Category Archives: politics

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Jesse’s Café Américain: Thomas Jefferson On the Danger of a Concentration of Power On Government

Thomas Jefferson, Collected Papers and Correspondence Vol. 12, Letter to George Logan:

Poplar Forest near Lynchburg, Nov. 12, 1816

Dear Sir,

I received your favor of Oct. 16, at this place, where I pass much of my time, very distant from Monticello…

Your idea of the moral obligations of governments are perfectly correct. The man who is dishonest as a statesman would be a dishonest man in any station. It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings collected together are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.

It is a great consolation to me that our government, as it cherishes most its duties to its own citizens, so is it the most exact in its moral conduct towards other nations. I do not believe that in the four administrations which have taken place, there has been a single instance of departure from good faith towards other nations. We may sometimes have mistaken our rights, or made an erroneous estimate of the actions of others, but no voluntary wrong can be imputed to us.

In this respect England exhibits the most remarkable phaenomenon in the universe in the contrast between the profligacy of its government and the probity of its citizens. And accordingly it is now exhibiting an example of the truth of the maxim that virtue and interest are inseparable.

It ends, as might have been expected, in the ruin of its people, but this ruin will fall heaviest, as it ought to fall, on that hereditary aristocracy which has for generations been preparing the catastrophe.

I hope we shall take warning from the example and crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country.

Present me respectfully to Mrs. Logan and accept yourself my friendly and respectful salutations.

Thomas Jefferson

via Jesse’s Café Américain: Thomas Jefferson On the Danger of a Concentration of Power On Government.

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Life after Politics: Lessons from the 2012 US Elections – YouTube

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, sifts through the wreckage of the 2012 US elections to find hope for reason, peace and the progress of humanity.

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Nigel Farage ~ Mrs Merkel, Tell Cameron It’s Time For Britain To Leave EU [Video w/ transcript] | Shift Frequency

Transcript  ~ Good afternoon, everybody. Chancellor Merkel,

So you’re off to Downing Street to negotiate the EU budget with David Cameron. And you do so against the backdrop of the Court of Auditors, yesterday, for the 18th year in a row, failing to give the accounts a clean bill of health; you do so against the vote in the House of Commons last week where a majority of MPs were asking for reductions in the EU Budget.

And of course you do so with a growing anger in Britain – Why are we pumping £53 million a day of British taxpayers’ money into this Union? Not that it will matter a bit. Cameron is a very weak Prime Minister, I am sure you shall walk all over him tonight and win that negotiation. But the EU budget isn’t really the question. It is Britain’s place in this Union that is the real question. And increasingly Britain looks like a square peg in a round hole.

See:

Nigel Farage ~ Mrs Merkel, Tell Cameron It’s Time For Britain To Leave EU [Video w/ transcript] | Shift Frequency.

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BBC News – Cameron and Merkel hold ‘warm and friendly’ EU budget talks

Doesn’t she look ‘warm and friendly’?

David Cameron said the EU budget should be frozen “at worst”

David Cameron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have held “open, warm and friendly” talks about the controversial EU budget, Downing Street says.

At the end of the hour-long meeting Number 10 said “both parties were at the same end of the spectrum”.

Mr Cameron had said the EU budget should be frozen or cut, but Mrs Merkel says an increase is necessary.

Officials said discussions on the issue would continue.

Ahead of the crunch talks between the two leaders, Mrs Merkel said she wanted Britain to remain in the European Union.

She was reacting to a call by UKIP leader Nigel Farage for an “amicable divorce” between Brussels and Britain.

Germany has indicated it is sympathetic to the UK’s arguments that the EU needs to cut costs, but says some increase in the long-term budget is necessary.

Speaking at a joint press conference with Mrs Merkel before their talks, Mr Cameron said: “We are both believers that European countries have to live within their means, as does the European Union and I know that we will discuss that issue tonight.”

Of the EU budget, he said: “At best it should be a cut, at worst a freeze.”

Mr Cameron said: “I believe our membership of the European Union is important and that is the basis on which we will be having our discussions tonight.”

‘Wonderful island’

Before their meeting the two leaders had dinner at Downing Street – a starter of spinach and mushroom tart, followed by venison and then traditional German cake for pudding.

Mrs Merkel said the EU budget would “loom large” in the pair’s discussions as Britain and Germany had shared interests as net contributors to the EU – and both had to reach a deal with other countries that “will stand up in the court of public opinion back home”.

