WE THE PEOPLE vs. CORPORATIST-GLOBALISM
By Steven Yates
August 5, 2007
Back in 1996, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published his much-discussed The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington, a CFR member, offered an elite, commanding heights perspective on the near future a half-decade after the demise of the Soviet Union which doesn't mean the book isn't worth reading (it is).
Huntington saw the West as having become simultaneously the most powerful empire in history · economically and militarily but threatened by slow, long term decline both because of the rise of energetic competitors (especially India and China) and internal problems including falling birth rates, low savings, increased crime and corruption, and social disintegration. He didn't do much to address the role of super-elite policy in bringing these about but few commanding heights treatises do.
This last offers us a good insight from which to begin. After all, a real, bona fide clash of civilizations is developing on American soil ·with parallel developments in Canada.
One of the most amazing phenomena of the past few months is the largely spontaneous explosion of grassroots support for Ron Paul's candidacy for the Republican nomination in 2008. Media talking heads wrote him off following the second so-called debate in Columbia, South Carolina, where he and Rudy Giuliani crossed verbal swords. In the eyes of We the People, though, Ron Paul won that exchange. He spoke calmly, coherently, and cogently about such matters as blowback to explain why we were attacked on 9/11 (assuming for now we can believe anything the government says on the subject).
I find it hard not to write about Ron Paul. To those of us who believe our government should stick to the letter of its founding document, the U.S. Constitution, Dr. Paul is a true American hero. He is the one Republican candidate who voted against the undeclared Iraq War now dragging through its fifth year, the number of Americans killed now rivaling the number killed on 9/11, with tens of thousands of dead Iraqis and no end in sight. His opposition to the Iraq War was/is not based on some frivolous dislike of George W. Bush, as seems to be the case with many Democrats. He voted against the undeclared war in Kosovo back when Clinton was president. He believes, on Constitutional grounds, that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations. He does not believe we should initiate wars to enforce nonbinding resolutions by globalist bodies (the UN). He believes our interventionist foreign policy is wrong in principle, and that it has made us more enemies tha n friends, the world over. An empire may rise and for a time hold sway by superior military might and superior resources, but the interfered-with cheer when it goes down in flames, often from its own internal corruption and dysfunction.
Dr. Paul s principled stands have won him vocal support from across the land. The more the mainstream media tries to ignore him, the more this support grows. The more the elites try to suppress his views, the more they make his case for him€ ’·sometimes better than he ever could on his own. When he was refused a microphone in Iowa, he and his supporters staged a parallel rally a short distance away. More people attended the parallel rally than came to hear the € ’³official€ ’´ Republican candidates!
Just recently we saw some major backpedaling here in Upstate South Carolina. Rick Beltram, who chairs the Spartanburg County GOP based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, had called Paul a € ’³lunatic€ ’´ for his blowback remark to Giuliani in the Columbia match-up and in response to interest in a visit from Dr. Paul to the area, said he could € ’³stay home.€ ’´ Following a storm of emailed and voice-mailed protests from local Paul supporters, Beltram retreated and stated, € ’³If we're all that naive and we all misunderstood, I think they should come on down and tell us how we're wrong, and I think the people of Spartanburg will be anxious to listen.€ ’´
He got that right! A crowd of over 400 assembled at a luncheon hosted by the Spartanburg GOP on July 21 (watch and listen here). Dr. Paul€ ’²s rousing defense of freedom as opposed to serfdom and encroaching tyranny, sound monetary policy as opposed to continued debauching of the dollar courtesy of the Federal Reserve, Constitutionally limited government as opposed to unlimited expansion of the empire, and noninterventionist foreign policy as opposed to globalist nation-building, was punctuated with a dozen or so standing ovations. That same afternoon, a crowd rivaling the 1,000 that appeared in Iowa filled the Carolina First Center in neighboring Greenville. Some of these folks had driven for hundreds of miles from all over the Southeast to hear Dr. Paul€ ’²s message (can you imagine anyone driving hundreds of miles to see Rudy Giuliani, or John McCain??). Dr. Paul€ ’²s calls to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal the USA Patriot Act were greeted with cheers.
Dr. Paul is poised for national prominence since he has passed the fading McCain in the fundraising department. Shortly before the July 21 events he announced that he now has $2.4 million in the bank, versus McCain€ ’²s $2 million. This places him third behind Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Only out of sheer prejudice against his ideas can anyone still maintain that Dr. Paul€ ’²s candidacy is unserious. No amount of namecalling or milder dismissals (e.g., George Will€ ’²s once referring to him as a € ’³cheerful anachronism€ ’´) is going to change this. After months of total silence, the mainstream media has been compelled to pay attention, with evening coverage on local television networks and front page stories in the Sunday editions of the daily newspapers of both Greenville and Spartanburg on July 22.
