- Feb 26, 2001
- 13,593
- 164
- 63
This is Why I Am Not Voting for Obama....
- Thread starter AR182
- Start date
- Feb 26, 2001
- 13,593
- 164
- 63
Famed actor and comedian Bill Cosby on Thursday said people who are critical of President Obama are "acting like they have no idea what he inherited" at the White House.
Cosby compared the first four years of Obama's presidency to the Greek myth of Sisyphus, the king condemned to an eternity of rolling a rock up a hill only to have it fall back down to the bottom.
"I see Obama as Sisyphus in the first four years. And nobody would speak about the size of the rock, or the elevation of the hill. All you hear people talk about is what he didn?t do," said Cosby on MSNBC's online show "Press Pass" with David Gregory.
.........................................................................
not to go and blame Bush and President Cheney again, but they planned the countrys downfall.
they were so sure that Obama would get stomped from what they did, they are still laughing.
but something happened. He didnt get stomped.
He came back. He made decisions that had to be made to avoid a certain depression for America.
PS - I find it very revealing that AR did not answer my question on Israel and Obama.
speaks for itself.
Cosby compared the first four years of Obama's presidency to the Greek myth of Sisyphus, the king condemned to an eternity of rolling a rock up a hill only to have it fall back down to the bottom.
"I see Obama as Sisyphus in the first four years. And nobody would speak about the size of the rock, or the elevation of the hill. All you hear people talk about is what he didn?t do," said Cosby on MSNBC's online show "Press Pass" with David Gregory.
.........................................................................
not to go and blame Bush and President Cheney again, but they planned the countrys downfall.
they were so sure that Obama would get stomped from what they did, they are still laughing.
but something happened. He didnt get stomped.
He came back. He made decisions that had to be made to avoid a certain depression for America.
PS - I find it very revealing that AR did not answer my question on Israel and Obama.
speaks for itself.
There you go again Scooter, Pelosi and Ried held the House and Senate when Bush was President, 2007 and 2008, Obama had the House and the Senate in 2009 and 2010, Harry Ried and the Democrats still hold the senate in 2011 and 2012.
The Democrats have had contol of the Economic Collapse, that's a FACT.
:nono:
The Democrats have had contol of the Economic Collapse, that's a FACT.
:nono:
If you go to a Black Tie with a hot blonde event and step in a pile of shit, no one will remember the blonde, they will remember the stink you left in the room.
Ahhh, the caveat is you stepped in a pile of shit, a pile left by someone else ! Because why would one step in their own shit? It, shit that is happens. Sometimes in the field, trying to drop a deuce after eating MRE's for a week and not squeezing one off, you might get some on ya. But you don't intentionally poop on yourself. Not even at band camp.
There are land mines left by Gee Wiz and Dr Evil, who were handed a basket of shit from BJC, and the flaming turd has been passed along from the lineage of Corporate Whore POTUS'
There are just too many lies and deception, based on his campaign promises that really stinks up the Peoples House.
It is coming, you can deny it, you can laugh at it, turn away from it. Do whatever you want about it.
But it is coming,
You know what it is, and when it is at your front door, it is too late to react.
An ICON FOR PROGRESSIVES !
FDR
Executive Order 9066: The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation
In an atmosphere of World War II hysteria, President Roosevelt, encouraged by officials at all levels of the federal government, authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan. Roosevelt?s Executive Order 9066, dated February 19, 1942, gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a fifty- to sixty-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. The order also authorized transporting these citizens to assembly centers hastily set up and governed by the military in California, Arizona, Washington state, and Oregon. Although it is not well known, the same executive order (and other war-time orders and restrictions) were also applied to smaller numbers of residents of the United States who were of Italian or German descent. For example, 3,200 resident aliens of Italian background were arrested and more than 300 of them were interned. About 11,000 German residents?including some naturalized citizens?were arrested and more than 5000 were interned. Yet while these individuals (and others from those groups) suffered grievous violations of their civil liberties, the war-time measures applied to Japanese Americans were worse and more sweeping, uprooting entire communities and targeting citizens as well as resident aliens.
The Censored History of Internment
by Joseph E. Fallon
In March 1997, Japanese-Peruvians who had been interned in the United States during World War II called upon President Clinton to issue an executive order awarding them financial compensation similar to that awarded in 1988 to Japanese-American former internees and relocatees under Public Law 100-383. Simultaneously, these Japanese-Peruvians lobbied members of Congress to enact legislation which would award them this money should the President reject their claims. As in 1988, the facts about internment and those who were interned is being censored so that individuals of Japanese ancestry alone might receive $20,000 per person.
The politically correct revisionists confound internment and relocation in order to misrepresent the actual numbers. Internment, which is based on the Enemy Alien Act of 1798 and is recognized by international law, commenced on December 7, 1941, and was applied only to enemy aliens?i.e., nationals of those countries with which the United States was at war. Since internees were almost always men, many of whom were the sole financial support of their families, family members, even if American citizens, were permitted voluntarily to join husbands or fathers in internment. But once inside the camps, they could not leave.