She added: “We will not complete negotiations tonight but we want to do this in the spirit of partnership and friendship in order to focus our interests.”

She refused “to be drawn into discussion” of whether Britain should decide if it wanted to leave the EU as the bloc moved towards closer integration, as recently suggested by Polish European commissioner Janusz Lewandowski.

But speaking earlier in the European Parliament, Mrs Merkel had a direct message for the British people – who she called “the inhabitants of this wonderful island” – telling them: “You won’t be happy if you are alone in this world.”

She was reacting to a speech by UKIP leader Nigel Farage, who urged her to tell Mr Cameron the time had come for “a simple amicable divorce” as feeling in the UK runs completely against the tide of the greater EU integration being promoted by the German leader.

Mrs Merkel hit back by saying: “I cannot imagine that the UK would not be part of Europe.”

“I think it is also good for the UK to be in Europe,” the German chancellor said, adding she would do “everything” to keep the UK in the EU “as a good partner”.

In less than three weeks EU leaders will gather for a summit at which they will try to work out the next set of long-term spending plans for Brussels.

Speaking in Abu Dhabi, during his three-day visit to the Middle East, Mr Cameron said he would make a “very robust and strong argument” for an arrangement that forced the European Commission to limit its budget.

He said: “They are proposing a completely ludicrous 100 billion euro increase in the European budget.

‘Better deal’

“I’ll be arguing for a very tough outcome. I never had very high hopes for a November agreement because you have got 27 different people round the table with 27 different opinions.”

Last week the government was defeated in a Commons vote on the EU budget after 53 Conservative MPs defied their party over the issue.

Tory rebels joined with Labour to pass an amendment calling for a real-terms cut in spending between 2014 and 2020.

The amendment was not binding on ministers, but was seen as a blow to David Cameron’s authority on Europe ahead of the EU budget summit.

But one of the rebels, Tory MP Douglas Carswell, told BBC News the Commons vote would strengthen the PM’s hand, saying: “We might just be able to get a better deal.”

Any deal agreed by EU leaders later this month would have to be put to the Commons for approval.

Mr Cameron has said he would be prepared to veto any unacceptable proposal – which would mean that a deal would not go ahead.

If no agreement is reached by the end of next year the 2013 budget will be rolled into 2014 with a 2% rise to account for inflation.

via BBC News – Cameron and Merkel hold ‘warm and friendly’ EU budget talks.

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Will You Make Obama and Congress Produce Change? | The Clyde Fitch Report

Einstein’s credited with defining insanity this way: repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different result.

So here we are. Tuesday’s elections returned Barack Obama to the White House and kept control of the Senate in the Democrats’ hands and the House of Representatives in the Republicans’ grasp, and probably a more divided House.

Of course, we realize we were damned if we did or damned if we didn’t in voting for Obama or Romney: two millionaires married to the military-industrial complex. And the only two candidates the corporate media let you hear in “debates.”

If you’d have heard the Third Party debates on an independent network you’d have discovered four candidates, from conservative to liberal, who didn’t agree with the two Big Guns on these issues: the economy, the Federal Reserve, student-loan debt, endless war, deadly drones killing innocents, and the National Defense Authorization Act—which allows your military to arrest anyone in the world, including Americans, and to imprison them without charge or trial. They also spoke of a growing police state at home, which the two Eye Spy Guys wouldn’t dare mention.

So the votes went to the two One-Percenters, with the less rich one winning again. But enough bitching about election reality. So where do we go from here in our own living reality?

Throughout this year, if you heard any independent investors (not Wall Street banksters) interviewed about the economy, they consistently weren’t impressed or even concerned that much with the presidential race. They’re concerned about the Federal Reserve’s endless printing of money, which they see going to the banks while the Fed keeps interest rates artificially low, costing savers billions.

They also see this and the continually rising national debt eventually leading to a more catastrophic economic meltdown than the nation and world suffered in 2008. They don’t feel it’s something the Republican or Democratic presidential candidates, or Congress, or the Fed are willing to do anything about.

We saw Obama and Romney avoid or twist—from the two national political conventions through the Dynamic Duos’ “debates”—five vital issues they didn’t want to honestly face: water, food, energy, the military-industrial complex, and personal-and-economic health. Those vital issues will remain with us through the next four years, and we’ve included links to explain them. We review them here.