Surely, too, the evidence of broad-based support refutes those often-heard claims that Ron Paul€ ’²s presence especially on Internet-based polls is the work of € ’³spammers.€ ’´ Nonsense! Examination of Dr. Paul€ ’²s fundraising by the Federal Election Commission shows that 47 percent of contributions to his campaign are in amounts totaling under $200 apiece (McCain is second place in this category with 17 percent). This means that large numbers of individuals are donating money in support of his campaign. Dr. Paul does not receive huge corporate donations or PAC money because he isn€ ’²t in corporations€ ’² or lobbyists€ ’² back pockets. He is now first in total donations from veterans and military personnel€ ’·surprising, at first glance, but telling given the growing realization within the rank-and-file of the military that the Iraq War was a mistake from the get-go.
Dr. Paul€ ’·as I and others have said before€ ’·is the only Constitutionalist in the race. He is the only person who, all evidence suggests, means it when he speaks of strict limits on the size and scope of the federal government. As his campaign literature states, he€ ’²s never voted for a tax increase, never supported Congress€ ’²s vote to raise their own salaries, never voted for a foreign war where legitimate U.S. interests are not at stake, never supported gun control laws. He doesn€ ’²t support laws that offer privileges to some groups at the expense of others; he doesn€ ’²t support the trend toward socialized medicine; he doesn€ ’²t support the corporatism (soft fascism) of the public-private partnership system. The Constitution says nothing about education, family, marriage, or any related areas. While Dr. Paul is staunchly pro-life, he also believes on Constitutional grounds that abortion is a matter for the states to resolve and not a federal responsibility.
Those who say he is an anachronism, are saying that Constitutionally limited government is an anachronism. That€ ’²s serious business, if you think about it.
Those who take such a view are saying, whether intentionally or not, that our system of government is now no different in principle or method from any other government that has ever existed, except in its capacity to rationalize. Most of the rest of the governments in the world are ruled by dictators who do as they please because they can. Their method is brute force. Our government had developed a history of dealing in deadly force with what amount to political crimes. FBI agents massacred Randy Weaver€ ’²s family, for his thought crime of racial separatism (he wasn€ ’²t bothering anybody else). The BATF burned women and children alive at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. The IRS routinely imprisoned people like Irwin Schiff who have maintained that the federal income tax is a fraud with no legal or Constitutional foundation and refused to pay.
More and more, however, the federal government is not getting away with this sort of thing. There have been no more massacres since the rise of the World Wide Web and especially YouTube, through which the entire online world can watch such events unfold. While federal agents may have surrounded the residence of income tax dissidents Ed and Elaine Brown in New Hampshire, they have not gone in with guns blazing because they know We the People are watching. When asked, in open court, to produce the statute that mandates a personal income tax, the IRS cannot do it. They are beginning to lose these cases (recent example: attorney Tom Cryer).
A movement is developing, and it is larger than Ron Paul. Millions of people now get their news from Internet sources, and are tuning out the mainstream media. They are beginning to question official pronouncements about unemployment and the need for a € ’³core€ ’´ inflation rate (the real rates of both, of course, are substantially higher than the official rates). We the People have seen Aaron Russo€ ’²s tour de force, America: Freedom to Fascism, and are looking more critically at the Federal Reserve. We are more and more turning our attention from our usual petty squabbles and toward the € ’³commanding heights€ ’´ of super-elite power.
....
Upshot of Part 1: a confrontation of historical proportions is building between those who want unlimited government (often in partnership with unlimited corporate power in quest for profits) and those who want Constitutionally limited government. That is to say, a confrontation is building between the elite culture and what we might as well call the populist culture, between the corporatist-globalists who meet behind closed doors at SPP Meetings and We the People who protest these strategies.
The Ron Paul Revolution is just one example. The real clash of civilizations is building on several fronts, and may result in a major political realignment once the dust settles.
Now of course, Dr. Paul himself is probably the least confrontational person in the presidential race. Those in Washington who disagree with him 180 degrees usually like him as a person. His demeanor is always calm and congenial€ ’·exuding the confidence of a man who knows he is right and that his critics are all wet, but is too polite to say so openly.
But as I said, the movement that is developing spontaneously around his candidacy is larger than he is, and it isn€ ’²t going anywhere. Not all of those involved are nonconfrontational€ ’·for better or for worse. Possibly because it is a luxury we can no longer afford. Dr. Paul has been in Congress. Down here in the trenches, things look very different.
The elite culture wants € ’³immigration reform€ ’´ in the worst way. The colonization of America by illegal aliens and affording them tracks to citizenship, after all, helps dilute something the elites have despised for decades: middle class America, with its predilection to save instead of spend and its goal of financial independence which leads to other forms of independence (educational, intellectual, ecclesiastical, etc.). Importing cheap labor drives down wages for working Americans. Illegals € ’³do the jobs Americans won€ ’²t do,€ ’´ goes the official mantra, which neglects the high percentage of illegals in prison or on welfare, and is rubbish in any event: there isn€ ’²t a job an American won€ ’²t do if he or she is paid decently! We the People, who see more of our jobs disappearing and more of our towns and neighborhoods destroyed by the soaring rates of crime and gang activity associated with the illegal alien colonization, want nothing to do with € ’³immigr ation reform€ ’´ which will lead only to ever-greater waves of incursions by illegals, as it did after the last amnesty bill signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Not this time! With a lot of Senators facing re-election next year, when their phones rang off the hook a few Thursdays ago with over 80 percent of callers demanding a thumbs-down on that Kennedy-McCain-Graham abomination, they knew that voting with the elites could send them packing next year.
We the People spoke! The Senate obeyed. There is an important object lesson here: when We the People get up off our butts and do something, we can win a battle or two or three!
The elite culture wants Real ID (or its equivalent by some other name) in the worst way. They see it as a stepping stone to total information awareness on every U.S. citizen, and thereby a means of securing power. They are doubtless aware, again, of the grassroots rebellion sweeping through state legislatures often led by private citizens groups, i.e., We the People. Again, we the people are speaking, and winning battles one state at a time. Seeing to it that we are not forced to accept national ID cards is going to take some doing€ ’·as the elites€ ’² minions in Congress will try to slip it into every bill related to employment in one way or another, or possibly as another of those legislative land-mines in an unrelated appropriations bill. Again, however, when We the People are vigilant and do something, we can make the elites slow up.
The elite culture want the Trans-Texas Corridor as the first leg of their proposed NAFTA Super Corridor system, as the elites€ ’² proposed € ’³North American Community€ ’´ will need a transportation infrastructure to move cheap Chinese crud up through Mexico and into this country on (poorly inspected) Mexican trucks. The Texas branch of We the People has spoken loudly: ordinary Texans do not want it. Texas Governor Rick Perry (representing the elite culture) does, of course. A confrontation is building in Texas, especially as Perry vetoed the bill calling for a two-year moratorium on the construction of the TTC.
We the People have not won this one yet. But stay tuned. I€ ’²ve learned enough about Texans over the years to know that among their number are some who will not go quietly when the Texas DOT and its corporate partners try to use post-Kelo eminent domain abuse to take away the 584,000 acres of land they€ ’²ve worked all their lives, and which their fathers and grandfathers worked before them. This does not mention the potential for more illegal alien smuggling, drug trafficking, and possibly even terrorists sneaking nuclear materials into this country via Mexican trucks coming up that road.
The elite culture wants that € ’³North American Community€ ’´ in the worst way, as a crucial stepping stone in their long-term effort to integrate as much of the planet as possible under a single global regime ruled by themselves. The elites see unlimited bureaucratic-plutocratic power, exercised through their public-private partnerships (not genuine free markets€ ’·suggestion: read everything Joan Veon has written on the subject). The elite culture does not want government by consent of the governed. Its corporatist side sees unlimited profits through the ease of outsourcing and the ready availability of cheap labor once the free movement of peoples and capital through an essentially borderless North America is established. Its politically correct/collectivist side sees mass control of persons through the subordination (intellectual, psychological, etc.) of the individual to the group (racial/ethnic, gender, the € ’³self-directed work team,€ ’´ etc.).
The SPP speaks of € ’³security and prosperity.€ ’´ It doesn€ ’²t add up. Again, we are looking at elite-speak. Only when We the People are free from government and corporate fetters can we take the actions that will lead to true prosperity, and true security (through the self-sufficiency and independence from centralized authority that brings about stable families, effective education, crime-free neighborhoods, and much, much more that We the People find good!).
China and India have already reaped the rewards of the Western elite culture having destroyed our families, dumbed us down in government schools, maintained a divide-and-conquer principle on race and gender first with affirmative action programs and then political correctness, while engineering America€ ’²s economic decline through destructive, corporatist trade policy (e.g., NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.) and the accompanying refusal to secure our border with Mexico. Samuel Huntington gets it half right. Like all elitists, he sees the impending decline of the U.S. as a world power as a natural process, not the product of a deliberate, multi-faceted, long-term agenda.
We the People want no part of any of this. We are tired of paying out over a third of our incomes into taxes€ ’·especially with that mounting suspicion that the federal income tax is one of the two biggest scams of all time, the other one being the Federal Reserve (a government-created corporation owned lock, stock and barrel by the super-elite). Those of us who have learned how our money system really works, how it has privileged the super-elite and those attached to them while subtly assaulting the financial independence of We the People, more and more want an end to this system. Let us shut down the IRS, so that working Americans of all stripes can keep their hard-earned money. Let us shut down the Federal Reserve and restore Constitutional money (see Article 1, Section 8).
Most Americans would cheer at the former but are not ready for the latter. They haven€ ’²t yet seen America: Freedom to Fascism or The Money Masters. A new national conversation in the U.S. will eventually get this € ’³sleeper issue€ ’´ discussed, possibly as soon as next summer€ ’²s Republican National Convention courtesy of Ron Paul€ ’²s greater visibility and the increasing visibility of his issues.
Canadians, by the way, are also mobilizing their own We the People (Vive le Canada, the Canadian Action Party, et al.) to oppose their branch of the power-elite represented by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Canada West Foundation, both of which advocate € ’³deep integration€ ’´ with the U.S. and Mexico. When the SPP meets August 20-21 at Montebello, Quebec€ ’·surrounded by heavy security€ ’·there may be as many as 10,000 protesters in the area. Interestingly, Canadians seem more aware of the momentum toward an integrated North America than do Americans. They understandably fear being overwhelmed by the far larger and more powerful entity to their south. They worry that U.S.-based multinational corporations will plunder their resources, e.g., the oil-rich shale deposits near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, bringing in cheap foreign labor so that ordinary Canadians do not see a dime of the profits.
What We the People want, here or there, is to restore control over our economic and cultural lives and destinies€ ’·as opposed to being expendable pawns in a gigantic game of chess played by a power elites whose only gods are money and power, and who never see the carnage caused by their decisions and policies.
This clash of civilizations€ ’·between the super-elite mindset (I believe it was also Samuel Huntington who coined the term the Davos culture to describe it) and the populist one of We the People that is rising to prominence on the uncensored information available via the Internet€ ’·is just the latest chapter in the longest struggle in the history of Western civilization generally.
This is the struggle between those who want to be left alone, and those who will not leave them alone. It is the struggle between those who wish to live as they see fit, independently, and those who want power (accumulating huge quantities of wealth has often been a means to achieving power through easily-bought politicians). I believe this struggle emerged in the West, and nowhere else, because nowhere else did human beings develop such concepts as limitations on the power of the state, government by consent of the governed, and that of people dealing with one another freely and peacefully instead of through coercion. We alone honor the individual, and at one time recognized responsible individualism as an advance, morally as well as economically, over tribalism (collectivism). This is because, when we put our minds to it, we were able to see each person as a unique being put here by the Creator for a purpose€ ’·not a random product of nature and not simply an ins ignificant pawn to be used by the powerful.
Let me sum all this up. I have been asked, What chance do you think Ron Paul really has of getting the Republican nomination next year? Obviously, the Republican Party€ ’²s elite handlers will pull out all stops to make sure he doesn€ ’²t get it, no matter how large the grassroots support. Dr. Paul is, after all, rapidly becoming the biggest threat to their supremacy in decades€ ’·quite unlike Ross Perot, who understood our money system and had NAFTA right, but acted like a nut and finally self-destructed. (It has been suggested to me a time or two that Perot was threatened. I have no evidence one way or the other. It wouldn€ ’²t surprise me, though. I sincerely hope Dr. Paul has hired a few bodyguards and has his brakes checked periodically!)
But my purpose here has been to look beyond Ron Paul€ ’²s candidacy. A movement larger than him is emerging. Even if Dr. Paul doesn€ ’²t get the nomination, this movement isn€ ’²t going anywhere, and will probably get larger. Working under the assumption that the Bush Regime doesn€ ’²t find (or create) cause to declare a national emergency and place the country under martial law, very soon now We the People will be able to compel a new national conversation on the future of the United States of America, including scrutinizing institutions that have been sacrosanct. Does a free society need a Federal Reserve or any other central bank? How do we fix our money system so that money is our servant and not the means of our enslavement? Reading our Constitution might be a good place to start. (Also Thomas Jefferson.) What is the Constitutional and statutory basis for the personal income tax? If it has none, then We the People should demand that the IRS also be shut down.
Do we want a sovereign U.S.A.? What are we willing to do to keep it? Do we want to ensure that government answers to We the People. How do we make this happen? It means holding our representatives€ ’² feet to the fire as we did over amnesty-for-illegals, and taking action at the voting booth. Though it€ ’²s another article, I would recommend getting rid of paperless electronic voting machines, to certify that elections cannot simply be stolen.
We the People cannot, under any circumstances, allow this conversation to be shut down. If the elite culture continues to do as it places, it will mean the eventual loss of every personal freedom that matters, and doubtless our privacy as well. We are close to having the critical mass to force this new national conversation. Shall we seize this moment? The choice is ours.
Steven Yates earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1987 at the University of Georgia and has taught the subject at a number of colleges and universities around the Southeast. He currently teaches philosophy at the University of South Carolina Upstate and Greenville Technical College, and also does a little e-commerce involving real free trade. He is on the South Carolina Board of The Citizens Committee to Stop the FTAA.
He is the author of Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action (1994), Worldviews: Christian Theism Versus Modern Materialism (2005), around two dozen philosophical articles and reviews in refereed journals and anthologies, and over a hundred articles on the World Wide Web. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina, where he writes a weekly column for the Times Examiner and is at work on a book length version of his popular series to be entitled The Real Matrix (hopefully!) to be completed this summer.
By Steven Yates
August 5, 2007
Back in 1996, Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published his much-discussed The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Huntington, a CFR member, offered an elite, commanding heights perspective on the near future a half-decade after the demise of the Soviet Union which doesn't mean the book isn't worth reading (it is).
Huntington saw the West as having become simultaneously the most powerful empire in history · economically and militarily but threatened by slow, long term decline both because of the rise of energetic competitors (especially India and China) and internal problems including falling birth rates, low savings, increased crime and corruption, and social disintegration. He didn't do much to address the role of super-elite policy in bringing these about but few commanding heights treatises do.
This last offers us a good insight from which to begin. After all, a real, bona fide clash of civilizations is developing on American soil ·with parallel developments in Canada.
One of the most amazing phenomena of the past few months is the largely spontaneous explosion of grassroots support for Ron Paul's candidacy for the Republican nomination in 2008. Media talking heads wrote him off following the second so-called debate in Columbia, South Carolina, where he and Rudy Giuliani crossed verbal swords. In the eyes of We the People, though, Ron Paul won that exchange. He spoke calmly, coherently, and cogently about such matters as blowback to explain why we were attacked on 9/11 (assuming for now we can believe anything the government says on the subject).
I find it hard not to write about Ron Paul. To those of us who believe our government should stick to the letter of its founding document, the U.S. Constitution, Dr. Paul is a true American hero. He is the one Republican candidate who voted against the undeclared Iraq War now dragging through its fifth year, the number of Americans killed now rivaling the number killed on 9/11, with tens of thousands of dead Iraqis and no end in sight. His opposition to the Iraq War was/is not based on some frivolous dislike of George W. Bush, as seems to be the case with many Democrats. He voted against the undeclared war in Kosovo back when Clinton was president. He believes, on Constitutional grounds, that we should not interfere in the internal affairs of other nations. He does not believe we should initiate wars to enforce nonbinding resolutions by globalist bodies (the UN). He believes our interventionist foreign policy is wrong in principle, and that it has made us more enemies tha n friends, the world over. An empire may rise and for a time hold sway by superior military might and superior resources, but the interfered-with cheer when it goes down in flames, often from its own internal corruption and dysfunction.
Dr. Paul s principled stands have won him vocal support from across the land. The more the mainstream media tries to ignore him, the more this support grows. The more the elites try to suppress his views, the more they make his case for him€ ’·sometimes better than he ever could on his own. When he was refused a microphone in Iowa, he and his supporters staged a parallel rally a short distance away. More people attended the parallel rally than came to hear the € ’³official€ ’´ Republican candidates!
Just recently we saw some major backpedaling here in Upstate South Carolina. Rick Beltram, who chairs the Spartanburg County GOP based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, had called Paul a € ’³lunatic€ ’´ for his blowback remark to Giuliani in the Columbia match-up and in response to interest in a visit from Dr. Paul to the area, said he could € ’³stay home.€ ’´ Following a storm of emailed and voice-mailed protests from local Paul supporters, Beltram retreated and stated, € ’³If we're all that naive and we all misunderstood, I think they should come on down and tell us how we're wrong, and I think the people of Spartanburg will be anxious to listen.€ ’´
He got that right! A crowd of over 400 assembled at a luncheon hosted by the Spartanburg GOP on July 21 (watch and listen here). Dr. Paul€ ’²s rousing defense of freedom as opposed to serfdom and encroaching tyranny, sound monetary policy as opposed to continued debauching of the dollar courtesy of the Federal Reserve, Constitutionally limited government as opposed to unlimited expansion of the empire, and noninterventionist foreign policy as opposed to globalist nation-building, was punctuated with a dozen or so standing ovations. That same afternoon, a crowd rivaling the 1,000 that appeared in Iowa filled the Carolina First Center in neighboring Greenville. Some of these folks had driven for hundreds of miles from all over the Southeast to hear Dr. Paul€ ’²s message (can you imagine anyone driving hundreds of miles to see Rudy Giuliani, or John McCain??). Dr. Paul€ ’²s calls to abolish the Internal Revenue Service and repeal the USA Patriot Act were greeted with cheers.
Dr. Paul is poised for national prominence since he has passed the fading McCain in the fundraising department. Shortly before the July 21 events he announced that he now has $2.4 million in the bank, versus McCain€ ’²s $2 million. This places him third behind Giuliani and Mitt Romney. Only out of sheer prejudice against his ideas can anyone still maintain that Dr. Paul€ ’²s candidacy is unserious. No amount of namecalling or milder dismissals (e.g., George Will€ ’²s once referring to him as a € ’³cheerful anachronism€ ’´) is going to change this. After months of total silence, the mainstream media has been compelled to pay attention, with evening coverage on local television networks and front page stories in the Sunday editions of the daily newspapers of both Greenville and Spartanburg on July 22.
Surely, too, the evidence of broad-based support refutes those often-heard claims that Ron Paul€ ’²s presence especially on Internet-based polls is the work of € ’³spammers.€ ’´ Nonsense! Examination of Dr. Paul€ ’²s fundraising by the Federal Election Commission shows that 47 percent of contributions to his campaign are in amounts totaling under $200 apiece (McCain is second place in this category with 17 percent). This means that large numbers of individuals are donating money in support of his campaign. Dr. Paul does not receive huge corporate donations or PAC money because he isn€ ’²t in corporations€ ’² or lobbyists€ ’² back pockets. He is now first in total donations from veterans and military personnel€ ’·surprising
Dr. Paul€ ’·as I and others have said before€ ’·is the only Constitutionalist in the race. He is the only person who, all evidence suggests, means it when he speaks of strict limits on the size and scope of the federal government. As his campaign literature states, he€ ’²s never voted for a tax increase, never supported Congress€ ’²s vote to raise their own salaries, never voted for a foreign war where legitimate U.S. interests are not at stake, never supported gun control laws. He doesn€ ’²t support laws that offer privileges to some groups at the expense of others; he doesn€ ’²t support the trend toward socialized medicine; he doesn€ ’²t support the corporatism (soft fascism) of the public-private partnership system. The Constitution says nothing about education, family, marriage, or any related areas. While Dr. Paul is staunchly pro-life, he also believes on Constitutional grounds that abortion is a matter for the states to resolve and not a federal responsibility.
