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One of the distinguishing characteristics of statists is their inability to take responsibility for their failures. The fault always lies elsewhere. Two of the best examples of this phenomenon are the welfare state and the warfare state.

For more than a century after the founding of the Republic, Americans had lived with little or no income taxation, economic regulation, paper money, legal-tender laws, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, SBA loans, corporate grants, education grants, drug laws, and other forms of paternalism. Early Americans believed that freedom involved the rights to engage in economic enterprise freely, accumulate unlimited amounts of wealth, and decide what to do with their own money — e.g., invest, save, spend, or donate.

All that changed in the 20th century, thanks to the statists. In 1913, the income tax and the Federal Reserve were established, heralding a way of life in which government would wield omnipotent power to take or destroy people’s income and wealth.

Major change came again in the 1930s, when President Franklin Roosevelt built the foundation for the modern-day welfare state, a type of socialism that had originated among the socialists of Germany.

Since then, the welfare state — the paternalistic state — the nanny state — the socialist state — whatever label you wish to put on it — has grown by leaps and bounds.

To fund all this socialism, well, that’s where those two mechanisms that were formed in 1913 come into play — income taxation and the Federal Reserve.

Today, the welfare state is cracking apart. Everywhere you look, things are in crisis. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, FDIC, the dollar, the national debt, and federal spending. It’s all broke or breaking. Just like it has in Greece, whose the welfare state has finally reached the breaking point.

But what do the statists say? Oh, it’s all because of freedom and free enterprise. You know, such guilty culprits as greed, speculation, banking, deregulation, and profit. Not surprisingly, their solution to all these welfare-state woes is … you guessed it — more statism.

It’s no different with the warfare state. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the statists went into panic mode over fear of suffering massive reductions in welfare for the military and the military industrial complex. Desperately in search of a mission that would permit them to maintain their hold on their Cold War largess, they embarked on course of action designed to poke hornets’ nests in the Middle East, with deadly and destructive consequences.

There was the Persian Gulf intervention against their old partner and ally Saddam Hussein; the intentional destruction of Iraq’s water and sewage facilities after the Pentagon confirmed that this would help spread infectious illnesses among the Iraqi people; the brutal sanctions that contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children; U.S. Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright’s infamous declaration that the deaths of half-a-million Iraqi children were “worth it”; the illegal no-fly zones over Iraq, which killed more Iraqis; the stationing of U.S. troops on Islamic holy lands, knowing how insulting this would be to Muslims; and, of course, the years of unconditional financial and military support given to the Israeli government.

Then came the inevitable “blowback” — the retaliation: the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, the attack on the USS Cole, the attacks on the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and 9/11.

What was the response of the statists? It’s all because of freedom! You see, according to the statists, the anger and hatred that had boiled over in the Middle East after a decade of brutal U.S. intervention, was all because Muslims hate America for its freedom, not because people were angry over all that death and destruction that came with intentionally poking those hornets’ nests.

Today, both the welfare state and the warfare are in deep crisis, and things are only getting worse by the month. Count on the statists to become angrier, more frustrated, and more fearful that people might discover the truth as to the real causes of America’s woes. Count on the statists to continue blaming freedom for America’s woes, both foreign and domestic. It’s the only hope statists have that Americans will continue following them down the road to serfdom and impoverishment.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

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WASHINGTON D.C. – The man once held as a P.O.W. and tortured after his A4E-SKYHAWK jet was shot down during the Vietnam War has authored a bill entitled, “S.3081 – Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010” which thus far has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The bill outlines the process by which Americans may be held indefinitely, without notice of their Miranda Rights, and without ever being charged with a crime. Worse detainment of an individual according to the legislation is authorized by mere suspicion that the individual did or seeks to harm any asset of the United States government or any civilian target.

Even more disappointing, the bill introduced last Thursday, March 4 already has 9 co-sponsors, including the supposed “Tea Party” candidate Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts.

Calls made by this blogger to Senator McCain’s press office for comment regarding the Senators’ bill entitled  “S. 3081__ ‘Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010″* remain unanswered as of this writing. However it is unlikely that Senators McCain or Lieberman would agree that their statist takes on protecting the “Homeland” come at the cost of fundamentally altering the Republic and Constitutional principles for which they took an oath to uphold and defend.

