The Tea Party won't save us

To many, the Tea Party looks like the ideal weapon to extinguish the ruinous policies of the establishment.  But as Lew Rockwell explains, this won't happen.  First, many Tea Party members hold inconsistent views on liberty. 

Its activists tend to be good on specific economic issues like taxes, spending, stimulus, and healthcare. They worry about government intervention in these areas and can talk a good game.

But just as with old-time conservatives, there are many issues on which the Tea Party tends toward inconsistency. The military and the issue of war is a major one. Many have bought into the line that the greatest threat this country faces domestically is the influx of adherents of Islam; in international politics, they tend to favor belligerence toward any regime that is not a captive of US political control.

On immigration, the Tea Party ethos favors national IDs and draconian impositions on businesses rather than market solutions like cutting welfare. On social and cultural issues, they can be as confused as the Christian Right, believing that it is the job of government to right all wrongs and punish sin.

Then there is the problem of what happens to defenders of liberty when they win an election:

They are leaned on by their new colleagues, the party elites, related financial interests, the press, and the entire system of which they are now part. Are they going to make themselves enemies of that system, or are they going to work within the system in order to achieve reform, and not just for one term but more terms down the line? Doing a good job means being part of the structure; doing a bad job means being an enemy of the very system that they now serve.

Which choice do they make? The same choice that everyone else in office makes (Ron Paul being the lone exception in all of human history). It is for this reason that newly seated "revolutionary" politicians will betray those who put them in power. It happens like clockwork, same as day turns to night.

Rockwell concludes: "We can state with confidence, all else being equal, that even the best electoral outcome will not lead to actual cuts in the power of government over our lives." 

Has US Become a True Police State?

In an essay called "It Is Official: The US Is a Police State," one of my favorite writers, Paul Craig Roberts, argues that:

An American Police State was inevitable once Americans let “their” government get away with 9/11. Americans are too gullible, too uneducated, and too jingoistic to remain a free people. As another Nazi leader Herman Goering said, “ The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger.”

This is precisely what the Bush and Obama regimes have done. America, as people of my generation knew it, no longer exists.

In a true police state, a libertarian like Ron Paul would be eliminated from public view.  He would not be appearing frequently on TV.  He wouldn't appear at all.  He would be silenced.  The government always has various options, and it might decide to murder him, as it likely did JFK.  The important point is, it would not only have the power to silence him, it would exercise that power.  So far it hasn't.  He's getting the rabble roused, but other than that he's harmless.  Big government marches on.  Let him talk.  The fact that he has little effect will prove that people want government to grow indefintiely.  Slavery will seem like the people's choice. 

In a true police state, the internet would be controlled to the point that no serious criticism of the government would be tolerated; an article like PCR's would be censored and its author arrested for providing "material support" to terrorism.  Lew Rockwell would find his website shut down.  This blog wouldn't exist.  A growing government crushes what remains of our liberty, it will never stop, and it has every reason to be pleased with its progress, but there's still work to do.

As we move closer to a one-world superstate and a global central banking system printing money at will, the prospects for complete state control of our lives in an Orwellian sense becomes more realistic.  Almost no one believes "1984" is a plausible scenario, which is one reason it becomes increasingly plausible.  Did the German people of 1927 foresee the Germany of 1939?  The Russian people foresee the horror of Stalin?

We're in deep trouble, but we still have a fighting chance.  Government is doing everything wrong to get the economy moving again.  As painful as this will be, the coming implosion may be our best hope for diluting the power of the state.

The Establishment has good reason to worry

In an email today from John Tate, president of Campaign for Liberty, he notes some of the recent defeats the pro-government forces have suffered:

Dear Friend of Liberty,

This isn’t a good year to be part of the establishment.

Millions of Americans have had enough of runaway spending, shadowy Federal Reserve agreements, and lack of any respect for constitutional limits.

Legislators are used to hearing from angry constituents.

They’re not accustomed to watching one another be sent into early retirement.

Pro-TARP Senator Bob Bennett didn’t even make it out of the Utah Republican convention in early May to be eligible for another term. Audit the Fed supporter and Tea Party-backed Mike Lee was eventually chosen by Republican voters to be their nominee.

Pro-ObamaCare Democrat Senator Blanche Lincoln just barely survived her primary and now trails her Republican challenger.

Florida’s Charlie Crist bolted from the Republican Party for an Independent run to keep his Senate hopes alive. His poll numbers and political future are now in a free fall as he scrambles to repudiate virtually every issue he once claimed to support.

Senate candidate Rand Paul handily defeated Kentucky’s Secretary of State Trey Grayson (who had been crowned the nominee by Washington GOP insiders months before the vote) in the Republican primary and leads Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway in general election polling.

After he switched parties just to save his political career, Arlen Specter lost to Joe Sestak in the Pennsylvania Democrat Senate primary in May.

Ken Buck defeated GOP establishment-supported Jane Norton in the Colorado Republican Senate primary.

Sharron Angle is facing off against pro-Big Government and anti-Audit the Fed Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid after defeating early favorite Sue Lowden in the Nevada primary.

In Alaska, Republican candidate and another pro-Audit the Fed Republican, Joe Miller, came out of relative obscurity to defeat pro-TARP incumbent Lisa Murkowski in the Senate primary.

And just this past week, despite fierce attacks from Republican Party insiders, Christine O’Donnell shocked the establishment by defeating pro-Patriot Act, pro-Brady Bill, and pro-Cap and Tax Representative Mike Castle for the right to run for Joe Biden’s old Senate seat.

Karl Rove, who we know is a genius (or so we’ve been repeatedly told), exemplified the insiders’ reaction to what has been happening by trying to sabotage O’Donnell after she won. A day later, and facing a backlash from angry tea partiers (as well as a long-deserved loss of credibility), Rove switched gears to support O’Donnell.

Today, hundreds of grassroots activists are gathering in Richmond, Virginia to join Judge Andrew Napolitano in taking a stand for states’ rights and against an out of control federal government. They’re not only hearing some powerful speeches but are participating in training sessions to learn proven techniques to reclaim the Republic beginning in their own backyards.

Much to Congress’ chagrin, we’re not stopping at contacting legislators over the phone and via email.

C4L is getting the word out about where office holders and candidates stand on the issues that are important to us through our survey program. Our members are taking part in public forums, running for local and national office, knocking on doors to sign up more concerned citizens to take action, and spreading the message that we will no longer allow our lives to be centrally planned from Washington, D.C.

Simply stated... we’re taking the fight directly to the statists.

They’re worried about what’s coming in November and beyond. And rightly so.

We’re just getting warmed up.


In Liberty,


John Tate

President

Eric Margolis on 9-11-01

"If the official story about 9/11 is true, the attacks caught the Bush administration asleep on guard duty." - Eric Margolis, 9-11-10.

He adds:

On 28 February, 1933, fire, set by a Dutch Jew, ravaged the Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag. While the Reichstag’s ruins were still smoking, Adolf Hitler’s government declared a war against "terrorism." A "Decree for the Protection of People and State" was promulgated suspending all legal protections of speech, assembly, property, and personal liberties. The Reichstag fire allowed the government to round up "terrorism" suspects without due process of law and made police powers near absolute.

Sound familiar? . . . .

So what, in the end, can we conclude?
1. We still do not know the real story about 9/11.
2. The official version is not credible.
3. 9/11 was used to justify invading strategic Afghanistan and oil-rich Iraq.
4. The attacks plunged America into wars against the Muslim world and enriched the US arms industry.
5. 9/11 boosted pro-Israel neoconservatives, formerly a fringe group, into power, and with them America’s totalitarian far right.
6. Bush’s unprovoked war against Iraq destroyed one of Israel’s two main enemies.
7. 9/11 put America in what may turn out to be a permanent state of war with the Muslim world – a key goal of the neoconservatives .

But I’ve seen no hard evidence to date that 9/11 was a plot by America’s far right or by Israel or a giant cover-up. Just, perhaps, the Mother of All Coincidences. In the end, it may just have been 19 angry Arabs and a bumbling Bush administration looking for someone else to blame.

Rising Sea Levels? A Big Lie

As man-made emissions warm the globe, the Antarctic and Greenland ice caps will melt and bring on the Apocalypse, unless governments impose draconian spending and regulatory measures to slow the process. According to a UN commission the sea level will rise some 17 inches by year 2100. According to Al Gore, the the level will increase by 20 feet. Tiny island nations will vanish. Certain cities like San Francisco and Shanghai will be half under water.

Dissent from this view is not tolerated in Establishment circles, but yet we have dissenters. One who thinks differently on sea level changes is Swedish geologist and physicist Nils-Axel Mörner. Mörner is the former chairman of the INQUA International Commission on Sea Level Change. He has been studying sea level changes across the planet for 35 years and says the talk about catastrophic sea changes is one big scare story.

Read about it here.

Wikileaks exposes the racket of war

These three articles (among others) explain how the heroics of Wikileaks may SAVE American lives:

1. Thank God for the Whistle-Blowers by Robert Sheer
What the documents exposed is the depth of chicanery that surrounds the Afghanistan occupation at every turn because we have stumbled into a regional quagmire of such dark and immense proportions that any attempt to connect this failed misadventure with a recognizable U.S. national security interest is doomed. What is revealed on page after page is that none of the local actors, be they labeled friend or foe, give a whit about our president’s agenda. They are focused on prizes, passions and causes that are obsessively homegrown.

2. WikiLeaks: Who's Hiding What and Why by Fred Reed
Two ways exist of looking at WikiLeaks, the site that publicizes secret military documents and videos. The first is held self-interestedly by the Pentagon and by Fox News, the voice of an angry lower-middle class without too much education. These believe that Wikileakers are traitors, haters of America, who give aid and comfort to the enemy and endanger the lives of Our Boys.

Implicit in the Foxian view is a vague idea that the leaks give away important – well, stuff. You know, maybe frequencies of something or other, or locations of ambushes or, well, things. Important things. The Taliban will use this information to kill American soldiers. The notion is vague, as are those who hold it, but emotionally potent.

The other view, held usually by people who have some experience of Washington, is that the Pentagon is worried not about the divulging of tactical secrets, but about public relations. WikiLeaks doesn’t endanger soldiers, insists this way of looking at things, but the war itself, and all the juiceful contracts and promotions and so on entailed by wars.

3. US Treasury Is Running on Fumes by Paul Craig Roberts
The White House is screaming like a stuck pig. WikiLeaks’ release of the Afghan War Documents “puts the lives of our soldiers and our coalition partners at risk.”

What nonsense. Obama’s war puts the lives of American soldiers at risk, and the craven puppet state behavior of “our partners” in serving as US mercenaries is what puts their troops at risk.

Keep in mind that it was someone in the US military that leaked the documents to WikiLeaks. This means that there is a spark of rebellion within the Empire itself.

And rightly so. The leaked documents show that the US has committed numerous war crimes and that the US government and military have lied through their teeth in order to cover up the failure of their policies. These are the revelations that Washington wants to keep secret.

Publish Your Book on iPad and other eReaders

Smashwords will do it for no charge, taking only a small percentage from net sales once your books are published. From the Smashwords website:

Publishing on Smashwords is as easy as 1-2-3:

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Step 2: Click Publish on the home page and follow the simple steps to publish your book instantly

Step 3: Read the free Smashwords Book Marketing Guide for valuable book marketing tips!

Is it real? iPhone 4 Attenuation Problem

For some iPhone 4 users, the answer is yes, it is real and annoying. And no, they don't want to stick tape on it, hold it a certain way, or enclose it in a bumper case to fix the problem. Nor should they have to.

After having used one for 16 days now, I can happily report that I have no problems with attenuation at all, and I've used it in talking to people located near and far, and in various places on my end. I've paid no attention at all to how I hold the phone, and I trust I hold it as anyone would in making a call. My computer-savvy 5-year-old grandson has used it as a phone without any problems. At this point I can say the iPhone 4 is the greatest gadget I've ever owned or used, and I've worked with computers all my adult life.

From what I've read most people have no complaints about attenuation. The problem is significant for some users, though, and Apple should offer to fix it in some reasonable manner. The company has scheduled an iPhone 4 press conference tomorrow, Friday, July 17, 2010, and they will likely tell us how it plans to remedy the defective units.

Did Lee fight for the North?

John Avery Emison's Lincoln Uber Alles argues that the war of 1861-1865 was not the War Between the States, but the Federal Government's war on the states -- all states, north and south. Lincoln had no reservations about sending troops to any part of the country to shut down opposition to his policies and decrees. When Lee surrendered he gave up the political sovereignty of the individual states to the supremacy of the national government. The voluntary union had been replaced by a coercive union. In this sense, Robert E. Lee was fighting for the rights of states on both sides of the Mason - Dixon line. Consequently, we lost the Founder's republic and witnessed the laying of the foundation of today's leviathan state that, for propaganda purposes, still insists on celebrating Independence Day.

iMovie on iPhone 4

In spite of the anti-market mania of the last - well, forever - people still manage to make some amazing things and offer them to the world. One of those products is the Apple iPhone 4. Last night I put together a short movie on the device using iMovie for iPhone 4.

Twenty years ago, or less, it would've been near fantasy to imagine creating a movie on a phone then posting it for the whole world to see. It is the freedom to innovate and profit that made it possible.

Who's the enemy?

Ron Paul on YouTube: Why are we wasting lives and money fighting meaningless wars?