According to a 1948 government report on wartime internment, 56 percent of all non-renunciant internees (14,426 of 25,655) were Europeans and European-Americans?Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, even some Czechs and Poles. The total number of Japanese and Japanese-Americans interned was 16,849?not 120,000 as historical revisionists claim. Of that 16,849, however, nearly one-third?5,620?were renunciants. That is, after Pearl Harbor, 5,620 United States citizens of Japanese ancestry renounced their American citizenship so that they could be repatriated to Japan.
An additional 20,000 Japanese-Americans in Japan at the start of the war joined the Japanese war effort, and hundreds even joined the Japanese army. The most infamous case was that of Tomoya Kawakita, an American citizen who worked as an interpreter and a POW guard for the Japanese army, and actively participated in the torture (and at least one death) of American soldiers, including survivors of the Bataan Death March.
Bowing to pressure from Japanese-Americans, Congress, on July 1, 1944, enacted Public Law 405, which allowed citizens to renounce their citizenship in time of war. There were no renunciants among German-Americans, Italian-Americans, or any other Americans of European ancestry.
In addition, many Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans with dual nationality living in the United States refused to take a loyalty oath or to promise to abide by this nation's laws. With the exception of a reference to the Japanese emperor, this loyalty oath was the same as that required of all United States draftees and all persons working in United States war industries. There was no similar refusal to take a loyalty oath or to promise to abide by American laws among Germans, Italians, or other Europeans.
Relocation from the West Coast was based on Executive Order 9066, issued by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942?more than two months after internment had been implemented. This order affected California, portions of Washington and Oregon, and the southern third of Arizona. Contrary to revisionist misrepresentations, it did not call for the "internment" of Japanese in "concentration camps." Executive Order 9066 clearly stated that "any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any persons to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion."
Germans and Italians were also excluded from the West Coast. Of the 112,000 residents of Japanese ancestry who were excluded, nearly 40 percent were enemy aliens who by law should have been interned. Those excluded were encouraged by the United States government to resettle in the eastern halves of Washington and Oregon (areas not affected by Executive Order 9066) or in any of the other 44 states. The government established relocation centers as a temporary (and voluntary) alternative to resettlement. But such housing was only for residents of Japanese ancestry. Those of German and Italian ancestry had to fend for themselves. Of the tens of thousands of Japanese who chose to enter relocation centers, 35,000 soon left to resettle in other parts of the country.
These relocation centers had the highest live-birth rate and the lowest death rate in wartime United States. The Japanese in the centers "received free food, lodging, medical and dental care, clothing allowance, education, hospital care, and all basic necessities. . . . The government even paid travel expenses and assisted in cases of emergency relief."
A National Student Council Relocation Program was also instituted by the government, and like the relocation centers, it discriminated against those of German and Italian ancestry. Under this program, 4,300 students of Japanese ancestry received scholarships to attend more than 500 colleges and universities located outside of the exclusionary zone.
Seeking to have Executive Order 9066 declared unconstitutional, the Japanese American Citizens League and the American Civil Liberties Union filed three test cases with the Supreme Court: Korematsu v. United States, Hirabayashi v. United States, and Yasui v. United States. But in its October 1944 term, the Supreme Court, led by Justices William O. Douglas and Felix Frankfurter (its two most liberal members at that time), upheld the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066. The Court ruled that the exclusion of residents of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast was deemed necessary because "there were disloyal members of that population whose number and strength could not be precisely and quickly ascertained." There was also a justifiable fear that Japan would invade the West Coast. The Court further ruled that no Japanese was being compelled "either in fact or by law" to go to a relocation center. The Court also reprimanded the Japanese American Citizens League and the American Civil Liberties Union: "We deem it unjustifiable to call them [relocation centers] concentration camps with all the ugly connotations that term implies."
When the War Department announced on December 18, 1944, that all relocation centers would be closed by the end of 1945, the same Japanese American Citizens League, which only two months earlier had argued that the relocation centers were "concentration camps," implored the government to keep the centers open.
On July 2, 1948, Congress acted improperly, if not unconstitutionally, by enacting Public Law 886, which provided financial compensation for wartime relocation to those of Japanese ancestry. Although PL 886 stipulated that all claims not presented within 18 months "shall be forever barred," Congress enacted additional laws granting further financial compensation to former internees and relocatees of Japanese ancestry in 1951, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1972, 1978, 1988, and 1992.
In 1988, Public Law 100-383 granted $20,000 per person to all surviving Japanese and Japanese-American former internees and relocatees at the recommendation of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. The Commission was established in 1980 to "review the facts and circumstances surrounding Executive Order Numbered 9066, Issued February 19, 1942, and the impact of such Executive Order on American citizens and permanent resident aliens . . . and review directives of United States military forces requiring the relocation and, in some cases, detention in internment camps of American citizens, including Aleut civilians, and permanent resident aliens of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands." But the Commission illegally altered the scope of its own investigation, limiting it to "American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident Japanese aliens, as well as the people of the Aleutian Islands."