Case in point, Senator McCain’s website proudly displays his most recent vitriolic pronouncements against Liberty whereby he stated:

Mr. President, I rise to introduce legislation that sets forth a clear, comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of enemy belligerents who are suspected of engaging in hostilities against the United States. This legislation seeks to ensure that the mistakes made during the apprehension of the Christmas Day bomber, such as reading him a Miranda warning, will never happen again…”

Senator John McCain (AZ)
U.S. Senate
Floor Statement³
March 4th, 2010

As was predicted when the Bush Administration first began down the path of forswearing the American principle that all individuals American or alien were guaranteed the inherent right of Habeas Corpus when coming into contact with the U.S. Government, Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman now seek to exert and extend the ever-corrupting power of the Central Authority’s design on the use of indefinite detention, secret interrogations, and denial of counsel to Americans. While many knee-jerked and quipped it was merely “Muslim Terrorists” who were subject to such treatment under the previous White House, this legislation seeks to lump all into the same pot, inherent liberty be damned.

My how far we have fallen from “the Path of the More Perfect Union”. Everyday the “Change” that came to Washington looks more and more  like an emboldened status-quo. Many will remember just months after President Obama’s inauguration,  Rachel Maddow of MSNBC, reported on the new President’s desire² to scrap former President’s Bush’s piecemeal system of imprisonment via the label of “Enemy Combatant” in favor of constructing a “new legal-framework” of “prolonged detention”, of which this bill will provide should it reach his desk.

Moreover, this bill comes on the heels of the Obama Administration, the C.I.A., and the Director of National Intelligence Dennis C.  Blair seeking to have Congress authorize the assassination of Americans (a story we continue to research), the Central Authority on the Hill seeks to obtain the “legal” authority to label Americans with vague sounding titles such as “Unprivileged Enemy Belligerent” and “High Value Detainee” thereby denying “We the People” our right to Habeas Corpus solely based upon mere suspicion.

Lost Down a Rabbit Hole of Red Tape

Contained within this most abhorrent piece of legislation, whose pages emanate a continual nauseating stench of Imperialist statism, is  a system of interrogation and arbitrary adjudication which should make any cognizant American question their government’s lust for such unchecked power.

According to the bill any individual who is captured or “otherwise” comes into the “effective control” of the United States government shall be transferred into “military custody” at the earliest possible convenience. After which a “team” referred to as the “high value detainee interrogation group” organized by the President and consisting of  members with expertise in National Security, terrorism, intelligence, enhanced interrogation a.k.a torture, or law enforcement will conduct an initial assessment of the detained person to determine whether or not they pose a threat to the Central Authority its “Coalition Partners” or any of the federal government’s  endless Imperial wars/occupations.

Moreover, one can only guess that Senator McCain was seeking to hedge against any backlash the bill may produce upon seeing the light of day and included language that indicates the “high value interrogation group” must decide whether or not the person is indeed a threat within a 48-hour timetable. (phew) Whilst 48-hours is still an awful long time without access to legal counsel, one might think to themselves, well it sure is less oppressive sounding than indefinite.

However, as anyone who has spent any time at all reading the schizophrenic manner in which legislation is crafted  will tell you, beware the redirect to previous sections of the bill and/or U.S. Code. As such, at the conclusion of SECTION 3; Sub-Section b; Paragraph C(3) which delineates the “48-hour” time window, the draconian measure directs you back to Section 2, which reveals that the the time-limit for detention and transfer of custody is only applicable if the detainee is determined not to be of any value from an intelligence or strategic perspective.

If the detainee is determined by any members of the ad hoc Tyrant tribunal, then the detainee may face indefinite detention without a trial or charges filed in a fashion similar to  many of the detainees in Gitmo who were held for years upon years without formal charges before their release.

After all, being indefinitely held without trial, legal counsel, and tortured, reassures this blogger that those detainees will harbor no ill will towards their captors which might motivate them to seek revenge against said government  captors/torturers. Such observations of  “blowback” are only for the weak minded who secretly lust for the Glorious Imperial Homeland to fail, or are obviously “terrorist” sympathizers, and as such, indefinite detention is just punishment for their “un-NeoPatriotic” sentiments; right Mr. Hannnity?

Does this mean that Senator McCain himself might qualify as  an “Overprivileged Belligerent Aristocrat” if he helps recruit “enemies of the STATE” by proxy via the guaranteed abuses which are sure to follow should this legislation find its way into law? Does that count as material support of the enemy Senator McCain?

