Citing Ethics and Morality, Democrats Ban Philanderer From Podium

The latest scoop from Denver:

The DNC has announced that former Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards has been banned from making a speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver for having an illicit affair and then lying about it.

In Edward's place, former President Bill Clinton will be speaking.

Hat tip to Bernie!

I.O.U.S.A.

From the web site:

Wake up, America! We're on the brink of a financial meltdown. I.O.U.S.A. boldly examines the rapidly growing national debt and its consequences for the United States and its citizens. Burdened with an ever-expanding government and military, increased international competition, overextended entitlement programs, and debts to foreign countries that are becoming impossible to honor, America must mend its spendthrift ways or face an economic disaster of epic proportions.

Thanks to Jeff for the link!

The Empire strikes back

"Local food" is only one of the efforts the League of the South supports, not only as an end in itself, but also as a means toward reviving political localism and self-government. It's the direct descendent of the Southern Agrarian movement, promoting local economies, stronger communities, and local traditions.

So naturally the entrenched globalist forces don't like it one bit, and are beginning to snipe at it. And it's just as natural that the sniping is being done by a supposed ally, one with the reputation for promoting liberty, but which has in fact changed sides.

Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute concedes that local food tastes better, is more nutritious, and supports local farms, though he mocks such a goal: "Go ahead, if that's your bag." Local food, he snickers, actually costs more. But that isn't true -- the apparent savings from heavily subsidized, politically connected big business, especially big agribusiness, disguises the hidden costs that are inevitably passed down to the taxpayer and consumer. His only substantive dig at localism is that it doesn't save as much fossil fuel as you might think. Yep -- that's all he's got.

The Cato Institute, once a fairly mainstream libertarian think tank, has been taken over by big-government, pro-war Neocons (but I repeat myself).

Its scholars have no problem with warrantless searches, with centralizing more power in the District of Corruption, and maintains that Abraham Lincoln was "a good American" because he forcibly prevented the Southern States from exercising their right to self-determination.

So it's no surprise one of its hired guns is targeting a trend that's a growing threat to the globalist system.

Daddy Yankee?

Why does a Latino rapper support McCain for president? As, um, "Daddy Yankee" says, "He's a fighter for the Hispanic community." The young Latinas squeal, McCain grins, and the rest of us groan.

Fannie and Freddie Fleece the Taxpayers

It's bad enough the US government uses taxpayer dollars to subsidize affirmative action mortgage lending practices, but now that the whole insane system is crashing all around us, we're being soaked again to prop up this monstrosity:

Relying in part on last month’s housing bill allowing the Federal Housing Authority to make some $300 billion available for refinancing existing home mortgages, Fannie and Freddie say they will attempt to raise additional capital privately and to take steps to slow loan defaults and home foreclosures.

But in an environment where it is now clear that the two companies are backed by the full faith and credit of the US government, the potential liabilities of taxpayers will continue to balloon. Although Fannie claims to have tightened requirements for liar loans, it will keep buying them until year’s end. Stay tuned for more bad news.

Oh, we'll be tuned in, all right. Seems like we have very little choice.

Losing the "Good War"

The US continues to stumble and blunder its way down the path to disaster in Afghanistan, the other useless, senseless war. The killing of more than 90 Afghan civilians, now confirmed, has roused even the US puppet to bold action:

President Hamid Karzai dismissed an Afghan Army general and another officer Sunday for their parts in a commando operation in western Afghanistan that Afghan officials say killed more than 90 civilians.

The attack Friday, the officials said, killed mostly women and children and occurred when a joint patrol of Afghan Army commandos and U.S. embedded Special Forces trainers called in airstrikes on a compound in the village of Azizabad.

The US-led NATO forces intend to subdue the Afghan insurgency with its airpower, fully aware it cannot match the numbers of the defenders, who have a long history of defeating invading armies. But War analyst William Lind argues there's no surer or faster way to lose a counterinsurgeny than by calling in airstrikes. While using air superiority to counter the insurgents' home court advantage may sound good on paper, Lind reveals why such an approach is bound to lose:

It is a disaster on every level. Physically, it inevitably kills far more civilians than enemies, enraging the population against us and driving them into the arms of our opponents. Mentally, it tells the insurgents we are cowards who only dare fight them from 20,000 feet in the air. Morally, it turns us into Goliath, a monster every real man has to fight.

In other words, we must look at ourselves as others -- in this case, the defenders -- see us. And that's something we're incapable of doing.

Worse, the Afghan puppet regime is so corrupt and so infiltrated by the Taleban and the warlords, the US can't really trust it. The report reveals the civilians were killed because the US forces were purposely fed false information:

A tribal elder from the region who helped bury the dead, Haji Tor Jan Noorzai, said people in the village were gathered in memory of a man who was anti-Taliban and was killed last year, and that tribal enemies of the family had given out false information.

"It is quite obvious: The Americans bombed the area due to wrong information," he said by telephone. "I am 100 percent confident that someone gave the information due to a tribal dispute. The Americans are foreigners, and they do not understand. These people they killed were enemies of the Taliban."

So. It appears the Taleban grasps exactly what Lind's trying to tell heedless US military leaders, that in counterinsurgency, boots on the ground (assuming they're smart boots) are the most effective weapon, and bombs from above are the worst. The Afghan insurgency knows that so well, it's using that as a strategy, feeding false information to the US giant to tangle it up in its own resources even more.

DC is stabbing at ghosts in Afghanistan, but ends up hitting the very people it must win over to succeed. So the actual result of the use of air power is to turn even more Afghans against the US. A brutal strategy, perhaps, but this is war.

Slate editor: If Obama Loses, it's because of racism

Did Jacob Weisberg really say that? Yes, he did:

Much evidence points to racial prejudice as a factor that could be large enough to cost Obama the election. That warning is written all over last month's CBS/New York Times poll, which is worth examining in detail if you want a quick grasp of white America's curious sense of racial grievance.

And he foresees terrible, terrible things happening if Obama does lose. Things like -- this:

If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world's judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.

That's right, only the United States has a race problem. Well, except Iraq, where blacks cannot get top-level jobs, and are insulted with the epithet "slave." Then there's Singapore, which seceded from Malaysia as the only solution to continuing race riots between the Malays and Chinese. Oh, and then there's that little Arab-Jewish kerfuffle that just won't go away. And then ... ah, forget it.

But isn't it odd that Weisberg doesn't mention another New York Times poll, the one that revealed only 2% of blacks support McCain?

But, you see, when blacks reject a white candidate, it's not because of racial prejudice. And the reason why is very simple. It's because ... oh, there's the phone. I gotta go.

Are You Ready for Nuclear War?

This can't be emphasized enough: Empire does not create prosperity; it consumes it. Neither does it create security; it breeds daily fear of disaster -- such as the type Bush & Co. have sparked in Europe:

The Americans were the first to announce preemptive nuclear attack as their permissible war doctrine. Now the Russians have announced the tactical use of nuclear weapons as their response to American smart weapons.

It is obvious that American foreign policy, with its goal of ringing Russia with US military bases, is leading directly to nuclear war. Every American needs to realize this fact. The US government’s insane hegemonic foreign policy is a direct threat to life on the planet.

Roberts is right when he concludes that voting Republican will make you poor, oppressed, and in heightened risk of nuclear annihilation. But the bad news is that voting Democratic won't change a thing.

Name on government watch list threatens pilot's career

Cheney's One Percent Doctrine applies at home, too:

For Erich Scherfen, being on a government terror watch list isn't just a matter of inconvenience. It could end his career. ..

In April, Colgan informed Scherfen that he was on a government list and would be suspended from his job. He was told he faced termination on September 1 unless he was able to clear his name.

Welcome to Imperial America, where you're guilty until you prove your innocence.

Paleoconservatism 101 - the video

This video and the lyrics that go with it nicely summarize the paleoconservative world view and its critique of modern society. The featured song, "The Way," paints a disturbing allegory of a boomer generation deserting its children for the pleasures of the flesh and the illusion of endless adolescence -- what the composer acidly describes as their "eternal summer slacking." In the video, the adults drink their wine and simply walk away from their children, their greatest responsibility, and their real attachment to the future:

They now had more important things to say
And when the car broke down
They started walking
Where were they going without ever knowing the way?

What can children do without their elders to provide a bridge between them and their past, their heritage, and to their own journey? Life must go on, so on they go -- but like their faithless elders, they have no idea what they're doing:

The children woke up
And they couldn't find 'em
They left before the sun came up that day
They just drove off
And left it all behind 'em
But where were they going without ever knowing the way?

We, as a society, have convinced ourselves we no longer need traditional roots, and many even shun them as unenlightened and discriminatory. But the accumulated wisdom of inherited experience is far, far greater than the imagination of even the most proud philosopher. The human need for belonging, purpose, and a sense of continuity and direction cannot be ignored. Substitutes will be found, whether in the seductive form of the shared victimhood of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Alliance, or the maniacal, bogus fraternity of the Skinheads. It's just one more consumer choice. And choice is a good thing, right?

Not always. There are the real things in life, those essentials that make us who we are and link us to a greater community. We are social beings, and our active participation in an historical society not only preserves humanity, but fulfills the individual.

As Edmund Burke observed, the proper balance of liberty and order can only be maintained if “... the whole great drama of national life [is] reverently received as ordered by a Power to which past, present, and future are organically knit stages in one Divine plan.” He also wrote, "Society is a contract between the past, the present and those yet unborn."

We have broken that contract, and have looted the storehouse of our inheritance, thinking it's boundless. But now the party's over, and we're beginning to see the consequences of abandoning the wisdom, the meaning, and the guidance of our own heritage.

Where are you going?

If we only had a fence ...

I suppose these folks' intentions are good, but the simple truth is that a fence on the US-Mexican border is not going to stop the flow of illegals into this country. The financial incentives on both sides are just too attractive. And these days, money is all that matters, even if it's illusory and short term.

The dynamics of this invasion are no different from any other. Whatever its outcome depends on many factors, both economic and emotional. The one vital factor that can change everything is the morale of the defender, something every commander and political leader trying to hold back a determined invader knows his people must have. An army or a people facing long odds and backed by scant resources can, if united by a strong sense of identity and purpose, achieve miracles. And the reverse is true -- good odds and good supply lines mean nothing if there is no strong sense of purpose in the ranks.


What are we defending? Which way of life deserves to predominate? Is ours a heritage of proud accomplishment or is it only a code word for irrational hate? Until we re-learn pride in who we are, nothing can save us from being overwhelmed by a teeming Third World. Nothing.

Obama explains it all

Let's point our lens at two new flashpoints in the world today, and slowly zoom out so we finally focus on the Big Picture. And, as the title suggests, the presumptive Democratic candidate will guide us. Sound like fun? C'mon!

Here's Ivan Eland of the Center on Peace & Liberty on the US response to the Russia-Georgia conflict. Eland gives us a clear, concise summary of the tensions there in a piece entitled,
The U.S. Should Be Wary of Strongly Backing Georgia:

Because Georgia is a U.S. friend, however, U.S. politicians, in a huff to heap blame on the resurgent Russian bear, forgot to mention that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili recklessly first invaded South Ossetia to try to reclaim one of the two regions, which both have had long-standing autonomy and populations who want it to stay that way. He did this in part because the U.S. had helped build up his military, leading him to overestimate U.S. backing in any crisis.

Next, here's a Fox News report on the simmering dispute between Russia and an overgrown NATO determined to expand into Poland. The headline says it all: Russia Threatens Military Response if U.S., Poland Follow Through With Missile Defense Deal

The United States and Poland signed a deal Wednesday to place a U.S. missile defense base just 115 miles from Russia — a move followed swiftly by a new warning from Moscow of a possible military response.

In the following piece, Pat Buchanan puts both of these potential disasters into perspective in this piece entitled, Who Started Cold War II? The answer, sadly, is DC:

The arrogant folly of the architects of U.S. post-Cold War policy is today on display. By bringing three ex-Soviet republics into NATO, we have moved the U.S. red line for war from the Elbe almost to within artillery range of the old Leningrad.

Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.

Now that we see the background of these new, very troubling hot spots, let's look at what got us there. Why is the United States roaming the world, inserting itself into areas it has no business in, escalating or creating tensions? How does it justify such actions?

That's where Obama comes in. His Time Magazine interview is a gold mine of geo-political insight -- and an essential starting point for understanding the New American Empire. Here, Obama responds to the interviewer's query about how his background has prepared him to be the president of the United States of America:

Time: You grew up a child of the world, and as you've said you have 'brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents.' How does it affect your view of America's place in the world, the idea of American exceptionalism?

Obama: If anything, it has reinforced my belief in American exceptionalism. One of the things that happens when you live overseas is you realize how special America is— our values, our ideals, our Constitution, our rule of law, the idea of equality and opportunity. Those are things that we often take for granted, and it's only when you get out of the country that you see the majority of the world doesn't enjoy those same privileges.

What I do think it also provides is a sense that the world really is smaller than we sometimes think, and that the aspirations of people around the world, although not always expressed in identical ways, really aren't all that different. People want work that supports their families. People want their children to do better than they are doing. They want some sense of security. And so when I approach foreign policy, I work from the basis that there are some universal hopes and dreams and fears that people carry with them.

What Obama's telling us is that we Americans are special because we're everyone. We are the world. And everyone wants what we have -- but they don't have it. Therefore, Obama's foreign policy will focus on spreading American values around the globe so the people of the world have what they want. Thus, we fulfill our own destiny while uplifting and liberating the world.

How does that differ from the current Neocon/globalist regime controlling DC? Not one bit. And in fact, the elevated tone of a global democratic revolution hides the gruesome reality that violence mangles bodies and snuffs out lives. That's true whether it's George W. Bush or Barack Obama providing the noble-sounding rhetoric.

We'v noted before how the invasion of Iraq has been justified by appeals to the core principles of the Civil Rights Revolution. Of course, it takes a radical re-writing of our actual history and traditional beliefs to arrive at such a conclusion -- which is why that particular big lie has to be drilled into us over and over by the Neocon think tanks, which seem to never run out of money, ink, or bandwidth.

While Neocon/globalist/multicult propaganda seeks to convince us that America has always been a multicultural empire, the historical records tell us a very different story. The government set up by the Founders was to secure "the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity," not for the entire world. By "ourselves," the Founders clearly meant what John Jay described as "one united people - a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs." Our principles of government, like the other components of our way of life, were never intended for export -- and certainly not for forcible export.

By transforming America from "British America" into "Global America," we inevitably change the government from one of minimal interference in a self-regulating, historical culture to that of unlimited power to control a constantly fractious, disconnected body politic. That creates more for government to do. But that's the whole point.

So what's the message in the Big Picture Obama has shared with us? Quite simply, it's that the more multicult/globalist we become, the more warlike our foreign policy, and the less free and less prosperous our society will be.

Stated in such stark terms, no one in his right mind would choose such a path. But we do not have a choice -- what we have instead is a chance to vote for one of two globalist/multicult candidates.

Pastor believes 'gay is a mark of God's diversity'

Does anyone reading this remember when "diversity" replaced God as the ultimate object of veneration? Apparently, it has at the University of Georgia:

Rev. Renee DuBose is an active pastor and lifelong Christian with a master's degree in religious education from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. She is also a lesbian.

"I believe I was born gay," DuBose said. "I believe with all my heart that God creates diversity; my being gay is a mark of God's diversity." DuBose is a pastor at Our Hope Metropolitan Community Church in Athens, which specializes in the spiritual needs of the gay community.

The caption under the Rev. Dubose's picture made me do a double-take:

Rev. Renee DuBose, the pastor of Our Hope Metropolitan Community Church, poses in the Presbyterian Student Center. She seeks "to live as a progressive Christian by embracing the key values of diversity, justice and quality."

She's posing, alright.

Orson Scott Card versus the Neocons?

As satisfying as it was to see the grass roots war supporters reject McCain for his pro-amnesty stance, this latest opinion piece by author and commentator Orson Scott Card trumps even that delicious moment of I-told-you-so. Card is mad as hell at the triumph of the "gay" agenda -- so mad, he even preaches what would once be called sedition by his fellow war supporters:

Here's the irony: There is no branch of government with the authority to redefine marriage. Marriage is older than government. Its meaning is universal: It is the permanent or semipermanent bond between a man and a woman, establishing responsibilities between the couple and any children that ensue.

Hey, Orson, here's a bigger irony -- who argued that the Federal government could assume the power to re-define any American citizen as an "enemy combatant" with no rights, or to bypass the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of warrantless searches? Who accused those of us objecting to those assaults on our traditional freedoms as misguided souls who "wrap themselves in the flag and pretend that they are protecting the American way of life"? Maybe this will nudge your memory.

We've been arguing for some time that the Neocon agenda is nothing but the re-packaging of big-government, leftist ideology in conservative packaging. While the war supporters thumped their chests over W the Great's splendid little war, we continued to warn that the government was using its newly acquired powers to push through a globalist program of "creative destruction" aimed at destroying America's traditional culture.

And behold, Card now sees the same happening -- and more jaw-dropping is his conclusion about what has to be done in response:

If property rights were utterly abolished, and you could own nothing, you would leave that society as quickly as possible -- or create a new society that agreed to respect each other's property rights and protected them from outsiders who would attempt to take away your property.

Regardless of law, marriage has only one definition, and any government that attempts to change it is my mortal enemy. I will act to destroy that government and bring it down, so it can be replaced with a government that will respect and support marriage, and help me raise my children in a society where they will expect to marry in their turn.

It's also significant that Card justifies his stance with the principles of the Declaration of Independence -- and I mean the real Declaration, which proclaims the right of secession, not the Reconstructed version that sanctions government-enforced equality. Here, he chimes in with basic paleoconservative principles. Our rights, as a natural component of the historic culture that guides and sustains us, precede government. When government subverts its purpose of defending our God-given way of life, the people have the right to alter or replace that government.

And make no mistake -- the Neocons have been working arm-in-arm with all of the leftist enemies of traditional America, including the "gay" rights lobby and the Open Borders traitors. Meanwhile, well-meaning, patriotic Americans who submitted to a government demanding greater power have unwittingly advanced the Neocons' alien, hostile agenda.

Orson Scott Card, we can only hope you've woken up in time.

'Stand Up, Selma'

Talk about hypocrisy.

Sunday night, the people of Selma, Alabama were treated to an event called "Stand Up, Selma." The organizers proclaimed their purpose was to "stand together in love" in order to build a “beloved community.”

And some of the speakers backed up those goals with their talks to the audience:

Reverends Mark Duke and Spicer made a call to action. Spicer said to celebrate and appreciate everyone’s culture.

“My heritage is a part of me,” he said. “I should be who I am, and you should be who you are. We should like each other for who we are.”

Duke spoke of acceptance for everyone.

“People should be tolerant for one another,” he said. “We should respect each other.”

Sounds good. But one look at who put this little love-fest together raises immediate suspicion: the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Worse, the keynote speaker was none other than Heidi Beirich, whom the article describes as the "director of research and special projects intelligence projects [sic] for the Southern Poverty Law Center ..."

Whoa! Seems like Heidi acquires a new, even-creepier sounding title every time we hear from her.

So how does a community "stand together in love" and promote respect for everyone's heritage?

If you're Heidi Beirich, you terrify the audience:

The law center says there are 24 hate groups in Alabama.

“There is a hate group base in Selma,” Beirich said. “It is called the League of the South. They are a neo-confederate group that basically wants to return to a way of life pre-1865.”

Beirich said members of the group believe slavery is God ordained.

She told the horrified audience tips to help stop hate groups.

Oh, the horror. The horror.

In case you missed it, Heidi Beirich just implied the League of the South's number one goal is to bring back slavery. How that deliberate distortion promotes mutual respect and a "beloved community" escapes me.

But such dishonesty is the SPLC's business plan. Forget the League of the South's core message warning about the dangerous concentration of political and economic power, and about the intensifying assault on our traditional protections from an out-of-control central government. Forget the speeches urging self-reliance and why we must break growing dependence on government. Forget the books and articles seeking to preserve historical cultures, and documenting the historical record of appeals to egalitarianism, the favorite incendiary device of ambitious demagogues.

Instead, demonize an organization promoting the true history and the survival of the Southern people as something it is not. Reduce its members and the people it represents down to a single, malicious lie.

Of course, the remarks of the SPLC's director of special intelligence projects make perfect sense -- that is, once you understand that the SPLC's actual goal is to profit from racial animosity.

If the SPLC were in charge of fire departments, they'd put napalm in all the hydrants.

Fixing that innertube thingy

OK, I've switched to a new ISP, and should be able to get RebellionBlog email properly now.

There's a lot going on these days in the fight for devolution and local self-government as Leviathan continues to collapse under its own weight. With so much to talk about, you won't want to miss any of our posts. Things are starting to get REAL interesting! So hold onto your hats, and be sure to check Rebellion every day.

California outlaws Bush's torture policies

California's been making a lot of noise lately about charting a different course than Uncle Sam (see here, for example). Her latest act of resistance should have some long-lasting, international repercussions:

The California Legislature today adopted a resolution aimed at preventing California health professionals from engaging in coercive interrogations of detainees at Guantánamo and other U.S. military prisons.

Senate Joint Resolution 19 instructs the state’s licensing boards to inform California doctors, psychologists and other health professionals of their obligations under national and international law relating to torture. The boards will warn the licensees that they may one day be subject to prosecution if they participate in interrogations that do not conform to international standards of treatment of prisoners.

California has resisted DC's control regarding pollution and immigration as well. So when do folks there realize the sane thing to do is to make a clean break from DC's destructive, wasteful rule?

New England Groups Look to Secede

Here's a great report on yet another movement to restore local sovereignty and put the brakes on a runaway Federal government:

Burt Cohen, 57, a former state senator, is leading a front in New Hampshire to secede from the U.S., and join with Maine, Vermont, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Gaspé Peninsula to create a new authority called New Acadia or Novacadia based on maps of a 1702 maritime union.

"This is a continuation of my politics," Cohen said. "I am interested in people taking part in decisions, and right now, it seems to me that fewer and fewer people have more concentrated wealth and power."

This is not some radical idea Mr. Cohen is advocating, but simply the continuation of a fine, long-forgotten tradition of New England self-government.

The central argument the post makes for secession is becoming more obvious every day: at some point, bureaucracy gets too big, and breaks down. The groans and cracks all around us can no longer be ignored.

A disgruntled reader defends pro-SPLC writer

Oh, yeah, the mainstream press maintains strict professionalism and objectivity when it publishes the SPLC's press releases.


At least this reader thinks so:

I think you're letting your own biases cloud your vision here, Mr. Rebellion.

And I think someone's spoiling for a fight.

The story you tried to smear as biased toward the Southern Poverty Law Center [Interview with the SPLC] is as fair and impartial as it could be. The quote from Mr. Potok was balanced by other quotes defending the accused. I suppose you'd only be satisfied if only the defenders of ethnic intimidation were heard from.

[Name withheld by request - permission granted to post email]

Dear Name,

But the article not only quoted Count Potokula from the Southern Poverty Law Center, but the pro-amnesty Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund as well. These nationally known, well-funded organizations are going to carry more weight with unsuspecting readers than the supportive comments of the accused boys' friends and neighbors.

Then, to add even more authority to the pro-open borders side, the article quoted a sociology professor who poses as an expert on "hate crimes." And wouldn't you know his comments echo the SPLC position:

"Jack Levin, a sociology professor at Boston's Northeastern University who has written books on hate crimes, said he could see it coming.

In a 24-hour news culture, where blogs, talk radio and cable TV provide a steady torrent of negative stereotypes about illegal immigrants, Latinos are primed as potential victims, Levin said."

So where were the quotes from organizations and scholars who oppose amnesty for illegal alien invaders? Representatives of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, VDare, or Americans for Legal Immigration are easily contacted and eager to tell their story. Why didn't the writer provide an authoritative quote from them? He would -- IF he really cared about presenting both sides of this crisis.

I'll say it again: the mainstream corporate press continues to ignore the obvious truth that the SPLC makes its fortune by painting all immigration control activists as evil racists who want to kill minorities out of irrational hatred. Dees & Co. terrify little old liberals with visions of Klansmen and neo-Nazis being behind all border security efforts -- which, naturally, benefits big corporations always hungry for more cheap, exploitable labor. So there's a financial incentive behind the SPLC's version of immigration reform. Doesn't that deserve just a little probing? Doesn't it demand a little extra effort to provide real balance?

Russia: Poland risks attack because of US missiles

Dangerous times require dangerous leaders.

You'd think we would've learned something from the Cuban Missile Crisis: countries don't like it when you arm nearby countries -- and pushing an anti-missile system on Russia's neighbor is guaranteed to make the bear even more skittish. Yet here's the Bush maladministration imposing democratic imperialism at Russia's doorstep:

Poland and the United States on Thursday signed a deal for Poland to accept a missile interceptor base as part of a system the United States says is aimed at blocking attacks by rogue nations. Moscow, however, feels it is aimed at Russia's missile force.

"Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent," Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.

What on earth is Bush thinking? Why should we risk nuclear war to defend Warsaw? Or Tbilisi, for that matter?

But then, as Pat Buchanan points out here, DC has been seeking to fill the ideological and political vacuum caused by the collapse of the Communist bloc for some time, including during the "liberal" Clinton regime -- and all the while, demanding other nations live by a set of rules that somehow don't apply to the US:

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?

So here we are, getting a glimpse of the chaos and danger of DC's globalist agenda.

Student fights Anderson Co. Confederate flag ban

Here's the shirt:


Image from Dixie Outfitters

With all the rotten news out there, here's something to shed a little ray of hope. A young Southerner in Knoxville endured multiple suspensions for wearing a Southern pride shirt to school. The case goes back for years (click here for an early report), but he's still fighting. His comments this week display the Southern fighting spirit that many thought had been brainwashed out of the present generation:

Outside court Thursday, Tommy Defoe, a former student, said, "They're trying to say the Confederate battle flag is offensive to others and it's not. They can't prove that it is, you know. I mean, it's my heritage. It makes me mad that they would say that about it."

Mr. Defoe, you deserve a salute from Southerners everywhere. Deo Vindice!

The news is too confusing

Now, let's see -- the Bushies think it's vital that all US resources be used to safeguard Georgia's borders. As Bush said yesterday, "Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected."

And yet, there's nothing we can -- or should -- do to stop Mexico from violating American sovereignty and territorial integrity. I suppose if Bush were president of Georgia, he's be working for amnesty for the Russian invaders.

Also, we're supposed to be all panicky about what Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili calls the possible "ethnic cleansing" of Georgians by Russians.

But we're supposed to overlook the real and immediate ethnic cleansing of American blacks by Latinos in Los Angeles.

I just don't get it.

"Naval Blockade" or All Out War Against Iran?

Here's yet one more indication that the Bush-Cheney Neonuts are determined to spark Armageddon. From Global Research:

It is worth noting that the Kuwaiti government had activated emergency procedures based on the information pertaining to a major naval deployment in the Persian Gulf.

Based on the movement and location of USS carrier and expeditionary strike forces, the Bush administration has not decided to carry out a naval surge directed against Iran immediately following the conduct of the North Atlantic War Games,

The eventuality of a naval blockade directed against Iran is nonetheless being considered by the Pentagon. In fact, the naval blockade initiative is supported by a bill which was launched in the US Congress in late May. (See below for details).

We have checked the most recent information regarding the movements and location of the various USS Carrier and Expeditionary Strike Groups.

Will American Insouciance Destroy the World?

Paul Craig Roberts gives us an unnerving but insightful follow-up to The Caucasian Ultimatum. He warns that we're in the closest thing we've had to a nuclear showdown since the Cuban Missile crisis, only then, adults ran things in DC. Roberts, who served in the Reagan administration, knows the men in charge today well enough to know we should all be frightened -- very frightened:

Dick Cheney, the insane American Vice President telephoned Saakashvili to express US solidarity with Georgia in the conflict with Russia and declared: "Russian aggression must not go unanswered." Cheney's telephone call is like Great Britain's "guarantee" to Poland against Nazi Germany. Only a complete idiot would tell Saakashvili anything other than "to cease immediately." ...

The US military certainly has no resources for a war against Russia on top of lost wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a planned war with Iran.

Worse, enough people in this country still believe whatever lies pour forth from the mouth of W the Great to support another losing war -- and again, in a corner of the world that is no threat to us.

Quietly, an era ends for news media

Here's a pundit touching on what I wrote Tuesday in The Other Edwards Casualty. However, he doesn't go as far as I did when I argued the Edwards sex scandal metastory was a major milestone marking the end of Big Media. Instead, he claims what's been lost is the mainstream media's ability to define what is and what isn't a legitimate news story (he is, after all, a dead tree journalist). The writer even goes so far as to state that the story wasn't "real" until ABC news made it real. See what you think:

From the start, the Edwards scandal belonged entirely to the alternative and new media. The tabloid National Enquirer had done all the significant reporting on it – reporting that turns out to be largely correct. Bloggers and online commentators refused to let the story sputter into oblivion.

True. But here's his conclusion:

With that admission, the illusion that traditional print and broadcast news organizations can establish the limits of acceptable political journalism joined the passenger pigeon on the roster of extinct Americana.

So what's really happening to Big Media? You say emending, I say it's ending.

Let's call the whole thing off.

Congressional apology for slavery was completely illogical

This zinger from the Southern Avenger (who was that masked man?) needs to be circulated near and far:

But in reality the wagging finger of today's slave drivers has more to do with politically correct fashion than logic — Sharpton, Jackson, and company completely ignore the slavery that exists in modern Africa, yet they can't stop talking about an institution that's been long gone in America.

Things have gotten so absurd that even alleged symbols of slavery like the Confederate flag are considered so offensive that major retailers often refuse to stock merchandise featuring them. Meanwhile, these same stores gladly stock merchandise that very well may have been made by actual slaves.

Of course it's all nonsense. It's not the real problem of modern-day slavery that motivates guilt mongers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, but the power and treasure in manipulating white guilt. Well done, Southern Avenger!

And we didn't even have a chance to thank him.

Interview with the SPLC

Four white teens have been arrested and charged with the murder of an illegal Mexican immigrant in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania:

The Schuylkill County district attorney has charged Brandon Piekarsky, 16, and Colin Walsh, 17, as adults with murder and "ethnic intimidation," which covers hate crimes. Derrick Donchak, 18, has been charged with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation. Another 17-year-old faces the same charges in juvenile court. All have pleaded not guilty.

End of story, right? Wrong. Remember, the corporate press is one of the globalists' shiniest and sharpest tools. The point of publicizing this crime is to skew perceptions about who's victimizing whom and to lay on a thick coat of guilt on middle-class Americans:

This pocket of blue-collar America, where big-band musicians Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey got their start, is spinning in the ugly vortex of the nation's racially charged war over illegal Immigration. Federal officials have launched an investigation into last month's murder to determine if it is part of a rising trend of anti-Latino hate crimes around the country.

Could the writer be any clearer? If you're part of "blue-collar America" and take what is clearly the WRONG SIDE in the "racially charged war over illegal immigration," you're magically and totally associated with these alleged murderers.

And whenever an illegal immigrant is harmed by a white, look who comes to life -- Count Potokula, the Dark Prince of Diversity.


It's a lesson you learn on day one of journalism school: you can't do a story on immigration or race without a canned response from the Southern Poverty Law Center. And what is Count Potokula's reaction to what happened in Shenandoah? Naturally, he sees it as an opportunity to feed on white guilt:

"We are reaping what we, as a nation, have [sown]," said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate crimes nationwide.

See? I told you we're all guilty.

That's because Count Potokula only comes out when there's the statistically rare white-on-Latino crime: In a study of anti-Latino crimes conducted in Los Angeles, 76% of the suspects were black and only 22% were white. But the Count snoozed away in his coffin last month when a Latino gang member killed Tony Bologna, who was white, and Bologna's two young sons in San Francisco. And when another illegal immigrant, Jose Carranza, murdered four black students in New Jersey last August, the Dark Prince of Diversity remained frozen. Nor has Potokula so much as fluttered an eyelid about any of the other crimes committed by illegal aliens, though, as this report reveals, illegal aliens are responsible for a disproportionate amount of criminal activity:

In Los Angeles, 95 percent of all outstanding warrants for homicide (which total 1,200 to 1,500) target illegal aliens. Up to two-thirds of all fugitive felony warrants (17,000) are for illegal aliens.

That explains why illegal aliens are crowding American prisons far out of proportion of their numbers in this country -- which are growing every day.

Of course, the globalist ghouls don't want you to know the real story. That's why they have to rely on sensationalistic, emotionally charged agitprop pieces. Just as vampires fear mirrors, creatures like Count Potokula fear open debate and facts about the illegal immigration disaster that's ruining our country. Guilt, innuendo, and moralistic grandstanding are all they have.

Hmmm -- vampires also fear the crucifix and other Christian symbols -- could that be why the SPLC objects to the public display of the Ten Commandments? Just wondering ...

Whatever happened to Christian Exodus?

Here's one report from the liberal American Prospect:

Christian Exodus, which was formed in 2004 (partly inspired by Lawrence v. Texas) and claims to have 1,500 members, hoped to move 50,000 Christians to South Carolina to enact a Christian government that would ban homosexuality and abortion, cease public school funding in favor of parents homeschooling their children, and protect all Christian religious displays in public. Furthermore, though the group claims to support racial equality in its statement of positions, it also seeks to repeal the 14th Amendment, which guaranteed rights to former slaves, and all laws or rulings associated with it (not to mention the group's work with far-right groups such as the neo-Confederate League of the South).

Right. And the October Revolution guaranteed liberty and prosperity to the workers.

Really, now. It continues to amaze me how liberals (including the American Prospect) maintain an otherwise healthy skepticism toward DC's actions, including its wars of "liberation," yet swallow the self-congratulatory, aggrandizing myth of the War Between the States and Reconstruction as a noble crusade to free blacks. When war came, it was clear that it was a war between two economic and political systems, as opposed to the post-war propaganda that it was a great, noble war of liberation. In the real world, nations do not go to war to do good deeds; they go to war for power, land, and treasure.

This, too, was noted at the time hostilities broke out between North and South:

"Lincoln's determination received the hearty applause of powerful northern interests. Eastern manufacturers worried that they would lose Southern markets to European competitors because of the Confederacy's free-trade policy. Yankee merchants and ship builders faced an end to a monopoly on the South's coastal trade that the government granted to US vessels. Holders of government securities were edgy about the Union's loss of tariff revenue." Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, professor of History and Economics, Golden Gate University, San Francisco, Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men: A History of the American Civil War (1996)

Foreign observers quickly comprehended the real issue the South faced. Charles Dickens, the renowned literary champion of the poor, wrote this scathing indictment of Mr. Lincoln's intentions in an 1861 article: "The Northern onslaught upon slavery was no more than a piece of humbug designed to conceal its desire for economic control of the Southern states."

The 14th amendment was ballyhooed as a liberating document; in fact, its actual purpose and effect was to reverse the roles of the once-sovereign States and their former agent, the Federal government. That amendment -- which was never legally ratified -- endorsed the military conquest of the Southern States, and through them, all other States in the Union, by granting the Federal government ultimate authority on State actions, something the Founders would never have accepted.

So my analogy to the Bolshevik Revolution and Lincoln's Counter-Revolution stands.

The Caucasian Ultimatum

A reader is worried about Bush talking loudly when he has no stick to back it up:

This bothers me in more ways than one. First, WHY are we inserting ourselves into it? But, on a more trivial note and more along the backwards logic I possess - what if Texas seceeded from the Union. And then the United States decided to launch an all out war against Texas.

Why could Russia not send troops to aid, support and train Texans on how to fight under the guise that they recognize the need for the Independence of the Country of Texas. It's a strange logic, but isn't that what we are doing with Russia right now? Or do I just not get this? I am not that educated in the Georgia Republic, etc. so I may be off target. I am concerned that we are sending troops there however. Robbi

Oh, I think you're absolutely right. That's exactly what Bush is doing. And you're also right that Bush's actions toward Georgia - which are being endorsed by both globalist candidates seeking to replace him -- are making our world and our country less safe, not more. By assuring the Georgians the good ol' US of A would watch over them no matter what they did, Bush gave them a false sense of confidence. They foolishly tried to quash Ossetian independence, and the Russians, who expected such a move, jumped in.

And after backing Kosovo's independence, which is in Russia's, not our, back yard, on what basis can the US government object to Russia's actions?

The Ghosts of Political Leanings

Cool title, and some pretty cool insights. The fact that they come from an Open Borders, pro-war Neocon (he even concludes with a quote from Abraham Lincoln!) makes these observations even more fascinating -- and revealing:

To understand changes in the political map, we naturally tend to look for contemporary explanations. But American political alignments are not written on an empty slate. Beginnings matter, and the civic personalities of states tend to reflect the cultural folkways of their first settlers.

Or, as my great-aunt used to say, "You don't get past your raising." It's true with people, and it's true of states. Barone pretty much echoes Grady McWhinney and David Hackett Fischer:

The other area in which McCain is running even with or better than Bush is the set of states settled by the Scots-Irish stock who thronged to the Appalachians in colonial days and whose descendants followed the southwest path pioneered by their hero Andrew Jackson. Barack Obama, who has lived in university communities all his adult life, did very poorly in primaries here. McCain, a career military man, runs ahead of Bush in Tennessee and Arkansas and about even in Kentucky, Missouri, and Oklahoma. He's running further behind in West Virginia only because Bush ran especially well there.

So now even the Neocons are noticing the increasing importance of heritage and ethnicity as American identity continues to dissolve in a sea of multiculturalism. And taking its place is the resurgence of the real, echoing that lesson of history William Faulkner captured so well.