The name George Soros is popping up everywhere as being perhaps the most influential man on earth. Certainly not the richest, that honor goes to Mexico’s telecom magnate Carlos Slim with 74 billion dollars, but he is one of the richest at 32 billion dollars. It is the use of that money that is so frightening. His giving is not like that of Sandra Bullock who recently gave a million to the earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan, nor is it like the billion dollars given several years ago by Bill Gates to help eradicate AIDS in Africa. Their money does not buy power or amplify wealth. Mr. Soros’ money is targeted for influence and political power over this nation and the world—all directed to the far left side of the political spectrum and the globalization of the world.
Prominent among his myriad of well-funded socialist organizations are: ACORN, the Tides Foundation, Sojourners, The Quantum Fund, and Media Matters. Some of these organizations operate in other countries, as for example Open Society Institute (spends 425million a year on socialist causes) and Friends of the Earth, designed to build support for an international network of organizations dedicated to the environment. The Center for American Progress schedules their “experts” for talk show events even developing talking points for them. The Apollo Alliance played a major role in the development of the Stimulus Bill now incorporated into law. The American Constitution Society defends far-left interpretations of the Constitution. And, MoveOn.org organizes action alerts to followers via the Internet.
Not that the far right does not have such organizations as well, but likely no other one person has as many organizations as combat ready and as highly financed as does George Soros. Most recently he has declared war on Fox News because they criticized him. Presumably they can hold their own but certainly they have a worthy opponent. Human Events recently identified George Soros, “as the most dangerous and destructive leftish demagogue in the country. (Human Events, 3/28/11, Cover Story).”
Should he be taken seriously? Well, the Bank of England did not do so and he “shorted the British pound in 1992, wagering $10 billion on a drop in its value. In a desperate bid to keep its currency afloat, the Bank of England tried to buy up pounds as fast as Soros could dump them. However, as more and more investors followed Soros’ lead and joined his efforts, the Bank of England eventually gave up. The British pound was devalued, launching a tsunami of financial turmoil from Tokyo to Rome. When it was over, millions of hardworking Britons confronted their diminished savings, while Soros counted his gains. He had personally made nearly $2 billion on the catastrophe,” he caused (The Shadow Party: How George Soros, Hillary Clinton, and Sixties Radicals Seized Control of the Democratic Party, David Horowitz and Richard Poe, Nelson Communication, 2006, pg. 4).
Two things, in particular, bother opponents. First, could his propaganda machine have undue influence in the government—especially given his frequent and friendly contacts with President Barack Obama? Soros has hosted fundraisers for Obama and made at least four visits to the White House. There is reason to believe that Soros has influenced the president on: The Stimulus Bill, Cap and Trade, opposition to the extension of the Bush tax cuts, and banking reform.
Second, Soros’ strong and frequent advocacy of global government is especially frightening. He once wrote: “To stabilize and regulate a truly global economy, we need some global system of political decision making. In short, we need a global society to support our global economy… the sovereignty of states must be subordinated to international law and international institutions. Interestingly, the greatest opposition to this idea is coming from the United States (The Crisis of Global Capitalism, George Soros, 7 Dec. 1998, Newsweek).”
In any case, there is enough evidence to keep close watch on the man and his numerous and well-funded organizations designed to lead this nation into socialism and the world into world government. If he is not the most influential man on earth, he is close.
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.
We are presently over 14 trillion dollars in debt, three trillion of which was incurred the last two years under President Barack Obama. So what is a trillion dollars? Let me try to give some perspective. To begin with a trillion is the number 1 followed by twelve zeros. A trillion dollars is a thousand billion and a billion is a thousand million. This still means very little to my students who count their money in fives, tens and twenties.
One mathematician gave us a more practical way to evaluate our outstanding debt. One trillion one-dollar bills stacked atop each other (not end to end but flat) would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space—a third of the way to the moon. If so, the debt incurred under President Obama alone would take us to the moon. Moreover, if you like traveling atop this stack of ones, you could return to earth for yet another three trillion dollars which is six trillion dollars. You could repeat your visit to and from the moon for yet another six trillion, making 12 trillion total. We have two trillion in debt remaining, just enough to get us two-thirds of the way to the moon again (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009).
Senator Mitch McConnell gave another illustration just as awe striking. He calculated that if we spent a million dollars every day since Jesus was born we still would not have spent a trillion dollars—only three-fourths of a trillion dollars. We would have 13 1/4 trillion left.
