Government and Tyranny - Part 2

Government is not reason. Government is not eloquence. It is force. And, like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master - George Washington

Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide - John Adams

To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical - Thomas Jefferson

"We have a deficit because this country went into a recession. You might remember the stock market started to climb dramatically six months before I came to office, and then the bubble of the 1990s popped. That cost us revenue. Secondly, we're at war. And I'm going to spend what it takes to win the war, more than just $120 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. We've got to pay our troops more. We've increased money for ammunition and weapons and pay. And homeland security. We went from 10 billion to $30 billion to protect the homeland. And plus we cut taxes for everybody. Everybody got tax relief, so as to get out of the recession. If you raise taxes during a recession, you had the depression. I proposed a plan, detailed budget that shows us cutting the deficit in half by five years. And you're right, I haven't vetoed any spending bills because we work together"- George Bush, St Louis, Oct 8 2004

Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty - Thomas Jefferson

George Bush`s 2005 Budget

1) The budget request would amount to the smallest increase in education funding in 9 years;
2) The budget request would eliminate 38 education programs, reducing the Federal investment in education by $1.4 billion;
3) The budget request continues to renege on the commitment to fully fund the No Child Left Behind Act - falling $9.4 billion short for this coming fiscal year and 27 billion short overall since the law's first year;
4) The budget request fails to make college more affordable;
5) The budget request marks the third year in a row that the maximum Pell grant would remain at $4,050, despite the President's campaign pledge in 2000 to increase the award to $5,100;
6) The budget request forces a tax on college loans that would charge students an additional $4 billion over the next 10 years by requiring lenders to collect a one percent insurance fee when students take out their college loans;
7) The budget request would cut $316 million in vocational education funding, yet again. Since taking office, President Bush has proposed over $1.8 billion in cuts to vocational education and job training programs for community colleges;
8) The Department of Education is improperly counting as unexpended funds billions of dollars in resources that the states have already designated for school renovation, teacher salaries and the purchase of testing system and curriculum for k-12 education; and
9) The budget request continues to underfund the federal commitment to special education.

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be -Thomas Jefferson

On January 14,1983, President Reagan signed "National Security Decision Directive No. 77," and this formally began the process of our government taking control of the news media. Their program of "perception management" was designed to shape the opinions of Americans on all issues, and I personally believe they did an excellent job. Rense

The average American spends 1550 hours watching television every year.
That's an average of 194 eight-hour days a year. Or, 39 forty-hour work weeks spent staring at the tube. If you watch the 'normal' amount of television, you will see 100 TV ads per day. The average American child spends 1,680 minutes per week watching TV and only 39 minutes per week in meaningful conversations with their parents. Furthermore, the average American listens to 1160 hours of radio, and spends 290 hours reading newspapers and magazines.

If you were hired to do the average amount of watching, listening, and reading of the mass media, you'd be at it 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, 375 days a year. Yes, that's 375...meaning you would have to work overtime to fit it all in.. Rense

I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale - Thomas Jefferson

Under George Bush`s (social security reform) plan, financial institutions would manage trillions of dollars of private contributions. A new study by Chicago Business School Professor Austan Goolsbee finds that this will result in windfall profits for financial institutions and enormous wasted administrative costs.
1) $940 billion of additional revenue for financial institutions (75 year net present value): that 23 per cent of the expected revenues of financial institutions over the next 75 years.
2) fees and other administrative expenses from individual accounts will make social security problem 25% worse. To pay for these costs would require adding an additional six years to the retirement age or making other benefit cuts.
- expenses will eat up 20% of the typical beneficiary`s account.