The unprofessional conduct of the Commission was scandalous. In existence for over two years, it held only 20 days of public hearings. Two of the nine commissioners were former relocatees with a vested financial interest in the commission's decision. Forty percent of the staff had Japanese surnames and stood to benefit financially if the Commission recommended compensation. At the start of its hearings, the Commission publicly expressed the opinion that only the Japanese had been victimized by the policy of internment and relocation. The Commission did not hear any testimony from former internees of European ancestry, and the Japanese-Americans who testified were never placed under oath.
While praising Commander Kenneth Ringle as "the most capable intelligence officer we had," the Commission omitted from its report, Personal Justice Denied, his estimate that 25 percent of all Americans of Japanese ancestry were of doubtful loyalty and that 3,500 Japanese-Americans could be expected to engage in espionage and sabotage against the United States. The testimony of Edward Ennis, Director of the Alien Control Unit of the U.S. Department of Justice in the Roosevelt Administration, and James Rowe, Roosevelt's Assistant Attorney General, that the Japanese were treated exactly the same as Germans and Italians and were not arrested in mass nor denied the right of appeal before hearing boards was also omitted from the Commission's report.
In testimony before Congress in 1984, Dr. David Trask, chief historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, dismissed Personal Justice Denied. "I am simply unable to certify this brief as a credible piece of history. It simply doesn't measure up to professional standards." Congress, nevertheless, enacted legislation granting financial compensation based solely on the Commission's flawed recommendations in Personal Justice Denied.
In 1992, the damage was compounded by the enactment of Public Law 102-371. Under this new law, European-American spouses of Japanese internees who voluntarily joined their husbands in internment are eligible for financial compensation of $20,000. But European-American spouses of European internees who voluntarily joined their husbands in internment are not.
Ironically, the demand for compensation for Japanese-Peruvians interned in the United States during World War II may yet unmask the historical fraud that only the Japanese were victims of internment. For during World War II, the Roosevelt administration "requested" 18 Latin American governments to arrest Germans and Italians (as well as Japanese) living in their countries and to ship them to the United States for internment.
The number of Latin Americans of German descent interned in the United States may have been as high as 5,000, including some Jewish Germans. These Jewish Germans included citizens and legal residents of Latin American countries, and possibly some refugees from Hitler. Official documents reveal that the United States government knew it was interning Jewish German Latin Americans.
From 1942 to 1945, the United States government shipped interned Germans to the Nazis in return for American and Latin American civilians who had been interned by the Nazis at the start of the war. The apparent reason for interning German Latin Americans in the United States was so Washington could have more bodies for these "exchanges." The available evidence strongly suggests that the United States government knowingly shipped Jewish German Latin Americans to the Nazis as part of this program. If so, a congressional investigation should be conducted to uncover the truth about Jewish German Latin American internees. Should such an investigation occur, the American public might also learn?at long last?the truth about internment, relocation, compensation, and the Japanese.
Joseph E. Fallon writes from Rye, New York.
This article first appeared in the February 1998 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, the monthly magazine of The Rockford Institute (928 North Main Street, Rockford, IL 61103). Reprinted with permission.
Ahhh, the caveat is you stepped in a pile of shit, a pile left by someone else ! Because why would one step in their own shit? It, shit that is happens. Sometimes in the field, trying to drop a deuce after eating MRE's for a week and not squeezing one off, you might get some on ya. But you don't intentionally poop on yourself. Not even at band camp.
There are land mines left by Gee Wiz and Dr Evil, who were handed a basket of shit from BJC, and the flaming turd has been passed along from the lineage of Corporate Whore POTUS'
There are just too many lies and deception, based on his campaign promises that really stinks up the Peoples House.
It is coming, you can deny it, you can laugh at it, turn away from it. Do whatever you want about it.
But it is coming,
You know what it is, and when it is at your front door, it is too late to react.
An ICON FOR PROGRESSIVES !
FDR
Executive Order 9066: The President Authorizes Japanese Relocation
In an atmosphere of World War II hysteria, President Roosevelt, encouraged by officials at all levels of the federal government, authorized the internment of tens of thousands of American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident aliens from Japan. Roosevelt?s Executive Order 9066, dated February 19, 1942, gave the military broad powers to ban any citizen from a fifty- to sixty-mile-wide coastal area stretching from Washington state to California and extending inland into southern Arizona. The order also authorized transporting these citizens to assembly centers hastily set up and governed by the military in California, Arizona, Washington state, and Oregon. Although it is not well known, the same executive order (and other war-time orders and restrictions) were also applied to smaller numbers of residents of the United States who were of Italian or German descent. For example, 3,200 resident aliens of Italian background were arrested and more than 300 of them were interned. About 11,000 German residents?including some naturalized citizens?were arrested and more than 5000 were interned. Yet while these individuals (and others from those groups) suffered grievous violations of their civil liberties, the war-time measures applied to Japanese Americans were worse and more sweeping, uprooting entire communities and targeting citizens as well as resident aliens.
