumatic events which tend to be colored by shock.

Physical evidence which can be tested remains superior to any individuals claim, however flying in the face of all standard investigatory procedures the very small amount of physical evidence collected from the Pentagon site was tampered with when it should have been quarantined as a crime scene. This is also the case with the large amount of physical evidence rapidly hauled away and subsequently discarded or recycled from the WTC sites. 

 

3) If neither the WTC nor the Pentagon was hit by a plane (and, yes, there are Truthers who believe that), what happened to all the people on the planes?

I am aware, as all reasonable individuals, that there  are always going to be that .5% who still insist that we never went to the moon, that the earth is indeed flat, and that under Bill Clinton we had a budget surplus.  I do not consider those who would place any great importance on such a highly speculative theory as “Truthers.” We can pay great homage to our honored dead by dispelling the pawl of doubt that hangs like a dark cloud over the events of September 11, 2001, by providing the correct answers to the many questions that remain unanswered, are patently false, or had never been asked.

 

4) Osama Bin Laden publicly admitted that Al-Qaeda was behind the attacks. How do you explain that if our own government is really behind the attacks?

 

9/11 CONSPIRACY: THE BIN LADEN TAPE IS A FAKE!

When I first read your fourth question I felt compelled to answer them for you and all my fellow countrymen who sincerely want to understand what happened on 9/11. I was also immediately taken by how little investigation of these matters that Mr. Hawkins had done before penning his article. If you recall just a few minutes ago Mr. Hawkins was claiming that a the attacks of 9/11 would have involved necessitated the collusion of “…hundreds, thousands, and maybe even ten thousands of people…” and now he has reversed his entire assumption is apparently attempting to lay responsibility at the feet of one man, obviously supported by his terrorist organization. Which is it John, one man or did the attacks necessitate thousands? You can’t have it both ways, and I maintain that the assertion posited by Truthers is far more reasonable than either of the two self contradictory estimates that you have suggested thus far. Let us assume, as fairness requires, that Mr. Hawkins is not trying to muddy the waters, but has simply made an honest mistake. So, to answer the question regarding Bin Laden’s alleged claim of responsibility for the attacks, the video in which he appears is at best dubious. There are several obvious incongruities about this video which remain unexplained lending to the credence that the tape is a fabrication. 

“What possible motives or benefit could could lead someone to manufacture such a video?”, you may ask.

There are people on both sides of the issue who would profit from the release of such a video. For the average Islamic militant who sees Jihad against the west as a religious duty

Bin Laden FBI most wanted page omits 9/11

demanded by Allah, the disappearance or death of one of the principle players on the Jihadist stage would diminish their claim to divine blessings and be a blow to the moral of their movement.  Bin Laden’s ability to evade capture by the “Great Satan” in the west is often cited by sympathetic Muslims as evidence for his state of spiritual grace. For those of us in the west, we are  well aware that there are those who profit directly from war and have in the past played a large roll in keeping America at war eternally.  Manufacturing a video of the villain, not only taking direct responsibility for the September 11th attacks, but reveling in the destruction he is alleged to have wrought sure fuels the home fires to keep the bullets flying. 

But let us put aside these suppositions, and let us focus on what we do know. On June 5, 2006, an FBI spokesman, Chief of Investigative Publicity Rex Tomb said, “The FBI has no hard evidence connecting Usama Bin Laden to 9/11.” This is a pretty explosive statement coming directly from the FBI because if there is no hard evidence connecting Osama Bin Laden to 9/11 then the government’s account of the events of 911 come crashing down and we are left, no we are compelled, to uncover the truth about the atrocities of that infamous day and to bring those responsible to justice.  

 

 

5) "The 9/11 attacks, or at least parts of those attacks, have been investigated by the 9/11 commission, the CIA, FBI, FAA, FEMA, The National Institute of Standards and Technology, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, (and) the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence." None of these groups concluded the U.S. government was behind the attacks. So, were they all in on it or are they simply not privy to the same inside information that Alex Jones has?

 

911 Truth: The Bogus NIST Report & The Lingering Questions

Refer to my last answer and you will have answered your own question. There are many Truthers within these institutions who have spoken out against the governments account of 9/11.  They have been censured, demoted, or fired because they dared to speak out. Alex Jones has been a respected member of the Truth movement and remains so because he has gone to great lengths to document and substantiate his allegations that the governments’ story does not hold water, much like the journalistic integrity of Mr. Hawkins article.. 

