Choosing our friends

When I was a child, my mother told me that "you are known by the friends you keep." That advice has served me well, particularly since I have started publicly stating my political views through this blog. I have made many friends, most of them good; a few I have had to defriend or put some distance between myself and them, because I do not want to be associated with their approach to change.

I bring this up because I found some of my libertarian friends being seduced by the Occupy Wall Street movement, its sister movement Occupy Together, and the latter's affiliates in Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Toledo, and Youngstown (links on the Occupy Together home page).

Since the stated purpose of Occupy Together is to show solidarity with Occupy Wall Street, it is reasonable to assume that they share the same vision. So what is the vision of this movement that has held a continuous protest in New York City since Sept. 18?

"We are the 99%," says Occupy Wall Street (Oct. 1):

We are unions, students, teachers, veterans, first responders, families, the unemployed and underemployed. We are all races, sexes and creeds. We are the majority. We are the 99 percent. And we will no longer be silent.

As members of the 99 percent, we occupy Wall Street as a symbolic gesture of our discontent with the current economic and political climate and as an example of a better world to come.

The previous day, they posted this message:

OccupyWallSt.org stands in solidarity without brothers and sisters in Boston who are marching on Bank of America.

The language and rhetoric is redolent of union activism and leftist protest organizations.

Their symbol is a clenched fist, the historic symbol of the socialist movement. While they agree with us that the Federal Reserve Bank should be abolished, there is nothing in their demands, their rhetoric, or the way they operate that suggests that they are libertarian in any way. Rather, they mirror the leftist approach used in the protests against the Vietnam War and against Wisconsin's collective bargaining bill last winter. Their message is heavily laced with class envy.

They idolize President Obama, but think he does not go far enough.  

Those who are familiar with George Orwell's novel 1984 might suspect that this is a case of Big Brother setting up his own Emmanuel Goldstein (the straw man representing the opposition, but who believed essentially the same thing).

At first blush, Occupy Wall Street really does appear to represent the "99%," but once you peel off the outer layers, you see that it fosters the same kind of socialism that President Obama wants to foist upon us.

We may soon experience revolution. Some of our people may even be desperate enough to want one. But if Occupy Wall Street and its friends are the vanguard of the revolution to come, we will get a dictatorship of the proletariat, and "dictatorship" is likely to be putting it gently.

The burning issue

We face many issues in national politics today. Building our economic base to employ our people, resolving our foreign wars, maintaining value in our currency, ensuring access to health care, and ensuring the stability of Social Security and Medicare, are just a few of them. We hear debates between candidates that offer many approaches to these and other issues.

However, all of these discussions boil down to one burning issue. Its resolution will determine how, and how well, the others will be addressed. It is this: Do we have the confidence to govern ourselves?

 

Those who have that confidence favor local solutions, personal responsibility, defense at home, and entrepreneurship. They share Thomas Jefferson's vision of a nation of farmers and artisans, living perhaps more modestly, but in harmonious and spiritually satisfying relationships with God and their neighbors. They want to enjoy the wealth that they have created through their own efforts. They want charity to come from the heart as they cheerfully give of their bounty. Jeffersonians seek impartial justice. They seek the highest expression of human creativity and service.  They are willing to accept the risks of financial insecurity in exchange for the blessings of liberty.

Those who lack that confidence favor top-down solutions, collectivism, empire-building and corporate investment. They share Alexander Hamilton's vision of a wealthy and powerful nation that builds on the sacrifices of its people.  They find that religion and tradition hinder progress. Their notion of charity is doling out money from the government as it confiscates the work of others. Hamiltonians seek a perversion of justice that favors their friends. They seek productivity and a strong bottom line above everything else, and condition the people to accept the loss of liberty in the name of personal security.

This burning issue has been with us since 1787. In the early years of the Republic, the clash between the Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian visions provided a creative tension that helped build the nation. When Andrew Jackson shut down the Bank of the United States, the Jeffersonians prevailed, but only for a generation. Abraham Lincoln's crusade to "save the Union" supposedly resolved the issue for all time, as the Hamiltonians gained, and continue to hold, the upper hand.

Today, we see where Hamiltonian corporatism has taken us. The federal government has nearly destroyed the initiative of the people and the states to solve their own problems. It has confiscated the wealth of its people in taxes and destroyed the desire to create new business opportunities. American manufacturing has become a faint memory of the past, as its jobs and money have been exported to other lands. The Hamiltonians have built a "nanny state" that has even turned many of our adults into spoiled children living as its dependents; instead of the productive, contributing people God meant us to be. It has brought us to economic ruin. The near future is likely to bring poverty for the majority, hyperinflation, slavery to the state, mass frustration, and revolution.

