“Blowback” is the term coined by the CIA to refer to unintended consequences and retaliatory actions. Ron Paul has repeatedly stated that the attack of the towers on September 11, 2001 was blowback from criminal, destructive and lethal activities conducted by the US in covert operations against various Islamic targets for years prior to 9/11. Chalmers Johnson in his book Nemesis documents such activity.
From Nemesis by Chalmers Johnson:
“On the basis of the new agreement with Egypt, between 1995 and 1998 the CIA carried out a series of renditions [kidnappings for the purpose of torture] aimed particularly at Islamic freedom fighters working in the Balkans, many of them originally from Egypt. Virtually all of the people the CIA kidnapped in these operations were killed after being delivered into Egyptian hands. Predictably enough, these kidnappings generated blowback, although ordinary Americans did not perceive it as such because the actions that provoked the retaliation were, of course, kept secret. On August 5, 1998, the International Islamic Front for Jihad, in a letter to an Arab-language newspaper in London, promised reprisal for recent U.S. renditions form Albania. Two days later, al-Qaeda blew up the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania with a loss of 224 lives. The U.S. renditions continued with the CIA and FBI carrying out some two dozen of them in 1999 and 2000. These in turn helped provoke the attacks on the navy destroyer USS Cole in the Yemeni port of Aden on October 12, 2000. Former CIA director George Tenet testified before the 9/11 Commission that there were more than seventy renditions leading up to 9/11.”
Again from Chalmers Johnson:
‘The people held in this U.S. version of the gulag are known as “ghost detainees.’ completely off-the-books. No charges are ever filed against them, and they are hidden away even from the inspectors of the International Committee of the Red Cross. In an unusual typology of rendition sites, Robert Baer, a former CIA operative in the Middle East and the author of ‘Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude’, has commented, ‘We pick up a suspect or we arrange for one of our partner countries to do it. Then the suspect is placed on a civilian transport to a third country where, let’s make no bones about it, they use torture. If you want good interrogation, you send someone to Jordan. If you want them to be killed, you send them to Egypt or Syria. Either way, the U.S. cannot be blamed as it is not doing the heavy work.”
The scope and collusion of CIA renditions - Chalmers Johnson:
“The Swedish case is of major political importance because it revealed that Swedish authorities collaborated with the CIA. It is now clear that in a number of European countries, some of the local intelligence people were in on these renditions to one degree or another and that throughout Europe several governments pretended ignorance and simply looked the other way. Given the one thousand CIA flights to European destinations, it is hard to imagine that local governments could have been completely ignorant of their purposes. Whether all Western European governments were involved; whether some their intelligence services were functionally working for the CIA rather than their own governments; or whether deniability had been built into their arrangements with the CIA, we do not know. But obviously more was going on than merely bad Americans and good but ignorant Europeans.
No evidence has ever been offered that the two men the CIA kidnapped from Sweden and then delivered to the tender mercies of the Egyptians had participated in terrorist activities..... At about 5:00 p.m. on December 18, 2001, the Swedish secret police picked up Agiza on a street on his way home from a Swedish-language class in Karlstad; minutes later they nabbed al-Zery in a shop in Stockholm....The police transported the two Egyptians to the Stockholm city airport, Bromma, an hour before it was scheduled to close. the police cars were quickly admitted and drove to the office of Police Inspector Paul Forell, who was on duty. There, obviously by prior agreement, they were met by eight balaclava-wearing Americans in business suits who had landed a few minutes earlier in N379P. The Americans used scissors to cut the clothes off Agiza and al-Zery, who were still in handcuffs and ankle chains. They then inserted suppositories presumably containing tranquilizers into their anuses, dressed them in diapers and jumpsuits, and took them to the Gulfstream. At 21:49, the Egyptians, Americans, and two SAPO officers took off for Cairo....
As details of what happened began to leak out, embarrassing the Swedish government, its ambassador in Cairo was ordered to look into the matter. He discovered that after some two years of intermittent torture of both men, the Egyptian authorities decided that al-Zery was innocent and sent him back to his native village, ordering him not ot leave without official permission. They sentenced Agiza to twenty-five years in Masra Tora Prison for membership in a radical organization, presumably the Muslim Brotherhood. Visits to the prison by the Swedish ambassador produced only meetings with the warden and no interviews with Agiza, whose wife and five children remain in Sweden but are faced with the continual threat of deportation.
