Treason or Patriotism: Which Do You Choose?

by by Gary D. Barnett

Lately, I have written several articles for our local newspaper, and because of the subject matter of these writings, I have been involved in much debate about "patriotism." Believe me, it is a frustrating argument and one that gains little reward. When I attempt to define patriotism as I see it, those who think in terms of "it’s my country (government) good or bad," and who blindly support any government policy deemed for the good of the nation as a whole or good for national defense, normally become belligerent. I usually come away from these encounters confused and troubled. Of course I get the expected rhetoric, this from both sides of the isle, that I am a hater of America, am unpatriotic, and a supporter of the terrorists. I have even been asked to leave the U.S., (love it or leave it) or more explicitly, to go to Afghanistan or Iraq where I belong. One local state house representative even accused me of being a hired writer for Osama bin Laden. Wow, imagine that? I guess my belief that Muslims are also human was more than he could tolerate.

The bottom line of this nonsense begs the question: "What is patriotism? If one looks to Webster’s for a definition, the answer would be "a person who loves his country and defends and promotes its interests." I find this definition too broad, too modern, and completely unacceptable; in other words, incorrect. First, a love of country cannot and does not mean a love of state or a love of government. It does not mean agreeing with anything and everything that the state does outside of protecting the inherent rights of individuals. Actually, self-interest, not collectivism, is the basis of liberty. Secondly, defending and promoting the country’s interests could only be proper given that in doing so, no individual or group of individual’s rights are violated in any manner. This would include the rights of any and all people on earth, not just those domiciled in America. So, with this in mind, it should become clear to most that patriotism has more to do with dissent and criticism of the state than it has to do with anything else.

Our Founders, although far from perfect, were for the most part patriots, and were very aware of the importance of supporting and fighting for freedom and independence, not supporting and fighting for the country or state apparatus. There is a distinct difference. While this attitude was not as prevalent among all the Founders, especially the Hamiltonians, and was more the lynchpin of the anti-federalists, it was still the primary underlying attitude of the day.

With these things in mind, I would define patriotism as the defense of liberty; and at all costs, nothing more and nothing less. Ron Paul has defined patriotism as "that effort to resist oppressive state power." His definition and mine are certainly mutually supportive. What patriotism is not is saluting a flag, swearing allegiance to the state or government, or supporting state aggression. Actually, "allegiance" (as in pledging allegiance) is defined by Webster’s as "The loyalty that citizens owe to their country (or subjects to their sovereign)." According to Dictionary.com, it is "the loyalty of a citizen to his or her government or of a subject to his or her sovereign." "Sovereign" means: A monarch; a king, queen, or other supreme ruler." This is the reason I absolutely refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance back in high school, and have never uttered those detestable words since.

What if the modern definitions of patriotism and treason were reversed as I think they should be? Those who are now considered to be patriotic would be exposed as traitors, while the rest of us would be seen as patriots. If real patriotism is the defense of liberty as I claim, then how should those who support tyrannical government action be labeled? Since all government action is force, government in my opinion is the antithesis of liberty. If this is so, then it stands to reason that support of the oppressive state apparatus must be treason. What else could it be? For this to be accepted, a whirlwind of confusion will ensue. Just consider that if I am correct, then most all those who now think they are one are actually the other. What a turnaround. I think I would like to live in that type of environment; one where those supporting government and the state are considered traitors, while the rest of us are properly considered patriotic. What a wonderful world that would be.

For the most part today, those like Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly and other neo-cons, as well as many conservative Republicans and Democrats think patriotism is blindly supporting the killing, maiming, displacing and destroying of any and all who stand in the way of U.S. hegemony. Now, with Obama not only continuing but advancing the Bush Doctrine, the Democrats and "liberal" Obama-supporters will be forced to go along with this evil behavior or will have to break away from their beloved president and "savior." My hope (not expectation) is that the latter wins out.

The realization that patriotism has to do with resisting state power, not supporting it, will only take root when the many decide not to be serfs swearing allegiance to their sovereign, but instead decide to fight to be free!

Source: Lew Rockwell

Ha'aretz says U.S. officials face 'pro-Israel' background check

There is an amazing story in Ha'aretz today on the "pro-Israel" litmus test that determines who is permitted to serve in the United States government. Here's the sort of lede you're not likely to read in the New York Times or Washington Post:

Every appointee to the American government must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community.

In the case of Obama's government in particular, every criticism against Israel made by a potential government appointee has become a catalyst for debate about whether appointing "another leftist" offers proof that Obama does not truly support Israel."

The story goes on to rehearse what happened to Chas Freeman (whose appointment was derailed by the Israel lobby because he voiced a few mild criticisms of Israel's behavior) and reports that similar complaints are now being raised against the appointment of former Senator Chuck Hagel. Even more bizarrely, the Zionist Organization of America and other rightwing Jewish groups are complaining about the appointment of Hannah Rosenthal to direct the Office to Combat and Monitor Anti-Semitism. Why? Apparently she's been involved with J Street and other "leftwing" organizations that ZOA et al deem insufficiently ardent in their support for the Jewish state, and has suggested that progressive forces need to be more vocal in advancing the peace process.