The differences between Democrat and Republican, "conservative" and "liberal" are no longer relevant. Both Republicans and Democrats are Hamiltonians. The Jeffersonians have been relegated to minor parties, Tea Parties, media obscurity; and being informed by their self-appointed betters that they and their Presidential candidate, Ron Paul, are "wingnuts" unworthy of being reported in the media, let alone enjoying a place at the table.

The Jeffersonian and Hamiltonian visions are utterly incompatible. Those who would harmonize the two positions might as well try to make a compromise between good and evil. The only people who benefit from a powerful national government are bankers, the military-industrial and medical-insurance complexes, and the politicians they can buy in Washington. The rest of us not only suffer financially, we suffer from the wasteful loss of lives in wars that have nothing to do with defense, and everything to do with greed.

Albert Einstein once defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result. Every election in the last sixty years has replayed the same struggle. Yet, regardless of which party has been in power, the result has been the same: more power and more money to Washington, less freedom and less opportunity for us. We keep hoping against hope that things will be better after the next election. We should have learned by now that elections alone cannot fix a corrupt system.

Can we cure our own insanity? Right now, we can work with our state legislators to defend our interest through nullification and secession, but this opportunity will not last long. We can assert the self-confidence to rule ourselves and to cultivate the virtues we need to maintain a free society. Or we can settle for the tyrant who promises security, even after he begins to jail and murder us by the tens of thousands. Do not say it cannot happen here. We are human. We have known for thousands of years that our actions will eventually bring predictable consequences. The laws of human behavior do not respect "American exceptionalism."

This is the burning issue: do we have the confidence to rule ourselves? Its resolution will determine how, and how well, the others will be addressed.

I'M not laughing...

From the Raleigh News-Observer, via BigGovernment.com:* North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue suggests that Congress suspend the 2012 elections to fix the economy. Her staffers later tried to dismiss it as a "joke" or sarcasm, but as Publius at BigGovernment.com wrote, "If that was a 'joke' then Gov. Perdue may have the worst sense of comic tone and timing in history."

I have heard on occasion that the President has ambitions of becoming a dictator. In a speech July 27 to the Latin-American group La Raza**, President Obama

admitted that “the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting” when it came to dealing with Congress over the debt deal. And while he added the caveat that our democracy doesn’t work like that – the crowd was cheering the possibility of Obama side stepping Congress and doing things his own way. The whole scenario reminded Glenn [Beck] and Pat of (nerd alert) the scene in the Star Wars prequel where Palpatine grants himself emergency powers – effectively making him The Emperor – as the Senate cheers on. Pat even played audio from the scene where Natalie Portman’s character says, “This is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause.”

Gov. Perdue's remark, then, might actually be a trial balloon for suggesting a suspension on a national level.

I'm not sure whether this makes it scarier or more comforting -- we've heard this before in rumors prior to 2008 that Homeland Security (during the Republican Bush Administration) might suspend that election in the event of a terrorist attack (see article by Michel Chossudovsky in the Canadian Global Research site for details)

This is close enough to my Trigger #1 to justify Ohio independence. Once a suspension is put into place,  there is no assurance that it will ever be lifted.

* And many other places. This is one video that has "gone viral" on the Internet.

** German translation: Das Volk. Choice of language intentional.

Sound familiar?

From the British blog Autonomous Mind, entitled "Revolution Time"

If you take a couple of minutes to read this op-ed in the Irish Independent by Eamon Keane, one can quickly identify a number of parallels with our own Westminster Parliament and self serving politicians.

Some of the sentiments that stand out include: ‘Power no longer rests with our impotent national parliament’… ‘Truth be told, it’s been finished for a long time, made redundant by the actions of our politicians’…  and ”Our Dail* is also doomed because it is based on a political system where getting re-elected takes precedence over the national interest’.  Keane may be writing about Ireland, but it all has a very familiar ring to it.

But the greatest resonance can be found in the most thought provoking part of the piece:

We are in the worst crisis in our history and our parliament is impotent.
Is there any hope for democracy? Yes. While the Dail may be dead a new parliament is emerging. It is to be found in ordinary people, community and support groups who come together to discuss a way forward. A second wave is already there though social networks.

Bullseye.

One commenter to the post suggested that the most effective uprising would be through organizations similar to the Tea Parties.