Those who say he is an anachronism, are saying that Constitutionally limited government is an anachronism. That€ ’²s serious business, if you think about it.
Those who take such a view are saying, whether intentionally or not, that our system of government is now no different in principle or method from any other government that has ever existed, except in its capacity to rationalize. Most of the rest of the governments in the world are ruled by dictators who do as they please because they can. Their method is brute force. Our government had developed a history of dealing in deadly force with what amount to political crimes. FBI agents massacred Randy Weaver€ ’²s family, for his thought crime of racial separatism (he wasn€ ’²t bothering anybody else). The BATF burned women and children alive at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. The IRS routinely imprisoned people like Irwin Schiff who have maintained that the federal income tax is a fraud with no legal or Constitutional foundation and refused to pay.
More and more, however, the federal government is not getting away with this sort of thing. There have been no more massacres since the rise of the World Wide Web and especially YouTube, through which the entire online world can watch such events unfold. While federal agents may have surrounded the residence of income tax dissidents Ed and Elaine Brown in New Hampshire, they have not gone in with guns blazing because they know We the People are watching. When asked, in open court, to produce the statute that mandates a personal income tax, the IRS cannot do it. They are beginning to lose these cases (recent example: attorney Tom Cryer).
A movement is developing, and it is larger than Ron Paul. Millions of people now get their news from Internet sources, and are tuning out the mainstream media. They are beginning to question official pronouncements about unemployment and the need for a € ’³core€ ’´ inflation rate (the real rates of both, of course, are substantially higher than the official rates). We the People have seen Aaron Russo€ ’²s tour de force, America: Freedom to Fascism, and are looking more critically at the Federal Reserve. We are more and more turning our attention from our usual petty squabbles and toward the € ’³commanding heights€ ’´ of super-elite power.
....
Upshot of Part 1: a confrontation of historical proportions is building between those who want unlimited government (often in partnership with unlimited corporate power in quest for profits) and those who want Constitutionally limited government. That is to say, a confrontation is building between the elite culture and what we might as well call the populist culture, between the corporatist-
The Ron Paul Revolution is just one example. The real clash of civilizations is building on several fronts, and may result in a major political realignment once the dust settles.
Now of course, Dr. Paul himself is probably the least confrontational person in the presidential race. Those in Washington who disagree with him 180 degrees usually like him as a person. His demeanor is always calm and congenial€ ’·exuding the confidence of a man who knows he is right and that his critics are all wet, but is too polite to say so openly.
But as I said, the movement that is developing spontaneously around his candidacy is larger than he is, and it isn€ ’²t going anywhere. Not all of those involved are nonconfrontational€ ’·
The elite culture wants € ’³immigration reform€ ’´ in the worst way. The colonization of America by illegal aliens and affording them tracks to citizenship, after all, helps dilute something the elites have despised for decades: middle class America, with its predilection to save instead of spend and its goal of financial independence which leads to other forms of independence (educational, intellectual, ecclesiastical, etc.). Importing cheap labor drives down wages for working Americans. Illegals € ’³do the jobs Americans won€ ’²t do,€ ’´ goes the official mantra, which neglects the high percentage of illegals in prison or on welfare, and is rubbish in any event: there isn€ ’²t a job an American won€ ’²t do if he or she is paid decently! We the People, who see more of our jobs disappearing and more of our towns and neighborhoods destroyed by the soaring rates of crime and gang activity associated with the illegal alien colonization, want nothing to do with € ’³immigr ation reform€ ’´ which will lead only to ever-greater waves of incursions by illegals, as it did after the last amnesty bill signed by Ronald Reagan in 1986. Not this time! With a lot of Senators facing re-election next year, when their phones rang off the hook a few Thursdays ago with over 80 percent of callers demanding a thumbs-down on that Kennedy-McCain-
We the People spoke! The Senate obeyed. There is an important object lesson here: when We the People get up off our butts and do something, we can win a battle or two or three!
The elite culture wants Real ID (or its equivalent by some other name) in the worst way. They see it as a stepping stone to total information awareness on every U.S. citizen, and thereby a means of securing power. They are doubtless aware, again, of the grassroots rebellion sweeping through state legislatures often led by private citizens groups, i.e., We the People. Again, we the people are speaking, and winning battles one state at a time. Seeing to it that we are not forced to accept national ID cards is going to take some doing€ ’·as the elites€ ’² minions in Congress will try to slip it into every bill related to employment in one way or another, or possibly as another of those legislative land-mines in an unrelated appropriations bill. Again, however, when We the People are vigilant and do something, we can make the elites slow up.
The elite culture want the Trans-Texas Corridor as the first leg of their proposed NAFTA Super Corridor system, as the elites€ ’² proposed € ’³North American Community€ ’´ will need a transportation infrastructure to move cheap Chinese crud up through Mexico and into this country on (poorly inspected) Mexican trucks. The Texas branch of We the People has spoken loudly: ordinary Texans do not want it. Texas Governor Rick Perry (representing the elite culture) does, of course. A confrontation is building in Texas, especially as Perry vetoed the bill calling for a two-year moratorium on the construction of the TTC.
We the People have not won this one yet. But stay tuned. I€ ’²ve learned enough about Texans over the years to know that among their number are some who will not go quietly when the Texas DOT and its corporate partners try to use post-Kelo eminent domain abuse to take away the 584,000 acres of land they€ ’²ve worked all their lives, and which their fathers and grandfathers worked before them. This does not mention the potential for more illegal alien smuggling, drug trafficking, and possibly even terrorists sneaking nuclear materials into this country via Mexican trucks coming up that road.
The elite culture wants that € ’³North American Community€ ’´ in the worst way, as a crucial stepping stone in their long-term effort to integrate as much of the planet as possible under a single global regime ruled by themselves. The elites see unlimited bureaucratic-
The SPP speaks of € ’³security and prosperity.€ ’´ It doesn€ ’²t add up. Again, we are looking at elite-speak. Only when We the People are free from government and corporate fetters can we take the actions that will lead to true prosperity, and true security (through the self-sufficiency and independence from centralized authority that brings about stable families, effective education, crime-free neighborhoods, and much, much more that We the People find good!).
China and India have already reaped the rewards of the Western elite culture having destroyed our families, dumbed us down in government schools, maintained a divide-and-conquer principle on race and gender first with affirmative action programs and then political correctness, while engineering America€ ’²s economic decline through destructive, corporatist trade policy (e.g., NAFTA, CAFTA, etc.) and the accompanying refusal to secure our border with Mexico. Samuel Huntington gets it half right. Like all elitists, he sees the impending decline of the U.S. as a world power as a natural process, not the product of a deliberate, multi-faceted, long-term agenda.
We the People want no part of any of this. We are tired of paying out over a third of our incomes into taxes€ ’·especially with that mounting suspicion that the federal income tax is one of the two biggest scams of all time, the other one being the Federal Reserve (a government-created corporation owned lock, stock and barrel by the super-elite)
Most Americans would cheer at the former but are not ready for the latter. They haven€ ’²t yet seen America: Freedom to Fascism or The Money Masters. A new national conversation in the U.S. will eventually get this € ’³sleeper issue€ ’´ discussed, possibly as soon as next summer€ ’²s Republican National Convention courtesy of Ron Paul€ ’²s greater visibility and the increasing visibility of his issues.
Canadians, by the way, are also mobilizing their own We the People (Vive le Canada, the Canadian Action Party, et al.) to oppose their branch of the power-elite represented by the Canadian Council of Chief Executives and the Canada West Foundation, both of which advocate € ’³deep integration€ ’´ with the U.S. and Mexico. When the SPP meets August 20-21 at Montebello, Quebec€ ’·surrounded by heavy security€ ’·there may be as many as 10,000 protesters in the area. Interestingly, Canadians seem more aware of the momentum toward an integrated North America than do Americans. They understandably fear being overwhelmed by the far larger and more powerful entity to their south. They worry that U.S.-based multinational corporations will plunder their resources, e.g., the oil-rich shale deposits near Fort McMurray in northern Alberta, bringing in cheap foreign labor so that ordinary Canadians do not see a dime of the profits.
What We the People want, here or there, is to restore control over our economic and cultural lives and destinies€ ’·as opposed to being expendable pawns in a gigantic game of chess played by a power elites whose only gods are money and power, and who never see the carnage caused by their decisions and policies.
This clash of civilizations€ ’·
This is the struggle between those who want to be left alone, and those who will not leave them alone. It is the struggle between those who wish to live as they see fit, independently, and those who want power (accumulating huge quantities of wealth has often been a means to achieving power through easily-bought politicians)
Let me sum all this up. I have been asked, What chance do you think Ron Paul really has of getting the Republican nomination next year? Obviously, the Republican Party€ ’²s elite handlers will pull out all stops to make sure he doesn€ ’²t get it, no matter how large the grassroots support. Dr. Paul is, after all, rapidly becoming the biggest threat to their supremacy in decades€ ’·quite unlike Ross Perot, who understood our money system and had NAFTA right, but acted like a nut and finally self-destructed. (It has been suggested to me a time or two that Perot was threatened. I have no evidence one way or the other. It wouldn€ ’²t surprise me, though. I sincerely hope Dr. Paul has hired a few bodyguards and has his brakes checked periodically!
But my purpose here has been to look beyond Ron Paul€ ’²s candidacy. A movement larger than him is emerging. Even if Dr. Paul doesn€ ’²t get the nomination, this movement isn€ ’²t going anywhere, and will probably get larger. Working under the assumption that the Bush Regime doesn€ ’²t find (or create) cause to declare a national emergency and place the country under martial law, very soon now We the People will be able to compel a new national conversation on the future of the United States of America, including scrutinizing institutions that have been sacrosanct. Does a free society need a Federal Reserve or any other central bank? How do we fix our money system so that money is our servant and not the means of our enslavement? Reading our Constitution might be a good place to start. (Also Thomas Jefferson.) What is the Constitutional and statutory basis for the personal income tax? If it has none, then We the People should demand that the IRS also be shut down.
Do we want a sovereign U.S.A.? What are we willing to do to keep it? Do we want to ensure that government answers to We the People. How do we make this happen? It means holding our representatives€ ’² feet to the fire as we did over amnesty-for-
We the People cannot, under any circumstances, allow this conversation to be shut down. If the elite culture continues to do as it places, it will mean the eventual loss of every personal freedom that matters, and doubtless our privacy as well. We are close to having the critical mass to force this new national conversation. Shall we seize this moment? The choice is ours.
Steven Yates earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1987 at the University of Georgia and has taught the subject at a number of colleges and universities around the Southeast. He currently teaches philosophy at the University of South Carolina Upstate and Greenville Technical College, and also does a little e-commerce involving real free trade. He is on the South Carolina Board of The Citizens Committee to Stop the FTAA.
He is the author of Civil Wrongs: What Went Wrong With Affirmative Action (1994), Worldviews: Christian Theism Versus Modern Materialism (2005), around two dozen philosophical articles and reviews in refereed journals and anthologies, and over a hundred articles on the World Wide Web. He lives in Greenville, South Carolina, where he writes a weekly column for the Times Examiner and is at work on a book length version of his popular series to be entitled The Real Matrix (hopefully!) to be completed this summer.
led The Real Matrix (hopefully!) to be completed this summer.
E-Mail: freeyourmindinsc@yahoo.com .
http://www.newswithviews.com/Yates/steven28.htm
http://www.newswithviews.com/Yates/steven29.htm
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a.. We the People vs. Corporatist-Globalism, Part 2, 8-5-07
a.. We the People vs. Corporatist-Globalism, Part 1, 8-5-07
a.. "Real ID" - Real Rebellion Boiling Over 6-21-07
a.. The Ron Paul Rebellion 5-21-07
a.. "Real ID" - Real Rebellion Brewing 2-18-07
a.. Ron Paul for 2008? 1-17-07
a.. Quietly, Quietly Building the North American Union 10-5-06
a.. Ben Bernanke and the New International Economic Order 9-11-06
a.. Radical Feminists: Useful Idiots 8-1-06
a.. America: "Freedom to Fascism" A Must See Movie 7-10-06
a.. The North American Union "Matrix" - Part 9, 6-3-06
a.. The North American Union "Matrix" - Part 8, 6-3-06
a.. A Look Behind America€ ’²s Immigration Nightmare 4-20-06
a.. Solution to the Evolution, End Government School Monopoly! 3-4-06
a.. The Global-Governance Deception 2-12-06
a.. Our Money System - Part 3, 12-28-05
a.. Our Money System - Part 2, 12-28-05
a.. Our Money System - Part 1, 12-28-05
a.. Erasing America! 11-23-05
a.. Free Trade: The Myth and the Reality 9-12-05
a.. The CAFTA Los--and Beyond 8-14-05
a.. The Globalists' Best Friend: Americans' Ignorance 6-21-05
a.. Scuttling Bad Trade Agreements 5-6-05
a.. The Real Matrix Part 7, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 6, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 5, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 4, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 3, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 2, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 1, 12-7-04
E-Mail: freeyourmindinsc@
http://www.newswith
http://www.newswith
====
a.. We the People vs. Corporatist-
a.. We the People vs. Corporatist-
a.. "Real ID" - Real Rebellion Boiling Over 6-21-07
a.. The Ron Paul Rebellion 5-21-07
a.. "Real ID" - Real Rebellion Brewing 2-18-07
a.. Ron Paul for 2008? 1-17-07
a.. Quietly, Quietly Building the North American Union 10-5-06
a.. Ben Bernanke and the New International Economic Order 9-11-06
a.. Radical Feminists: Useful Idiots 8-1-06
a.. America: "Freedom to Fascism" A Must See Movie 7-10-06
a.. The North American Union "Matrix" - Part 9, 6-3-06
a.. The North American Union "Matrix" - Part 8, 6-3-06
a.. A Look Behind America€ ’²s Immigration Nightmare 4-20-06
a.. Solution to the Evolution, End Government School Monopoly! 3-4-06
a.. The Global-Governance Deception 2-12-06
a.. Our Money System - Part 3, 12-28-05
a.. Our Money System - Part 2, 12-28-05
a.. Our Money System - Part 1, 12-28-05
a.. Erasing America! 11-23-05
a.. Free Trade: The Myth and the Reality 9-12-05
a.. The CAFTA Los--and Beyond 8-14-05
a.. The Globalists' Best Friend: Americans' Ignorance 6-21-05
a.. Scuttling Bad Trade Agreements 5-6-05
a.. The Real Matrix Part 7, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 6, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 5, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 4, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 3, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 2, 12-7-04
a.. The Real Matrix Part 1, 12-7-04
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