Does Anything Ever Really Change?

I have been gone for a while, mainly because I haven’t had much to say. Actually, I’ve had a lot to say but haven’t really known how to say it. I haven’t known how to say it because this world has gone totally nuts, and I’m not sure what more can be said but that. Anyway, here I am again.

This post is going to be a little different. I am going to begin with many quotes, from sources that will not be named, yet anyway. These quotes will have a central theme, are paraphrased when necessary, and are in no real particular order. Then we will talk about it, and I’ll explain where some of them came from. Many I will not be able to tie to a specific person, simply because I don’t know who some of these people are. Many are from the “man on the street.” But, where possible, I will eventually give credit where credit is due.

The Quotes

“We don’t care what the American people say, what Congress says, or what other oversight organizations say.”

(On democratizing the world) “We’re going to do it and we don’t care who gets killed in the process.”

“This is not how the Constitution was set up, not what the Founding Fathers intended. When you start by breaking foreign laws and overthrowing foreign governments, sovereign or not, you then find yourself breaking laws at home.”

“Sometimes you must be willing to go above and beyond the written law.”

“Some people are obviously willing to put the Constitution at risk because they believed there was a ‘higher order thing.’”

“We have liberty and the only way to keep it is to have strong leaders.”

“If we continue to rob ourselves to feed this security monster we are going to continue to degrade American life.”

“After all, we are only talking about upholding the Constitution.”

“A government in shadows, a secret government, will only occur if the people let it happen.”

“Abuse of power is simply a breach of faith.”

“We’ll never know the truth. I think it’s been happening all along only this time they got caught.”

“This has been a wholesale policy of lies, total fiction and deception.”

“To maintain military and moral prestige, we must be tough on terrorists.”

“America will never make concessions to terrorists.”

“What we have done does nothing but undercut our allies and the American people.”

“The Constitution states that the President shall take care that laws are faithfully executed.”

“The President has the right to act unilaterally. This is government speak for acting without Congressional consent or knowledge.”

“I see nothing wrong with creating forces to overthrow legal foreign governments, including democratic ones.”

“The President uses this as a way to keep war going despite Congress, public opinion, and the law.”

“To get around the law, you need a group of companies willing to set up private funding and a group of advisors to take control of policy.”

“…….a shadowy government with its own air force, its own navy, its own fundraising, with its own ideas of national interest free from checks and balances and most importantly, free from the law itself.”

“Its leaders are a creation of the US government, they are not first rate people but liars, motivated by power and greed. This war is a business to many of them.”

“This secret government has utter contempt for Congress, makes profits by shaking down foreign governments. It’s done in the dark of night because it can’t stand the light of day. There is no watchman at the door, no accountant to check the books, no judge to check the law. Secrecy is the freedom zealot’s dream of, a government without a constitution; the rules it follows are the rules it makes up.”

“This is an off the shelf, stand alone entity necessary to protect the United States.”

“These people are willing to put the Constitution at risk because they believe in a higher order; the ends are justified by the means. It’s the most Marxist, totalitarian doctrine I’ve ever heard of. When you hide things from the American people with no accountability, you’ve accomplished what Madison and others struggled with while putting the Constitution together, which was to prevent runaway power. They did not intend for power to be concentrated in one hand where one person runs off and makes a decision against the will of the American people.”

“We cannot abide with having terrorists run free in North America.”

“The terrorists know exactly what we are doing; the only people fooled are the American people.”

“How can people judge what they do not know or were lied to when they were told?”

“Politicians used to be bureaucrats. Now they are thrown in with slick used car salesmen and lawyers. Now everyone only talks about them as liars.”

“We don’t realize how close we are to surrendering popular control of government to the national security state. We’ve never come closer to bestowing absolute authority on the President,……”

“The men who wrote the Constitution tried to make it difficult for us to go to war because human life was at stake and national standing was involved. War should be soberly decided, publicly debated, and mutually determined by the peoples’ representatives. It is the people who must fight, pay and die once the choice is made. The Constitution wants to protect them from dying for the wrong reasons and from killing for the wrong reasons.”

And finally,

“We’ve turned war powers over to those we never know who or what they are really doing, what it costs, or who is paying for it. We are sure that this global war carried on with less and less accountability to our democratic institutions has become a way of life. Now we are pressed with a question never before faced: Can we have a permanent warfare state and democracy too?”

As I was doing this, I realized that I have four more hand written pages of quotes to use, but they are all along the same lines so I will stop now. Actually, I think I will use one more, from a war veteran.

