Dec 4, 2011 | Economy, Healthcare, Taxes, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
Be grateful for your right to criticize the government, whether as a Tea Party Patriot or as Occupy Wall Street. This can be lost. It helps to remember that we can vote to make things much worse if we continue to travel further into socialism. Take Austria in 1938 for example, as related by eyewitness Kitty Werthmann, whose account is herein summarized. They too voted for socialism to end dire economic conditions and died as a nation for so doing.
With unemployment and interest rates at 25%, the country was in deep depression and “people were going from house to house begging for food.” Kitty remembers her mother cooking a big kettle of soup and baking bread to feed her staving neighbors, about “30 daily.” The Communist Party and the National Socialist Party, two conflicting varieties of socialism, were fighting each other. The Germans, under Adolf Hitler, promised an environment of no crime, full employment, a high standard of living, and happiness. Austrians “became desperate and petitioned the government to let them decide what kind of government they wanted.” The Austrian government could not deliver these conditions, so 98% of the population, believing the lies, “voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler.” When this happened, the people danced for joy in the streets for three days.
Almost immediately law and order returned and “everyone was employed” in government created jobs, but what followed under fascist socialism was pure hell. In return for believing the empty promises, education was nationalized and freedom of religion in public education ended. Crosses in the predominantly Catholic schools were “replaced with Hitler’s picture hanging next to a Nazi flag” and prayer, replaced with singing praises of Germany. “Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance.” If their children were not present, parents were threatened first with “a stiff letter of warning,” then with a $300.00 fine, and then with jail. The day consisted of two hours of political indoctrination followed by sports and fun. The children loved it but “lived without religion.” Having no moral compass, illegitimacy flourished. “Unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler.”
Men and women had equal rights under Hitler. They found out what that meant when workloads were equal, making no distinction on the basis of sex. When the war came in 1939, the draft was compulsory for both sexes and women served on the front lines as well. Many became “emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat.” Kitty Werthmann continues, “When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages 4 weeks to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, 7 days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.”
Under Hitler’s socialism everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. Healthcare was socialized as well, free to everyone. “Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and emigrated to other countries.” Of course, to pay for this benefit for the less productive, “the tax rate had to be raised to 80% of our income.”
When the war started, a food bank was established. “All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn’t work, you didn’t get a ration card, and if you didn’t have a card, you starved to death.” Socialism now controlled life and death by controlling who ate.
Small businesses were intentionally over-regulated out of business leaving the government owned large businesses the only ones existing. “We had consumer protection. We were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished.” Moreover, “farmers were told what to produce, and how to produce it.”
Worse yet, finding it so easy to kill six million Jews, Hitler next moved on the mentally retarded as not having value and liquidated them as well. To prevent the population from revolting, guns had long since been registered, then outlawed, and freedom of speech ended as well. “Anyone who said something against the government was taken away.”
How close are we to having implemented some of the above socialism by false promises, as did they, too close? No wonder Tea Party Patriots have said no further. It’s not a matter of gridlock for them, but liberty. So far both groups can criticize the government, but the slippery slope for the end of such is at our backside.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Nov 12, 2011 | Economy, Globalism, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
Some protesters say the Occupy Wall Street mother city should move to Oakland, California as the New York branch has not shown the “stomach” needed for the more violent form of confrontation necessary for “real” change and the weather is better for maintaining the movement through the winter months. Others say that a move to Washington D. C. is critical as the Congress is the only real agent of change, and Occupy should assemble, like everybody else, in front of the capital, as did the Tea Party with their million July 4th 2010. “President Obama, Can you hear us now?” repeated three times with added emphasis each time.
But those who study special interest groups know that Occupy Wall Street needs to stay right where it is, as within blocks of Zuccotti Park, where they are assembled, is the most powerful special interest group in the United States. Unbeknown to the protesters, they are located near the nerve center of U.S. foreign policy. Important visitors to the U.S. usually make at least two scheduled visits while in the United States, one to 58 East 68th Street, New York City, the other to the White House. Yes, this one organization (which I will not identify just yet) provides at least a third of all cabinet members and the Secretary of State of every administration since the 1930s. It has, and always will, until known more fully to the American people for its vast influence over both major political parties, provided all ambassadors to Russia, China and the United Nations as well. Its members fill most of the seats on the Federal Reserve Board, from whom most of our fiscal policy is determined.
