If you watch what happens in the United States where “Our Corporate Government” get’s caught doing something illegal, inhuman, stupid and so on, you’ll notice the tendencies in people that allow tyrannies to have their way.

That tendency is – people forget things in direct correlation to their personal interests. If I was asked, which I often am, if I remember about someones kid doing something, I usually say, “Not really”. When I ask, which I often do, if someone remembers me talking about gravity being a result of spin, they usually say, “Not really”. People forget and pursue their interests. It’s natural…

I don’t want to think about the New World Order, Imperialism in the 21st Century, the state of the Idiocracy or anything else like that…But I must pay attention because what I’m really interested in is being thwarted at every turn by these things.

So I’m publishing this story. I put this and stories like this here over and over because I don’t want people to be able to forget what’s going on – right now.

By Charlotte T. Iserbyt

Copyrighted by the author

April 12, 2002

President Bush’s “No Child Left Behind” could be referred to as “No American Left Alone” since what we are looking at is what the National Alliance of Business, which supports &ldquolanned economy,” refers to as Kindergarten through Age 80 Education/Training. This is basically the United Nations Lifelong Learning-Brainwashing Agenda under the umbrella of what will eventually be “unelected” school and community councils (council is defined as “soviet” in many dictionaries) which will make all decisions for us at the local level. Former Senator Bill Bradley, N.J., called for this on one of the Sunday morning talk shows about four years ago. The Governors, very recently at their NGA conference, discussed the use of unelected (politically-correct?) citizens to police our communities. This is so unbelievable I find it hard to even write about it.

Although Pres. Bush, according to a Washington Times article by Bill Sammon, 1/9/02, said in regard to the education bill he signed that “Parents will have more information about the schools and more say in how their children are educated . . . from this day forward, all students will have a better chance to learn, to excel and to live out their dreams.” Pardon me, but this is a plain lie, and a lie embraced by Mass. Senator Ted Kennedy and others supporting this legislation as well. How can parents have a say in how their children are educated when the federal government is mandating testing of children’s attitudes and values? (Sixty % of the test items on National Assessment of Educational Progress – NAEP are attitudinal.) Bush’s mandate for testing will of course call for a mandated federal curriculum since one can’t test what one hasn’t taught. What tiny bit of local control remained prior to this legislation will be swept away. School superintendents and good teachers are already complaining about having lost control.

Even the New York Times has problems with Leave No Child Behind. It bragged that the more than 1000-page giant education bill will “dramatically extend the federal role in public education” and, indeed, is “a breathtaking intrusion of the federal government on states’ control of education.”

This legislation, which passed 381-41 in the House and 87-10 in the Senate in January 2002, is accompanied by the largest dollar increase ever in federal education aid. Education Week, 1/9/02, describes the No Child Left Behind Act as follows: “The mega-measure is accompanied by the largest dollar increase ever in federal education aid. The Department of Education’s overall budget will rise by $6.7 billion in fiscal 2002, to nearly $49 billion.”

The legislation, although pretending to terminate the highly controversial Goals 2000 and the School-To-Work (STW) legislation passed in the nineties under President Clinton and initiated in the eighties under Presidents Reagan and Bush, Sr., actually continues the totalitarian agenda since all states have implemented the requirements of Goals 2000 and STW. Goals 2000 was originally called America 2000 under former President Bush who in addition called for implementing the Soviet system of workforce training in 1991 (See Congressional Record). This STW system calls for quotas for doctors, lawyers, janitors, etc. and limits freedom of choice for children or adults.

Minnesota and Indiana are two of the states that mandate children choose a job/career track in the 8th grade — just like Cuba or any other communist/socialist country! How accurate the National Alliance of Business has been to refer to this agenda as Kindergarten through Age 80 (life-long learning)!

The system is the UN’s lifelong learning (brainwashing) system called for by Lenin (a.k.a. international socialism). Very simply, such a communist system (Lenin’s world government) can only be implemented when the following components have been put in place. Very sadly, to say the least, most, if not all of the following actions have taken place. They are included in my book The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America . . . a chronological paper trail.

1. CONTROL OF EDUCATION-

The chairman of the Communist Party, U.S.A., 1932, William Foster, in his book Toward a Soviet America, called for a U.S. Dept. of Education, the teaching of evolution, elimination of nationalism and religion in schools, the teaching of internationalism, and for the use of the Pavlovian method (direct instruction) on the students, etc., etc. Note: School choice is a Trojan Horse. The only requirement left to implement school choice is tuition tax credits or vouchers which will take over the private sector. If those choice proposals do not fly in legislatures or in Congress, federally-funded charter schools will be used, as is already the case in many states, to implement the school to work planned economic system.

2. CONTROL OF ECONOMY-

The planned economy will come to us through school to work legislation. There will be quotas for jobs; no upward mobility for children. Students must select their careers by 8th grade. It is the same as the Cuban system. STW is implemented in all states. This is the failed elitist system which brought the Soviet Union down but which is still being used worldwide. And, now our Congress has voted to implement it. How deliberately dumbed down our Congress seems to be! They don’t even know what form of government and economy we are supposed to have. Of interest is that Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Richard Cheney, spoke eloquently, prior to the election, in opposition to the STW agenda being implemented in the United States. How sad that her advice was not sought or listened to in regard to this most controversial initiative which will result in changing our economic and political system.

3. CONTROL OF CHURCHES AND PRIVATE SCHOOLS-

The Washington Post refers to President Bush’s Faith-Based Initiative as “communitarianism” which is defined in most dictionaries as “a member or supporter of a communistic community” or “a communistic form of government.” The camel’s nose is under the tent right now with Bush using/funding churches to “tutor” students in failing public schools. Churches which accept federal monies will be controlled by the government as in fascist/communist countries. The same federal control applies to private schools or homeschooling families who accept one penny of federal money.

4. CONTROL OF NATION THROUGH UNELECTED COUNCILS AND DROPPING OF COUNTY, STATE, NATIONAL BORDERS-

This control takes place through regional government which was referred to by a communist writer for Daily World as the Soviet system that has “worked so well in the Soviet Union!” Regional government is being implemented worldwide. The European Community is a good example of a major region being set up for the world management system (Lenin’s international socialism). Does anyone need to be reminded that unelected councils are appointed councils? Regrettably, we’re getting participatory democracy. You get to participate IF chosen!

5. CONTROL OF PHYSICAL/MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM-

The government will direct and fund health care through the schools (school-based clinics for all children regardless of income). Hilary’s health care system (socialized medicine) is being implemented without a whimper from those who fought its implementation. This seamless web includes all services under the umbrella of the school district (birth through death).

6. CONTROL OF LOCAL POLICING

Community monitoring will be accomplished through the Community Oriented Policing System (COP, put in under President Clinton. His administration laid ground work for a strong community crime control strategy with federal, state, and local partnerships to fight crime. From the Clinton Administration’s Law and Enforcement Strategy, March 1999, we read, “Across the country an expanded number of community police officers have been working together with block watches, neighborhood patrols, high school guidance counselors, probation and parole officers, religious groups and local businesses . . . “. President Bush is focusing more on community policing in schools. His recently passed Patriot Act will enforce this totalitarian agenda and limit citizen resistance. Eyes will be watching over us continually!

7. PARTNERSHIPS

Business, education and religious partnerships with the government, pointed out above, extend the socialist/communitarianism agenda. An international conference entitled “Community Schools and Education Policy in Transition Countries During the 21st Century” was held October 9-13, 2000, in Omsk (Siberia) Russia. The goal was “to establish partnership between government education departments and the community school movement” (taken from Russian URL on Community Education.) Community Educator, out of Alaska, in the early 1970s at a Community Education conference in Washington, D.C., defined community education as the Chinese Communist system. Community education now comes under a variety of names including site-based management, regionalism, community ‘whatever’, school-based ‘everything’, lifelong ‘anything’, sustainable development, communitarianism and other terms. (For those interested in this subject, education researchers are in possession of filing cabinets loaded with community education research, and may be contacted through Iserbyt. Deliberate Dumbing Down of America also carries several important entries on Community Education.)

8. CONTROL OF LAND

Environmental legislation and sustainable development efforts (beginning with the Earth Summit, Rio 1992 and now finished with Earth Charter in 2000), implement controls on the right to own and use property as one wishes. The President’s Council on Sustainable Development (Clinton in 1996) helped form a joint effort between the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties. They came together to form The Joint Center for Sustainable Communities. And the U.S. Conference of Mayors adopted a resolution endorsing the Earth Charter in 2001.

9. CONTROL OF BEHAVIOR USING SKINNERIAN/PAVLOVIAN

This psychological method is stimulus-response-stimulus dog/animal training. It has recently been referred to as the Direct Instruction method, which is failed OBE mastery learning. Direct Instruction (same as mastery learning) is now being used to teach reading and math and is especially necessary for workforce training for dumbed down “third world” skills. Skinner said “I could make a pigeon a high achiever by reinforcing it on a proper schedule.” Following this reinforcement method, teachers are forced to read from a script, use hand signals as in dog training, clap their hands and, pop candies in students’ mouths when they get the correct answer. President Bush is mandating this method in his legislation that calls for retraining teachers to use “scientific research based” teaching methods.

Not only is above reward and punishment method being used in the schools, one sees it all around in our communities with citizens who conform to the government agenda receiving rewards and those who resist being ignored, isolated or punished. CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD found in The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America . . . A Chronological Paper Trail:

CHRONOLOGICAL RECORD (excerted from The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America . . . )

1930s: Chamber of Commerce plans for UN, regional government, school vouchers, etc.

1932: William Foster, Chairman of the United States Communist Party, has his book, Toward a Soviet America published. It calls for everything that has since been implemented in our nation’s schools, including the establishment of the U.S. Dept. of Education.

1934: Carnegie Corp. plans to change America’s free economic system to socialism/ collectivism in the New Order. They pilot an 8-Year Study using Outcome-based Education.

1942: Time Magazine publishes an article revealing plans for the Federal Council of Churches to implement world government.

1945: The United Nations is created by a majority of communists. Alger Hiss and his close friend, Canadian General and psychiatrist Brock Chisholm, made statements calling for using the schools (retraining the teachers) to get rid of the conscience (right and wrong).

1953: Congress set up the Congressional Investigation of Tax-exempt Foundations. Gaither, President of the Ford Foundation, tells Norman Dodd that foundations receive directions from White House in regards to using tax-exempt monies to change America so that it can be comfortably merged with the Soviet Union.

1958: Eisenhower signs the first U.S.-Soviet agreements.

1965: The Elementary and Secondary Education Act moved our pre-1960 excellent education system from academics to behavior modification and values destruction (beginning of OBE/ Skinner method).

1978: The U.S. Department of Education was created.

1981: Due to the Chicago disaster in 1981 when one half of the Chicago inner city school children dropped out due to Benjamin Bloom’s ten year mastery learning experiment on minorities, Spady et al changed the label to OBE. Thus, federal funding of OBE began in 1981. (D.I. is the new label for the failed mastery learning.) President Reagan implements public/private (corporate fascist) partnerships by creating the President’s Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives.

1982: President Reagan scheduled to meet with the developer of major Skinnerian mastery learning program in the Bronx, N.Y.

1984: The federally funded paper entitled “Shamanistic Rituals in Effective Schools” by sociologist Brian Rowan, Spady’s closest associate was presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association. It discusses conning inner city parents into believing their children are doing well by using “Effective School Research” (Pavlovian/ Skinnerian ML/DI: teach to the test and manipulation of demographic statistics, etc.) Washington Post article entitled “Industrial Policy Urged for GOP” was published May 14, 1984. This article explained involvement of leading Republicans in advocating Republicans shed some of their deep-rooted antipathy to a planned economy.

1985: U.S.-Soviet (Reagan-Gorbachev) and Carnegie-Soviet Education Agreements merged the two nations’ education systems and set in motion a planned economy.

80s and 90s: These were years of involvement of Secretaries of Education, Bell, Bennett and Alexander, and President George Bush, Sr. in America 2000. Clinton continued America 2000, implemented by Secretary Riley, under the new name, Goals 2000.

1990s: Carnegie Corp.’s Marc Tucker, governors, corporations, etc. implemented Goals 2000 lifelong l learning out of UN and Soviet-style STW across country during nineties.

2001: President George Bush, Jr., embraced by Senator Ted Kennedy, MA and Congressman George Miller, CA, call for passage of H.R. 1, S. 1, which completes a socialist takeover. This is the final nail in the coffin. Has anyone looked inside to see who is being buried.

CONCLUSION-

If you want to bake a cake you usually use a recipe which calls for certain ingredients; if you want to implement international socialism (communism) one would have to take certain actions over a period of time which are clearly spelled out in the Communist Manifesto and in William Foster’s “Toward a Soviet America,” and in many other books and documents. Those actions constitute a “recipe” so to speak. All those requirements have been met. I’ve spelled them out for you: free trade, international banking system, U.S. Dept. of Ed with teaching of evolution, humanism (atheism), internationalism, and use of Pavlovian method; faith-based initiatives (communitarianism defined in dictionaries as communism) and choice to control schools and community through the tax dollar, STW to control economy (planned economy), Patriot Act to control “us” when we resist. Now I ask, “What label would you put on a system which encompassed those elements?”

No longer can we who love America and what she stands for say “If we don’t do something, such and such will happen.” We are now obliged to say “International socialism has happened and the United States is a major player in this unthinkable agenda.” Isn’t this tragic? Americans were bamboozled when the Soviet Union fell apart, believing communism was dead, when in fact it simply leaped across the oceans.

We were taken through what I refer to as The Four-Prong Fork, a most diabolical undertaking:

1. GRADUALISM

(Put a frog in cold water, heat it up gradually and he stays until he’s dead). The top change agents at the UN, federal government and state government levels, including non-governmental persons and entities, have been at this game for over one hundred years.

2. SEMANTIC DECEPTION

This is the use of familiar, nice sounding terms, which have one meaning to good Americans and entirely different meaning to “change agents.” Example: Basic skills used to mean 3R’s; now it means believing in tolerance of all behavior; the need to move to an international system; the need for a new Constitution; the need for a new economic system.

3. HEGELIAN DIALECTIC

Create a problem; people scream; impose solution; people embrace “it” — not realizing they have been taken to the cleaners through the deliberate creation of a problem. Example: Create high school budgets that create high property taxes which causes people to have to sell their houses and move. Then propose a solution to move funding of education from local to state level; the people embrace the idea since it lowers their property tax. However, locals have just lost all their control of schools to state, federal, and the international level. Also, dialectic includes moving from sound morals and values to situational ethics through constant discussion using group process. Pit “It’s wrong to lie” against “It’s OK to lie” and nearly all agree that lying is wrong. But through discussion and presentation of situations calling for compromise, one arrives at “Sometimes it’s OK to lie.” Then eventually, one comes to the realization it is OK to lie, or kill, or steal, or do anything else that makes one feel good anytime one feels like it.