One has to feel a certain sympathy for Ms. Rosenthal, who is forced to defend her own appointment by telling an interviewer:

I love Israel. I have lived in Israel. I go back and visit every chance I can. I consider it part of my heart. And because I love it so much, I want to see it safe and secure and free and democratic and living safely."

These are fine sentiments, but isn't it odd that she has to defend her qualifications for a position in the U.S. government by saying how much she "loves" a foreign country? For an American official in her position, what matters is that she loves America, and that she believes anti-semitism is a hateful philosophy that should be opposed vigorously. Whether she loves Israel or France or Thailand or Namibia, etc., is irrelevant. (And yes, it's entirely possible to loathe anti-Semitism and not love Israel).

But the real lesson of all these episodes is the effect of this litmus test on the foreign policy community more broadly. Groups in the lobby target public servants like Freeman, Hagel, and Rosenthal because they want to make sure that no one with even a mildly independent view on Middle East affairs gets appointed. By making an example of them, they seek to discourage independent-minded people from expressing their views openly, lest doing so derail their own career prospects later on. And it works. Even if the lobby doesn't manage to block every single appointment, they can make any administration think twice about a potentially "controversial" choice and use the threat to stifle open discourse among virtually all members of the mainstream foreign policy community (and certainly anyone who aspires to public service in Washington).

The result, of course, is the U.S. Middle East policy (and U.S. foreign policy more generally) is reserved for those who are either steadfastly devoted to the "special relationship" or who have been intimidated into silence. The result? U.S. policy remains in the hands of the same set of "experts" whose policies for the past seventeen years (or more) have been a steady recipe for failure. If a few more Americans read Ha'aretz, they might start to figure this out.

Source: Stephen M Walt

Obama Treason Charges Advance In Tennessee Grand Jury

On June 10, 2009 I wrote about formal treason charges filed against Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, in - Is Obama Guilty of Treason? I followed that column up with - Why Commander Fitzpatrick Is NOT Guilty of Mutiny! on June 13. Since then, numerous others have filed similar treason charges against Obama/Soetoro with little or no fanfare…

If Obama is indeed guilty of treason - then we have a growing list of folks who are also committing treason. Namely, every member of law enforcement and the justice system who have taken an oath to uphold and defend the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic - along with every individual in Washington DC and beyond who has chosen to look the other way while denying American citizens their day in court - claiming that no citizen has the “legal standing” to ask who in the hell Barack Hussein Obama really is…

After visits from the Secret Service and months of rejection by the courts, Commander Walter Fitzpatrick may get his day in court.

On Tuesday December 1^st 2009, Retired Navy Commander Walter Fitzpatrick III will present the evidence behind his treason complaint against Obama/Soetoro to all thirteen members of a Tennessee Grand Jury in Monroe County Tennessee.

The road to justice has been bumpy, to say the least. Commander Fitzpatrick has been ridiculed, blocked in court house halls, threatened, accused of mutiny and labeled a “crackpot” by Obama supporters who see no need for a standard background check for the most powerful office in the world.

Fitzpatrick had to go so far as to file criminal obstruction charges against Grand Jury Foreman Pettway before he would gain access to the court.  Despite it all, Commander Fitzpatrick forged ahead and on December 1^st, his complaint will be heard by his local Monroe County Tennessee Grand Jury.

Now, this places the Tennessee Grand Jury squarely in the middle of the biggest Constitutional Crisis in U.S. history. Fitzpatrick will be under oath before the Grand Jury on Tuesday. If the Grand Jury has any doubts about Fitzpatrick’s testimony, they must arrest him for perjury on the spot. If they don’t arrest him for perjury, they are accepting his testimony as true and accurate…

If Article II—Section I—Clause V of the U.S. Constitution means nothing—then no part of the Constitution means anything today. On the other hand, if the Monroe County Tennessee Grand Jury follows its oath to uphold, protect and preserve the Constitution and apply the law equally to all, then the charge of treason must be allowed its day in court.

The Monroe County Grand Jury appears ready to act on its oath and authority. But if they don’t, they could become thirteen new members of a long list of folks equally guilty of treason, for turning their heads the other way and denying the American people access to the courts in what might be the greatest case in U.S. political history.

Thirteen members of the Monroe County Grand Jury hold the future of Constitutional Law in their hands. Come Tuesday, they will have an opportunity to keep their oath to the American people - the citizens of Monroe County and state of Tennessee. Of course, they will also have an opportunity to do what several civil and criminal court judges have already done on the matter. They can turn their heads and deny citizens their right to be heard…

But with each passing day, the stakes get higher and higher in the case over who Obama/Soetoro really is and whom he really serves. Atop the growing list of unconstitutional acts by the Obama administration is the Samson Alabama story in which—”
An Army investigation has found that the use of armed military policemen from Fort Rucker in response to mass murders in Samson violated federal law.” —reports the Associated Press.

“The Army earlier confirmed that 22 military police and an officer were sent to Samson after the mass slaying of 10 people on March 10. - The Department of Army Inspector General found a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which restrains the use of the military for civilian law enforcement purposes.”