I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature - Thomas Jefferson

'I think its fine, as long as its Christian prayers, anything else is Un- American" - George Bush

My faith tells me that acceptance of Jesus Christ as my savior is my salvation, -- George Bush, 1998

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world - Thomas Jefferson

Never spend your money before you have earned it - Thomas Jefferson

When Bush came to office, the debt ceiling was $5.95 trillion and had last been raised in 1997. Since 2002, Congress has raised the borrowing limit by more than $1.4 trillion, as the government ran increasingly large deficits of $158 billion in 2002, $375 billion in 2003 and $413 billion for fiscal 2004, which ended in September. The overall 2004 U.S. trade deficit (goods and services) hit a record $617.7 billion, shattering last year's record of $496.51 billion by a staggering 24.4 percent. In yet another new record, the deficit's share of the U.S. economy jumped from 4.5 percent in 2003 to 5.3 percent in 2004- Washington Times

The level of indebtedness has been rising steadily over the past several decades. Much of this rise is due to two factors: increasing access to credit by certain households and rising homeownership. In particular, rising homeownership seems to have played a significant role in the increase in indebtedness over the past several years. During the five years ended mid-2004, household mortgage debt increased by $2.8 trillion, which accounts for 80 percent of the total increase in consumer debt over this period. At the same time, however, the value of residential real estate owned by homeowners rose by $5.9 trillion. So the dramatic increase in mortgage debt during the past five years was accompanied by an even larger increase in net worth, the net effect of which is over $3 trillion.

Although personal bankruptcy filings have declined in recent months, they remain near their all-time highs. During 2003, personal bankruptcy filings reached a record high of 5.5 per thousand persons; however, filings declined an encouraging 4.2 percent on a year-ago basis in second quarter 2004. This was the largest year-over-year decline since mid-2000. Any sustained trend toward fewer personal bankruptcies should indicate improving consumer credit performance.

So far, the credit position of the consumer appears to be stable. According to the Federal Reserve, the aggregate consumer debt-service ratio—which reflects minimum required payments on credit cards, home mortgages, and other consumer loans (but not leases)—has been stable at around 13 percent of disposable income since the end of the 2001 recession

Although the aggregate consumer debt-service ratio remains near its all-time high, some of the reasons for this may be structural in nature. The increased availability of credit in recent years, rising homeownership, and more sophistication on the part of borrowers and lenders (which can be reflected in such developments as increased "convenience" use of credit card debt) may all be contributing to this higher ratio of minimum debt payments to income.6 The fact that delinquency rates on consumer loans and credit card debt at FDIC-insured institutions have held relatively steady during the past seven years offers perhaps the strongest evidence that consumers continue to be able to service their debts. Between 1997 and mid-2004, noncurrent credit card loans ranged between 1.84 and 2.00 percent of all credit card loans, while noncurrent loans in other consumer loan categories ranged between 0.91 and 1.06 percent .. US Consumer Debt

The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them- Patrick Henry

Laws that Restrict Public Access to Federal Record

The Bush Administration has narrowed in scope and application each of the landmark laws enacted by Congress to promote "government in the sunshine."

I: Freedom of Information Act (FOIA)

The Administration has limited the scope of the primary federal law providing the public with a right to information held by the executive branch and has resisted information requests through procedural tactics and delays.

II: Presidential Records Act

The President has issued an executive order undermining the Watergate-era law that makes presidential records available to historians and the public.

III: Federal Advisory Committee Act

The Administration has undercut and evaded the federal law that requires openness and a balance of viewpoints on government advisory bodies.

The Administration has reversed steps taken by the Clinton Administration to declassify information and has expanded the capacity of the executive branch to operate in secret.

I: National Security Classification of Government Records

The President has expanded the classification powers of executive agencies, resulting in a dramatic increase in the volume of classified government information.

II: Expanded Protection of "Sensitive Security Information"
The Administration has obtained an expansion of “sensitive security information” to allow the withholding of information about the safety of any mode of transportation.

III: Weakened DHS Disclosure Under the National Environmental Policy Act
The Administration has proposed a directive that would permit the Department of Homeland Security to conceal information about the environmental impacts of its activities.

IV: Expanding Secret Government Operations

The Administration has expanded its authority to conduct law enforcement operations in secret with limited or no judicial oversight through the enactment of new laws such as the USA PATRIOT Act and novel interpretations of existing authorities.

The Administration has repeatedly refused to provide members of Congress, the Government Accountability Office, and congressional commissions with information necessary for meaningful congressional oversight.

I: GAO Authority to Investigate Accountability

The Administration has challenged the authority of the congressional General Accountability Office to review federal records and investigate federal programs.

II: Seven Member Rule

The Administration has challenged the authority of members of the House Government Reform Committee to obtain information on matters within the jurisdiction of the Committee.