4. BILLIONS OF TAX DOLLARS

Our money is spent on social engineering. Tax money is not spent on academic education as most people believe. It appears we are getting a lot of taxation and very little representation. SOLUTION (other than a tea-party) The only solution that has the remotest possibility of saving our country, outside of getting out of the United Nations, is to throw out all rascals who voted for this education legislation in the next elections. The litmus test for candidates running for Congress should be “will they work to abolish the U.S. Dept. of Education and break up that cozy, in-the-same-bed, relationship it shares with the Department of Labor and the UN?”

Choice proposals are traps supported by multinational corporations (David Rockefeller, etc., and by top education union officials — not teachers — who have no allegiance to the USA and care nothing for our children’s upward mobility or America itself.) Education must be returned to the local level, bypassing even state education agencies that take their orders from and receive between 60 and 80% of their operational budgets from the federal government.

Education must be restored to its state of excellence prior to 1960 – the best education system in the world. This can be done, and must be done, if our children are going to have upward mobility and if America is going to survive as a free country.

My book [, Dumbing Down of America,] is into its third printing in two years. Barnes & Noble.com had it ranked #two in terms of sales out of 1290 books in its category of “educational change” (May 2001)

© Charlotte T. Iserbyt, All Rights Reserved

Charlotte Iserbyt is the consummate whistleblower! Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America’s classrooms. Iserbyt is a former school board director in Camden, Maine and was co-founder and research analyst of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM) from 1978 to 2000. She has also served in the American Red Cross on Guam and Japan during the Korean War, and in the United States Foreign Service in Belgium and in the Republic of South Africa. Iserbyt is a speaker and writer, best known for her 1985 booklet Back to Basics Reform or OBE: Skinnerian International Curriculum and her 1989 pamphlet Soviets in the Classroom: America’s Latest Education Fad which covered the details of the U.S.-Soviet and Carnegie-Soviet Education Agreements which remain in effect to this day. She is a freelance writer and has had articles published in Human Events, The Washington Times, The Bangor Daily News, and included in the record of Congressional hearings.

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt [pronounced ih' zr beet"]

Author The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America…

A Chronological Paper Trail.

Website: http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
E Book: deliberate dumbing down PDF now available free

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‘Smart Growth’ Or Dumbed Down By Consensus Politicians

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Also take a look at this website:

Welcome to American Deception. This website is committed to exposing the deceptively hidden truths that have brought America, and the world as a whole, to the present situation where individual freedom is becoming a thing of the past. Little of what has occurred throughout history has been by mistake; yet there is a wide belief amongst the majority of people that “bad things just happen for no reason at all.” Seen as more of a faulty and clumsy political dance, it is easier for many people to believe that most unfortunate happenings are a result of misjudgments or error.

www.americandeception.com/

“Boycotts: How to regain public control the United States of America”

When I joined the fray of political interest one of the things I soon decided to work for was “To bring an end to professional politics”. I’ve added to my personal cause, “Ending the monetary system”. They go hand in hand. They’re all but synonymous. At least symbiotic, as one created, supports and effects the other.

In our current monetary system someone will always hire political candidates. We only see those candidates. We can only vote for those candidates. So we will always have them in the highest political offices. This will never ever change. Dreaming won’t help with this – unless those dreams lead us to someone with actual working solutions.

The only political solution at the moment is the boycott. We have something “for the moment” that we can use as leverage to change the course the governments of the world have led us into. If we collectively withhold our financial participation the political coop will end. Make no mistake that we are subjects of a coop regime. We have been for some time.

There are a couple of ways the U.S. government takes control of the resources in nations around the world. One is through military force as we see in the Baltic States, the Philippines, Iraq and Afghanistan. The other is through their loan shark business. The IMF and WTO are the chief financial coop institutions. All of this information is available here – if you check out the “Pages” section you can find enough to get started.
Also the videos at dgswilson.com are all geared for this type of political awakening.

The political machine can’t be stopped through peaceful protest. Protesting law makers who can simply make laws ending or curtailing protest (Copenhagen) is pointless. We can’t appeal to there better natures, they are what they are. We can’t call up the constitutional legality of things. All this is and has been tried to no avail. The real truth is that money, as we know it since 1913, has formed a different government. Unless we understand this and educate ourselves on it, then no – we can’t do anything.

One major coop was accomplished through the manipulation of the U.S. governments fundamental structure via the constitution with the addition of the 17th Amendment:

Modern Tyranny Movement:

The Tyranny Movement began in earnest at the turn of the last century in 1913. The “Money Trust” as found to exist in a report by the United States House of Representatives Subcommittee on Banking and Currency, entitled “Investigation of Financial and Monetary Conditions in the United States managed to drive the final nails into the coffin of the American Constitutional Republic. The victory was secured with the passage of the FEDERAL RESERVE Act in December of 1913, which created the 3rd Central Bank of the United States.

The primary motivator was a desire by the “Money Trust”
to regain its lost monopoly over the nation’s monetary policy and larger influence over the government as a whole while fostering an endless cycle of credit, ergo debt. The private control over the nation’s monetary policy had slipped from their grasp after Nicolas Biddle threatened to cause an economic depression by contracting the money supply if Congress did not renew the 2nd central bank’s charter. Mr. Biddle’s arrogant threat finally turned the tide in favor of President Andrew Jackson who promised during his campaign for reelection to end the reign of the 2nd central bank and return control of the nation’s money back to the Department of Treasury. In defeat however, the central bankers learned an important lesson. Mr. Biddle’s demise came from the fact that he was unable to secure enough support from the various state legislatures. Elected state legislatures were designated by the Constitution as the body in charge of appointing Senators to the Congress. After learning of Mr. Biddle’s threat to cause an economic depression, the majority of state legislatures, including Mr. Biddle’s home state of Pennsylvania directed the Senators to vote against renewal of the 2nd Central Bank’s charter.

Therefore, prior to securing passage of the FEDERAL RESERVE Act of 1913, the “Money Trust” first successfully waged a campaign of “democratic populism” urging the Constitution be amended to allow for the direct election of Senators. On April 8th of 1913, the 17th Amendment became law, thereby making Senators beholden to popular campaigns. Campaigns – which would require fund-raising and massive money expenditures just as has always been required by members of the House of Representatives. Consequently, instead of needing to lobby and influence forty-eight separate state legislatures made up of hundreds of individual elected members, the lobbying efforts could be directed at the ninety-six respective Senators. All of whom were now in direct reach while in the District of Columbia.

Read the full report – www.dgswilson.com, Pdf Library, SMIAC: Report on “The Modern Tyranny Movement”

Not dealing with the facts, as far as politics is concerned, is what most people are doing now. Most people are trying to deal with something they think should be, instead of what is. And no – it won’t work.

Probably not. From everything I’ve witnessed in the last 20 years I think that the manipulation of the public psyche is complete. I think that people have been sufficiently programmed to the point where they are unable to break free. Bit if we’re going to form a boycott we can start right here right now, and see what happens. You can start by signing into the comments and simply saying, “I’m in”. If a significant number register, I’ll create an official boycott page. I might do it anyway just for test purposes.

You can also say to anyone who will listen, “Let’s form a Boycott”. It has to be a nation wide majority agreeing on a few certain points before it can be instituted. (the fewer the better)

Won’t do a bit of good otherwise. Getting people to sign on is the hard part. Taking control of the nation is a piece of cake – once the numbers are sufficient to the cause.

The compromise reached late Wednesday between pro-reform House Democrats and the banker-friendly wing of the party could significantly weaken consumer protection in states where lawmakers support tougher rules against tactics such as predatory lending and excessive ATM fees than historically submissive federal regulators.

Members of the New Democrat Coalition -- whose deference to big banks is reflected in the massive amounts of money they have taken from the financial services industry since 2008 -- temporarily blocked the landmark financial regulatory reform bill from hitting the House floor on Wednesday.

At issue was whether federal regulations should be a floor or a ceiling for consumer protection in the states, particularly as they affect big national banks like JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Wells Fargo.

The Obama administration, Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, state attorneys general and a coalition of consumer advocates and law professors want states to be able to enforce tougher consumer financial protections.

The big banks, obviously, want federal regulations -- which they have found relatively easy to influence -- to preempt any more onerous state rules for banks operating in more than one state.

Working on behalf of the big banks, the New Dems were able to extract a compromise that will allow federal regulations to preempt state laws on a case-by-case basis.

State regulators have extracted billions of dollars from predatory lenders over the past decade through fines and court settlements, and state legislatures adopted strong anti-predatory lending measures years before Congress. Federal regulators were largely absent from the fight to protect consumers or acted too late, consumer advocates argue.

Federal preemption of state laws is not a new concept -- particularly in banking. It accelerated in 2004 when the federal regulator of national banks, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), issued a sweeping interpretation of the law in which the agency determined that national banks did not have to comply with state laws purporting to regulate their practices -- laws like anti-predatory lending measures -- to the delight of big national banks.

"The Comptroller of the Currency, for example, behaved much like a banking lobby embedded in the Treasury Department," USA Today observed in an editorial published Monday.

As part of the new deal, Frank will incorporate preemption-friendly language from New Democrat Melissa Bean of Illinois into his amendment to financial overhaul legislation. The deal slightly dials back the OCC's broad preemption authority, a House aide said late Wednesday. Per the compromise, the agency would have to preempt laws on a case-by-case basis.

The effects could be wide-ranging. If the OCC preempts a law and determines that it applies to a particular category of laws, that single preemption determination would then apply to all similar measures in the future. Also, the OCC would have the authority to preempt state laws that "materially impair" a national bank's operations. Capping ATM fees, for instance, could fall into this category as it would have a material impact on a bank's profits.

Because of the compromise, national banks may still be able to completely avoid stronger state consumer protection measures. State regulators could be unable to regulate the $1.5 trillion in home mortgages held on the balance sheets of national banks, for example -- a total more than double that held by state banks, according to a Huffington Post analysis of federal banking data. They also could have no say about the nearly $295 billion in credit card loans held by national banks, nearly five times as much held by state banks.

And it's not as if national banks are better at what they do. Eleven percent of home mortgages held by national banks are delinquent, according to HuffPost's analysis. That's more than double the rate at state banks. Also, seven percent of national banks' credit card loans are delinquent, compared to just five percent at state banks. Between home mortgages and credit cards, national banks are holding $188 billion in delinquent loans; state banks have less than a fifth of that.

Part of the argument for preemption is that it sets standard rules for everyone to follow. Rather than allowing for a hodgepodge of 52 sets of rules (50 states, federal law and Washington, D.C.), national banks only would have to abide by a single standard. This is what formed the basis for the creation of a national banking system in the mid-1800s -- uniform banking laws and a uniform currency all subject to federal law. As an added bonus, complying with just one set of rules leads to a decrease in banks' costs which could then be passed onto consumers.

But consumer advocates argue that preemption stifles innovative state lawmaking aimed at protecting consumers. When the OCC, for instance, exempts national banks from laws that still apply to state-chartered banks, that puts the state banks at a disadvantage -- something state legislatures generally try to avoid.

If the OCC could be trusted, argued John Ryan, executive vice president of the Conference of State Bank Supervisors, then perhaps this compromise wouldn't be so alarming. But given the OCC's history of aggressive preemption of state consumer protection measures, he said, the compromise is really no compromise at all -- the big banks could still be given free reign.

"It's the problem of the last decade," he said.

Thanks. I just got back from Brazil where they don't have any fire codes and if you think this is uncomfortable you should see a meeting there -- people packed so tight that there was a good question whether the oxygen level would suffice. Fortunately, there wasn't a fire or it would have been a huge catastrophe.

Well, the title, you noticed, had a question mark after it and the reason for the question mark is that whatever has been happening for the past several months and is going on now, and however you evaluate it -- like it, hate it, or whatever -- it's pretty clear that it cannot be a war on terror. In fact, that's close to a logical necessity, at least if we accept certain pretty elementary assumptions and principles, so let me try to make those clear at the outset.

The first principle guideline, if you like, is that we ought to, I will try and I think that we should, bend over backwards to give the benefit of the doubt to the United States government whenever it's possible. So, that if there is any dispute about how to interpret something, we will assume they're right.

The second guideline is that we should take very seriously the pronouncements of leadership especially when they are made with great sincerity and emotion. So, for example, when George Bush tells us that he is the most devoted Christian since the Apostles, we should believe him, take him at his word and we should therefore conclude that he certainly has memorized, over and over again, in his Bible reading classes and in church, the famous definition of "hypocrite" that's given in the gospels. Namely, the hypocrite is the person who applies to others standards that he refuses to apply to himself. So if you are not a hypocrite you assume that if something is right for us then it's right for them and if it is wrong when they do it, it is wrong when we do it. That is really elementary and I assume that the President would agree and all of his admirers as well. So those are the principles that I would like to start with.

Well, a side comment. Unless we can rise to that minimal level of moral integrity we should at least stop talking about things like human rights, right and wrong, and good and evil, and all such high afflatus things because all our talk should be dismissed, in fact, dismissed with complete repugnance unless we can at least rise to that minimal level. I think that's obvious and I hope there would be agreement on that, too.

Well, with that much in place -- just that much for background -- let me formulate a thesis. The thesis is that we are all total hypocrites on any issue relating to terrorism. Now, let me clarify the notion "we." By "we," I mean people like us -- people who have enough high degree of privilege, of training, resources, access to information -- for whom it is pretty easy to find out the truth about things if we want to. If we decide that that is our vocation, and in the case in question, you don't really have to dig very deep, it's all right on the surface. So when I say "we," I mean that category. And I definitely mean to include myself in "we" because I have never proposed that our leaders be subjected to the kinds of punishment that I have recommended for enemies. So that is hypocrisy. So if there are people who escape it I really don't know them and have not come across them. It's a very powerful culture. It's hard to escape its grasp. So that's thesis number one, we are all total hypocrites, in the sense of the gospels, on the matter of terrorism. The second thesis is stronger, namely, that the first thesis is so obvious that it takes real effort to miss it. In fact, I should go home right now because it is obvious. Nevertheless, let me continue and say why I think both theses are correct.

Well, to begin with, what is terrorism? Got to say something about that. That is supposed to be a really tough question. Academic seminars and graduate philosophy programs and so on -- a very vexing and complex question. However, in accordance with the guidelines that I mentioned, I think there is a simple answer, namely, we just take the official U.S. definition of terrorism. Since we are accepting the pronouncements of our leaders literally, let's take their definition. In fact, that is what I have always done. I have been writing about terrorism for the last twenty years or so, just accepting the official definition. So, for example, a simple and important case is in the U.S. army manual in 1984 which defines terrorism as the calculated use of violence or the threat of violence to attain goals that are political, religious or ideological in nature.

