I think we all know what’s coming. The ramp up to the November general election will be ugly. That’s the very nature of politics today. But it’s what’ll happen afterwards that should be cause for concern.

America is a racially fractured nation, okay? Let’s be honest here. Despite all our overtures and marches and Kumbaya moments, when the rubber meets the road, the race issue is that which always seems makes us swerve into the ditch. You thought the aftermath of the 2000 election was unfortunate? Just wait and see what happens if Barack Obama loses.

It will be beyond a “stolen election”. For that to happen, many Democrats and Independents will have to do the unthinkable: vote for a white man. Should John McCain win, I can hear it now: America is a racist country.

It’s not like the United States has never elected black people. Unfortunately, it’s some of the blacks that we’ve elected that have talked a good game to get elected, but have (in some cases) performed poorly once in office. Precedent can be a hard thing to shake.

The election of former New York mayor David Dinkins was to signal the dawn of a new day. His inauguration speech included the obligatory “references to oppression, human rights, and the need for equality. He vowed to be ‘mayor of all the people of New York,’ and declared: ‘We are all foot soldiers on the march to freedom.’”However, “Dinkins faced a $1.8 billion budget deficit when he entered office which grew to $2.2 billion by the time he left office. The economy remained sluggish throughout his term, preventing the enactment of much of his agenda.”

There are few examples of Democrats (of any gender or color) leaving an area in better shape than they inherited it.

Today in Massachusetts, Deval Patrick (Massachusetts’ first black governor) has been a disaster, primarily because of his personal behavior, lack of common sense, and outright arrogance.

“Deval Patrick was the one who came into office claiming our state was in a bad financial situation. Yet, the independently wealthy Deval didn’t forgo his salary like Mitt Romney and Kerry Healey did when they took office. Instead, he upgraded his car, started accumulating frequent flier miles on a state police helicopter, got his wife an unnecessary chief of staff, and decided to redecorate his office with expensive furnishings at our expense.

“Deval Patrick has proven himself to be a liberal’s liberal and a Democrat’s Democrat. He sees our tax dollars as play money that can be thrown at anything to help him live a life of luxury.”

These things reflect badly, and are parked in the memories of those just looking for an excuse to vote against a black candidate. “Patrick has directed a state budget process that is weighed down by deficits and spending, including a gubernatorial office budget that jumped 80% in one year.”

Now while Barack Obama has been touted as a break from the past and has received near-Messiah status from the mainstream media and his supporters (who call those who oppose him “haters”), he won’t easily shake the bad blood left by his electoral predecessors. We have elected blacks who garner questionable respect, like Congresswomen Sheila Jackson-Lee and Maxine Waters, and former senator Carol Moseley-Braun.

Let’s not forget the former mayor of Washington D.C., Marion Barry who served from 1979 to 1991, and again from 1995 to 1999. Despite the fact he was behavior-challenged, he was clearly reelected solely because of the color of his skin. That continues to irk many.

Granted, the Reverend Wright incidents are nowhere near the level of “The bitch set me up”, but Barry Obama has survived his share of media-ignored gaffes. Some people may still have Marion on their minds asking whether Obama will continue the incompetence and embarrassment legacy while holding the highest office in the land.

“I read a funny story about how the Republicans freed the slaves. The Republicans are the ones who created slavery by law in the 1600’s. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves and he was not a Republican.”

“I am a great mayor; I am an upstanding Christian man; I am an intelligent man; I am a deeply educated man; I am a humble man.”

— Marion Barry

America is not an inherently racist country. While some (blacks and white guilt liberals) will vote for Barack Obama solely on the color of his skin, some will vote against him because they don’t agree with him. The harm will come from those on the left that will see that as an instinctive racist motivation.

While Republicans didn’t bring up Obama’s race initially, we will get the blame should he lose (even though no “real” Republicans would vote for him) and the issue of race in the 2008 election will eclipse the bad blood that remains to this day over Al Gore’s debacle.

So it would appear, either way we’re screwed.

If John McCain wins, we’ll have a Republican who doesn’t respect the conservative wing of the party. If Barack Obama wins, the ramifications on the War on Terror, Supreme Court judges, energy policy, and the economy will all be at risk. The last thing we should be concerned with is Barack’s race.

But then again if that wasn’t a prime factor, we wouldn’t be America, would we?

Senator Obama expresses pious sentiments about family integrity, but actively supports abortion, the practice that is most destructive to families.

Senator Obama has been lauded by the media for his Fathers’ Day speech about family and fatherhood, a pale shadow of Bill Cosby’s earlier and more courageous exhortations. Given the Senator’s consistent advocacy of liberal-progressive-socialist immorality and of even the most gruesome forms of abortion, his speech was the equivalent of an illegal arms dealer praising the virtues of international peace.

But such hypocrisy is not uncommon for Senator Obama, who, like Senator John Kerry, regularly backs away from supposedly firm positions he had earlier espoused. For example, his support for, then backing away from, Rev. Wright’s anti-American, white-hatred preaching, along with his early declaration of intent to hold unconditional talks with Iran’s Ahmadinijad, then beating a hasty retreat when foreign policy experts revealed the idiocy of that tactic.

The surge of out-of-wedlock sex and single-parent families was given impetus by the legalization of abortion through the 1973 ultra vires legislative enactment by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. The effect was to give an official Federal imprimatur for sexual promiscuity. Indeed, sexual promiscuity and abortion are now regarded by liberal-progressive-socialsists as Constitutional rights hidden in the shadows and penumbras of the Fourth Amendment.

Roe v. Wade’s inevitable consequence was births of children to unmarried, teenage girls at rates never before experienced in human history.

Impetus also came from linking abortion to the feminist revolution that championed equality in all respects between men and women, including sexual promiscuity, theretofore thought to be beneath the dignity and self-worth of women.

Legalized abortion has, without question, seriously eroded the foundation of traditional families. This conclusion is attested to in a study published by Harvard, no friend to traditionalism and the Constitution.

The Spread of Single-Parent Families
in the United States since 1960
By David T. Ellwood and Christopher Jencks
John F. Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
October 2002

The spread of single-mother families has therefore played a major role in the persistence of poverty. In 1964, when Lyndon Johnson declared a war on poverty, only 30 percent of poor families with children were headed by single mothers. Since the late 1970s the figure has been about 60 percent…

McLanahan and Sandefur (1994) assembled data from a number of American surveys showing that children who grew up with both of their biological parents performed better on school achievement tests, had fewer children as teenagers, finished high school more often, attended college more often, and earned more in early adulthood…For our purposes their most important finding was that children raised by both of their biological parents did better than children raised in any alternative arrangement…

Premarital sex–In the early 1960s roughly half of all twenty-five year old women had had sexual intercourse before they married. By the late 1980s five out of six had done so. Moral judgments about premarital sex changed in much the same way. In early 1960s roughly threequarters of American adults thought that premarital sex was wrong. By the 1980s only a third of adults thought that premarital sex was “always” or “almost always” wrong.

Out of wedlock births—In 1960 most men and women who engaged in premarital sex assumed that if the woman became pregnant they would marry and raise their child together. Thus while premarital pregnancies were fairly common, premarital births were rare. By the 1990s roughly one baby in three was born to an unmarried couple…

Most Americans’ worries about family change probably reflect their belief that it poses economic, developmental, and moral problems. Certainly that seemed to be the case for [Senator Daniel Patrick] Moynihan (1986) when he declared:

“The institution of the family is decisive in determining not only if a person has the capacity to love another individual but in the larger social sense whether he is capable of loving his fellow men collectively. The whole of society rests on this foundation for stability, understanding and social peace…”

…the proportion of children in single parent families rose from about 10 percent in 1965 to 29 percent in 1997 but then began to fall, reaching 27 percent in 2001…In the 1980s and 1990s nearly the entire rise was traceable to out-of-wedlock births…

The pill and abortion weakened the link between marriage and childbearing.

Against this historical background, Senator Obama’s political expressions of support for fatherhood and family ring hollow.

In earlier televised debates with Democrat/Socialist Party candidates, he stated that he trusts women to make decisions about abortion, but wants to bring about change that will minimize the need for them to choose.

Were he truly serious about that and about preserving families with fathers, he would connect the dots and oppose abortion, the primary underlying enabler for sexual promiscuity.

Instead, as columnist Michael Gerson, in the arch-liberal Washington Post (Obama’s Abortion Extremism - Wednesday, April 2, 2008), wrote:

But Obama’s record on abortion is extreme. He opposed the ban on partial-birth abortion – a practice a fellow Democrat, the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, once called “too close to infanticide.” Obama strongly criticized the Supreme Court decision upholding the partial-birth ban. In the Illinois state Senate, he opposed a bill similar to the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which prevents the killing of infants mistakenly left alive by abortion. And now Obama has oddly claimed that he would not want his daughters to be “punished with a baby” because of a crisis pregnancy – hardly a welcoming attitude toward new life.

Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/

Email comments to viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com

If the government gets into the business of regulating and controlling carbon emissions it will be an unparalleled concentration of power far exceeding the New Deal under Roosevelt. The government will be in complete control over what businesses and average citizens consume and produce. It is the gateway excuse to rule, regulate and control your daily life in a fashion that we have never tolerated before but are now expected to meekly accept as we attempt to bailout the bathtub with a teaspoon. Never have Americans been so willing to hand over the most fundamental financial, transportation and quality of life decisions to a central authority on such questionable grounds.We have been brainwashed that climate change is mainly caused by human activity and that somehow carbon taxes, economic socialism, monitoring lawn mower emissions, criticizing cow flatulence and flailing away at the faceless evil that is “oil” will somehow make a difference on climate changes we are only barely beginning to understand, let alone significantly influence one way or another.Rather disturbingly, presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama made the following statement while campaigning in Oregon.

“We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That’s not leadership,” Obama declared. “That’s not going to happen.”

I’m sorry, excuse me? I’d be happy to see him or one of his cronies point out to me where in the constitution an Obama administration has the right to tell me how much food I can feed my family, or how many miles my car must get per gallon to be legal or whether or not I can turn the air conditioner on. The soft tread of fascism is being heard behind all the “chicken little, the sky is following” environmentalist rhetoric, and those who have bought their propaganda hook, line and sinker are among the most dangerous people to be found in the political arena.To them human beings, economies, jobs, quality of life, national allegiances, energy prices, free enterprise and other arcane notions such as liberty, freedom and the pursuit of happiness take a back seat to the theorized change in the habits of polar bears (they are increasingly rapidly, not declining but let’s not confuse an issue with the facts) and the possible inconveniencing of some caribou.It won’t be the neocons who usher in an unprecedented wave of government taxes, regulations and controls into every aspect of American life, but the crying, fainting, ignorant masses who so blindly cry for change without understanding what kinds of change await them if their candidate is swept into office. Be careful what you wish for.

The average middle class American is the target of this new pogrom of the new millennium. Americans are routinely vilified and called lazy, wasteful, gas guzzling ingrates. Americans are somehow almost solely blamed and held responsible for the thawing of permafrost and the cause of the nightmarish embodiment of all evil called global warming simply because hard working people have the sheer audacity to heat their homes, travel to work, grab a hamburger or turn on a fan if it gets hot.I have often stated that if true fascism ever materializes it will come from the Left, not the Right. It will not spring from Bush’s meager attempts to listen to Al-Qaeda phone calls or build bases in Iraq but from those who so vigorously proclaim that they will do whatever it takes to save the planet from ourselves no matter what the cost. The ones to watch are those who blatantly and unapologetically seek to institutionalize government authority and control over every single aspect of your life. The Green movement is really the watermelon movement; green on the outside, red on the inside, and armed with a fascist mentality when it comes to government intrusion, regulation and control over industry, business and ultimately every aspect of your daily life.

You shall know them by their words and deeds. They are the ones who cheer soon to be $5.00 a gallon gas prices and tell us that we have been spoiled for far too long. They are the ones who wring their hands and gnash their teeth over whether or not they are carbon neutral and loudly clamoring for carbon credits and consumption taxes. They lecture about flying on airplanes or daring to use the internal combustion engine to go see grandma for Thanksgiving. Their antagonism and hatred for the American way of life is palpable and omnipresent. Obama is their chance to seize power, fulfill their vision and enact their agenda. Now is their time for ‘change’. But it won’t be for the better.Environmentalism is as much a religion as it is a scientific faith and author and columnist (not to mention Democrat and Mormon, he’s an interesting combination) Orson Scott Card makes that point well in Obama’s Real Religion.

“Barack Obama’s comments, however, reveal him to be in the religious-faith category. The Environmental Puritans believe that any opposition to their dogmas is heresy, and that anything that doesn’t match their vision of how humans should live is a sin.
Since their vision of how humans should live is “without making any difference in how the world would be without humans,” we are all, alas, sinners. However, some are more sinful than others, and the United States is the most sinful of all…
… Still, the Environmental Puritans agree with the ayatollahs on this one point: America is the Great Satan. And Obama echoes that view when he refers to our gasoline consumption, our eating, and our air-conditioning and heating as if they were sins for which we are accountable to the rest of the world.” 

In the very sudden frantic hurry to somehow, someway “slow the oceans from rising” and save the glaciers we have offered complete control of our economy and way of life to a few who are dedicated to dismantling the free enterprise system, destroying the American way of life, exerting near complete control of your life from womb to the tomb while significantly lowering your standard living in a probable fruitless attempt to stem global warming that may or may not be from human activity, the retreat of the last Ice Age, the warming of the sun, or any of a number of other phenomenons.The fact that no one is even suggesting inconveniencing the growing, polluting and oil guzzling behemoth that is China and the surrounding nations in Southeast Asia should be the most obvious of warning signs to make one pause and think about what is at stake in this ideological grab for unprecedented power in the name of ‘saving the planet’ from ourselves.Fueling this anger, and the attempts to tax, regulate, strangle, impoverish, inconvenience and generally control the average American citizen is to me an inexplicable anger towards Americans for achieving a lifestyle and standard of living that is the envy of the world, the pinnacle of Western Civilization and the marvel of history. For some reason, the idea that the average American citizen is not living at the low standard of the average Kenyan brings out a rage that is fueling entire political and ideological movements and has engulfed an entire major US political party. It’s most potentially influential and manipulative adherent is leading in the polls and may take the helm of the most powerful nation the earth has ever seen.Obama has gladly donned the mantle of the radical, environmentalist Left and thinks nothing of calling for radical changes in the role of government, the wholesale curtailing of basic freedoms, the dramatic restructuring of the economy while merely shrugging at how the dramatic rise in gasoline prices is shredding the lives and businesses of millions of Americans and local communities.Raised a Muslim as a small boy, drifting aimlessly as a youth, and converting to black liberation theology Christianity as an adult, Obama had trouble finding the religion that worked for him. He seems to have finally found his true religion, the faith of environmentalism, and will not hesitate to use his role as a secular messiah to the spiritually lost masses to usher in what is in reality a fascist state.

As my oldest daughter would say, “Too bad, so sad”.

We would be far wiser to plan ahead as to what needs to be done with populations, cities and crop planting if the oceans are significantly rising and the climate is indeed shifting as is claimed. The current cry about global warming and climate change is far less about actually dealing with the situation one way or another than it is about taking away the concept of the choice of the individual and the installment of unquestionable government regulatory over every aspect of the economy, business, consumption and by extension every aspect of your daily life.
But the average person is being brainwashed to accept anything and everything because it is “for the planet” and those few who will have the courage or insight to point out the socialist and fascist character of the takeover of Western Civilization in the name of protecting the planet will be branded as selfish, ignorant, consuming, fundamentalist, knuckle dragging, archaic ingrates who have failed to see the light and are not willing to sacrifice everything on the green altar of climate change.If Al Gore is indeed the high priest of global warming, Barack Obama is the Messiah like figure promising the masses that he will lead them into the Promised Land.

I leave you with the following quote by Charles Krauthammer:

“Environmentalists are Gaia’s priests, instructing us in her proper service and casting out those who refuse to genuflect… And having proclaimed the ultimate commandment—carbon chastity—they are preparing the supporting canonical legislation that will tell you how much you can travel, what kind of light you will read by, and at what temperature you may set your bedroom thermostat.”

The handling of Barack Obama calls to mind a movie called The Harder They Fall, in which Humphrey Bogart played a boxing promoter whose client was a heavyweight named Toro Moreno. Bogey learned early on that Toro couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag, but that didn’t stop him from guiding the palooka to a shot at the world title.

Likewise, the Democrats, and therefore the news media, declared Obama to be a future presidential nominee at the 2004 convention, despite the fact that he was only a state senator at the time. Like the chiseled Toro, Obama is superficially impressive, but he simply doesn’t have the tools to back up his image.

Lately, the presumptive Democrat candidate has demonstrated his unfitness for high office on a daily basis, through statements that betray his failure to think seriously about serious matters. One of the more egregious examples came in praise of the Supreme Court’s decision, in Boumediene v. Bush, to extend habeas corpus rights to enemy combatants captured on foreign soil.

Obama likened the prospect of terrorists in American courtrooms to the Nuremberg trials, lecturing that we even gave the Nazis their “day in court.” This illustration holds true only in stick-figure form, in that each situation involves putting our wartime enemies on trial. Once even the tiniest amount of detail is added, it creates two dramatically contrasting pictures.

For starters, the Nuremberg trials did not commence until after the war had ended. In fact, the legal underpinning of those proceedings was the power that had been ceded to the Allies as a result of Germany’s unconditional surrender. There were no concerns about the defendants returning to the battlefield to kill Americans and our allies.

While it’s literally true that the Nazis had their “day in court,” that doesn’t mean they had what Americans would recognize as a fair trial. Those hearings were held not to determine whether the Germans were guilty, but only to demonstrate their already understood guilt to the rest of the world. Not only weren’t the defendants allowed a presumption of innocence, but they were forbidden from making some of the most persuasive arguments in their defense, including the objection that they were being tried under ex post facto law.

The Nazis were not subject to American civilian courts. Their trials were held in their own country, under a newly created legal paradigm. If our current war has any fitting parallel to Nuremberg, it is the conviction and execution of Saddam Hussein, but you don’t see Obama holding that up as a model of justice.

Just imagine what the five liberal members of the Court might have done if they’d heard an appeal from Goering, Hess, Jodl and company. Obviously not deterred by the fact that the Constitution gives them no say in the matter, they would have invented a justification to overturn Nuremberg before you could say “penumbra.”

After our German enemies received their “day in court,” 22 of them were swiftly executed. Ten of these had been sentenced by the International Military Tribunal, which had been convened cooperatively among the Allied powers. The other 12 were sentenced in subsequent trials held in the same courtrooms, by United States military tribunals.

Surely, Obama does not want to subject our terrorist detainees to a similar process. As for the liberal Supreme Court majority, they would undoubtedly find that “evolving standards of decency” dictate a different outcome. Justice Stephen Breyer – who proudly admits to basing some decisions on foreign precedent – might even champion the “just following orders” defense, based on past rulings from within the Third Reich itself.

For all of the senator’s flowery rhetoric, the thought processes that underlie it are really quite crude. He must have known for hours that he’d be asked about the Boumediene decision, and still his analysis never developed beyond the liberal basics (Nazis bad, Nuremberg good; terrorists not so bad, Gitmo not so good).

If Obama doesn’t meet the same fate as Toro, it’s only due to the lack of a formidable opponent. Still, this would only delay the inevitable. He will be in no condition to tangle with Congress, to say nothing of our foreign enemies, until he has at least proven himself capable of reasonably answering a question he should have anticipated. If that day doesn’t arrive in a hurry, the American people should thank him to stay within the cozy confines of his wet paper bag, and out of the Oval Office.

Liberals inadvertently delivered a telling message in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. In essence, it is the same message they have sent on the heels of every major calamity, whether natural or man-made, to befall the nation during the past several decades. Let a heat wave hit or a bridge collapse, and their first impulse is to assign guilt, invariably among their political opposition. But by their immediate and hysterical finger-pointing, they telegraph their desperation to avoid any culpability for the real problems at hand.

Thus, we were told, the hardship and suffering resulting from Katrina was not to be blamed on the lavishly funded but totally corrupted local and state governments that did almost nothing worthwhile prior to the catastrophe, despite having received enormous supplies of money to prepare for the inevitability of a major hurricane. Instead, the negative attention was directed at the lack of a sufficient federal response once the area had been devastated by the thoroughly anticipated storm.

So, years of liberal/Democrat graft and misuse of funds in Louisiana suddenly metamorphosed into accusations of racially motivated indifference within the Bush Administration. Worse yet, the success of this heinous ploy meant that those truly responsible would escape any accountability, virtually guaranteeing that New Orleans will suffer a similar fate whenever the next major storm makes landfall there.

Likewise, in the horrific hours following the Columbine massacre, people were honestly asking what had so poisoned the modern culture that might have allowed such demented ideas to fester in the minds of the two young men who did the killing. Facing a real possibility that their morally bankrupt and humanistic indoctrination of the young might receive severe scrutiny, liberals began shouting loudly about the need for more “gun control,” as if the two dozen laws already on the books were not sufficient to dissuade honest youths from killing their classmates.

Currently, with every ensuing statistical deviation in the frequency of natural disasters, unscrupulous opportunists are seizing on the latest event as a means of gaining political mileage of some sort, whether with respect to the lack of sufficient preparation or, as is increasingly the case, by invoking the convenient “bogey man” of global warming as the ultimate culprit.

This past spring has seen a profusion of tornadoes across the American heartland, much as is the case during most springs in recorded history. Nevertheless, any comparative increase in the number of violent storms is, we are told, a clear sign of “global warming,” and ultimately, evidence of the need for the Congress to confiscate more of the nation’s wealth in order to fund more pork barrel projects.

The ostensible “connection” between the event and the liberal political reaction is far from coherent, and in truth represents a criminal exploitation of misfortune, heartbreak, and loss of life. Nevertheless, dire predictions are invariably offered in the wake of each tragedy, complete with grim promises that the disasters will continue until Congress acts.

Yet even when weather patterns become more benign, as has been the case with the current lull in Gulf Coast hurricanes since 2005, nobody suggests that the weather situation is improving, or that perhaps government plans to encroach on Americans’ freedoms need to be curtailed. Instead, some inane excuse is offered for the respite, followed by promises of even more devastating events if American citizens do not immediately heed the warnings, fork over their earnings, and elect Democrats.

However, all is not lost. The “playing field” appears to be shifting, as it almost always does whenever the devices of the left are allowed to advance unchecked for too long and people begin to feel their real consequences. Americans in particular, but also the rest of the world, are being exposed to a not-so-bright future that the current crop of leftists would impose on all of society if they get their way.

Even as recently as last year, when too few were sufficiently vigilant to notice all of the liberal/enviro meddling in their lives, it seemed entirely worthwhile and reasonable for average people to “save the planet” through the meager effort of purchasing and installing those funny little curly light bulbs. But the picture looks far more grim these days, with gasoline prices bolting beyond four dollars per gallon.

Worse yet from the perspective of the left, the general public is finally “connecting the dots,” recognizing that surging costs of fuel results from the limitations in its supply. And this condition can itself be directly linked to the stranglehold the environmental extremists have on any exploration or drilling for new fossil fuel sources. The general public is beginning to grasp the hardships it could eventually face, once electrical power providers are forced to compete for a limited supply of kilowatts in the same manner that gasoline distributors now must contend for each available gallon of gas.

Meanwhile, the earth’s climate has, in the past decade, stubbornly refused to cooperate with all those apocalyptic predictions. Absent from current weather measurements is any evidence of actual increase in atmospheric temperatures, an “inconvenient fact” that has forced many among the global warming alarmists to regroup. They claim now that any stark increases in global temperatures will be delayed until some time after the next two presidential election cycles.

According to Noel Keenlyside of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in Keil Germany, although the International Panel on Climate Change predicts a paltry .3 degree C increase in global temperatures over the next decade, the current pattern suggests no ensuing changes until 2015, after which the scorching of the planet will ostensibly begin in earnest.

In other words, any reliable computer model or prediction has yet to be achieved, despite all of the emotion and money thrown into the effort. Indeed, the only grim expectation that has been consistently met is that with the passing of each warm season, each cool season, each dry season, and each wet season, entrenched governmental bureaucrats and shameless political opportunists will seek to exploit the earth’s natural ebb and flow as a means of scaring the public into further subservience.

by Jim Kouri, CPP

[The following is based on an FBI strategy report sent to the 14,000-member National Association of Chiefs of Police.]

The foreign intelligence threat within the United States is far more complex than it has ever been historically. The threat is increasingly asymmetrical insofar as it comes not only from traditional foreign intelligence services but also from nontraditional, non-state actors who operate from decentralized organizations.

Intelligence collection is no longer limited to classified national defense information but now includes targeting of the elements of national power, including our national economic interests. Moreover, foreign intelligence tradecraft is increasingly sophisticated and takes full advantage of advances in communications security and the general openness of US society.

In short, the foreign intelligence threat is more challenging than ever. In the fall of 2003, the Foreign Counterintelligence Program had investigations involving dozens of countries that focused on hundreds of known or suspected intelligence officers who were assigned to enter or travel within the United States. These investigations spanned all 56 field offices.

In order to meet these challenges, the Foreign Counterintelligence Program is being redesigned to become more nationally focused and directed. Through a more centralized program, the FBI will ensure its ability to establish priorities, be more proactive, and better engage other intelligence community agencies so that cooperation in important cases is immediate and seamless.

A centralized program will also ensure that infrastructure issues will be consistently addressed and coordinated in order to ensure workforce expertise, that staffing matches the articulated foreign intelligence threat, and that a sufficiently broad and reliable intelligence base is developed. From this foundation, the Foreign Counterintelligence Program will be positioned to achieve its strategic objectives and ultimately reach its goal to prevent harm to the United States through foreign intelligence activity inimical to US interests.

During the past year, the Foreign Counterintelligence Program has been invigorated by the introduction of a new and innovative National Strategy for Counterintelligence and a program plan, both of which are proactive in emphasis. At the same time, additional resources were introduced to the program. To enhance counterintelligence workforce expertise, a new four-week Counterintelligence Operations course was developed.

All special agents assigned to the Counterintelligence Program are required to successfully complete this course. Computer-based distance learning courses are also available to all personnel on a variety of counterintelligence topics. A counterintelligence training course for midlevel and executive managers was also initiated, covering topics in both the tactical and strategic areas of counterintelligence management.

The FBI plays an essential role in the US government’s counterintelligence efforts and has the responsibility to produce domestic foreign intelligence in support of other members of the intelligence community.

The FBI also has the responsibility to oversee the integration of domestic law enforcement and intelligence efforts to address intelligence threats in support of Director of Central Intelligence imperatives. The counterintelligence strategy involves centrally managed, proactive, and nationally directed initiatives, with prioritized and strategic objectives that support DCI imperatives, overseen by experienced headquarters managers.

Success for the Foreign Counterintelligence Program will be reflected in the extent to which the FBI agents are able to: identify the objectives, the assets, and the operations of foreign intelligence services operating in the United States; disrupt the operations of those foreign intelligence services; and change the behavior of targeted institutions and individuals to minimize opportunities for their exploitation.

Government support of critical national research and development initiatives in a large number of agencies and involving thousands of government contractors must be protected. Compromise of these initiatives by those hostile to the United States would do irreparable harm. The FBI must effectively meet its responsibility to assess the threat against those projects and, with other Intelligence Community agencies, initiate operations to counter the threat.

Critical National Assets are any information, policies, plans, technologies, or industries that, if stolen, modified, or manipulated by an adversary would seriously threaten US national or economic security. The FBI has a major role in identifying threats to Critical National Assets and assessing their overall vulnerability, especially in the areas of economic espionage, academic research, and private sector research and development.

As the remaining world superpower, the United States is targeted from nearly every corner of the globe. The FBI will focus its counterintelligence resources on those countries and non-state actors having the greatest potential to harm US interests, and will work to gain a greater understanding of the threats they pose. Specifically, the FBI will examine threats related to terrorism, espionage, weapons proliferation, national infrastructure, US government perception management, and foreign intelligence activities.

Sources: Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Institute, AmeriCop USA, National Association of Chiefs of Police, American Society for Industrial Security

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police. He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations.  He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country.   He writes for many police and crime magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer, Campus Law Enforcement Journal, and others, and he’s a columnist for TheConservativeVoice.Com.   He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc.  His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com, Booksamillion.com, and can be ordered at local bookstores.  Kouri holds a bachelor of science in criminal justice and master of arts in public administration and he’s a board certified protection professional.
   
 
 

So, I got this letter late last week from the IRS. The only thing worse would have been to hear Mike Wallace and the “60 Minutes” crew were filming on my front lawn. Come to think of it, even that may not be worse …

The letter was computer generated, thanking me for my recent correspondence with them. It said they had not responded yet as they had not finished preparing a “complete response” and that it would be forthcoming within 45 days. It reminded me the installment agreement I agreed to for payment of my taxes was still in effect and I should still make my scheduled payments. It even helpfully included an 800# I could call if I had any questions.

It was a polite, encouraging and downright personable piece of communication. But there was one teensy-weensy lil’ problem. I had not recently corresponded with them for any reason other than to mail a check on April 14 for the entire amount of the taxes they wanted from me. There was no installment agreement agreed to and no scheduled payments. Had this been a business like a credit card company saying I had not paid my bill, I wouldn’t worry. I’d just call their 800# and get this straightened out. Did I mention this letter was from the IRS?

Still, it was such a NICE letter and they had included an 800#. I called on Saturday but they were closed. To be fair, I don’t remember if they were closed because it was Saturday, allowing taxpayers across the country to breathe more easily, or if I just called after hours on Saturday. Regardless I didn’t speak to the nice folks at the IRS that day. I laid the letter in my inbox to call this week. Yesterday, I saw the letter and decided I had the time to spend on hold and to deal with any bureaucratic red tape. I dialed the phone.

After about 15 minutes on hold, a nice lady answered, giving me her name and ID#. I explained about the letter and that there was an important looking reference number at the very top which I felt sure linked to a file with all my details in it and we could get this taken care of quickly. The nice IRS lady told me, “No, I don’t need that. What’s your Social Security number?” I gave it to her and she explained we would have to do a quick Q&A to establish my identity. 5 minutes later we agreed that I was me.

She asked why I was calling. I explained about the letter and the 45 days and the installment agreement and that I didn’t recall doing any of those things. The nice IRS lady told me, “According to my screen, you’re right. You don’t owe any tax, we’ve released your stimulus package payment and there’s no installment agreement!” Relieved, I said, “Great! So you’ll take care of this for me?” She helpfully said, “I sure will. I’ll just send an email to the person who sent you the letter and have him call you. It will be sometime in the next 30 days. He’ll need to make sure this is not a mistake on our part. Where can he reach you?”

I asked to contact the person myself. I explained my concern that, if it took the full 30 days, and if the IRS decided I owed the money, there would be interest and penalties. Since, if I disputed the decision, I had to prove I didn’t owe it, and not the other way around, I’d probably just pay the money. When dealing with people who can padlock your home and business, freeze your accounts and generally make life inconvenient, it is often wiser to simply pay them. It’s called the “Let the Wookie win!” strategy.

The nice IRS lady assured me there was no cause for alarm. She could see on her screen I owed them nothing! When I again asked her why, if that was the case, could she not clear this up, she again told me it was to be sure that it was not a mistake on their part. I took this to mean the nice IRS lady was positive I didn’t owe any money but the person sending me the letter might feel differently. After all, the letter talked about payments and agreements and such. I again expressed the desire to speak to the person who sent me the letter. The nice IRS lady said she could not give me that person’s name or contact information. She could not give me his ID#. She wasn’t even sure he was a he. She did have an IRS designator identifying exactly who he was but she couldn’t give me that, either. But I was not to worry, she would send that email and he would contact me within 30 days.

I surprised myself with boldness and asked why the IRS provided an 800# which connected to a department completely unable to help me. The nice IRS lady gently corrected me. “But I HAVE helped you!”, she said. Baffled, I asked, “You have?” “Yes”, she responded, “I sent an email to the person who will contact you!” As God is my witness, I actually waited for her to continue, “Just kidding! Just a little IRS humor!” After a long moment in which she did not, in fact, admit to pulling my leg, I asked, “Do you mean this is the extent of the assistance available to me at this number, which, I feel compelled to add, the IRS itself directed me to call if I had questions?” The nice IRS lady replied in the affirmative.

I noted that, as a small business owner, if a customer might need to speak to me I simply gave them MY number. It tended to expedite things. I allowed while it was possible I might miss his call and need to call back, I would not, in fact, set up an entire department whose sole purpose was to email me that someone I thought might need me, actually did, so I could add a call back to him to my calendar sometime in the next 30 days. There being little more to be said, I wished the nice IRS lady a good afternoon and we ended the call.

This sort of inefficiency, waste and duplication is typical of big government. And yet this is the plan we have for Health Care? For Energy Independence? For Education? For Retirement? For the most important things in life? Only in government could a person be of absolutely no assistance whatsoever and, at the same time, take pride in a job well done.

I really hope my installment payments aren’t too much …

Blue Collar Muse

-By Warner Todd Huston

Everyone is talking about the “importance” of blogging and wondering where it will all lead at least where it concerns the influence blogging might have on politics. There was even a warning that bloggers are facing oppression and arrest at an increasing rate in some despotic countries proving that blogging is already causing at least some ripples in the political waters about the world. There is no reason at all to assume this is a fluke or that these ripples will cease to radiate from bloggers any time soon. All in all, to many it seems blogging is a newfangled concern we all face.

But is it new? And what the heck is it all for, really?

To answer the first question, let’s be clear about the relative newness of blogging. The only things that make it new is that it is done via a computer and has opened up the world of social comment for more people to indulge in then ever before. But we have seen something the like of blogging before. In fact, without a past relative of the blog we would not have became the United States of America in the first place.

Certainly what came before was not called “blogging.” The etymology of the word “blog” is derived from the two words web (as in World Wide Web or the Internet) and log (a record), and was initially fashioned as “weblog” until it was shortened to just “blog.” Initially a blog was imagined merely as an electronic diary where a user might put his musings on the day for all to read and enjoy. But, soon blogs became places of social and political commentary and it is this form that comes to mind when most think of what a blog is today.

But we have seen something like a blog before. It used to go by the name “pamphlet.” Pamphlets became an important method to disseminate ideas, arguments, polemics, political discourse, literature and religious discussion in Enlightenment England. This concept easily and quickly made its way to the new world and became an important form of political and religious communication in the American Colonies. In fact, without the pamphlet, many of the ideas and philosophies that formed the American Revolution and, consequently, the underlying theory of the United States of America would never have so captivated and invigorated the revolutionary generation.

Pamphlets were printed in what would become the United States for well over 100 years before the revolution began and formed an important avenue for disseminating ideas throughout the colonies. Wherever there was a printing press, pamphlets soon followed. George Orwell succinctly described the nature of a pamphlet in his introduction to a book of collected English and French pamphlets that he edited, “British Pamphleteers” (1948). (1)

A pamphlet is a short piece of polemical writing, printed in the form of a booklet and aimed at a large public. One cannot lay down rigid rules about length, but evidently a leaflet containing nothing but the words DOWN WITH MUSSOLINI would not be a pamphlet, and neither would a book of the length of Candide or The Tale of a Tub. Probably a true pamphlet will always be somewhere between five hundred and ten thousand words, and it will always be unbound and obtainable for a few pence. A pamphlet is never written primarily to give entertainment or to make money. It is written because there is something that one wants to say now, and because one believes there is no other way of getting a hearing. Pamphlets may turn on points of ethics or theology, but they always have a clear political implication. A pamphlet may be written either ‘for’ or ‘against’ somebody or something, but in essence it is always a protest.