III:Witholding Information from Congress

The Administration has frequently withheld information sought by ranking members of congressional committees.

IV:Investigative Commissions

The Administration resisted or delayed providing information to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, the commission created by Congress to investigate the September 11 attacks.

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments by those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation- James Madison

What Really happened - Dictatorship

Bush Administration Opposes Amendment Limiting Threats to Civil Liberties
The White House encouraged the Senate to remove an amendment from the defense spending bill that prohibits any research and development for the Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program—formerly known as the Total Information Awareness program. According to the Washington Times, the TIA program, which allows authorities to compile and sift through public and private records including details on financial documents, political and religious contributions, health problems, and travel documents, has been widely criticized by privacy advocates as a "supersnooping computer system that threatens civil liberties." The amendment, which ultimately passed the Senate, places restrictions on the implementation on the data-mining computer system that was supposedly designed by the Pentagon to track terrorists - Washington Times

Responding to Right-Wing Pressure, Bush Renews Call to Write Discrimination into the Constitution

In the 2005 State of the Union address on Feb. 2, Bush called for a constitutional ban on gay marriage, only weeks after saying in a January Washington Post interview that there was no need to keep pushing the issue, with the Defense of Marriage Act still in place. Bush reversed his position, presumably after groups of ultra-conservative supporters applied pressure - Washington Post

I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country - Thomas Jefferson

Ken Lay and Enron were Bush’s leading supporters, contributing $113,800 directly to his campaign and another $888,265 to the Republican National Committee, an arm of the campaign, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Bush repaid Lay and other “Pioneers”--those who raised $100,000 or more for his campaign--with his shameful tax plan. He continues to push for a stimulus plan that benefits corporations over workers. He is pressing Congress to pass the Enron energy plan, which features massive subsidies to energy companies and further deregulatio - The Nation, Editorial, “Enron Conservatives,” Feb 4, 2002

The tone of much of the reporting on Enron insinuated that the Bush team was somehow complicit in the Enron debacle or, at any rate, had benefited from Enron's fraud. Enron was often described as Bush's "biggest supporter." This was crazy. Different sources add up the money in different ways, but if you total every dollar that Enron, its affiliates, and its executives and their families gave to Bush's two gubernatorial campaigns, his run for president, the recount fight, the Republican convention in 2000, and the Bush inaugural in 2001, you would arrive at a figure of at most $1 million- The Right Man, by David Frum, Jun 1, 2003

If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter - George Washington

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive - Thomas Jefferson

!) “Anyone with an anti-Bush sign is relegated into what is euphemistically called a Free Speech or Demonstration Zone -- a swath of land usually off the main thoroughfare and chained off so as to make it virtually impossible for the targets of the protest to read the signs or hear the chants.” - Robyn E. Blumner, St. Petersburg Times, 10/13/02

2) “We were not allowed anywhere near any kind of position where the president, or the media which follows him, would see or hear us…. The effort being made to hide political opposition in this country is more than cowardly. It's un-American.”--Peter Buckley, candidate for Congress in Oregon

3) “You may have seen the item yesterday about demonstrators against President Bush being herded inside a fence at Neville Island for his Labor Day visit. Police called this enclosure the designated free-speech area, though anyone who had signs praising the president was evidently OK to line the island's main street for the motorcade.” - Brian O'Neill Pittsburgh Post-Gazette September 5, 2002

4) “We're not prejudiced against who you're protesting for or against. We don't designate a protest area based on the message.” -Jean Mitchell, Secret Service spokeswoman

5) “I asked him if it was the content of my sign, and he said, ‘Yes, sir, it's the content of your sign that's the problem.’ And so it's just become a matter of procedure that the Secret Service is clearing the area of anybody that would have a message that would be contrary to George Bush's policies.” -Brett Bursey,activist arrested for holding a "No War for Oil" sign outside a Free Speech Zone Intervention Mag

War involves in its progress such a train of unforeseen and unsupposed circumstances that no human wisdom can calculate the end. It has but one thing certain, and that is to increase taxes - Thomas Paine

The Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year, Pentagon and congressional officials said yesterday. - Washington Post

Such democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths - James Madison

Staggering isn`t it?.

Peace