Yet ten months after inauguration, Obama’s entire past remains a mystery under lock and key. Obama has spent almost $2 million in legal fees to keep his life Top Secret, not counting millions in tax-payer funded road blocks thrown up by Obama’s Justice Department, which has sent numerous federal attorneys into court after court to file dismissal requests on the basis of “standing” - with great success. They don’t want the courts to ever decide Obama’s Constitutional eligibility on “merit,” because if discovery ever goes forward and Obama’s files are opened up, Obama is finished and so is his Marxist Global Agenda!

Make no mistake… The courts have clearly ruled that NO AMERICAN CITIZEN has the “proper standing” to ask even the most fundamental questions about Barack Hussein Obama (aka Barry Soetoro). The American press has not only ignored these facts, but mocked anyone willing to ask the right questions - of the right people - in the right way.

Tuesday, the Monroe County Grand Jury will get an opportunity to make history and reverse the modern trend of denying citizens their day in court. The people have a right to know who and what Obama really is. Let’s see if the Monroe County Grand Jury has the backbone to force Obama to answer that question.

When an unconstitutional resident of the White House rushes a laundry list of unconstitutional policies through, including the use of the Military against U.S. citizens—against the demands of the American citizens, it’s time to ask some very serious questions and the American people deserve no less than honest answers.

The Monroe County Grand Jury will hear these and other charges Tuesday December 1^st. God help this nation if they lack the courage to take a stand with the citizenry of this great nation.  The future of American justice hangs in the balance! The people deserve much more than a simple birth certificate. They deserve a legitimate government - limited to its constitutional authority - and they deserve a justice system willing to uphold those foundational principles and values.

All eyes across this nation will be on Monroe County Tennessee this week!

Source: Canadian Free Press

The Case for Treason: Has our Government grown Despotic?

(originally posted in July)

We are living in dangerous, uncertain times. The economic collapse deepens each day, wars are raging all around us, terrorism is now a household word in America, flu pandemics are being declared, and under the influence of all of these concerns, government is tightening the bands around our civil liberties in a most permanent way. The question is, "how much is too much?"

This is somewhat of a complex problem. It is my greatest hopes that many of you will read this entire article, and take the time to digest what I put forth here. I believe that it was inevitable that our government become tyrannical. The permission we have given to our politicians has created a class of citizens above ourselves. This has happened quite contrary to the idea that these very citizens now placed above us, who run our country on their own whims and in secrecy from us, were intended to be our servants.

The one protection put into the Constitution to prevent this from fully happening was the Bill of Rights. It is IMPERITIVE that we understand that those first ten amendments were the result of the bickering and outright opposition raised by the anti-federalists during the Constitutional debates in 1788. The anti-federalists argued that there were no provisions that would effectively secure the individual rights of Americans in the original Constitution. The resultant ten amendments outline our precious individual rights, and only in conjunction with each other do those rights prevent government from growing fully despotic. That is why there is major cause for alarm today as we see these civil rights being legislated away in Congress and abused on the streets.

During those debates surrounding the ratification of the Constitution in 1788, many voices were heard in favor of, and opposing this radical new government that would govern the United States. One of the loudest voices of opposition was Patrick Henry. It is not that he was not loyal to America, no, not in the least. In fact, his opposition was based upon his very dedication to liberty and freedom. It was in the designs of our then forming government that Henry seen the makings of despotism. If we take a close look at a few points made by Henry, and compare them to our modern dilemma, we can see not only how correct his concerns were, but how factually prophetic they have become.

Most telling of these speeches was the one made by Patrick Henry on June 5, 1788. He objected to the overreaching authority of the proposed federal government specifically because he feared the abuse of power by our Representatives.

"But we are told that we need not fear, because those in power being our Representatives, will not abuse the powers we put in their hands: I am not well versed in history, but I will submit to your recollection, whether liberty has been destroyed most often by the licentiousness of the people, or by the tyranny of rulers? I imagine, Sir, you will find the balance on the side of tyranny."

Henry could envision the flaws in a Representative democracy based upon the inevitability of men to become corrupt. Do we not see this today? Yes, we certainly do. Our Representatives, many of whom have been in Washington for three or four decades, repeatedly deny our voices any merit. They pass massive bills without even reading them. They alter bills at the last minute before votes. They attach amendments to bills that are completely unrelated, (such as the current unConstitutional Hate Crimes bill being attached to the "must pass" Defense Fund bill for 2010.) They propose, and often pass, bills that fly in complete defiance to the Constitution and Bill of Rights (Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, John Werner Act, and proposed H.R. 45, H.R. 2159, H.R. 2647, Cap and Trade, etc.) The nation's people screamed in opposition to the "bail outs", yet they overwhelmingly passed it, only to benefit certain banks while leaving the rest of us to continue to suffer in worsening conditions.

How does this happen? How can the Bill of Rights guarantee a right to privacy, yet the Patriot Act says you don't have it? How can it guarantee a right to due process, yet the Patriot Act says you don't have that either? How are our rights to privacy, private property, due process, keep and bear arms, free speech, and other rights protected by the Constitution continually under assault by these Representatives?