Well, that seems simple, appropriate. A particularly good choice because of the timing: 1984. 1984, you will recall, was the time that the Reagan Administration was waging a war against terrorism. Particularly what they called state-supported international terrorism a "plague spread by depraved opponents of civilization itself" in a "return to barbarism in the modern age" -- I'm quoting [Secretary of State] George Shultz who was the administration moderate. The other guideline is that we will keep to the moderates, not the extremists.

So that's 1984, Reagan had come into office a couple of years earlier. His administration had immediately declared that the war against terrorism would be the focus of U.S. foreign policy and they identified two regions as the source of this plague by depraved opponents of civilization itself -- Central America and the Middle East. And there was quite wide agreement on that and so, in 1985, for example -- every year the Associated Press has a poll of editors on the most important story of the year -- and in 1985, the winner was Middle East terrorism. So they agree. Right towards the end of that year, 1985, Shimon Peres, Israel's Prime Minister, came to Washington and Reagan and Peres denounced the evil scourge of terrorism, referring to the Middle East. Scholarship and experts also agree.

There is a huge literature for the last twenty years on terrorism, particularly state-supported international terrorism. We don't have time review it but a good illustration, which I will keep to, is the December 2001 issue of the journal Current History, a good and serious journal. Its article called "America at War" includes leading historians, specialists and experts on terrorism and they identify the 1980s as the era of state-sponsored terror, agreeing with the Reagan Administration. I agree with that, too. I think it was the era of state-sponsored international terrorism. One leading author, Martha Crenshaw, says that in that era the United States adopted a pro-active stance to deter the plague. Mostly, it's about the Middle East but Central America is occasionally mentioned. ... One or two authors or co-authors from the Brookings Institution describe the U.S. Contra War against Nicaragua as a model for ... U.S. support for the Northern Alliance in the current phase of the war against terrorism. The seeds of contemporary terrorism however are much deeper, though.

The major historian in the group -- David Rapoport, the leading academic specialist on terrorism, editor of the Journal of Terrorism and so on -- he points out that it goes back to -- the origins of modern terrorism, like Osama bin Laden -- it goes back to the early 1960s and I am quoting him now, when "Vietcong terror against the American Goliath ... kindled the hopes that the Western heartland was vulnerable ..." I won't comment on that but, just as an exercise, you might try to find a historical analog to that statement somewhere. I'll just leave it at that. Without commenting, if you check through the scholarly literature you'll find the same story all the time, virtually no exceptions.

The world agreed with the Reaganites, too. In 1985, right after Reagan and Peres had denounced the evil scourge of terrorism, the General Assembly passed a resolution condemning terrorism, and in 1987, it passed a much stronger resolution and a much more explicit one denouncing terrorism in all its forms and calling on all states to do everything they can to fight against the plague and everything you like. It's true that that wasn't unanimous. There was one abstention, namely Honduras, and two votes against -- the usual two. They gave their reasons for voting against the major UN resolution on international terrorism, namely, both states -- the United States and Israel -- pointed to the same paragraph as the reason for their negative vote. It was a paragraph that said that nothing in the present resolution could in anyway prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom and independence, as derived from the United Nations Charter, of people forcibly derived of that right ... particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation, or could deprive them of the right to obtain support for others in these ends in accord with the charter with the United Nations. That was the offending paragraph, and it is easy to understand why it raised a serious problem for the United States and Israel. The African National Congress was identified officially as a terrorist organization in the United States and South Africa was officially an ally. But the phrase "struggle against colonial and racist regimes" plainly referred to the struggle of the ANC against the apartheid regime. So that's unacceptable. The phrase "foreign occupation," everyone understood, referred to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, then in its 20th year, extremely harsh and brutal from the beginning and continuing only because of decisive U.S. military, economic and diplomatic support that runs up to the present. So, obviously, that was unacceptable. So therefore it was 153 to 2 with one abstention. So it wasn't totally unanimous. It wasn't reported and it has disappeared from history. You can check to find out. Incidentally, that's standard practice. When the master says something is wrong, it's down the memory hole, doesn't get reported and it's forgotten. But it's there, if you want to look, you can discover it, I'll give you the sources if you like.

Well, Reagan at that time, let's recall, he and Peres were talking about the evil scourge of terrorism in the Middle East. George Shultz didn't entirely agree. He thought that what he called the most alarming manifestation of state-sponsored terrorism was frighteningly close to home. Namely, it was a "cancer ... in our land mass," a cancer right nearby that was threatening to conquer the hemisphere with a "revolution without borders" -- a rather interesting propaganda fabrication, revealed to be a fraud instantly, but always used repeatedly afterwards, even by the same journals that explained why it was a total fabrication. It was just too useful to abandon. And this is also interesting, if you think about it, the fabrication had a certain element of truth in it, an important element of truth. We can come back to that if you like. Anyhow, this cancer in our land mass was threatening to conquer everything, openly following Hitler's Mein Kampf, and we plainly had to do something about that.

There is a serious day in the United States called Law Day -- elsewhere in the world it is called May Day -- May 1st, a day for the support of the struggles of the American workers for an eight hour day. But in the United States, it's a jingoist holiday called Law Day. On Law Day 1985, President Reagan declared a national emergency because the government of Nicaragua constitutes "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States..." That was renewed annually. George Schultz informed Congress that we must cut the Nicaraguan cancer out and not by gentle means, things are too serious for that. And so, to quote Schultz -- recall, the administration moderate, the "good cop" -- to quote Schultz, he said: "Negotiations are a euphemism for capitulation if the shadow of power is not cast across the bargaining table." He condemned those who advocate "utopian legalistic means like outside mediation, the United Nations, the World Court while ignoring the power element of the equation." I'll avoid quoting hard-liners. At that time, the United States was exercising the "power element of the equation" with mercenary forces based in Honduras attacking Nicaragua. They were under the supervision of John Negroponte who was just appointed to run the diplomatic side of the diplomatic component of the current war on terror as the UN ambassador. The military component of the current war on terror is Donald Rumsfeld who at that time was Ronald Reagan's special envoy to the Middle East -- the other place where the plague was raging through 1985. In fact, the United States at that time was also blocking "utopian, legalistic means" that were being pursued by the World Court, the Latin American countries and others, and it continued to block those means, right until the end, until the final victory of its terrorist wars throughout Central America.

Well, how was the war against state-sponsored terrorism waged in those two regions by the people who in fact are leading the new phase? (So pretty close historical continuity, not just those two, of course.) Well, just to illustrate, let's pick the peak year, the worst year, 1985 in the Middle East, top story of the year. So who wins the prize for the worst acts of terrorism in the Middle East in 1985? Well, I know of three candidates, maybe you can suggest a different one. One candidate is a car bombing in Beirut in 1985, The car was placed outside a mosque. The bomb was timed to go off when people were leaving to make sure it killed the maximum number of people. It killed, according to the Washington Post, 80 people. It wounded over 250, mostly women and girls leaving the mosque. There was a huge explosion so it blew up the whole street, killing babies in beds and so on and so forth. The bomb was aimed at a Muslim sheik who escaped. It was set off by the CIA in collaboration with British intelligence and Saudi intelligence and specifically authorized by William Casey, according to Bob Woodward's history of Casey and the CIA. So that is a clear-cut example of international terrorism. Very unambiguous and I think it is one of the candidates for the prize for the peak year of 1985.

Another candidate surely would be the so-called Iron Fist operations that Shimon Peres' government was carrying out in occupied southern Lebanon in March of 1985. This is in southern Lebanon, which was under military occupation in violation of the Security Council order to leave, but with U.S. authorization. The Iron Fist operations were targeting what the high command called "terrorist villagers" in southern Lebanon. It included many massacres and atrocities and kidnapping of people for interrogation and taking them to Israel and so on. It reached new depths of calculated brutality and arbitrary murder, according to a Western diplomat familiar with the region, who was observing. There was no pretense of self-defense, rather it was openly undertaken for political ends. It was conceded, it wasn't even argued. So that's a clear case of international terrorism although here we might say that it is aggression. I'll call it just "international terrorism" in line with the principle that we bend over backwards to give the United States the benefit of the doubt. Of course, this is a U.S. operation: Israel does it because they are given arms, aid and diplomatic support by the United States. So we will decide to call this just "international terrorism," not the much more serious war crime of aggression. The same, incidentally, was true of the much worse operations of 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon and killed maybe twenty thousand or so people, again with crucial U.S. military, economic and diplomatic support. The U.S. had to veto a couple of Security Council resolutions to keep the slaughter going, provide the arms, and so on, for it. So it's a U.S.-Israeli invasion, if we are honest. The goal was to install a friendly regime in Lebanon and oust the PLO, which would help persuade the Palestinians to accept Israeli rule in the West Bank and Gaza. That's actually accurate and I have to compliment the New York Times in saying that on January 24th. As far as I know, this is the first time in mainstream U.S. literature that anyone has dared to say what was absolutely common knowledge in Israel and in the dissident literature 20 years ago. I was writing this in 1983 just using Israeli sources but it couldn't penetrate U.S. commentary. You might check and see. As far as I know, this was the first breakthrough. I am not sure the reporter understood what he was saying. But anyway he did say that. James Bennet, January 24th, prize for James Bennet for telling the truth after 20 years. And it's true and, of course, it's a textbook illustration of international terrorism. This time we have to bend over backwards pretty far to call it international terrorism because it is hard to say why this isn't overt aggression -- the kind of action for which U.S. and Israeli leaders should be subjected to Nuremberg trials for real serious war crimes. But, again, let's keep to the guidelines and let's say it's only international terrorism. Well, that's the second example, the Iron Fist operations.

Third, the only other example from 1985 that I know of took place two days before Shimon Peres arrived in Washington to join Reagan in denouncing the evil scourge of terrorism. Shortly before that, Peres sent the Israeli air force to bomb Tunis killing 75 civilians, torn to shreds with smart bombs. It was all rather accurately and graphically depicted by a highly respected Israeli reporter in the Hebrew press in Israel and corroborated by other sources. The United States cooperated with that by withdrawing the Sixth Fleet so that they did not have to inform their ally, Tunisia, that the bombers were on their way, presumably getting refueled on the way. So that's the third candidate. I don't know of any other candidates that even come close to being candidates... Incidentally, George Schultz, the moderate, immediately after the bombing, he telephoned the Israeli Foreign Minister to say that the United States had considerable sympathy for this operation but he backed away from open support for massive international terrorism or maybe aggression when the Security Council unanimously condemned the attack as an attack of armed aggression. The United States again abstaining against that.

So those are the top three cases that win the prize for 1985, to my knowledge, and again I'll assume that these are just international terrorism so we are not calling for Nuremberg trials. Just more "international terrorism" by "depraved opponents of civilization itself" and examples which are pretty hard to miss, remember, because these are the peak stories of the year for international terrorism in the Middle East. There are three perfect examples. In fact, the only three major examples that I know of. However, they aren't candidates. In fact, they are not even in the running. They are not competitive. The examples that are in the running are, for example, cited in the Current History issue, to which I referred, which does discuss 1985 and gives two examples of the evil scourge of terrorism, namely the hijacking of TWA 847, killing one American Navy diver and the hijacking of the Achille Lauro which led to the killing of Leon Klinghoffer, a crippled American -- both surely terrorist atrocities. Those are the two examples that are in the running, that are memorable, that count for international terrorism. Well, the hijackers for the TWA plane claim -- correctly, in fact -- that Israel was regularly hijacking ships in the international waters in transit between Lebanon and Cyprus, killing people and kidnapping others, taking them to Israel, either for interrogation or simply as hostages, keeping them in jail for years. Some people are still in jail without charges but that doesn't justify the hijacking on the assumption, which I accept at least, that violence is not legitimate in retaliation against even worse atrocities or as preemption against future atrocities. Violence is not legitimate in such cases so we can dismiss those claims though they are in fact correct. Incidentally, the U.S.-Israeli hijackings -- and remember, if Israel does it, we are doing it -- those hijackings are also out of the historical records. Occasionally, you find a reference to them in the bottom of a column on something or other but they are not part of the history of terrorism. The hijackers of the Achille Lauro claimed that this was retaliation for the bombing of Tunis a couple of days earlier. Well, we dismiss that with contempt on the same principle, namely, violence is not justified in retaliation or preemption. Assuming that we can rise to the minimal, moral, level that I mentioned earlier -- if we are not confirmed hypocrites, in other words -- then some consequences follow about other acts of retaliation and preemption but that's too obvious to talk about so I will just leave it for you to think about. Well, that's 1985, the peak year of international terrorism in the Middle East.

As a research project, you might see if I have left out anything that is a competitor for the prize that I am not aware of. None are mentioned in the literature on terrorism. As I said at the beginning, you don't really have to work very hard to see these things. You have to work very hard not to see them. It takes a really good education to miss this. 1985 was, of course, not the first or the last act of international terrorism in the Middle East. There are many others that are very important. For example, in 1975, Israel, meaning Israeli pilots with U.S. planes and U.S. support, in December 1975, they bombed a village in Lebanon killing over 50 people. No pretext was offered but everybody knew what the reason was. At that time, the UN Security Council was meeting to consider a resolution which was supported by the entire world with marginal exceptions -- only one crucial exception, the United States, which vetoed the resolution -- calling for a diplomatic settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, incorporating UN 242 and all of its wording of the main resolution, security and territorial integrity and all those nice things on the internationally recognized border. The offending part of this one was that it also referred to Palestinian national rights and that's not acceptable to the United States. It rejected them then and it rejects them now, contrary to a lot of nonsense that you read. The U.S. vetoed the resolution. That continued year after year and is still going on now, of efforts of diplomatic settlement, which the U.S. has unilaterally blocked. Israel does not have a veto at the Security Council so they reacted to the debate by bombing Lebanon and killing about 50 people without a pretext. That's not in the annals of international terrorism either. The U.S. supported both of them, lots of deaths, hundreds of thousands of people driven out and so on. Clinton had to back off his support for the 1996 invasion after the Qana massacre, over a hundred people in a UN refugee camp. At that point he said, "can't handle this any more, you better leave." There was no pretext of self-defense in this case. This is just outright international terrorism or maybe aggression. And it continues.

So let's go up to the current intifada, which broke out on September 30th of year 2000. In the first couple of days, there was no fire from Palestinians, some stone throwing, but Israel was in fact using U.S. attack helicopters to attack civilian apartment complexes and so on, killing and wounding dozens of people in the first few days. The Clinton Administration responded to this by, I'll borrow our President's phrase, by "enhancing terror." You recall President Bush condemned the Palestinians for "enhancing terror" last month, so I'll use his phrase in line with the guidelines. The Clinton Administration committed itself to enhancing terror on October 3rd by making a deal for the biggest shipment in a decade of military helicopters to Israel along with spare parts for the Apache attack helicopters that were sent a couple of weeks earlier. That's enhancing terror. In the days right after, these helicopters were being used to murder and wound civilians, attacking apartment complexes and so on. The press cooperated by refusing to report this. Note: not failing to report it -- refusing to report it. It was specifically brought to the attention of editors and they simply made it clear that they were not going to report it. There is no question about the facts, incidentally, but to this day it has not been reported, except in the margins. That policy continues.

Skip to December 2001. George Bush was condemning the Palestinians for enhancing terror and he contributed in the conventional ways to enhancing terror, in crucial ways, in fact. On December 15th, the UN Security Council debated a European-initiated resolution, calling on both sides to reduce violence and calling for the introduction of international monitors to assist in monitoring a reduction of violence. That's a very important step. That was vetoed by the United States. ... It's hard to think of any other interpretation for this. The press didn't have to bother giving an interpretation. The press didn't have to bother giving an interpretation because it was barely reported. It then went to the General Assembly where it wasn't reported at all and there was an overwhelming vote supporting the same resolution. This time, the United States and Israel were not entirely isolated in opposition as several Pacific Islands joined in -- Nauru and one or two others. So, therefore, not the usual splendid isolation. I don't recall that that was reported. About ten days before that there was another major contribution to enhancing terror. The Fourth Geneva Conventions, according to the entire world, literally, outside of Israel, applied to the occupied territories. The United States refuses, it doesn't vote against this when it comes up in the United Nations, it abstains. I presume the reason is the United States doesn't want to take such an open blatant stand in violation of fundamental principles of international law, particularly because of the circumstances under which they were enacted.

If you recall, the Geneva Conventions were established right after the Second World War in order to criminalize the acts of the Nazis, so saying they don't apply is a pretty strong statement. However, outside of the United States and Israel, the whole world agrees. The International Red Cross, which is the agency responsible for applying and interpreting them, agrees. In fact, as far as I am aware, there is no further question about this. Switzerland, which is the responsible state, called a meeting of the High Contracting Parties for the Geneva conventions -- that is, those like the United States that are legally obligated by treaty to enforce them, a high solemn commitment -- called a meeting on December 5th in Geneva and the meeting took place and passed a strong resolution determining that the Geneva conventions do apply to the occupied territories which makes illegal just about everything that the United States and Israel do there. They went through the list -- settlements, displacements and everything that goes on. The United States boycotted the session. They got another country to boycott them, Australia. According to the Australian press, under heavy U.S. pressure, Australia joined in boycotting them. If the U.S. boycotts it, it's like a negative vote at the Security Council or the General Assembly. It doesn't get reported and it's out of history. But that's another important step to enhancing terror. All this took place, incidentally, in the midst of a twenty-one day truce, a one-sided truce. The Palestinians weren't carrying out any acts but a couple of dozen Palestinians were killed, including a dozen children. That was right in the middle of these efforts to enhance terror... Maybe that's an unfair interpretation and there is some other motive that I'm not thinking of but that's what they look like to me. You can think about that.

In any event, international terrorism in the Middle East certainly continues and has a long history and if you look over the record, of course, it is mixed and complicated but I think you will find that the balance is pretty much along the lines that I described, in fact, the balance reflects the means of violence available, as it usually does. If you look around at terror, in fact, that's why, in the whole range of terror, state terror is far worse than individual terror for the obvious reason that states have means of violence that individuals don't have, or groups. And that's what you find if you look, I think, overwhelmingly. It is commonly said that terrorism is a weapon of the weak. That's completely false, at least if you accept the official U.S. definition of terror. If you do that, then terror is overwhelming the weapon of the strong, like most other weapons. Well, that's history but all of this stuff is out of history. History is what is created by well-educated intellectuals and it doesn't have to have any resemblance to that thing called "history" by naive people and if you check this, I think you will find this true.

Well, that's the Middle East. Let's turn to Central America, the other main focus of the plague by depraved opponents of civilization itself. Here, I will be brief because the core parts are uncontroversial, at least, uncontroversial among people who have minimal regard for international law and international institutions and so on. Actually, the size of that category is very easily estimated, namely, ask yourself how often what I'm about to say has appeared in the discussions about the evil plague of terrorism in the past five months. Huge flood, but how much has been devoted to some uncontroversial cases, again, uncontroversial if you think the World Court and Security Council and international law have some significance. Well, in 1986, the International Court of Justice condemned the United States for international terrorism -- "unlawful use of force" -- in its war against Nicaragua. Again I am going to keep to the guidelines, bend over backwards, and allow this to be interpreted just as international terrorism, not the war crime of aggression. So we will call it "international terrorism." The court ordered the United States to terminate the crimes and to pay substantial reparations, millions of dollars. Congress reacted by instantly escalating the war by new funding... Nicaragua took the matter to the Security Council, which debated a resolution calling on all states to observe international law, mentioning no one but everyone knew who was meant. The U.S. vetoed it. Nicaragua then went to the General Assembly which passed similar resolutions in successive years. The United States and Israel opposed and in one year they got El Salvador [to join them].

All of this is out of history. It has to be. It is just inconsistent with their preferred image of what history is supposed to be and, as I say, you can check how much these uncontroversial cases have been referred to recently. And remember who were the individuals responsible: people like Negroponte, proconsul of Honduras, Rumsfeld, special envoy to the Middle East, and so on, plenty of continuity. The U.S., as I said, reacted by escalating the war and for the first time giving official orders to its mercenary forces to attack what are called "soft targets." That's what the Southern Command called them, "soft targets," meaning undefended civilian targets like agricultural cooperatives and so on. That was known and it was discussed in the United States. It was considered legitimate by the "Left," so Michael Kinsley who represents the "Left" in the mainstream debate, in an interesting article -- he was then editor of the New Republic -- in which he said that, we shouldn't be too quick to condemn State Department authorization for attacks on undefended civilian targets because we have to apply pragmatic criteria. We have to carry out "cost benefit analysis" and see whether, as he put it, the amount of blood poured in is compensated by a good outcome, namely, democracy. What we will determine to be democracy and what that means you can see by looking at the states next door like El Salvador and Guatemala which were okay democracies. And if it passes our test, then that's it, okay. So, in other words, international terrorism is fine -- assuming it meets pragmatic criteria, now across the spectrum, Left or Right among "we" -- that is educated and privileged intellectuals, not the [general] population, of course.

In Nicaragua, the population had an army to defend it -- it was bad enough, tens of thousands of people killed, the country practically devastated, may never recover -- but it had an army to defend it. In El Salvador and Guatemala, that wasn't true, the army was the state terrorists. The U.S.-supported state terrorists, they were the army. There was no one to defend the population and, in fact, the atrocities were far worse. Also, they are not a state so they could not go to the World Court or the Security Council to follow legal means -- of course, without any effect, because "we," people like us, have determined that the world is going to be ruled by force, not by law. And since we have the power, as long as we determine that, a state that tries to follow legitimate means of responding to international terrorism doesn't having anything to do. But that's our choice, nobody else's choice. You can't blame anyone else on that. There was, however, popular resistance, not elite resistance, but popular resistance to the atrocities there so that the U.S. had to resort to an international terrorist network -- an extraordinary international terrorist network.

Remember, the U.S. is a powerful state, it's not like Libya. If Libya wants to carry out terrorist acts, they hire Carlos the Jackal or something. The United States hires terrorist states, we're big guys. So the terrorist network consisted of Taiwan, Britain, Israel, Argentina -- at least, as long as it was under the rule of the neo-Nazi generals, when they were unfortunately removed, they fell out of the system -- Saudi Arabian funding, quite a substantial international terrorist network, never been anything like it. In contemporary terms, we might call it an "Axis of Evil," I suppose. The outcome -- again keeping to the guidelines: we believe our leaders -- was hundreds of thousands of people slaughtered and millions of orphans and refugees, every conceivable atrocity, the region devastated. The single uncontroversial case, Nicaragua, which was the least of them, that alone far surpasses the crimes of September 11th -- and the others suffered far worse. Again we are bending over backwards and giving the U.S. the benefit of the doubt so we are only calling it international terrorism organized by depraved opponents of civilization itself. Well, that's the second major area, Central America.

All of this, however, is off the record, too. [In] the Current History journal -- and it's typical in this respect -- nothing that I have just referred to is mentioned. Nor is it in the whole scholarly literature, in fact, except way out at the margins. You can check and see it just doesn't count. The '80s are described as the era of state-sponsored international terrorism but they are not referring to any of these things. The U.S. was trying to prevent state-sponsored international terrorism by taking "pro-active" means like the most massive international terrorist network that's ever been known. That's very typical of the scholarly literature, journalism and, again, you can do a check. There has barely been a word on any of this as the second phase of the war on terrorism has been declared once again with pretty much the same people and every reason to expect some more [similar] outcomes.

Well, from all of this an obvious conclusion follows: there is an operational definition of terrorism, the one that is actually used -- it means terror that they carry out against us -- that's terrorism, and nothing else passes through the filter. As far as I know, that's a historical universal, I can't find an exception to that. You might try. For example, the Japanese in China and Manchuria [claimed they] were "defending" the population against Chinese terrorists and going to create an earthly paradise for them if they could control the terrorists. The Nazis in occupied Europe [claimed they] were "defending" the "legitimate" governments like Vichy and the population from the terrorist partisans who were supported from abroad, as indeed they were. They were run from London, Poland and France and so on. ... Also, as far as I am aware, this is virtually universal among intellectuals, educated folks like us. Apart from statistical error, this is the line that they take. Now, it doesn't look that way in history, but you have to remember who writes history.

That ought to leave you with a little skepticism. If you look at actual history, not the one that's written, I think you will find that this is the case and I could even maybe suggest it as a research topic to some enterprising graduate student who aspires to a career as a taxi driver. Just to continue to the present, let's just take the last couple of months. September 11th was a perfectly clear example of international terrorism, no controversy about that so we don't have to waste time on it. What about the reaction? Well, it turns out the reaction is also an uncontroversial case of international terrorism. Again, let's keep to the guidelines -- we'll just listen to what our leaders say. So, on October 11th, President Bush announced to the Afghan people that we will keep bombing you until you hand over people who we suspect of terrorist acts although we refuse to provide any evidence and we refuse to enter into any negotiations for extradition and transfer -- a clear case of international terrorism.

On October 28th, the British counterpart, Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, who is the chief of the British defense staff, took it a step further. Remember, getting rid of the Taliban regime was not a war aim -- that was an afterthought. Three weeks after the bombing began, that [aim] was added, presumably so that intellectuals would have something to feel good about or something, I don't know. Anyway, three weeks after the bombing, that was added as a new war aim and Admiral Boyce announced to the Afghan people accordingly, I think this was the first mention of this war aim, that we will continue bombing you until you change your leadership. First, that was all very prominent, page one of the New York Times in both cases. Two, both cases are textbook illustrations of international terrorism, if not aggression, but we are still bending over backwards, and it's all off the record by usual convention. We're doing it so it doesn't count. It's only when "they" carry out what we officially define as "terrorism" that it counts.

Well, it's easy to go on but let me just return to the weak thesis: there can't be a war against terrorism as terrorism is defined in official U.S. documents, it's a logical impossibility. This is a small sample of illustrations -- you can go on easily -- but it's enough to show that that can't be true. Well, that's the weak thesis. What about the strong thesis, that it is all so entirely obvious that it would be embarrassing to talk about it because it's all right on the surface, nothing hidden about any of this? Everything that I mention is perfectly well known, you don't have to penetrate anything to discover it. No obscure sources, nothing, just the obvious evidence. And you can easily add to it, there's a ton of literature about it for the last twenty years but that literature also can't be discussed because it comes out with the wrong conclusion. So it's treated the same way terrorism is in our intellectual culture. Again, choice, not a necessity. So we end up with a kind of dilemma. If we are not honest, forget it. If we are honest, there's a dilemma. One possibility is just to acknowledge that we are total hypocrites and then to at least have the decency to stop talking about human rights, right and wrong and good and evil and so on and say "we are hypocrites and we have force and we are going to run the world by force, period. Let's forget about everything else." The other option is harder to pursue but it's imperative. Unless we would like to contribute to still worse disasters that are likely to lie ahead.

The Economic Crisis and What Must be Done: The Cook Plan By Richard C. Cook The United States does not control its own destiny. Rather it is controlled by an international financial elite, of which the American branch works out of big New York banks like J.P. Morgan Chase, Wall Street investment firms such as Goldman Sachs, and the Federal Reserve System. They in turn control the White House, Congress, the military, the mass media, the intelligence agencies, both political parties, the universities, etc. No one can rise to the top in any of these institutions without the elite’s stamp of approval.

This elite has been around since the nation began, becoming increasingly dominant as the 19th century progressed. A key date was passage of the National Banking Act of 1863, when the system was put into place whereby federal government debt was used to collateralize bank lending. Since then we’ve paid the freight through our taxes for bank control of the economy. The final nails in the coffin came with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.

In 1929 the bankers plunged the nation into the Great Depression by constricting the money supply. With Franklin D. Roosevelt as president, the nation struggled through the decade of the 1930s but did not pull out of the Depression until the industrial explosion during World War II.

After the war came the Golden Age of the U.S. economy, when the working man, protected by strong labor unions, became a true partner in the prosperity of the industrial age. That era lasted a full generation. The bankers were largely spectators as Americans led the world in exports, standard of living, science and space exploration, and every measure of health, longevity, and culture.

Roosevelt had kept the bankers subservient to the interests of the economy at large. The Federal Reserve was part of the New Deal team, and interest rates were held at historic lows despite a large federal deficit. One main impact was the huge increase in home ownership. After World War II, the G.I. Bill allowed home ownership to grow further and millions of veterans to attend college. The influx of educated graduates led to productivity growth and the emergence of new high-tech industries.

But the bankers were laying their plans. In the early 1950s they got the government to agree to allow the Federal Reserve to escape its subservience to the U.S. Treasury Department and set interest rates on its own. Rates rose throughout the 1950s and 1960s. By the time of the interest rate hikes of 1968, the economy was slowing down. Both federal budget and trade deficits were beginning to replace the post-war surpluses. High interest rates were the likely cause.

In 1971, President Richard Nixon removed the dollar’s gold peg, allowing the huge inflation resulting from oil price increases that the international bankers engineered through control of U.S. foreign policy when Henry Kissinger was national security adviser and secretary of state. Nixon’s opening to China resulted in early agreements, also overseen by banking interests, to begin to transfer U.S. industry to overseas producers like China which had cheap labor costs.