 

 

 

 

 

6) Bizarrely, despite the fact that the WTC was hit by planes, many Truthers claim the buildings were brought down by controlled demolitions. How in the world could that be done without people in the buildings noticing it? Why in the world would they wire the buildings with explosives and THEN fly planes into the buildings? It's not as if terrorists hadn't ever tried to bring down a building with bombs before.

This question is answered in the preceding video “911 Truth: The Bogus NIST Report & The Lingering Questions” but I would like to add that the question seems to place some merit on the value of historical evidence. With that in mind, I will ask the question how is it that 3 steel frame buildings collapsed as a result of fires (of which only two were hit by airplanes) when never in the history of construction has a steel frame building collapsed as a result of fire?

 

 

 

 

 

7) Certainly if there was a government conspiracy to target the WTC and Pentagon, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would have been involved. Would he really have arranged for a plane (or alternately, depending on how loopy you are, a missile or a car bomb) to be used on the Pentagon while he and undoubtedly his friends and staff, were there?

The question seems to be a prima fascia case for the exoneration of Mr. Rumsfeld, however with just a small amount of investigation into the facts of the matter, what appears to be an exculpatory and self evident fact suddenly reveals itself to be some of the most damning evidence.  The particular area of the pentagon that was struck during the attack supports the Truth Movements validity rather than diminishing it.

At the time of the attacks, the Pentagon was under renovation and several offices were unoccupied, resulting in fewer casualties. Only 800 of 4,500 people who would have been in the area were there because of the work. Furthermore, the area hit was the section best prepared for such an attack.  It was the only area of the Pentagon with a sprinkler system, and it had been reconstructed with a web of steel columns and bars to withstand bomb blasts. The steel reinforcement, bolted together to form a continuous structure through all of the Pentagon's five floors, kept that section of the building from collapsing for 30 minutes—enough time for hundreds of people to crawl out to safety. The area struck by the plane also had blast-resistant windows—2 inches thick and 2,500 pounds each—that stayed intact during the crash and fire. It had fire doors that opened automatically and newly built exits that allowed people to get out. One must assume that the odd, unnecessary, and exceptionally difficult (if not wholly impossible, as many lifelong professional pilots have testified) 270 degree turn around the Pentagon that the alleged terrorist executed prior to striking the best protected, least occupied section of the Pentagon was the result of dumb luck, or someone who knew where the building was least susceptible to damage and loss of life was able to cherry pick the target.

 

8) If the Bush Administration was actually behind 9/11, how do you explain the fact that they didn't fake discovering weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? After all, if they were so corrupt that they'd be willing to kill 3000 Americans, surely they wouldn't have any qualms about planting a few WMDs in Iraq.

The attacks of 9/11 have no viable connection with the presence or absence of WMD’s in Iraq that I am aware of at the present time. However, since Mr. Hawkins has elected to spiral away from the issue germane to the subject (namely the attacks of 9/11) I will address his question.

The invasion of Iraq was never about WMD’s, if it had Iran or North Korea would have been, and remain, far more pressing targets for alarm. Furthermore, the fakery of WMD’s sufficed at accomplishing the administrations objective.. war. Planting WMD’s that could withstand the test of scrutiny is not as easy as your statement suggests, weapons are traceable and would open the door to a deeper investigation. The wave of anthrax poisonings in 2001 were eventually linked back to the United States military laboratory at Fort Detrick, Md. There are many unanswered questions regarding the anthrax attacks, and at the time it unlashed a series of official inquiries that nearly deposed the Blair government in the UK.

 

 

 

9) What exactly is the Bush Administration's motive for engineering an attack on Afghanistan supposed to be? Militarily, that was considered to be a high risk, low reward country to invade. If it were just about "popularity" (and historically, that's a very iffy proposition), why not claim that a closer, easier target like Cuba was responsible?

High risks demand high rewards. Does the capture of one man, Osama Bin Laden seem to be an equitable reward for 10 years of war and counting? That was the initial reasoning for invading Afghanistan? Hardly. If you recall, the justification for invading were terrorist training camps being run by Bin Laden and his lackeys and we were going to take them out. A decade later with no sign of Bin laden or any quantifiable progress towards a stable government in  Kabul we’re still there. It would appear to be a complete mystery with no discernable answer on the surface. Once again, it is below the surface (literally) that one finds a viable and highly profitable answer to Mr. Hawkins’ question.  Invading Cuba does not have the lure of some 3 trillion dollars in mineral resources.

10) If the Bush Administration was really behind 9/11, then surely the Obama Administration must be aware of it by now and they'd have every incentive to reveal it in order to damage the Republican Party. Why haven't they done it? Are they in on it, too?