Patrick Henry was keen to point this problem out over 200 years ago, "However uncharitable it may appear, yet I must tell my opinion, that the most unworthy characters may get into power and prevent the introduction of amendments: Let us suppose (for the case is supposeable, possible, and probable) that you happen to deal these powers to unworthy hands; will they relinquish powers already in their possession, or agree to amendments? Two-thirds of the Congress, or of the State Legislatures, are necessary even to propose amendments: If one-third of these be unworthy men, they may prevent the application for amendments; but what is destructive and mischievous is, that three-fourths of the State Legislature, or of State Conventions, must concur in the amendments when proposed: In such numerous bodies, the must necessarily be some designing bad men: To suppose that so large a number as three-fourths of the States will concur, is to suppose they will possess genius, intelligence, and integrity, approaching to miraculous...It is, Sir, a most fearful situation, when the most contemptible minority can prevent the alteration of the most oppressive Government."

Although today's situation involves the passing of bills, as our government simply does not see the need to amend the Constitution in order to change or override it, Henry's words still ring true. A small contemptible minority are in control, and they do not hear our voices. Even our president now tells us that he will not obey our laws. Obama's signing statement given while signing the recent war funding bill strictly pertained to his ignoring of restrictions put on the executive branch within the bill. He signed the law, as he was telling us he himself would not follow it. Amazing.

When government ceases to listen to us; ceases to give us redress to our grievances, what can we do? The federal government has grown beyond belief. We actually do not even know how big it is! So much of it is now kept secret from the American People, and new bureaucracies are created all the time, expanding the federal while indebting us in taxes to pay for it all.

As Henry put it, "My great objection to this Government is, that it does not leave us the means of defending our rights; or, of waging war against tyrants: It is urged by some Gentlemen, that this new plan will bring us an acquisition of strength, an army, and the militia of the States: This is an idea extremely ridiculous: Gentlemen cannot be in earnest. This acquisition will trample on your fallen liberty: Let my beloved Americans guard against that fatal lethargy that has pervaded the universe: Have we the means of resisting disciplined armies, when our only defence, the militia is put into the hands of Congress?"

As Henry clearly points out, without a Second Amendment, there is no security for liberty.

Today, many Americans fear the government. They are continually trying to disarm us, and in many ways have succeeded incrementally. Now, especially under the Obama administration, they are criminalizing dissent. The MIAC report of Homeland Security, H.R. 2159, H.R. 2647, and on and on. Anyone who speaks out against government is basically considered a terrorist, including gun owners, tax protesters, Constitutionalists, etc. (I have posted the links to these government documents so many times, if you have any doubts as to the truth to what I am saying, read previous blogs and check the links for yourself.) These fears are well grounded, for many of us know that tyranny is upon us once again in this great nation.


The most chilling of Henry's statements concerning this matter was driven by his sharp understanding of the history of liberty and tyranny,

"The Honorable Gentleman who presides, told us, that to prevent abuses in our Government, we will assemble in Convention, recall our delegated powers, and punish our servants for abusing the trust reposed in them. Oh, Sir, we should have fine times indeed, if to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people. Your arms wherewith you could defend yourselves, are gone; and have no longer a aristocratical; no longer democratical spirit. Did you ever read of any revolution in any nation, brought about by the punishment of those in power, inflicted by those who had no power at all? You read of a riot act in a country which is called on of the freest in the world, where a few neighbours cannot assemble with the risk of being shot by a hired soldiery, the engines of despotism. We may see such an act in America. A standing army we shall have also, to execute the execrable commands of tyranny: And how are you to punish them? Will you order them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your Mace-bearer be a match for a disciplined regiment? In what situation are we to be?

The clause before you gives a power of direct taxation, unbounded and unlimited: Exclusive power of Legislation in all cases whatsoever, to ten miles square; and over all places purchased for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, etc. What resistance could be made? The attempt would be madness. You will find all the strength of this country in the hands of your enemies: Those garrisons will naturally be the strongest places in the country. Your militia is given up to Congress also in another part of this plan: They will therefore act as they think proper: All power will be in their own possession: You cannot force them to receive their punishment: Of what service would militia be to you, when most probably you will not have a single musket in the State; for as arms are to be provided by Congress, they may or may not furnish them.

Let me here call your attention to that part which gives the Congress power, "To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia, according to the discipline prescribed by Congress." By this, Sir, you see that their control over our last and best defence, is unlimited. If they neglect or refuse to discipline or arm our militia, they will be useless.[auth. note: today they have criminalized our militia]: The States can do neither, this power being exclusively given to Congress; The power of appointing officers over men not disciplined or armed, is ridiculous; So that this pretended little remains of power left to the States, may, at the pleasure of Congress, be rendered nugatory.

Our situation will be deplorable indeed: Nor can we ever expect to get this government amended, since I have already shewn, that a very small minority may prevent it; and that small minority interested in the continuance of the oppression: Will the oppressor let go of the oppressed? Was there ever an instance? Can the annals of mankind exhibit one single example, where rulers overcharged with power, willingly let go the oppressed, though solicited and requested most earnestly?"