The Censored History of Internment
by Joseph E. Fallon
In March 1997, Japanese-Peruvians who had been interned in the United States during World War II called upon President Clinton to issue an executive order awarding them financial compensation similar to that awarded in 1988 to Japanese-American former internees and relocatees under Public Law 100-383. Simultaneously, these Japanese-Peruvians lobbied members of Congress to enact legislation which would award them this money should the President reject their claims. As in 1988, the facts about internment and those who were interned is being censored so that individuals of Japanese ancestry alone might receive $20,000 per person.
The politically correct revisionists confound internment and relocation in order to misrepresent the actual numbers. Internment, which is based on the Enemy Alien Act of 1798 and is recognized by international law, commenced on December 7, 1941, and was applied only to enemy aliens?i.e., nationals of those countries with which the United States was at war. Since internees were almost always men, many of whom were the sole financial support of their families, family members, even if American citizens, were permitted voluntarily to join husbands or fathers in internment. But once inside the camps, they could not leave.
According to a 1948 government report on wartime internment, 56 percent of all non-renunciant internees (14,426 of 25,655) were Europeans and European-Americans?Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Rumanians, Bulgarians, even some Czechs and Poles. The total number of Japanese and Japanese-Americans interned was 16,849?not 120,000 as historical revisionists claim. Of that 16,849, however, nearly one-third?5,620?were renunciants. That is, after Pearl Harbor, 5,620 United States citizens of Japanese ancestry renounced their American citizenship so that they could be repatriated to Japan.
An additional 20,000 Japanese-Americans in Japan at the start of the war joined the Japanese war effort, and hundreds even joined the Japanese army. The most infamous case was that of Tomoya Kawakita, an American citizen who worked as an interpreter and a POW guard for the Japanese army, and actively participated in the torture (and at least one death) of American soldiers, including survivors of the Bataan Death March.
Bowing to pressure from Japanese-Americans, Congress, on July 1, 1944, enacted Public Law 405, which allowed citizens to renounce their citizenship in time of war. There were no renunciants among German-Americans, Italian-Americans, or any other Americans of European ancestry.
In addition, many Japanese nationals and Japanese-Americans with dual nationality living in the United States refused to take a loyalty oath or to promise to abide by this nation's laws. With the exception of a reference to the Japanese emperor, this loyalty oath was the same as that required of all United States draftees and all persons working in United States war industries. There was no similar refusal to take a loyalty oath or to promise to abide by American laws among Germans, Italians, or other Europeans.
Relocation from the West Coast was based on Executive Order 9066, issued by President Roosevelt on February 19, 1942?more than two months after internment had been implemented. This order affected California, portions of Washington and Oregon, and the southern third of Arizona. Contrary to revisionist misrepresentations, it did not call for the "internment" of Japanese in "concentration camps." Executive Order 9066 clearly stated that "any or all persons may be excluded, and with respect to which, the right of any persons to enter, remain in, or leave shall be subject to whatever restrictions the Secretary of War or the appropriate Military Commander may impose in his discretion."
Germans and Italians were also excluded from the West Coast. Of the 112,000 residents of Japanese ancestry who were excluded, nearly 40 percent were enemy aliens who by law should have been interned. Those excluded were encouraged by the United States government to resettle in the eastern halves of Washington and Oregon (areas not affected by Executive Order 9066) or in any of the other 44 states. The government established relocation centers as a temporary (and voluntary) alternative to resettlement. But such housing was only for residents of Japanese ancestry. Those of German and Italian ancestry had to fend for themselves. Of the tens of thousands of Japanese who chose to enter relocation centers, 35,000 soon left to resettle in other parts of the country.
These relocation centers had the highest live-birth rate and the lowest death rate in wartime United States. The Japanese in the centers "received free food, lodging, medical and dental care, clothing allowance, education, hospital care, and all basic necessities. . . . The government even paid travel expenses and assisted in cases of emergency relief."
A National Student Council Relocation Program was also instituted by the government, and like the relocation centers, it discriminated against those of German and Italian ancestry. Under this program, 4,300 students of Japanese ancestry received scholarships to attend more than 500 colleges and universities located outside of the exclusionary zone.
Seeking to have Executive Order 9066 declared unconstitutional, the Japanese American Citizens League and the American Civil Liberties Union filed three test cases with the Supreme Court: Korematsu v. United States, Hirabayashi v. United States, and Yasui v. United States. But in its October 1944 term, the Supreme Court, led by Justices William O. Douglas and Felix Frankfurter (its two most liberal members at that time), upheld the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066. The Court ruled that the exclusion of residents of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast was deemed necessary because "there were disloyal members of that population whose number and strength could not be precisely and quickly ascertained." There was also a justifiable fear that Japan would invade the West Coast. The Court further ruled that no Japanese was being compelled "either in fact or by law" to go to a relocation center. The Court also reprimanded the Japanese American Citizens League and the American Civil Liberties Union: "We deem it unjustifiable to call them [relocation centers] concentration camps with all the ugly connotations that term implies."
When the War Department announced on December 18, 1944, that all relocation centers would be closed by the end of 1945, the same Japanese American Citizens League, which only two months earlier had argued that the relocation centers were "concentration camps," implored the government to keep the centers open.
