How should we react to such horrible things as the Paris attacks. John Whitehead advocates caution, caution that the reaction not be worse than the event. And he falls back to the 9/11 attack, where the government expanded it's powers at the citizenry’s expense, noting that "...a mere 45 days after the 9/11 attacks, the USA Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, undermined civil liberties, expanded the government’s powers and opened the door to far-reaching surveillance by the government on American citizens." And he quotes Benjamin Franklin: “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”

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Commentary

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To France from a Post-9/11 America: Lessons We Learned Too Late

 

 

By John W. Whitehead
November 16, 2015

“They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” ― Benjamin Franklin

“Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”—Hermann Goering, German military commander and Hitler’s designated successor

For those who remember when the first towers fell on 9/11, there is an unnerving feeling of déjà vu about the Paris attacks.

Once again, there is that same sense of shock. The same shocking images of carnage and grief dominating the news. The same disbelief that anyone could be so hateful, so monstrous, so evil as to do this to another human being. The same outpourings of support and unity from around the world. The same shared fear that this could easily have happened to us or our loved ones.

Now the drums of war are sounding. French fighter jets have carried out a series of “symbolic” air strikes on Syrian targets. France’s borders have been closed, Paris has been locked down and military personnel are patrolling its streets.

What remains to be seen is whether France, standing where the United States did 14 years ago, will follow in America’s footsteps as she grapples with the best way to shore up her defenses, where to draw the delicate line in balancing security with liberty, and what it means to secure justice for those whose lives were taken.

Here are some of the lessons we in the United States learned too late about allowing our freedoms to be eviscerated in exchange for the phantom promise of security.

Beware of mammoth legislation that expands the government’s powers at the citizenry’s expense. Rushed through Congress a mere 45 days after the 9/11 attacks, the USA Patriot Act drove a stake through the heart of the Bill of Rights, undermined civil liberties, expanded the government’s powers and opened the door to far-reaching surveillance by the government on American citizens.

Pre-emptive strikes will only lead to further blowback. Not content to wage war against Afghanistan, which served as the base for Osama bin Laden, the U.S. embarked on a pre-emptive war against Iraq in order to “stop any adversary challenging America’s military superiority and adopt a strike-first policy against terrorist threats ‘before they're fully formed.’” We are still suffering the consequences of this failed policy, which has resulted in lives lost, taxpayer dollars wasted, the fomenting of hatred against the U.S. and the further radicalization of terrorist cells.

War is costly. There are many reasons to go to war, but those who have advocated that the U.S. remain at war, year after year, are the very entities that have profited most from these endless military occupations and exercises. Thus far, the U.S. taxpayer has been made to shell out more than $1.6 trillion on “military operations, the training of security forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, weapons maintenance, base support, reconstruction, embassy maintenance, foreign aid, and veterans’ medical care, as well as war-related intelligence operations not tracked by the Pentagon” since 2001. Other estimates that account for war-related spending, veterans’ benefits and various promissory notes place that figure closer to $4.4 trillion. That also does not include the more than 210,000 civilians killed so far, or the 7.6 million refugees displaced from their homes as a result of the endless drone strikes and violence.

Advocating torture makes you no better than terrorists. The horrors that took place at Abu Ghraib, the American-run prison in Iraq, continue to shock those with any decency. Photographs leaked to the media depicted “US military personnel humiliating, hurting and abusing Iraqi prisoners in a myriad of perverse ways. While American servicemen and women smiled and gave thumbs up, naked men were threatened by dogs, or were hooded, forced into sexual positions, placed standing with wires attached to their bodies, or left bleeding on prison floors.” Adding to the descent into moral depravity, the United States government legalized the use of torture, including waterboarding, in violation of international law and continues to sanction human rights violations in the pursuit of national security. The ramifications have been far-reaching, with local police now employing similar torture tactics at secret locations such as Homan Square in Chicago.

Allowing the government to spy on the citizenry will not reduce acts of terrorism, but it will result in a watched, submissive, surveillance society. A byproduct of this post 9/11-age in which we live, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether the NSA or some other entity, is listening in and tracking your behavior. This doesn’t even begin to touch on the corporate trackers such as Google that monitor your purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other activities taking place in the cyber sphere. We are all becoming data collected in government files. The chilling effect of this endless surveillance is a more anxious and submissive citizenry.