Upon reading this bill in its entirety, one can only hope that a piece of legislation which cites MIRANDA v. ARIZONA (384 U.S. 436 (1966)) solely to indicate that this right is no longer applicable should the whim of an unelected and unaccountable field agent of the CIA, FBI, DHS, NSA, et al declare an individual American to be an “Unprivileged Enemy Belligerent” would go down in flames. Its authors at a minimum, censured or at optimum, removed from their seats in the Senate and replaced with Senators who actually understand their oath to the Constitution and the principles embodied therein.

However, it is a new season of American Idol, and America’s Next Top Model, so maybe it is just wishful thinking that this legislation is tossed into the proverbial shredder and its machinations contained therein never see a vote in a conference committee or the stroke of the President’s pen.

As was once practice in all stenographer classes across the nation, “Now is the time for all good patriots to come to the aid of their country.”

In my estimation, we stand at an intersection of which two paths are quickly diverging. While we may take the time to celebrate such victories as our momentum on exposing the nature of the FEDERAL RESERVE, the flawed nature of Keynesian Economic Philosophy, and the insanity that is Fractional-Reserve banking, we must at the same time be vigilant to further resist the stratagem of the status quo’s desire to amass more unchecked power for themselves while indenturing our obedience through endless war and fear mongering over the threat of terrorist boogie men.

For it is up to us whether we stand to Restore the Republic or sacrifice human liberty to a second dark ages.

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TOKYO -(Dow Jones)- The Japanese government’s probe into a confidential post- war agreements with the U.S. not only confirmed the existence of a secret deposit that Japan kept with the Federal Reserve for nearly three decades, but also uncovered Tokyo’s lax management of information related to its foreign reserves.

Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan said Friday the ministry’s recent investigation into a 1969 bilateral accord confirmed that the financial settlement Japan made with the U.S. to end its occupation of Okinawa was larger and more complex than previously acknowledged and included a secret non-interest deposit the government and the Bank of Japan kept at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The deposit totaled $103 million during much of its life before the two nations agreed to lower it to an unsubstantial sum of $3 million in 1999. The deposit was counted as part of Japan’s official foreign reserves and consisted of dollars the Japanese government received from the Okinawans in exchange for yen in 1972 when the U.S. ended its post-war occupation of the southern Japanese island. The non-interest deposit amounted to a de-facto financial payment, as the U.S. was free to manage the money to generate returns. U.S. embassy press officers couldn’t be reached for comment.

The probe was part of broader efforts by the government of Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama to improve transparency in foreign policy. Late last year, the government launched investigations into what it called “secret documents” that chronicled confidential national security agreements that Washington and Tokyo clinched during the decades following World War II. Earlier this week, Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada unveiled the outcome of his ministry’s probe, confirming the existence of agreements related to the nature of U.S. forces stationed in Japan and the shipments and storage of nuclear weapons in Japan. Many of these documents, including the one studied by the finance ministry, had long been declassified and made public in the U.S. but the Japan’s previous government had never admitted the existence of such agreements.

The document studied by the finance ministry revealed in addition to the no- interest deposit, Japan paid a total of $405 million to the U.S. at the time of Okinawa’s return to cover the cost of the infrastructure left by the U.S. forces and the consolidation of U.S. military facilities. The formal bilateral agreement at the time listed the amount as $320 million. The document, signed between Anthony J. Jurich, special assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury, and his Japanese counterpart Yusuke Kashiwagi, was kept at the National Archives in the U.S. but lost in Japan.

At a press conference announcing the outcome of its probe, Kan said the finding was disturbing on two levels: That the Japanese people were kept in the dark for so long about how a portion of their financial assets was managed; and that the ministry itself had no record of the deposit and the bureaucrats who had the knowledge of it didn’t seem to have passed it on to their successors.

“We need to admit humbly to ourselves that a piece of historic information related to our own asset management was kept on the U.S. side” but not in Japan, Kan said. He added that in the future, the ministry will step up efforts to ensure the transfer of historic records related to important international negotiations to the national archive.

A finance ministry officials said the loss suffered by the Japanese people as a result of the agreement to keep its portion of the deposit interest free for 25 years was $46 million. The calculation is based on the assumption the money would have earned that much in income if it had been invested in U.S. Treasurys yielding an average of 6%. The total loss would have been nearly double that amount as the calculation doesn’t include the portion deposited by the Bank of Japan.