* Gaelic name for the Irish Parliament

Quotation of the day

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards." — Claire Wolf, 101 Things to Do 'Til the Revolution (1996)"

Virtual buckeye to Charlie Earl.

Warning to the Middle East

Democracy doesn't work either. We've tried it and see where it has taken us.

Ron Holland, writing for LewRockwell.com, shows how freedom would be better preserved using the Swiss model of direct democracy at the local level and a loose confederation at the national level. Mr. Holland even suggests that local direct democracy might be accomplished through social networking tools like Facebook.

He concludes:

Build your system of government based on the successful Swiss model of Confederation government which gives the people the right to create and cancel legislation and laws when your legislative body or leaders fail to follow the majority will of the people. Today, forms of direct democracy, referendums and decentralized government like in Switzerland can easily be created using Facebook and other social media.

You have organized your freedom efforts with social media and these new internet tools can also be used to control a government you establish. Second, after 100 years of foreign intervention and manipulation of governments and leaders in your region, the tools of the Facebook color revolutions can also work to build freedom-oriented institutions and safeguard your freedom movements from foreign intelligence actions against your efforts.

Therefore take into account your religious and cultural traditions in creating a government model and don’t make the expensive mistakes we have made in the West as we like you have also lost control of governments. Your success just might provide the example we need to escape our own forms of political tyranny in the rest of the world

I wish you good luck, prayers and victory in your efforts but remember democracy does not guarantee either freedom or a government controlled by the people. With regret, our loss of freedoms is proof that American-style democracy isn’t the answer.

A small sign of the global revolution

We got a reader from Qatar, a sheikdom on the Arabian Peninsula, in the midst of unrest throughout the region. I hope the reader got some useful information and is using it wisely.

Location of Qatar (Google map)

Whose interest should we be protecting?

One of my friends in Facebook has a discussion thread that has turned into an emotional conflict relating to U.S. policy toward Israel in the face of the uprising (current and anticipated) in the Middle East.

I have argued for neutrality: both sides have suffered much, and both have much to answer for. While the Palestinian terrorism issue is well known in this country; it is less well known that Jewish terrorism, through the Irgun and the Lehi (Stern Gang) enabled the creation of the State of Israel through forced evacuations of Palestinians on May 15, 1948, a date the Palestinians call Al-Naqba (The Catastrophe). More recently, Israel has attempted to follow the old apartheid South African policy of splitting the West Bank into "Bantustans," making it difficult for Palestinians to travel from one area to the next. In so doing, they are making it impossible for the Palestinians to develop their economy.

I mention this not because I am biased in favor of Palestine, but because the Palestinian side of the story is generally suppressed in the United States. I am neither anti-Semitic, nor am I particularly anti-Zionist; but we cannot have peace without justice, and that justice must be applied to both sides of the conflict.

All of this is preface to my main question, which is this: At a time when the United States is financially bankrupt and militarily exhausted from two lengthy wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, whose interest should we be pursuing in the Middle East, ours or Israel's?

I suggest that an American military intervention on behalf of Israel is not in our national interest. I understand that Israel has been a good friend and trading partner to the United States; but Israel is a nuclear power, and has proven in five wars over 63 years that it can defend itself. Those who worry about Middle East oil might consider that such an intervention is a sure way to alienate the Arabs who own it for generations to come. After all, they can always sell it to China and India instead of to us.

More importantly, we have to start taking care of ourselves. If Americans want to keep the Union together (not necessarily a desirable goal, but just sayin'), we will have to start asking ourselves what foreign policy will really protect the lives, liberties, and property of our own people. Not the multinational corporations or Wall Street banks, but of the American people, whose consent is required to govern.

Events in Egypt

Lew Rockwell has a whole slew of articles on the Egyptian crisis, but their comments boil down to this:

I see the essence of the story in this. An authoritarian state with rigged elections and with an extensive and brutal secret police and with control over the internet, can be brought down by direct citizen action. I said “can” since we do not know yet how this will play out. But other authoritarian states have been brought down in similar circumstances (Iran, Philippines, Romania). -- James Ostrowski, "The Death of a State."

And, under similar circumstances, so could the United States.

On revolution

The Ohio Republic has repeatedly written on the possibility of revolution. I have thought for some time that a revolution is in the air in this country; even though I think Glenn Beck’s assertion that it has already begun is premature. However, given the rate at which the degradation of our liberties is taking place, as evidenced by the TSA scanners, the Food Safety Act, and (possibly) the proposed rules on “Net neutrality,” I can see the revolution beginning in 2011, instead of 2012 as I had originally thought.