This description, purchase prices aside, could easily serve as a description of some of the most widely read and meaningful blogs today.

And, just as pamphlets did in the 1770s, blogs are serving to influence political discourse and shape the media and public thought. Bloggers are fast becoming the new pamphleteers driving our modern political discourse as did American pamphleteers of the founding era. And, there is little reason to assume blogs won’t become as far-reaching and important as their pamphleteer progenitors.

Pamphlets were so important to the founding era that some historians feel that America would not have become what it is without them. In his book “Origins of the American Revolution,” Bernard Bailyn said that “much of the most important characteristic writing of the American Revolution appeared” in the form of the pamphlet and as today’s news cycles become more and more influenced by blogs, we are seeing this concept repeat itself. (2)

And now to the second question: what is it all for?

To answer that we first must know what makes a good one and for that we return to the aforementioned Orwell introduction, to whit:

Good pamphlets are likely to be written by men who passionately want to say something and who feel that the truth is being obscured but that the public would support them if only it knew the facts. If one had not a certain faith in democracy, one would not write pamphlets, one would try to gain one’s ends by intriguing among influential people. This is another way of saying that pamphleteering will flourish when there is some great struggle in which honest and gifted men are to be found on both sides.

And that is just the thing. This is what a blogger is striving for; that his fellows see the truth of his polemics and that they are brought into enlightenment with him. The blogger is nothing if not a direct descendent of the stalwart pamphleteer who wrought the Great Revolutions of England and the United States.

Further we are in an era when the very fabric of our national polity is under assault from forces alien to American traditionalism. Early American pamphleteers were keenly aware that a certain national character was about to be destroyed by an out of control English Crown seemingly bent on their destruction and the polemics that flew from the pens of our Founders warned of the coming catastrophe and augured for a last gasp effort to save us all. That saving grace came in the form of the Revolution and subsequent Constitution that our Founders considered less an overturning of the past than a reassertion of its best parts. We were, it was thought, being more true to Englishness than were the English. Even more to the point, early Americans thought they were fulfilling the highest order of civilization and societal achievement. God’s work, if you will.

So today we hover at the abyss of the destruction of our national character. But now, instead of pressure from abroad, it is an assault from within we face. PCism, socialist encroachment, and the elimination of American exceptionalism threaten us at every turn. We have lost that feeling that we are special among nations, that we are representative of the best man can achieve and are told by too many that we are no more special than communist China, or Islamist Iran. We are told we are “just another nation” and that we should not be so “arrogant” as to imagine we are better than other nations.

Now is the time for bloggers to take up the cudgel wielded so well by our Founding generation to reverse that self-denigration. Take up your keyboards and reach for those heights once again, America. Don’t let sullen detractors tell you that you are less than or not as good as any commoner. The US grew to heights never before seen in human history because we knew we were right, if not in every deed, at least in essence. Let us not doubt that essence, that Americanness that has sustained us for so long.

Now, to be sure, many blogs do not aspire to this role and even more could not achieve such heights even if they wanted to do so. But, that does not detract from the role that blogging has and can and will — must, really — increasingly strive towards.

But, as you turn on that computer to begin to type up your latest political polemic, take a second to pause and consider those who have preceded you. Remember Jonathan Swift, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine and their contemporaries who formed the arguments and informed minds of the most amazing generation that invented and nurtured these great United States and set the tone for the following hundreds of years of freedom and liberty. You, Mr. Blogger are leading public discourse as you sit at your keyboard.

And now, with that awesome thought comes the awesome responsibility inherent in the fact. America’s founders considered fame to be of preeminent importance. But fame rightly defined is not simply being well known. True fame brings a certain connotation of respect and renown, for being known for good works and excellence. Mother Theresa was rightfully famous. Pop singer Britney Spears, on the other hand, can only claim notoriety or infamy for she has done little of importance, little of true excellence. The Founders did not want to be infamous but wanted their names to be associated with important and enduring works and ideas. They would have been horrified to be thought of as infamous, having left nothing of worth to mankind.

Let us hope that bloggers keep this admonition in mind when they sit down to pound out that latest posting. Let us be famous, not infamous. And let us remember that we aren’t just tapping away at our keyboards to no effect for what we do drives the arena of ideas and informs our national character.

For those bloggers not American, there is reason to feel neither excluded nor discriminated against with my tone here. Take from the history of America the authority to emulate their righteousness and make it your own. Pull from us a reliance on liberty and freedom that you might lead your fellows to a better future. There is no reason merely out of nationalist prejudice to turn away and ignore the urgency to heed these principles in every country on this Earth.

Blog away, America and the world, for you are following a grand and momentous tradition. You are the pamphleteers of today and the future.

So, what for a blog? For no less than revolution.

1. British Pamphleteers, edited by George Orwell and Reginald Reynolds. Publisher: A. Wingate, London, 1948

2. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, written by Bernard Bailyn. Publisher: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass, 1967