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?