As we look back on 2007, we thank our computers hooked up to the Internet that hooked us up to one another. Without this unlimited communication device—Bush and Congress would have destroyed our constitutional republic.
For the past 20 years, their lies, incompetence and sheer greed proved more powerful than the will of American citizens. The military-industrial complex and corporate America dictated this country’s path. They own the media which feeds us the news they demand. They buy the Congress via huge financial perks. Men like McCain, Kennedy, Specter, Martinez, Hagel, Reid, DeLay, Cunningham and others routinely forgot their oath of office or responsibilities toward our country. Crooks like Delay and Cunningham got caught, but dozens if not hundreds still slink around in the shadows like rats. No one knows how deep Jack Abramoff penetrated his payoffs. Presidents and senators did not enforce our laws, didn’t respect our citizens and failed to maintain our borders.
They oversaw, in fact, facilitated the destruction of our manufacturing base by offshoring, outsourcing and insourcing millions of American jobs. They deliberately double-barrel shot-gunned the American Middle Class. They engaged a $700 billion trade deficit. They escalated a gargantuan $8.7 trillion debt.
In June of 2007, they tried to ram an immigration amnesty down our throats. The Internet, faxes and phone calls exposed their duplicity. Bush tried to pass the Dubai Ports Deal. We jumped all over him with Internet information and activism. We, the people, defeated a sitting president in his outrageous plans to allow terror sponsoring countries to run our shipping ports. Near the end of the year, the Internet stopped a ‘hanky-sobbing’ Dream Act guaranteed to cost American taxpayers billions of dollars for educating children of other countries at the expense of our kids. Senator Feinstein pulled her Ags Bill amnesty because citizens killed its possible passing via the Internet.
New leaders jumped up from every sector of the country with their computers and typing fingers. Fathers, mothers, grandmas, grandpas and college kids jumped to the forefront on their computers. Web sites empowered Americans from every walk of life to take action.
New leaders rose from the ranks:
“One thing is clear: The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens pay nearly half of everything they earn to government." -- Congressman Ron Paul
"In particular, the fact that Congress has provided some welfare benefits for citizens does not require it to provide like benefits for all aliens. Neither the overnight visitor, the unfriendly agent of a hostile foreign power, the resident diplomat, nor the illegal entrant, can advance even a colorable constitutional claim to a share in the bounty that a conscientious sovereign makes available to its own citizens and some of its guests. ...In short, citizens and those who are most like citizens qualify. Those who are less like citizens do not." Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67 (1976)
"First of all, the so-called War on Terror isn’t a war on terror at all, it’s a war on the Constitution and Bill of Rights; a war on the rights of the American people." Lynn Stuter, researcher, analyst
"The privatization of military and intelligence functions is totally out of control, beyond the law, and beyond any form of Congressional oversight. It is also incredibly lucrative for the owners and operators of so-called private military companies -- and the money to pay for their activities ultimately comes from taxpayers through government contracts." Chalmers Johnson, professor, author
"The order of the current world is not only murderous, it is also absurd. It kills, destroys, slaughters, but it does so for no other reason than the desire for maximum profit for some cosmocrats who are driven by an obsession for power and unlimited greed." Jean Ziegler,UN reporter
"Secret government is what will do us in...it is the ultimate peril." Bob Woodward, author
"Bin Laden is the face of al-Qaeda...as long as al-Qaeda has a face, Bush can continue to shred our Constitution, kill habeas corpus, torture people, and spy on you and your grandmother without a court warrant." Mary Shaw, activist.
" Anyone who cares about the United States and its legacies has to be brokenhearted at what has been done to our beloved country by the crazy people who are running it." Andrew Greeley, Chicago Sun-Times
"The free-market blueprint -- pushed by the U.S. government, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank -- calls for nations to open their borders to more trade, sell off state companies and slash government spending, often as a condition for loans and aid." John Otis, Houston Chronicle
While we face horrific challenges to regain our country in 2008, the Internet exposes this president, members of Congress, Council on Foreign Relations, Tri-Lateral Commission, military-industrial complex and other corporate plans to dismantle the United States of America.