On July 2, 1948, Congress acted improperly, if not unconstitutionally, by enacting Public Law 886, which provided financial compensation for wartime relocation to those of Japanese ancestry. Although PL 886 stipulated that all claims not presented within 18 months "shall be forever barred," Congress enacted additional laws granting further financial compensation to former internees and relocatees of Japanese ancestry in 1951, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1972, 1978, 1988, and 1992.
In 1988, Public Law 100-383 granted $20,000 per person to all surviving Japanese and Japanese-American former internees and relocatees at the recommendation of the Commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians. The Commission was established in 1980 to "review the facts and circumstances surrounding Executive Order Numbered 9066, Issued February 19, 1942, and the impact of such Executive Order on American citizens and permanent resident aliens . . . and review directives of United States military forces requiring the relocation and, in some cases, detention in internment camps of American citizens, including Aleut civilians, and permanent resident aliens of the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands." But the Commission illegally altered the scope of its own investigation, limiting it to "American citizens of Japanese ancestry and resident Japanese aliens, as well as the people of the Aleutian Islands."
The unprofessional conduct of the Commission was scandalous. In existence for over two years, it held only 20 days of public hearings. Two of the nine commissioners were former relocatees with a vested financial interest in the commission's decision. Forty percent of the staff had Japanese surnames and stood to benefit financially if the Commission recommended compensation. At the start of its hearings, the Commission publicly expressed the opinion that only the Japanese had been victimized by the policy of internment and relocation. The Commission did not hear any testimony from former internees of European ancestry, and the Japanese-Americans who testified were never placed under oath.
While praising Commander Kenneth Ringle as "the most capable intelligence officer we had," the Commission omitted from its report, Personal Justice Denied, his estimate that 25 percent of all Americans of Japanese ancestry were of doubtful loyalty and that 3,500 Japanese-Americans could be expected to engage in espionage and sabotage against the United States. The testimony of Edward Ennis, Director of the Alien Control Unit of the U.S. Department of Justice in the Roosevelt Administration, and James Rowe, Roosevelt's Assistant Attorney General, that the Japanese were treated exactly the same as Germans and Italians and were not arrested in mass nor denied the right of appeal before hearing boards was also omitted from the Commission's report.
In testimony before Congress in 1984, Dr. David Trask, chief historian at the U.S. Army Center of Military History, dismissed Personal Justice Denied. "I am simply unable to certify this brief as a credible piece of history. It simply doesn't measure up to professional standards." Congress, nevertheless, enacted legislation granting financial compensation based solely on the Commission's flawed recommendations in Personal Justice Denied.
In 1992, the damage was compounded by the enactment of Public Law 102-371. Under this new law, European-American spouses of Japanese internees who voluntarily joined their husbands in internment are eligible for financial compensation of $20,000. But European-American spouses of European internees who voluntarily joined their husbands in internment are not.
Ironically, the demand for compensation for Japanese-Peruvians interned in the United States during World War II may yet unmask the historical fraud that only the Japanese were victims of internment. For during World War II, the Roosevelt administration "requested" 18 Latin American governments to arrest Germans and Italians (as well as Japanese) living in their countries and to ship them to the United States for internment.
The number of Latin Americans of German descent interned in the United States may have been as high as 5,000, including some Jewish Germans. These Jewish Germans included citizens and legal residents of Latin American countries, and possibly some refugees from Hitler. Official documents reveal that the United States government knew it was interning Jewish German Latin Americans.
From 1942 to 1945, the United States government shipped interned Germans to the Nazis in return for American and Latin American civilians who had been interned by the Nazis at the start of the war. The apparent reason for interning German Latin Americans in the United States was so Washington could have more bodies for these "exchanges." The available evidence strongly suggests that the United States government knowingly shipped Jewish German Latin Americans to the Nazis as part of this program. If so, a congressional investigation should be conducted to uncover the truth about Jewish German Latin American internees. Should such an investigation occur, the American public might also learn?at long last?the truth about internment, relocation, compensation, and the Japanese.
Joseph E. Fallon writes from Rye, New York.
This article first appeared in the February 1998 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, the monthly magazine of The Rockford Institute (928 North Main Street, Rockford, IL 61103). Reprinted with permission.
Let's not forget Woody Wilson !
How Woodrow Wilson Changed America
If you want to restore constitutionally limited government, then you must confront Woodrow Wilson, the Progressive theory of human nature and institutions, and the Progressive critique of the principles of the American Founding and our Constitution.
Woodrow Wilson is credited with creating the idea of a "living" or "evolving" Constitution. He saw the natural rights principles of the Constitution as obstacles to political "progress." Wilson was the first president to openly criticize the Constitution, comparing natural rights to "political witchcraft."
According to progressives, you see, America didn't need a Constitution. It simply needed an administrative state whose purpose was the unending quest for evolutionary "progress."
Thanks to Wilson, advocates of big government believe the principles of the Founding are irrelevant, therefore the Constitution can mean whatever the administration declares. It's always a double-edged sword.
