by: John Silveira
On January 22, on the CNN website, there was a poll asking: Have you listened to or watched any speeches or debates by the presidential candidates?
The choices were:
Speeches
Debates
Both
Neither
I voted. I checked “neither.”
Then I viewed the results. Here they were as of the moment I voted:
Percent # votes
Speeches 3% 536
Debates 14% 2374
Both 38% 6455
Neither 44% 7493
Total Votes: 16858
Those percentages will hold pretty constant even with thousands of more votes.
Why, you may ask, do I not bother to listen to the candidates’ debates nor their speeches?
Quite simply because what they say is more often than not meaningless. They say whatever they think they have to say to get elected. Often, what they say depends on who they are talking to. It often depends on what the polls say prospective voters want to hear. (It means these politicians are not standing on principles, they’re saying whatever they have to, to get elected.)
I remember a long-ago speech, before tobacco farmers by Al Gore in which he promised them his support. This contradicted anti-smoking speeches he made both before and after that speech, anti-smoking speeches he made to groups that were clearly against tobacco. Like most politicians, he was firmly in the camp of the wishy-washies.
I also recall that in 1980, friends urged me to vote for Reagan, instead of the Libertarian candidate, Ed Clark, because we had to get a liberal like Carter out and a conservative like Reagan in. I said I couldn’t vote for Reagan because he wasn’t a conservative, he was a big-government Republican. I based my opinion on what he did as governor of California and not on what he said in his campaign speeches. And, as it turned out, I was right.
After listening to these guys for years, I realize if there is any positive the correlation between what they say and what they do when they get into office it is more a matter of chance and coincidence than a matter of them keeping their promises.
They all promise smaller government, lower taxes, peace, etc. But, once in, those speeches and promises are forgotten.
As an aside, I thought it was laughable when Clinton ran for reelection, in 1996, and simply appropriated the Republican platform. Not that he intended to carry out any of the promises for smaller government, lower taxes, etc., that he ran on. It was just neat stuff to say. And, when he was reelected? All the promises were forgotten–by both the voters and the press.
I even asked liberal friends why they were voting for him when he was backing away from the liberal agenda. They, of course, didn’t answer and Bill, as I said, abandoned all the small-government rhetoric he’d gulled the swing voters with. I knew he’d do so. I imagine even his supporters knew his speeches were bullshit–lies–but they didn’t care.
However, if you really want to know where a candidate stands, and assuming he was previously in an elective office, look at his voting record in whatever legislative bodies he may have been in, look at his track record if he was a governor. What they’ve done in the past, they’re very likely to do in the future.
Only one of the candidates says what he means and means what he says, and that’s Ron Paul. His voting record in Congress is a reflection of his campaign speeches and what he says in the so-called “debates.” But I don’t listen to him, either, because I already know what he’ll do if elected. He’s not going to say anything in his speeches or the debates that he hasn’t said and done before. He’s the only one there I trust. He’s the only one up there not trying to snow you.
I’ll vote for him even if he doesn’t run.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Monday, January 7, 2008
Thinking For Yourself Is Now A Crime
Monday, January 07, 2008
by: Paul Craig Roberts
What was the greatest failure of 2007? President Bush's "surge" in Iraq? The decline in the value of the US dollar? Subprime mortgages? No. The greatest failure of 2007 was the newly sworn in Democratic Congress.
The American people's attempt in November 2006 to rein in a rogue government, which has committed the US to costly military adventures while running roughshod over the US Constitution, failed. Replacing Republicans with Democrats in the House and Senate has made no difference.
The assault on the US Constitution by the Democratic Party is as determined as the assault by the Republicans. On October 23, 2007, the House passed a bill sponsored by California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman, chairwoman of a Homeland Security subcommittee, that overturns the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free expression, association, and assembly.
The bill passed the House on a vote of 404-6. In the Senate the bill is sponsored by Maine Republican Susan Collins and apparently faces no meaningful opposition.
Harman's bill is called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. When HR 1955 becomes law, it will create a commission tasked with identifying extremist people, groups, and ideas. The commission will hold hearings around the country, taking testimony and compiling a list of dangerous people and beliefs. The bill will, in short, create massive terrorism in the United States. But the perpetrators of terrorism will not be Muslim terrorists; they will be government agents and fellow citizens.
We are beginning to see who will be the inmates of the detention centers being built in the US by Halliburton under government contract.
Who will be on the "extremist beliefs" list? The answer is: civil libertarians, critics of Israel, 9/11 skeptics, critics of the administration's wars and foreign policies, critics of the administration's use of kidnapping, rendition, torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions, and critics of the administration's spying on Americans. Anyone in the way of a powerful interest group--such as environmentalists opposing politically connected developers--is also a candidate for the list.
The "Extremist Beliefs Commission" is the mechanism for identifying Americans who pose "a threat to domestic security" and a threat of "homegrown terrorism" that "cannot be easily prevented through traditional federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts."
This bill is a boon for nasty people. That SOB who stole your girlfriend, that hussy who stole your boyfriend, the gun owner next door--just report them to Homeland Security as holders of extreme beliefs. Homeland Security needs suspects, so they are not going to check. Under the new regime, accusation is evidence. Moreover, "our" elected representatives will never admit that they voted for a bill and created an "Extremist Belief Commission" for which there is neither need nor constitutional basis.
That boss who harasses you for coming late to work--he's a good candidate to be reported; so is that minority employee that you can't fire for any normal reason. So is the husband of that good-looking woman you have been unable to seduce. Every kind of quarrel and jealousy can now be settled with a phone call to Homeland Security.
Soon Halliburton will be building more detention centers.
Americans are so far removed from the roots of their liberty that they just don't get it. Most Americans don't know what habeas corpus is or why it is important to them. But they know what they want, and Jane Harman has given them a new way to settle scores and to advance their own interests.
Even educated liberals believe that the US Constitution is a "living document" that can be changed to mean whatever it needs to mean in order to accommodate some new important cause, such as abortion and legal privileges for minorities and the handicapped. Today it is the "war on terror" that the Constitution must accommodate. Tomorrow it can be the war on whomever or whatever.
Think about it. More than six years ago the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked. The US government blamed it on al Qaeda. The 9/11 Commission Report has been subjected to criticism by a large number of qualified people--including the commission's chairman and co-chairman.
Since 9/11 there have been no terrorist attacks in the US. The FBI has tried to orchestrate a few, but the "terrorist plots" never got beyond talk organized and led by FBI agents. There are no visible extremist groups other than the neoconservatives that control the government in Washington. But somehow the House of Representatives overwhelmingly sees a need to create a commission to take testimony and search out extremist views (outside of Washington, of course).
This search for extremist views comes after President Bush and the Justice (sic) Department declared that the President can ignore habeas corpus, ignore the Geneva Conventions, seize people without evidence, hold them indefinitely without presenting charges, torture them until they confess to some made up crime, and take over the government by declaring an emergency. Of course, none of these "patriotic" views are extremist.
The search for extremist views follows also the granting of contracts to Halliburton to build detention centers in the US. No member of Congress or the executive branch ever explained the need for the detention centers or who the detainees would be. Of course, there is nothing extremist about building detention centers in the US for undisclosed inmates.
Clearly the detention centers are not meant to just stand there empty. Thanks to 2007's greatest failure--the Democratic Congress--there is to be an "Extremist Beliefs Commission" to secure inmates for Bush's detention centers.
President Bush promises us that the wars he has launched will cause the "untamed fire of freedom" to "reach the darkest corners of our world." Meanwhile in America the fire of freedom has not only been tamed but also is being extinguished.
The light of liberty has gone out in the United States.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076152553X/counterpunchmaga
The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
by: Paul Craig Roberts
What was the greatest failure of 2007? President Bush's "surge" in Iraq? The decline in the value of the US dollar? Subprime mortgages? No. The greatest failure of 2007 was the newly sworn in Democratic Congress.
The American people's attempt in November 2006 to rein in a rogue government, which has committed the US to costly military adventures while running roughshod over the US Constitution, failed. Replacing Republicans with Democrats in the House and Senate has made no difference.
The assault on the US Constitution by the Democratic Party is as determined as the assault by the Republicans. On October 23, 2007, the House passed a bill sponsored by California Democratic congresswoman Jane Harman, chairwoman of a Homeland Security subcommittee, that overturns the constitutionally guaranteed rights to free expression, association, and assembly.
The bill passed the House on a vote of 404-6. In the Senate the bill is sponsored by Maine Republican Susan Collins and apparently faces no meaningful opposition.
Harman's bill is called the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act. When HR 1955 becomes law, it will create a commission tasked with identifying extremist people, groups, and ideas. The commission will hold hearings around the country, taking testimony and compiling a list of dangerous people and beliefs. The bill will, in short, create massive terrorism in the United States. But the perpetrators of terrorism will not be Muslim terrorists; they will be government agents and fellow citizens.
We are beginning to see who will be the inmates of the detention centers being built in the US by Halliburton under government contract.
Who will be on the "extremist beliefs" list? The answer is: civil libertarians, critics of Israel, 9/11 skeptics, critics of the administration's wars and foreign policies, critics of the administration's use of kidnapping, rendition, torture and violation of the Geneva Conventions, and critics of the administration's spying on Americans. Anyone in the way of a powerful interest group--such as environmentalists opposing politically connected developers--is also a candidate for the list.
The "Extremist Beliefs Commission" is the mechanism for identifying Americans who pose "a threat to domestic security" and a threat of "homegrown terrorism" that "cannot be easily prevented through traditional federal intelligence or law enforcement efforts."
This bill is a boon for nasty people. That SOB who stole your girlfriend, that hussy who stole your boyfriend, the gun owner next door--just report them to Homeland Security as holders of extreme beliefs. Homeland Security needs suspects, so they are not going to check. Under the new regime, accusation is evidence. Moreover, "our" elected representatives will never admit that they voted for a bill and created an "Extremist Belief Commission" for which there is neither need nor constitutional basis.
That boss who harasses you for coming late to work--he's a good candidate to be reported; so is that minority employee that you can't fire for any normal reason. So is the husband of that good-looking woman you have been unable to seduce. Every kind of quarrel and jealousy can now be settled with a phone call to Homeland Security.
Soon Halliburton will be building more detention centers.
Americans are so far removed from the roots of their liberty that they just don't get it. Most Americans don't know what habeas corpus is or why it is important to them. But they know what they want, and Jane Harman has given them a new way to settle scores and to advance their own interests.
Even educated liberals believe that the US Constitution is a "living document" that can be changed to mean whatever it needs to mean in order to accommodate some new important cause, such as abortion and legal privileges for minorities and the handicapped. Today it is the "war on terror" that the Constitution must accommodate. Tomorrow it can be the war on whomever or whatever.
Think about it. More than six years ago the World Trade Center and Pentagon were attacked. The US government blamed it on al Qaeda. The 9/11 Commission Report has been subjected to criticism by a large number of qualified people--including the commission's chairman and co-chairman.
Since 9/11 there have been no terrorist attacks in the US. The FBI has tried to orchestrate a few, but the "terrorist plots" never got beyond talk organized and led by FBI agents. There are no visible extremist groups other than the neoconservatives that control the government in Washington. But somehow the House of Representatives overwhelmingly sees a need to create a commission to take testimony and search out extremist views (outside of Washington, of course).
This search for extremist views comes after President Bush and the Justice (sic) Department declared that the President can ignore habeas corpus, ignore the Geneva Conventions, seize people without evidence, hold them indefinitely without presenting charges, torture them until they confess to some made up crime, and take over the government by declaring an emergency. Of course, none of these "patriotic" views are extremist.
The search for extremist views follows also the granting of contracts to Halliburton to build detention centers in the US. No member of Congress or the executive branch ever explained the need for the detention centers or who the detainees would be. Of course, there is nothing extremist about building detention centers in the US for undisclosed inmates.
Clearly the detention centers are not meant to just stand there empty. Thanks to 2007's greatest failure--the Democratic Congress--there is to be an "Extremist Beliefs Commission" to secure inmates for Bush's detention centers.
President Bush promises us that the wars he has launched will cause the "untamed fire of freedom" to "reach the darkest corners of our world." Meanwhile in America the fire of freedom has not only been tamed but also is being extinguished.
The light of liberty has gone out in the United States.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/076152553X/counterpunchmaga
The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Liberals and others
The big government vs big business paradigm diverts attention from the international bankers who run both. It places the blame on capitalism and the U.S., which has been under internation banking cartel control for at least a century. It teaches each new generation to be alienated from their country, culture and economic system, and to become dysfunctional and impotent.
The bankers love socialism and Big Government. They have a monopoly of money and need a monopoly of power (i.e. government.) Together, these international banker monopolies are the essence of liberals, socialists etc. and are using elected officials, who they control, to bribe the people with social services and jobs which create debt and higher profits for bankers.
Modern world history is nothing but the process by which this satanic force is replacing Western Civilization with an occult world police state managed by taser and television. The whole world is being colonized by this imperialist financial power, which is behind all left, liberal, Communist and revolutionary movements. What they call "progressive" is progress only in their occult terms.
Socialist Presidential candidate Norman Thomas said, "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
The world is in the advanced stages of a diabolical multi generational conspiracy. Our educators, elected politicians, mainstream media, plus cable news have largely been subverted.
The ruling classes have been hoodwinked to believe they are building a Brave New World. In fact they are accomplices in the mental, spiritual and possibly physical enslavement of humanity.
Thus, a person such as Ron Paul and anyone like him who favors individual freedom along with self-reliance, family, nation, and smaller government, God and believes in following the Constitution are labeled “Rightwing Crackpots”. These are the people and things that internationalisms are out to destroy.
I favor individual freedom, self-reliance, family, freedom from government interference. I also believe in free expression, if this makes me a rightwing crackpot, so be it. I believe in the power the three boxes, the soapbox, the ballot box and the ammunition box. I will be voting for Ron Paul in the coming primary and general elections.
The bankers love socialism and Big Government. They have a monopoly of money and need a monopoly of power (i.e. government.) Together, these international banker monopolies are the essence of liberals, socialists etc. and are using elected officials, who they control, to bribe the people with social services and jobs which create debt and higher profits for bankers.
Modern world history is nothing but the process by which this satanic force is replacing Western Civilization with an occult world police state managed by taser and television. The whole world is being colonized by this imperialist financial power, which is behind all left, liberal, Communist and revolutionary movements. What they call "progressive" is progress only in their occult terms.
Socialist Presidential candidate Norman Thomas said, "The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."
The world is in the advanced stages of a diabolical multi generational conspiracy. Our educators, elected politicians, mainstream media, plus cable news have largely been subverted.
The ruling classes have been hoodwinked to believe they are building a Brave New World. In fact they are accomplices in the mental, spiritual and possibly physical enslavement of humanity.
Thus, a person such as Ron Paul and anyone like him who favors individual freedom along with self-reliance, family, nation, and smaller government, God and believes in following the Constitution are labeled “Rightwing Crackpots”. These are the people and things that internationalisms are out to destroy.
I favor individual freedom, self-reliance, family, freedom from government interference. I also believe in free expression, if this makes me a rightwing crackpot, so be it. I believe in the power the three boxes, the soapbox, the ballot box and the ammunition box. I will be voting for Ron Paul in the coming primary and general elections.
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