In the weeks immediately after 9/11, it seems that the CIA conducted a global vacuuming operation seeking to ‘disappear’ suspicious young Islamic men from various countries, including our own. In the course of these activities the agency acquired the names of Agiza and al-Zery, then pressured the SAPO to arrest them and turn over to a rendition team. At least some Swedish authorities involved knew that transferring any prisoner to a country where he might be tortured was a violation of Swedish law as well as of article 3 of the 1984 U.N. Convention Against Torture, which Sweden had signed and ratified. This case damaged Sweden’s reputation as a champion of international protection of human rights.....
The Swedish affair accomplished nothing other than ruining the lives of two men, a wife and children, for no reason other than showing off the hubris of the CIA....
On June 24, 2005, an Italian judge signed a 213-page criminal arrest warrant for thirteen CIA operatives, including the former Milan station chief, Robert Seldon Lady, charging them with kidnapping an Egyptian in Milan who held political refugee status in Italy..... The warrants for the thirteen CIA men and women, together with their photos, were forwarded to the European police authority, which authorized their arrest anywhere on the continent. It is the first time that a fellow NATO member has ever filed criminal complaints against employees of the United States government acting in an official capacity.....
The abductee in this [another] case is (or was) a forty-two-year-old Islamic cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, known as ‘Abu Omar.’ In 1991, if not earlier, Omar fled Egypt for Albania because he belonged to the outlawed organization Jamaat al-Islamiyya and the police were after him. In Tirana, the Albanian capital, he worked for four years for various Islamic charities, but did not himself participate in any illegal activities. After 9/11, the Bush administration labeled the charities he worked for as supporters of terrorists.... In 1997, he surfaced in Rome where he was granted political refugee status. Shortly thereafter, he moved to Milan....
On Monday, February 17, 2003, shortly after noon, Abu Omar was walking down the Via Guerzoni toward a mosque to attend daily prayers when he was stopped by an officer of Italy’s paramilitary carabinieri police force. According to the Milan prosecutor, Amando Spataro, the Italian carabiniere had been hired by the CIA to approach Abu Omar and conduct a routine documents check....
According to a passerby’s account, two men speaking ‘bad’ Italian then emerged from a parked white van, sprayed a chemical in Abu Omar’s face, and hustled him into the van, which drove away at high speed followed by a least one and possibly two other cars... he was transferred to a civilian Gulfstream, which departed at 8:30 that night for Cairo. When Omar’s plane arrived in Cairo early on the morning of February 18, Egyptian authorities took him into custody. Accompanying Omar to Egypt in the Gulfstream was CIA Milan station chief Robert Lady.’
Although Italian political leaders have steadfastly maintained that they did not collaborate in any way with the kidnapping, it is obvious that police authorities knew a great deal about it. The nineteen-person CIA abduction team of commandos, drivers, and lookouts left an astonishing trail of evidence that suggests they were utterly indifferent to the possibility that they were being observed....by February 1, 2003, virtually all of them were there. They did not hide in safe houses or private homes but checked into four-star palaces like the Milan Hilton ($340 a night) and the Star Hotel ($325 a night)....for between three days and three weeks....eating lavishly at gourmet restaurants, they ran up bills of at least $144,984, which they paid for with Diners Club cards that matched their fake passports....After the delivery of Abu Omar to Aviano, four of the Americans checked into luxury hotels in Venice and others took vacations along the picturesque Mediterranean cost north of Tuscany, all still on the government tab......
Unfortunately, carrying out extraordinary renditions such as the ones in Sweden and Italy, torturing captives in secret prisons, shipping weapons to Islamic jihadists without checking their backgrounds or motives, and undermining democratically elected governments that are not fully on our political wavelength are the daily work of the Central Intelligence Agency. That was not always the case nor was it the intent of its founders or the expectations of its officials during its earliest years. As conceived in the National Security Act of 1947, the CIA’a main function was to compile an analyze raw intelligence to make it useful to the president. Its job was to help him see the big picture, put the latest crisis in historical and economic perspective, give early warning on the likely crises of the future, and evaluate whether political instability in one country or another was of any importance or interest to the United States. It was a civilian, non-partisan organization, without vested interests such as those of the military-industrial complex, and staffed by seasoned, occasionally wise analysts with broad comparative knowledge of the world and our place in it. As the New York Times Tim Weiner notes, ‘Once upon a time in the Cold War, the CIA could produce strategic intelligence. It countered the Pentagon’s wildly overstated estimates of Soviet military power. It cautioned that the war in Vietnam could not be won by military force. It helped keep the Cold War cold.