Wilson?s Raiders
Same as it ever was ... nothing ever changes.
Propaganda in America
If you want to understand what's going on now, get to know Woodrow Wilson.
How Woodrow Wilson Changed America
If you want to restore constitutionally limited government, then you must confront Woodrow Wilson, the Progressive theory of human nature and institutions, and the Progressive critique of the principles of the American Founding and our Constitution.
Woodrow Wilson is credited with creating the idea of a "living" or "evolving" Constitution. He saw the natural rights principles of the Constitution as obstacles to political "progress." Wilson was the first president to openly criticize the Constitution, comparing natural rights to "political witchcraft."
According to progressives, you see, America didn't need a Constitution. It simply needed an administrative state whose purpose was the unending quest for evolutionary "progress."
Thanks to Wilson, advocates of big government believe the principles of the Founding are irrelevant, therefore the Constitution can mean whatever the administration declares. It's always a double-edged sword.
Wilson?s Raiders
America?s entry into World War I was marked by a system of repression of dissent and civil liberties unprecedented our history. The repression ranged from the jailing of thousands of critics of the war, most notably Socialist leader Eugene Debs, to banning the playing of Beethoven (a Hun), changing the name of sauerkraut to Liberty cabbage, and seeking to prohibit the teaching of the German language in the public schools ("Speech of Hated Hun Forbidden," was how the press saw one such triumph). Leading the nationwide assault was the federal government; the executive branch also orchestrated councils and organizations on the state and local level, and gave official sanction to vigilante activities of superpatriots engaging in surveillance of their neighbors.
The parlous state of individual freedoms in the United States was sketched by H. L. Mencken in the early 1920s, when he satirically suggested what was "wrong" with civil libertarians from the viewpoint of the average American. The problem was that they were too dogmatic, too doctrinaire in the espousal of the Bill of Rights, a bunch of troublemakers and semi-anarchistic johnny-one-notes constantly bemoaning the alleged threats to liberty in this freest land on earth ...
Establishment historians have long been rather embarrassed by this veritable reign of terror during and following World War I. For they have a particular problem: At the top of the pyramid of repression was none other than Woodrow Wilson, one of the great triad of "strong" presidents (the others are Lincoln and FDR) who are supposed to have brought America to its present pinnacle of preeminence. As Mencken put it, their attitude has been that Woodrow Wilson was the natural candidate "for the first vacancy in the Trinity."
But the major problem with Murphy?s book is his fundamental confusion about the nature of the Progressive movement that underlay the war effort and the war mobilization. Murphy seems torn between the older myths and the more recent insights about the Progressives, as witness his belief that this fundamentally militaristic and imperialistic movement had been at least half pacifist. And although he acknowledges the vital role of such classical liberals and anti-statists as Roger Baldwin and Oswald Garrison Villard in the battle against war and on behalf of civil liberties, he attacks classical liberal property rights theory as furnishing, in essence, protection to only the civil liberties of the "propertied." What he misses is the fundamental Lockean axiom that every individual, by virtue of being human, has a "self propriety" ? a property right in his own person, including his life and liberty. The argument that there can be no firmer groundwork than this for civil liberties for all, he doesn?t even bother to tackle.
Murphy?s crucial failure is in not understanding that the Progressive movement was a comprehensive drive for statism and big government across the board ? in every area of American life, from the economy to foreign policy to the treatment of dissent, and even to sex and the consumption of alcohol. The movement was a coalition of certain big business groups and new circles of technocratic intellectuals, devoted to a planned and cartelized economy in which they would share the rule. The embracing of the war by John Dewey and countless other Progressive intellectuals was no incomprehensible betrayal of their reform ideals, but rather part and parcel of their vision of a nationalized future. In James Weinstein?s insight, the Progressives saw the war as the "fulfillment" of their cherished goals. And Progressive jurists, as Murphy only partly recognizes, were devoted not to the classical doctrine of property rights, but to governmental intrusion and interference with those rights.
And so Murphy misses the crucial fact that the entire Wilson administration was "progressive," from the President on down. The greatest censors and oppressors during the war were Attorney General Thomas W Gregory and Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, leading Texas progressives. Both were placed in their posts in Washington by the President?s mysterious alter ego, "Colonel" Edward M. House, long the grey eminence of the progressive wing of the Texas Democratic party. And the notorious A. Mitchell Palmer, who became attorney general in 1919, was a leading Pennsylvania progressive. From Murphy?s own account it is also clear that the members of the U.S. Supreme Court, which put its vital imprimatur on the wartime repression, were almost all progressives, including Chief Justice Edward D. White of Louisiana, Joseph McKenna of California, and William R. Day and John H. Clarke of Ohio.
Woodrow Wilson mastered the propaganda machine too.The parlous state of individual freedoms in the United States was sketched by H. L. Mencken in the early 1920s, when he satirically suggested what was "wrong" with civil libertarians from the viewpoint of the average American. The problem was that they were too dogmatic, too doctrinaire in the espousal of the Bill of Rights, a bunch of troublemakers and semi-anarchistic johnny-one-notes constantly bemoaning the alleged threats to liberty in this freest land on earth ...