Don’t become so distracted by the news cycle that you lose sight of what the government is doing. The average American has a hard time keeping up with and remembering all of the “events,” manufactured or otherwise, which occur like clockwork and keep us distracted, deluded, amused, and insulated from the reality of the American police state. Whether these events are critical or unimportant, when we’re being bombarded with wall-to-wall news coverage and news cycles that change every few days, it’s difficult to stay focused on one thing—namely, holding the government accountable to abiding by the rule of law—and the powers-that-be understand this. In this way, regularly scheduled trivia and/or distractions that keep the citizenry tuned into the various breaking news headlines and entertainment spectacles also keep them tuned out to the government’s steady encroachments on their freedoms.

If you stop holding the government accountable to the rule of law, the only laws it abides by will be the ones used to clamp down on the citizenry. Having failed to hold government officials accountable to abiding by the rule of law, the American people have found themselves saddled with a government that skirts, flouts and violates the Constitution with little consequence. Overcriminalization, asset forfeiture schemes, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, warrantless surveillance, SWAT team raids, indefinite detentions, covert agencies, and secret courts are just a few of the egregious practices carried out by a government that operates beyond the reach of the law.

Do not turn your country into a battlefield, your citizens into enemy combatants, and your law enforcement officers into extensions of the military. A standing army—something that propelled the early colonists into revolution—strips the citizenry of any vestige of freedom. How can there be any semblance of freedom when there are tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, Blackhawk helicopters and armed drones patrolling overhead? It was for this reason that those who established America vested control of the military in a civilian government, with a civilian commander-in-chief. They did not want a military government, ruled by force. Rather, they opted for a republic bound by the rule of law: the U.S. Constitution. Unfortunately, we in America now find ourselves struggling to retain some semblance of freedom in the face of police and law enforcement agencies that look and act like the military and have just as little regard for the Fourth Amendment, laws such as the NDAA that allow the military to arrest and indefinitely detain American citizens, and military drills that acclimate the American people to the sight of armored tanks in the streets, military encampments in cities, and combat aircraft patrolling overhead.

As long as you remain fearful and distrustful of each other, you will be incapable of standing united against any threats posed by a power-hungry government. Early on, U.S. officials solved the problem of how to implement their authoritarian policies without incurring a citizen uprising: fear. The powers-that-be want us to feel threatened by forces beyond our control (terrorists, shooters, bombers). They want us afraid and dependent on the government and its militarized armies for our safety and well-being. Most of all, they want us distrustful of each other, divided by our prejudices, and at each other’s throats.

If you trade your freedom for security, the terrorists win. We’ve walked a strange and harrowing road since September 11, 2001, littered with the debris of our once-vaunted liberties. We have gone from a nation that took great pride in being a model of a representative democracy to being a model of how to persuade a freedom-loving people to march in lockstep with a police state. And in so doing, we have proven Osama Bin Laden right. He warned that “freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The U.S. government will lead the American people in — and the West in general — into an unbearable hell and a choking life.”

To sum things up, the destruction that began with the 9/11 terror attacks has expanded into an all-out campaign of terror, trauma, acclimation and indoctrination aimed at getting Americans used to life in the American Police State. The bogeyman’s names and faces change over time, but the end result remains the same: our unquestioning acquiescence to anything the government wants to do in exchange for the phantom promise of safety and security has transitioned us to life in a society where government agents routinely practice violence on the citizens while, in conjunction with the Corporate State, spying on the most intimate details of our personal lives.

The lesson learned, as I document in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, is simply this: once you start down the road towards a police state, it will be very difficult to turn back.

WC: 1654

40% OF EVERY DOLLAR WE SPEND ON GOODS AND SERVICES IS SYPHONED OFF THE TOP AS BANK INTEREST IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER: THE CASE FOR DOING AWAY WITH THE FED, LET THE U.S. TREASURY PRINT MONEY AS NEEDED, AND FORM PRIVATE BANKS IN EVERY STATE THAT ARE PUBLICALLY ACCOUNTABLE FOR REGULATING THE MONEY SUPPLY

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April 29, 2012 at 12:58:11

Promoted to Headline (H3) on 4/29/12:     Permalink

A Cure-all for the Financial Ills of our time?

By Josh Mitteldorf (about the author)

          "Actually," says the Earthling, "there are building materials stockpiled just out of town."

" So, there are no workers to do the job?"