One of the CIA’s best-known historians, Thomas Powers, laments... ‘the CIA, as it existed for 50 years, is gone.’ I [Chalmers Johnson] think it was actually gone long before. My own view is that President Bush’s manipulation of intelligence to deceive the country into going to war and then blaming his failure on CIA’s ‘false intelligence’ delivered only the final coup de grace to the CIA’s strategic-intelligence function. Henceforth, the CIA will no longer have even a vestigial role in trying to discern the forces influencing our foreign policies. That work will now be done, if it is done at all, by the new director of national intelligence. The downgraded CIA will attend to such things as assassinations, dirty tricks, renditions, and engineering foreign coups....
The reality was and is that presidents like having a private army and do not like to be contradicted by officials not fully under their control. Thus the clandestine service long ago began to surpass the intelligence side of the agency in terms of promotions, finances, and prestige. In May of 2006, Bush merely put strategic analysis to sleep once and for all and turned over truth-telling to a brand-new bureaucracy of personal loyalists and the vested interests of the Pentagon.
This means that we are blinder than usual in understanding what is going on in the world. But, equally important, our liberties are also seriously at risk. The CIA’s strategic intelligence did not enhance the power of the president except insofar as it allowed him to do his job more effectively. It was, in fact, a modest restraint on a rogue president trying to assume the prerogatives of a king. The CIA’s bag of dirty tricks, on the other hand, is a defining characteristic of the imperial presidency. It is a source of unchecked power that can gravely threaten the nation -- as George W. Bush’s misuse of power in starting the war in Iraq demonstrated. The so-called reforms of the CIA in 2006 have probably further shortened the life of the American republic.”
CIA Funding- Chalmers Johnson:
“Wilson [Representative Charlie Wilson] soon discovered that all of the CIA’s budget and 40 percent of the Pentagon’s budget is ‘black’ -- that is, totally hidden from the public and all but a privileged few congressmen. As a member of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, he could add virtually any amount of money to whatever black project he supported.”
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Dialogue with Congressman Regarding PATRIOT ACT(1)
The following is the text of letter to me from Congressman Pete Sessions Republican of Texas. His letter is a response to my telephone call to his office requesting that he not support renewal of the PATRIOT ACT.
PETE SESSIONS
32nd District, Texas
_____________
COMMITTEE ON RULES
_____________
COMMITTEE ON
FINANCIAL SERVICES
February 15, 2011
Dear Larry,
Thank you for contacting me regarding the United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act, H.R. 514), also known as the Patriot Act. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this important homeland security issue.
The Patriot Act, enacted shortly after the attacks on 9/11, was intended to aid law enforcement personnel by facilitating information sharing and providing more extensive methods necessary to track terrorists at the earliest states of plot formation. The act enhances the ability of authorities to conduct surveillance on terrorists, with key provisions that account for modern technologies.
The original USA PATRIOT Act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 337-79 on October 12, 2001. In 2005, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 by a vote of 257-171.
On January 26, 2011, Congressman James Sensebrenner (R-WI) introduced H.R. 514 in the House of Representatives to extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2004 until February 8, 2011. On February 14, 2011, the House of Representatives passed the act by a vote of 275-144. I voted in support of the legislation because I believe the USA PATRIOT Act has bolstered the ability of national security agents to protect American citizens from attack.
In crafting of the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress provided for the delicate balance between the ability to investigate those who may be attempting terrorist activities and a citizen’s legitimate expectation of privacy. In the years since the implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress has consistently been able to ensure the right of privacy for the ordinary citizen under the legislation.
Thankfully, the United States has managed to avert any major terrorist attack since 9/11, but the threat has not subsided. We must remain vigilant guardians of our homeland and reinforce our national security laws. The provisions of the proposed renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act supplement the ability of homeland security forces to protect our interests and our people.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts and concerns. As always, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or my Legislative Correspondent, Katy Jane Jenevein, at 202.225.2231, or by email at KatyJane.Jenevein@mail.house.gov. I look forward to hearing from you in the future.
Sincerely,
Pete Sessions
Member of Congress
PETE SESSIONS
32nd District, Texas
_____________
COMMITTEE ON RULES
_____________
COMMITTEE ON
FINANCIAL SERVICES
February 15, 2011
Dear Larry,
Thank you for contacting me regarding the United and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (USA PATRIOT Act, H.R. 514), also known as the Patriot Act. I appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts on this important homeland security issue.