Every revolution is unique, and each affects its society in a unique way. Each is the explosion that follows when pressure builds up beyond the ability of a society’s institutions to contain it. Since the pressure builds up gradually, it is impossible to predict when the explosion will take place – but those who are watching can see the pressure building, and know that one is imminent.

How a revolution ends depends on whether the instigators prevail, as they did in Russia in 1917; and how prepared they are to govern, as the French were not in 1792. It also depends on how the people react to the revolution. Do we surrender to what appears to be an unstoppable force, or do we try to stop the revolution, as the French did in 1968? History shows that revolutions hardly ever end in exactly the way the instigators expect. Hegel’s dialectic is true, albeit not in the way Karl Marx anticipated: the thesis (revolution) is always met by an antithesis (reaction), resulting in a synthesis (society following the revolution). If revolutions do not always end as expected, its ideas (or its scars) will nevertheless continue to influence the society.

Glenn Beck is correct on this point: revolutions begin by creating chaos. No one (including Mr. Beck, if he is honest with himself) can know right now whether his particular recipe is accurate. His theory is that the revolution will involve a bottom-up approach (by union thugs and “progressive” activists on the street), coupled with a top-down one (by officials in the Obama Administration and rich and influential people like George Soros). There certainly is evidence that the radical left will try to pin the chaos on tea party activists and “right-wing extremists.”

We may not be able to avert a revolution, but we can prevent the left from imposing its dictatorship of the proletariat on our country. The left has an Achilles heel: its intellectual arrogance. Every statement they publish, every plan they make, reeks of contempt for the intelligence of the American people and their willingness to act. They think that we will fall for every trap they lay, that we will immerse ourselves in football and Desperate Housewives on the tube until it is too late. They think that those of us who do resist, will do so violently. After all, what other reason can there be for asserting our right to bear arms? The rest of us, they think, will engage in a feckless quest to use our corrupted institutions to reverse decades of policies that they have developed in preparation for this day. The key to stopping the left, then, is to act in ways they do not anticipate.

However, to act in ways they do not anticipate, we need to develop some new ways of thinking. Once the revolution begins, the United States of America-as-we-know-it will cease to exist. Not may, will. All of us who treasure our history and our institutions will experience the stages of grief: denial, anger, loss and, acceptance.

In the war of ideas, the Eastern Establishment must be countered by a libertarian intelligentsia; which, fortunately we do have. We have the Mises and Cato Institutes, Walter Williams, and Chuck Baldwin. In Ohio, we have the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law and the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions. Ohio has another asset, not evident in very many other states: a cohesive liberty movement. That movement made a mistake in this election by trusting too much in the Republican Party; but it will soon realize that it was a mistake. In our state history, we have protected civil liberties much more effectively than most other states. The reason for this has been the fidelity of our courts to the Bill of Rights in our 159-year-old Ohio Constitution. Obviously, we’re not perfect (as Manna Storehouse and the Constitution Day kerfuffle in Andover attest), but we can be proud of our overall record.

With one exception, we have everything we need to protect our freedom. We have the brains, the movement, and the laws behind us. What we need, and this does not come naturally to Ohioans, is the willingness to use them in creative ways.

In revolutionary times, we must think of ourselves as Ohioans first and Americans second. While the nation remains in some semblance of domestic peace, we must continue to use our existing institutions to resist tyranny; for example, by using our new Republican General Assembly and Governor to nullify unconstitutional federal laws in Ohio. We must uphold the rule of law as long as we can.

But when that peace ends, the rule of law at the federal level will go with it. In preparation for that day, we have three very high priorities: we need to strengthen our organized state militia to augment the National Guard to protect us from externally-generated violence; we need to establish a mechanism for using silver in everyday transactions (honest money); and we need for all of us to start thinking, buying, and as practicable, manufacturing locally. And we need to start on all three priorities now. As I wrote earlier, we cannot predict the day the revolution will begin, but we can sense that it will begin very soon. It could be today – it could be a year from now; but we need to prepare now.

In so doing, we will do one of two things, both protecting our liberties. If the rest of the United States proves to be of the same mind as we are, we will all defeat the “progressives” and save the union. Otherwise, we will be prepared to declare and sustain our independence.

Why liberals resort to namecalling

Charles Krauthammer at the Washington Post has written a neat summation of what we all know, but which the mainstream media refuse to acknowledge. The left tries to "marginalize" the American people because they can no longer use reason to back their arguments.

... Promiscuous charges of bigotry [example] are precisely how our current rulers react to an obstreperous citizenry that insists on incorrect thinking.

• Resistance to the vast expansion of government power, intrusiveness and debt, as represented by the Tea Party movement? Why, racist resentment toward a black president.
• Disgust with the federal government’s unwillingness to curb illegal immigration? Nativism.
• Opposition to the most radical redefinition of marriage in human history, as expressed in Proposition 8 in California? Homophobia.
• Opposition to a 15-story Islamic center and mosque near ground zero? Islamophobia.

Note what connects these issues. In every one, liberals have lost the argument in the court of public opinion. Majorities oppose Obama’s social-democratic agenda, support the Arizona law, oppose gay marriage and reject a ground-zero mosque...

It is a measure of the corruption of liberal thought and the collapse of its self-confidence that, finding itself so widely repudiated, it resorts reflexively to the cheapest race-baiting (in a colorful variety of forms).

Indeed, how can one reason with a nation of pitchfork-wielding mobs brimming with “antipathy toward people who aren’t like them,” a nation that is, as Michelle Obama once put it succinctly, “just downright mean”?

The Democrats are going to get beaten badly in November. Not just because the economy is ailing. And not just because Obama overread his mandate in governing too far left. But because a comeuppance is due the arrogant elites whose undisguised contempt for the great unwashed prevents them from conceding a modicum of serious thought to those who dare oppose them.

But don't start counting the chickens yet. The likely beneficiary of this revolt will be mainstream Republicans -- the same people we were so eager to get rid of just two years ago.

What we need is a revolution, a peaceful one if at all possible; but one which restores rule to the people of the several states, as our Founding Fathers envisioned. Merely switching from one élite party to the other isn't going to cut it.

Revolution in the air -- at least in some states

Timothy Baldwin is an attorney who has extensively researched issues of nullification and secession. In recent weeks, he has posted excellent insights to several blogs generally expressing the view that Americans need either to embrace the coming revolution, or accept the long-term loss of their liberties.

In this article, "A 'Keener' Whiff of Revolution," posted in the Liberty Defense League website, Mr. Baldwin observes that some states appear destined to become leaders in that revolution, because they have already adopted legislation to counter some of the excesses of federal government. On his list are Arizona, Montana, Idaho, Oklahoma, and Alaska.

On the other hand, he observes that there will always be those who, benefitting from the existing system, will resist any attempts at change. Quoting Thomas Paine, he writes:

“INTERESTED MEN, who are not to be trusted; WEAK MEN who cannot see;
PREJUDICED MEN who will not see; and a certain set of MODERATE MEN, who think better of the European world than it deserves…[The moderate men] will be the cause of more calamities to this continent than all the other three.” [all-caps emphasis Baldwin's]

Those classes of people exist today in large part, and we see its effect today. Immediately in observation, we evidently find that a large number of coastal-west, mid-north and north-east states will not participate in freedom’s revolution, because they will not consider themselves to be under any sort of tyranny or despotism. They prefer (whether knowingly or not) socialism, big government, elimination of state powers, status quo, etc. These states would likely even preclude the possibility of a constitutional amendment some are advocating to “roll back” the federal government.

Even among the “Tea Party” movement, the idea of revolution is not altogether shared. Many of them simply believe that we should “vote the [bums] out” or should use the (federal) court system to “regain freedom.” This mentality shows that they are federal-government-risk averse, likely and largely because they either believe that the federal government is “too strong” to resist (they say, “look at the Civil War: the federal government will crush our attempts to secede or resist them!”); that the federal laws are in fact supreme over state laws and thus, we must change the federal government to restore freedom; or that the union must be saved at all costs and so any State that resists and acts individually upon its own sovereignty is foolish.

Ohioans would seem to be among those who are in denial, in Mr. Baldwin's view. I agree that there are many (probably a majority) among us who feel that way. Certainly, the majority in the Ohio House of Representatives and of the state's elected officials are "federal-government-risk-avers". I have frequently commented on that tendency in Ohio House Speaker Armond Budish. We should therefore salute the courage of Reps. Kyle Jordan and Jarrod Martin, and Sen. Timothy Grendell in bucking the trend to press for greater freedom for all Ohioans.

However, Ohio is not a "blue" state. Nor is it a "red" state. It is a rich purple. With respect to the coming revolution, I anticipate that Ohio will again become the battleground state that it has been in recent Presidential elections.

Mr. Baldwin continues:

Even if a state possesses people who understand they are living in despotism, they will likely be so overwhelmed and overcome by the state and federal government–not to mention the other people who view them as “terrorists”–that they will not be able to ... forget their state government and go forth with revolution.

Compare that scenario with people who live in a state where the state government not only supports the revolution but also participates in and leads it... I believe we are essentially at that point already.

Ohioans who would restore our liberties must be persistent in persuading their friends and neighbors that the "revolution" is a cause that will benefit us far more than the costs it will entail. This fall's election can be the opportunity for Ohio to break out of the cocoon of fear, and fly with the states who are leading the charge for freedom. Under the current system, it is probably impossible to change Congress; but changing the Ohio General Assembly is well within our grasp -- and should be the focus of Ohio's liberty movement in the months to come.

Virtual buckeye to Bill Miller at Secession and Nullification News and Information.

Starving the beast

Last week's Tea Parties didn't tell us anything that was really new. We all know that government -- especially the federal government -- has turned from what American Revolution called a benign beast of burden, into a hydra -- a snake with many heads. When one is cut off, many more take its place.

Our politics is a double-edged sword. One edge is Democratic, the other Republican. When either attacks the hydra, the same result occurs -- it adds more heads to attack the wealth and even the lives of the American people.

This how American Revolution describes the situation:

We are no longer dealing with a constitutional republic or even a democracy but an authoritarian oligarchy. In our fight against our government we do no disservice to the vision of Adams, Madison, Jefferson or Washington. The beast trampled their vision long ago. I would think they would be rather proud of our efforts to resist the its tyranny.

That understood, how do we kill the beast? How do we exploit its “Achilles' Heel”? Every government requires money to operate. Ours requires trillions of dollars. Right now it devours around a third of everything we produce in this country. It won’t be long until it demands half. New taxes for health care, higher taxes to keep Social Security and Medicare solvent, a Value Added Tax are all coming. And we keep paying. Voluntarily we offer up our flesh and blood to feed the beast. Sure we complain. Sure it hurts because there are a lot of things we would rather do with that sizable chunk of money. Sure it annoys us because we know our money is being used to forge ever tighter chains or simply turned into worthless manure. But we stand there and take it because we think we have no choice, because we are afraid of the beast, because we have been
brainwashed into thinking we asked for it so we have no right to refuse. We have every right to refuse. No man or government has the right to demand our involuntary servitude. No man or government has the right to seize our property.

No man or government has the right to annihilate our liberty. It is time to finally stand up and say NO. NO, you may no longer take the fruits of my labor. NO, my property is mine and I do not own it simply at your pleasure. NO, my rights and liberties come from God and not you and you may not manipulate them or take them as you wish. It is our refusal as a people that will bring down the beast.

What can we do? We can hide or we can "run". A few of us "hide": can leave our homes, take all of our money where the government can't get at it, and wait it out. A better solution is to "run", but it also requires more courage, because it means we live with a black-market economy that denies to the federal government the taxes it uses to enslave us.

Create an underground economy and stop cooperating with the government. Do not obey their mandates or collect their taxes. Work on a cash (or gold/silver/barter) basis with your fellow patriots. Starve the beast of our money and cooperation. Riskier perhaps, but it also accomplishes something important that hiding does not. It creates tightly knit and organized communities that will be necessary when the beast succumbs. And it will fall. We are already stretched to the limit and even if we do nothing, the whole system, governmental and economic, is going to collapse. It is “unsustainable”. A good
case could be made that our current crop of rulers is trying to hasten that end.

So what will be the endgame? Our handlers will try to use this as the final blow to enslave us all. To resist will require courage and planning; but resistance will bring its own reward -- our discovery that the path of freedom will bring us -- us, the people, a true sense of community, lasting prosperity, and a sense of purpose that is lacking for most of us.

What are you choosing?

Listen up, people. This is how revolutions start!

Today marks the 220th anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in Paris, which set off the bloody French Revolution. The painting is Liberty Guiding the People by Eugène Delacroix (1830).

Update: The New York Times reports today that Goldman Sachs earned second-quarter profits of $3.44 billion ($4.93 per share). This follows first-quarter profits of $1.66 billion ($3.39 a share). Since the beginning of the year, its stock has increased in value 77%, but remains below its record high of $250.70 per share, set in 2007.