We have pointed out, and will continue to point out, that politicians are not leaders, they’re followers. It’s up to you to get organized, get educated and get active, so that you understand the vital issues’ significance, and so you can get politicians to follow your lead in bringing change. We also show the two ways you can directly take your government back…if you want to.

via Will You Make Obama and Congress Produce Change? | The Clyde Fitch Report.

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The Special Interests Won Again – PaulCraigRoberts.org

The election that was supposed to be too close to call turned out not to be so close after all. In my opinion, Obama won for two reasons: (1) Obama is non-threatening and inclusive, whereas Romney exuded a “us vs. them” impression that many found threatening, and (2) the election was not close enough for the electronic voting machines to steal.

As readers know, I don’t think that either candidate is a good choice or that either offers a choice. Washington is controlled by powerful interest groups, not by elections. What the two parties fight over is not alternative political visions and different legislative agendas, but which party gets to be the whore for Wall Street, the military-security complex, Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and energy, mining, and timber interests.

Being the whore is important, because whores are rewarded for the services that they render. To win the White House or a presidential appointment is a career-making event as it makes a person sought after by rich and powerful interest groups. In Congress the majority party can provide more services and is thus more valuable than the minority party. One of our recent presidents who was not rich ended up with $36 million shortly after leaving office, as did former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who served Washington far better than he served his own country.

Wars are profitable for the military/security complex. Israel rewards its servants and punishes its enemies. Staffing environmental regulatory agencies with energy, mining, and timber executives is regarded by those interests as very friendly behavior.

Many Americans understand this and do not bother to vote as they know that whichever candidate or party wins, the interest groups prevail. Ronald Reagan was the last president who stood up to interest groups, or, rather, to some of them. Wall Street did not want his tax rate reductions, as Wall Street thought the result would be higher inflation and interest rates and the ruination of their stock and bond portfolios. The military/security complex did not want Reagan negotiating with Gorbachev to end the cold war.

What is curious is that voters don’t understand how politics really works. They get carried away with the political rhetoric and do not see the hypocrisy that is staring them in the face. Proud patriotic macho American men voted for Romney who went to Israel and, swearing allegiance to his liege lord, groveled at the feet of Netanyahu. Obama plays on the heart strings of his supporters by relating a story of a child with leukemia now protected by Obamacare, while he continues to murder thousands of children and their parents with drones and other military actions in seven countries. Obama was able to elicit cheers from supporters as he described the onward and upward path of America toward greater moral accomplishments, while his actual record is that of a tyrant who codified into law the destruction of the US Constitution and the civil liberties of the American people.

The election was about nothing except who gets to serve the interest groups. The wars were not an issue in the election. Washington’s provoking of Iran, Russia, and China by surrounding them with military bases was not an issue. The unconstitutional powers asserted by the executive branch to detain citizens indefinitely without due process and to assassinate them on suspicion alone were not an issue in the election. The sacrifice of the natural environment to timber, mining, and energy interests was not an issue, except to promise more sacrifice of the environment to short-term profits. Out of one side of the mouth came the nonsense promise of restoring the middle class while from the other side of the mouth issued defenses of the offshoring of their jobs and careers as free trade.

The inability to acknowledge and to debate real issues is a threat not only to the United States but also to the entire world. Washington’s reckless pursuit of hegemony driven by an insane neoconservative ideology is leading to military confrontation with Russia and China. Eleven years of gratuitous wars with more on the way and an economic policy that protects financial institutions from their mistakes have burdened the US with massive budget deficits that are being monetized. The US dollar’s loss of the reserve currency role and hyperinflation are plausible consequences of disastrous economic policy.

How is it possible that “the world’s only superpower” can hold a presidential election without any discussion of these very real and serious problems being part of it? How can anyone be excited or made hopeful about such an outcome?

via The Special Interests Won Again – PaulCraigRoberts.org.

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Election Day Is Finally Here: Tonight Is Going to Suck No Matter What | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone

So it’s finally here – the big day. After eighteen months of relentless, ear-splitting propaganda, with thousands, if not tens of thousands, of reporters humping the horse-race (jumping on every single poll like heavily-panting boy-dogs with their little red wieners showing) and day after day swinging the heavy horseshit-hammer of Thor, braining us with one meaningless, made-up non-controversy after another – after all that angst and stress and directionless aggression, it’s finally going to end.

Continued:

via Election Day Is Finally Here: Tonight Is Going to Suck No Matter What | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone.