- I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written
15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have
studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally
large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage
crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single
facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper
focus.
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- Something of historic proportions is happening. I can
sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how
people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something
happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen
years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.
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- We demand and then codify into law the requirement that
our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back?
Why?
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- We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which
has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion
dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will
not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours
and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about
so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they
have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized
it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned
our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.
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- We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing
our economy.. Why?
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- We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored
our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional,
and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think
critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are
not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?
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- We have now established the precedent of protesting every
close election (violently inCalifornia over a proposition that is so controversial
that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and
one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?)
We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges
to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream
Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana
republic. To what purpose?
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- Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices
are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on
the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare
and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I
teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list
is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929
x ten...And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of
offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit
the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.
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- And finally, we have elected a man that no one really
knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone
a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska .. All of his associations and alliances
are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything
we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary
(Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory
civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders?
No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over
and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000
wardrobe are more important.)
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- Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one
word: Change. Why?
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- I have never been so afraid for my country and for my
children as I am now.
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- This man campaigned on bringing people together, something
he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama
will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to
realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is
indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.
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- And that is only the beginning..
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- As a serious student of history, I thought I would never
come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the
mid-1930s In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking
rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next
to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with
groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed;
he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative
"losers" read it right now.
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- And there were the promises. Economic times were tough,
people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and
frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak
out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them
into submission. Which they did - regularly. And then, he was duly elected
to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the
Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government
power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy.
The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth
Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later,
they were required to do so. No Jews of course,
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- How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising
jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial
complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control,
health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill
pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world.
He did it with a compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all
in the name of justice and .... . .. change. And the people surely got
what they voted for.
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- If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all
there in the history books.
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- So read your history books. Many people of conscience
objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed.
When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while
seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister),
he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right,
though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.
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- Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the
most cultured country in Europe. It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals,
laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter
time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding
up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children
against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of
intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.
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- As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional
decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces
of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe
what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades;
or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and
ignoring what is transpiring around me..
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- I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people
will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both.
To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people
in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe-and why I believe it.
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- I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only
hope is our vote in the next elections.
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