My Occupy friends, you have the power to bring attention and exposure to this semi- secret governance. You already want an audit of the Federal Reserve, and these members come from the organization just down the street. This organization in question cares nothing about you or your causes, and they are more responsible for your anger than any other single organization. Can you at least schedule a march to the address cited above and have discussion about this influence in your meetings? In your attempt to occupy colleges and cities throughout the land, would you please check out the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), not just from its sources, which you would expect to be favorable, but from the very numerous other sources fully documenting the power they hold over our media and government?
Start with conclusions three and four of the three-year, 1954 Reece Congressional Committee Report issued by the House of Representatives that identified the CFR as the special interest group of large foundations, specifically the Carnage Endowment, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rhodes Scholarship Trust (p. 169 and p. 176). “The power of the individual large foundation,” they wrote, was “enormous.” “It can exercise various forms of patronage which carry with them elements of thought control. It can exert immense influence on educational institutions, upon the educational processes, and upon educators. It is capable of invisible coercion through the power of its purse. It can materially predetermine the development of social and political concepts and courses of action through the process of granting and withholding foundation awards upon a selective basis, and by designing and promulgating projects which propel researchers in selected directions.”
After noting the power of just one large foundation such as those cited above, the House report continued, “This power to influence national policy is amplified tremendously when foundations act in concert. There is such a concentration of foundation power in the United States, operating in the social sciences and education… It has ramifications in almost every phase of research and education, in communications and even in government” (p. 16).
They noted that the productions, of what has become Wall Street’s special interest group, the Council on Foreign Relations, “are not objective but are directed overwhelmingly at promoting the globalism concept.” How powerful was it by the time Congress first discovered its influence? It had come, they wrote, “to be in essence an agency of the United States government, no doubt carrying its internationalist bias with it” (Pp. 176-177).
So my young friends, consider the possibility that you might just be a ploy to help these folks further some globalistic objective—perhaps the collapse of the economy in preparation for some world currency more easily managed by them. Extreme? Perhaps! But you are good at thinking out of the box so don’t move your headquarter and do make a visit just down the street to the real source of your concerns.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Nov 4, 2011 | Globalism, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
In October Presidential contender Mitt Romney released the 20 names of those he had selected to advise him in foreign policy and national security matters, more than half of whom, eleven to be exact, are members of the elite, semi-secret Council on Foreign Relations. It isn’t that most of these persons are not qualified to advise, nor is it that very few of the twenty can be said to be conservative, even in a stretch, but it is the fact that for decades the CFR has been the special interest group, Think Tank if you prefer, that provided a majority of the “experts” in every administration, Democrat or Republican.
No special interest group has had more impact than the CFR over foreign policy in the 20th Century, leading many to question if we have but one political party in the United States with two arms. Indeed, many see no significant difference in foreign policy between George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Nor was there between George Bush and Bill Clinton. CFR candidate Barack Obama, probably the most anti-war candidate in a couple of decades, and so condemnatory of his predecessor in this area, as president not only continued the Bush wars but added Libya and central Africa to the list while sponsoring drone killings in Pakistan, Syria, and Somali. History will view him as having been as pro-war as his predecessor.
Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, probably admitted more than she was supposed to in her address at the recent dedication of a branch CFR in Washington D. C. when she said that her source of direction was the CFR sub-center down the street. “I am delighted to be at these new headquarters. I have been often to the mother ship in New York City but it is good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department. We get a lot of advice from the Council so this will mean that I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.” See audio capture of these remarks below.
Notable political scientist Lester Milbraith observed in his work Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy, page 247, that “the influence of the CFR throughout government is so pervasive that it is difficult to distinguish the CFR from government programs.” Prominent political scientist Thomas R. Dye in his textbook Who’s Running America? The Bush Restoration, page 188, wrote “The history of CFR policy accomplishments is dazzling” then traced in detail their dominating role in foreign policy accomplishment from the 1920’s through the George Bush Administration from their own boasts of success in Council on Foreign Relations Annual Reports.
I have told my students for over 25 years that the next UN Ambassador, Secretary of State, Ambassadors to both Russia and China will be from this organization, as will a third of his/her cabinet. Not might be!! Will be!! Also no one gets to be president without their approval. No exception!! We get to choose which one of their approved party finalists we want, but the first election is theirs. I make the same prediction today for who ever becomes the republican presidential candidate. Such has been the case since the Council on Foreign Relations was founded by its Wall Street creators J.P. Morgan and all in 1921. It is the special interest group of Wall Street, supported by grants from the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford foundations. Its journal, Foreign Affairs, is “considered throughout the world to be the unofficial mouthpiece of U.S. foreign policy. Few important initiatives in U.S. policy have not been first outlined in articles in this publication.”