Frosty Wooldridge Bio:
Frosty Wooldridge possesses a unique view of the world, cultures and families in that he has bicycled around the globe 100,000 miles, on six continents and six times across the United States in the past 30 years. His books include, "HANDBOOK FOR TOURING BICYCLISTS"; "STRIKE THREE! TAKE YOUR BASE"; "BICYCLING AROUND THE WORLD"; "MOTORCYCLE ADVENTURE TO ALASKA: INTO THE WIND-A TEEN NOVEL"; "AN EXTREME ENCOUNTER: ANTARCTICA"; "IMMIGRATION'S UNARMED INVASION: DEADLY CONSEQUENCES."
www.frostywooldridge.com
And if we play our cards right, it will continue to do so in new and empowering ways, e.g., national/internationl boycotts (and perhaps strikes) orchestrated on central sites on the net. Boycotts, for example, could be voted on -- say, a circulating list of 10 corporations who are assassinating Mother Nature and our Consitutuition Republic the worst.
But even if we shoot ourselves in the foot by not taking advantage of orchestrated boycotts on the net (which the net is BEGGING us to do), so long as we keep doing what we're doing, we stay connected and at least to that degree, empowered.
by
W. Christopher Epler (Bill) (232 articles, 45 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 541 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 3:46:52 PM
That is a term popularized by someone who wrote a book about it (and with which I am not familiar).
From what I have read, the basic premise is that every once in awhile an upsetting technology comes along that changes things in ways so fundamental that nobody can fully comprehend the magnitude of the changes that will ensue.
Some examples would be electric lighting, electric power, the automobile, radio, television, and the telephone, things that altered our entire way of life.
The computer/internet phenomenon has begun radical change in a similar fashion;
1. By providing a true 'marketplace of ideas'. Remember when the concern over the internet was that nobody filters the communications, so you would never know the truth? I laughed at that when it came out, because I knew it was the other way around -- for the first time, arguments are being won by logic and persuasion, not by force and fraud. This concept of grannies and students speaking their mind puts all on an equal footing as the public realizes what intellectual weaklings most media people are, and begins sharing information in spite of all media and government attempts to stop them. It's an equalizer perhaps on a scale with the old Colt six-shooter.
1a. One effect of this huge, unregulated communications network is the speed at which bad arguments get exposed. One reason the internet is so freedom-oriented is that immoral arguments are quickly and definitively exposed. Those who cannot defend the morality of their positions quickly lose credibility, where before they would get a government appointment or a professorship.
2. Perhaps equally as important, the cost of knowlege is dropping to the level of the time it takes to acquire it, while cutting that time drastically. No longer will academe monopolize thought, frame reality by dictating what will be studied and which version of history will be taught, or which school of economics. These bastions of socialism are being made obsolete because their barriers to entry stop no person from acquiring knowledge, and give little benefit to their graduates, now that word is out on what actually gets taught there. The amount of virtually free information continues to grow exponentially, even as the cost/benefit ratio of attending a snobby socialist university goes orbital.
I predicted these changes a long time ago, when my modem was 9600 baud, I could hold entire books of text on my 10 megabyte hard drive, and I could exchange text information with others for dollars per minute. I dared not hope to see a public awakening so quickly as this; and I dare not predict where these changes will lead us. But now I am hopeful for the future of freedom, and confident that these changes will profoundly affect the course of human history.
Thanks for an insightful article, Frosty.
by
John Danforth (1 articles, 0 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 93 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 6:22:49 PM
What you say is true, of course, but what lesson should we take from it?
I think we should realize that the powers that be will soon add neutralizing the internet to their battle plan. We already hear of such plans taking shape in the DOD.
Impeach
by
B York (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 89 comments)
on Friday, December 28, 2007 at 11:31:26 AM
3 comments
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