A Japanese official said the decision to lower the deposit to $3 million was prompted by an inquiry made by the Bank of Japan in 1999 as part of its preparation for a revision in the law governing the central bank’s function. Until then, the Japanese side had apparently made no action to release the money from the deposit even after the 25-year-period set by the original agreement expired, Kan said.

A Bank of Japan official declined to say why it still keeps $3 million in the no-interest deposit account.

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—

From The Washington Times

You’d think the Obama administration is busy enough controlling the banks, insurance companies and automakers, but thanks to whistleblowers at the Department of the Interior, we now learn they’re planning to increase their control over energy-rich land in the West.

A secret administration memo has surfaced revealing plans for the federal government to seize more than 10 million acres from Montana to New Mexico, halting job- creating activities like ranching, forestry, mining and energy development. Worse, this land grab would dry up tax revenue that’s essential for funding schools, firehouses and community centers.

President Obama could enact the plans in this memo with just the stroke of a pen, without any input from the communities affected by it.

At a time when our national unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, it is unbelievable anyone would be looking to stop job-creating energy enterprises, yet that’s exactly what’s happening.

The document lists 14 properties that, according to the document, “might be good candidates” for Mr. Obama to nab through presidential proclamation. Apparently, Washington bureaucrats believe it’s more important to preserve grass and rocks for birdwatchers and backpackers than to keep these local economies thriving.

Administration officials claim the document is merely the product of a brainstorming session, but anyone who reads this memo can see that it is a wish list for the environmentalist left. It discusses, in detail, what kinds of animal populations would benefit from limiting human activity in those areas.

The 21-page document, marked “Internal Draft-NOT FOR RELEASE,” names 14 different lands Mr. Obama could completely close for development by unilaterally designating them as “monuments” under the 1906 Antiquities Act.

It says all kinds of animals would be better off by doing so, like the coyotes, badgers, grouse, chickens and lizards. But giving the chickens more room to roost is no reason for the government to override states’ rights.

Rep. Robert Bishop, Utah Republican, made the memo public because he didn’t want another unilateral land grab by the White House, like what happened under former Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter.

Using the Antiquities Act, President Carter locked up more land than any other president had before him, taking more than 50 million acres in Alaska despite strong opposition from the state.

President Clinton used the authority 22 times to prohibit hunting, recreational vehicles, mining, forestry and even grazing in 5.9 million acres scattered around the country. The law allowed him to single-handedly create 19 new national monuments and expand three others without consulting anyone.

One of the monuments President Clinton created was the Grande Staircase-Escalante in Utah, where 135,000 acres of land were leased for oil and gas and about 65,000 barrels of oil were produced each year from five active wells. But, President Clinton put an end to developing those resources.

President Obama could do the same in other energy-rich places unless Congress takes action. At least 13.5 million acres are already on his Department of Interior’s real estate shopping list.

This includes a 58,000-acre area in New Mexico. The memo said this should be done so the lesser prairie chicken and the sand dune lizard will be better protected. Are these animals going extinct? No. The bureaucrats wrote that the land should be locked up to “avoid the necessity of listing either of these species as threatened or endangered.”

In Nevada, the Obama administration might make another monument in the Heart of the Great Basin because it, supposedly, is a “center of climate change scientific research.”

In Colorado, the government is considering designating the Vermillion Basin as a monument because it is “currently under the threat of oil and gas development.”

Americans should be wary of any plans a president has to seize land from the states without their consent. Any new plans to take away states’ freedom to use land as they see fit must be stopped.

That’s why I sponsored an amendment to block Mr. Obama from declaring any of the 14 lands listed in the memo as “monuments.” Unfortunately, the Senate, led by Democrats, rejected it on Thursday evening by a vote of 58-38.

It was particularly disappointing that the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, of Nevada, voted against the amendment. The government owns more than 80 percent of the land in Nevada and the unemployment rate there is 12.8 percent. Surely it would help job prospects if more land were open for business.

This is a nationwide problem. The government currently owns 650 million acres, or 29 percent of the nation’s total land.

Federal bureaucrats shouldn’t be wasting time thinking up ways to acquire more, especially in the middle of a recession. Taking the nation’s resources offline will stifle job creation and dry up tax revenues.