Someone else equated our national debt to seconds and concluded that a million seconds is about 11 ½ days and a billion seconds is about 32 years. A trillion seconds is about 32,000 years thus 14 trillion seconds is 448,000 years (See CNN News Cast, Feb. 4, 2009). This is not helpful and only makes my head spin. My Ph. D is not in math.
I ask my students, “Who gets to go without so that this debt can be paid?” Go without?” That is a concept foreign to this generation!! They do not know and neither do their parents and grandparents who laid it on their backs. When they are told that their immediate share of the debt is $127,529 (see USDebtClock.org) due immediately, they are angry. The 13th amendment ending slavery has been rescinded. The past generation wanted nice costly programs for free and were willing to sell their children in order to drive new Cadillac’s now. Well, the Cadillac’s are in the auto wrecking yards, Communist China owns a tenth of us and the bills are due. What is worse the older generation is still anxious to incur even more debt on our defenseless children and grandchildren. Are we the most debt addicted, insensitive generation in all human history?
But there is hope. When you go bankrupt in your personal life you are expected to sell everything that you own to get out of debt. The nation has one asset left that could probably vaporize this national debt and do so in one generation but I am reluctant to bring attention to it until we have learned the lesson that we cannot spend beyond our means without someone paying for it latter. Unfortunately, neither party is fully there yet. Sell government land. Most are surprised to learn that the federal government unconstitutionally owns a third of the landmass of the United States. The Constitution limits the amount of land that the federal government can have to 10 square miles for a capital and land acquired through the limits of the Constitution for military purposes.
Over the decades the federal government withheld the land that went with statehood in the West. New states were so anxious to gain statehood that they overlooked the omission. According to public land statistics Alaska owns only 1 ½ % of itself. Arizona 56% of itself, California 52 ½ % of itself, Idaho 36% of itself, Nevada, a mere 12% of itself, and Utah 36 ½ % of itself. We, of course, would have to restrict foreign countries and perhaps place a limit on individual takes, but the idea would be to spend every penny derived from the sales to liquidating our 14 trillion dollars of debt.
Why is it that both Republican and Democrat administrations always favor tyrannical non-democratic regimes in times of revolution? Time and time again whether in Iran in 1979, under Jimmy Carter, Tiananmen Square in China under George Bush, Iran again less then two years ago, under Barack Obama, or now in Egypt under Hosni Mubarak, it is the same. We want guaranteed stability from known murderous dictators rather than risk the unknown by supporting pro-democracy governments. We alone are capable of individual liberty, a position somewhat insulting to other people. The fallout is always the same; we only preach freedom but do not support it in practice. We consistently let the people seeking their own liberation down then wonder why they fall to more radical preachments and end up hating us. We play these people for our own benefit.
President Carter, in 1976, openly supported the Shaw of Iran, as had his predecessors, a brutal dictator against the will of his people demonstrating for freedom. I had several Iranian students in my classes at the time and they could not understand such friendship. They said, almost in unison, “We don’t hate America!” “Your media lie to you!” “We hate—how you say his name—‘Roc-ke-fell-er’.” “You know about him?” History does show David Rockefeller as having played a major role in bringing the Shaw to power in Iran. When the hated Shaw was finally forced out we brought him to Panama for medical treatment despite intelligence reports that the Iranians would retaliate. Iranians were, in part, driven to accept a far more radical leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, by linking their hated leader with America who sustained him in power. The more extreme element expressed their anger by taking U.S. embassy personnel hostage.
In Tiananmen Square university students built a statue of liberty modeled after our own then paraded it about with slogans asking for freedom as expressed in America. The government, caught totally off guard, finally brought in tanks to encircle the thousands of dissenting students. One student stood in front of incoming tanks. They unsuccessfully tried to move around him. Friends finally removed him but his “Patrick Henry type” body statement, ”Give me liberty or give me death,” resounded throughout the world. This promising bid for liberty ended when in the middle of the night tanks savagely raced in crushing hundreds of sleeping demonstrators. The U.S. reprimand was mild and short lived as George Bush awarded the Chinese most favored trade status within a month of this horrifying event.
Less than two years ago the Iranian people begged America to help them depose their fanatical religious dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. President Obama, with absolute knowledge of this tyrant, who soon will have nuclear power, found it prudent not to get involved. Video coverage released to the Internet, by the victims themselves, shared the sounds of Iranian paramilitary forces entering the homes of dissidents. Their last cries for help were heard worldwide as they were savagely beaten. When we had the power to usher in a far more friendly government our silence only strengthened the repression. Why would any Iranian thereafter have faith in our words of freedom? We are hypocrites.