You ask me, as the reader, what I think and I will answer that question unabashedly…

I think that  an impeccably qualified, fully funded, independent, and exhaustive inquiry with the power to subpoena any and all witnesses in connection with the events of September 11, 2001 is not only merited, but essential. Such an inquiry is necessary to address the growing mountain of evidence which suggests that we are no longer a free society. 

I think that this is our Right, it is our duty, as a free people to demand such an inquiry of our government.

I think our unwillingness to spend time, money, or even the lives of our precious sons and daughters are not viable excuses for refusal to establish such an inquiry. Furthermore, the only potential motive which remains for any power, party, or authority to refuse the People the Truth which is Rightfully theirs to know is complicity before or after the fact. 

When a government is elected to act in the name of the People, We the People are responsible and accountable for the actions and inactions taken by that government. We must at all times and in all ways hold our government responsible and accountable to us, and the first prerequisite of this is knowing the truth, no matter how distasteful or painful that truth may be.

This is Truth Movement is not an act of sedition, it is the very essence of the American Constitution.

We the People demand and deserve the Truth.

 

Do you disagree , Mr. Hawkins?

 

 

Right is Wrong and Left is… Wrong

We’ve all known for decades that multi-national corporations are screwing the consumer, the poor, animals, the planet, and just about anything else that should not be screwed in the interest of a few extra bucks. Yes, we’ve all known these things for decades, but what has been done to stop this corporate corn holing of America?
Any blame for corporate shenanigans obviously falls on the Republicans because we all know that the Republican party is for big business and the Democratic party represents the decent honest working people of this country…right?
WRONG!
Bill Clinton a Democrat held the White House for eight years, four of which President Clinton enjoyed the support of a Democratically controlled Congress. During this time President Clinton pushed for and passed:
Major legislation supported and signed into law

• 1993-02-05 - The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
• 1993-08-10 - Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993: Raised income tax rates; income tax, top rate: 39.6%; corporate tax: 35%
• 1993-09-21 - creation of the AmeriCorps volunteer program
• 1993-11-30 - Brady Bill
• 1994-09-13 - Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act: Part of an omnibus crime bill, the federal death penalty was expanded to some 60 different offenses (see Federal assault weapons ban)
• 1996-02-01 - Communications Decency Act
• 1996-02-08 - Telecom Reform Act: Eliminated major ownership restrictions for radio and television groups.

OVERWHELMING BI-PARTISAN SUPPORT In the House of Representatives  414 Ayes, 16 Nays, 4 Present/Not Voting. In the Senate 81 Ayes, 18 Nays, 1 Present/Not Voting. In reality a huge coup for BIG business and a major loss for competition in the marketplace. Remember this is the same government that went out of its’ way to punish Microsoft for being a web browser monopoly, (which it was not) five years later legislating that creating media monopolies is just fine. Hypocrisy anyone?

• 1996-03-14 - Authorized $100 million counter-terrorism agreement with Israel to track down and root out terrorists.
• 1996-04-09 - Line Item Veto Act (Later declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in Clinton v. City of New York).
• 1996-04-24 - Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act
• 1996-08-20 - Minimum wage Increase Act
• 1996-09-21 - Defense of Marriage Act: Allowed states to refuse recognition of certain same-sex marriages, and defined marriage as between a male and female for purposes of federal law
• 1997-08-05 - Balanced Budget Act of 1997
• 1997-08-05 - State Children's Health Insurance Program
• 1997-08-05 - Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997
• 1996-08-26 - Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act: A welfare reform bill
• 1998-10-28 - Digital Millennium Copyright Act
• 1998-10-31 - Iraq Liberation Act
• 1999-11-12 - Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act: Repealed part of the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933, allowing commercial banks, investment banks, securities firms, and insurance companies to consolidate 

This is as close to OVERWHELMING BI-PARTISAN support as a vote can get in the US Senate. By the way, this “deregulation” of the banking industry is purported to be partially a significant factor in the credit crisis and sub-prime mortgage meltdown that would occur 8 years later. While the Republicans defended the legislation claiming it was not a culprit in the debacle, the Democrats failed to mention they supported the act and neglected to own up to Bill Clinton signing it into law without a veto… rather convenient and remarkably cowardly.
For the record, I would also argue that the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act neither contributed to the crisis, nor would the Glass–Steagall Act of 1933 prevented or even mitigated the fallout of 2007 crisis. If I were looking for a scapegoat that provides the requisite easily identifiable target, yet retaining the aspect of mind boggling complexity that bamboozles the average voter into taking my word for it, I’d have gone a different route… the Steve Bartman incident always plays well in these scenarios when a good measure of smoke and mirrors is needed to hoodwink John Q. Public just long enough (varies between 15 minutes to 3 weeks) for him to forget there was an issue to be hoodwinked over in the first place.