The Patriot Act, enacted shortly after the attacks on 9/11, was intended to aid law enforcement personnel by facilitating information sharing and providing more extensive methods necessary to track terrorists at the earliest states of plot formation. The act enhances the ability of authorities to conduct surveillance on terrorists, with key provisions that account for modern technologies.
The original USA PATRIOT Act passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 337-79 on October 12, 2001. In 2005, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005 by a vote of 257-171.
On January 26, 2011, Congressman James Sensebrenner (R-WI) introduced H.R. 514 in the House of Representatives to extend expiring provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2004 until February 8, 2011. On February 14, 2011, the House of Representatives passed the act by a vote of 275-144. I voted in support of the legislation because I believe the USA PATRIOT Act has bolstered the ability of national security agents to protect American citizens from attack.
In crafting of the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress provided for the delicate balance between the ability to investigate those who may be attempting terrorist activities and a citizen’s legitimate expectation of privacy. In the years since the implementation of the USA PATRIOT Act, Congress has consistently been able to ensure the right of privacy for the ordinary citizen under the legislation.
Thankfully, the United States has managed to avert any major terrorist attack since 9/11, but the threat has not subsided. We must remain vigilant guardians of our homeland and reinforce our national security laws. The provisions of the proposed renewal of the USA PATRIOT Act supplement the ability of homeland security forces to protect our interests and our people.
Thank you again for sharing your thoughts and concerns. As always, if you have questions, please do not hesitate to contact me or my Legislative Correspondent, Katy Jane Jenevein, at 202.225.2231, or by email at KatyJane.Jenevein@mail.house.gov. I look forward to hearing from you in the future.
Sincerely,
Pete Sessions
Member of Congress
Dialogue with Congressman Regarding PATRIOT ACT(2)
Following is my response to the Congressman's letter to me:
My thanks to you, Congressman Sessions for your response to my query regarding your support of the Patriot Act which by now has passed the Senate.
I want to begin by saying that in a free society we accept the risks inherent in living in such a society.
It is not my intention to seem crass or disrespectful, but I need to point out that it seems you have not really examined the evidence submitted by the administration in its attempt to prove the need for continued unconstitutional surveillance of Americans. The provisions of this Act saddle us with unconstitutional intrusions into the privacy of law abiding Americans as several documented incidences of invasion of privacy of non-terrorists citizens have shown.
One particular provision of the Patriot Act allows for the issuance and use of national security letters (NSL’s). This provision is noted on the ACLU web site where writers are advocating significant reform of the Patriot Act:
In addition the “proofs” presented that these measures are protecting us are rather unsubstantiated and seem more “trumped up” than not. Anyone can say, “we are doing this for your protection.” But declaring it does not make it true. I have read some of the reports of plots thwarted supposedly because of the Patriot Act. I am not convinced that anything would have been different without the Patriot Act. Government so often resorts to the “magic anti-tiger rock” scenario of Lisa Simpson. When questioned as to the effectiveness of the “magic anti-tiger rock”, the response is “Well you don’t see any tigers do you?”
History has shown that once governments take on more power or take rights away, they are loath to relinquish the power or remove restrictions as typified by our present situation. The so called “climate of terror” for which this Act has been put in place to address has no end. By that I mean anything can be termed acts of terror or threats of terror and therefore become elements of this so called “climate of terror”. Consequently the suspension of our rights has no end.
Many of us out here are not pleased with this state of affairs. We do not feel that our representatives are acting in our best interest. What terrorists can cause us to have 9 to 10% unemployment? Only government acting on a perceived threat of terrorism can so restrict, and spend, and inflate the monetary supply until so many more of us are driven into poverty. Our government has overreacted to the terrorist threat and driven us deeper into poverty. How can that be considered a positive outcome?
As a nation we are hypocritical when we say we are in support of freedom but do not adhere to the structure of our own republic with its rule of law. Instead we fall prey to majority rule even when the majority is in violation of the rule of law. We have a law that prohibits government from conducting unlawful searches -- that is with out court order and probable cause. Yet we pass an act to do this anyway. Then we try to lecture other countries on freedom. How hypocritical is that?
As we recall, President FDR was denied many times the implementation of some of the main provisions of his New Deal by a Supreme Court which declared these elements unconstitutional. He proceeded to browbeat the Court, went to the people by way of “fireside chats” and announced that an out of touch Supreme Court was interpreting the Constitution in a very non progressive manner. He stated that this court was in fact standing in the way of the installation of measures that were needed to help Americans during this tragic time. FDR finally prevail. The result: we got the New Deal and unemployment proceeded to climb above 20% and stay there for some time. Can we say in the spirit of Lisa Simpson that the provisions of the New Deal saved us from 30% or even 40% unemployment? Again that seems to be the prevailing method the government uses to justify expansionism.
The framers of the Constitution knew the dangers of too much government and did not see such as a source of safety. They understood this from their experience and the record of history. Things have not changed that much in 350 years and human nature has not changed at all. We are not going to be safe or prosperous again until we return to Constitutionally restrained government. And the only way to do this is to vote “no” on laws presented that are not Constitutional regardless of any rationale presented to justify such laws.
You as my representative are not there to do your own will in favor of your best interest for reelection. You are there to protect my rights and the rights of your constituents as these rights are enumerated in the Constitution. Back in 2008 our government prepared to bail out major financial institutions that were in default. This bailout has topped 2 trillion dollars and is rising. Any pole taken at the onset of this bailout effort showed that over 90% of those poled believed that the government should not create more debt to bail out these institutions. We believed that it would have been better for the nation for these institutions to go bankrupt and their toxic assets be liquidated. In addition many of us saw no provisions in the Constitution for bailing out industries using deficit spending or any other spending. Instead of allowing the liquidation that the nation desired and the situation required, the government acted in favor of the financial institutions at the expense of the economy. It is this kind of governance that makes me not trust this government to act in my best interests or to restrain itself to Constitutional limits.
Are we to say that those Congressmen who voted against renewing the Patriot Act care less about our security than those who voted for renewal? I challenge you to show proof of your assertions that this Patriot Act is serving the interests of the American people. Just stating so is not good enough. Stating that terrible things would have happened to us were it not for the Patriot Act is also not good enough. Are we also to believe that had the Patriot Act been in effect prior to 9/11 there would have been no attack on the towers? It is my understanding that we had sufficient information regarding those responsible for the attack to prevent their activity but our agencies were inept in their ability to utilize and share the information.
There appears to be a blindness that pervades our Congress and Senate. A blindness that causes our representatives not to see the danger to our economy and way of life because of the existing size of our government and our continued direction in spending. No terrorist attack can cause a total breakdown of our economic system. Hyperinflation, however, can do that. It is government spending and monetary policy that cause inflation -- not terrorists. As I witness more people losing jobs and homes and being introduced to a new experience of poverty, I don’t see this as the result of terrorists. I see this as a result of government activity and monetary policy.
I understand that in view of your past record it is unlikely that you will change your position on the Patriot Act. It is also clear from the number of votes in favor of the act that the government has succeeded in convincing many that compromising our privacy and restricting our rights in the name of protecting us from terrorists is in our best interest. However, I am writing this letter to document that there are a number of us who do not agree with government functioning in this manner. And hopefully this number is growing.
I will be posting your letter and my response along with any subsequent responses from your office on my blog.
Thank you for your time.
Larry Enge
My thanks to you, Congressman Sessions for your response to my query regarding your support of the Patriot Act which by now has passed the Senate.
I want to begin by saying that in a free society we accept the risks inherent in living in such a society.
It is not my intention to seem crass or disrespectful, but I need to point out that it seems you have not really examined the evidence submitted by the administration in its attempt to prove the need for continued unconstitutional surveillance of Americans. The provisions of this Act saddle us with unconstitutional intrusions into the privacy of law abiding Americans as several documented incidences of invasion of privacy of non-terrorists citizens have shown.
One particular provision of the Patriot Act allows for the issuance and use of national security letters (NSL’s). This provision is noted on the ACLU web site where writers are advocating significant reform of the Patriot Act:
“NSLs permit the government to obtain the communication, financial and credit records of anyone deemed relevant to a terrorism investigation even if that person is not suspected of unlawful behavior. Numerous Department of Justice Inspector General reports have confirmed that tens of thousands of these letters are issued every year and they are used to collect information on people two and three times removed from a terrorism suspect. NSLs also come with a nondisclosure requirement that precludes a court from determining whether the gag is necessary to protect national security. The NSL provisions should be amended so that they collect information only on suspected terrorists and the gag should be modified to permit meaningful court review for those who wish to challenge nondisclosure orders.”
In addition the “proofs” presented that these measures are protecting us are rather unsubstantiated and seem more “trumped up” than not. Anyone can say, “we are doing this for your protection.” But declaring it does not make it true. I have read some of the reports of plots thwarted supposedly because of the Patriot Act. I am not convinced that anything would have been different without the Patriot Act. Government so often resorts to the “magic anti-tiger rock” scenario of Lisa Simpson. When questioned as to the effectiveness of the “magic anti-tiger rock”, the response is “Well you don’t see any tigers do you?”
History has shown that once governments take on more power or take rights away, they are loath to relinquish the power or remove restrictions as typified by our present situation. The so called “climate of terror” for which this Act has been put in place to address has no end. By that I mean anything can be termed acts of terror or threats of terror and therefore become elements of this so called “climate of terror”. Consequently the suspension of our rights has no end.
Many of us out here are not pleased with this state of affairs. We do not feel that our representatives are acting in our best interest. What terrorists can cause us to have 9 to 10% unemployment? Only government acting on a perceived threat of terrorism can so restrict, and spend, and inflate the monetary supply until so many more of us are driven into poverty. Our government has overreacted to the terrorist threat and driven us deeper into poverty. How can that be considered a positive outcome?
As a nation we are hypocritical when we say we are in support of freedom but do not adhere to the structure of our own republic with its rule of law. Instead we fall prey to majority rule even when the majority is in violation of the rule of law. We have a law that prohibits government from conducting unlawful searches -- that is with out court order and probable cause. Yet we pass an act to do this anyway. Then we try to lecture other countries on freedom. How hypocritical is that?
As we recall, President FDR was denied many times the implementation of some of the main provisions of his New Deal by a Supreme Court which declared these elements unconstitutional. He proceeded to browbeat the Court, went to the people by way of “fireside chats” and announced that an out of touch Supreme Court was interpreting the Constitution in a very non progressive manner. He stated that this court was in fact standing in the way of the installation of measures that were needed to help Americans during this tragic time. FDR finally prevail. The result: we got the New Deal and unemployment proceeded to climb above 20% and stay there for some time. Can we say in the spirit of Lisa Simpson that the provisions of the New Deal saved us from 30% or even 40% unemployment? Again that seems to be the prevailing method the government uses to justify expansionism.
The framers of the Constitution knew the dangers of too much government and did not see such as a source of safety. They understood this from their experience and the record of history. Things have not changed that much in 350 years and human nature has not changed at all. We are not going to be safe or prosperous again until we return to Constitutionally restrained government. And the only way to do this is to vote “no” on laws presented that are not Constitutional regardless of any rationale presented to justify such laws.
You as my representative are not there to do your own will in favor of your best interest for reelection. You are there to protect my rights and the rights of your constituents as these rights are enumerated in the Constitution. Back in 2008 our government prepared to bail out major financial institutions that were in default. This bailout has topped 2 trillion dollars and is rising. Any pole taken at the onset of this bailout effort showed that over 90% of those poled believed that the government should not create more debt to bail out these institutions. We believed that it would have been better for the nation for these institutions to go bankrupt and their toxic assets be liquidated. In addition many of us saw no provisions in the Constitution for bailing out industries using deficit spending or any other spending. Instead of allowing the liquidation that the nation desired and the situation required, the government acted in favor of the financial institutions at the expense of the economy. It is this kind of governance that makes me not trust this government to act in my best interests or to restrain itself to Constitutional limits.
Are we to say that those Congressmen who voted against renewing the Patriot Act care less about our security than those who voted for renewal? I challenge you to show proof of your assertions that this Patriot Act is serving the interests of the American people. Just stating so is not good enough. Stating that terrible things would have happened to us were it not for the Patriot Act is also not good enough. Are we also to believe that had the Patriot Act been in effect prior to 9/11 there would have been no attack on the towers? It is my understanding that we had sufficient information regarding those responsible for the attack to prevent their activity but our agencies were inept in their ability to utilize and share the information.
There appears to be a blindness that pervades our Congress and Senate. A blindness that causes our representatives not to see the danger to our economy and way of life because of the existing size of our government and our continued direction in spending. No terrorist attack can cause a total breakdown of our economic system. Hyperinflation, however, can do that. It is government spending and monetary policy that cause inflation -- not terrorists. As I witness more people losing jobs and homes and being introduced to a new experience of poverty, I don’t see this as the result of terrorists. I see this as a result of government activity and monetary policy.
I understand that in view of your past record it is unlikely that you will change your position on the Patriot Act. It is also clear from the number of votes in favor of the act that the government has succeeded in convincing many that compromising our privacy and restricting our rights in the name of protecting us from terrorists is in our best interest. However, I am writing this letter to document that there are a number of us who do not agree with government functioning in this manner. And hopefully this number is growing.
I will be posting your letter and my response along with any subsequent responses from your office on my blog.
Thank you for your time.
Larry Enge
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Planned Parenthood: A Mirror of the Times
There are important people in my life who utilize some of the services of Planned Parenthood. Having said that I would add that other government related services are also a part of the lives of people in my life. But what this demonstrates to me is the that our government (particularly on the federal level) has done an effective job in making itself and promoting itself as not only a vital source and the supplier of last resort but as a necessary regulator of life in general.
Facing the reality that banks would control the economy (a reality brought on by the chartering of the Federal Reserve System in 1913) government has increasingly seen its mission to be to placate the populace (whose wealth was to be slowly siphoned away) with government substitutes for prosperity. A necessary part of this transition was the reeducation of the American public to believe in the necessity of central government as source and ultimate control.
In any society markets are the wealth building engines. But markets have to function efficiently to generate and secure the wealth of a society. Efficiently functioning markets also distribute wealth fairly. Those who apply the effort receive the wealth. Cartels and monopolies are difficult if not impossible to establish within a free market.
Even so in a large and complex society, government is totally necessary. Properly functioning government can assist markets in what it does best. But what we have in the West is not government that assists markets but government that controls markets. It is the model of the entire western world. Is it working? According to Fed Chairman, Bernanke, yes. According to Bernanke inflation is low (2-3%). According to other sources, it is not working. Inflation is 5-8% and rising. In fact one of the sources (Marc Faber) says that Bernanke is flat out lying.
The significance of inflation is that it is the mechanism that most effectively transfers wealth from the productive part of the society to Wall Street. It does so stealthily but very effectively. So yes, I guess it is working. But for whom? As we all know, the uber wealthy are increasing their wealth exponentially. The rest of us are treading at best but many are slipping. This is an orchestrated transfer. This is not free market function. This is control market function.
Free market benefits ordinary folks the best. Free markets are responsive to the needs and wishes of the populace because it centers around the relationship between those who need and those who supply. Even now, a free market in health care would be providing good quality care at affordable, competitive costs. In a free market we would have full employment. On the other hand controlled markets respond to the controller which would be the government. Some may say this is good since government is “the people”. For sure government promotes itself as being of the people, by the people and for the people. But does this really characterize our present federal government? I have serious doubts. So much policy is decided by those who have not been elected by “the people”. Many of these policy makers are part of the revolving door between the President’s Cabinet (all recent Presidents), Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve. This revolving door is totally out of our control. As shown by the fact that any poll taken prior to the 2008-2009 bailouts revealed 90% or more of the people believed that AIG and others should not have been bailed out. However, at the nod of the Fed Head, they were bailed out and continue to be bailed out.
The bailout initiative has resulted in a monetary expansion of upwards of 3 trillion dollars and counting. Monetary expansion is a synonym for inflation. So when Bernanke says that inflation (the redistribution machine) is low, he can’t be telling the truth.
In government, ideology along with money rules. So the ideology that rules is the one that is voted in. In the free market place, ideology takes a secondary role and money is properly allocated. In a free market performance trumps ideology. Competition controls greed.
So the stage is set. They take the wealth and provide us with “services”. Services we could have provided for ourselves were we able to retain the wealth we as a society have generated. As a result we “need” Planned Parenthood. We “need” Social Security, food stamps, unemployment compensation, etc. All of these “needs” are a necessary part of the relationship promoted by this progressive concept of government. In addition, the fact that a dollar in 2011 is worth only about 3¢ compared to the dollar in 1913 does not mean that we have simply lost that value (wealth). Rather it means that wealth has been transferred. Wall Street now has that wealth - as if by magic.