Establishment historians have long been rather embarrassed by this veritable reign of terror during and following World War I. For they have a particular problem: At the top of the pyramid of repression was none other than Woodrow Wilson, one of the great triad of "strong" presidents (the others are Lincoln and FDR) who are supposed to have brought America to its present pinnacle of preeminence. As Mencken put it, their attitude has been that Woodrow Wilson was the natural candidate "for the first vacancy in the Trinity."
But the major problem with Murphy?s book is his fundamental confusion about the nature of the Progressive movement that underlay the war effort and the war mobilization. Murphy seems torn between the older myths and the more recent insights about the Progressives, as witness his belief that this fundamentally militaristic and imperialistic movement had been at least half pacifist. And although he acknowledges the vital role of such classical liberals and anti-statists as Roger Baldwin and Oswald Garrison Villard in the battle against war and on behalf of civil liberties, he attacks classical liberal property rights theory as furnishing, in essence, protection to only the civil liberties of the "propertied." What he misses is the fundamental Lockean axiom that every individual, by virtue of being human, has a "self propriety" ? a property right in his own person, including his life and liberty. The argument that there can be no firmer groundwork than this for civil liberties for all, he doesn?t even bother to tackle.
Murphy?s crucial failure is in not understanding that the Progressive movement was a comprehensive drive for statism and big government across the board ? in every area of American life, from the economy to foreign policy to the treatment of dissent, and even to sex and the consumption of alcohol. The movement was a coalition of certain big business groups and new circles of technocratic intellectuals, devoted to a planned and cartelized economy in which they would share the rule. The embracing of the war by John Dewey and countless other Progressive intellectuals was no incomprehensible betrayal of their reform ideals, but rather part and parcel of their vision of a nationalized future. In James Weinstein?s insight, the Progressives saw the war as the "fulfillment" of their cherished goals. And Progressive jurists, as Murphy only partly recognizes, were devoted not to the classical doctrine of property rights, but to governmental intrusion and interference with those rights.
And so Murphy misses the crucial fact that the entire Wilson administration was "progressive," from the President on down. The greatest censors and oppressors during the war were Attorney General Thomas W Gregory and Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson, leading Texas progressives. Both were placed in their posts in Washington by the President?s mysterious alter ego, "Colonel" Edward M. House, long the grey eminence of the progressive wing of the Texas Democratic party. And the notorious A. Mitchell Palmer, who became attorney general in 1919, was a leading Pennsylvania progressive. From Murphy?s own account it is also clear that the members of the U.S. Supreme Court, which put its vital imprimatur on the wartime repression, were almost all progressives, including Chief Justice Edward D. White of Louisiana, Joseph McKenna of California, and William R. Day and John H. Clarke of Ohio.
Same as it ever was ... nothing ever changes.
Propaganda in America
World War I: Wilson won reelection on keeping America out of war. A month after he was sworn in, we went to war. So Wilson had to convince and change the minds of people. So he needed propaganda.Look at this historically, then tie it to today:
Woodrow Wilson faced a similar dilemma: He had to change the minds of the people about World War I. He created the Committee on Public Information, using handpicked propaganda gurus George Creel along with Edward Bernays and the now-revered (but spookiest person ever) Walter Lippman.
Bernays was great ? the Nazis' top propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, kept copies of Bernays writings in his own personal library. Creel sought to make "associates" out of the media and went on a mission to get all Americans to conform to the pro-war viewpoint.
Bernays in fact said, "It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind. It was only natural, after the war ended, that intelligent persons should ask themselves whether it was not possible to apply a similar technique to the problems of peace."
Wilson set the table by passing the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918. Those laws empowered government to suppress and punish "disloyalty and subversion" and ban all "seditious" materials from the mail. Seditious materials included anything that might "impugn the motives of the government."
Hiram Johnson, progressive senator from California, said of the law: "You shall not criticize anything or anybody in the government any longer or you shall go to jail."
By the end of the war, the organization had 250,000 members who defined their mission as spying on their neighbors, eavesdropping on suspicious conversations, intercepting and opening mail and telegrams of people suspected of disloyalty and reporting to the authorities any evidence of disenchantment with the war effort. Other, similar groups included the National Security League, the American Defense Society and the Boy Spies of America (modeled after the Boy Scouts).
Oh, it can happen here. In fact, it already has.- 63 percent want to repeal the health care law. When it passed, 70 percent were against it, but the government pushed it through anyway
- 56 percent of people oppose paying more for clean energy
- 64 percent of Americans support the Arizona Immigration law. Yet Eric Holder is getting ready to fight it in court
Woodrow Wilson faced a similar dilemma: He had to change the minds of the people about World War I. He created the Committee on Public Information, using handpicked propaganda gurus George Creel along with Edward Bernays and the now-revered (but spookiest person ever) Walter Lippman.
Bernays was great ? the Nazis' top propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, kept copies of Bernays writings in his own personal library. Creel sought to make "associates" out of the media and went on a mission to get all Americans to conform to the pro-war viewpoint.
