Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
Tags: Bill Ayers, Dr. Robert Owens, Frank Marshall Davis, fundamentally transform America, Obama’s firsts, Obama’s socialist agenda, Progressive agenda, Progressives, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Saul Alinsky, socialism, transformational president, Utopia, utopians
Ronald Reagan taught us, “How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”
Barack Obama’s mentor as a young man was communist party member Frank Marshall Davis. As a community organizer he was a follower and promoter of the communist fellow-traveler Saul Alinsky’s methods and goals. As a professional in Hyde Park he associated with socialist radicals such as Bill Ayers. As an up-and-coming Chicago Politician he attended the church of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, an outspoken proponent of the socialist Black Liberation Theology. As president he appointed communist Van Jones to be one of his many Czars. Mr. Obama says he is not a socialist. However, simple logic tells us if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck you can be relatively certain it’s a duck.
Mr. Obama has told us that he seeks to be a transformational president like his idol FDR. He was bold enough to tell us just days before the election in 2008 that he would fundamentally transform America. In just one term he has accomplished much along the way to changing us from what we have always been into what the Progressives have always wanted us to be.
How has Barak Obama transformed us? Into what is he transforming us? A look at his impressive *list of firsts as president of these United States points in the direction he is herding us:
Mr. Obama is leading us from being the first among nations to being just another vote in the United Nations. Now there’s a level playing field for you. And now it’s time for another election, some say our most important, some say perhaps our last.
In many ways this election cycle is refreshing. For generations the Progressives have pretended to be something they are not to win elections. They have pretended to be dedicated to the American dream of personal liberty, economic freedom and the belief that America was different from other nations, that as the world’s first and most enduring modern experiment in a republic based on limited government we were exceptional. Although the policies of the Progressives have always been at odds with this assumed identity at least every election cycle they would tip their hat to the America of our fathers and portray themselves as a Thomas Jefferson or an Andrew Jackson.
Therefore, 2012 is shaping up to be the election where the Progressives cast aside their mask and run as who they are: the American version of socialism promising to tax the rich and spread the wealth around, from each according to their ability to each according to their need.
If Mr. Obama wins re-election on this platform the Progressives will finally have their chance to give Americans the same kind of cradle-to-grave utopia the happy people of Russia, China, North Korea, and Hitler’s Germany have had the fortune to endure. If Mr. Obama wins re-election espousing the true intentions of the Progressives, to change the constitution from a rock solid foundation for freedom into a living document that is a dead letter, he will succeed at his vow to fundamentally transform America.
He will fundamentally transform the dreams of our fathers for a land of liberty and opportunity into the dreams of his father who was a pro-communist social engineer and America will become just another country trying to build heaven on earth by plundering some to benefit others.
As to his utopian beliefs and aspirations President Obama has said, “I am confident we can create a Kingdom right here on Earth”
President Reagan also told us, “Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don’t need it, and hell where they already have it.”
*Lists of Mr. Obama’s firsts are found numerous places. The sources referenced for each first are merely representative of the many available for each.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2012 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
Tags: Capitalism, Constitution, Corporatism, Dr. Robert Owens, National Socialism, socialism
Like a sleight-of-hand-artist on a busy street with a briefcase that turns into a table, three walnuts shells and a pea the perpetually re-elected and their town criers in the Corporations Once Known as the mainstream Media appear to be perennially able to fool the perpetually distracted by pulling a metaphorical quarter out of their ear.
I know a professional revolutionary. We grew up together. He has correctly diagnosed America’s disease as a corporate cult in a symbiotic relationship with a corrupt government. He deftly outlines the general theory, although not the specifics of how crony capitalists and political hacks have crafted a system wherein money laundering has become national policy. The political hacks fleece the sheeple through taxes and inflation. They give the money to their accomplices in the flimflam corporations who funnel huge chunks of cash back to the hacks for re-election. Every few years the sheeple rouse themselves out of their media induced coma long enough to be herded to the polls to vote for more of the same.
