The United Sacrifice Act - Alive and Thriving!

Dear Readers:

It has been a long time since my last major article on this Blog. As most of you know, I have been spending all of my time promoting the "USA" - The United Sacrifice Act (with wonderfully encouraging results, I am pleased to announce).

For those of you who are new readers, last year's article (which appears immediately below this one) explains the "USA" in great detail. But below is a brief introductory summary.

The United Sacrifice Act is a widespread and rapidly growing social/political movement in America, which is being vigorously embraced by Conservatives, Liberals, and all political persuasions in between. It is the first movement to actually unite all of the citizens of our great nation, after years of bitter devisiveness.

The "USA" is as simple as it is extraordinarily powerful. Proud Americans all along the political spectrum have painfully realized that all of the sacrifices of the Iraq/Afghani wars have been shouldered by our brave and noble fighting troops. ALL the sacrifices. Meanwhile, absolutely zero sacrifices are being borne by the handful of millionaires and billionaires who are taking hundreds of billions of dollars from all the struggling taxpayers of America. This sad and utterly unjust state of affairs is lightyears beyond "outrageous".

The United Sacrifice Act does not address the rightness or wrongness of our being in Iraq and Afghanistan, per se. Rather, it is merely pursuing one simple goal.

On countless occasions, we have all heard President Bush declare that the continued pursuit of our "War Against Terror" will demand "more sacrifices" from the American people. He has restated that pledge in every speech he has made on the war. Yet, thus far - and without exception - the super-wealthy beneficiaries of this war have profited many tens of billions of dollars, while making absolutely zero sacrifices.

This outrageous injustice shall end immediately! Because, if it does not, it proves all the war critics to be correct: it proves that this war was planned, and was launched, and has been escalated solely to generate massive and endless windfall profits for the beneficiaries of these unending war efforts. Indeed, rather than the war being paid for by "Iraq's oil revenues" - as President Bush promised when he led us into this war - he has instead come back to us and demanded more and more tens of billions of American dollars, time after time after time, month after month, year after year.

ALL Americans, of all political beliefs, are now uniting to bring a prompt end this outrageous imbalance, to rectify this unforgivable breach of American faith and honor and trust. If America's brave GI's have been willing to sacrifice so greatly and so proudly and so nobly, then it is high time that we all demand the same level of sacrifice from the millionaires and billionaires who - thus far - have been willing to sacrifice absolutely nothing !

That is what the "USA" is all about, plain and simple. For details of the United Sacrifice Act and its origins - and to see what you can do to help - please scroll down and read last year's thorough analysis.

When America sees injustice, even in its own ranks, all of its wonderful people promptly forget their political differences and unite to make things right again. That time has come. Thank you all for your continued support, and may God Bless the United States of America.


Sincerely,

Patrick Q. Henry

October 24, 2007

"U.S.A." - The United Sacrifice Act

(Dear Reader: In 2004, shortly before the national election, an email was widely circulated which touched me deeply and was the catalyst which prompted me to "go public". To my knowledge, its author was never revealed. In this article below, I added a few recent factual updates and did some very minor editing. But I admit that I have borrowed greatly (indeed, virtually entirely) from that brief but powerful unsigned work of 2004, presented below, because of how mightily it struck at the key cause of America's greatest problems. In the wake of the highly controversial and dubious "Patriot Act," this humble 2004 essay is indeed the magnificent seed from which grew the United Sacrifice Act, which I believe is the only public political movement that holds any hope of saving America from a horrendous future. I am heartened also to see how widely and powerfully this movement has grown. I hope that, somehow, that 2004 anonynous author may stumble across my own writings here, and accept my sincere thanks for his or her inspiration to me and so many others. - PQH)

--------

Countless Americans nationwide have grown increasingly concerned over America's downward-spiraling public services, local economies, budget-cuts, short-falls and endless private and public bankruptcies. Financial devastation has crippled America's schools, libraries, police departments, colleges, at-risk youth-programs, city/state governments, hospitals, clinics, streets, bridges, roads, highways, public transportation, anti-drug & anti-crime programs, victim advocate services, Red Cross and related agencies, etc., etc. A five trillion dollar federal budget surplus became a two trillion dollar deficit, virtually overnight.

Uncontrolled government growth and spending (most of it done by borrowing vast fortunes from future generations) has outstripped all the government growth and spending of America's entire history, clear back to 1776. Millions of decent good-paying family-supporting jobs have gone away - totally vanished or shipped overseas - while most new jobs are barely above minimum wage. Amid all of this, the richest 1% of people in America now have more money than the lower 80% of us down here in the trenches, combined.

What on Earth has happened to our nation? How did America fall so far in the hole in just three short years? Surely, 9/11 was a terribly tragic and a costly event, but that can't account for what has happened. So, let's first quickly explore the two popular explanations.

One camp of believers points out the multi-billion dollar "no bid" contracts that have gone to the corporations of politically-connected officials - countless billions of dollars spent to re-build a foreign nation that never needed to be blown to pieces in the first place. They show us numerous highly credible sources who maintain that America's military-related industries were very eager for something like 9/11 to happen (and may in fact have induced various powers to "drag their feet" in preventing such an attack) in order to re-direct hundreds of billions to the politicians, corporations, lobbyists and bankers who build, broker and finance war-planes, military equipment, weaponry, ammunition, artillery, trucks, tanks, gasoline, jet-fuel, and countless ultra-high-priced secret systems. Such witnesses detail additional multi-billion dollar fortunes that have gone to insider corporations and bankers who re-build the cities, bridges, factories, houses, office buildings, water & electrical plants, and countless other Iraqi and Afghani infra-structure essentials that the war has needlessly destroyed.

Those hundreds of billions of dollars came directly from taxes and budgets previously intended for America's schools, libraries, police departments, colleges, at-risk youth-programs, city/state governments, hospitals, clinics, streets, bridges, roads, highways, public transportation, anti-drug & anti-crime programs, victim advocate services, disaster/emergency services, and all the rest. All from your pocket - borrowed from your future. And your children's pockets, and their futures. And their children's pockets and futures. And their children's. And their children's.

People on the other side of this political issue disagree. They say that the above picture is distorted, that - while the above costs can't be denied - they were necessary to protect America. They say that all of the recent controversial policies and actions were done by political leaders and corporate executives who truly care only about what is best for America and average Americans.

Who should we believe? Fortunately, there is an extremely easy way to find out.

To begin, we first need a common ground upon which all camps can agree. One such simple statement of fact is that the people who most benefit materially and financially from any foreign war are the wealthy owners, investors, bankers, managers and financiers of the war's military industries, and the politicians and other officials who serve their interests. Conversely, the people who least benefit materially and financially from war are the troops on the front lines, whose bodies are maimed, whose blood is spilled, whose lives are lost, whose children are orphaned, whose families are shattered, whose parents and brothers and sisters are devastated, and by all the world's other friends and strangers who mourn their suffering and death.

This above simple truth and common ground is obvious. Having agreed on that, we need only to question if true Patriotism is being displayed equally by all the people in the above two groups.

We first learn that - amid all the many hundreds of members of Congress since 9/11/2001 - only one member has had a son or daughter serving in the US military in Iraq. One. And an even smaller percentage of military service is found amid the children of execs who run the corporations and banks that have profitted most from America's latest war.

While GI's are dying for lack of adequate weapons, support, and body-armor, those same above corporations and execs (according to Forbes, Fortune and similar magazines) have seen their personal income and net worth skyrocket in the first 18 months following the Iraq invasion, and comfortably remain at those highly accellerated rates fully throughout 2005 and 2006 - along with the similarly healthy gains and "perks" enjoyed by the lobbyists, senators, congressmen and unelected officials who gave the bankers and corporations direct access to America's treasury. Even more audacious, they didn't even hesitate to grasp for even more inflated profits right before the 2004 national election, by requesting and receiving several billion dollars more to mop up the mess in Iraq - a hideous mess that never needed to happen in the first place. Several billion dollars more each month, that is. Every year. For unending years and decades to come.

All of which begs a more important question. Our brave men and women in uniform are willing to face horrible mutilation and death on the battlefield, to live in the most harsh conditions, to exist on subsistence wages, to tear apart their own families, to hock wedding rings for cash, and to go deep into debt just to maintain their children in near starvation. Thus we must ask where is even the slightest evidence of similar sacrifice or Patriotism by the bankers, execs, stockholders, lobbyists and politicians who profit so immensely from this war? At this writing, well over 3,000 - three thousand - brave American troops have paid the ultimate price of giving their lives to help America, and tens of thousands more have suffered devastating life-ruining injuries and mental/emotional traumas; meanwhile the super-wealthy who continuously lavish in hundreds of billions of our dollars have steadfastly refused to contribute or sacrifice one thin dime or one bit of luxurious comfort for our great nation.

Indeed, why don't those who profit the most from this war display similar sacrifices, instead of luxuriating in their countless millions and billions of dollars in salaries, bonuses, mansions, Mercedes, stock options, villas, townhomes, mountain chalets, beachfront condos, sailboats, yachts, private planes, country clubs and exclusive resorts that they shower upon themselves from their incredibly vast war profits? After all, GI's and their families must drain their meager savings, empty their children's piggy banks, and borrow money at high interest, just to eat and survive. So, why aren't corporations, bankers and Upper Echelon multi-millionaires and billionaires expected to use their bank accounts and assets to show their dedication to winning this war and helping America? Since they are already sitting on many hundreds of billions of dollars, why don't they provide or pay for the war-planes, military equipment, weaponry, ammunition, artillery, trucks, tanks, gasoline, jet-fuel, and all the rest - at no profit - to help defend America in our time of need?

Certainly, someone may say that these wealthy leaders and mega-corporations must earn a profit, because they have to pay business expenses and salaries, and that they deserve to be rewarded for their work. Fine. But when is the last time that they demonstrated even the slightest genuine sacrifice... genuine sacrifice? For example, if some exec accepts a yearly salary-cut from $100 million to $80 million, that certainly couldn't be called anything near a true sacrifice. Even giving up a full year's pay and living off of a $200,000,000 savings/investment nest-egg wouldn't exactly come close to "roughing it" and sacrificing like our military troops do every day. But, indeed, those corporate and political "leaders" never even offer to make even such miniscule and paltry sacrifices.

Please pause to again deeply consider the one extremely crucial question that nobody ever asks. In most of President Bush's recent speeches, he has said countless times that the war in Iraq will continue until we have won and that, until then, there will certainly be "much more sacrifice" for Americans to endure. That being so, why are members of the super-wealthy and powerful elite never expected to tighten their personal or corporate belts, or to endure any inconvenience or hardship, for the good and survival of America? Why are they considered to be some sort of god-like royalty who never need to dip into their savings and assets to help defend the country that has made them unimaginably wealthy and privileged?

Why does that upper 1% always assume that - regardless of who else in America may be struggling or starving or dying - the elite Upper Echelon is aways entitled to huge profits, first and foremost, before everyone else, while leaving all the penny-pinching and missed meals to common folks, and to the crippled and dying GI's and their struggling families? Why do all of these self-appointed princes always assume that their reward for being ivory-tower armchair wheeler-dealers should be a multi-million dollar yearly salary, while the reward for being shot at and blown up in endless war should be a few hundred bucks and a fifty-cent ribbon to pin on a dead hero's chest?

Some people may insist that these large corporations and execs must answer to their stock-holders, and pay them dividends. Great. Nobody is stopping those corporations and execs from dipping into their bank accounts and assets or borrowing money to pay dividends or anything else they wish, just like all of us and all of those GI's and their families do. If front-line GI's are willing to go into debt while they're also living in poverty and fighting and dying, the war-industry owners and managers and financiers can certainly handle dipping into their rainy-day reserves and hocking their jewelry while they are living their lives as millionaires and billionaires in their luxurious mansions and villas.

Then again, maybe they shouldn't have to pay those dividends, i.e., why are those stock-holders any better than America's struggling poor, middle class and GI's? Why aren't those stock-holders tightening their belts and likewise making their fair share of patriotic sacrifices during war-time? Why should they be collecting megatons of money - without lifting a finger, without risking danger, without helping to defend and repair their nation - during a war for America's very survival... while all of the hard-working teachers, nurses, police officers, fire-fighters, factory-workers and all of the other blue-collar backbone heros of this nation are sinking ever deeper into poverty... while GI's are being blown up every day overseas, and their families are falling apart back home?

America deserves a solid answer. Let us find out, once and for all, who are the true Public Servants and who are the pretenders, who are the Patriots and who are the parasites. The question is simple: Has America's treasury been looted to give hundreds of billions of dollars more to the wealthiest 1%, or has it not? The answer is just as simple. Here is a chance for the Upper Echelons to show their true patriotism, by helping America get back on her feet during her greatest time of need.

Please note that all of this has nothing to do with the stale old cliche of "class warfare". All we are saying is that nobody in that top 1% would come within a billion light-years of missing a meal, or losing their home if they tightened their belts to the same relative degree that American GI's and common folk have done. Those super-rich princes and princesses would still be extremely well off. Likewise, that elite 1% could easily prove their sincerity and patriotism by refusing to accept the huge and repeated tax-cuts that they have been given.

Likewise, military/industrial corporations - if they indeed love America - should not hesitate for one second to donate weapons and equipment to our nation in our gravest hour of need, until the war has been won, to spare America the crippling financial burden of war. After all, they have been pocketing many hundreds of billions of dollars each year, for many decades, while they keep insisting that their sole concern is the safety, security and welfare of Americans. Is there any better way to prove that they are telling the truth, and that they are as patriotic as the rest of us?

Oil companies likewise have many hundreds of billions of dollars in cash and assets; they could easily provide gasoline and home-heating fuel at greatly reduced prices, to lessen American's burden in this time of crisis, instead of forever raising prices to record levels to keep for themselves additional tens of billions of dollars in new profits. Indeed, just in the 3rd Quarter of 2005, while America's people and economy were being blown to shreds by an unprecedented deluge of hurricanes, the oil companies raised their profit margins and took in a staggering $32,000,000,000 (yes, $32 billion) in excess profits (not merely gross revenues) in just those 90 devastating days alone ... which equates to taking from American home-budgets an incredible $15,000,000 per hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, month after month after month. Just the money they bled from us in merely one single day of such excess profits could pay all the home-heating bills for the entire winter for 720,000 of America's neediest hard-working families. Yet all of those families (and more) are left with no choice but to pay for that essential heat by cutting back on their own or their children's medical care, or food, or clothing, or all of these necessities... all in the midst of a devastating, deadly and brutally icy winter.

And right after we learned that - during that very same winter - one single Exxon Oil executive took unto himself a $400,000,000.oo BONUS - almost half a billion dollars for just one man, on top of his already incredibly bloated salary. That single bonus alone could have been used to virtually cut in half last month's gasoline expenditures for well over three million hard-working American families.

Bankers could likewise display their patriotism - not by merely loaning our struggling America the money she needs at no interest - but by outright donating money to America's treasury, school districts, lunch programs, health clinics, libraries and all the other stuggling essential services. After all, unlike anyone else, for many generations bankers have gathered hundreds of billions to themselves without ever having offered any tangible product to anyone. Isn't it time they returned the favor to America? Any American who has ever had a bank account knows of the banks' endless, outrageous and ever-increasing fees and charges, and bankers' cold-blooded avarice that routinely kicks innocent citizens when they are down, as if they were less than the lowest of animals. Why is this? Common citizens would be rightfully thrown in jail for such lacks of compassion and remorse. Why aren't bank owners, executives and stock-holders expected to display their fair share of human decency, sacrifice and patriotism?

Likewise, top execs in every industry and profession - especially those who profit in any way from war and its killing-machines - could easily take a 50% cut in their pay and still be the best-paid execs on the planet, and still be far wealthier than you and I have ever dreamed.

Lawyers and lobbyists can also donate their time and money to arrange and expedite all of the above donations, at no charge. They too - like all the others who possess far more money than integrity and patriotism - can also make very generous donations directly into our nation's sagging treasury, to help rebuild a decaying and suffering America and her essential human services and infra-structure.

But will they? Certainly not on their own, because they clearly have no sense whatsover of being any true part of America and all that she stands for. Thus far, they have displayed no maturity, no character, no integrity, no comprehension of being with us or a part of us, but only of working against us, only using us as cash-cows that they milk until our crumbling bones are bleeding.

Talk to your friends, family, relatives, coworkers, church congregation, everybody you know. Let them know of the noble grass-roots movement that has become known as "U.S.A." - the "United Sacrifice Act". Even more important than the mis-named and deceitful Patriot Act, the United Sacrifice Act smokes out and exposes America's unpatriotic pretenders and parasites. Its legally-binding demands are as easy as 1, 2, 3:

===

1. Any and all individuals and corporations - whether executives and stock-holders of primary corporations, trusts, consortiums and/or holding companies, and any agencies or individual/corporate/other entities who directly or indirectly finance or profit from war activities, materials, weapons systems, logistics, operations or rebuilding of war-damaged targets and cities - will henceforward for the next four years (until the 10th anniversay of 9/11/2001) supply and donate at no cost all such war-related materials and military support, sparing American taxpayers all such costs.

2. On September 11, 2011, the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the status of the "War on Terror" will be reviewed by the U.S. Congress. If this War is declared officially over at that time (i.e., all US troops are gone and all US/UN combat and "advisory" operations have totally ceased), the provisions of Item #1 above will cease. If this War is still ongoing on 9/11/2011, then the provisions of Item #1 above will be renewed in full for another four years.

3. Any attempt by any individual or corporate or other entity (or elected or unelected U.S. official or private/public entity) to water down, diminish, eliminate or interfere with the above items - or any attempt to create or maintain any kind of diversion, loophole(s), or "laundering" or "re-defining" of funds, tax revenues or budgets, to circumvent or avoid compliance with the United Sacrifice Act - will be considered an act of Treason against the United States of America and its citizens, punishable to the full extent of the law under any/all pre-9/11 laws and any/all applicable provisions of the USA Patriot Act.

===

Let everyone you know read this complete public posting. Look as hard as you wish for any flaw in the logic of these words, any fault in the reasoning, any shred of unfairness. Then, take action. Contact all of your elected representitives. Call radio and TV talk-shows. Send mass-mailings of email containing the Web-address of the words you are reading. Let the word spread far and wide that America belongs to Americans... that in a Democracy the leaders bow down to the wishes and service and convenience of The People, and never the other way around... that to be called an American means to be willing to sacrifice for America... that to loot and deceive America's families (or even to just refuse to contribute fairly to America's well-being and survival) is tantamount to treason, and negates any person's right to enjoy the privileges of being an American. Patriotism is a solemn duty and obligation of all Americans, especially those who have benefitted most from America; it is not just the thorny and painful cross for the poorest and bravest of our nation to bear.

We have now seen the extremely simple way to tell for certain if this incredibly costly Iraqi war was truly needed, or if it was contrived (or allowed to happen) to enrich a select few. If those elite Upper Echelons step up to the plate and are willing to contribute their fair share, tighten their belts, and (for the first time in history) help the rest of us rebuild a devestated America - out of their own enormously overflowing pockets - then we will know that they are sincere, that they are truly Patriots, that they are truly Americans. If they do not, then they will have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are ravenous, deceitful and inhuman looters, thieves, profiteers and traitors, and that they fully deserve every punishment that fits such heinous crimes.

Only you and I can take America back, and nurse her back to health. If the people lead, the leaders will follow. If we don't, Lady Liberty will die. Please don't let that happen.


May God Bless You, and May God Bless America,

Patrick Q. Henry

September 11, 2006

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com

The Time Has Come

I greet you this morning, dear Reader, in utter astonishment concerning the words and feelings I know I am about to express. The tens of thousands of you who have shown me so much respect and support are now about to hear things that, only a precious few months ago, I never thought I would ever hear myself saying. Namely, as a life-long staunch Conservative and an original major supporter of the current Washington administration, I now have realized that all we true Conservatives have absolutely no choice but to promptly and vigorously call for the impeachment of George W. Bush.

In coming paragraphs, I will lay out in detail my iron-clad case for impeachment, whose basic premise is simple. In a nutshell, Mr. Bush's failures, disasters and betrayals have finally gained the ear of a widespread outraged public who have abandonned him in droves and who will certainly (albeit tragically) return the Congress to Democratic or Third-Party hands this November. When that happens, an impeachment momentum will surely begin which will likely unearth a host of even worse failures, disasters and betrayals (previously kept secret), by which even the most loyal Conservative will be gravely embarrassed. Thus, when the spotlight comes to shine upon which of us was sufficiently wise and foresightful to have seen the obvious, and which of us pig-headedly chose to blindly wave our little flags and watch America go down like a sinking ship, in which spotlight would you rather be seen? In which spotlight would the entire Republican Party and Conservative movement rather be seen?

What more glowing beacon can we offer America in November, what better chance for electoral success, than to demonstrate to America right now that we are always willing to take the righteous and moral high-road, regardless of how painful it may feel to our political and personal pride? There is no honor in putting one's ego or political party before the good of one's nation; there is no dishonor in plucking one spoiled apple from a sacred and priceless barrel before the single misfit contaminates and destroys every one.

For you new readers who are still Bush stalwarts at this moment, please read on before condemning me. Those of you who have been reading the earlier articles in this Web Log all these many months know how consistently and fervently I have supported true Conservative ideals. As events in America have unfolded, you have watched my opinions evolve from merely questioning the puzzling actions (and inactions) of this administration, to raising consciousness about the seeming betrayal of true Conservative values, to today reaching the unavoidable conclusion (incredibly, and to my own unbelieving amazement) that the Bush Administration serves not the people of America but rather some colossal cabal whose international interests run counter to America's values, economics, morals, prosperity, security, future, and sovereign national identity.

President Bush gave a major address to our great nation on Monday, May 15th (the "Ides of May," by no small coincidence). He told us that he now wants to use the National Guard to finally - finally - begin guarding our national borders. But where in the name of God has he been on this issue for the last five and a half years, during which time millions (millions) of total strangers have invaded our land? Indeed, only a week ago it was revealed that the Federal government - your and my Federal government - has been ongoingly informing the Mexican government of the exact location of the brave and patriotic American citizens who have been peacefully sacrificing their own personal time and treasure to monitor our southern border in hopes of slowing the flow of this alien invasion.

Please pause a moment, dear Reader, and consider this shocking reality. "Our" Federal government - i.e., Mr. Bush and his "Neo-Con" Globalist multi-national advisors - have been aiding and abetting a foreign government and their military, to help that foreign nation evade and nullify the noble patriotic efforts of American citizens who are desperately trying to defend America's sovereign borders! Consider the well-known widespread corruption of the Mexican government and military, and their close ties and collusion with the murderous thugs of South American drug cartels; it is thus no stretch of the truth to say that the Minutemen (and all patriotic American citizens) are being put squarely in the cross-hairs of not only the corrupt Mexican government and military but of every brutal cop-killing, judge-killing, civilian-torturing drug-gang and death squad whose demonic treachery infects all of Mexico and the entirety of Central and South America.

We must consider who this treachery serves: the citizens of the US, or the super-wealthy elite of Mexico who profit immensely by exporting tens of millions of their "problem impoverished" masses to the US, while those "guest worker" illegal aliens in the US send back many billions of US dollars to fatten the Mexican economy and treasury, while lining the pockets of the human-smuggling "coyotes" who share their slave-trading/border-crossing booty with corrupt Mexican officials and their crooked politicians. And we cannot be so naive as to believe that none of that enormously lucrative booty has made its way back to American politicians who overtly or covertly support and enable the entire sordid state of affairs.

Since the above reality is the policy that has been faithfully followed for the entirety of the Bush Administration's 5+ years in office, and since they have clearly been betraying the security and lives of the Americans who try to guard our borders, how can we now have even the slightest faith in Mr. Bush's sudden interest in truly securing our borders with our National Guard? Indeed, in the hours before Mr. Bush had even made his May 15th speech, he had already publicly assured Mexico's President Fox that our National Guard would be at the border only on a "temporary basis" - because (the day before) Mr. Fox had publicly expressed his grave concern about the rumors he had heard concerning the use of our National Guard to protect US borders.

WHAT?! Can you imagine former President Reagan publicly assuring Fidel Castro that we wouldn't try too hard to keep his communist insurgents from influencing the economies of Central and South America? Can you imagine President Eisenhower publicly assuring Mussolini or Hitler that we'd use only rubber-bullets as those invaders marched into North Africa and Western Europe? Can you imagine President Washington publicly assuring King George that our 1776 Minutemen would be on duty only for a few days, to provide a nice "photo op" for the battlefield-artists of the day, but would be disbanded as soon as the public outcry had simmered down? Yet, here we see nothing less than a wholesale sellout of American foreign policy and military border-protection, to honor the whims and preferences of a foreign leader who is bankrupting our own economy and nation, by exporting his own failed domestic policy (and his surplus jobless masses) into the backyards of every American.

To this too we must add the deceitful subtleties of what Mr. Bush said in his speech. For example, he told with pride of how his administration had "deported six million illegal immigrants" during his term in office. True, there may have been six million incidents in which an illegal immigrant was indeed apprehdended and deported. But it is legendary how routinely such "deported" individuals will merely travel a few miles along the border and sneak back into the US the next night, because our borders have been so hopelessly wide-open. Thus, if (say) a thousand people have been "deported" each day during Mr. Bush's tenure, and they then successfully entered the US a day or two later, virtually all of those six million supposed deportees have invaded our nation, year after year, during the time-frame of which Mr. Bush acted so proud. Thus, virtually none of those six million were truly kept out of our country. And Mr. Bush certainly can't help but know that.

To add insult to insanity, President Bush promised his amigo, Vicente Fox, that - not only would our National Guard protect our borders only for a limited number of months, but (believe it or not) our brave troops will not even be allowed to be armed! Did President Fox promise us that his military, who often illegally conspires with human-trafficking "coyotes" and drug-thugs - wouldn't be allowed to be armed? Did he promise to disarm all those drug-running criminals and murderous coyotes? Did he say anything about ceasing his own heavily-armed military's patrols of the Mexico-Guatamala border, who have shoot-to-kill orders for any aliens trying to illegally enter his nation? No way, Jose. Yet, even though our National Guard troops who protected the innocent victims of Hurricane Katrina were armed, as common sense would dictate, our president has promised the leader of a foreign invading nation that our troops would "guard" our border only while unarmed and defenseless.

Still, this latest fire-storm over illegal immigration is merely the proverbial straw that has broken the patriotic camel's back. Before laying out my promised ironclad reasoning that shows immediate impeachment to be our only viable course of action, let us spend this one long paragraph reviewing some of the other "final straws" (which I have detailed at length in previous articles) that have weighed heavily on America's sagging and aching spine. Only several weeks ago, we saw Mr. Bush trying mightily to sell crucial American seaports to the United Arab Emirates and Dubai, despite their being clearly on-record as believing the Taliban to be the only legitimate government of Afghanistan. (Not to mention how hard Mr. Bush tried to sell the American public on that traitorous monstrosity even after the huge public outcry, and even after he was forced to admit that he himself was totally unaware of that fiasco until he read about it in the newspaper.) Consider too the billions of dollars of tax-breaks to all the oil companies, while they rake in historic record profits, and while they force us to pay $3 to $4 per gallon, and while their execs retire with $400,000,000 bonuses on top of their $125,000,000 to $280,000,000 yearly salaries. And we can hardly forget the utter atrocity of New Orleans' largely avoidable suffering and destruction from Hurricane Katrina, thanks to egregious and unforgivable incompetence, cronyism and mismanagement - not to mention the continued neglect and struggles of all the innocent American storm victims in that entire region. Nor can we overlook Mr. Bush's promise to be a "Fiscal Conservative" while somehow (virtually overnight) he converted a 5 trillion dollar budget surplus into a 2 trillion dollar deficit. (Unbelievably, now fully reversing a decades-old tradition wherein America had been the world's largest "creditor nation" (being owed vast sums of money by other world nations) we now under Mr. Bush are the world's largest debtor nation... owing more money to the world's foreign banks and money-changers than has ever been owed to anybody, anywhere, in all of human history.) Meanwhile, now over a year after the crime, we still don't know exactly who revealed the name and highly sensitive CIA-status of Valerie Plame, which was in every sense a major (and criminal) breach of national security, while the noose of culpability is now growing ever tighter around the neck of Mr. Bush's two most trusted mentors, advisors and confidantes: Carl Rove and Dick Cheney. (Are we truly to believe that Mr. Bush never knew? If he didn't, how effective a manager is he, and who is running the show? And, if he did know, is he any less guilty?) Plus we recently have learned that for years the president has been ordering secret spying on American citizens... first claiming only Al Queda members and their conspirators were targets; then he was forced to admit that the target-list included even any American who may have ever been phoned as a "wrong number" by some vaguely-suspected overseas political opponent of the Bush team; and finally we were told that tens of millions of Americans have had the complete records of every phone-call that they and all their family members have ever wilfully or accidentally made or received become part of Big Brother's never-ending and un-erasable list. (I hate to think of what may be revealed next week...) Last, and far from least, is the horrendously mistaken and mismanaged Iraq War, now long past three years (and hundreds of billions of dollars and well over 2,400 America GI deaths) old. And, still, years after having found zero WMD's, we are still there, building more and more huge bases and embassy facilities - amid increasing unchecked insurgent attacks, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilian deaths - with absolutely no end in sight.

And those are merely the highlights. It is hardly any wonder that Mr. Bush's approval rating has plummeted from 42% in March, to 34% in April, to 29% in just the first week of May - soon surely surpassing the depths of even Presidents Carter and Nixon at their lowest points. By November, can we expect enough voters to be so blind as to grant Republicans a seat in any office - Federal, State or City? Is it any wonder these days that many Republicans (especially politicians) quickly request that they instead be called "Conservatives," to spare themselves the taint of being seen as "Republicans"? Can we blame the Democrats for that?

We thus return to my main premise: that - shortly after November - a serious impeachment effort will likely sweep this nation and gain juggernaut momentum. This should come as no surprise. Most Americans place the good of their nation before any political party or ideology or individual leader - and rightfully so. This is a nation of laws and ideals and values, not of mere men or sales-pitches or con-jobs. We have already passed the "tipping point" at which the honeymoon is over and Americans are looking at George W. Bush's record, and at nothing else.

Indeed, I write these words today (mid-May, 2006) during the 277th week of Mr. Bush's two-term presidency. Compare and contrast Clinton's impeached presidency during the same timeframe of (say) the most recent half-year or so, beginning with the presidency's 240th week. At Clinton's week #240 (the last week of Sept., 1997), he had recently met Miss Lewinsky and had barely begun dabbling in his "extracurricular activities" and their awkward aftermath. At week #240 of Mr. Bush's tenure (the last week of Sept., 2005), he had declared "You're doing a great job, Brownie!" to his hand-picked head of FEMA, who had parlayed his former career as a horse-show judge into a handicapped federal disaster agency and whose blatantly inept cronyism cost our nation hundreds of innocent lives and tens of billions of dollars.

Several months later in the parallel time-frames, around week #265, when Mr. Clinton had already long ended his seedy daliance with his promiscuous subordinate (and while Special Proscutor Kenneth Starr was already deep into his investigation of Miss Lewinsky), the Bush team was secretly trying to force the diabolical United Arab Emirates port-security deal down the throat of Americans. And now, in early and mid-May of 2006, at weeks #276 & 277 (when, in early/mid May of 1998, the public's widespread disgust with Clinton's immorality and lying were gaining a fierce momentum) we learn that the Bush team (1) has been selling out the life and limb of patriotic border-monitoring citizens to a corrupt and invading foreign government and military, and (2) publicly assuring that foreign nation's president that America will wilfully impede, minimize and limit our National Guard by promising to keep them on our border for only "temporary" duty and by denying our brave troops even weapons with which to defend themselves.

The American people are not stupid, even if some of its most high-profile (and puportedly "Conservative") leaders and spokespersons are. The "illegal immigration" issue has become merely the "flash-point" which has lit a fire under the voters, and has thrown the harsh light of day upon the darkness and secrets of the Bush Administration. As much as it breaks my heart to say so, it is a virtual certainly that this November will witness a massive voter rebellion, favoring anyone but Republicans. Continuing our earlier presidential time-line, this year's mid-term election [at the first week of November] will occur during exactly the same moment [week #302] when in 1997 the House Judiciary Committee submitted their famous 81 questions to Mr. Clinton, paving the way for the impeachment which soon followed.

This coming November, Americans will go to the polls in possession of the legendary "blinding flash of the obvious," and will very likely be lured by any & all promises, especially concerning "impeachment". And (again, sad to say) it is hard to blame them. Tally, if you will, the list of sins and grievances against Bill Clinton, when he was impeached for his betrayals of America. What exactly were his sins? Let us imagine that we hereby declare him guilty of everything of which he was ever remotely accused... of lying under oath about his illicit affair (even though he was not officially convicted)... of personally profiting from the legendary "White Water" real-estate scam (even though he was never officially convicted)... even of pardoning some of his highly shady and nefarious business & political cronies during his final days in office (which he certainly did do). Let us say he was fully guilty of all of those crimes and sins, ten times over. How does all of that - even the worst of the worst of all of that - compare to the ongoing doings of George W. Bush? In dollars? In American GI's lives? In homeland security? In US economic stability? In leadership integrity? In US national sovereignty? In any real and meaningful measure?

If you and I can see the obvious answer to the above questions, so can the rest of the American people. Even if, by some absolute miracle, the Democrats and Independents do not win back a controlling hand in Congress, this president's effectiveness and trustworthiness are totally gone. Ruined. Destroyed. A thing of the past. We cannot be so naive or foolish as to ignore the massive public outcry over his mishandling of the Iraq war... of the Katrina Disaster... of the continued lop-sided tax-cuts that grant billions of dollars to multi-millionaires and billionaires while average workers can barely keep up with inflation, and while America goes deeper and deeper into debt... of the attempt to sell US ports to Arab nations who officially recognize the Taliban... of his failure to secure our national borders for over five full years while permitting entry to literally millions of illegal aliens... of his betraying and endangering the patriotic US citizens who monitor and patrol the borders he wilfully ignored... of his promising foreign leaders (such as Mexico's President Fox) to minimize our National Guard's protection of our sovereign & sacred borders... of forever trying to push his bogus "guest worker" program to grant amnesty and US citizenship to millions of illegal invaders, and thus inviting millions more to follow them across the border... of secretly gathering detailed data on ALL of the phone calls made or received by tens of millions of innocent Americans, despite earlier promises to the contrary... to God only know what other embarrasments and abominations will be revealed and admitted in coming weeks and months.

Such revelations are bound to continue. We cannot blame any of the above specifics on Democrats, or on media bias. Thus, long before November of 2006, the entire nation and the world will very likely have seen a blasphemy and betrayal of purported "Conservatism" that will make any past political reversal pale by comparison. With luck - a tremendous amount of luck - the good and decent people of America will not hold true Conservatives and true Republicans accountable for this massive blasphemy and betrayal. Yet, there is no doubt that political blood will be spilling like oceans out of each voting-booth, nationwide. The formerly "red states" will be hemorhaging as their congressional seats and national maps turn blue as if touched by the icy death of a failed presidency and a "Neo-Con" movement that has collapsed under the sheer weight of its own arrogance, hypocrisy, ineptitude, greed and hubris.

At that moment... at that sad and heart-breaking moment... the eyes of the world will turn to us, to those of us who had the power to see and may have chosen instead to look the other way, to avoid embarrassing our party instead of standing up for our nation. "What were you doing during that time, Daddy?" will likely be the question our children will ask. "What were you saying, and thinking and feeling, Mommy, when everyone else was standing up to make American great again?"

I know the answers that reside in my heart. And now you know them too. Now is the time for we true Conservatives to show that we are bigger than mere party labels, that we are willing to cut out a cancer to save the body politic, to sacrifice "face" for the good of our soul. Think about all I have said. Pray about it. Meditate on it. Ask God for guidance. Then - if you find yourself in agreement with my heart, my soul, my spirit - kindly pass along my words and thoughts to all of those whom you hold dear. Ask them, along with me and my own family and friends, to ask God for His blessings, and for his guidance in helping us through these very challenging and troubling times.

God bless you, dear Reader, and may God Bless America.


Sincerely,

Patrick Q. Henry

May 15, 2006

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com

Elephant in the Parlor

The entire purpose of a Democracy - or a Republic for that matter - is to serve the needs, wishes, preferences, tastes, attitudes, desires, beliefs and preferences of the People. When any elected official fails or ceases to fill that role, it is high time for him or her to step down, or be put aside, or be taken away - in chains, if need be.

Considering the strong and traditional Conservative legacy from which I and my namesake originated, I find it almost inconceivable that I would have ever reached the point which I have now reluctantly reached.

Perhaps the "last straw" was the attemped selling out of our great nation's highly vulnerable major seaports to (of all places) the United Arab Emirates. Did the current leadership take total leave of its senses? Were they not aware that this very same political entity continues to regard the Taliban as the only legitimate government of Afghanistan? Were those American leaders not aware that this very same UAE government actually owns the business concern that would have been operating our crucial seaports? Could they not have been aware that this self-same UAE government was (and is) the political entity who owns the banks who laundered the money used by the 9/11 terrorists who murdered thousands of Americans in cold blood? Could those on the Bush team have not been aware that millions of people from that regional and religious culture utterly despise America and Americans, and that only one such person need "slip past the gates" to unleash another 9/11 upon us?

At very, very least, how could an American political administration be so totally unaware of how utterly insensitive and politically unwise it felt to the average American, to have their President put the ownership of America's most vulnerable seaport assets into the hands of such utterly foreign owners? Does the hallowed phrase "From sea to shining sea" resonate no passion in them?

All of this raises the issue that has been troubling me the most. As with most people of a Conservative upbringing and background, I had been giving "my" President every benefit of the doubt, granting him every possible leeway to explain every action of which I may have felt uncomfortable. But, when that "last straw" finally broke my aching back, I was forced to revisit with new eyes a long procession of painful visions.

First was the debacle of the tragedy in New Orleans at the hands of Hurricane Katrina. Or, to be more accurate, "at the hands" of those who (in retrospect) demonstrated a level of incompetence and cronyism that operated at nothing short of criminal levels. We know now what we did not know then: that Michael Brown, FEMA's director, had zero meaningful experience in managing any large organization, other than elitist horse-shows. We know now (and have seen it on undeniable video-conference videotape) that - while we loyally believed Mr. Bush's seemingly sincere claims that he was unaware of weakened levees in New Orleans - he and his staff were made fully aware of those levees' deadly vulnerabilities well in advance of their certain and devastating failure. We know now that - while Mr. Bush was blithely proclaiming "Brownie, you're doing a great job!" - he either had no idea at all of the horridly inept job that Mr. Brown and FEMA were doing, or Mr. Bush did know it but was deceitfully trying to convince us otherwise. Either way, a great many Americans died and untold fortunes in property-loss resulted directly from that incompetence.

More important is what the above tells us about 9/11. As with the final report on the horrible and preventable disaster that befell New Orleans, it was likewise a Republican-led investigation that declared that 9/11 too was caused by a wide-spread and colossal failure of virtually every aspect of national security and disaster prevention. With hindsight, it is quite easy to see the same level of blatant cronyism, arrogance, disorganization, amateurish political in-fighting, and utter incompetence that undermined our defenses within the FBI, CIA, FAA, Pentagon and all other crucial agencies, leaving all America as vulnerable in 2001 as the Gulf Coast was in 2005. Indeed, the abjectly unforgivable ineptness that brought us such havoc in New Orleans came over four full years after the debacle of 9/11; after the Bush team had had four full years to improve their inept national security skills and methods since 9/11; four years after they should have been able to learn something - anything - from their utterly inadequate performance in 2001.

In retrospect, considering the Bush Administration's undeniable ineptness and gross negligence in 2001, our nation is fortunate that 9/11 wasn't far worse than it was. For that blessing, we can thank only Al Quaeda's naive failure to attempt attacks more daring than they did, since they clearly never suspected that America's security had fallen into hands so woefully unprepared to do a proper job of ensuring America's defense. Clearly, they never dared to believe it would have been so easy, because never before in our entire history had America ever been left that unprotected.

But, despite any charges of the ease of being a "Monday Morning Quarterback," it is still fully valid to explore all the other "smoking guns" that all good Conservatives should have seen, but - out of blind loyalty - we refused to notice. Not the least of these is Mr. Bush's promise to be a "Fiscal Conservative". Yet, somehow, within mere months, he had converted a 5 trillion dollar budget surplus into a 2 trillion dollar deficit. If we can rightfully condemn Liberals for their "tax and spend" obsessions, is it not a hundred times worse to recklessly spend in the present moment by borrowing unimaginably huge sums from our descendants, for generations to come, which they will have to pay back from future taxes, with heavy interest? Is it not a thousand times more criminal to give those present cash-windfalls to a politician's political supporters, contributors and cronies, and to force our descendants to foot the bill for their entire lives, for generations to come?

We likewise saw Mr. Bush cry crocodile tears over the lost lives in recent coal mine disasters. But he never mentioned that it was he who greatly weakened the safety laws that would have protected those miners, solely to put more money into the pockets of the mine owners, likewise among his supporters and contributors.

Meanwhile, now virtually a year after the crime, we still don't know who it was who revealed the name and highly sensitive CIA-status of Valerie Plame, which was in every sense a major (and criminal) breach of national security, and specifically the kind of federal felony which Bush the Senior once described as being of the gravest damage to the US and to all Americans, and deserving of maximum punishment. If Bush the Junior is even one-tenth the war-time leader he claims to be, would he not have long ago gathered all his subordinates and said, "Within the hour, I will have on my desk the admission and resignation of whoever committed this crime, and the names of anyone and everyone who was involved in any way." Yet, a year after the fact, the most that Mr. Bush will say is that he won't "comment on an ongoing investigation". And, when (for his criminal trial) Mr. Cheney's direct subordinate, Scooter Libby, tried to obtain the emails that would show who authorized this leak, the only thing that the public was told was that those crucial emails have mysteriously vanished.

Of course, we cannot forget the horrendously mistaken Iraq War, which is now past its 3rd anniversary of Mr. Bush declaring it to be completed, with his famous and cocksure fighter-plane descent over the shipboard banner announcing "Mission Accomplished". Entire volumes can be spoken about the catastropic and bankrupting debacle and embarrassment of this war, but suffice it to say here that any other president in recent memory would have been promptly impeached for that single act of war-policy incompetence and malfeasance alone.

Still, even all of the above does not write the final chapter on the failures of this 43rd American President. As we look at America's southern borders, we find the governors and congressmen of those crucial states desperately shouting to us of the estimated 3,000 to 8,000 (let us use 5,000, for conservative round numbers) illegal invaders crossing into our great nation each and every day, among whose illegal ranks must certainly be hundreds of terrorists from God knows where, with plans and patience known only by Satan himself. Yet, after promising in October of 2005 to increase the security of our borders, Mr. Bush has done absolutely nothing to keep that promise. 5,000 per day times roughly 30 days in each month equals 150,000 per month... times five months is 750,000 strangers (lawbreakers, one and all, by virtue of their wilful illegal entry into our nation and their remaining hidden from our laws) who have invaded America since Mr. Bush made his promise a mere five months ago. The yearly totally easily surpasses 1.5 million, by the most conservative estimates (and many estimates hover around a full 3 million per year.) The question is not "How many dozens or hundreds or thousands of those invaders are actually deadly-serious suicidal terrorists?" but rather "How many of them need to be even mediocre terrorists to wreak unimaginable destruction upon our great land?"

It is not my words alone that paint the above sad picture. More and more staunch Conservatives and Republicans have gone from merely voicing concerns to raising severe and frightening doubts about this president - and his backers, advisors and handlers - and their arrogant and utterly out-of-touch policies. In recent weeks, even the famed Cato Institute - long respected as a mature voice amid America's ranks of responsible Conservative economic and social thinkers - has echoed much of what I have itemized above.

And that is in addition to the many, many disenchanted life-long Republicans who were painfully astonished to learn how the Bush team was fully in the process of turning over our most crucial and vulnerable seaports to the Taliban-supporting UAE -- and especially to learn that Mr. Bush himself was totally unaware of this unconscionable betrayal until he read about it in the newspapers! (Which begs the question of whether Mr. Bush was too unaware or lacking in business and political savvy to have bothered to keep abreast of such monumental goings-on, or if the behind-the-scenes international power-brokers considered him too unimportant or inept to include him "in the loop" on such matters. Or both.) And, even in the face of the fire-storm that arose over this betrayal of US security, Mr. Bush vowed to strongly fight for that betrayal, and arrogantly promised to promptly and enthusiastically veto any Republican attempts to block that outrageous give-away of our crucial seaports. Plus - even beyond that - he continued to defend the absurd scheme well after it had been totally abandoned and disowned by even the staunchest Conservatives and Republicans.

All of which raises the first of two urgent questions, "Exactly who does this man represent?" Certainly not Liberals, or Libertarians, or Moderates, or Independents... but, astonishingly, not even Conservatives and Republicans. Again, do not take my word for any of this. Read the words of the esteemed Cato think tank, long amid the early and steadfast ranks of initial Bush supporters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/07/AR2006030701403_pf.html

Indeed, with an astonishing 34% approval rating for this sitting president (unheard of in our lifetime for a "war president" during days of deadly foreign peril) and a mere 18% approval rating for his vice president, Mr. Cheney, we are forced to ask who exactly is his constituency? Who does he represent? Who are the supporters who benefit from his actions and policies? After the monstrously incompetent and deadly failures of 9/11 and Katrina, plus the politically out-of-touch betrayal revealed by the UAE sellout of our seaports, how can we trust this administration to even begin to know how to protect our great land? Or to even care to learn?

All of which leads us to the second urgent question. Aside from wondering exactly who are the powerful and well-heeled international financial interests who (by default) are clearly the true beneficiaries of Mr. Bush's policies, we must ask (more importantly) where do we common-folk loyal Americans fit into their global plans? Remember, nearly five full years after the unparalleled catastrophe of 9/11, we have clearly seen how the Bush team was deeply entrenched in the colossal sell-out of our vital seaports to the Taliban-supporting Dubai government-owned business interests who celebrate their vast financial conquests at the same jet-set country clubs as Mr. Bush's long-time oil-rich Saudi friends and his big-oil multi-national supporters.

Yet, these are the hidden billionaire wheeler-dealers and governments whose financial interests and business preferences are clearly navigating America's ship of state. Is it not their interests that will guide our nation's secret police as they monitor and archive all of our email, phone calls, faxes and Web activities? Is it not their hand-picked security teams and domestic spies who will be picking apart our private lives, looking for evidence that we may be doing or thinking something that runs counter to their global goals and windfall profits? Is it not their allies and supporters and secret political operatives who will be questioning our patriotism, and moving to prosecute us for speaking out against their lucrative multi-national agendas, that greatly enrich themselves at our expense?

Further, at a fundamental level, we must question the screening of even the more mundane staffers who have been selected as this administration's rank and file. We have already seen the embarrassing sham of Mr. Bush's assistant's good ol' boy frat-buddy (Mr. Brown) being appointed as FEMA chief (despite such poorly matched credentials). We saw Mr. Bush trying to push his personal lawyer and old-time Texas crony (Ms. Meirs) onto the Supreme Court (to the shock, laughter and loud rejections of Democrats and Republicans alike). More recently we learned that a former top White House aide was arrested for grand theft from department stores, while a top-level Homeland Security official was caught-in-the-act online by the FBI as he vigorously attempted to lure (what he thought was) a 14 year old girl into sexual liaisons and statutory rape. These - and God knows how many more like them - are the nuts and bolts of the machinery to whom we have entrusted our liberties, freedoms, national security, and protection from terrorists and natural disasters. Such are the wisdom, staff selections and screening procedures of the Bush team, to which we have entrusted the very future of our great nation.

The symbol of the Conservative movement is immortalized in the form of the Republican Party's whimsical elephant. How long can we - as Conservatives, as Republicans, as Patriots - pretend to not see the incredibly destructive juggernaut that has been unleased on our cherished nation?

President Clinton was impeached - and rightfully so - for his egregious and disrespectful behavior within the walls of our hallowed White House, for his betrayal of basic decency, morality and honesty. Yet, we must look carefully at all of his sins, even before he became president, and ask (1) how many Americans were directly harmed by his sins and crimes and (2) in what ways did those victims suffer? Before becoming president, the legendary "Whitewater Scandal" was an amalgam of sleazy land-deal business transactions peppered with a variety of questionable or fraudulent bank-loans and crooked scam-artists who comprised Bill Clinton's personal life and Arkansas good-ol-boy network of shady wheeler-dealers, and which resulted in over a dozen lower-level criminal convictions among his tawdry Arkansas crowd. But even the worst of those crimes didn't loot any part of the US federal treasury, or even the Arkansas treasury, or submit any common-folk US citizens (or anyone else on earth) to jeopardy of life or limb. As for Mr. Clinton's notorious personal life, Monica Lewinsky was a willing partner, though surely Mr. Clinton was a certifiable sexual predator, whose victims included Jennifer Flowers, Paula Jones and perhaps as many as a dozen others, over the years. He crossed the line of public trust when he looked into my eye and yours while he outright lied to all Americans about his illicit and seedy adventures, which certainly gives all Americans solid grounds to be highly indignant and revulsed. For that betrayal while president, he fully deserved to be not only impeached, but to be convicted and removed from office.

That being said, go back and re-read all of my words that preceded the above tales of Mr. Clinton's sordid misdeeds. Go talk to the families of the well over 2,300 brave American GI's who have died; and the many tens of thousands of Soldiers, Airmen, Sailors, Marines and National Guardsmen who have been gravely wounded and crippled for life; and the hundreds of thousands of similar horrid deaths and casualties among the innocent Iraqi civilian men and women and children, who we had promised to be rescuing and helping. Look at our 2 trillion dollar deficit that grows worse each day; at the hundreds of billions of dollars we'll be spending (for decades to come) fighting in Iraq, which never needed to happen; at the outrageous and obscene windfall profits being enjoyed by Mr. Bush's contributors in the oil and arms (and other) industries; at the widespread corruption and payoffs involving his friends, thanks to the dealings of Mr. Abramoff (whom Mr. Bush denied ever having met until pictures at over a dozen different meetings began appearing); at the well-documented torture that was graphically revealed in both Iraq and Guantanamo, that has greatly embarrassed all of America's proud traditions and ideals around the world; at the wide-spread secret wire-tapping of American citizens, that outraged even old-time loyal Republicans and Conservatives.

And then go back and look at that pre-war newsreel of Mr. Bush taunting Fate and all of the world's most evil souls by saying, "Bring 'em on!" while (as we now know so miserably well) he clearly lacked the experience, skills, savvy, diplomacy, talents, staff, competence, intelligence, honesty, and political insights to avoid any of the extraordinarily catastrophic tragedies and blunders detailed above. Go back and watch him displaying the most abysmal lack of maturity and international diplomacy by appearing before the UN and calling other world leaders "gutless" and "cowards" for not eagerly following him into the disastrous war into which he led the US, and which they clearly had the wisdom and common sense to avoid. Then ask yourself, if William Jefferson Clinton deserved to be impeached and convicted for lying about a brief dalliance with a fully willing tart, what exactly can America reasonably expect to be the fair and appropriate consequences for the wilfully deadly deceit and mammoth failures of George Walker Bush?

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com

How Does A Patriot Act?

Patrick Henry of the American Revolution was a spirit proud to know that his name would forever be synonymous with "Patriot". What grander and more humbling legacy could grace any mortal man? As I write in the hand of my reincarnated kindred spirit, as Patrick Q. Henry, we are alarmed. Very alarmed. Today, the word "Patriot" has become a slippery bar of soft soap, often crafted mainly to try to lend honor and trust to things of which the American people should be extremely leery. Topping that list is the "USA Patriot Act".

Surely, some of you will object, saying that we need to grant our government as much authority as we can, to protect us against our enemies. Initially, I fully agreed; I saw the Patriot Act as a powerful tool to combat evil, as I detailed in my previous essay, "Three Questions for America". But recently, in a startled cold-sweat nightmare in the deepest sleep, I was struck with a terrifying vision of a dastardly double-edged sword.

We need look only at our southern border, where no meaningful action is being taken - by either Democrats or Republicans - to stem the absolute deluge of illegal entrants into our great nation. Please note that my concern is not about any particular race or nationality or ethnic group, but about the simple fact that our border is open to ALL intruders, including terrorists. Amid the estimated 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 illegal entrants each year into our nation (I will assume 1,500,000 here, for round numbers), let us say that 1/100th of one percent - a mere .0001 ... one out of ten thousand ... are terrorists. At that rate, each year since Mr. Bush the Junior has been in office, 150 Mohammed Atta's have taken up residence within our sacred shores. 150 terrorists - times the eight years of two terms - totals well over a thousand new suicide killers, and possibly many more, who will all be waiting for the right moment to murder us and our families.

Why this ongoing invasion? Why are our borders left wide open? For no reason greater than the olden pestilence that plagued the peers of my namesake in the 1700's: the convenience, quick profit, and unbridled wealth that the rich obtain from inhumanly cheap labor.

But, what has all this to do with the Patriot Act? Observe. We all know the extremely broad & sweeping powers that the Patriot Act grants to those within government's Upper Echelons. Initially, decent citizens like you and me felt safe, because we knew that we would never do anything to betray or endanger our nation. But ride now this next train of horrifying, irrefutable logic:

1. To enable future hordes of quick-profit cheap labor, the Upper Echelons of "our" government - amid both political parties - have abandoned their duty to protect our borders from intruders.

2. Using the earlier carefully conservative estimates, hundreds of demonically deadly terrorists (quite possibly, thousands) have have been wilfully allowed entry into the US, by both political parties.

3. Just for the sake of easy profits from cheap labor, the wealthy Upper Echelons in our society clearly want the above unguarded borders to remain that way - despite the feeble recent speeches to the contrary by Mr. Bush and various Democrats, which never mentioned why they all have ignored this crisis year after year. Since We The People clearly and loudly and adamantly have been rallying against that deadly open-border policy, and against the people and officials who enable it, then it is certain that those Upper Echelons must see us as their enemies.

4. The Patriot Act grants all of its terrifying, invasive, secret-police, secret-arrest and secret-prison powers exclusively to the political officials who serve those Upper Echelons, who certainly can target anybody - including us - as among their enemies.

Of course, you may choose to trust Mr. Bush and your other elected officials & representatives to never take advantage of such incredibly frightening powers. Which is fine. But what about after those specific people are gone? Kindly read on.

The current Upper Echelons are feverishly trying to not only expand the Patriot Act with "Patriot Act 2" but also to make the Patriot Act permanent (it was originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2005, but was extended on Dec. 22, 05 for one month). If made permanent, its wide-ranging and awesome powers will be in the hands of whoever takes over our government in the future, from now on. Whoever. We know that those Upper Echelons are the ones we have heard about for generations, whenever we are told "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer." How does that ongoing imbalance and injustice continue to happen? By that Upper Echelon's wilfull, premeditated and never-ending plan to always have huge pools of cheap labor available. Can we be so naive as to hope that they would have a sudden change of heart now, after their centuries of boundless greed? Sadly, we can know for a fact that they plan to continue getting richer and richer - decade after decade, generation after generation - by ensuring the flood of more and more poor and desperate immigrants, whether legal or illegal.

However the details unfold, two things are certain.

First, since we true and legitimate citizens of America (and our children) will continue to resist and rebel against this outrageous and willful invasion, we (and our children) will continue to be on the "Enemies List" of the wealthy Upper Echelons, of both political parties; thus, we will be amongst the enemies targeted by all of the political operatives that they help put into power. Plus, making the Patriot Act permanent means that they will forever be able to deal with their "enemies" - including us - however they wish, fully cloaked behind perpetual and pernicious secrecy.

Second, consider what must certainly happen, sooner or later. Fact: These tens of millions of illegal intruders are not likely to just disappear; and neither Democrats nor Republicans show the slightest political backbone needed to send these invaders back home. Thus, inevitably, sooner or later, they will be granted American citizenship, which includes American citizens' sacred right to vote. Indeed, this very kind of thing happened not long ago when the president granted amnesty to a large wave of "undocumented workers". And, we cannot rule out that - despite his promises to the contrary - he may well do it again. (After all, we all remember the previous President Bush promising "Read my lips! No new taxes!" to a trusting nation who believed him, and who then were promptly betrayed by new taxes.) Even if the current President Bush does not again grant blanket amnesty to all the illegal intruders, can we trust a Democratic president to not do so? Thus, sooner or later, it will happen.

And then what? Do the math. Just under this current presidential administration, we will have seen about 1,500,000 illegal entrants per year, for eight years, which totals roughly 12,000,000 new potential voters entering our nation, just during the current 8-year term. Even if only 1/4 of them vote... nay, even if only 1/10th of them vote... such huge numbers could easily change the outcome of any and every election, in any and every state of the US.

Before long, the politicians and elected officials - and all of the secret police and invasive policies and spy-equipment that are hired and enacted and utilized by them - will all be firmly behind the wheel of the Patriot Act, with all of its existing and newly expanded powers... and with us (the "enemies" of their catastrophic border & immigration policies) solidly in their cross-hairs.

It gets worse. What if those tens of millions of "new citizens" decide to vote for people and political/cultural values of the "old country" from which they came? What if they vote into power the kinds of communists and anarchists whose well-financed billionaire conspirators populate and control the brutal drug cartels, corrupt police, paramilitary puppets, and death squads so common in "third world" countries? How safe will you feel when the Patriot Act - if made into permanent law, as planned - is in their hands?

How safe will you feel when they can freely read your household mail and email and business correspondence; secretly invade & ransack your home; copy all your computer files, both remotely via modems and while you are away from your residence; study all your personal, financial & medical records; catalog all the Websites you visit; wire-tap your family's home-phones & cell-phones; arrest you without a warrant, and keep you in secret jails year after year, with no charges, without any lawyer, sending you (and your children) to foreign prisons for special "interrogation"... all without your family or friends having any idea where in the world you are?

Those are only some of the powers granted to God-knows-who by a permanent Patriot Act; and even more secret powers would be available under the proposed expanded Patriot Act. We have already seen the present administration's willingness to circumvent the law to spy on American citizens, trying their best to keep their improper actions secret, outraging even staunch Conservatives and Republicans. If the Patriot Act is made permanent, can we trust the Liberals and Democrats (and God knows who else might be elected by 12,000,000 new "citizens") to display any greater level of law-abiding integrity? Human beings - all humans, of all stripes - are simply too weak and vulnerable to be trusted with that much power. That is why our Founding Fathers - in their great wisdom - made it our right and our duty to always keep all seekers of power on a very short and tight leash.

Remember too that the concerns of "domestic spying" go far beyond whether or not you have anything "to hide". It is more than naive to say "I have done nothing wrong, so I really don't care who listens to my phone conversations." What if you have done "nothing wrong" but you speak loudly against the policies of extremists or anarchists or Communists who have attained power in some future election, and who have inherited all the powers of a permanent Patriot Act? Or what if just one person in your family or household speaks out loudly, or is involved in a phone conversation with some newfound acquaintance who starts spouting extreme or treasonous opinions? Even if your family member quickly chooses to abandon this newfound acquaintance, the record of that conversation - and all of its absurd or treasonous overtones - will become part of the official and damning record associated with your household and all of its members.

As American history has often shown us, even the most "trustworthy" of American politicians and officials - even "Godly" Conservatives - have done far more than keep simple lists of people whose conversations had been secretly monitored. Those lists of names did not merely sit idly on a shelf, gathering dust. They were used to "neutralize" the "enemies" of the idealogues and political snipers who had secretly gathered those lists, subjecting the people on those lists to the most vile and vicious of "dirty tricks" - to greatly embarrass, undermine, discredit, and destroy them, and their careers, and even their innocent family members. Study the FBI's tactics during the Vietnam War, for example. Innocent citizens who merely gathered together to discuss and oppose the war were often targets of the most vile persecution. (In one notorious 1970's episode, for example, FBI agents hired prostitutes who were infected with syphillus, and paid them to initiate affairs with war opponents, in the sick and twisted hope that contracting this social disease would discredit war protesters among their peer group. Imagine that such tactics were to be used against us, after President Hillary were to acheive power.) Plus, details of much of the treachery committed against even the most innocent citizens - who were just peacefully exercising their legitimate rights of Free Speech - are still in secret files unseen and unknown by most Americans.

As for those people currently in power, we have already seen them display (and act upon) their fervent attitude of "You are either with us, or against us." We have already seen their vindictive retribution against innocent American citizens, coming from even the highest levels, as witnessed by the highly illegal, unethical, unpatriotic and immoral "outing" of CIA operative Valerie Plame. (And she had committed no offense against anyone in power; she was targetted (and her career ruined) merely as vengeance against her husband - a distinguished and honorable US diplomat - as punishment for his speaking the truth that the White House wanted to hide.) You can be certain [as I know, from my high-level travels around the DC Beltway] that time will reveal many other acts of equal and greater treachery.

To answer my own question that I posed at the outset, "How Does A Patriot Act?" - the answer is "Not like the secret police in a monstrous dictatorship." An American Patriot does not act like the USA Patriot Act. Period. I have studied and embraced the life and times of my namesake Patrick Henry enough to know with 100% certainty what he and his brave colleagues would say. They would be utterly, totally and bitterly outraged if even one hundreth of such unbridled and unaccountable power were to be placed in the hands of mere mortals. Into the hands of God, certainly - but never into the hands of mere men. And especially not men and bloated domestic & multi-national corporations whose sole goals are the self-serving greed whose endless obsessions drive them to forever add more and more millions of dollars each day to the hundreds of billions they already possess.

To those who say "But times have changed in our post-9/11 world," I humbly reply that times have been changing since the beginning of time, and always will change; but Democracy never changes; Freedom never changes; Justice never changes; Equality never changes; Liberty never changes; government of, by and for the People never changes; and the principles, the guidelines, the checks-and-balances which made America great must likewise never change, or America herself will change to a nightmare far inferior to the unique beacon of light she has always been.

The reason that America has been so special - so blessed, so set apart from all other forms of government - is that the great minds who crafted this great nation understood human weakness. Having descended from many centuries of brutal and repressive European governments - especially those governments who swore on stacks of Bibles to be the direct spokesmen of God - our Founding Fathers knew three things for certain: that power corrupts, power corrupts, and power corrupts. They knew that when mere men are trusted with excesses of power, Satan himself always promptly takes notice, always works overtime, always sets before such overly-empowered leaders a thousand delicious but disastrous temptations, each and every day.

Just as Adam and Eve fell when they took unto themselves the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, all humans fall within the deadly serpent's grasp when they are permitted to eat from the Tree of Power. What has made America so very special is that We The People were given sole possession of the woodman's axe, to use on any tree and any snake and any treasonous pretender - and we were given the full authority and duty to forever keep a watchful eye on every person to whom we grant temporary authority or power in our sacred Garden of Democracy.

Our unique and blessed form of government allows us - nay, demands of us - to always keep a razor-sharp eye on every leader, up to the very highest levels, including not just presidents but also the Upper Echelons above our presidents; who operate quietly, stealthily, hidden behind the scenes; who will always try their best to manipulate our Democracy and our people, for their own gain. Our magnificent US Constitution fully grants us the power to take back any and all temporary authority that we have granted to anyone, and to put any of them - elected or otherwise, from any dog-catcher to any CEO of the most powerful multi-national cartels or any power-elite - out of office, or out of power, or in chains, or in prison for life, or even on the gallows, if warranted.

As was said by our fellow Patriot, Thomas Jefferson, "The price of Liberty is eternal vigilance." That means vigilance not only against foreign armies or foreign intruders or foreign terrorists, but also vigilance against anything and everything that is foreign to the values, freedoms, governmental powers, and checks-and-balances upon which this great nation was founded.

Fortunately, despite the many changes on the landscape of America between the days of Patrick Henry and Patrick Q. Henry, we still possess elected representatives who are sworn to abide by our wishes. If the words you have read above have aroused any thoughts or emotions within your heart and soul, then now - now - is the time to write and call those representatives, early and often, and loudly, before it is too late. As you read these words, the US Senate and Congress are debating what to do about the USA Patriot Act before it expires at the end of January, 2006; whether to revoke it, diminish it, expand it, or make it permanent. Considering the fallible human beings who will always reside in our precious Garden of Eden, in our noble Sanctuary of Democracy, which outcome to those debates would you like to see happen?

May God bless you, and may God Bless America.

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com

Three Simple Questions for America

Here are three simple questions for America. And one very long-overdue answer.

1. Fact: In just the 2005 third quarter (barely 90 days), the major oil companies posted excess profits [again, excess profits] of $32 billion; that is over $350,444,900 (or over 350 vaults of a million dollars per vault) each and every day, seven days a week. Even during (and especially during) deadly Hurricane Katrina. Naturally, that same level of obscene profit was going strong for years before, and continues every single day. Plus, hundreds of millions more of our tax dollars each day go to insider military contractors who profit immensely from the war in Iraq... totalling (when combined with the oil companies) roughly a billion dollars in excess profits, every single day. Not just gross revenues, but excess profits, after paying all expenses. Q. Do handfuls of multi-millionaires & billionaires need or deserve a BILLION DOLLARS EACH DAY - that is, a thousand millions each day - more than your family, friends, children, neighbors, loved ones, and co-workers deserve to afford food, medicine, health-care, gasoline, warm clothes and home-heating fuel this winter?

2. FACT: Well over 2,100 brave American military heroes have died horrid deaths, and tens of thousands more have been seriously or gravely wounded for life... while hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilian men, women and children (who we were supposed to be providing a better life) have been killed or seriously injured. Q. Are Americans or Iraqis (or the Middle East, or even the entire world in general) now more peaceful, more unified, more at ease, more cooperative, more safe or more secure from terrorists? The 9/11 Commission, staffed not by Liberals but mostly by Conservative Republicans, recently said we are not. That being so, we must ask too if the huge Iraqi oil profits have gone to the Iraqi people and to the cost of fighting the war, so US taxpayers won't foot the bill (as we were promised), or has most of that money gone instead to multi-national corporations, oil companies, military contractors, bankers, lawyers, lobbyists, Washington insiders and White House deal-makers?

3. FACT: If foreign terrorists looted our bank accounts, stole our family's food, harmed our children, ran off with our hard-earned savings, weakened our families, stole the warmth from our homes, or bankrupted our household - even just one time - our nation would execute them, on sight, and rightly so. Q. Why, then, are greedy home-grown and multi-national traitors & thieves - who steal from the mouths of American children - who loot many BILLIONS OF DOLLARS EACH WEEK from the pockets of American families - walking the streets as free men, instead of receiving the God-ordained human justice of punishment that fits their crimes?

"So, what else is new?" you may ask in frustration; "It has always been that way." But there IS something new: finally, a way that these American and international and multi-nation econo-terrorists can finally be punished under US law. "Which law?" you ask? Easy. Under the USA Patriot Act, plain and simple, because it is designed and empowered to root out and punish evil. Greed is evil. Capitalism is great, not evil. Greed is evil. America is great and blessed, not evil. Greed is evil. Our consumer culture, with all of its quirks and faults, is still great - because it allows a broad spectrum of freedom, creativity, initiative, personal enterprise, dreams of success and honestly-earned riches. But greed is utter, abject, deader-than-dead evil. And greed - at its ugliest, most venal, most vile - is what most often has come to rule the rulers in the most powerful & successful Democratic nation that has ever been blessed to exist on planet Earth.

America and its citizens are being drained of their life-blood by a few dozen small gangs of extremely wealthy people... whose mad, pathological, unbridled, irrational, inhuman greed forever drives them into endless compulsion to take more and more and more of everything from their less-blessed and less-wealthy human kin. The USA Patriot Act - beyond any shadow of a doubt - is as applicable to the demonic curse of greed as it is to murder, treason, terrorism, and any other evil. Best of all, the Patriot Act fully overrides, nullifies and supercedes any & all laws that have previously been used to shield greedy domestic & foreign evil-doers, and to shield all their domestic & foreign conspirators, talk-show propagandists, PACs, cronies and defenders.

Please note: This is not a political rant, not some latter-day juvenile declaration of anger or hatred between the Haves and the Have-nots. It is simply a new Declaration of Independence, a stating of the three unspoken but all-too-obvious truths that have never dared to be stated out loud before.

(1) America is being carved up, like quick-buck scrap parts, by billionaire gangs of money-hungry people who are truly and psychotically out of touch with reality, as evidenced by their endless obsession to take more and more from the poor, the hungry, ill, crippled, elderly, starving, infirm, injured, exploited and victimized. Therefore, these mentally ill thieves and global looters are unfit to hold the positions of power that they have been granted.

(2) For generations, we have been brainwashed into feelings of despair and futility, subtly reminded from all corners that "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer". We were tricked into believing that - even in the world's most free Democracy - we were powerless to control or to try to heal these sadly sick, greedy, obsessive and mentally ill people, but...

(3) the USA Patriot Act changes all of that. The USA Patriot Act clearly authorizes our government to vigorously pursue, prosecute, imprison for life, or execute any terrorist, anyone guilty of treason, of any nation, including economic terrorists, and including Americans.

The time has come to take a better look at who terrorists truly are. In the last five years, all Americans have had to sacrifice. City, state & federal budgets have been slashed, depriving hundreds of millions of American adults and children the necessities of libraries, school funding, lunch programs, sports activities, road repairs, medical services, emergency programs, essential public services, etc, etc., etc. Military personnel and their families have suffered and sacrificed most greatly, with thousands even giving their lives, and tens of thousands more are condemned to entire lives in wheelchairs and hospitals. Yet, amid all of this, small handfuls of extraordinarily wealthy and extraordinarily greedy people have firmly avoided making even the slightest sacrifice. To the contrary, they have forever helped themselves to hundreds of billions of our dollars, into their personal pockets. They show no signs of ceasing or even slowing their unending greed and their traitorous betrayal of America's people, families and children.

If We The People demand that our leaders use the Patriot Act to fight all terrorists, then by law - by Law - they must do so. If they do not, they can be promptly impeached. In a free Democracy, they must jump when we whistle; never the other way around. The time has come to remind them. The time has come to remind them. The time has come to remind them.

Patrick_Q_Henry@yahoo.com