Now is the time for each one of us to sit down, and quietly ask ourselves, what is really happening here? With this new administration building upon the Patriot Act type of legislation set before it, we are in big trouble. We now have a "no-fly" list with over a million names on it of Americans who are not allowed to move about freely, though they have not been charged with a crime and given due process of law. We have a president talking about "preventative detention", which is indefinite imprisonment without any due process or representation. We have a chief of staff, Emanuel, talking about a mandatory, forced civilian service for all Americans beginning in middle school, and who is also pushing for those million plus Americans stripped of their mobility to be stripped of their Second Amendment rights without due process as well.

Right now, this month, we have foreign troops in the U.S. participating in FEMA's martial law exercise NLE 09 (don't believe it? google it: NLE 09). That means, under martial law, you could have foreign troops in your living room barking orders at your family in broken English.

It is actually dangerous to be outspoken about tyranny now. Dissent is criminalized. Militia activity is demonized and criminalized. Is Patrick Henry's vision of an America where neighbors could not assemble without risk of being shot by hired soldiery becoming a reality?

If we do not heed these warnings, the very arguments that gave birth to our Bill of Rights, we shall surely perish as subjects, not a free people. These rights have been infringed, and are under continuous assault RIGHT NOW!

STAND UP AND SHOUT "NO, WE WILL NOT ALLOW OUR CIVIL RIGHTS TO BE TAKEN AWAY UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES!"

Its time to Fire Washington, and put some people on that hill that know what being American is all about.

Source: The Fading American Dream: The Constitution Circumvented

Dual loyalty among Iraq war cheerleaders and spies

The best line in Nathan Guttman's piece in the Forward about the Justice Department's effort to prove that a pro-Israel spy ring was operating inside the Pentagon, AIPAC and the Israeli Embassy came from Steve Rosen, the former AIPAC lobbyist whose indictment on espionage charges the Justice Department recently dropped.

In 2003 the Justice Department stung Rosen. Here is how it went down. The feds had flipped a Pentagon analyst named Larry Franklin, who had been passing along secrets to Rosen and fellow AIPAC'er Keith Weissman. And in June 2003 they gave Franklin a fake cable saying that Israeli agents in Kurdistan were in mortal danger. Franklin brought the paper to Weissman at a restaurant. Weissman went back to AIPAC. Rosen promptly told an Israeli diplomat.

Franklin told the Forward that the AIPAC guys' actions crossed a line. The Forward got in touch with Rosen, who bridled.

"Franklin did not expect us to warn the Israelis that they would be kidnapped and killed? That’s like telling officials of the NAACP that there is going to be a lynching, but don’t warn the victims, because it is a secret.”

Rosen's response is fascinating for a few reasons. First, it shows that he sees himself as part of the Jewish nation, which transcends geographical borders. It is an expression of loyalty to the Jewish people. Second, his analogy of AIPAC to the NAACP during Jim Crow was echoed by Jeffrey Goldberg, the pro-Israel journalist, in a New York event two years ago where he said that gentiles can't say what is anti-Semitic, Jews can; just as blacks know what is racist and whites are not able to make that determination.

There is a second Goldberg echo here. In 2002 Goldberg wrote a piece from Kurdistan for the New Yorker on Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons that basically said that Saddam was another Hitler bent on acquiring nuclear weapons. The piece ended, of all places, at the Israeli embassy in Washington, where Goldberg talked to a diplomat about Israel's destruction of the nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981. The Kurdistan-Israel connection.

The Goldberg piece reminds us of the backdrop for the Justice Department investigation: the Iraq War. Franklin says that the Justice Department investigation was aimed at Doug Feith, the Under Secretary at the Pentagon, who pushed the Iraq war. Indeed, Justice was conducting this investigation through the spring of 2003, even as the U.S. was launching the disastrous Iraq war (at Goldberg's urging, too).

It is obvious in retrospect that a lot of the energy for the investigation must have come out of a feeling inside the Justice Department that Iraq war supporters were not being upfront about their true loyalty, Israel, which of course had been attacked by Iraq several times.

I share that feeling; and one of my grand irritants is Doug Feith's non-mea-culpa book of last year, War and Decision, where he basically put all the blame on George Bush, absolved the neoconservatives of any agency in the war, and failed to report the long memorandum purporting to link Al-Qaeda and Saddam that his office provided the White House to goad the country to war. At about the same time, Jeffrey Goldberg was also writing a piece for the New Yorker arguing that Saddam and Al-Qaeda had made an "alliance."

I believe that Feith and Goldberg pushed the war in good part out of concern for Israel's security. Goldberg has had dual loyalty. He once moved to Israel and served in the Israeli Defense Forces, back when he thought that anti-Semitism was a river running under American society. Feith, who is now a blogger (which is what he should have been doing instead of plotting the destruction of an Arab society), has often put Zionism and Israel first-- and he has good reason to do so. He says in his book that his Polish father narrowly escaped the Holocaust. "Both of his parents, four of his sisters, and all three of his brothers--my grandparents, aunts, and uncles--were murdered in the Holocaust."

Anyone with that background would be preeminently concerned about anti-Semitism. And the primacy of the Holocaust in the Jewish memory/experience means that Jewish liberals and even leftists have given the neoconservatives little resistance as they pushed a militant case on behalf of the Middle East's only democracy. We are all waking up from that now, the Jewish community is. The process will not be complete until neoconservatives and their adjutants are compelled to answer openly, Why do they feel unsafe in America? Is there any real basis for this insecurity?