But what is the Romney CFR connection? The current CFR membership roster does not list him as a member. In 2007, he also denied such. That said, the CFR website does have a very comprehensive and favorable outline of his policies on 22 foreign policy areas seemingly to invite support for him. They cite him as having published in their July/August 2007 magazine Foreign Affairs. Long-time readers know that no one gets published unless seen favorably by them. His selection of their organization as the source for a majority of his foreign policy and national security advisors suggests that a Romney Presidency will be managed by the CFR as with his predecessors. In fact, I can almost see the face and voice of George W. Bush as I read through Romney’s 22 foreign policy areas—a comparison that Bush would not find objectionable. No wonder the Tea Party movement, which opposes elitist semi-secret government and Bush, because such too surrounded him, is unenthused.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7WMTedOyZI&w=560&h=315]
Sep 16, 2011 | Constitution, Healthcare, Immigration, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold W. Pease
Concerned that the GOP presidential debates were not focusing upon issues close to the Tea Party Movement, more especially the candidates’ views on the U. S. Constitution, from which we have drifted in recent decades, and the Federal Reserve, a non-governmental private organization which determines the value of every dollar in our pocket, the movement teamed up with CNN for yet another debate, this one in Orlando, Florida on September 12. CNN commentator, Wolf Bitzer, narrated taking questions from the audience, the Internet, and from Tea Party groups assembled in parts scattered throughout the nation. All questions and questionnaires appeared to be pre-selected by CNN except for those of Mr. Bitzer, which were at least a third of those asked.
If these two areas were to be more thoroughly covered Tea Party members had to be sorely disappointed. With respect to the Federal Reserve created by Congress in 1913 allowing the Central Bankers to regulate the economy in order to prevent recessions and depressions in the future, the only question asked was with respect to auditing the Federal Reserve. All seemed at least luke-warm to doing so with Ron Paul and Michelle Bachmann having the strongest positions toward doing so. These two alone were for returning the power to Congress as designated by the Constitution, and where it was before giving in to the bankers. Rick Santorum wanted the bankers to remain in control but spoke of returning to “an earlier version” of how it was run. Rick Perry was the most dubious on the subject calling it “treason” if “you are allowing the Federal Reserve to be used for political purposes…” but he was not for eliminating it. Mitt Romney made the strongest case for leaving it with the bankers, as “Congress cannot possibly do it.” It is very unlikely that we will get back to the Constitution on this issue from anyone other than Bachmann or Paul.
There were no specific questions on getting back to the Constitution itself. Bachmann used the word constitution twice as much as did anyone else with Paul second and Perry third. Most made no mention of such a need. Perry, however, had clarity on the 10th Amendment and spoke of it as state’s rights yet, as governor, he had no problem forcing, by executive order, the inoculation of young girls 12 years and older with a vaccine against cervical cancer without any attempt to go through the state legislature for approval. He now admits that it was wrong to do so without legislative authorization. Bachmann denied even state government the right to force such action with or without legislative approval.
All seemed opposed to Obamacare but only Bachmann on clear constitutional grounds. “No state has the constitutional right to force a person, as a condition of citizenship, to buy a product or service against their will. It’s unconstitutional whether it’s the state government (referring to Romneycare in Massachusetts) or whether the federal government. The only way to eradicate Obamacare is to pull it out by the root and branch, to fully repeal it…! Because 2012 is it!!!” She added amid great applause, “This is the election that is going to decide if we have socialized medicine or not!!” Romney and Newt Gingrich would end the “threat” by executive order exempting every state, which itself is a constitutionally questionable solution as executive orders are not to be legislative in nature. Bachmann reminded them that the president after them could again, by executive order, restore the unpopular legislation. Romney’s only reference to something being unconstitutional was with respect to Obamacare but he quickly followed that he “favored a health savings account,” which ironically, on the federal level is just as unconstitutional.
On illegal immigration none of them were convincing that they would end it. Perry, with the most practical real life experience with the issue, seemed willing to “put boots on the ground” as president because Constitutionally it was the federal governments first responsibility to protect its people but he as governor encouraged illegal immigration with tax-payer money to illegals for college expenses. Jon Huntsman gave driving permits to illegals in Utah. Romney and Bachmann opposed any money going to “those who broke the law” but neither stated constitutional reasons. Paul was not given opportunity to respond on this question nor was Herman Cain.