For many years Hosni Mubarak has been the second major recipient of our foreign aid. Just sixteen months ago President Obama spoke in Egypt calling upon the Arab world to respect the “will of the people.” The Egyptian people loved him and now wonder where he is when they want it. They are finding his silence a form of betrayal just as have other protesters in other lands. One protester’s sign in English, obviously for the West to see, said it all, “Foreign Governments Stop Hypocrisy and Stand For Egyptian Freedom.” Perhaps President Obama will surprise us and it won’t be too little too late as in the case of Iran.
If our foreign policy were not always based upon what is only good for us and we gave some attention to what is good for them also, we would not be consistently linked to the hatred they have for their abusive leaders. We would not play a part in driving them to the more extreme elements that gain power by that connection, as for example, the Muslim Brotherhood. Consequently, we would then have many real friends.
Almost all political pundits were amazed with the extent of the Republic Party victory in the midterm elections when sixty-three congressmen and six senators were replaced, making this election perhaps the biggest one-party swing in the House of Representatives since 1932. Certainly the republicans had not earned it. Their departure from constitutional limited government, the free market, and fiscal responsibility during the George W. Bush administration amplified in the Barack Obama administration, resulted in the Tea Party movement. Moreover, their endorsement of slow socialism, as opposed to fast socialism as espoused by most democrats, certainly did not endear the GOP to the majority of Americans who mostly wanted big government to just leave them alone.
The Tea Party movement was responsible. It moved the Republican Party closer to America’s core values (now those of the Tea Party), even causing them to pull the badly neglected Constitution out of their pockets (some few actually carried it with them to use as some kind of prop when needed) and open the previously unturned pages. That said, they actually read it in The House of Representatives and should be applauded for having done so. Those of the opposing party probably had to go online, or to a bookstore, to find a copy. We still await Senator Harry Reid to follow suit with a similar reading in the U. S. Senate. The democrats probably will not do so as many no longer even pretend to follow it. I hope that I have shamed both political parties with their measure of neglect of this document.
So what about the December political tsunami? The election gave the clearest rejection of the political direction that has been given in several decades. What should a congress do, realizing that they have proceeded down a path that so alarmed a majority of their fellow citizens? Let them slow down and walk away with some dignity! Instead, in total contempt of the American people, the 111 Congress accelerated their disregard for limited constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, and the free market. They were so “hell-bent” in the opposing direction it was as though there had been no election. With their “the sky is falling” type of legislation, the rejected party bulldozed forward. Americans were hit with at least seven major pieces of legislation that had to be approved within a month and before the new congress was seated, each of which should have had at least two months of hearings and serious debate before a vote. One party government still prevailed for another month, and “Yes We Can” was still their war cry.
Among them was a revision of food legislation, the new Food Safety Bill, in place since 1932, gave expanded power on domestic production to the Federal Government and cost an estimated 1.4 billion to implement. A new Nuclear Arms Treaty with Russia (START) in which Russia threatened lawmakers not to alter the treaty’s terms as they wouldn’t renegotiate if anything were changed. Why did we not wait for the new congress rather than let those removed from power in three weeks have final say? We cowered under Russia’s intimidation strategy, and both the President and Vice President went to the phones pushing for quick acceptance. Debate was limited. Yet another major change allowed gays to serve openly in the military.
Everything was placed on fast tract. Another major piece of legislation was The Dream Act, designed to assist young illegal immigrants in becoming citizens if they attended college or joined the military. It alone, of all the measures, failed. Then came the compromise extending both unemployment compensation for the nth time, at an estimated cost of $858 billion, and the Bush Tax Cuts. Finally, there was the bill funding the government, due early last fall but not legislated prior to the elections as the party in power did not want their fiscal irresponsibility “flash-lighted”—a mere 1.3 trillion dollar bill—laced with gobs of self-serving pork. The bill passed as is until March. Funding the government and the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts were the only two issues that needed fast track status. The new congress could do everything else.
This collection of sweeping laws, the most in a single month in my lifetime, is dubbed December’s Political Tsunami. The vast majority of which was at odds with the message of the mid-term voters: slow down, the sky is not falling, and more debt must cease to be the solution to every problem. So many changes in a mere 3 ½ weeks were head spinning.