By the mid-1970s, the U.S. had been taken over by a behind the scenes coup-d’etat that included events in 1963 when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a conspiracy that could only have been instigated by the highest levels of world financial control. In the election of 1976, David Rockefeller succeeded in placing fellow Trilateral Commission member Jimmy Carter in the White House, but Carter upset the banking community, thoroughly Zionist in orientation, by working toward peace in the Middle East and elsewhere.

I was working in the Carter White House in 1979-80. Unbeknownst to the president, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, another Rockefeller protégé, suddenly raised interest rates to fight the inflation the bankers had caused by the OPEC oil price deals, and plunged the nation into recession. Carter was made to look weak and uninformed and was defeated in the election of 1980 by Republican candidate Ronald Reagan. It was through the “Reagan Revolution” that the regulatory controls over the banking industry were lifted, mainly in allowing the banks to use their fractional reserve privileges in making mortgage loans.

Volcker’s recession shattered American manufacturing and hastened the flight of jobs abroad. Under the “Reagan Doctrine,” the U.S. military embarked on an unprecedented mission of world conquest by attacking one small nation at a time, starting with Nicaragua. Global capitalism was also on the march, with the U.S. armed forces its own private police force. With the invasion of Iraq under George H.W. Bush in 1991, mainland Asia was revealed as the principle target.

The economy was floated by productivity gains through computer automation and a huge sell-off of assets through the merger-acquisition bubble of the late 1980s which ended in a recession. This resulted in the defeat of Bush by Bill Clinton in the election of 1992. Clinton was able to create another bubble through a strong dollar policy that attracted foreign capital.

The dot-com bubble that resulted lasted all the way through to the crash of December 2000. Meanwhile, the U.S. Air Force led the way in the destruction of the sovereign state of Yugoslavia, whereby the international bankers took over the resource wealth of the entire Balkan region, and the U.S. military gained forward bases for further incursions into Asia.

Do we need to say that none of this was ever voted on by the American electorate? But they bought into it nevertheless, both with their silence and through participation in a generally favorable job market in the emerging service occupations, particularly finance.

By the time George W. Bush was inaugurated president in January 2001, the U.S. was facing a disaster. $4 trillion in wealth had vanished when the dot.com bubble collapsed. NAFTA caused even more American manufacturing jobs to disappear abroad. The Neocons who were moving into key jobs in the Pentagon knew they would soon have new wars to fight in the Middle East, with invasion plans for Afghanistan and Iraq ready to be pulled off the shelf.

But the U.S. had no economic engine available to generate the tax revenues Bush would need for the planned wars. At this moment Chairman Alan Greenspan of the Federal Reserve stepped in. Over a two year period from 2001-2003 the Fed lowered interest rates by over 500 basis points. Meanwhile, the federal government removed all regulatory controls on mortgage lending, and the housing bubble was on. $4 trillion in new home loans were pumped into the economy, much of it through subprime loans borrowers could not afford.

The Fed began to put on the brakes in 2003, but the mighty work of re-floating a moribund economy had been accomplished. By late 2006 another recession loomed, but it would take two more years before the crisis of October 2008 brought the entire system down.

The impact on the job market was immediate and profound. By the time Barack Obama was elected president in November 2008, the U.S. was mired in seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the worst recession since the Great Depression was picking up speed. In order to prevent total disaster, the Bush administration ended its eight years of catastrophic misrule with a flourish, by allocating over $700 billion in financial system bailouts to cover the bad loans the banks had been making since Greenspan gave the housing bubble the green light.

It is now November 2009. Since Barack Obama was inaugurated in January, unemployment has soared from 7.9 percent to 10.2 percent. A few hundred billion dollars were allocated for “stimulus” purposes, but most of that went to pay unemployment benefits and to keep state and local governments from laying off more employees.

A fraction has been distributed for highway improvements, but largely through the bank bailouts the federal deficit has been running at an annual rate of $1.5 trillion, by far the largest in history, with the national debt now topping $12 trillion. Ironically, those Americans who still have productive jobs continue to grow in efficiency, with productivity up over five percent in the last year.

So much federal money has been spent that the Obama administration has been struggling to make its health care proposals budget-neutral through a raft of new taxes, fees, and penalties, and by announcing in recent days that the government’ first priority must now shift to deficit reduction. The word “austerity” has been mentioned for the first time since the Carter administration. Yet Congress voted $655 billion in military expenditures to continue fighting in the Middle East. A U.S. military attack on Iran, possibly in conjunction with Israel, would surprise no one.

So where do we now stand?

At present, the Federal Reserve is trying to prevent a total economic collapse. Interest rates are near-zero, to the chagrin of foreign investors in U.S. Treasury securities, and close to half of new Treasury debt instruments have been bought by the Federal Reserve itself as a way of providing free money for federal government expenditures.

But the U.S. economy shows no signs of coming back, with no economic driver emerging that could bring it back. For all the talk about alternative energy, there has been no significant growth of any home-grown industry that could possibly make up so much lost ground in either the short or the long-term.

The industries in the U.S. that are holding up are the military, including arms exports, universities that are attracting large numbers of students from abroad, especially China, and health care, especially for the aging baby boomer population. But the war industry produces nothing with a long-term economic benefit, and health care exists mainly to treat sick people, not produce anything new.

None of this provides a foundation that can bring about a restoration of prosperity to 300 million people when the jobs of making articles of consumption are increasingly scarce. On top of everything else, since government inevitably looks to its own requirements first, the total tax burden continues to increase to the point where the average employee now pays close to 50 percent of his or her income on taxes of all types, including federal and state income taxes, real estate taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes, government fees, etc. Plus the cost of utilities continues to rise steadily and threatens to skyrocket if cap-and-trade legislation is passed.

The Obama administration has no plans to deal with any of this. They have projected a budget for 15 years hence that shows the budget deficit decreasing and tax revenues going way up, but it is all lies. They have no roadmap for getting us there and no plans for following the roadmap if it portrayed a realistic goal. And yet the U.S. military is still trying to conquer Asia. It is madness.

And it is madness because the big decisions are not made by the U.S., by Congress, or by the Obama administration. The U.S. has, for half-a-century, been marching to the tune played by the international financial elite, and this fact did not change with the election of 2008. The financiers have put the people of this nation $57 trillion in debt, according to the latest reports, counting debt at the federal, state, business, and household levels. Interest alone on this debt is over $3 trillion of a GDP of $14 trillion. Failure of our political leadership to deal with this tragedy over the past three decades is nothing less than treason.

But then again, at some point the decision was made that the U.S. and its population would be discarded by history, the economic status of the nation reduced to a shadow of what it once was, but that its military machine would be used for the financial elite’s takeover of the world until it is replaced by that of some other nation. All indications are that the next country up to bat as military enforcer for the financiers is China.

There you have it. That, in my opinion, is the past, present, and future of this nation in a nutshell. Great evils have been done in the world in the last century, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.

Except…. and that’s what each person caught up in these travesties must decide. What are you going to do about it?

In mulling over this question, it would be wise to recognize that the dominance of the financial elite has largely been exercised through their control of the international monetary system based on bank lending and government debt. Therefore it’s through the monetary system that change can and must be made.

The progressives are wrong to think the government should go deeper in debt to create more jobs. This will just create an even deeper hole of debt future generations will have to crawl out of.

Rather the key is monetary reform, whether at the local or national levels. People have lost control of their ability to earn a living. But change could be accomplished through sovereign control by people and nations of the monetary means of exchange.

This control has been stolen. It is time to take it back. One way would be for the federal government to make a relief payment to each adult of $1,000 a month until the crisis lifted. This money could be earmarked for goods and services produced within the U.S. and used to capitalize a new series of community development banks. I have called this the "Cook Plan."

The plan could be funded through direct payment from a Treasury relief account without new taxes or government borrowing. The payments would be balanced on the credit side by GDP growth or be used by individuals to pay off debt. It would be direct government spending as was done with Greenbacks before and after the Civil War without significant inflation.

Another method increasingly being used within the U.S. today is local and regional credit clearing exchanges and the use of local currencies or “scrip.” Use of such currencies could be enhanced by legislation at the state and federal levels allowing these currencies to be used for payment of taxes and government fees as well as payment of mortgages and other forms of bank debt. The credit clearing exchanges could be organized as private non-profit regional currency co-operatives similar to credit unions.

These would be immediate emergency measures. In the longer run, sovereign control of money and credit must be returned to the public commons and treated as public utilities. This does not mean exclusive government control to replace bank control. As stated previously, it would be done in partnership between government and private trade exchanges. Nor does it mean government takeover of business, industry, or the banking system, though all should be regulated for the common good and fairly taxed.

This program would lead to a new monetary paradigm where money and credit would be available by, as, when, and where needed, to facilitate trade between and among legitimate producers of goods and services. In this way trade and commerce will come to serve human freedom, not diminish it as is done with today’s dysfunctional partnership between big government trillions of dollars in debt and big finance with the entire world in hock.

Such a change would be a true populist revolution.

Richard C. Cook is a former federal analyst who writes on public policy issues. He is an advisor to the American Monetary Institute on its model monetary reform legislation soon to be introduced in Congress. His latest book is We Hold These Truths: The Hope of Monetary Reform. His website is www.richardccook.com.

I've been looking at this whole New World Order business for a while. Once you start researching there is no denying the existence of a concerted well organized plan that has been in play for a long, long time.

Read:
Tyrants
Liars
New World Order
The State and Depopulation

Read:
The People Who Killed The World
Why Cant We Stop

Read:
The End Of Reason
Belief
One Nation Under Law

Read:
Idiocracy
Get Educated
Making Fear
History
God
Chemical Dumbing Down

If you're new to this sport you can see videos I've hosted below:
Ziegeist
The Obama Deception
Codex Alimentarius
CFR Controlled Media
Freedom Force International
The Fall of the Republic

The problem with a democratic system is there is only ever the public to blame for any policy. Nothing is possible in a Democracy without, at some stage, a vote. Any free societies continued freedom depends on an informed clear headed population. What we have a lot of today is a type of weepy emotional dependency. We also like to blame others for our conditions. As a result we're in the death throws as a nation. This doesn't bother me. But if it bothers you, if you like being a free nation, if you like being able to say, I'm an American, then you may want to get involved in some groups working to make a difference. Dennis knows, but nobody listens. Soon we won't have Dennis to tell us, as he's on a "Peoples Party" hit list.
Posted on Nov 8, 2009

By Rep. Dennis Kucinich

We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care. We cannot fault the insurance companies for being what they are. But we can fault legislation in which the government incentivizes the perpetuation, indeed the strengthening, of the for-profit health insurance industry, the very source of the problem. When health insurance companies deny care or raise premiums, co-pays and deductibles they are simply trying to make a profit. That is our system.

Clearly, the insurance companies are the problem, not the solution. They are driving up the cost of health care. Because their massive bureaucracy avoids paying bills so effectively, they force hospitals and doctors to hire their own bureaucracy to fight the insurance companies to avoid getting stuck with an unfair share of the bills. The result is that since 1970, the number of physicians has increased by less than 200% while the number of administrators has increased by 3000%. It is no wonder that 31 cents of every health care dollar goes to administrative costs, not toward providing care. Even those with insurance are at risk. The single biggest cause of bankruptcies in the U.S. is health insurance policies that do not cover you when you get sick.

But instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies—a bailout under a blue cross.

By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states, “since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.” Similarly, healthcare stocks rallied when Senator Max Baucus introduced a bill without a public option. Bloomberg reports that Curtis Lane, a prominent health industry investor, predicted a few weeks ago that “money will start flowing in again” to health insurance stocks after passage of the legislation. Investors.com last month reported that pharmacy benefit managers share prices are hitting all-time highs, with the only industry worry that the Administration would reverse its decision not to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices, leaving in place a Bush Administration policy.

During the debate, when the interests of insurance companies would have been effectively challenged, that challenge was turned back. The “robust public option” which would have offered a modicum of competition to a monopolistic industry was whittled down from an initial potential enrollment of 129 million Americans to 6 million. An amendment which would have protected the rights of states to pursue single-payer health care was stripped from the bill at the request of the Administration. Looking ahead, we cringe at the prospect of even greater favors for insurance companies.

This health care bill continues the redistribution of wealth to Wall Street at the expense of America’s manufacturing and service economies which suffer from costs other countries do not have to bear, especially the cost of health care. America continues to stand out among all industrialized nations for its privatized health care system. As a result, we are less competitive in steel, automotive, aerospace and shipping while other countries subsidize their exports in these areas through socializing the cost of health care.

Notwithstanding the fate of H.R. 3962, America will someday come to recognize the broad social and economic benefits of a not-for-profit, single-payer health care system, which is good for the American people and good for America’s businesses, with of course the notable exceptions being insurance and pharmaceuticals.

War Against the Weak...

Russell L. Blaylock, M.D.
 http://www.russellblaylockmd.com/

see John Taylor Gatto video at Watching Society ( scroll to video )

 One characteristic of the collectivists is that when a particular term becomes unpopular, such as the word socialism, they create a succession of more socially friendly terms. For example, in the 1800s they did not shy away from the term socialism, but as people began to understand that socialism was a form of social control and engineering, they dropped the term for more acceptable terms such as liberalism, progressivism and collectivism. The socialist promoting a government-run health care system did likewise. Knowing that the term socialized medicine was frightening to a great number of people, they began to use such terms as national health care, universal health insurance and now single payer system. I find it ironic that no one asks these socialists, who is that mysterious single payer? Should the public consider this for even a moment, they would quickly realize that the single payer is the taxpayer and the administrator of the system is the government via an army of bureaucrats. The socialist has, over the years, become quite adept at selling his wares. It was the Italian communist Antonio Gramsi and earlier the Fabian socialists, who understood that most of the West would never bring about socialism (communism) by violent revolution as had Russia. Rather, they would be more successful by a piecemeal implementation of socialist programs disguised as social reform or as they termed it “change” (this term had been used by the socialist long before Obama). If you read the socialist literature of the 18th and 19th centuries, you will see that a great many men of tremendous social influence and in positions of power, especially in the universities, were promoting most of the programs now being openly discussed—such as population control, eugenics, abortion, social engineering and social control, of course to be administered by elite groups of the “wise”. The ultimate goal was a destruction of the private ownership of property. Many today think these are all new terms and programs. Powerful intellectuals such as Voltarie, Saint-Simon, Auguste Comte, d’Alembert, Condorcet and Turgot set the stage for the subsequent intellectual leaders of the socialist revolution, Marx, Engles, Proudhon, Lenin and Hitler. As stated, it was the brilliance of the communist Antonio Gramsi that taught the radical revolutionaries that they could never succeed by violence alone—society would have to be tricked into accepting socialist ideas. The central core of collectivist ideology is best stated by Eric Voeglin in his scholarly book, From Enlightenment to Revolution, when he states: In its outline we see the idea of mankind dominated by a chosen people which embodies the progressive essence of humanity. In historical actuality that would mean a totalitarian organization of mankind in which the dominating power would beat down in the name of mankind and freedom everybody who does not conform to the standards. In other words, they believed that society contained men of such vision and anointed wisdom, that it is they who should design all of society and the duty of the people is to follow their stated plans for this new society. This is why Nancy Pelosi boldly states that people are to do what she says and becomes angry when citizens reject the socialist health care plan. They just do not understand, in her mind, their role as her subjects and as the vassals of the collectivist system. In the collectivist mind, the people (the masses in socialist jargon) must be made to adhere to “the plan” because, like children, they do not understand that it is good for them. If they can be made to take their medicine, later they will be thankful. As Voegelin states: “…man is no end in himself but merely an instrument to be used by the legislator. This is the new basic thesis for collectivism in all its variants, down to the contemporary totalitarianism.” The great Austrian economist von Mises stated that a man is a socialist in proportion to his contempt for the common man. That is, man becomes merely a cog in the all-embracing wheel of government. How Socialized Medicine Arose in Western Societies: Building the Foundation This subject is actually far to large to cover in any detail in this short paper, but as with most philosophical and ideological systems, the groundwork had been laid many years before they appeared to the general public. The Fabian Socialists in England and the United States were writing numerous tracts and scholarly books promoting the idea of such a system of health care in the mid to early 1800s. With their position in influential positions, such as educational institutions, as popular writers (H.G. Wells) and politically connected individuals, they were able to move the intellectual elite in the direction of socializing health care. But, the real opportunity came with the war—that is World War II. One learns from reading history that all great political change comes during a crisis—the greater the crisis, the greater the opportunity for radical change. For example, the greatest social changes came with the War for Southern Independence, the Great Depression, World Wars I & II, the burning of the Reichstach and Russia’s involvement in wars with Japan. In each case there was a call for massive social planning and social engineering. The idea of social engineering and social control became the obsession of the Rockefellers and the Carnegies as far back as the early 1920s. In her book, The Molecular Visions of Life, a detailed history of the rise of molecular biology, Lily E. Kay states: By the time of the launching of the molecular biology program, the Rockefeller philanthropies had considerable experience with eugenics. … they did support eugenics projects, such as the sterilization campaign of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene to restrict breeding of the feeble-minded. The Rockefeller philanthropies also acted in the area of eugenics through the Bureau of Social Hygiene (BSL) and the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial (LSRM). The BSH was incorporated in 1913 for the purpose of “the study, amelioration, and prevention of those social conditions, crimes and diseases which adversely affect the well being of society, with special reference to prostitution and the evils associated therein.” She goes on to explain that the BSH had a 30 year history of promoting, via educational material and other projects, population control and birth control—all long before it became universally accepted and funded by the federal government. If one studies the power of the Rockefeller family and the Carnegies they find that their influence and control of education was extensive and ever growing. By massive funding of selected institutions, such as Cal Tech, Johns Hopkins, Harvard and especially the University of Chicago, as well as using their powerful influence to assure their people were appointed as department heads and presidents of these prestigious universities, they guided the direction of research toward a &ldquorogressive” direction—that is, toward social engineering. It was primarily through their control of the University of Chicago, the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and the General Education Board (founded in 1903) that they, in essence, promoted and controlled their “science of man” research, which was a way to mold people in the image imagined by the wise elite. Those considered unfit, were to be eliminated by eugenic methods, both positive and negative. All of this activity was setting the stage for an eventual acceptance by the public of their ideas concerning the social engineering of man, the core of which was eugenics. This would require intense, massive educational efforts. Through his General Education Board, Rockefeller was able to design the education of the population from cradle to grave. John Dewey’s new ideas on education were heavily supported by foundation money, all from the shadows. It is also instructive to note that Margaret Sanger, a virtually unknown person at the time, was also heavily funded and promoted by Rockefeller money, which brought her to great prominence. Remember, Sanger was primarily a eugenicist—her books and later work clearly indicates that she had little concern for poor, pregnant women. In her book, The Cruelty of Charity she states that charity should be discouraged because we want these people to die, even if by starvation. Fostering the good-for-nothing at the expense of the good is an extreme cruelty. It is a deliberate storing up of miseries for future generations. This financial support by the great foundations explains the phenomenal growth of Planned Parenthood and why the clinics are strategically placed in poorer neighborhoods. It is interesting to note that the “charming” Southern girl was considered “borderline feebleminded” and should be a target for forced sterilization by the state. It gets even worse. An ophthalmologist by the name of Lucien Howe, who was the president of the American Ophthalmologic Society at the time, became obsessed with controlling blindness and started a campaign to sterilize blind people and prevent marriage between the blind, even though only 7% of blindness was hereditary. He was also the president of the Eugenics Research Association. In 1918 he initiated a census of all blind people in America and found that 90% had no blind relatives. In conjunction with the AMA and the Eugenics Research Office, Dr. Howe drafted a law that would permit the government to prohibit marriage between people with imperfect vision and to either isolate these unfortunates or forcibly sterilize them. It also encouraged neighbors to turn in those who were suspected to have “imperfect vision”. Notice how the criteria quickly went from hereditary blindness, to any blindness to even those wearing glasses. We see this in a great deal of future socialist legislation. They present a worse case to gain the sympathy of the public and it quickly becomes an all encompassing program to include virtually everyone or a large targeted group (Like the elderly). Dr. Howe and the AMA’s justification for such a draconian program was that taxpayers were spending far too much money on blind people—the money could be better spent on other medical projects. You will notice that this is the same justification for Obama’s health plan—that the young can benefit more from the health care dollar we are spending on those who are older or those with chronic conditions. On April 5, 1921 this frightening idea was introduced as Bill # 1597 in the New York legislature. Fortunately, it did not pass. Dr. Howe and his backers failed to give up. Next they proposed having the State Board of Health and schools hunt down defective members of families having blind or vision-impaired children. He also proposed that the law have a provision that would allow imprisonment of the visually impaired. He even submitted a bill that would require the “unfit” to post a bond with state health officials for $14,000 (equal to $130,000 today) which would be forfeit should they become pregnant. It is instructive to note that the Carnegie Foundation was sponsoring Dr. Howe’s efforts and formulating deportation specifics for these “unfit” members of society. The only reason his plans were not eventually implemented is that he died. Even today the American Ophthalmology Association awards a Lucien Howe Medal for service to the profession and mankind. (See Edwin Blacks’ well-researched book—War Against the Weak, for more details.) It is important to keep in mind that these were not a small group of deranged psychopaths of no real influence, these were men and women in very powerful positions, educated in some of our finest institutions and strongly connected to the politically powerful. Most important is their support by the powerful, enormously wealthy tax-exempt foundations—especially the Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Foundation and the Laura Spelman Foundation. They poured millions of dollars into educational propaganda, flooding schools; appointed believers in eugenics to high positions in universities and strongly supported political candidates that were true believers, such as Theodore Roosevelt. It also included the superrich such as E.H. Harriman, the railroad magnate and his wife; James Wilson, secretary of the Department of Agriculture (1910); Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (the cereal king); Irving Fisher, an economist from Yale University; professors of medicine from Harvard, Columbia, Yale, Brown, Emory and Johns Hopkins, and the list goes on an on. The lesson here is that when the intellectuals and elite put their stamp of approval on an idea, it can lead to monstrous policies that can ruin the lives of millions. As the title to Richard Weaver’s most important book says—Ideas Have Consequences. The great Austrian economist, Ludwig von Mises in his book, Bureaucracy stated that: It is remarkable that the educated strata are more gullible than the less educated. The most enthusiastic supporters of Marxism, Nazism, and Fascism were the intellectuals, not the boors. The people in the Obama administration, and those operating this government from the shadows, are driven by equally dangerous ideas, which to them, as with the early eugenicists, seem reasonable and logical. They truly believe that reducing human populations worldwide is critical and is an emergency. This means that the elite must decide who lives and who dies, but unlike Hitler, Stalin and Mao, they will do it, in their mind, in a more compassionate, subtle way. Yet, the victims will be just as dead as those placed in gas chambers, executed in Stalin’s gulags or slaughtered by Mao’s cultural revolutionary gangs. War Crisis Sets the Tone During war, governments are allowed to execute emergency measures that would never be allowed during peacetime—that is, until today. This can entail, controlling movement of citizens, food rationing, rationing critical war material and even dictating professions. My father told me that during World War II, you could not move without the government’s permission and changing jobs was controlled as well. People were given food and gas ration tickets. In the UK food was severely rationed, near starvation levels. The people tolerate this as necessary to win the war, but they expect it to end when the war ends. One of the first socialized medical systems arose in post-war England. The rational was that war planning had been a success in winning the war and supplying critical essentials so it surely would work during peacetime. One can forgive the British for their foolishness because no Western nation had really experimented with a planned society on such a grand scale. There is no excuse today, since there are so many examples of failure and harm to the public by socialized medicine. To really get a grasp on the effects of national planning, a code word for socialism, one should read the book by John Jewkes—Ordeal by Planning, written in 1948. For example, he shows the fallacy of the efficiency of wartime planning. He says: Great Britain is one very good illustration of this point. They have produced virtually nothing; almost all technical development in war-time came from the private firms; Government technical experts frowned on nearly every one of the crucial new devices for improving aeronautical performance until the persistence of the entrepreneur settled the dispute beyond doubt. The history of the appalling delay in tank development is another excellent illustration of what a technical bureaucracy is capable. Edmund Burke has said wisely-“The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion”. People in England were sold the disastrous National Health Service based on the illusion that they would receive their health care free, just as we are hearing today. Of course, nothing in this world is free—someone must pay. The delusion is that the wealthy will be the ones to pay—which is a tried and true prescription of the left. Of course two things eventually happen—the “rich” run out of money and two, they find ways to evade the taxes and shift them below. Another delusion is that this health care proposal can actually reduce overall medical cost by streamlining administrative methods and cutting the fat out of actual care. After all, who knows more about fat than the government? One would have to be one of Dr. Howe’s feebleminded to believe that the government can do anything at a lower cost than a free market. Examine any government program, no matter how small or large, and you will observe an exponential growth in cost over time. Medicare and Medicaid cost have increased exponentially since they were originally created and the cost continues to escalate. And in every case the proponents swore that cost would not increase. Those who expressed warnings concerning these programs were attacked viciously—as are those at the townhall meetings. Cecil Plamer, in his book examining the history of British Socialism—The British Socialist Ill-fare State, notes: The written or printed word is quite another story. The critical condition of contemporary British socialism can be measured by the socialist government’s intemperate disapproval of criticism from any quarter whatsoever. Others have noticed this propensity of the socialist to react violently when any portions of his grandiose plan is attacked or even questioned. Jewkes, for example, notes that—“For the more threatened it is by failure, the more savage will be the efforts to make it succeed at any cost”. And of course, it extends into their fear of failure. Jewkes again notes—“ For to the politician, a public confession of failure is tantamount to political suicide. The aim must always be, therefore, to cover up mistakes at all cost.” This is a major problem with all socialist plans—as they begin to fail, the more desperate the creators become, not only hiding mistakes, but by making the system more and more oppressive and unbearable. Every failure is not seen as a fault of the plan but sabotage by either their political enemies or uncontrollable forces—such as the doctors or hospital administrators. Each failure calls for more controls. This is the origin of progressive rationing. Every HMO, PPO and collectivist medical care system has experienced this. In the beginning services were abundant, doctors were happy and patients were cared for. But soon, costs begin to mount. This calls for more controls and rationing of services. It also calls for an ever-increasing bureaucracy. As in this plan, they see the biggest enemy as being the specialist—the surgeon, the ophthalmologist, the cardiologist and the endocrinologist. To prevent too many referrals they make the primary care physician (a fancy name for a general practitioner) the triage officer, but they limit the number of specialist referrals he can make each month—if he goes over that limit he is punished financially. This tends to make the primary care physician treat complex cases that he should be referring to a specialist—this can cost lives. My uncle was in an HMO and when he had his stroke he contacted me to see what he should do. I asked him what his CT scan showed. He said they didn’t do one. When I asked why, he said that they told him it wasn’t covered. A brain scan is essential for every stroke patient, since the stroke may be an intracranial bleed, an AVM or even a hemorrhagic tumor. He paid for the CT scan out of his own pocket. When I was in England in the 1980s, I picked up my morning paper-The London Times and there was a headline in which the National Health Service was bragging that it had reduced the waiting period for common elective surgeries from 2 years to 18 months. They were proud of it. Canada is no better. I recently spoke to a fellow from Canada and I made a comment about the Canadian health system and he quickly replied that all those stories about it being bad were myths. He said people in accidents can be seen right alway. I replied that was true no matter the system, but what about elective surgeries and complex treatments. He chuckled and said—“Well of course if you want something special you will have to wait.” He then told me that he had just taken his father, a retired physician, to the hospital for his heart and was on one of the upper floors of the hospital. His father collapsed and no one was around to help. Worse, none of the elevators were working. He remarked—“What kind of hospital doesn’t have working elevators?” Then he said his father whispered to him—“ Get me the hell out of here before they kill me.” This is a major finding in socialized medical care systems that people grow up in—they think the terrible health care they are getting is the norm. Just as with my uncle, he did not know that not getting a CT scan could have cost him his life—he thought he had gotten good health care. All Socialized Planning Requires Progressive Rationing Those of us who have studied socialist planning know that all such plans are sold to the public as being of low cost or even as paying for itself. Then several years later, the costs have risen so rapidly that new regulations have to be implemented to control the ever-escalating cost. The politicians began to panic when the public begins to complain loudly and this forces them to find ways to reduce the services being provided without causing more complaints. One thing health care economists know is that the most expensive care is among the elderly—they have the most complex problems and usually multiple problems. They also have the greatest number of complications during treatments, mainly because they often have poorer healing ability and a fragile constitution. Over fifty percent of health care cost is from caring for those over sixty-five years old. With a growing number of elderly (nearing 50% of the population) the health bureaucrat sees financial disaster looming on the horizon—it’s much like the eugenics and population control fanatics. They see an exploding population as bringing disaster to the world. Both see as the answer reducing the number of people, especially those over age sixty-five, otherwise soon the world will be overcrowded. The number crunchers in government and the think tanks knew that the ever rising number of people living past 70 years was bankrupting the social security system. Now they see it as overwhelming the health care system. In both cases the answer is to reduce the population in question and do it so it doesn’t appear to be murder by the government. Rationing of health care is the perfect answer for these of this mind set. It allows deniability and can be continuously tightened. Because the cost of the national health care system will grow massively, it will also free up more money to buy votes from those who will be voting, especially those who are paying little or no taxes. They see the elderly much in the same way the Defense Department sees the injured soldier—he has served his purpose and is of no further use to the military and, more importantly in their eyes, he is now a liability. The elderly, likewise, have payed taxes all their lives, added considerably to the society in many ways and many have defended their country in time of war, but now they are of little use to the government—worse, they have become a liability. Knowing they cannot easily pass a euthanasia law or just have them rounded up and exterminated, they use the medical care system to speed them along to their deaths. It is done by making critical care difficult to access. By using primary care physicians as triage officers and limiting access to specialists, more elderly with complex illness and the very ill will die sooner. When I was in the military, I could not prescribe second or third generation drugs, only 1st generation. For example, I tried to write a prescription for Lodine for a patient but was told that it was not on the list of permitted drugs. I finally asked what was allowed—indocin they told me. A drug that is associated with frequent stomach pains and bleeding complications as well as liver and kidney damage. As further rationing progresses, you will not be seen even by a primary care doctor, instead you will see a nurse practitioner or physician’s assistance. They have been talking about this for years. Much of the advanced diagnostic equipment will also be rationed, being limited for only approved patients and the waiting list will continuously grow. PET scanners, many MRI units and complex cardiac testing technology will be limited to special regional centers and anointed medical centers. The privileged&mdasholiticians, international banking elite and those in foundations and other elitist institutions, will have access to the highest quality medical care and instrumentation without a wait—after all they are the elite—the chosen. The rest of us will patiently wait in line for our turn and those who survive the wait may have access. We have had enough experience with progressive rationing to know that it rarely attains its stated goal, it creates enormous strains on health care delivery and ultimately results in harmed patients. A few examples will help illustrate this. During the 70s, Joseph Califano, then head of HEW, pushed through a number of bureaucratic regulations designed to control hospital cost, which he targeted as the main problem area of rising health care cost. These appeared as utilization review, PSRO regulations, certificate of need rules imposed on states, pre-admission screening and other tinkering. An economic review revealed that instead of saving money it merely shifted spending to other areas, such as bureaucracy and administrative cost. Its main impact was to make treating patients much more difficult for physicians. In a normal economy a contract is between the person seeking a service and those providing the service—that is the patient and the doctor. Suddenly, hundreds of people and agencies were standing between the patient and the doctor, making health care decisions not based on what was best for the patient, rather what would make the bureaucrat and politician look good, what would give the appearance of reducing cost and providing quality and mainly, how would it all be perceived by the always confused media. I can remember dealing with these new bureaucracies. To admit a patient for a condition that all thinking physicians would agree needed admitting would require me to speak to a number of clueless bureaucrats, struggling to make them understand the urgency of the situation. They never understood medical reasoning, rather they spoke of rules, regulations and conditions that had to be met. To go through this with each patient was frustrating, aggravating and time consuming—but the bureaucracy doesn’t really care—they are “just following orders”. In addition, we had the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals (JCAH) reviewing hospitals, adding and ever-expanding list of conditions for approval. I remember a very humorous episode that happened in my hospital. We had just constructed a new hospital to replace the antiquated older hospital and the JCAH rules for that year said that the ICU had to have a window. The thinking at that time was that the fire department would need access to the unit. So, the compliant hospital put in a window. The next year, the JCAH reviewers passed through on review and spotted the window. They asked—“Why is there a window in the unit?” The surprised hospital administrator stated that it was required by last year’s JCAH rules. The arrogant reviewer shook his head in disgust and said—“ No, the new rules say there can be no window—cover it up.” The incredible reasoning was that a despondent patient might leap out of the window. The hospital spent more money to meet the new requirement. Those experienced with bureaucracies known that often one department rule contradicts another’s rule and that the hapless victim (the doctor or hospital administrator) is left trying to find out whom to obey. Penalties for disobeying rules can be devastating. As the bureaucracy grows the regulations began to grow like crab grass. As the economists F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises have pointed out so many times, in a free economy each intrusion by the government necessitates an ever-expanding array of new regulations to deal with the disruptions cause by the last intervention. The process never ends, but what we see is that slowly the system becomes more and more oppressive and dictatorial and the penalties become increasingly severe. A case in point is an ophthalmologist in California who had a patient in his seventies who was nearly blind from cataracts. The surgeon operated on the man and restored his sight. A competing ophthalmologist turned him in to the Medicare bureaucracy and he was arrested for abusing a Medicare patient—that is, he dared restore useful sight to the man. The Government’s case was based on the idea that the old man wasn’t working and therefore did not need to see—a white stick with a red tip would have been much cheaper. In other words, as with this present administration, the man was not worth the cost. The surgeon was not just fined a huge sum of money he was sent to prison for 10 years for “abusing a federal patient”. The abuse was giving him his sight. This was a young doctor with a number of small children. He was used as a warning to other recalcitrant doctors not to spend too much money saving “useless eaters” as National Socialist classed these unfortunates. Remember the earlier quote by John Jewkes concerning a failing government plan—“ For the more threatened it is by failure, the more savage will be the efforts to make it succeed at any cost.” Obama has assured the public that his health plan will solve all problems and save tremendous amounts of money—as it falls far short of this goal, he will turn to ever more desperate rationing methods to save it. And as Jewkes noted, being politicians, they will also do all in their power to hide the monstrous effects of the rationing. Few in the public know of all the horror stories associated with the rationing plans that have been implemented so far, yet they are abundant. Another brilliant plan the rationing bureaucracy had was to limit the number of expensive technologies available to doctors. They reasoned that if every hospital has a CT scanner it would be over utilized. Their answer was to set up certificate-of-need (CON) boards in each state that would decide who could get the technology. Most hospitals figured ways to get around the regulation—mostly by using politically connected individuals. My senior partner served on the board of the CON organization, so our hospital always got what it wanted. But, what if the plan had worked? Let’s say I practice at a hospital that does not have a scanner. The only one allowed in town is at the medical university. My patient needs a scan rather urgently. Under the Obama plan, I would first have to apply to the regional government office for permission to see if there is really a need—and, of course, I will be speaking to a young person with no knowledge of neurosurgery. They search the long list of indications and finally agree—that is, after a number of phone calls and endless pleading. The next step is that I have to have transportation approved from my hospital to the anointed scanning center. More haggling, searching the thousands of pages of regulations and hanging on the line waiting to be transferred to the next bureaucrat in charge of transportation ensues. Finally, all of this is approved. But then I discover that the waiting list at the university is very long and my patient will have to wait behind the university’s urgent cases. Meanwhile my patient is deteriorating steadily. No amount of pleading will move the process forward—it all falls on deaf ears. I know this because I have experience similar frustrations, even with the limited regulations in place now. If my patient is still alive, they are finally transferred to the regional scanning center, where they spend hours waiting in the hallways to be scanned. Then I have to arrange for them to be transported back to my hospital. Now, the report for the scan will take days or even weeks to be read, since the doctor reading the scan will have a stack of scans to review from his own institution as well as all surrounding hospitals and doctor’s offices. This is how it works in Canada and England. The only reason the Canadian system survives is because the medical system in the United States cares for many of their really sick patients. The US scanners in the boarder states work overtime scanning Canadian patients because the wait to be scanned in Canada is so long. We act as the Canadian government’s relief valve, but then what is going to happen when we are strapped with a similar system? I predict both will end up bankrupt. Just our experiment with Medicaid and Medicare alone has been a financial disaster—it is in debt to the tune of 36 trillion dollars, more than the entire GNP of hundreds of nations and costs continues to grow exponentially. The more controls added to the system, that is the more regulations and impediments to access will mean necessarily more dead people, mostly the sickest and the oldest. But then, isn’t that what they have been calling for over 100 years, as quoted earlier? What is ironic about this administration is that those who are making these decision have a long written record of involvement in the population control movement and have expressed, as did the President, that the elderly have lived long enough and that the medical dollar would be better spent on the younger. This of course pits the younger generation against the older. Despite the fact that the socialist bristle at being compared to National Socialist, that is exactly what the German National Socialist government did. It has been noted that in German schools children were given math lessons in which they were asked to calculate how many housing units could be purchased for the young with the money used to treat the elderly, the chronically ill and the infirm. This sounds very close to what Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel states regarding providing too much health care to the “hopeless” and those at the end of their lives. Here are some quotes from the good doctor: “Medical care should not be given to those who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens. An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia.” “Unlike (health care) allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not discrimination.” “Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or the effects on others.” Dr. Emanuel was appointed by the President as the “health czar” and as his chief advisor on designing America’s health care. He is one of many powerful and politically connected individuals who accept the socialist idea that some members of society are of less value than others and that a person’s worth is gauged by his “social worth”. Yet, more important, that it is the duty of the government’s social engineers to correct this problem—that is, to remove these undesirables. If you can no longer work or are retired, pay little or no taxes and receive any federal benefits, you are deemed to be of no value to society—again, as the National Socialist labeled them—you are a “useless eater”. Who Owns Society? The question must be asked—Who owns society? Are we allowed to live in this country only at the behest of the government or a selected group of wise servers who shall decide our worth? Are we to be judged as worthless life, as a social liability because those with power deem it so? Even a perfunctory examination of the thoughts of our founding leaders will answer that question. Nowhere is it stated or even implied that we must show our worth to the elite of the government or be eliminated, even if we are exterminated humanely. I do not wish that my grandmother remained with our family as long as possible because she carries out some useful function to the family, or to the city or the county or the state or the nation. If a person chooses to spend their retirement years just sitting on a porch drinking lemonade, wiling the day away reminiscing about their lives—that is their business and they deserve all the protections guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights. They do not exist solely by the grace of those with the power of the government and they do not deserve to be eliminated at the whim of the socialist planners. As I read Edwin Black’s book, The War on the Weak and Lily Kay’s book-The Molecular Vision of Life, I was overwhelmed with anxiety, knowing that powerful men, the intellectuals and men of vision, were using that power and vision to redesign man in their image and to create a society that conforms to their utopian plan. Even the pastors were joining in this move to create a designed society. In a sermon called “Qualifying for Survival”, Reverend Robert Freeman in the 1920s told his audience in Pasedena’s Presbyterian church: Theologians are ready to make large concessions to the theories set forth in the Origins of the Species …in the world of men these two things are true: there are those who survive despite unfitness, and there are those who, though marked by an initial unfitness, make themselves fit to survive. There are the ragweed and the rattler; the mosquito and the despicable housefly in humanity, which although they make no beneficent contributions to life, they only poison and destroy, continue to exist.” It is of note that California, from the 1920s until the 1940s, led the nation in sterilization of the insane, feeble-minded, the unfit and the “morally degenerate”. The idea that such a monstrous plan of designing human society by forced sterilization, prevention of marriages, incarcerations in holding camps and even proposals for extermination through abortions had actually been in place so early in our country’s history is frightening enough, but as Dr. Kay points out these manipulators of mankind did not stop, they merely changed the names of their organization and programs and redirected it toward more advance biological ways to bring about their dream of a perfect society. Massive funding of these projects continues to this day by major tax-exempt foundations and many powerful intellectuals continue to write about the need to eliminate the “unfit”. Obama’s chief health advisor is one of these people. Linus Pauling, a two-time winner of the Nobel Prize and who held a position on the board of the Ford Foundation, in 1968 even publicly promoted a policy very similar to that of the National Socialist in Germany, when he stated: There should be tattooed on the forehead of every young person a symbol showing possession of the sickle-cell gene or whatever similar gene…It is my opinion that legislation along this line, compulsory testing for defective gene before marriage, and some form of semi-private display of this possession, should be adopted.” In the conclusions to her book, Dr. Kay states: This view has persisted into the 1990s, backed by the institutional and commercial interest that dwarfed the millions of dollars of the Rockefeller Foundation….This dialectical process of knowing and doing, empowered by a synergy of laboratory, boardroom, and federal lobby, has sustained the rise of molecular biology into the twenty-first century. In other words, they always intended for these political systems of social control and social engineering to be implemented into society by specific legislation. Population control and the weeding out of undesirables and the unfit were central to this process. Reality versus Socialist Dreams Any careful study of socialist planning brings one to the conclusion that they do not live in reality, but rather, in a dream world of their own making. I’m sure they still put their lost teeth under their pillow, fully expecting to be rewarded for their faith by the Tooth Fairy. One of the great myths is that it is the free market system of medical care that needs fixing. We have not had a fully free market in this country since the Great Depression. If one carefully examines the present health care mess one immediately sees that it is the product of a litany of previous meddling by the government—so called, ad hoc socialism. One of the often cited problems is that people lose their insurance coverage when they change jobs or lose their jobs, yet no one bothers to ask the question—Who created the idea that companies should provide heath insurance coverage? The answer is the same people who are now asking for more government intervention—the intellectual collectivists and unions. Today 63% of the insured are receiving their health care coverage through their employers. In an excellent article appearing in the American Spectator by Philip Klein, he shows that government policy even affected the cost of health care for the 6% who have their insurance independent of their employers. This is because the social engineers decided to pass laws in most states requiring insurance companies to offer only comprehensive plans that covered such things as pregnancy benefits, in vitro fertilization and treatment of morbid obesity, etc, etc. He sites statistics from the Council for Affordable Health Insurance, which found that states are requiring some 2000 benefit mandates nationwide, adding a whopping 20 to 50% to the cost of the policy. The Obama plan adds even more such mandates and if your policy does not contain them you, will be forced to accept the socialist plan. If younger, healthier people were able to buy only catastrophic coverage or even stripped down basic plans, health care cost would plummet. The article also cites studies that show that in 2007 the cost of all government health care at all levels increased health care spending by 1 trillion dollars. Today, 31% of people’s health care is paid for by government programs (taxpayers). Another way collectivist meddlers have forced up medical care cost outside the market is the litigation explosion. I remember when I was first going into private practice, I was being recruited by a neurosurgeon from California. He told me that my starting salary would be $50,000, but that my malpractice cost would be $50,000 a year—in other words, I would be working for nothing. Some surgeons today are paying well over $100,000 a year in malpractice premiums. This means specialists have to charge their patients’ insurance companies more to cover a part of this cost, and it goes up each and every year. The litigation boom also changed the way physicians practiced medicine. Instead of ordering tests and admitting patients based on medical necessity, we were instructed by our malpractice insurers to order every tests conceivable and if there is a doubt—admit the patient. Not only did this result in a massive direct increase in cost but it also resulted in a great number of unnecessary procedures and surgeries. If you do, for instance, a chest X-ray and find a small shadow on the film, you must do more tests or risk being sued should something be overlooked. This requires a CT or MRI scan, which can cost several thousand dollars. If you still are not absolutely sure all is well, you must do a guided biopsy of the suspicious shadow. One of the complications of a lung biopsy is a collapsed lung. Now things get real expensive. The patient’s lung collapse and he is rushed to the ICU, the most expensive place in the hospital. A chest tube is inserted and days of intensive care ensues. Because of a chest X-ray, which really never needed to be done, the patient almost dies and ends up with a hospital bill costing close to $100,000. This is defensive medicine, which is now extensively practiced in this country. This scenario actually happened in one of the hospitals I worked in. Defensive medicine not only results in a massive increase in health care expenses each year, but it subjects patients to unnecessary cancer treatments, expensive scans, invasive procedures and prolonged hospitalizations. How did this all come about—the collectivist intellectuals flooded the media with stories of both real and alleged medical malpractice and insisted that patients undergo better diagnostic workups. The attorneys just saw an opportunity to make a killing, and like vultures, descended for the feeding. The lesson, as F.A Hayek has stated repeatedly, is that every time the government planner tampers with the market, it causes a number of disruptions that can increase cost or result in problems of supply. This, in the mind of the collectivist, demands more intervention, which again creates more misallocation of resources. Soon we have system that looks like a diagram of the New York subway system. In the United States, we view the individual as important and attempt to provide everyone with the best medical care we can deliver. Under socialism, the individual doesn’t matter—what matters is the plan and society as a whole—the masses. Under such a system, individuals are mistreated, abused, frustrated and forgotten—they just don’t matter. Mr. Klein cites several cases of medical abuse in countries with socialized medical care. For example, the British Healthcare Commission found between 400 and 1,200 people had died as a result of what they characterized as “appalling care” at the hospitals in Straffordshire. Even more shocking is the case of a man injured in a traffic accident in Japan, who was turned away by 5 emergency rooms because they were overcrowded. Worse was a woman from Osaka who died after being denied emergency care by 30 hospitals. Many Eastern European countries are abandoning their socialist health care systems for private care and dissatisfaction continues to grow worldwide. Only those with minor health problems like the system, because they have the illusion of “free health care” and usually the wait to see a doctor is not that long. It is the seriously ill, those with complex diseases and diseases requiring the care of a specialist that are in real danger. What the healthy young do not appreciate is that one day they may find themselves in this category. No one is cataloging the horror stories, deaths and agony caused by the rationing common in socialist health care systems. It is safe to say that hundreds of thousands die unnecessarily every year under such systems due to neglect and purposeful rationing to prevent access. Kline also cites the case of actress Natasha Richardson, who suffered a head injury while skiing in Quebec. Even though she was conscious shortly after the accident, she was not rushed to the nearest hospital by helicopter, but rather endured a two and a half hour ambulance ride to the trauma center in Montreal. Why was there no helicopter available? Daniel LeFrancois, “director or Quebec’s prehopsital care told the Montreal Gazette that helicopters were expensive, and they weren’t used because medical resources were allocated according to the ‘biggest gain for the biggest need’.” With traumatic brain hemorrhages time is critical—but then she was just an individual. I had a friend from Louisiana relate the following story to me concerning a friend’s experience in the British socialist medical care system: My wife has a friend in Monroe with a daughter in Medical school. She went to England to do a rotation there because she wanted to see what socialized medicine was like...and she found out first hand. She was there for a few weeks and took pneumonia. They admitted her in the hospital and she didn't see a doctor for 6 days. She was not given any medication. After 6 days she called her mother in the Monroe and told her what was happening. She asked her mother to come get her. Her mother caught a flight and went to the hospital to find her daughter still there with no medication and no doctor visit. The mother asks one of the medical students about her chart and they informed her they were at the nurse's desk so she marching up there and finds the chart. The nurse says...you can't look at her chart and calls the administration. The person in charge comes to the room and informs the mother the chart is private and she has no right to look at it. The mother informs them the information is her daughters' and she has a right to it. The mother takes her daughter out of the hospital and catches a flight back to the States. When they get to Houston they call ahead to Monroe to have ambulance at the airport to take her to the hospital. The Elite Are Different If one studies how we came to this dangerous idea of social control and human engineering, he will find that it is based on the Gnostic idea that some men are born far wiser than the common rabble and they are destined to rule. It is a paternalistic view that the populace (the masses in Marxist jargon) have no idea of the great questions that face mankind and that the wise of society must force them to obey to save society as a whole. They are viewed as small children, that is, ones not privy to the wisdom of their parents. One thing always present when it comes to the elite members of a socialist system--the elite never come under the rules they impose on others and this is not just self preservation, but the idea that the wise do not need to be controlled, after all, they have a superior intellect and moral understanding—they, as Thomas Sowell says, are the anointed. One of the other prime ideas of socialism is egalitarianism as an article of faith. Remember in school when a child was caught chewing gum, and the teacher would scold them by saying—“I hope you bought gum for everyone in the class.” –I think the socialist never got over this. In real politics the prime motive is less philosophical. Take for example, the social security system. The justification given for the program was that the elderly will not save enough money during their earning years to be able to live comfortably in their later years, therefore the government must forcibly take a portion of their money and store it away for them. If we think about it, there are several problems with providing this “supplemental income” to a person based purely on age—that is, those fortunate enough to reach age 65 years. It has been shown that in truth the older person is the richest class in the United States—most own their homes, cars and have significantly fewer bills than younger citizens. We also know that there is a great disparity of this wealth, with some having millions and other lesser sums. So, why not design the system based on need rather than age—in other words target only those below a certain income? Because then the number of recipients would be far lower, hence fewer voters voting in gratitude. The same holds true for Medicare—why give it to everyone once they reach age 65 years, why not have it based on actual need? Again, it would be far less expensive and would be less of a lightening rod for voting. This is also the driving force for most politicians voting for such plans—suddenly the public’s health care, in essence—life and death—is in the hands of politicians. With each election, decisions are going to be based on who will provide even greater funds and coverage for the various plans and who are its enemies. This is why England cannot get rid of its fraudulent and inefficient health care system—that, and the fact that it is supported by 1.4 million health-care bureaucrats—the third largest employer in the world. This is also why those who say we have to do something about the 45 million (the number keep growing in their mind) uninsured. Even though many of these include the 18 million who do not want health insurance, 8.4 million youth who feel they are invulnerable, 12.6 million illegals who shouldn’t even be here, 8 million children whose parent have not signed them up and 3.5 million eligible for Medicare who have just not bothered to sign up, a total of 42.5 million who should be of no concern to the government. Granted, some of the 18 million who chose not to get insurance do so out of family budget constraints. This is a far smaller number than what is being proposed for new coverage by this government—that is, the remainder of the American population. If you wanted to help these young families—just give them a tax break—after all it’s their money anyway—it’s as if the government just didn’t steal it in the first place. The socialists in our government are hungry for every cent the population earns to pay for other socialist schemes—so significant tax breaks are not even an option. Even though politics drives the politician, many of the designers of these socialist programs are dedicated to egalitarianism, these are the intellectual socialists (an oxymoron). We also observe, as stated earlier, that they never include themselves in this egalitarianism. Harry Schwartz, a member of the New York Times editorial board gives a poignant example of their arrogance and elitist attitude. He tells us that when Joseph Califano was head of HEW he insisted that his staff always remain on call 24 hours a day. One of the physicians working on his staff managed to get permission to take his family on a vacation. He was almost at his destination hundreds of miles away when he gets a call from Califano’s staff that the “boss”” needs him right away. He turns around, drives all the way back, goes running up to the boss’ office to see what terrible crisis has exploded. Califano greets him and says—“ Hey, look Joe. I got this tennis elbow. What can you do for me?” You may be asked to wait in line for months or even years, but the “boss” gets seen in his office by his own personal physician. In the Soviet system, the politburo members had expensive dachas on the Black Sea, shopped at special stores stocked with the best Western foods and items and lived in lavish apartments or houses, while the ordinary Russian stood in line all day to get a pair of shoes, often settling for a pair that were of different sizes. Some are more equal than others. This is why the Congress has its own retirement system and will have its own, high quality, no-waiting health care system—it was the only way the designers could get them to support socialist systems for the “masses”. Conclusions The history of socialism, also called collectivism, should teach us that it is extremely elitist, looks upon the common man with disgust and secretly plans to manipulate the population like chess pieces—the people are viewed as mere cogs in an all embracing wheel of the state. Socialism consist of a number of grandiose plans, each designed to create a “better world”. These plans are sold with utopian promises to the public and any dissension is met with violent attacks. It has been said that if you cannot answer a man’s arguments, all is not lost—you can still call him vile names. We see this with the vicious attacks upon townhall attendees and any who even question the new &ldquolan”. Socialism is all about compulsion and regimentation and has no room for dissension—your duty is to do as you are told by the enlightened wise ones. A review of the National Health Act in England, demonstrates that they used many of the same tactics as are being used today. The doctors, and especially their medical societies, were told by its chief architect, Aneurin Bevan that if they helped bring the plan about, they would be included in the decision-making process. They believed him and paid for that error ever since. He promised that he would put them on decision-making boards, which he did. It was all a ruse. In truth, they spent valuable time drafting proposals that would make sure quality was preserved and bureaucracy was minimized. Their suggestions were merely place in a file cabinet and never looked at again. While the doctors were busy drafting proposals, Mr. Bevan was creating the real plan, which was heavy in progressive rationing, regimentation of physicians and controls. The AMA not only has failed to support the private-practicing physician, in my opinion, it has betrayed him at every step. Coding was and is one of the biggest nightmares in the doctor’s practice. Did the AMA fight to stop it? The answer is a resounding—No! Not only that, the AMA has made a windfall profit selling coding manuals, which are updated every few months. In this battle, once again they are silent. Why? Because they want to participate in the system—it can be very lucrative. Why physicians continue to belong to the AMA and provide them with money is a mystery to me. The socialists use emotional cases to sell their plans—a poor single mom with a pre-existing disease that is denied health insurance is displayed. It’s not that she is denied health care—everyone in America that can use a phone can get health care. Emergency rooms are free entrances to all health care. It is illegal to deny them health care in all 50 states. But, if they want to buy health insurance, they will have to pay and meet requirements. I hear politicians and leftist cry that 45 million Americans are without health care, that is a lie. Ironically, the health -care they will get with this socialist plan, over time, will be no better than just going to the emergency room—certainly the service will be much faster with ER visits. They deny that rationing will be used and that quality will be higher. Over 40 years of tinkering with the Medicaid and Medicare programs using every description of quality assurance method has not changed quality of health care in any significant way. They tell the doctor that regimentation will not be used, yet they have already drafted treatment and diagnostic protocols that every physician will be forced to follow or face heavy fines, a loss of license or even criminal penalties. Who makes these protocols?—compliant elitist physicians from medical centers and the AMA, people of the same mind-set as doctor Ezekiel Emmanuel. Every promise and assurance will be given and when the plan actually is implemented, especially as it is fine-tuned after enactment, everything you were assured would not be done, will be done—severe, progressive rationing, regimentation of physicians, abortions, forcing people to give up their current health plans and death counseling. In each instance, the government will tell people that they were forced to do it because of some form of sabotage from the plan’s enemies. Their favorite scapegoat is the physician. When you hear Obama telling you that unscrupulous physicians are doing amputations on diabetics and making $45,000 he is lying—not mistaken—lying. Most of these amputations are done on poor people with advanced diabetes. Most are on Medicaid and this program doesn’t even pay 20 cents on the dollar and they would never even pay close to what a surgeon would charge a private-pay patient for the same procedure. The actual reimbursement for the surgeon is $750 to $1500. What would Mr. Obama and his cronies have the surgeon do—nothing? Failing to amputate a gangrenous leg is a death sentence—but then that is what they want anyway. It would save the state a lot of money. While it is true that some surgeons will do unnecessary surgery just to pad their income, most surgeons are highly skilled, principled men and women. They, unlike doctor Emanuel, uphold the Hippocratic oath. Do they think the unscrupulous surgeons among our profession will just disappear under his plan?—no, they will be sitting on the decision-making boards and bureaucracies that dominate other physicians—that is their nature. They, unlike principled physicians, will do anything to remain on top. As the program evolves it will get worse and worse, because it will quickly fail in most of its objectives. The more it fails the more desperate the planners will become. More scapegoats will be hunted down and slaughtered on the public square for effect. Controls will tighten, physicians will try to leave in droves and the government will make it a crime to quit (called unlawful quitting of profession in socialist systems); the elderly and chronically ill will die in increasing numbers, while the government blames the deaths on medical mysteries, physician corruption or a need for tighter regimentation. As the economy worsen, which they can engineers with their Federal Reserve friends, people will be more accepting of such things as euthanasia on the elderly and terminally ill, the insane, the feeble-minded and the chronically ill. To really understand how these things progress, just observe Dr. Kevorkian. In the beginning, he chose terminal cases that were so pitiful many agreed he was doing a humane thing. Then he moved to people who were fully awake but who faced a strong prospect of dying in the near future. More began to question his judgment. Then he included a woman who was depressed—not terminally ill, or comatose—depressed—and he killed her. We see this in all such programs—just as I outlined in the beginning of this paper. First, it was the mentally subnormal, the severely feeble-minded, the dangerously insane and then it moved to include borderline feeble-minded—that is, women who were “charming” or who were merely illiterate, but had a capacity to learn. Then there was Dr. Howe, a prominent ophthalmologist who started by advocating the sterilization of those with hereditary blindness, then all of the blind and finally those who wore glasses. I has been said that the easiest time to stop totalitarianism is in the beginning, once it is established it becomes all but impossible to reverse. This may be our last opportunity to save this republic.

from John Taylor Gatto

With conspiracy so close to the surface of the American imagination and American reality, I can only approach with trepidation the task of discouraging you in advance from thinking my book the chronicle of some vast diabolical conspiracy to seize all our children for the personal ends of a small, elite minority.

Don’t get me wrong, American schooling has been replete with chicanery from its very beginnings.*

Indeed, it isn’t difficult to find various conspirators boasting in public about what they pulled off. But if you take that tack you’ll miss the real horror of what I’m trying to describe, that what has happened to our schools was inherent in the original design for a planned economy and a planned society laid down so proudly at the end of the nineteenth century. I think what happened would have happened anyway—without the legions of venal, half-mad men and women who schemed so hard to make it as it is. If I’m correct, we’re in a much worse position than we would be if we were merely victims of an evil genius or two.

This seemed to be the predicament of Mr. Rockefeller. I should not believe he personally hired thugs or wanted them hired. It seems far more true to say that his impersonal and half-understood power has delegated itself into unsocial forms, that it has assumed a life of its own which he is almost powerless to control....His intellectual helplessness was the amazing part of his testimony. Here was a man who represented wealth probably without parallel in history, the successor to a father who has, with justice, been called the high priest of capitalism....Yet he talked about himself on the commonplace moral assumptions of a small businessman.