          "Actually, there are hordes of unemployed workers who would love to have the work."

" So -- what's the problem?"

          " Well, the way things work here, we need these pieces of green paper before we can get started..." 

" Beam me up! There's no intelligent life on this planet!"

Philadelphia -- There were two visions expressed at this weekend's first (annual?) convention of the Public Banking Institute. The first is the very practical idea that states and cities around America could be rescued from insolvency if they had their own banks, instead of relying on commercial banks to borrow money through bonds. Tax-exempt bond issues supply money to states and municipal governments typically at 5 or 6% interest, while banks these days are able to borrow from the Fed at 1/4% per year.

The second vision is hinted in the joke (above) that Board President Ellen Brown told as she opened her address to the group. It is the radically-subversive idea that the system we have for introducing money into the economy is a boon for the banks, but perhaps a major drag on our economy. Perhaps a simple, direct system of money creation by the Treasury Dept instead of the Fed would put an end to cycles of recession, and create a foundation for long-term prosperity.

Banking is a huge leech on our economy. 40% of every dollar we spend on goods and services -- 40% of all that we create and all we consume -- is siphoned off the top as bank interest in one form or another. (Calculations of Margrit Kennedy) The US Government is in the absurd position of paying interest to a private bank for every dollar that is put into circulation. The Federal Reserve system has privatized the power to create money, which, according to the Constitution, ought to belong to Congress alone. Presently, interest on the national debt costs the Federal government $500 billion in 2011, and (because of structural deficit spending) it is the fastest-growing portion of the Federal budget.

The problem is that an expanding economy needs an expanding money supply. But since 1913, the Federal Reserve (a private consortium of banks) creates the money, backed by new Treasury Notes (bonds) which the Federal Government issues. In essence, every dollar in the money supply represents a dollar of Federal debt. Interest on this debt grows exponentially -- which means it's not much of a problem until suddenly it is. It's a ticking time bomb.

We need another system.

It has not always been thus. Colonial America had paper money created separately by each colony -- a system promoted by young Benjamin Franklin in the 1730s. British King George put an end to the colonies' power, one of the inflammatory actions leading up to the Revolutionary War.

Fourscore and seven years later, President Lincoln financed the Civil War by printing "greenbacks" -- direct money creation by the Federal Government, a sound and simple and publicly-accountable system for regulating the money supply. The greenback system died with Lincoln.

Some say it's not an accident that the present monetary system is so dysfunctional that it is stifling economic activity, and so complicated that "only economists can understand it". The system has many victims, but there are a few who benefit. Carroll Quigley was a professor of history and Washington insider who wrote, in 1966:

[T]he powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences.  The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations . (from Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time (cited by Brown) 

A venerable voice at the conference was Bill Still, who has been educating the public on this issue for over 20 years. His video from the 1980s is available now on Youtube .

 

12-year-old Victoria Grant attended the conference with her Dad, and talked about the Canadian national bank that worked in the public interest for 30 years after its creation in 1939. Since 1974, however, Canada, like the US, has depended on private banks for its own currency, and the result has been an exponential spiral of debt. You can hear Victoria telling the emperor that he has no clothes on here.  

How to restore sanity to our monetary system? A direct assault on the Fed and the Wall St banks that own it pits us against a wall of opposition from some of the richest and most powerful organizations in the world. Let's start at a smaller scale, in the states and cities where American democracy still has some life and some room to move. States (with the exception of North Dakota) are all in trouble, slashing services and increasing taxes in response to the financial crisis of 2008, as the recession cuts into tax revenues just as more people are in need of public services.

There are bills introduced in legislatures of 17 states to create state-owned banks. Many of these are modeled on the example of North Dakota, the only state at present that has a state bank. North Dakota was insulated from the bank crisis of 2008, and the state is prospering recently, with the lowest unemployment rate, the lowest default rate on credit card debt, and lowest foreclosure rate in the 50 states. Economic historian Rozanne Ederson told us that North Dakotans love their bank now, but in 1919, its original implementation required a farm foreclosure crisis and a hotly-charged legislative battle.

The farmers who pushed through North Dakota's bank in 1919 were the radicals of their day. In Philadelphia this weekend are the people who aspire to carry their torch in a new century. They're up against The Bankers -- a rich and powerful force in opposition to change. But states are so desperate for cash these days, and the State Banks could potentially relieve so many ills that who knows -- it just might work!