If anything, the government should be selling land off, not locking more up. By voting against my amendment, the Democrats tacitly endorsed Mr. Obama’s secret plan to close off millions more acres to commerce.

If enacted, the plan would mean fewer jobs for Americans.

The Democratic Congress refused to stop it, but one sure way Americans could help block it is if they decide some Democrats should lose their jobs on November.

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by Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital and author of Crash Proof 2.0: How to Profit from the Economic Collapse

It is astounding how many economists, government officials, and Wall Street strategists construe the current economic conditions as evidence of a bona fide recovery. It is a testament to the power of the rose colored glasses handed out by our nation’s leading universities that such a feeling could be widely held despite the clear and present danger that compounds daily. The myopia leads us to enact policies that actually exacerbate our problems. The “remedies” are postponing, perhaps indefinitely, a true recovery.

The oracles who have described the nature of this imminent recovery do so based on their conviction that consumer spending is slowly returning to levels that existed prior to the recession. New data released today seems to support this view, with consumer spending up 0.5% in January.

However, missing from their analysis is any plausible explanation as to why consumers will be able to sustain such spending given the plunge in income and credit, and the lack of available savings. In fact, the same January spending report showed that personal income increased by only 0.1%, while the savings rate slowed to the smallest since 2008.

I would challenge those who fantasize about a consumer-led recovery to describe where the spending money will come from.  Most consumers are tapped out, millions are unemployed, and home equity has been wiped out.  The only reasonable thing for them to do is to pay down debt and sock away as much money as possible to rebuild their savings.

Beyond the question of “how” the spending could be achieved, is the deeper question of “why” such activity should be sought at all. Excessive spending, fueled by an insane housing bubble and catalyzed by reckless monetary and fiscal policy, was the reason that our current recession became unavoidable. Why would we want to go down that road again?

During the run up to the crash, excess spending had created economic distortions that have yet to be resolved.  Too many resources, including land, labor, and capital, were devoted to servicing an unsustainable economic model in which Americans borrowed money to buy homes, products and services they really could not afford.  In many cases consumer behavior was influenced by overly optimistic assumptions regarding real estate related riches.

However, now that the real estate bubble has burst, Americans are coming to terms with a more sober reality. Many have cut up their credit cards, dramatically reduced their spending, and have squirreled away as much money as they can. This change in behavior should necessitate a dramatic shift in the labor market as workers move away from jobs associated with consumer spending and toward jobs associated with real production, primarily for exportable goods.

The real problem is that monetary and fiscal policy designed to re-inflate the burst spending bubble is preventing this transition from taking place. As a result we are not creating the jobs we need to replace – the ones we have lost in mortgage servicing, home improvement, and real estate sales (which we never really needed to begin with). As these jobless remain unable to find alternative employment, our economy will continue to languish.

Some will argue that the new jobs created by government stimulus spending will provide the additional purchasing power necessary to revitalize consumer spending.  There are two problems with this expectation.  First, those jobs being “created” by the government are outnumbered by those being destroyed by government domination of resources. Second, even if it were possible for job growth to return, having hopefully learned from their mistakes, workers will be far more frugal with their paychecks than they were in the past.

Others hope that rising real estate prices will give consumers more confidence to spend.  The reality is that housing prices are still too high and will likely fall further. But even if they did rise, consumers will still be reluctant to resume their shopping spree.  Home equity extraction loans, which just a few years ago turned houses into ATMs, are now much harder to come by. When it comes to spending, it’s not just about confidence; it’s about cash.

The only possible way consumers can spend is if the government gives them the money.  However, since the government cannot legitimately give money to one American without first taking it from another, the most likely means of doling out cash will be to run it off the printing presses.

That, in a nutshell, is our government’s plan for economic recovery.  Print a bunch of money and give it to consumers to spend.  This is not a plan for recovery but a recipe for disaster.  Those betting that this program can succeed in putting together a healthy and sustainable economy simply do not understand the nature of their wager.  The smart money is going the other way.

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If you grew up in America, you learned the Pledge of Allegiance pretty early in your life. And if you emigrated here, you learned it, either to fit in or before you tried to become an American citizen.

But have you ever learned about the Pledge of Allegiance itself, and stopped repeating it by rote long enough to think about what you are pledging? Perhaps if you learn more about it, you’ll hesitate…or decline…the next time you get the chance to recite those words. And, in an even greater stretch of courage, you would tell your children the truth about the Pledge so they could make up their own minds about their own actions.

Baptist clergyman and avowed socialist Francis Bellamy wrote the first Pledge of Allegiance back in 1892. It was part of an effort by the popular children’s magazine The Youth’s Companion” to sell American nationalism and American flags to public schools. It was timed to coincide with celebration of the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus’ discovery of America.

Bellamy’s original Pledge read as follows:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Bellamy intended that the Pledge be accompanied by a salute, known as the “Bellamy salute.” He described the gesture in that October 1892 article in “The Youth’s Companion.” Here is a photo of the “Bellamy salute” from 1941.

Look familiar? Looks like the German National Socialists of the 1930s and 1940s. You may be familiar with them by their other name…The Nazi Party.

In 1923 and 1924, the National Flag Conference voted to replace the words “my flag” with “the flag of the United States of America.” The United States Congress officially recognized the Pledge as the official national pledge on June 22, 1942. It was President Franklin D. Roosevelt that opted for the hand-over-heart gesture in 1942, the same salute used to this day.

The words “under God,” were finally officially added in 1954 by a joint resolution of Congress and signed by President Dwight Eisenhower.

OK…that’s the history lesson. Here are some more important points to consider.

1. Abraham Lincoln usually referred to America as “the Union” during his presidency. That is, until he wrote the Gettysburg Address in 1863. In his first line, he invented what had never existed before, and redefined the United States with the words, “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation…”. Poppycock! Even King George recognized each colony as free, sovereign and independent States in the Treaty of Paris of 1783, after the colonies defeated Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. A loose central government existed under the Articles of Confederation from 1776 to 1788. The American Federal Government did not exist under the Constitution until 1788.

The sovereign states of America created a servant in 1781 with the Articles of Confederation, which was called The United States of America. The Constitution superseded it in 1788. It was granted certain strictly defined powers, and tasked with carrying them out, as well as to protect the states from invasion and domestic violence (Article IV). It was also prevented from assuming powers not specifically granted to it (9th & 10th Amendment). But an association of states is not a state itself. Neither is an association of country clubs a country club, or an association of fire departments a fire department. Putting on the costume of nationhood does not make you a real nation any more than donning a red suit with horns and a bifurcated tail makes you the Devil.

2. Bellamy was helping promote American nationalism to public school children. Prior to that, there was little in the way of American nationalism known in America. People identified with their home state. They called themselves “Virginians” or “New Yorkers,” not “Americans.” Bellamy’s pledge referred to “my flag, and to the republic for which it stands.” Even in 1892…nearly 30 years after the War of Northern Aggression…that meant the flag of a sovereign state, which was a republic. But that is not what Bellamy intended with his new Pledge. The new Pledge of Allegiance was written to promote the idea of an American nation, not the existing confederation of nations that was the united States.

Remember that Article IV, Section 4 of the US Constitution states that the United States shall guarantee to every state in the Union a “republican form of government.” There is no definition in the Constitution of the word “republican,” but it is generally agreed to mean a “representative democracy” rather than a “direct democracy.” But there is not one word in the US Constitution that proclaims that the entity known as the United States of America is a Republic or a nation unto itself. It is a government created under the aegis of the several States. That is why the document that preceded the US Constitution was called The Articles of Confederation. The sovereign states confederated to form a government, in like manner to a group of property owners forming a property managing company and bestowing it with certain duties and powers. But the states did not sign over the “deeds to their properties,” so to speak, to the manager. Further, any one of the parties could leave, or the group could fire the manager, dissolve the management company and start over.

The United States is an artificial corporation created by the States for their mutual benefit. That sets it apart from the idea of a nation which is something that exists on its own; whereas an artificial corporation is created by external authority.

3. The Pledge says “Indivisible.” The very intention of the writer was to promote a concept in the minds of children that America was not divisible. In 1892, the nationalists thought that the War of Northern Aggression had settled the issue of secession with rifle and cannon. But the Northern victory only postponed the subject of secession until later years. Still, the efforts to inculcate school children during the entirety of the 20th Century was a smashing success, since most people still think that the USA is indivisible. Nothing could be further from the truth.

However, as V.I. Lenin said, “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.”

So, nationalism has been promoted to supplant the notion of state sovereignty, even though the United States of America is not a nation. And the notion of nationhood for the USA is a relatively new concept, the Pledge of Allegiance to this non-nation having only been officially accepted in 1942…a scant 68 years ago.

And, here on the North American continent, Dr. Frankenstein’s creation has taken over the laboratory and made the Doctor his indentured servant, telling him that he can never be free of the monster’s domination.

Finally, with the Patriot Act in place, Homeland Security watching everybody, confiscatory taxation enforced at the end of a gun and a DC government spending trillions of dollars they don’t have, we all know that there is no “liberty and justice for all.” Liberty and justice don’t look like America in the second decade of the 21st Century.

So, when you place your hand over your heart and mindlessly recite the Pledge of Allegiance, you are pledging your fealty to a nation that does not exist, and an authoritarian Federal Government that has completely ignored the Constitution and rules in any manner it chooses, without regard to any restrictions on its power whatsoever. Your pledge of allegiance says that you belong to the tyrants and criminals who stole the United States of America. They don’t even have to threaten YOU…you’re voluntarily their property.

Now, how does that feel?

Secession…not American nationalism…is the Hope For Mankind. Who will be first?

DumpDC. Six Letters That Can Change History.

Many thanks to Donald Livingston of The Abbeville Institute for his contributions to this article.

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A few county water suppliers are concerned that water-pumping restrictions being set by the county’s groundwater management district will prevent them from being able to serve future water consumers.

Well owners will have to apply for permanent historic-use-production permits through the Southern Trinity Groundwater Conservation District.

The permits will grant each well owner a maximum amount of water that may be pumped each year based on the well’s historic water use and the total number of wells in McLennan County.

The county’s combined water usage must not exceed 20,194 acre-feet — about 6.6 billion gallons — of water each year, an allowance set by the Texas Water Development Board.

Purdis Medlin, president of the Levi Water Supply Corp. in the Lorena area, told the district’s board at its biweekly meeting last week that limiting well owners’ water usage to historic levels could leave them unable to meet water demands if any new development occurs.

“We have people that were planning on developing some land in our area. But I’m concerned that if all we get is [based upon] our historic use, then we won’t be able to issue any more meters,” Medlin said.

James Smith of the Texas Rural Water Association attended the meeting with Medlin.

Smith monitors the rules mandated by different groundwater-conservation districts across the state and said Medlin’s concerns are shared by numerous other small water suppliers.

“If there’s new development, there will be an increased need for water. But if the suppliers can’t exceed their historic use, what we’re looking at is how restrictive that may be in providing water to consumers,” Smith said. “I think it’s something that the districts will have to consider as this progresses.”

Possible solution

Al Blair, an Austin-based civil engineer who has served as a consultant for the district on its groundwater-management plan, said one solution is to have water suppliers apply for additional, nonhistoric use production permits. That would guarantee them more water for their customer base.

However, those permits will be awarded only after the historic-use permits have been issued.

“I think it’s too early in the process to make that claim, that there won’t be enough water,” Blair said. “What our goal is right now is we want to protect the water being used now.

“We want to protect it and make sure you maintain that water and that it is not diminished. Then I believe we may have some room after that to guarantee water providers additional water for their future use.”

Blair said the Texas Water Development Board also is likely to review those water allowances in the next five years. The board potentially could increase the amount of water allotted to each region and grant more water to well owners.

The water district will have a meeting at 6 p.m. March 18 at the Hewitt Community Center, 208 Chama Drive, to answer well owners’ questions about the permit application.

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“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of  unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the  military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of  misplaced power exists and will persist.”

-Dwight Eisenhower, January 17,  1961 Farewell Address.

During pre game Super Bowl ceremonies Queen Latifah sang America the Beautiful. Following her, American Idol winner Carrie Underwood began  warbling the Star Spangled Banner. Four jet fighters swished over the  stadium. Did any of the cheering crowd or the tens of millions watching on  TV ask how much it cost to have the thrill of two screaming jets offer the  public supersonic foreplay before extra large men smashed and bashed through  the thin membrane (the line) to reach the tantalizing quarterback?

In his farewell address, Eisenhower would not have dreamed of adding  military sports/entertainment complex to his now fabled military industrial,  military scientific and academic complexes. Rather, he called for  ”statesmanship” by which he meant molding, balancing and integrating “these  and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic  system — ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.”