“I think the country has finally learned very graphically that we must be sure if we are going to send our young people off to die like this it had better really be in the interest of every person in the United States before we make that sacrifice. We ask a lot of questions now that we didn’t use to ask, we want to know why, just what we are really involving ourselves in when we go to do that.”

What Exactly Is Your Point, Cyclone?

The above quotes came from various characters. They include; the “man or woman on the street,” war veterans, the despicable Oliver North, several Senators and Congressmen including John Kerry, law professors, one journalist, Bill Moyers, who produced the film that the majority of this information came from, practicing attorneys and various legal scholars. Kudos to you, Mr. Moyers, this is your work. And fabulous work it is. It has blown me away.

I find this a pretty accurate look at what can happen to a country that does what we have done, that being to give unfettered power to wage war to one man based on lies, deception, and by allowing him to use fear as a weapon against the American people.

But, that is not what is most interesting about this, to me at least. You see, this film was produced in the mid 1980’s, as a direct response to the Iran/Contra scandal. It was sent to me by a regular reader of the Real Deal, and for which I am forever grateful. The film includes other time frames as well, from WWII, which incidentally was the last war actually declared by Congress, up through the Viet Nam war. Its main focus and impetus though, was the Iran/Contra affair. That is what they were saying THEN. If that is the case, what should we be saying NOW?

These days everything comes full circle, but one thing seems to be consistent. That is that lies eventually catch up with administrations, with the Republicans lies generally resulting in wars. A thing that surprised me was that the fear of us being involved in “perpetual war” was there well over 20 years ago, and was actually recognized and pointed out at the time. Unfortunately, I had forgotten more about Iran/Contra than I remembered. I was “busy” during that period of my life, being a degenerate living on the beach. I remember watching the hearings, hating the arrogant, repulsive Oliver North and Ronald Reagan, but few of the specifics. Perhaps some of you recall this period better than I do, or have already seen this film. If so, this probably won’t have the same meaning or impact as it has had on me.

Another thing that strikes me is something that I hadn’t really noticed before, perhaps because of my age. It appears that the American people have essentially had their heads in the sand for a heckuva lot longer than I imagined. I found most interesting that the last quote I posted came from a Viet Nam veteran. Stating that he thought we had, as a people, finally began asking the hard questions before sending people to war.

Have we? Though that may have been the case in the immediate aftermath of that conflict, it didn’t take long for business as usual to become the rule of the day at the time. It looks like the same routine to me today, a fear based somber tale by a dimwit President telling us how we are in grave danger. The only real difference is that now it is a “war on terror” when then it was a “war on communism.” And, of course, it is all full of lies with the “ends justifying the means” being the operative words, as John Kerry mentioned above.

Now, I feel the need to get philosophical for a moment. (I'm getting soft in my old age)I think that more than anything this exercise has taught me one thing, and that is this. There are some of us who have a passion, a need, a calling if you will to be the watchmen for others. It is our job to see outside the box, to point out what might be coming down the road to those who won’t, or can’t, look for themselves. It is something that we MUST do, we simply can’t help ourselves. We have to know, and we have to tell. I consider the majority of us to be a part of that "watchmen" group, not just those of us who write here. But, to expect any positive results to come from our actions or to have a great revelation or any action occur among the masses is nothing more than a pipe dream. It just ain’t gonna happen. That is humbling, and at the same time relieving.

It is also not all bad, as we have somehow found each other. We have a growing group who really do give a damn what happens to this place called America, and this place called Mother Earth. Unlike Boosh, we are not alone on an island, we are instead communicating daily with many people of like mind. We are tossing out ideas for the good of others, though in the end they will likely only result in good for ourselves. But good nonetheless. So maybe our focus should be mainly on those already at our own council fire, and those that we will welcome to this place in the near future. Maybe it always has been this way and I just didn’t realize it. Others will come, one at a time or ten, but it matters not. They will be welcomed with warmth, common sense, and if they seek it, a kind community genuinely asking for their input and ideas.

My reality has changed and I have grown some over the last month or so, for the better I think. Before what we all know will happen does happen, we should perhaps think about finding a place to hole up together and protect one another from what will likely be a hellish period for those who manage to survive the crash or war, whichever arrives first. I remember thinking from a self induced Oklahoma haze back in the 60’s that I wanted to see what it would be like to live in a commune. It may be nearing time to make that dream a reality.

Cyclone