Source: Mondoweiss

Bilderberger treason goes unpunished!

It is ironic, as Daniel Estulin points out, that America’s fledgling democracy established the Logan act in 1799 to protect itself from Americans fostering foreign associations to intrude in our affairs. Named after Dr. George Logan, a pro Republican and prescient Quaker from Pennsylvania, it has remained almost unchanged and unfortunately unused since its passage, though it reads with great relevance in the shadows of the New World Order’s operatives . . .

It states, “Any citizen of the United States, wherever he may be, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commences or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, with intent to influence the measures or conduct of any foreign government or of any officer or agent thereof, in relation to any disputes or controversies with the United States, or to defeat the measures of the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”

In fact, it is amazing that the Bilderberg Group has met since 1954 with funding from the CIA and is made up of the world’s most powerful people, notably US and world heads of state, made and in the making, numerous international corporate CEOs from business, banking, industry, media, as well as world royalty, plus high-ranking members of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Tri-Lateral Commission.

The Bilderberg goal has been to shape policy that deeply concerns the United States and its citizens in regards to innumerable foreign alliances without providing US citizens any awareness of same. And not once has any US member been indicted for their treasonous breaches in these actions.

Even though high-ranking members of the press attend Bilderberg annual meetings, there is little or no press coverage. They are there, as it were, to get with and push the program, albeit disguised. The meetings’ locales are announced only days before the events, always in a small town near a big city -- this year’s at the five-star Nafsika Astir Palace Hotel in Vouliagmeni, Greece, May 14-17.

There are no press reports of discussions, agendas or conclusions released. Yet the matters discussed ranged this year from all facets of the US economy, including the dollar’s future, whether there will be depression or prolonged stagnation, US unemployment; more frighteningly, even to the destruction of the United States as we know it into the North American Union of Canada, the US, and Mexico.

Even though I read and favorably reviewed Estulin’s Bilderberg 2007: Welcome to the Lunatic Fringe, this new edition of the story lends new urgency to what has been happening in the darkness of the political night we live in, both north and south of us, including newly made associations of corporations, plans to usurp US laws to North American Union imperatives, all part of a scheme to hammer America into the pieces of this NAU like broken glass into an unrecognizable mosaic of oppression.

There will also be a push for the enactment of the Lisbon Treaty, which depends on the Irish voting YES on the treaty in September or October. One of the Bilderberg concerns is neutralizing the anti-Lisbon treaty movement, Libertas, led by Declan Ganley. One of the Bilderberg strategies, for instance, is a whispering campaign in the US media, suggesting that Ganley is funded by arms dealers in the US linked to the US military. Right there you have a bird’s eye view of the Bilderbergers in action, with enough evidence to imprison a weighty handful of them, including some top dogs. And dogs they are, dogs of overt and covert war.

Most notably, they include the multi-billionaire David Rockefeller and ex-Secretary of State and war criminal Henry Kissinger. The Rockefeller family, influence, and fortune constitute the very hub of the Bilderberg Group. Its various spokes connect to international finance, economics, media, science, world health, politics, public works, any phase of life and death you can think of.

Together they form the wheel of the New World Order, rolling towards a vast collectivist society in which free nation states are subsumed under the Bilderberg Big Brothers, most notably Rockefeller, with an expanded UN military force, supported by taxes on oil at the wellhead to maintain order and security.

It is a strangely utopian notion of a “World Company,” an uber capitalist corporation vs. the nation state, a whole new Brand X of authoritarian rule. Its model most closely resembles a free-trade capitalist China with a communist authoritarianism to buttress it, in which the individual vanishes literally and figuratively; in which the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and two classes are de rigueur, rich and slave-class.

It’s no wonder one of the first familiar faces we see on the introduction’s page xxx is Chinese-speaking, India-born Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner. He is at the 2005 Germany-based Bilderberg meeting, then as president of New York’s Federal Reserve Bank, connecting as it were with those of common interests. How far he’s come since then and how deep we’ve sunk in Treasury debt.

You will find this highly secret organization’s history exposed with an encyclopedic level of documentation, including over 100 pages of participant photos, documents, names, titles, endnotes by Daniel Estulin, in this The True Story of The Bilderberg Group, updated revised and expanded in his latest North American Union Edition, 385 pages in all. To date, the editions of this groundbreaking work have sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide in 48 languages. The reason is its relevance for citizens of every free nation in the world, now an endangered species in the wake of Bilderberg connections and activities.

Estulin’s text reads like a mixture of Robert Ludlum, John LeCarre and Ian Fleming, given the world of intrigue he inhabits at the highest levels, meeting in the most luxurious, private-army and police guarded hotels. Estulin delivers secrets from an eyewitness point of view, having researched the group for the past 17 years and actually pierced the secret annual meetings well before his first 2007 edition.

One time it nearly cost him his life as he waited for an elevator in a hi-rise hotel with an information “source.” As the door opened, he stepped forward and was hauled back by the source’s iron grip. There was no floor. The elevator had been jimmied 800 feet down. One more step and he’d been silenced. Fortunately, Estulin’s family emigrated from Russia to Ottawa, Canada. His grandfather was high-level KGB, which gives him a genetic leg up in this predator’s game.

Estulin’s research has been augmented by many persons working in these hotels who, repulsed by the Bildies, have shared information on their dubious agendas, attendees, and locales. Then there are past and present intelligence officials from around the world, who report in as well, as the Bildies play “good old boys” club. They permit only a few wives to attend, a few noted media women, and the Queen of the Netherlands, one of the richest women in the world.

To give you a sense of its scope, the new Bilderberg edition is broken up into four sections: Part One: the Bildberg Group, including its foundation, bedfellows, objectives, puppets, a tale of the Watergate con game, and Bilderberg unmasked.

Part Two: The Council on Foreign Relations, includes Hit or Miss [that is a near miss of a hit on the author’s life in Italy], 1999, Crossover Partners, Journalistic Courtesans?, Enforced Disarmament, CFR Cabinet Control, CFR and Psycho-Political Operations, CFR and the Marshall Plan, Visible Partners.

Part Three: The Trilateral Commission, Back to the Future, Sophisticated Subversion, Packaging a President, Game of Monopoly, Bolsheviks’ Benefactors, Treason for Profit, Sacrificing a Nation [America].

The all-New Part Four: The North American Union (NAU), Detention, 2004, Overture, A Coming Union? Behind the Closed Door – In Documents & Pictures, Endnotes, a PS: actual Bilderberg Meeting Reports – 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, Author’s Afterward, and Index.

Again, as someone who read the earlier edition, I can say that all the new information is a substantial leap forward in exposing this shadow government that is working steadily for the US and other nations’ coups and subjugation to its New World Order.

The Bilderberg Meeting Reports give you a candid view of this motley crew, the self-proclaimed Masters of the Universe. The reports survey crossover relationships between ex-presidents, chiefs of state from yesterday and today, from their involvements in pointless wars and conflicts, all ending in private profit. You walk away with a real idea of the world elite’s plans for today and tomorrow, which are definitely not wine and roses for you.

In fact, the New World Order can be seen as a giant step backward in time to a form of feudalism governed with today’s technology and power brokers. It is an order ruled by raw power. The smell of this power seems to ooze out of the pages of the book and its tales, from Woodrow Wilson and his alter-ego, Edward M. House, working together to establish a NWO through the League of Nations . . . back to the financing of the Bolshevik Revolution by JP Morgan to undermine the power of the Czar and Russia.

As an alternate title to this review, I thought of “Flipping the Bilderbergers,” for in fact so many household names and faces of 20th and 21st century politics -- from history, business, media, banking and finance -- are revealed, involved in various predatory schemes to deflate or inflate currencies, destroy alliances, but most of all, to weaken America. And towards that end, is it any surprise that we find our industrial infrastructure in ruins, General Motors in bankruptcy, Chrysler about to be sold to Fiat, millions of American high tech jobs outsourced to India, millions more to near and far-eastern sweatshops, our economy bankrupted?

Is it any wonder that we find one bubble after another created and then broken in the stock market until the market itself is broken, a conspiracy of deregulation, and Greenspan’s photo turning up in various Bilderberg meetings, along with the ubiquitous Kissinger’s, like so many grinning cats who have swallowed the canaries? Is it any wonder that the Trilateral Commission has broken the world in three pieces: The Americas, Europe, and Asia, assigning South and Central Americas as our new sweat shops, Africa as Europe’s, and Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines as Japan’s?

And so, reading this True Story of the Bilderberg Group -- The North American Union Edition is an act of revelation. One that is necessary to help us protect ourselves against this final trashing of our borders as well as Canada’s and Mexico’s, which would pummel us into one entity ruled by the money-lust of corporate deal-makers, the same who have been planning this for years in their poisonous meetings.

Bottom line, the Fix is in. Innumerable deals have been and are being made between the north and south to weaken America like a brave bull by picadors, bleeding our strength, until the matadors thrust the final swords in us. Do not by any means underestimate their power or be overly afraid of it. When push comes to shove, there are more of us than them.

In fact, being exposed, opposed, deposed are the worst nightmares of the Bilderbergers, starting with its pointy-nosed, grinning zillionaire posing as a philanthropist, Dr. Doom himself, along with his cronies, from Bill Gates to Goldman Sachs, et al. We have to seek punishment for these men (and women) who have undermined the strength of our government and people with foreign alliances profitable only to them. We have to bring these treasonous persons to stand for their crimes. We have to use the Logan Act as it has never been used before and any and all other means to gain justice or face the consequences. That is Estulin’s message, loud and clear. Read it. See it. Believe it!

By Jerry Mazza

Source: Online Journal

DOJ moves to reverse AIPAC espionage case guilty plea and jail time

On May 1, government prosecutors dropped their espionage prosecution of former American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) employees Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.

Many expected a criminal trial to yield unprecedented accountability -- AIPAC’s opaque internal operations and unquenchable thirst for classified government information would finally be laid bare. Others saw the unprecedented application of the 1917 Espionage Act against non-government employees as a threat to freedom of speech.