Empty rhetoric? Now, 44 cents of every taxpayer’s dollar feeds the military  budget at a time when no nation has a military capable of challenging us.  Maybe Obama should call for a national holiday just to appreciate the  failure of Presidents and Congresses to take Ike’s warning seriously.

The Orwellian name change from War Department to Defense Department should  have sparked national skepticism. Since 1947, DoD holds the world record for  spending, but has yet to defend the United States. Under the pretext of  defense, Truman sent troops to Korea (Eisenhower stopped U.S. involvement in  that war). Subsequently, U.S. troops have attacked and occupied more than a  dozen countries, none of whom threatened U.S. territory. (Korea, Dominican  Republic, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Panama, Libya, Somalia, the  former Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Afghanistan)

The DoD, however, cannot claim victory in its four major wars: Korea  (1950-3), Vietnam (1964-75), Afghanistan (2001-?) and Iraq (2003-?). Before  each invasion, war advocates shook the impending “domino” effect. Now it’s  the spread of terrorism. During the Cold War, all Asia would somehow fall  under red rule if the Chinese or Vietnamese Communists won in Korea or  Vietnam. The Communist Party still rules in China and Vietnam, both major  U.S. trade partners. U.S. forces triumphed in Grenada and Panama where they  met no major and ongoing resistance, and during Gulf War I, when Iraqi  troops retreated and got “turkey shot.”)

Last December despite the DoD’s no-win record when the enemy fights back and  without any sign that a rival nation plans an attack against us or any of  our vulnerable allies, Congress passed without debate the highest “defense”  budget in human history.

Since 1988, as the Soviet Union neared collapse and no major power  threatened, the military has ingested some $5.1 trillion. From 1999 to 2010,  the DoD budget increased 153%. After 2001, when 19 suicidal men armed with  box cutters hijacked and crashed planes into buildings, the Pentagon spent  more than it did in Cold War years.

Every two years since 2001, the military budget has grown approximately $100  billion. Did this reasoning presume more military prowess would defeat  civilian suicide bombers? Add to the Pentagon budget, $17 billion in  military-related items from the Department of Energy plus, $70 billion for  Homeland Security (isn’t that redundant with Defense Department?), $38  billion from the Military Retirement Funds found within the Department of  the Treasury, and military-related aid within the Department of State: the  present budget exceeds $1 trillion.

By 2008, total weapons acquisition “cost growth” had reached nearly $300  billion over initial estimates. In other words, cost overruns of weapons  alone surpassed the total 2000 defense budget! Why did the United States  government invest more, and at an increased rate, than when it faced all the  Soviet divisions and 20,000 nuclear weapons?

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “the USA  is responsible for 41.5 per cent of the world’s total defense spending,  distantly followed by China (5.8% of world share), France (4.5%), the UK  (4.5%), and Russia (4%).”

In 2005, the total value of DoD assets was estimated at $1.3 trillion, with  $1.9 trillion in liabilities. The Department has a workforce of over 2.9  million of military and civilian personnel, much larger than any other  organization worldwide.

Wal-Mart, the largest corporate employer, has 1.8 million on payroll. The  Pentagon’s workforce is twice as large. The net income of the top ten global  Fortune 500s (including Exxon, Wal-Mart, BP, and Chevron) do not reach even  50% of DoD’s budget.

Last year, the Pentagon had 539,000 facilities (buildings, structures and  linear structures), and 5,570 military sites; it also occupies 29 million  acres of land, almost half the size of the United Kingdom.

The United States also has 837 overseas military bases, not including  undisclosed secret bases. The Pentagon has 716 bases in 150 of the 192  countries in the world; others in U.S. territories abroad. The DoD does not  count facilities with value of less than $10 million or those occupying less  than 10 acres. The Pentagon itself claims the record for biggest building in  human history (6.5 million square feet), 37 times larger than the Capitol.

Business scams promise high rates of return at little risk to investors. The  Pentagon, however, pledges only to keep the nation well defended from all  outside threats. Since no military threats have existed for almost two  decades, DoD officials and their neo-con cousins invent them. And the  suckers — U.S. taxpayers — invest.

Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow whose A BUSH AND BOTOX  WORLD was published by Counterpunch.

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