On the basis of the Tea Party Presidential Debate, which was to emphasize constitutional themes in dealing with the realities of our time, Bachmann and Paul were the clear winners with Perry a distant, but dubious third; Bachmann even promising to return the Constitution to the White House as her last comment. I could detect no reason to believe that the other five candidates for president would be any better than George W. Bush in getting us back to this document or even seriously reigning in the Federal Reserve. It is your liberty. Pass this along.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Sep 12, 2011 | Take Action, Tea Party
BREAKING NEWS!!
President Obama has just confirmed that the DC earthquake occurred on a rare and obscure fault-line, apparently known as “Bush’s Fault”. Obama also announced that the Secret Service and Maxine Waters continues an investigation of the quake’s suspicious ties to the Tea Party. Conservatives however have proven that it was caused by the founding fathers rolling over in their graves.
This was an anonymous piece too funny to not pass on.
On a more serious note.
Just announced today, Monday, September 12, is a Tea Party GOP Presidential Debate in Tampa, Florida to be broadcast at 5:00 P.M. West Coast time also today. Tea Party People have not been satisfied with the type of questioning of candidates in previous debates that largely excludes seeking candidate views on the Constitution and the Federal Reserve. Why held the same day as the announcement of this debate and buried deep within the few newspapers that are willing to notify the public, was not answered by the California Wire Reports reporting the event but we thank them for what coverage they did allow. Dr. Pease
Aug 17, 2011 | Constitution, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
Michele Bachmann was winner of the Iowa Straw Vote held August 13 with 29% of the vote. In a close second, just 152 votes behind her, was Ron Paul at 28%–together that totals 57%. The significance of this cannot be over-stated as the two are the only Tea Party Presidential candidates in the race and as such a significant majority of Iowans voted for the Tea Party philosophy. Will the establishment media notice this story and give adequate credit to the Tea Party Patriot influence? I am writing this the day of the straw vote. You will be able to answer that question for yourself when this column is published next week in your newspaper, but let me predict the answer. Not likely!!
Iowa is the first hard evidence, in an election year, of where the nation is politically and it appears to be overwhelmingly in favor of Tea Party Patriot core values: limited Constitutional government, the free market, and fiscal responsibility—themes consistently emphasized by Bachmann and Paul. Polls are not hard evidence as they are too subject to who is polled and how questions are phrased so should not be given the same level of credibility.
Media selected, front runner, Mitt Romney, who clearly did not get the kind of applause that Ron Paul or Newt Gingrich did in the Presidential debate held just two days before, only got 3%; an extremely low number for their favorite not likely to be emphasized by the major media. Were it anyone else he/she would be moved to the bottom of the stack until he/she proved himself/herself again elsewhere—perhaps in New Hampshire this winter. Rick Perry, announcing on the same day as the Iowa straw vote, and not campaigning at all in the state, received more votes than Mitt Romney. Based upon this Bachmann and Paul are the only real front-runners but the numbers are too close to give either of them a decisive victory over the other so media coverage of each should be somewhat equal.
Only once has the Iowa straw vote actually picked the eventual winner but it does give the winner more exposure and the spotlight for a time—unless, of course, you are Ron Paul who consistently and unfairly gets downplayed. Will the establishment media undermine or belittle this win, and Paul’s near victory (short by only 152 votes), as they already have the applause factor—he did get louder and more frequent applause than any other candidate? Based upon how he was treated in the last presidential election. Yes!! This is an excellent example of how the media guide us in our thinking. That is why in political science we teach that the first election is the media’s.
Although the media have never understood or fully acknowledged the significance of the anger of the American people to excessive government and uncontrolled spending as exemplified by the approximately 2400 Tea Party gatherings held throughout the United States in the year 2009, the people have and this anger is apparently alive and well in the Mid-West. Falsely characterized as “Astroturf,” then “mobsters,” then “racists,” and, more recently by the Vice President as “terrorists,” has not deterred Tea Party followers but rather hardened these “political unseasoned ‘mom’ operations with homemade signs.” They have come to know that the core values they endorse are at the very heart of freedom and the Constitution and must be preserved.
Anything could still happen in the weeks ahead as the actual vote comes this winter in New Hampshire then in South Carolina, but the race has begun with a clear cut win for the Tea Party Patriots. Unless the media successfully vilify, undermine, or discredit them a sizable hurricane in the political world may follow. Certainly the establishment media did not see this one coming, especially not just out of the shoot, so to speak, as was the case in Iowa.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