Presiding Judge T.S. Ellis’ pretrial rulings made it nearly impossible for government prosecutors to prevail -- requiring them to reveal sensitive government information in court. Curiously, Ellis even wanted prosecutors to prove the defendants’ states of mind and ethereal intentions to harm the US rather than strict statutory culpability under the 1917 Espionage Act. Normally, Americans could now be either thrilled, outraged, or just blissfully unaware that the case has finally ended.

Except that it hasn’t ended.

Those concerned with rule of law were provided mixed relief but subtle hints of future maneuvers. In their formal motion (PDF) that Judge T.S. Ellis drop the case government prosecutors fired a Parthian shot by highlighting the “requirement of meeting an unexpectedly higher evidentiary threshold in order to prevail at trial.”

The New York Times recorded Joseph Persichini Jr. -- the top official at the F.B.I.’s Washington office -- was “disappointed” while FBI agents were “infuriated.” But the Times also hinted at politicization, reporting the decision chain extended from career attorneys all the way up to Attorney General Eric Holder -- who approved dropping the case. Dana J. Boente, Obama’s new acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia was omnipresent at negotiations. Boente’s formal statement seemed to exude remorse “the inevitable disclosure of classified information that would occur at any trial in this matter, we have asked the court to dismiss the indictment.”

The AIPAC investigation did yield Colonel Lawrence Franklin’s guilty plea for leaking classified information to Rosen and Weissman. Franklin was sentenced to a $10,000 fine, 151 months of prison, and three years of supervised release. Surely with Franklin ensconced in jail, few would be again tempted to influence US policies through high stakes classified information gambits. Justice would have been done, to some degree. But is all the scripted remorse and regret just a ruse?

On May 19, a powerful coalition of 125 Rabbis signed a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder requesting a probe into whether “anti-Semitism and/or anti-Israel sentiments” played any role in the original investigation of AIPAC. Michelle Boorstein of the Washington Post published an article titled “Was Case Against AIPAC Lobbyists Anti-Semitic?“ It sternly noted that the case “wasn’t a total loss for the government” because it did win Franklin’s guilty plea. That plea is the only remaining evidence that wrongdoing occurred -- but for the Israel lobby, history reveals even this is totally unacceptable.

Last year, shortly before George W. Bush left office, intense lobbying finally won the posthumous pardon of Charles Winters. Winters was convicted of violating U.S. arms embargos for his role in the illicit shipment of aircraft to Jewish fighters in Palestine in 1948.

A Protestant from Boston, Winters didn’t have the lifelong ideological drive of co-conspirators Hank Greenspun and Al Schwimmer. Neither ever served any jail time. Greenspun, a newspaper man in Nevada, won a presidential pardon when John F. Kennedy entered office. Schwimmer simply emigrated to Israel. Both subsequently went on to play major roles in the Israeli arms smuggling segment of the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s. But the fact that only Winters ever did time for crime (18 months in jail and a $5,000 fine) was a lingering stain that couldn’t be erased. This has relevance for the plight of Lawrence Franklin.

AIPAC and other arms of the Israel lobby can’t now openly lobby President Barak Obama for a Franklin pardon so soon after his administration graciously dropped the case. But AIPAC also can’t wait four to eight years for a pardon or even function effectively while Lawrence Franklin languishes in prison for what many supporters consider heroic behavior.

The Bureau of Prisons -- which assigned Franklin inmate number 70425-083 -- indicates he is still not yet in custody, Fortunately for Franklin he may never set foot into his assigned minimum security prison in Cumberland, Maryland. Attorney General Eric Holder holds the key to his future.

The Department of Justice has recently admitted errors and asked a federal court to free two Alaskans and review their convictions in connection with the Senator Ted Stevens corruption probe.

Former Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder’s earlier and seemingly inexplicable recommendation that President Bill Clinton pardon tax fugitive Marc Rich once looked both tawdry and even career threatening before he became attorney general in the Obama administration Given recent moves to free other Bush era convictions, the incident looks highly relevant and so is the process to secretly erase Franklin’s guilty plea and sentence in court.

On May 14, US attorneys quietly filed a sealed motion (PDF) “as to Lawrence Anthony Franklin” in the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Ellis then granted a hearing for June 12 at 9AM. On June 2, they filed a sealed memorandum about Franklin. Though sealed motions are of course secret, it is likely that under the watchful eye of Eric Holder the DOJ’s political appointees are arranging yet another special favor for the Israel lobby in order to steer around the Obama pardon dilemma.

As is now customary, any potential future downsides and details of such a sealed deal are not allowed to be publicly debated. Just as quiet clemency for Schwimmer and Greenspun paved the way for weapons smuggling to Iran, this quiet effort will undoubtedly yield some future crisis.

If Eric Holder springs Franklin he will have issued a facto license to AIPAC -- the likes of which haven’t been seen since former Attorney General Nicolas Katzenbach quashed the DOJ’s massive drive to register the entire lobby as Israeli foreign agents. AIPAC can then not only traffic in as much classified US national defense information as it can carry, but execute larger and more audacious covert activities at US taxpayer expense under the immunizing banner of Israel.

In the broadest sense the AIPAC espionage scandal hasn’t ended -- it may be only just beginning.

By Grant F. Smith

Source: Online Journal