I would much rather be able to take care of my own needs and the needs of those I love than to have to apply for “assistance” for those needs. We have forgotten that in a society with as much potential as ours we should be able to take care of ourselves. But we cannot even build an effective savings account. Because of government monetary policy, money in a savings loses value. We should be able to buy food, secure housing, acquire and sustain employment, access medical care, retire without the aid and control of government. Unfortunately I think we don’t believe that anymore. They (the money masters) have accomplished their goal well. We are all now safely wards of the state. We have attained the Orwellian paradigm. They have usurped the wealth. The stock market was up again today. There are 46 million Americans on food stamps. But we have Planned Parenthood. Soon we will have full scaled Obamacare (if the Republicans don’t derail it). Welcome to the Great Society.
Facing the reality that banks would control the economy (a reality brought on by the chartering of the Federal Reserve System in 1913) government has increasingly seen its mission to be to placate the populace (whose wealth was to be slowly siphoned away) with government substitutes for prosperity. A necessary part of this transition was the reeducation of the American public to believe in the necessity of central government as source and ultimate control.
In any society markets are the wealth building engines. But markets have to function efficiently to generate and secure the wealth of a society. Efficiently functioning markets also distribute wealth fairly. Those who apply the effort receive the wealth. Cartels and monopolies are difficult if not impossible to establish within a free market.
Even so in a large and complex society, government is totally necessary. Properly functioning government can assist markets in what it does best. But what we have in the West is not government that assists markets but government that controls markets. It is the model of the entire western world. Is it working? According to Fed Chairman, Bernanke, yes. According to Bernanke inflation is low (2-3%). According to other sources, it is not working. Inflation is 5-8% and rising. In fact one of the sources (Marc Faber) says that Bernanke is flat out lying.
The significance of inflation is that it is the mechanism that most effectively transfers wealth from the productive part of the society to Wall Street. It does so stealthily but very effectively. So yes, I guess it is working. But for whom? As we all know, the uber wealthy are increasing their wealth exponentially. The rest of us are treading at best but many are slipping. This is an orchestrated transfer. This is not free market function. This is control market function.
Free market benefits ordinary folks the best. Free markets are responsive to the needs and wishes of the populace because it centers around the relationship between those who need and those who supply. Even now, a free market in health care would be providing good quality care at affordable, competitive costs. In a free market we would have full employment. On the other hand controlled markets respond to the controller which would be the government. Some may say this is good since government is “the people”. For sure government promotes itself as being of the people, by the people and for the people. But does this really characterize our present federal government? I have serious doubts. So much policy is decided by those who have not been elected by “the people”. Many of these policy makers are part of the revolving door between the President’s Cabinet (all recent Presidents), Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve. This revolving door is totally out of our control. As shown by the fact that any poll taken prior to the 2008-2009 bailouts revealed 90% or more of the people believed that AIG and others should not have been bailed out. However, at the nod of the Fed Head, they were bailed out and continue to be bailed out.
The bailout initiative has resulted in a monetary expansion of upwards of 3 trillion dollars and counting. Monetary expansion is a synonym for inflation. So when Bernanke says that inflation (the redistribution machine) is low, he can’t be telling the truth.
In government, ideology along with money rules. So the ideology that rules is the one that is voted in. In the free market place, ideology takes a secondary role and money is properly allocated. In a free market performance trumps ideology. Competition controls greed.
So the stage is set. They take the wealth and provide us with “services”. Services we could have provided for ourselves were we able to retain the wealth we as a society have generated. As a result we “need” Planned Parenthood. We “need” Social Security, food stamps, unemployment compensation, etc. All of these “needs” are a necessary part of the relationship promoted by this progressive concept of government. In addition, the fact that a dollar in 2011 is worth only about 3¢ compared to the dollar in 1913 does not mean that we have simply lost that value (wealth). Rather it means that wealth has been transferred. Wall Street now has that wealth - as if by magic.
I would much rather be able to take care of my own needs and the needs of those I love than to have to apply for “assistance” for those needs. We have forgotten that in a society with as much potential as ours we should be able to take care of ourselves. But we cannot even build an effective savings account. Because of government monetary policy, money in a savings loses value. We should be able to buy food, secure housing, acquire and sustain employment, access medical care, retire without the aid and control of government. Unfortunately I think we don’t believe that anymore. They (the money masters) have accomplished their goal well. We are all now safely wards of the state. We have attained the Orwellian paradigm. They have usurped the wealth. The stock market was up again today. There are 46 million Americans on food stamps. But we have Planned Parenthood. Soon we will have full scaled Obamacare (if the Republicans don’t derail it). Welcome to the Great Society.
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