Thus proving Mr. Kunstler correct:

James Howard Kunstler on Goldman Sachs:

"The cat coming out of the bag this week -- a frazzled, flaming, rabid, death-dealing cat -- is the news that Goldman Sachs will announce impressive second-quarter profits, and set aside $18 billion or so for employee bonuses averaging $600,000 per head (though, of course, not evenly distributed among them). There probably are not fifty-three people in the USA who can explain how this development figures in with last fall's bailout gift from the US treasury, or the $13 billion GS received on the backside of US gift payments to the failed AIG insurance company, plus the reams of necrotic securitized debt paper rotting in the back of the GS vaults. This is a company playing with the fire of world history.


"It brings back the question, which has loomed dimly at the margins of America's collective consciousness, as to whether we can get through the long emergency ahead without going through a wringer of domestic political convulsion. At this rate, sooner or later, anything identified with wealth could become a target for the wrath of the unemployed and foreclosed. The first rock that flies through an East Hampton window, or the first firebomb tossed into the lobby of Goldman Sachs Manhattan headquarters could ignite a chain of events that shoves all economic policy out of the political arena and quickly divides everyone at the center of power into armies out for blood. "

It brings back visions of Marie Antoinette telling the people, if they didn't have bread, to eat cake; or of the Russian nobility enjoying a lavish midnight meal while the masses were demonstrating. Egregious displays of wealth in New York's Financial District, while the rest of us lose jobs, homes, and retirement savings. The truth is, we are literally being robbed, and the Federal Government is a co-conspirator.

Can violence be avoided? Perhaps, but the time is growing short. Very short; however, there is an alternative, suggested by this Independence Day parade in Vermont:



Virtual buckeye to Vermont Commons, for both the Kunstler article and the picture.

The struggle for freedom is non-partisan

Many people have the misconception that the State sovereignty and secessionist movements are a partisan phenomenon -- Republicans sore about losing last year. I have previously noted that this not true -- there are Democrats who sponsor state sovereignty resolutions*; and the movement is truly broad-based.

As proof, I submit the following article, reprinted in its entirety from Vermont Commons. It's author, Dan Weintraub is a Democratic candidate for Congress in 2010. His list of issues certainly addresses traditional Democrat concerns.

So, let's hear no more about State sovereignty being a "right-wing" or "Republican" issue -- the cause of freedom is the cause of us all.

"We Fight This Battle For Our Kids

"Today I read a troubling tale. Seems the government has taken yet one more step toward destroying whatever vestige of sovereignty the American people currently retain in this failing nation of ours:

"From lvrj.com via ML Implode: '...There was no indication what they were looking for or what crime, if any, was being investigated, just a blanket subpoena for voluminous and detailed records on every private citizen who dared to speak about a federal tax case...'

"It is time to fight back. In fact, it is well past time that we fought back. We are late, and the clock is ticking. Below I will reprint a piece that I penned in prior months. But before I do so, let me add one quick thought.

"As you know, I am running for Congress in 2010 (http://weintraub2010.com/). I am running as a Democrat in Vermont, and I plan upon defeating Peter Welch in the fall of '10 and heading to Washington to do battle with an establishment that has utterly perverted our Constitutional Democracy and that has left the middle class
out to dry. And I will NOT be silenced. My kids are counting on me. And armed with the TRUTH, my voice is going to be heard.

"I promise you that.

"Friday, December 12, 2008
"March To The Sea And Make Salt

"Satya is the Sanskrit word for 'truth'; agraha means 'great enthusiasm and interest'. The two words combined may be rendered as 'the firmness of truth.' The term was popularized during the Indian Independence Movement, and is used in many Indian languages including Hindi. It can also mean 'the force of truth.' On March 12, 1930, Gandhi and 78 male satyagrahis set out on foot for the coastal village of Dandi, Gujarat, 390 kilometres (240 mi) from their starting point at Sabarmati Ashram. At Aslali, and the other villages that the march passed through, volunteers collected donations, registered new satyagrahis, and received resignations from village officials who chose to end cooperation with British rule. As they entered each village, crowds greeted the marchers, beating drums and cymbals. Gandhi gave speeches attacking the salt tax as inhuman, and the salt satyagraha as a 'poor man's battle.' Each night they slept in the open, asking of the villagers nothing more than simple food and a place to rest and wash. Gandhi felt that this would bring the poor into the battle for independence, necessary for eventual victory. Thousands of satyagrahis and leaders like Sarojini Naidu joined him. Every day, more and more people joined the march. At Surat, they were greeted by 30,000 people. Near the end of the march, Gandhi declared, 'I want world sympathy in this battle of Right against Might.' (from Wikipedia)

"It is time that the power of truth be brought to bear on the 'powers-that-be' who, through their collective greed and criminality, have placed the entire world in great peril. The actions of the men of Wall Street and the Men of Capitol Hill have left an entire world on the brink of ruin. Hope for many is already gone. These men have chosen to sacrifice billions of us on the alter of avarice. Their mansions and yachts are testimonies to our poverty, their lavish homes a reminder of our homelessness, their Thanksgiving feasts a symbol of our hunger.