• 2000-12-21 - Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 : Deregulated the Derivatives Market

Once again we have OVERWHELMING BI-PARTISAN SUPPORT (Yeas: 292 and Nays: 60) for a bill that had  a REAL effect on the credit crisis and sub-prime mortgage meltdown that would occur 8 years later. Neither party seems to remember their support of this Act, and their certainly not going to remind you of their support either.

Now wait, before you go attacking me as a Republican or a Democrat… I’m not! I don’t support either the Democratic or the Republican parties because support of one is support of the other.
It is far past the time when WE THE PEOPLE need to wake up and see the political matrix construct we are living inside and the answer is not one or either of the major political parties. One is not better, or less worse than the other, that is just an illusion meant to keep you engaged in this…

Is Western Civilization a Handicap?

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To my dismay, I have increasingly chanced upon not only Americans finding fault with the conventional American way of life, but with Western civilization et al. as being to blame for any of the challenges we face as a nation.  There is nothing wrong with western thinking. We have not been doing a hell of a lot of western thinking. Western thought brought us the likes of Peter Abelard, Augustine, Boccaccio, Byron, Caravaggio, Cicero, Dante, Dostoevsky, Galileo, Hobbes, Gericault, Homer, Luther, Machiavelli, Masaccio, Michelangelo, Hayek, Petrarch, Habermas, Raphael, Locke, Rembrandt, Adam Smith, Rousseau, Sophocles, Stendhal, Vermeer, Virgil, and Nozick to name but a miniscule fraction of the brilliant minds produced, nurtured, and influenced by Western culture. Along with the myriad of unnamed original thinkers who produced, nurtured, and influenced Western civilization. The strength of the Western thought is its relative accessibility, when compared to the far more rigid, autocratic, and often esoteric philosophy of the East.

Had we simply applied the time honored Western school of thought, rather than a forensic review, of facts leading up to the current economic malaise in which we find ourselves firmly ensconced, we would find that …  

1. Western thought would have told us that something is wrong with a housing market that is booming for more than a decade without an apparent natural demographic driving it. 
2. Western thought would have told us that something is wrong with interest rates remaining in the low single digits while the economy is booming. 
3. Western thought would have told us that something is wrong with people who have never qualified for even the most lenient of mortgages are suddenly homeowners in upscale neighborhoods. 
4. Western thought would have told us that something is wrong with cooks, gas station attendants, and homemakers who are suddenly movers and shakers in the residential "flip" market. 
5. Western thought would have told us that something is wrong with government insured deposits (FDIC) financing "Low Doc" or "No Doc" mortgages to nearly anyone with the ability to sign their names on a dotted line. 
6. Western thought would have told us that something is wrong with real estate novices buying homes in lucrative neighborhoods for $500,000.00 and selling the same home a few months later for a $50,000 profit. 
7. Western thought would have told us that something is wrongwith a family being able to refinance their new home twice in the first couple of years of ownership and being able to pull out substantial amounts of cash each time. 
8. Western thought would have told us that something is wrong with and nation having a blazing hot economy while; 

a) expelling its manufacturing base into foreign exile, 
b) producing an annual crop of increasingly uneducated citizens, 
c) drowning in public debt mainly due to unprofitable transfer payment schemes, 
d) stripping the economy of capital to grow an expanding multitude of redundant, inefficient, ineffective, and often counterproductive bureaucracies staffed with highly compensated individuals of mediocre acumen. 
e) steadily decimating its entrepreneurial spirit in the private sector by regulation, licensing, taxation, and employment liability. 
 
Western thought would have told us all these things, but as I stated earlier, "We have not been doing a hell of a lot of western thinking." Instead, we have been PROGRESSIVELY (Hint-Hint) adopting ideologies, principles, and tenants foreign to us in the west. In stark contrast to those in the East who have been doing the exact opposite and growing fabulously wealthy using historically western ideologies, principles, and tenants. Western thought is unique in that it is inherently non-elitist.  Wisdom is recognized, documented, and transmitted regardless of the social standing, rank, or pedigree of the individual from which it emanates. 
  
The ongoing and deteriorating state of crisis we in the west are experiencing is not a failure of Capitalism; it is solely due to our failure to be the Rational, Resourceful, Inventive, Adaptable, Intellectual, Optimistic, Innovative, Capitalists that we are…thanks to our unrivalled Western school of thought.