A reader gets a phone call asking for Morris Dees

This comment is just too good to hide in the comments section:

Roger McCredie said...

Yesterday the phone rang at the Southern Legal Resource Center and it was a sweet young thing who introduced herself as clerk for a circuit judge in Florida who is apparently the head of the local bar association.

"Can you conect me with your speakers' bureau?" She said. "Im trying to reach Mr. Dees ... "

"Do tell," I said. Then, because she sounded cute and innocent, I took pity on her confusion. "Mr. Dees is head of the Southern Poverty Law Center," I said. "You've reached the Southern Legal Resource Center, which is pretty much at the opposite end of the political spetrum from those other folks. Nevertheless," I added, "we've got a speaker's bureau, too, and we'd love to come talk to your Bar Association. We could even talk about the SPLC."

"Ooh, I'm sorry," said the Sweet Young Thing. "Well,um, difference of opinion is a healthy thing, isn't it? I mean ... um ... you wouldn't happen to know their number, would you?"

"As a matter of fact, I've got it right here," I said. I gave it to her. "Don't count on finding Mr. Dees in the office this afternoon, though, " I said. "He's probably either playing golf or out on his yacht, the Poverty Princess. You need to ask for Ms. Hedi Beirich. B-e-i-r-i-c-h. She'll be glad to help you."

"Ooh, thanks, you're the best," said SYT.

"Not at all," I said. "Just tell Ms. Beirich you talked to me, and that the SLRC will expect a cut of Mr. Dees' substantial speaker honoriarium. Will you be sure and do that?"

"I sure will," she said.

As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.

Roger McCredie

The South? North? East? West? Shall Rise Again

Here's an interesting comment on our previous post, Growing support for secession, which revealed that 22% of those polled would support secession from DC:

In fairness, this isn't just a glance back at the Stars and Bars. Middlebury ties the secession question to modern concerns as to whether our current two-party system still works. The secession questions didn't exactly resonate with respondents. But a serious 44 percent of them said yes, the two-party system can't fix what's wrong with "the United States' system."

Which does raise an interesting question: if not secession, then what's the alternative -- other than hoping something magic occurs to fix an unfixable system?

Growing support for secession

No real choice between the two candidates for president, widespread government incompetence and betrayal, insane foreign wars, the economy's reeling from government mismanagement -- where will it lead?

Here, that's where:

One in five American adults — 22% — believe that any state or region has the right to “peaceably secede from the United States and become an independent republic,” a new Middlebury Institute/Zogby International telephone poll shows.

The level of support for the right of secession was consistent in every region in the country, though the percentage was slightly higher in the South (26%) and the East (24%). The figures were also consistent for every age group, but backing was strongest among younger adults, as 40% among those aged 18 to 24 and 24% among those aged 25 to 34 agreed states and regions have secession rights.

Be sure to read the complete breakdown by age, race, and region. Awesome!

Heritage and freedom

Both McCain and Obama agree on all the big issues -- more war, more government power to monitor Americans, and amnesty for illegal aliens.

It's no mystery. Both of these big-government politicians agree on the major issues because they both adhere to the globalist philosophy on which those positions are based. That philosophy sees traditional, historical cultures and peoples as impediments to progress that must be eliminated and replaced by ideology. To resist such progress is "racist."

Here's Obama spelling it out for us:

For a young man of mixed race, without firm anchor in any particular community, without even a father's steadying hand, it is this essential American idea - that we are not constrained by the accident of birth but can make of our lives what we will - that has defined my life, just as it has defined the life of so many other Americans.

That is why, for me, patriotism is always more than just loyalty to a place on a map or a certain kind of people. Instead, it is also loyalty to America's ideals - ideals for which anyone can sacrifice, or defend, or give their last full measure of devotion.

John McCain is just as determined to bulldoze traditional American demographics and culture and replace them according to the globalist agenda. Here's Rick Santorum describing McCain's displeasure at opponents to his amnesty bill for illegal aliens:

John McCain was the guy who was working with Ted Kennedy to drive it down our throats, and lectured us repeatedly about how xenophobic we were, lectured us, us being the Republican conference, about how wrong we were on this, how we were on the wrong side of history, and that you know, this is important for his . . . because having come from Arizona, knowing the strength of the Hispanic community, that we were going to be seen as racists, and he wasn’t going be part of that, that he was not a racist, and that if we were for tougher borders, it was a racist thing.

Get that? Those of us who resist foreign invasion are "on the wrong side of history." If that sounds like something issuing from a Trotskyite, there's good reason for it.

Problem is, once the ties of tradition and heritage are tossed out the window, and citizenship depends on adherence to prescribed thought, it's easy to define a person out of existence if he doesn't think the way he should. And that's exactly what's happened. The enlightened, multicultural approach is to create an artificial population by reengineering a tossed salad of cultures, and by winking at illegal crossings at the border. Obedience to government-approved orthodoxy defines patriotism, and, as we've noted before, any dissent will be branded as treasonous.

The rule of law and traditional rights of the "old America" also gets reengineered. Now, instead of generations of loyal citizens, we have swarms of unknown quantities within our borders, so we're all under suspicion. Thought control is the inevitable result of multiculturalism.

One of the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act is the "sneak and peek" provision. You remember -- that's the provision that outlaws the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of illegal searches. So now, Federal agents -- and only Federal agents -- present their suspicions to the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The PATRIOT ACT gives this secret court little discretion, which is why almost all of the government requests for a secret search and seizure have been approved. All the government has to do to bypass the Fourth Amendment is to say the magic word --"terrorism" -- and the FISC must allow the government to "eavesdrop on our phone calls, read our e-mails or conduct searches of our homes without notifying us that it ever conducted the surveillance."

Worse, on 10 July, Bush eagerly signed into law a new procedure that makes it even easier for the Federal government to surveil citizens. The secret FISC now reviews only "general procedures for spying rather than individual warrants." It will not have access to specifics about who will be wiretapped.

And thus the Fourth Amendment is dealt another bloody cut.

The real message of this is chilling. Americans are now subject to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. And why not? We're all foreigners now.

Quote of the day

"They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen." — Huey Long

Heidi Beirich: There will be blog

Empress Heidi Beirich, Über-Director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Department of Dissident Surveillance, Intimidation, and Entrapment, and Defender of the Faith of Political Correctness, has determined the League of the South blog is "unsuitable for tolerant persons." Her Most Tolerant Majesty, pictured above, cited the blog's disrespectful attitudes toward diversity, equality, and righteous fund raising as the reasons for condemning it.

Empress Beirich released this message to her obedient subjects:

"Most distressing is the Rebellion blog's calling into question Our elevated and noble purposes. To imply that We are motivated by greed, and the secret desire to shill for big government and multinational corporations is quite distressing, and must stop.

We are therefore instructing Our subjects to cease reading this loathsome Internet heresy. Every day, the Rebellion blog agitates against big government, war, illegal immigration, and social reengineering. What would this country be like if these people had their way? For one thing, We would have to find honest work. I shudder, and feel faint at the thought.

We will speak no more of this."

About that smear ...

The League of the South's primary purpose is to preserve Southern culture. There are many attitudes, customs, and values wrapped up in the term "culture," but the primary ones are instantly associated with the South -- distrust of big government, loyalty to one's family, love of tradition, and of course, faith. We believe those are things worth preserving and fighting for.

It is our public defense of those attitudes and values that keeps getting us in hot water. Just to name one example, we're all too aware that DC's Open Borders policy can lead to one outcome, and that is the destruction of our traditional way of life. No nation, no people, no culture can hope to exist without a homeland within which it is sovereign, and in which it can grow and flourish. And it is precisely because we wish to preserve an organic culture that generates its own social and political order that ambitious centralizers wish to weaken, and eventually destroy, us. Because we oppose an increasingly greedy, power-hungry ruling elite, we are demonized.

Oppose the regime's agenda, and you'll be demonized, too.

Here's yet another example. Leftists who object to globalism are similarly demonized. Here are our old friends in the Southern Poverty Law Center linking leftists and anarchists protesting globalist corporations as -- hold on -- Nazi sympathizers:

Right alongside the "progressive" groups that demonstrated in Seattle — mostly peaceful defenders of labor, the environment, animal rights and similar causes — were the hard-edged soldiers of neofascism. They carried signs decrying "The New World Order Agenda," bitterly denounced "Jewish media plus big capital" and, in at least one case, fought it out with black youths amidst the tear gas. ...

The common enemy was, in a word, globalism.

They despise capitalism, with its tendency to concentrate wealth and to make people and economies more and more alike — turning the planet into what is seen as a bland and materialistic McWorld. They pine for nations of peasant-like folk tied closely to the land and to their neighbors. They fight for a pristine environment, a land unsullied by corporate agriculture and urbanization. ...

As the German Nazis said: "Blood and Soil."

My, but doesn't that condemnation sound familiar -- and well it should, because it echoes what the SPLC said about Pat Buchanan's book, State of Emergency, in which he warned of the consequences of floodtide immigration:

To put it plainly, State of Emergency is a white nationalist tract. The thesis is that America must retain a white majority to survive as a nation. It is rooted in a blood-and-soil nationalism more blood than soil. The echoes of Nazi ideology are clear and chilling.

Nazis, Nazis, everywhere! And if you don't submit to the party line and accept the social, political, and economic revolution the globalists are imposing on this nation, you're a Nazi, too.

Why does the SPLC resort to that extreme smear? Because it works. It bludgeons dissidents back into line. The SPLC's purpose is not to exchange ideas, or defend minorities, but to serve the realm by delegitimizing dissent -- and make a ton of money in the meantime.

So please keep that in mind the next time you hear the League of the South -- or any group of dissidents -- is a "hate group" that's full of "racists."

Obama to continue Bush's policies

We've noted before that Obama, the "peace" candidate who even had AntiWar.com's Justin Raimondo singing his praises at one time, is just another politician who lusts for the supreme power found only in Mordor. I mean, Washington, DC.

So this news item should not surprise anyone -- except maybe the Obama true believers:

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to Afghanistan in talks with its Western-backed leader Sunday and vowed to pursue the war on terror "with vigor" if he is elected, an Afghan official said.

Of course he'll continue George Bush's insane "War on Terror" -- DC is in the war business, whether at home and abroad, and Obama knows that you don't get positions of leadership in any business unless you can contribute to its continuing success. Elections are meaningless in this country; all we silly voters do is rubber stamp a random selection from the list of approved candidates.

This is something foreigners, with the clarity and perspective of distance, can see easily:

"Sen. Obama conveyed ... that he is committed to supporting Afghanistan and to continue the war against terrorism with vigor," said Humayun Hamidzada, Karzai's spokesman.

Both Democrats and Republicans "are friends of Afghanistan and no matter who wins the U.S. elections, Afghanistan will have a very strong partner in the United States," Hamidzada said.

Read it again: "... no matter who wins..."

Backtalk from a disgruntled reader

And that's a good thing -- 'cause we're basically in agreement. In response to my previous post on the expanding imperial presidency, anonymous wrote:

"To sanction such presidential authority to order the military to seize and indefinitely detain civilians, even if the president calls them 'enemy combatants,' would have disastrous consequences for the Constitution... and the country."

Judge Motz continues, "For a court to uphold a claim to such extraordinary power would do more than render lifeless the Suspension Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the rights to criminal process in the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments; it would effectively undermine all of the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. It is that power – were a court to recognize it – that could lead all our laws to go unexecuted, and the government itself to go to pieces."

Dare I say 50 pieces?

A true secessionist would welcome any effort on the part of the government to destroy itself and set us free.

No argument here. I've said before that if we really want to reverse the loss of liberty inherent in a rapidly centralizing autocracy, we have to give up trying to reform a reform-proof system. So instead of voting for John McCain and wishing and hoping he'll one day realize he's a Republican and will support a conservative agenda, we should vote for Obama. Why? Because McCain will impose his globalist, Neocon, Open Border agenda while invoking the language of conservatism, which will more deeply entrench these measures in society and therefore do more harm to our culture. The openly radical Obama, on the other hand, will impose an openly hostile agenda that will galvanize a genuine conservative revolt.

In a nutshell, an open assault will rally people together, making them stronger, while a Trojan Horse will destroy them.

Here's just one example of what Obama will do to further cripple an already dysfunctional political system. He's in favor of the Akaka Bill, which will recognize native Hawaiian sovereignty over the lands wrongfully taken by a rapacious US, and jump-start the break-up of the empire. Here's what the Akaka Bill will do:

Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, addressed the substance of the second amendment in debate on the bill. Abercrombie assured Flake and other Western state lawmakers that the Akaka Bill is not dedicated to the seizure of land by government, but to Native Hawaiian control of existing land assets long ago ceded to them.

"This is inherently a very conservative bill ... What we're trying to do in Hawaii is get the government out of the lives of Native Hawaiians so that they can make their own decisions. The bottom line here is that this is a bill about the control of assets. This is about land, this is about money, and this is about who has the administrative authority and responsibility over it."

Let's see -- Hawaiians can make their own decisions about land, money, control of assets, and administrative authority. Sounds like sovereignty to me.

And, like the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, once one state regains control over its own affairs, the others will want it too.

So, yes, let's cheer on the empire's self-immolation. And we can even nudge things along by supporting Barack Hussein Obama ... for Last President of the United States.

Court Confirms President's Dictatorial Powers

A Federal court recognizes the nation is on a slippery slope into tyranny. Its response is form a bucket brigade to dump on the grease:

On July 15, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled by 5 votes to 4 in the case of Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli [.pdf] that the president can arrest U.S. citizens and legal residents inside the United States and imprison them indefinitely, without charge or trial, based solely on his assertion that they are "enemy combatants." Have a little think about it, and you'll see that the Fourth Circuit judges have just endorsed dictatorial powers. ...

Disturbingly, as Judge Motz mentioned above, the court also indicated its presumption that its ruling applies not just to legal residents like Marri, but to U.S. citizens as well.

So if the president condemns someone as an "enemy combatant," that person no longer has the rights of an American citizen. I wouldn't have trusted Thomas Jefferson or even Mother Teresa with that kind of power, and certainly not Obama or Insane McCain.

Obama's aides furious at McCain

Landing at Baghdad Airport is a white-knuckle experience -- as Tony Snow and Bush consigliere Dan Bartlett famously illustrated:


As a perfect example of just how unbalanced John McCain is, security for Obama's trip has been compromised by none other than Insane McCain himself:

For weeks now, Barack Obama has closely guarded the details of his planned fact-finding trips to Afghanistan and Iraq, citing security concerns.

But Friday, the Democratic presidential hopeful's Republican rival, John McCain, may have let the secret out of the bag - infuriating some Obama supporters and putting Camp McCain on the defensive.

"I believe that either today or tomorrow - and I'm not privy to his schedule - Sen. Obama will be landing in Iraq with some other senators."

Why not broadcast when Obama's scheduled for his mandatory shopping spree in a Baghdad market? Amazing.

Recall that when McCain descended on Baghdad, he had 100 heavily armed U.S. troops backed by attack helicopters and snipers watching his back during his UNANNOUNCED visit.

Meanwhile, Hillary's dusting off her old primary speeches ...

Maryland troopers spied on activist groups

Speaking of civilian surveillance -- it's beginning to look like any dissent brands one as a "terrorist" these days:

Undercover Maryland state troopers infiltrated three groups advocating peace and protesting the death penalty — attending meetings and sending reports on their activities to U.S. intelligence and military agencies, according to documents released Thursday. ...

The documents, which include intelligence reports and printouts from the database, show that several undercover officers from the state police's Homeland Security and Intelligence Division attended meetings of three groups ...

The activist was identified as Max Obuszewski. His "primary crime" was entered into the database as "terrorism - anti govern(ment)." His "secondary crime" was listed as "terrorism - anti-war protestors." The database is known as the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA.

"There were about 75-80 protestors at the rally and none participated in any type of civil disobedience or illegal acts," said one report of a demonstration against the death penalty at the SuperMax jail.

Still, information about the protesters and their activities was sent to seven agencies, including the National Security Agency and an unnamed military intelligence official.

Remember -- freedom of speech is one of our most cherished possessions ...


... so we have to make sure you don't abuse it.

Freedom From Taxes Day Has Arrived

Well ... yes, but I wouldn't start celebrating just yet. This much is true:

Yesterday was finally the end of the days this year when you were working to pay the government its exorbitant fees. That’s right, July 16 was Cost of Government Day for the average American. ... Its simply outrageous that it takes 197 days of a year to finally pay off our government obligations and utterly criminal that more than half our income is consumed by bloated, needless bureaucracy.

The article then asks and answers what's supposed to be the all-revealing question, "And what do we have to show for this increased theft of our income? Not too damned much, that’s for sure."

Not true. We have a great deal to show for bigger government. There's tighter central control over the schools, more illegal civilian surveillance, and increased instability as a direct result of the government's domestic and foreign policies.

That's the real point.

Sewage plant to be named after George Bush?

This makes no sense at all:

A citizens group in San Francisco wants to pay an ironic tribute to President George W Bush when he leaves office - by naming a sewage plant after him.

The group, calling itself the Presidential Memorial Committee of San Francisco, wants the issue voted on at this November's election.

"It's important to remember our leaders in the right historical context," said petition organiser Brian McConnell.

But the sewage treatment plant does what it was built to do. Bush, on the other hand, promised a "more humble foreign policy" if elected but instead tried to dazzle us with obscenely expensive foreign invasions and nation-building on a scale never before seen.

Vote "no" San Francisco.

Wal-Mart giveth ...

... and you know the rest. Wal-Mart is the number one enemy of small towns throughout the South. Thanks to its notoriously low wages, its reliance on cheap foreign imports, and lucrative connections in government, it sweeps away smaller competitors, draining small downtowns of business and personality.

What a laugh, then, to see this campaign to make Wal-Mart appear to be supporting small-town economies by using more local suppliers. But it's a trap. Wal-Mart, like all the rootless, globalist megastores, use their enormous power to exploit local suppliers. Most become so dependent that they're forced to outsource, too -- harming not just the American workers who lose their jobs, but also the foreign workers who replace them. What happened to Etch A Sketch has happened to many other local producers snared by the "big box" retailers' overwhelming market domination:

Etch A Sketch is the same child's drawing toy today that it was in 1960, when Ohio Art first produced it in Bryan, Ohio. But efforts to keep its selling price below $10 on shelves at Wal-Mart and Toys "R" Us forced the company to move production to China three years ago.

Today the same toy is made not just for lower wages, but also under significantly harsher working conditions.

But there's another reason local businesses should not let themselves be suckered in by Wal-Mart. Also in today's news is this story about Wal-Mart adding computer tech support operations in its retail centers. This is troubling news for local tech providers -- and a clear warning that no independent business is immune from assault by the big boxes.

Concern grows over a fiscal crisis for U.S.

Don't let all that gloomy economic news get you down -- the Federal government will take care of -- uh-oh:

As the Bush administration proposes backstopping mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with a $300 billion line of credit and Congress contemplates another economic stimulus, the question is who will bail out the government?

"People seem to think the government has money," said former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker. "The government doesn't have any money."

A rare consensus has developed across the political spectrum that the government's own fiscal affairs are precarious, with an astonishing $53 trillion in long-term liabilities, according to the Government Accountability Office.

To put that number in human terms, the debt has reached $455,000 per U.S. household. As that debt grows, the United States increasingly relies on foreigners, including China and Middle East oil producers, for financing.

Remember the first Superman movie when Superman catches Lois Lane after she falls from a news copter?

"I've got you, miss."

Her eyes dart from him to the ground far below. "You've got me? Who's got you?"

A hero who can can save us from all of our mistakes and misfortunes is pure fantasy -- in this case, another DC fantasy.

David Horowitz is at it again ...

... trying to pretty up an ugly, stupid war.

He's an old hand at this sort of thing. He once pounced on an item I'd cross-posted at Conservative Heritage Times under the pen name Harrison Bergeron. I'd pointed out how Bush had invaded Iraq based on feverish tales of Americans being threatened by "some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." Horowitz bristled at this:

I have been called to account by some conservative defectors from the war on terror. In response to my article on Al Gore's misrepresentation of the case for the war in Iraq, conservative blogger Harrison Bergeron has claimed that "fear of Saddam's WMDs was the primary selling point of [Bush's] invasion and occupation of Iraq." ...

Neither [James] Bovard, nor Bergeron nor Al Gore even bother to explain how the United States could maintain 200,000 troops on Iraq's border indefinitely. Nor do they have an explanation as to what happened to the tons of WMDs the UN inspectors had identified and were unaccounted for.

I'll let readers refer to my original piece linked above to decide for themselves if Horowitz was right. One thing for sure -- Horowitz has no clue who the original Harrison Bergeron really is.

Anyway, he's once more trying to downplay WMD as the reason for launching an aggressive war against Iraq:

WMDs were mentioned of course by administration officials, by Democrats who supported the war, and so forth. The question remains however, in what way were they mentioned and how were they connected to the rationale for the invasion. Thus if Andrew means that the war was fought because the Saddam regime was believed to have stockpiles of WMDS and was by that very fact an imminent threat, he is wrong and his statement is false. There is no statement by Bush to that effect.

Oh, really? How about this news conference Bush gave on 21 August, 2006:

Now, look, I -- part of the reason we went into Iraq: was -- the main reason we went into Iraq: at the time was we thought he had weapons of mass destruction. It turns out he didn't, but he had the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction.

I suppose Horowitz will now call Bush a liar, too. And he'd be right, just for the wrong reason.

Why do Horowitz and company continue to defend the invasion of Iraq? Simple: so they can sell the American public on the invasion of Iran.

NAACP Fails the "Morris Dees" test

Back in March, Morris Dees gazed down upon the American nation and proclaimed that it was good that a black man and white woman were running for president. This historic choice would "test the nation," he said, because it gave us a chance to prove whether we could overcome our biases:

Americans will have to overcome their systemic biases against gender and race if they are to take advantage of the historic possibilities in this year's presidential election, a prominent civil rights lawyer said Tuesday at Sonoma State University.

"If we're going to build the bridges that separate the divide in this country, whether they be about race, gender or sexual orientation . . . it's going to be because we reached across those divides and learned to care about and love people who are different than we are," Morris Dees said.

Sadly, one powerful political group made it pretty clear this week they're saving their love for someone like themselves:

Following a tough act before a tough crowd for a Republican presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain advocated economic and educational equality and lathered on some charm yesterday to woo converts in the black community.

The presumed GOP presidential nominee had the difficult task of addressing the 99th convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People less than 48 hours after Sen. Barack Obama electrified the convention Monday night with a speech focusing on personal responsibility.

In a 25-minute address, McCain gave a nod to the obvious: He faces long odds of getting a substantial number of black votes against Democrat Obama, the soon-to-be-first African-American presidential nominee. A New York Times poll yesterday showed Obama winning 89 percent of the national black vote, compared with 2 percent for McCain. ...

"Within this group (McCain's) going to have a tough time finding votes," said Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory, a Democrat and the city's first popularly elected African-American mayor.

2 percent? No love from this group. Not even a hug.

Realizing his predicament, McCain used his last ace to try to salvage the situation -- he grovelled:

"Whether or not I earn your support, I need your good will and counsel," McCain said. "And should I succeed, I'll need it all the more."

He called Obama "an impressive fellow" whose run for the presidency has been historic.

"Whatever the outcome in November, Sen. Obama has achieved a great thing -- for himself and for his country -- and I thank him for it."

Be certain that Morris Dees will scold the NAACP for its inability to live up to his high and noble standards. Expect a stern press release from the SPLC any minute now -- here it comes -- wait for it ...

Another threat to US communications hegemony

And it may require a pre-emptive nuclear strike to prevent it. Courtesy of the Onion.

What an attack on Iran will look like

If the swaggering morons get their way, Iran won't be the mostly antiseptic, faraway adventure cheered on by flag-waving chickenhawks and laptop bombardiers. How will it be different? It'll hurt.


Thanks to Damon for passing this on!

Philippines, Muslim rebels reach deal on homeland

The beginnings of yet another nation-state arise from an unnatural, ahistorical political consolidation of distinct peoples:

The Philippine government and the largest Muslim separatist group reached a deal on Wednesday to create an ancestral homeland for 3 million Muslims in the south of the mainly Roman Catholic state, officials said.

The agreement, while crucial for the resumption of formal peace talks, does not guarantee the end of a near 40-year conflict that has killed 120,000 people and displaced 2 million on the resource-rich southern island of Mindanao.

Manila and the 11,000-member MILF have been talking for more than a decade on how to give Muslims in the south a greater degree of self-rule and it took the two sides nearly four years to reach this agreement on expanding the coverage of an existing autonomous region for the minority group.

The Philippines is actually a grouping of more than a dozen peoples. The Moros, the Muslims of the South, began agitating for self-rule in the 1970's in response to centralization of political power caused by the imposition of martial law.

Here are a few bits of interesting trivia about the Philippines:

- an indigenous independence movement organized to resist Spanish rule was known by its initials: KKK.

- The Moros people constitute only about 5% of the Filipino population.

- Estimates of the number of Filipinos killed during the islands' resistance to US occupation run from 300,000 to over a million.

- A Howling Wilderness, a successful courtroom drama about US atrocities during the Philippine-American War, was written by League of the South member John Chodes.

US faces global funding crisis, warns Merrill Lynch

Don't worry about all the gloomy economic news -- the Wise Ones in DC have everything under -- wait, what's this? Uh-oh:

Merrill Lynch has warned that the United States could face a foreign "financing crisis" within months as the full consequences of the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage debacle spread through the world.

The country depends on Asian, Russian and Middle Eastern investors to fund much of its $700bn (£350bn) current account deficit, leaving it far more vulnerable to a collapse of confidence than Japan in the early 1990s after the Nikkei bubble burst. ...

"Japan was able to cut its interest rates to zero," said Alex Patelis, Merrill's head of international economics.

"It would be very difficult for the US to do this. Foreigners will not be willing to supply the capital. Nobody knows where the limit lies."

Traditional wisdom says, do not go into debt, but the know-it-all Bushies, fancying themselves able to create their own reality, were convinced such dusty rules didn't apply to them -- just as the Constitution and other bothersome laws don't apply to them.

Now we're beginning to see there's a price for ignoring time-tested lessons. It'll be interesting to see how long it takes us to learn them again.

Oklahoma Rebellion

Economist Walter Williams approves of Oklahoma's bold assertion of its sovereign rights:

Oklahomans are trying to recover some of their lost state sovereignty by House Joint Resolution 1089, introduced by State Rep. Charles Key.

"...the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States. That this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers."

That's simple and direct enough for even DC to understand.

Though the Oklahoma Senate quashed the measure, it still indicates a growing trend toward localism and away from the one-size-fits-all mentality that shapes the Federal government's approach to EVERY problem. It's a sign of health this country desperately needs.

I can't improve on Williams' conclusion:

State efforts, such as Oklahoma's, create a glimmer of hope that one day Americans and their elected representatives will realize that the federal government is the creation of the states. A bit of rebellion by officials in other states will speed that process along.

Amen to that!

How times change

Then:

18 July, 2005 - President Bush said Monday that if anyone on his staff committed a crime in the CIA leak case, that person will "no longer work in my administration."

Now:

16 July, 2008 - The White House asserted executive privilege Wednesday and refused to turn over FBI reports of its interviews with Vice President Dick Cheney on the leaking of a covert CIA operative’s identity to the media.

Who says Bush hasn't grown during his term in office?

The worst Neocon article ever

Here's a nearly unreadable but comically revealing piece about Neoconservative foreign policy — and thought, such as it is. It's entitled, "Does One Right Make a Realist?" A better title would've been "Do two Neocons make a right?" It combines leaden academic prose with jingoistic puffery -- with a big, slimy dose of Lincolnian messianism thrown in. For those of you with the stomach for it, I have extracted this representative sample so as to spare you the misery of having to digest the whole thing. See if you've ever encountered a more self-congratulatory, delusional screed in your life:

Their stress on American values emerges from a deep sense of national pride that in its more exuberant form translates into a feeling of moral superiority in international affairs. Neoconservatives refuse to separate the pursuit of American self-interest and those of the greater international good, arguing that serving America’s cause is the world’s cause. They are not idealists or realists, but nationalists. ...

Neoconservatism is not a nationalism of the soil as is the case with American isolationism or other nationalisms across the globe. Rather, it is based on the superiority of American ideals and values, a universal nationalism. As a result, even more than others, American nationalism has a strong moral component that distinguishes it sharply from the amorality of realism.

"Universal nationalism"? Isn't that kinda like slutty virginity?

Seriously, when will Neocons get their heads out of their endless theories and wake up to the fact that they've crippled not only Iraq and Afghanistan, but the US economy and military?

Now let's see -- we've lost over 4,100 men, thousands of amputees will require a lifetime of public assistance, we've wrecked countless American families, over 2 million Iraqis are now refugeed, at least 50,000 killed, we're over a half-trillion (and counting) in debt to Japan and Red China to pay for the war, and the end result is that Iran now controls Iraq. Then there's the great leap in government power over our lives you can expect from any war, though this one, having normalized warrantless citizen surveillance, is probably the worst yet for our liberties.

And the chief cheerleaders for invasion, Bush and Amnesty McCain, oppose the timetable for withdrawal the Iraqis insist on. That's a victory?

The actual results of the Neocon globalist agenda has failed to advance either "American self-interest" or the "greater international good." In fact, they've done long-lasting harm to both. There's some "realism" for you.

Bush: "It's been a difficult time for American families"

Nothing sneaks past this president. No siree. As the CNN article explains, it's certainly been difficult lately:

Home prices are down about 15% nationwide over the last year, according to a recent numbers from the Case/Shiller home price index. The economy has lost jobs for the last six months in a row. And Wall Street has moved into a bear market, with stocks trading 20% below recent highs.

And you can add your own examples, from the skyrocketing cost of keeping your car fueled and your home heated, to the credit crunch.

The mystery, though is -- how did these things happen?

Could it possibly be from an unnecessary war that was sold to us as costing only (??!!??) $50 billion, when current estimates run to a nightmarish $3 trillion? Financed, of course, purely through more foreign borrowing, mostly from Communist China.

Could the price of oil be affected by the explosive instability in the Middle East sparked by Bush's continual threats to start another war, this time against Iran -- which sits on a third of the world's oil reserves?

And is it possible the home mortgage crisis was worsened, if not caused, by administration support for affirmative action in lending? Steve Sailer's analysis is enlightening and deeply troubling:

Uncovering the roots of the disastrous home mortgage bubble that popped last year will keep economic historians busy for decades. Yet, one factor has so far been largely overlooked: the bipartisan social engineering crusade to drive up the rate of homeownership by handing out more mortgages to minorities.

More than a negligible amount of the blame for the mortgage meltdown can be traced back to multiculturalism: government-mandated affirmative-action lending, demographic change, illegal immigration, and the mind-numbing effects of political correctness. ...

About half of all mortgages for blacks and Hispanics are subprime, versus roughly one-sixth for whites. Not surprisingly, the biggest home price collapses have occurred in heavily Hispanic cities such as Las Vegas, Miami, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.

Yes, W is right -- it has been difficult lately. And isn't it just magnanimous of him to notice?

Does illegal immigration lead to other illegal acts?

The Southern Poverty Law Center routinely condemns those insensitive brutes who notice that illegal immigration leads to other illegal activities, from indentity theft, human trafficking, and drug smuggling. Here's a sampling of some of the "the purveyors" of such notions, as compiled by the SPLC's Heidi Beirich:

Dan Stein, executive director of the supposedly mainstream immigration restriction organization Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), claimed in a March 8 press release that illegal immigration poses "a real and documentable risk" to Americans. "Illegal aliens are more prone to criminal activity than the rest of the population," Stein said. Twenty-three days later, Jim Gilchrist, co-founder of the vigilante Minuteman Project, told an audience that it was "okay to say 'rapist,' 'robber' and 'murderer'" when describing "illegal aliens."

Heidi informs us that "These kinds of 'facts' generally originate with modern nativist groups and ideologues like Cosman or even unabashedly race-based hate groups ..."

But there's a problem with that conclusion. It's not just what the SPLC considers to be "hate groups" making such observations. Now we can add two more such purveyors to the list:

Federal officials said Monday that Gwinnett [Georgia] is now the focal point of competing metro area Mexican drug cartels trafficking cocaine and methamphetamines due to its burgeoning Hispanic population and transportation infrastructure.

And in the last 90 days, there has been an uptick in brutal violence borne out of the trade that once was sequestered inside the Mexican border.

"These traffickers unleash ruthless forms of violence in order to protect and defend their drugs and cash," said Rod Benson, special agent in charge of the Atlanta's Drug Enforcement Office office.

There you have it. So it's not only "nativists" who recognize that uncontrolled immigration from Latin America leads to spiralling crime, but State and Federal law enforcement officials, too.

Look for law enforcement to be branded as a hate crime any day now.

It's Groundhog Day again! NAACP declares war on Confederate Flag

Blacks are suffering from the mortgage meltdown worse than whites, and with most black-owned wealth in home equity, that's a crisis.

Blacks are targeted by Latino gangs, which, thanks to DC's de facto Open Borders policy, are mushrooming out of control in urban areas, which now look more like war zones.

And black-on-black crime spreads terror and snuffs out lives, while making blacks, who are 12% of the total population, nearly 50% of the jail population.

So how does the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People respond to these terrible problems?

This way:

The national NAACP has again said it will step up a campaign against South Carolina for flying the Confederate flag at the State House.

The organization declared it would exert continued pressure to discourage NCAA sporting events and film production in South Carolina.“This is unfinished business,” said Lonnie Randolph, state NAACP president, echoing the message delivered Monday by NAACP interim president and CEO Dennis Hayes, at the organization’s 99th national convention in Cincinnati.

Is it possible the NAACP is replaying its own version of Pickett's Charge against the Battleflag because it has a chance of winning this time? That's the only possible justification for renewing its attack -- but here's what the NAACP-friendly State newspaper says about that possibility:

Meanwhile, the Legislature has shown little interest in dealing with the flag issue again, and “people of goodwill” seem satisfied with the compromise that removed the banner from the capitol dome, said state Sen. John Courson, R-Richland, who drafted the 1994 legislation used to move the flag.

“We have had no discussion — none, zilch — of the Confederate in the Senate since 2000,” Courson said. “All the Southern states, if you look at their flags, have some version of the Confederate flag, or the flag used in battle, incorporated into the flags they fly (at their State Houses),” said Courson.

“I don’t know why the NAACP continues to pick on South Carolina.”

No one else seems to know why either. And to think that some people see the NAACP as irrelevant today. Where'd they get that idea?

That is, other than from the hopelessly befuddled and out-of-touch NAACP leadership?

Competing for the La Raza vote

This is SO exciting! Who'll win the race to become Coyote-in-Chief? Both top candidates strutted their Open Border credentials before the National Council of "La Raza" (translation: It's a small world after all). The sparring quickly turned into a contest of "Who can do the best job of ignoring what the Anglos want?" With two highly qualified and motivated contenders, it's no wonder that things got a little testy:

Obama took aim at McCain when he addressed the same group in San Diego on Sunday, saying he had admired McCain for bucking his party and pushing for the legislation, but that eventually McCain "abandoned his courageous stance, and said that he wouldn't even support his own legislation if it came up for a vote."

McCain said he wanted to correct the record. He said he had supported the immigration legislation even though his critics said it would be "political suicide."

"I took my lumps for it without complaint. My campaign was written off as a lost cause. I did so not just because I believed it was the right thing to do for Hispanic Americans. It was the right thing to do for all Americans. Sen. Obama declined to cast some of those tough votes," McCain said.

See, no matter what the majority of native-born Americans want, both Obama and McCain know what's best for us. And you'd better believe they're gonna give it to us good once they have the chance.

More Straight Talk

McCain to La Raza:

"I do ask for your trust that when I say, I remain committed to fair, practical and comprehensive immigration reform, I mean it. I think I have earned that trust," McCain said.

This time I believe him.