"And at the heart of it all, of all of the suffering heaped upon the backs of billions of people, are the lies. The power of truth has been beaten down by the forces of greed and gluttony. We rationalize the 30 million dollar salary of the CEO as being justly earned based upon the amount of wealth that his corporation creates, but now of course we know that it is all a lie. Wealth based upon 'growth' that is in fact debt (leverage) is not wealth at all, it is fraud. But the greedy nonetheless use this debt as the collateral they need to live in their mansions and drive their Mercedes and sail on their yachts, while the rest of us are left to repay these debts through taxes and cuts in services to the poor and our own debt-servitude. And all of the men in power are complicit in this lie, all of the governmental agencies that have facilitated the lies are guilty of damning the rest of us to nothing more than poverty. And as Gandhi said, poverty is the worst form of violence. And the list of lies is truly endless:

- Accounting Fraud
- Lending Fraud
- Asset Valuation Fraud (Mark-To-Fantasy)
- Ponzi Fraud
- Unemployment Reporting Fraud
- Tax Fraud - Insider Trading Fraud
- Derivatives Fraud
- TARP Fraud
- Securities Fraud
- WMD [Weapons of Mass Destruction] Fraud
- Fractional Reserve Banking Fraud
- Currency Fraud
- Keynesian Fraud
- Election Fraud

"Obviously an epic list, and all perpetrated by the wealthy and powerful in order to perpetuate the system, at any and all costs. And now we are the cost, and for the liars, that is an acceptable price to pay. Our lives, the lives of billions of people, our suffering, our hunger, are acceptable to the wealthy and powerful. When will enough be enough? Maybe it is time that we March To The Sea, And Make Salt."

* John Will Stacy is not only a Democrat, he is the Majority Whip in the Kentucky House.

The Revolution is almost here

Revolutions, by their nature, are unmanageable. They almost never end exactly the way the instigators expect; but they do profoundly change the nature of society, for better or for worse. Those who believe that a revolution cannot happen here should take heed to news reports in front of us, including these articles and videos collected by Benja Sariwatta of the Ohio Freedom Alliance.

Those who do not prepare for revolution will find themselves run over by it.

Managing the Revolution

Reaction from some of my commenters and a number of bloggers to the State sovereignty resolutions suggests to me that many observers still have a Lincolnesque fixation on the idea that secession, or even asserting State sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment is somehow tantamount to civil war.

In my post February 1 ("The center cannot hold"), I explained why I believe that the current economic situation will foreshadow the collapse of the United States of America. This is, of course, a radical thought that goes against everything we were raised to believe. It is also a disturbing thought, and for that reason alone, it is understandable that many Americans are living in denial.

One of the reasons The Ohio Republic favors secessionism is to help us all prepare for the collapse we see coming. In a way, "secession" is a misnomer. If the United States collapses, no State, in declaring its independence is really "seceding", in the sense of making a conscious action to break away. Instead, independence becomes a rational response to maintaining freedom under law for our own people when the larger nation ceases to exist. In other words, preparing for independence is a sensible way to manage a revolution. The alternative is chaos (think Somalia, but don't think it couldn't happen here).

While I question the long-term effectiveness of the State sovereignty resolutions, I strongly support them as one last effort to preserve the Union, by returning it to the Constitutional principles that kept us free for over 200 years. What we are doing today is not siding with Jeff Davis against The Union -- that was a different time with different issues. What we are doing has more in common with the first secession -- that of thirteen colonies against an Empire that rejected the traditional rights of Englishmen where its colonies were concerned, and did so with a haughty arrogance that tested the courage of every patriot. A challenge very similar to the one we face today.

If the State sovereignty resolutions succeed in their object, we will again feel truly blessed to be part of the United States of America; but if they fail, we have a responsibility to ourselves and our descendants to preserve our peace and our liberty the best way we can.

In the way of denial lies death, destruction, and despair. In the way that we are advocating lies freedom, and even more importantly, hope. For myself, I would rather have liberty than death.