how far do you trust the government?

[DKSuddeth]

JFK, 9-11, and the REAL America: Tying It All Together
http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=82574&group=webcast
by Jon Phalen 3:10pm Sat Nov 22 '03

An organic reconsideration of US history and major "conspiracy theories" of the past 40 years, including those pertaining to the 9-11 attack, and how they shed light on America's present drift into fascism

Hijackers?

What makes you think you actually KNOW what happened on those planes? All four were obliterated, along with everyone on board, remember? No crime scene, no direct evidence, no recognizable remains, no witnesses whatsoever -- it's a blank canvas. How convenient for any party intent on launching a new era of global imperialism, and willing to spin this tragedy into a viable excuse. Indeed, all of the attack's consequences are far better explained by this agenda than by Bin Laden's purported death wish. Those presuming to examine this matter, i.e. ALL OF US, need to recognize that such trickery is a timeless specialty of governments.

And yet from that very day we have allowed the government-media complex to focus all attention on one rather thin explanation: Crazy Arabs did it! George W. Bush and his cabinet have made it known to us, in the most arrogant terms, that they will brook no discussion of other possibilities -- an edict most Americans, in their desperation to believe in this man, seem to have embraced. The Bush Administration even withholds its "proof" of Al Qa'eda's guilt; clearly, it considers mere citizens too unimportant to require full explanations, and once again, we're just rolling over and taking it.

A rigorous civilian investigation of 9-11 would help resolve such doubts. If Bush and the rest were standing on firm ground, they would fully support such a thing. Instead, they have worked to thwart both its formation and its progress, using every resource within their reach. Some time last year, they seem to have realized they were only fueling suspicions this way, so Bush grudgingly approved an "independent" investigation.

To appreciate the ugliest possibilities of the 9-11 attack, one must first become aware of the continuous practice of such manipulations by the entire progression of American politicians. The need to cultivate this awareness is itself an enigma: if you have the honesty to see this pattern at all, its full enormity, emerging over time, will at some point cause your previous ignorance to amaze you. Imagine living your entire life with an 800-pound gorilla, then realizing one day it's not a sofa, after all. At the same time, finding this enlightenment is challenging, because the relevant facts are usually withheld from the public for decades, seldom appearing in mainstream discourse even after they become common knowledge -- not because of some grand conspiracy, but because legions of 'America Firsters,' including most of the famous and powerful, simply don't want to hear it. The telling of these facts is an affront to their most cherished political assumptions. Invariably, they respond with hostile apologetics, ranging from simple denial and ridicule to the claim that such incidents are random and unrelated "mistakes." That they can sincerely believe this 'unrelated' claim is remarkable, given the way it crushes into dust under any burden of historical proof: America's state crimes have been ethically monstrous, vast in both scale and number, unilateral in their aggression, virtually uninterrupted in their chronology, and very coherent in both motive and method. Certain themes just keep popping up:

1) Greed, particularly for territory;

2) Supremacism, driven only partly by race, perhaps more so by delusions of national grandeur allowed to ramify without limit;

3) An enthusiasm for "total war" -- i. e., the indiscriminate butchery of entire populations. This seems most likely to happen when "strategic" territories, resources, or victories are at stake. That is, when those in authority feel they "must win," and so discard principle to whatever extent is necessary;

4) The systemic corruption and antidemocratic functioning of every level of American government, made abundantly clear by its relations with sworn enemies of the public interest, namely corporations;

5) The bid for global empire that has all but defined the American agenda since W.W.II, in flagrant violation of democratic principle.

This last "US interest," discussed openly by flacks and shills only since 9-11 suspended all moral judgment on such matters, actually represents the driving passion of our ruling elite, going all the way back to the Revolution. Indeed, grasping the means of power, beginning with sovereign domain, was their main motive for pursuing revolution at all. Starting then and continuing ever since, they have whipped the people up to support their warped appetites, even as they have misrepresented them spectacularly. EVERY SINGLE TIME we as a people have committed to a war of expansion, we have been duped into doing so by their twin handservants, American politics and American media:

1776 to 1890
innumerable 'Indian wars'
In which the western frontier was pushed through the territories of one Indian confederation after another, all the way to the Pacific. An early and definitive example is George Washington's post-revolutionary conquest of the Ohio Valley, where the Washington Family held deeds to immense tracts of prime real estate never actually ceded by the Indians. The lore that George was a "surveyor" is a populist distortion; he was no blue collar grunt, laying out property lines to earn a living. He was in fact the most ambitious of an elite family of 'land speculators' -- the colonial equivalent of venture capitalists -- and his toils were in the service of his own family fortune. Already one of the richest people in post-revolutionary America, he was determined to get even richer through the sale of his Ohio holdings, and wasn't about to be stopped by 'two-legged vermin' like the Shawnees and Miamis. To this end, he abused his dominance of the early federal government, arranging for Revolutionary War veterans (a battle-hardened militia) to be compensated with "land warrants" deep in Ohio's wilderness, far beyond his own holdings. He also encouraged the issuance of large bounties, equivalent to several months' income, for Indian scalps along the upper Ohio River. These were essentially open murder contracts that targeted ALL Indians, regardless of age, gender, or tribal affiliation. By this means, genocide was openly subsidized for decades wherever intact Indian cultures presented an obstacle to "progress." Primitive as media was, its role in all this was crude but sufficient: posting the bounties while inflaming the settlers' hatred with tales of Indian atrocities, real and imagined. In the Ohio Territory, these tactics rapidly progressed to open war, orchestrated by Washington against Tecumseh's Shawnee Confederation, and then to the total extermination and westward displacement of the Ohio tribes.

1941 to '45
World War II:
France already lying crushed beneath Hitler's war machine, and Britain under a devastating siege, the White House was once again compelled to intervene on behalf of its capitalist masters, whose European investments had grown two magnitudes since the close of W.W.I. Unlike Wilson, however, FDR did a truly brilliant job of constructing a pretext. in September of 1940, Germany, Italy, and Japan signed the Tripartite Pact, a treaty committing all three countries to counterattack against new foes faced by any one of them. This gave Roosevelt a back door into Europe via the Pacific. Beginning one month later, and fourteen months prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, he launched secret military and economic operations against the Japanese Empire, obstructing its only access to oil, rubber, and other strategic resources. The Japanese response to this blockade -- open hostilities against the United States, beginning with a crippling preemptive attack on the Pacific Fleet -- was entirely predictable. In fact, it was Roosevelt's whole purpose in setting up the blockade: Nearly unanimous "isolationist" sentiment at home was his first military target, and precipitating a "vicious sneak attack on US soil" was his deliberate design for destroying that sentiment. For this reason, he concentrated the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii as never before, where it would be seen as an imminent threat by Japanese generals. He then withheld intelligence of Japan's attack preparations from Pearl's top officers, continuing to exclude them even when radio intercepts revealed the movement of a Japanese carrier group toward Hawaii (6).

From 1941 to '46, and again in 1995, Congress investigated "the intelligence lapses that made this sneak attack possible" no less than NINE TIMES. On all of these occasions, officials of the Roosevelt Administration and the Office of Naval Intelligence perjured themselves and concealed vast amounts of evidence to preserve the historical fictions surrounding the Pearl Harbor attack. To this day, the NSA claims "national security" as its basis for withholding relevant material from the public. "National security" stands revealed, then, as a euphemism for this government's ruthless grip on power -- a thing that certainly would be threatened, were we to become fully aware of the treacheries it spawns. This context radically transforms "national security" rhetoric into an ideal excuse for all sorts of betrayals and deceits, and this seems to be it's actual interpretation among those who "safeguard" it.

1950 to '53
The Korean War:
To coerce public support for this war, the press and the Truman Administration whipped up public hysteria about the "Red Menace!" that was then "swallowing up" obscure Far Eastern precincts. No mention, of course, that the mounting anti-US sentiment in those precincts resulted entirely from collaboration between US occupation forces and the Japanese fascists they were supposedly there to remove. This collaboration ranks as one of the most arrogant foreign policy blunders in US history. For people throughout the Far East, it was an unbearable betrayal, as it effectively prolonged what had already been one of the most gruesome and protracted military occupations EVER. Similar dynamics had already developed in mainland China, a hornet's nest so immense that withdrawal quickly resolved as our only sane option. And also in the Philippines, where US troops and Huk rebels started out fighting side by side to expel the Japanese. Indigenous sovereignty being the Huk's ultimate goal, the Americans began killing them, too, as the Japanese were subdued. Two thousand miles from all these places, in French Indochina, the exact tensions seen in Korea arose AGAIN in response to brutal French/Japanese collaboration -- abetted by American field agents, naturally (8).

In all four places, revolutionary leaders greatly admired America's political tradition of anti-colonialism and self-determination, and sought to claim these values for their own countries. They even made earnest attempts to form friendships with the US; they thought colonialism was a 'european thing,' so that we must therefore be 'the good guys.' For strategic planners back in Washington, all this was at odds with their grand design for the Far East: now being vacated by its previous colonial tenants, it was seen as a "power vacuum," fairly begging for RE-colonization according to America's obfuscated formula of puppet politics and corporate infiltration.

American society has yet to recover from the "Red Menace!" propaganda barrage, which soon became a constant theme of international news coverage, and remained so for the next 40 years. As a means of inducing mass paranoia and public consent to limitless militarization, the "Red Menace" lost its punch following the collapse of the Soviet Union, necessitating its replacement with a more robust methodology -- the "Terrorist Menace!" Nazi Germany and Israel being the great innovators of this second method, America owes a great debt to both of them.

1965 to '73
The Vietnam War:
By way of manipulating Congress into granting him war powers, LBJ reprised the "vicious sneak attack" gambit with his brazen lies regarding such action by the North Vietnamese against US Navy vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin. Beginning in 1969, Nixon and Kissinger expanded on this crime enormously, adding Laos and Cambodia to North Vietnam as targets of a redoubled 'total war' initiative. Several million tons of cluster bombs were then used to totally destroy vast civilian districts in all three countries (districts simply crawling, mind you, with subsistence farmers bent on global domination). All of which exactly repeated the pattern of the Korean War -- right down to America not winning (9).

As huge as the American effort against Vietnam was, it was just one element of a yet more enormous strategy of military encirclement (a.k.a. "containment") directed against mainland China. Other elements were: the permanent and massive US military presence in Japan; a similar presence in Thailand; unlimited military and economic support to Chiang Kai-Shek's exile government on Formosa (Taiwan); the Korean War and subsequent permanent US military presence in Korea; a strong strategic interest in India, including covert support of an otherwise preposterous nuclear weapons program; also, a US-equipped and -trained covert army of Chinese "nationalists" in eastern Burma, within what became known as the "Golden Triangle." It was here that the CIA first learned of the marvels of the international heroin trade.


1991 to 2003
The Gulf War / "No-fly Zones" / Sanctions:
To con Americans into backing this outrage, Daddy Bush and his media bed-buddies told a couple real whoppers. First there was the one about the satellite photographs of a massive Iraqi invasion force assembling on the northern border of Saudi Arabia (10). Then there was the Kuwait Incubator Hoax, an inventive revival of the childish "babies on bayonets" propaganda of World War I -- as told by a child, no less (11). As it turned out, Operation "Desert Storm" was merely the opening episode of a ruthless destabilization program, aimed primarily at hapless civilians, that would continue for over a decade, killing no less than 500,000 Iraqis in a fairly obvious attempt to turn them against their head of state. This fulfills any sane definition of terrorism, and is probably the most grandiose recent example of the state-sponsored variety. It was maintained with enthusiasm by the Clinton Administration.

 

[DKSuddeth]

* * * * * * * * *

So what's it all about, anyway, all this intrigue and stomping of jackboots on distant shores? Thanks to its unrivaled military strength and exceptional geographic isolation (oceans make bitchin' moats), this country is all but perfectly invulnerable to invasion, and repelling invaders would seem to be the only defensible function of armies. No one's invaded this country since the War of 1812, when British expeditions came out of Canada, Florida, and the Gulf of Mexico. Don't expect a repeat anytime soon. Although a massive one, the Pearl Harbor Attack was still just a raid, on what at the time was this country's farthest-flung primary military base.

To keep the entire planet under its thumb, our government burdens us with the gargantuan cost of the world's largest military, which it mostly uses to crush pitiful rebellions in the remotest and poorest corners of the world, places we truly have no business being in. This is exactly like a bully swaggering around a schoolyard, shaking down all the little kids. Is that really how you want your government representing you to the rest of the world? Shouldn't DOMESTIC policy take priority instead? Things like adequate health care and effective primary education -- programs that would serve the wants and needs of YOU, their citizen, whom they claim to be their master. But this is not their priority, and never has been. The geometric growth of this economy, by various forms of conquest, is their abiding passion, with domestic policy being attended to almost as an afterthought. To force our consent, they hypnotize us with lurid visions of one boogeyman after another, maintaining childish fear as our primary political sensibility, keeping us dependent, trusting, stupid, distracting us from our own self-interests...

Why is that?

WHO BENEFITS??

The average American, who spends his or her life chained to the machinery of wealth production, watching their share of its output dwindle steadily, sure as hell doesn't. The stratum of society that truly gains from all this just happens to be the same one that finds employment in high-level intelligence positions: big-time spooks like Kermit Roosevelt, the Dulles brothers, Nelson Rockefeller, George H. W. Bush -- i. e. America's ruling families. In their parlance, "US Interests" is just doublespeak for global empire and corporate colonialism, and these have always been the real purposes behind their warmongering.

All told, these wars killed over a million US soldiers, along with many times this number of civilians and combatants in the lands invaded, and this isn't even touching on the dozens of proxy wars that have been the American Empire's main battle front for going on sixty years. All of these millions of people, American and foreign alike, were MURDERED by a government intent on advancing the interests of a tiny minority while betraying the rest of humanity; a government willing to wield its power in their service in any manner, including technological and economic terror campaigns waged against entire national populations. And yet this government has the audacity to call itself a "beacon of hope to the world!" And the majority BELIEVE THEM!! It simply amazes.

America's shadowy patricians were already too powerful before the Cold War. And then decades of public hysteria borne of imminent nuclear annihilation delivered them into the fabled realm of "absolute power." This has been pretty obvious. Americans have avoided realizing it only by actively pursuing a mental state of utter denial on this subject, sort of like the three monkey icons of Shinto. Thanks to this determined ignorance, keeping the rest of us in the dark has been childishly easy for people like the Bushes. They can even be incredibly brazen and sloppy and get caught red-handed, as with Watergate. No biggy: just tell all the boobs it was Nixon acting alone, assisted by his best buddies, who just happened to be, um, CIA agents. Yah. They'll never notice this story's unbelievable stench; they'll be too relieved at having any sort of excuse to NOT think about it. You know, just like when the Warren Commission's whitewash came out.

One hypothesis is particularly good for sending 'America Firsters' into an apoplexy of denial: that the political culture now emerging in Washington is actually a product of 40 years of covert penetration into the Executive Branch. To substantiate this, one need look no further than the lineage of our present "leader." His grandfather, Prescott Bush, was a military spy during W.W.I, a key financial collaborator with the Nazis, and a US Senator. His father, George H. W. Bush, was heir to the CIA realm under our most infamous presidential regime, a fixture in presidential politics for 20 years, and all in all one of the creepiest figures ever to darken the American political stage. The 'quiet coup' that brought this man to power traces back to the Eisenhower Administration, when the utterly creepy "National Security" underworld first became a secret and malevolent force in national politics -- a force whose power is still nearly impossible to measure. There are ominous glimpses, though: in 1960, Eisenhower's VP and political heir, Richard M. Nixon, was shouldered aside by John F. Kennedy, who over the next three years developed grave misgivings about this underworld and its power. Then he ended up dead, and yes, his assassination DID stink of black ops, as did the similar jobs on Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, and his kid brother "Bobby," who would have been the SECOND Kennedy to sour Nixon's presidential hopes, had he lived to see the 1968 election...

Though the CIA denies it, several independent sources identify George H. W. Bush as a high-ranking agent during the Kennedy Administration, commanding covert operations against Cuba. The ships used in Operation "Zapata" (the "Bay of Pigs" invasion) were named by him, it is said, after members of his family. Those names indeed correspond with those of his wife and children. Among the most conclusive sources is an official memorandum from J. Edgar Hoover, dated November 29, 1963, which refers to a "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency" (14). The memo refers to Bush's evaluation of emotional reactions to Kennedy's assassination among Cuban exiles under his watch.

From here, Bush the Elder went on to become a protege of Richard Nixon's, was a mid-echelon member of his cabinet beginning in 1971, had very interesting connections to CREEP, and somehow eluded Congress's Watergate dragnet.

Watergate and a few other incidents proved that Nixon had a most unwholesome relationship with the CIA. Once this scandal had hemorrhaged to the point that Congress could no longer avoid taking action, containing the damage could be seen as the main theme of its response -- a hallmark of Congressional investigations. There was far too much eagerness to examine this matter only in terms narrowly relating to impeachment, thus leaving larger questions wholly unexplored: did the Watergate break-in really happen on Nixon's orders, or was the intelligence underworld acting on its own, using 'dirty tricks' to prop up their man in the White House, exactly as it has on countless occasions for entire puppet governments all over the world? In the latter case, letting Nixon take the fall would have been an extreme measure, but possibly the only sure way to divert attention from an abhorrent and illegal power structure, thus preserving it. Nixon himself would have been a likely author of this tactic, as it was he who trumped Congress' investigation by resigning, whence the entire matter was eagerly dropped.

Bone-tired of Watergate in any case, the public was predisposed to accept Nixon's implied guilt as the final answer: "responsibility can't go any higher than the President, right? Harry 'the buck stops here' Truman said so." In reaching this conclusion, we were assisted by major media organs, which immediately began spinning this as Watergate's "final resolution." In fact, this conclusion resolved nothing -- it left the most crucial questions hanging in mid-air, soon to be shrouded in rhetoric by professional apologists from all quarters. Its only definite outcome was the softening of a renewed public spirit of scrutiny and resistance, which in turn allowed a deadly authoritarian cancer to resume its march throughout our body politic. After going underground for seven years, this cancer emerged in full force as the Reagan Administration.

Dubya's announcement last April of another bogus 'conclusion' -- that of his Hitlerian conquest of Iraq -- had a strikingly similar effect. Once again, mounting vigilance was undone by a well-timed lie, universally disseminated.

Following Nixon's resignation, Poppy finally hit the big-time when Gerald Ford named him Director of the CIA. After toppling Carter, he became VP himself, and for the next twelve years was at the center of the Reagan era's continuous parade of treasonous covert operations. A few highlights: 1) the campaign to prevent an "October Surprise," in which Bush & Co. induced the Iranians to delay release of the American embassy hostages, thus undermining Carter's re-election bid; 2) an inhuman terror campaign against the people and government of Nicaragua, even after Congress declared it illegal, at which point the CIA was forced to devise covert funding arrangements such as 3) "Iran-Contra" and 4) operation "Watchtower." This last episode, which was going on around the time of Bush Senior's succession, is easily the most incredible: the CIA was a major domestic smuggler and distributor of "Crack" cocaine during the late '80s, when this drug became an inner-city plague (15).

At this point, the CIA was contemptuously wiping its ass with the Constitution, and got completely away with it. If this were truly the America the Boy Scouts taught you to believe in, the exposure of operation "Watchtower" would have destroyed the CIA.

Late in Reagan's second term, 60 minutes was granted a horrifying personal interview with Ronnie and Nancy in the Oval Office. Horrifying because, even though Reagan's Alzheimer's wasn't disclosed for several more years, it was perfectly obvious the man was totally gone. Faced with a steady stream of unscripted questions from Mike Wallace, Reagan's usual patter rapidly degenerated into stark senile mumblings. Desperate to conceal her husband's incoherence, Nancy kept practically thrusting her face into the cameras. This is consistent with puzzled accounts of writers and artists of the time, who, as dinner guests of the Reagans, were mystified as to how such an oaf could present himself so effectively on television.

All of which implies a striking parallel between the Reagan Presidency and that of Bush II: in both cases, Bush Senior can be discerned as the man behind the curtain, while the "president" is a mere speech reader, whose real job is to keep the public distracted with his amiable, vacuous, universally televised performances. Dubya's main puppeteers -- Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Powell -- are all Poppy's cronies, going all the way back to the Nixon Administration. The five Supreme Court Justices who put Junior in power are also Nixon/Reagan/Bush cronies, and their cancellation of democratic process was a classic "installation," reminiscent of the CIA's long-running antidemocratic escapades throughout the world.

It has Poppy's pawprints all over it.

If not for daddy's influence, Silver Coke-spoon Boy would be lucky to find work fishing golf balls out of water hazards at the local country club. This is obvious, and widely acknowledged. Most Americans, however, aren't willing to examine the enormously sinister ramifications, given Poppy's background, of the Bush Family's dynastic grip on American politics. Most Americans, after all, are a weak-minded lot -- though harassed by apparitions of unprecedented corruption, they lack the courage needed to fix their gaze upon them.

Which brings us to 9-11...

The most venerable means of transmitting control inputs from a plane's cockpit to its various aerodynamic control surfaces (rudder, ailerons, etc.) is via a system of cables, i.e. "aircraft cables." With the introduction of huge planes during and after W.W.II, unassisted human arms could no longer provide the force needed to actuate proportionately huge control surfaces, and so hydraulic assist devices and fully hydraulic control systems were developed. The introduction of autopilots and landing guidance systems over the next three decades layered yet another 'control system' over this one, an electronic layer capable of manipulating the hydraulics directly and thus flying the plane on its own. In the 757- and 767-series planes boarded by "the hijackers," Boeing expanded this layer enormously, making it much more sophisticated and integral to the continuous operation of these planes. For one thing, it continuously monitors such things as attitude, acceleration, turn rates, etc., and if necessary can assert exclusive control of the hydraulics at any time, modifying or even overriding pilot decisions that would otherwise result in drastic maneuvers, inappropriate for passenger service. Though meant to provide an added margin of safety in the event of gross pilot error, this arrangement introduces an ominous new dimension: in a very real sense, the humans on the flight deck have only tenuous control of flaps, rudder, etc.; the computer, the arbiter between the two, allows them direct control only on it's own immutable terms. If the computer can override the pilot some of the time, a potential exists for it to override the pilot ALL of the time. This is a vulnerable arrangement, as anyone who has dealt with a virus should know. In other words, the advancing dependency on avionic interfaces has brought with it an advancing potential for the total electronic co-optation of those interfaces. As they have grown exponentially in complexity, so too has the number of entry points by which such co-optation might be effected. All that was needed was for technologists to devise a "back door"...

Enter the US government and its defense contractors, who began joint development of remote flight control and flight circumvention technology at least two decades ago, using the full force of their virtually infinite R&D resources. The existence of these programs, and of the resulting technology, was verified soon after 9-11 by a panel of commercial and military pilots participating in an independent inquiry.

I'll break this story at this point because I know it will probably be hounded as a 'conspiracy theory' and I the 'conspricy nut' or something like that.

theres more but if noone is interested in the article i'll let it go.

 

[eric]

Not a conspiracy theory, just garbage !

Answer me this, who would truely benefit in the long run ?

Not the president, even if he gets re-elected he would be gone in 5 years.

Not the wealth class, they already have what they want. So who ?

 

[DKSuddeth]

Answer me this, who would truely benefit in the long run ?

GW Bush is not the last in the bush line. Neither is Dick Cheney or any of the others that sit in high rings of the US government. Let us not forget also, that the military industrial complex has always, and will continue, to gather wealth and power.

 

[eric]

Seems like a pretty weak argument. The Bush family has plenty, as does the Cheney family, and I hardly think they care about the military/industrial complex after their time. I just don't see it!

 

[jimnyc]

Interesting reading, but not much different than the National Enquirer or Globe publications. Pure entertainment with no other value than comedic relief.

 

[eric]

 

[DKSuddeth]

would you feel the same way if instead of the Bush line it targeted the Clinton line, or the Carter line.

Is it truly an objective look you afforded the article or a more partial reading because of your current political views?

my main point is that at no time in my life (all 37 years, granted its not alot) have I ever found an administration worth trusting, except maybe jimmy carters to a point simply because he didn't do a whole lot with it. History SHOULD show us that we should never let down our guard when it comes to a manipulative government but, to me, thats what seems to be happening with this administration. what concerns me more is that a growing group appears to be giving blank check approval to this current republican led government(im including all 3 branches)

 

[nbdysfu]

Between house, senate, president and state governments we are constantly changing our government, every year. The media is a free market, and every cynical possibility against the powers that be gets aired. The more unanimous the majority, the more opportunity to see their faults, and for them to receive blame for anything that happens. This is not the third reich. Our parties would be condemned for the riots, propoganda, minority-hate that propelled Hilter to power. The legislative branch has constantly welded limitations to the executive branch and vice versa. Justices maintain the law and prevent tampering by the other branches. US politicians ultimately win through their promise of tolerance, not their ability to quell resistance.
Only 20% voted in 2000 because both candidates showed themselves to be neutral in terms of authority, so no one except the far left or right cared enough to vote. That turned out to be a very undecided majority for either candidate.
It is unlikely that the republican party will maintain a majority. If it does, it will most likely split, as the Federalist[?] party split into rep and dem in the time of Andrew Jackson, and the Democratic party currently out of fomation.

Many like yourself would be vehemently against the creation of a monarchy or even a militarist regime in this country. No dynasty, even the Kennedy's, has ever succeeded in taking over the country.

I trust the government as I trust the people it is made by, as many democrats have pointed to fault lately.

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by DKSuddeth
would you feel the same way if instead of the Bush line it targeted the Clinton line, or the Carter line.

Is it truly an objective look you afforded the article or a more partial reading because of your current political views?

my main point is that at no time in my life (all 37 years, granted its not alot) have I ever found an administration worth trusting, except maybe jimmy carters to a point simply because he didn't do a whole lot with it. History SHOULD show us that we should never let down our guard when it comes to a manipulative government but, to me, thats what seems to be happening with this administration. what concerns me more is that a growing group appears to be giving blank check approval to this current republican led government(im including all 3 branches)

I would feel the same way regardless of whom the conspiracy theory was directed at. There is always a few out there that think there are silent black helicopters behind all evil.

I agree about the trust part, but it's the best we have and our government is what has made this such a great country over the years.

Don't forget, this republican led government votes in both the senate and the house with democrats involved as well. There is full representation on all voting. Of course the republicans have the upper hand, but I don't think that equates to writing them a blank check. The majority changes a lot and we'll eventually see the democrats with the upper hand. That's how government works and we as the people are the ones putting them in there.

I'm not sure they are doing too badly as far as the economy is concerned. Are you unhappy with the direction our economy is currently going?

 

[DKSuddeth]

I would feel the same way regardless of whom the conspiracy theory was directed at. There is always a few out there that think there are silent black helicopters behind all evil.

so the pentagon papers or operation northwoods don't raise flags for you?

I agree about the trust part, but it's the best we have and our government is what has made this such a great country over the years.

I disagree, its never been our government that makes this a great country and its that ideology that perpetuates the blind trust in our government. It SHOULD still be about us, the people. This used to be a country run by an elected government OF the people, BY the people, and FOR the people but the more that people accept the government as a seperate entity instead of an extension of OUR will, then the further downward we go.

Don't forget, this republican led government votes in both the senate and the house with democrats involved as well. There is full representation on all voting. Of course the republicans have the upper hand, but I don't think that equates to writing them a blank check. The majority changes a lot and we'll eventually see the democrats with the upper hand. That's how government works and we as the people are the ones putting them in there.

You have seen just how far to the right this republican led house and senate, with the push from the white house, has gone away from what the republican party used to stand for. Its the same way with the democrats in those seats as well. My opinion is that both parties are seperating themselves from the wants and needs of the people and are into self serving interests with big business.

I'm not sure they are doing too badly as far as the economy is concerned. Are you unhappy with the direction our economy is currently going?

I've spent the last 13 years teaching myself the IT field in the pursuit of financial success and wealth. Thats rapidly dwindling away in the pursuit of cheap labor around the world and its being done to us by our own government, democrat and republican alike. I've been out of work for almost 6 months now and its not getting much better. The issues I have in my family life are leaving us destitute because of it, so no, I'm not happy with the way the economy is going now.

 

[jimnyc]

I'm not going to debate this. Business's prosper and fail daily, and it's not the government to blame unless you want to give them the credit for all the prospering companies as well. There are thousands of IT companies thriving without using cheap and foreign labor.

I don't follow conspiracy theories unless I rent a movie from blockbuster.

I'm sorry things haven't been looking bright for you lately and I sincerely hope things improve for you.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.

 

[DKSuddeth]

I'm not going to debate this.

Thats fine Jim, if you choose not to. It won't make you any more right about it than I am though.

I hope you have a happy thanksgiving as well, and thanks for the support.

 

[jimnyc]

Originally posted by DKSuddeth
Thats fine Jim, if you choose not to. It won't make you any more right about it than I am though.

I hope you have a happy thanksgiving as well, and thanks for the support.

I'm not saying I'm right, nor you wrong. I just have a different outlook and don't subscribe to theories. I tend to pass my judgement based on facts.

Enjoy your turkey!

 

[eric]

Look DK, I can understand your situation, I have been there myself. I was handed nothing in this life except adversity. I will ask you to trust me that I had a lot of the odds stacked against me.

I just don't think that we should judge our nation by our personal successes or lack thereof. I run an IT company which before I came on board was heading down a path to chapter 11. It is the same business, just a different mindset guiding its path. We, not our government or society are responsible for our own destiny. I can not see where our administration's policies have effected our industry in any negative way, in fact the tax cuts have given us a boost. Furthermore, don't see the cheap labor that you are speaking of, not at least in our industry. The one thing we have seen is a reluctance of larger corps to make new investments in their IT infrastructure up until just recently.

If you don't mind me offering up some advice then this is what I would tell someone. Business is fluid and dynamic and requires people to think outside the box. The old school of thought just does not work in today's markets. It is no longer a situation where knowledge of your industry is enough to land you a good job. My company competes against much larger companies, such as NEIC (WebMD), and what I have learned is to use our preceived weaknesses as strengths, and to not try and compete head on. They are much larger than we are, but that also makes them slower than us. They have a stiff corporate policy that requires lots of red tape to bend, we are flexible and can conform to the needs of our clients, and so on.

Here is some direct advice for you. Look for smaller startup companies, rather than large corps. Try and come up with something unique that YOU and only you can bring to the table. It does not have to be a product, it very well could be a unique service, or way of thinking. Maybe opening up a new market for a company that has the resources but not the vision of what to do with them. So many companies that I see do not live up to their potential and would love someone to show them how. Instead of going to a company with a resume go with a new idea. I know this is not easy but it could well be worth the effort.

I offer this advice to you in a sincere manner, and do wish you the best of luck. You have obviously invested a good deal of time into learning and I know you want to put it to good use.

 

[KELLYGIRL]

All the way..........

 

[Annie]

Eric, the difference between you and 'them' is that you are willing to risk and reap the benefits or costs of risk. You can't give someone gonads.

 

[Moi]

Originally posted by Kathianne
Eric, the difference between you and 'them' is that you are willing to risk and reap the benefits or costs of risk. You can't give someone gonads.

Oh how true that is. Instead of investing so much time into conspiracy theories and figuring out how to blame the other guy, imagine what that type of creativity could have accomplished?

 

[h.j. anslinger]

first i want to thank jim for letting me back on. thank you. ok, now I want some one out there to come up with a different phrase than "conspiracy theory," use your own words to attack us(conspiracy theory nuts.) think about it, you know what conspiracy theory means, we all do. where did you first hear that phrase? your tv? your friend who got it from tv? it is a term used to debunk anything.....anything you want to debunk because you think it is not true. come up with something real. don't try to be cute with humor or insults........ just give me a reason to believe that what DK posts is not true.....................I'm really trying to break your programming. i am not insulting your intelligence. i'm not saying I wasn't programmed......I'm just saying what makes you think that the rich, (the richest of rich,) who owns the media, the government, the reseach centers, you, the company you work for, everything worldwide. the richest people in the world see you as 'the work force." the worker bees.... if they can make you think and believe what they want you to think and believe. that's half the battle...what's that saying? the pen is mightier than the sword... really, the freedom of information act helped me "form" my "conspiracy theories" go research your government. m.k. ultra(mind control), the northwoods document, the testing of bio/chem weapons and their dispersal systems on the general population of the United States of America.....the tuskeegee experiment, the eugenics policies of states in this union. I don't belong in any box you are about to put me in...I am talking aboutdocumented facts.....go find it for yourself.....I love this country, I am trying to save America just like it says on the homepage of this very forum. this country is turning into a police state...really it is... I know some of you are in the military, have any of you heard about operation Urban Warrior? in oakland ca., our military trained, with troops from other countries, to "invade" or "keep the peace" in cities right here in the land of the free...they hired actors to play American civillians(citizens) which the troops herded into a fake "camp" go ahead, look it up... it is real....go ahead and tell me "we need this, who is going to take care of us if there is a major terror attack..." We will, We will band together... look, the NewWorld Government has far more to gain if We are controlled, both physically and mentally... I hope you realize that I really do know what I am talking about. just because you didn't get the memo, doesn't mean I am crazy.......thanks again, jim. I was staring to think this forum was just another pys-op.....then you let me back on to "preach" the "conspiracy gospel" god bless -------------------------------------------------------------------Harry J anslinger and the masonic youth of today

 

[DKSuddeth]

Originally posted by KELLYGIRL
All the way..........

welcome to the boards kelly. Might I ask you WHY you trust your government 'all the way'?