Yes, the professional revolutionaries and their government educated followers have correctly diagnosed the disease. However, they have prescribed poison instead of medicine. Their answer to the curse of Corporatism’s National Socialism is less nationalism and more socialism. Since corporatism has built a coffin our body politic cannot seem to claw its way out of, he prescribes cutting out the crony capitalists and giving the whole operation to the political hacks. In other words if the black shirts have ruined the country let’s try the reds. That would be as transparent as fighting the most horrendous war in human history because Hitler attempted to pull Poland into his freedom smothering embrace and then giving Poland to Stalin.
Headlines and talking heads scream for days, “The Super Committee cannot fail or the sky will fall!” Endless hours in the 24 hour news cycle are devoted to debating, “Will the Super Committee succeed or will they fail?” Meanwhile most of the sheeple are consumed with concern about the NBA strike, a celebrity drowning thirty years ago, or was Kim’s wedding a set-up all along. Then we’re told he Super Committee failed accompanied by endless squabbling about who caused the failure.
It is all nothing but Kabuki, a form of Japanese drama based on popular legends and characterized by elaborate costumes, stylized acting.
Remember how the Super Committee became so super? It didn’t come from another planet with a red sun and lower gravity. It was instead the Frankenstein created as the cover for another rise in the debt ceiling. The Tea Party had just made a Herculean effort in the 2010 elections and achieved an historical sweep of the House of Representatives. Over sixty newly minted congressmen owed their seat at the table of plenty to the greatest grassroots movement America has seen in generations. They had campaigned on changing the culture of corruption in Washington, stopping the deficit spending, severing the cord to the crony capitalists, and paying down the national debt.
Before they could even arrive the Republican leadership colluded with a recently humiliated inexperienced president and a recently repudiated Democratic leadership to extend the Bush tax cuts in exchange for more spending in the lamest of all lame duck sessions. Then as soon as the fresh troops arrive they raise their hands in salute to the same old Republican leadership, renew the patriot Act, pass a series of continuing resolutions allowing the drunken sailors to continue spending, and then vote to raise the debt ceiling by another few trillions. Oh but they fought! They wrangled and they refused to give the Spender in Chief more trillions of our great grandchildren’s money unless he agreed to a Super Committee backed up by automatic cuts and automatic tax increases in future deficits totaling trillions of dollars in cuts. This was drama worthy of As Washington Turns. If it was joke it wouldn’t be funny.
To begin with the Super Committee wasn’t filled with deficit hawks and balanced budget advocates. It was instead filled with the most partisan members from both wings of the Party of Power guaranteeing there would be no settlement. Obviously the plan all along was for the automatic cuts and taxes to come into play, over the next ten years. In other words the spendaholics of this Congress are going to place limits on the credit card of following Congresses who have the ability to vote away the limits any time they want to. How could that ever fail?
The smoke and mirrors of political theater is meant to hide the fact that all they’re arguing over is reducing the yearly deficits way off there in the future somewhere. All they ever discussed was slowing the rate of increase. Even if the most draconian plan so far introduced by the young firebrand Representative Ryan had been adopted the budget still went up every year, and the national debt still grew every year. And though there would have been more and more spending with no end to the red ink in sight Ryan was portrayed as pushing Grandma off the cliff and a large percentage of the population believes it. This is baseline budgeting wherein the proposed budget becomes the base for what is cut. In other words our leaders can cut all day and the spending still goes up.
It is time to tell our hypnotized fellow citizens to take the blinders off. Wake up! The house is on fire and the firemen are pouring gasoline on the flames.
The system is broke and it is becoming very clear that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put this thing together again. The spending goes on every second of every minute of every hour of every day. The tax code that ostensibly is designed to pay for it all is in reality a bewildering maze meant to trap those unsophisticated enough not to hire an army of tax lawyers and accountants while legally recognized persons such as GE file 57,000 page tax returns on fourteen billion in profits and pays no tax at all.
While the hemorrhaging of our descendants wealth goes on night and day we are being set up for the next battle to raise the debt ceiling, the balanced budget amendment. Even if this long threatened turkey could finally make it to the block what good is a balanced budget amendment? The spendthrifts we call a government can still spend all they want as long as they raise enough money to pretend to cover at least the on budget portion of the swag. And where do you think they will raise the money? They will either raise taxes or print money. Either way we pay so they can play. What we need is a spending amendment that limits spending to a prescribed percentage of the GDP.
At one time the best tongue in cheek advice for coping with the policies of the convention of confidence men masquerading as the American government was get a government job and study Spanish. Now the situation has descended even beyond the black humor of that cynical joke. Today the best advice may be to hunker in the bunker, store food, and learn enough History so you can tell those who come after what America used to be.
Last year I thought it was time to take the gloves off and tell America the emperor has no clothes. To do so this advocate of the Constitution and limited government wrote The Constitution Failed. A book which places current events in a constitutional and historical context proving that while our nation was founded upon a document meant to limit government we now stand face-to-face with an unlimited government. I believed it was time to sound the alarm. I thought people were ready to admit the terrible truth; our government does little more than tip its hat to the Constitution while doing whatever it wants. The first step in solving any problem is admitting you have a problem. The second is recognizing what that problem is. My hope is that The Constitution Failed will help people recognize and identify the problem so that we the people can reach a solution.
As one who has been pounding this drum and singing this song for fifty years all I can do is wonder, will the drowning Lady Liberty finally see the life preserver as she goes down for the last time? Will she finally grasp the Constitution as the only thing that has ever guaranteed limited government, personal freedom and economic opportunity in America? Will she remember her past and save her future or will she sink beneath the waves of government regulation and drown in the red tape of an all-powerful central government?
I wrote The Constitution Failed to make a difference. I wrote it because I see my beloved country walking off a cliff into the abyss of socialism and I am compelled to throw out the life line.
If you want to read The Constitution Failed send me an email with your address and I will send you a complimentary copy. I want to see the re-birth of limited government. I want to see personal liberty and economic freedom continue to exist in this: the last best hope of mankind. And I’m ready to put my money where my heart is, limited government, personal liberty and economic freedom.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Politics.
Tags: Capitalism, Dr. Robert Owens, Fascism, Occupy Wall Street, socialism
In the topsey turvey world of 21st century America those who live by the kindness of strangers wish to dictate how much kindness they deserve changing the strangers from benefactors to victims. We have reached a point where our national motto should be “Stand and Deliver” as a runaway government devours everything in sight in an effort to satisfy the growing demands of their pre-programmed supporters.
America has taken such a bizarre turn that oxymorons are the only things that make sense any more. Organized anarchy has exploited militant apathy to create regulated liberty so that producers must provide for slackers and the informed must follow the dictates of the willfully ignorant. You can’t fix stupid but there is a cure for ignorance. If we could just get these products of public education and sports hypnosis to take off the blinders long enough to understand the meaning behind the matrix perhaps we could garner one more electoral victory to stop us before we step off the cliff. Except of course the Corporations Once Known as the Mainstream Media are working as hard as they can to make sure our choice comes down to Tweedle De and Tweedle Dum.
Our Progressive era seeks to change the old adage, “Those who refuse to learn from History are doomed to repeat it” to “Those who refuse to learn from History doom the rest of us to repeat it.” The patients have seized control of the asylum. The land of the free and the home of the brave is transforming into the land of the free lunch and the home of the knaves. Symbiosis is the living together in more or less intimate association or close union of two dissimilar organisms as in parasitism. What we are witnessing today is symbiosis on steroids wherein the parasite isn’t merely along for the ride but instead demands the driver’s seat.
Looking at the almost bewildering explosion of reality we call today our minds behold the organized anarchy of the occupy everywhere movement that is spreading around the world. We are now witnessing a government supported revolution akin to Mao’s Cultural Revolution. This isn’t a revolt of the 99% seeking to devour the 1% it is the 46% that pay no federal taxes seeking to increase the production from their 54% milk cows. To call forcing one segment of the population to work to support another segment of the population paying your fair share makes theft a contribution and bondage a responsibility.
The people involved express a variety of causes. They want a bailout for home owners who are upside down or in foreclosure. At the same time they want those who accepted the bailout on Wall Street prosecuted. They want student loans forgiven, wars stopped, big corporations downsized, and an end to capitalism. Many politicians and their major media publicity machine have embraced the movement labeling it the Progressive version of the Ta Party. This is a window on the future. Showing the silent majority what is to come: a shabby world where the Lilliputians have not only bound Gulliver they have harnessed him to the cart and forced him to be their beast of burden.
By seeking the destruction of capitalism instead of seeking to break the umbilical cord between the crony capitalists and their bought and paid for politicians what they really seek is to force us to worship the myth of free enterprise as we sacrifice the energy and inventiveness of the productive on the altar of the indolent.
It is time to lay our cards on the table. It is time to call a spade a spade. Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined by competition in a free market. Socialism is an economic characterized by collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods. Fascism is an economic system that exalts the nation above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government with severe economic regimentation. Essentially fascism is socialism pretending to be capitalism since private ownership exists in a government straightjacket.
Which of these systems do we have? Which of these systems is staring us in the face every day?
I challenge anyone and everyone to take this test. Watch the stock market for one month. Watch its ups and downs. What you will see is that the market does not move because of innovation or production it moves in response to government actions, statements, and policies. While we still have private ownership the government is increasingly regulating and controlling the economy. Take the test. Review the definitions above and you decide. Which of these systems do we have? Or does it have us?
America has never experienced a truly capitalistic system. We were born under mercantilism. We grew to power under Henry Clay’s American System of nationalistic paternalism. We have flirted with socialism in a mixed system since FDR reshuffled the deck and institutionalized the New Deal. And now we struggle to maintain some visage of freedom at the edge of a crony capitalism whose Progressive public-private security blanket has become the pillow that smothers all incentive. We have morphed from a representative republic operating on democratic principles into a state wholly owned by a good old boy coalition composed of the perpetually re-elected, the unions, and the crony capitalists: the Outfit.
The over educated under informed lemmings that call themselves the 99% are being duped by the Outfit. They are a collective battering ram assailing the last remnants of American individualism. They are using the threat of social unrest to demand the final triumph of “I want what I want” over “I get what I earn.”
What’s the cure for the Great Recession? Is it more government spending and more government control as the Outfit and their 99% fellow-travelers tell us? Is it “Drill baby drill” and a return to a golden-age of pure capitalism that never really existed?
First we must understand our situation. What is the cause of the chronic state of our anemic recovery? Is it as our president tells us and the world: Americans are soft, arrogant and lazy? Or have we finally reached the tipping point? Have we finally reached the point where all the Peters being robbed to pay for Paul’s vacation have decided to change their name to Paul? Is this a recession or is it a strike? The central planners look at the wreckage of a once great economy that their programs have gutted and say, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking some eggs.” They should be asking “How many omelets can they make if the goose doesn’t lay any more golden eggs?”
Which leads to one last question: “Who is John Galt?”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College. He is the author of the History of the Future @ http://drrobertowens.com © 2011 Robert R. Owens drrobertowens@hotmail.com Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.
Tags: Authoritarianism, Capitalism, China, Communism, Dr. Robert Owens, National Debt, Progressivism, socialism, Tenth Amendment, totalitarianism
Where does our federal government get the right to put the chains of hopeless debt on our grandchildren to buy a better hammock for those who won’t work? The 10th Amendment says, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” If we never delegated the power to create a National Debt how did the government get it? The power to encumber is the power to destroy. This habit of charging the Visa to the MasterCard is selling us out to the rising red star in the East and if we don’t pull the brake we’re heading for a cliff.
East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet passed for wisdom in the days when information took more than a nanosecond passing between continents. Today they not only meet they compete, and the Red Emperors of the East exploit the red ink of the West. Today our Progressive leaders embrace the suffocating sameness of socialist conformity and collectivist confiscation while communist mandarins release the long pent up energies of their people.
Living behind the veil of a high-tech Forbidden City unseen by the outside world Red Emperors abandoned the unattainable ideal of equality of outcome for the more economically successful model of indigenous industries and monetary policies designed to ensure a favorable balance of trade. Alexander Hamilton once recommended these policies and the early United States followed them. The unseen hand of Chinese leaders transforms Mao’s Stalinist nightmare into the poster child for an economic miracle.
Transforming a cult of personality into an oligarchy holding local elections monitored by the Carter Center and judged by them to be open and competitive top leadership faces intraparty elections and peacefully transfer power from one leader to the next. They’ve jettisoned Communist economic policies, which inevitably lead to ruin transforming themselves into a corporate-style authoritarianism resembling the Five Families of New York, or the Outfit and Machine of Chicago. An efficient arrangement that provides ample benefits for those who shut-up and go along to get along and ruthless whacks for any mole silly enough to poke its head up.
The tale of two civilizations: America slides into the decay of collectivism with oppressive regulations and confiscatory taxes discouraging the innovation and enterprise which made us great. China turns away from these tools of re-distribution and embraces capitalism without naming it. Today, business opportunities found in the shadow of Tiananmen Square are discouraged and penalized in the shadow of the Liberty Bell.
Today Union Bosses no longer break your legs if you oppose them, instead they sell your stock short, likewise the leaders of the People’s Liberation Army openly urge that China dump American bonds to influence American policies a naked example of Chinese power and American weakness. China knows they can’t face America militarily. However, due to crippling collectivist policies the American economy is on life support propped up through massive borrowing from China making us vulnerable to extortion. In addition to the $798.9 billion in U.S. Treasuries China holds its accumulated $2.4 trillion in foreign reserves mainly in American dollars. How are they using this economic arsenal? China buys American natural resources, major stakes in American Icon companies, and control of vital natural resources around the world.
As the economies and social systems of Western Europe stumble and America lurches in the same direction what type of system will rise from the abyss? Will dazed survivors of the coming crash shuffle off into a shabby future replicating the collectivist mistakes that drove us off the cliff adding totalitarian terror tactics to the mix or will the re-booted West re-embrace the inspirational thinking of the Enlightenment? Though it’s the excesses of casino capitalism protected and bailed-out by cronies in government inflating the bubbles of our drowning civilization economic freedom and republican principles are blamed for the crime. The true engine of our decline is the collectivism of the Progressives slipping in one entitlement and one tax at a time regulating opportunity and predetermining outcomes. This undermined the economic and social forces of Western exceptionalism. As bewildered citizens become aware of what’s happened to their countries they’ll gravitate to whoever promises the best example of success. It’s an inescapable conclusion China is well situated to provide that example.
Confucius said, “To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” The debtor is slave to the lender, and he who pays the piper calls the tune. Whether it comes from the East or the West, wisdom tells us spending yourself into oblivion isn’t such a good deal when it comes time to pay the bill, and payday’s coming some day.
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.
Tags: cradle-to-grave welfare state, Dr. Robert Owens, fundamentally transform America, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, socialism, Tea Party Movement, totalitarianism
Just like it isn’t bragging when you can really do it and it isn’t paranoia when they’re really out to get you the bluster of an undefeated champion is often well founded. For years when Mohammed Ali said, “I’m the greatest” he was right. For years when Iron Mike Tyson said, “Nobody can beat me” he was right. However, there comes a time when Rocky II turns into Rocky III. There comes a time when the Champ is no longer facing the Bum of the Month Club he’s facing Clubber Lang. There comes a time when all the bluster becomes braggadocio. When the hollow taunting of opponents no longer intimidates it merely enrages. President Obama’s recent condescending and insulting mockery of the Tea Party Movement has blended with that of his political soul-mates. The red flag waving on the ramparts of the Progressive juggernaut has become a red cape in front of a raging bull.
Last week I attended the Tea Party in downtown Richmond. Compared to the first one last year it was much larger and better organized. I sat on a hill like a bird on a branch and watched my fellow citizens peacefully express their opinions concerning the rapid descent of America into the stunted future Progressives call a level playing field. The various signs told the story: “Stop Subsidizing Stupidity,” “Failures Love Socialism,” “When Injustice Becomes Law Resistance Becomes Duty,” “I am NOT Your ATM,” and my personal favorite, “Obamacare = More IRS Agents Less Doctors.”
And what’s the reaction of our leader? He’s amused by the TEA Parties. He thinks they should be thanking him for all the tax cuts he’s passed. He thinks they should be grateful he’s ended the recession and healed the economy. He’s using the bully pulpit to bully those who disagree with him. The most powerful man in the world thinks the voices of our enemies should be heard and the voices of American citizens silenced. He’s ready to meet with the rabidly anti-American president of Iran without pre-conditions, but he won’t do the same with the leaders of his domestic opposition.
As if the ridicule of the President and the distortions of the geriatric media, isn’t enough America’s perpetrator-in-chief, the only former president to ever lose his license to practice law in order to avoid prosecution continues the obvious game plan of setting the Tea Party Movement up to take the fall for any future act of domestic terrorism. Of course our current leadership refuses to call our enemies terrorists. To them there is no war against terrorism. There are no Islamic Extremists. To them the only threat of terrorism appears to be the peaceful assembly of American citizens petitioning for the redress of grievances.
Millions of hardworking American citizens sacrifice their time and invest their efforts in an attempt to get a message through to Washington. Although too long to fit on a poster its short enough be heard. The plan to radically transform the United States into a European style social welfare state is not going down easy, and no matter how many thousand page bills filled with surprises get crammed down our throats we will not drink the kool-aid.
The handwriting is on the wall. The ruling party is headed for a fall reminiscent of a famous tower in Babylon or a statue in Bagdad. Unless Acorn registers the voters and Mayor Daley counts the votes the Obama-Pelosi-Reid triumvirate is fated to lose the current lock they have on power. The constantly growing ranks of the Tea Party Movement appear at the moment to have the sophistication and political acumen to avoid splitting the patriotic opposition by forming a third party. The two party fix has long had a structural strangle-hold on power. Any attempt at this juncture to supplant the Republicans in that hierarchy would only facilitate the minority victory of what has become apparent to all as a small cadre of dedicated evolutionaries determined to fundamentally transform America.
As I sat on my perch watching the swirling crowd of concerned citizens, as I read the signs, listened to the speeches and spoke to those around me I noticed that one word was missing. This one word aptly describes the destination of all this fundamental change. This one word sums up the goal of every thousand page bill filled with new agencies, enforcement provisions and economic take-overs. This one word should galvanize resistance and focus the emotional and intellectual energies of all those committed to the limited government which secures our heritage. That one word is totalitarianism.
Inimical to the America bequeathed by our ancestors and toxic to the liberty and opportunity which has made the United States the greatest nation to have ever existed totalitarianism is the enemy of humanity and of the rights our Creator endowed. Seeking to control every action, direct every effort and determine every outcome, totalitarianism is the inevitable result of a cradle-to-grave welfare state. A sign for the next Tea Party might be, “Freedom was our cradle – Don’t let socialism be our grave.”
Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion for Southside Virginia Community College and History for the American Public University System. http://drrobertowens.com © 2010 Robert R. Owens dr.owens@comcast.net
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 