Bernays in fact said, "It was, of course, the astounding success of propaganda during the war that opened the eyes of the intelligent few in all departments of life to the possibilities of regimenting the public mind. It was only natural, after the war ended, that intelligent persons should ask themselves whether it was not possible to apply a similar technique to the problems of peace."
Wilson set the table by passing the Espionage Act in 1917 and the Sedition Act in 1918. Those laws empowered government to suppress and punish "disloyalty and subversion" and ban all "seditious" materials from the mail. Seditious materials included anything that might "impugn the motives of the government."
Hiram Johnson, progressive senator from California, said of the law: "You shall not criticize anything or anybody in the government any longer or you shall go to jail."
By the end of the war, the organization had 250,000 members who defined their mission as spying on their neighbors, eavesdropping on suspicious conversations, intercepting and opening mail and telegrams of people suspected of disloyalty and reporting to the authorities any evidence of disenchantment with the war effort. Other, similar groups included the National Security League, the American Defense Society and the Boy Spies of America (modeled after the Boy Scouts).
If you want to understand what's going on now, get to know Woodrow Wilson.
There's just no getting rid of these guys. According to a budget proposal document from the General Services Administration, President Bush is the most costly former commander-in-chief alive today. He's asked for a comfy $1.3 million to get him through 2013 in the manner to which he has become accustomed, including $85,000 for phone calls! Meanwhile, his father, Bush Sr., has his hand out for $879,000, Clinton has pitched for over a million to keep the lights on, and even Jimmy Carter, who left the job in 1981, is set to receive more than $500,000 to spend on knit vests and Farrah slacks (possibly). Even Nancy Reagan is in on the action, with a $7,000 postal budget.
................................................................
This is horrible.
These are million and billionaires in some cases.
They can pay their own way.
What a system we have. No wonder it is hopelessly broken.
Only in America
Share
4
................................................................
This is horrible.
These are million and billionaires in some cases.
They can pay their own way.
What a system we have. No wonder it is hopelessly broken.
Only in America
Share
4
Welfare for the Wealthy
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AbP1DVeJCT0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/AbP1DVeJCT0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
In 2008 Obama believed in the sanctity of marriage and believed it was one man and one woman, now he flip flopped and says he wants gay to get married...another reason not to vote for a spineless jellyfish, stick to your guns douchebag...
So, just for a point of reference, any politician that once supported one side of an issue and later changed their position (for whatever reason) should be summarily dismissed and ridiculed? I'm not saying that's what the situation was/and is with Obama, I just want to clarify your position.
Even if he is, who really cares besides you?
You are obsessed with this gay stuff, you may have some unresolved issues yourself you may want to deal with.
- Feb 26, 2001
- 13,593
- 164
- 63
Just pointing out that Obama isn't making news here, he's just like the Toe Tapping Senator that got caught, he's coming out of the closet.
:SIB
- Feb 26, 2001
- 13,593
- 164
- 63
- Feb 26, 2001
- 13,593
- 164
- 63
AR, I appreciate your effort here and hope you will post more. I have been extremely busy and unable to post much of late, but will try to chime in as I have a bit more time now. I'm afraid I'm going to have a difficult time with the coming election, as I am not very happy with Obama's performance, nor do I have any enjoyment thinking about a vote for Romney. Quite the opposite, actually, but I do not think Obama has done nearly what I'd hoped he would do in some key areas where I think he could have made a real difference. My vote for Obama was definitely a vote against Bush, who I had little respect for. I had hopes for Obama changing the landscape in this country because of who he was and what his election could have meant. I think he avoided what could have been to maintain his position politically, and I'm disheartened by that.
I am not really worried about what would happen if Romney was elected, and I do think a more hard line on economic issues would be a good thing for the country in many respects. But I do not like the person I think Romney is, and I put a high price on that with a vote - whether I should or not. And of course being a new part of the public education segment, I have that to consider. As with most things, a vote is personal, and we generally look out for what will have an affect on "us."
Nothing specific with this post, I just wanted to commend the tone and posting of thoughts here. Hopefully we can do more of this. I'll mention some good things I think Obama has done, and some things about Romney as well, in another post.
I am not really worried about what would happen if Romney was elected, and I do think a more hard line on economic issues would be a good thing for the country in many respects. But I do not like the person I think Romney is, and I put a high price on that with a vote - whether I should or not. And of course being a new part of the public education segment, I have that to consider. As with most things, a vote is personal, and we generally look out for what will have an affect on "us."
Nothing specific with this post, I just wanted to commend the tone and posting of thoughts here. Hopefully we can do more of this. I'll mention some good things I think Obama has done, and some things about Romney as well, in another post.
..............................................................
hedge
sometimes I wonder if you have a half brain
Do you know how many gays there are in America who vote as independants ?
well the figure is 4 % ppl in America are gay
There are approximately 360 million ppl in America
All is fair in love and war.
Looks like Obama is the smart one to me.
In the meantime Romney is beating up gays in his high school years. There goes any gay votes for the Mittster right out the fawking window.
Last edited:
