The Age Of Authoritarianism: Government Of The Politicians, By The Military, For The Corporations

May 25, 2013
alt-market.com
By John Whitehead

This article was written by John Whitehead and originally published at LewRockwell.com

“[F]orce alone cannot make us safe. We cannot use force everywhere that a radical ideology takes root; and in the absence of a strategy that reduces the well-spring of extremism, a perpetual war – through drones or Special Forces or troop deployments – will prove self-defeating, and alter our country in troubling ways.” ~ Barack Obama, May 23, 2013

President Obama’s declaration that “America is at a crossroads” in the fight against terror, a fight that is increasingly turning inwards, setting its sights on homegrown extremists, should give every American pause.

We have indeed reached a crossroads. History may show that from this point forward, we will have left behind any semblance of constitutional government and entered into a militaristic state where all citizens are suspects and security trumps freedom. Certainly, this is a time when government officials operate off their own inscrutable, self-serving playbook with little in the way of checks and balances, while American citizens are subjected to all manner of indignities and violations with little hope of defending themselves. We have moved beyond the era of representative government and entered a new age, let’s call it the age of authoritarianism.

Even with its constantly shifting terrain, this topsy-turvy travesty of law and government has become America’s new normal. Don’t believe me? Let me take you on a brief guided tour, but prepare yourself: the landscape is particularly disheartening to anyone who remembers what America used to be. Read More

Lahaina Market Place Cuts Down Its Trees

Just a bit of local news...5/25/13

My hand-painted t-shirt business was located in this beautiful Market Place on Front St. from 1984-2001. The Lahaina Market Place was enchanting, inviting, and oh so refreshing. Not anymore!



May 22, 2013 | 09:06 AM

LAHAINA MARKET PLACE CUTS DOWN ITS TREES

And now we're going to talk a bit about trees–or rather, the act of going up to very old, very beautiful trees and chain-sawing them into sawdust and toothpicks. This is happening, or by this point has happened, at the Lahaina Market Place on Front Street. That little courtyard of shops has been an oasis of shade for decades in Lahaina Town, but no more of that. All of the trees are coming down.
Did I mention at least one of the shop owners in the place is pissed? Did I mention he is supremely pissed?
"It looks like a SCUD missile hit the courtyard," said Scott Picard of Sure Thing Burger. "Lahaina Market Place is a respite for everyone in town. You know how warm it gets. This is where they stopped. They'd smell the food, see the jewelry, see the glass blower. Now that's gone."
No one from Lahaina Market Place management responded to my request for comment (the property owner is the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation). And one employee of one of the Lahaina Market Place did tell me that one reason for the tree removal was apparently that the roots from the old trees were pushing up the courtyard's bricks (a common enough reason for tree removal). But Picard told me that he received no warning whatsoever that the trees were coming down.
"There were no signs, letters or phone calls," he said. "We had to do a temporary closure. You can't give food away during construction like that. It's like a sawmill when you're cutting these trees down. It was like it was snowing–there was total whiteout."
So, yeah. Those of who liked to duck into Lahaina Market Place and rest under the shade of gentle, ancient trees while window shopping or getting brain freeze from one of Ululani's Shave Ice are now out of luck.
"They could have done a ceremony," Picard told me. "They could have done a million things. Instead, this is an epic event with a disastrous ending."

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The New Barbarians

May 25, 2013
americanthinker.com
By Gary Horne

Recent abuses of power are a reminder that the barbarians are still with us, using the power of progressive government to punish anyone who dares oppose them. Barbarians have no regard for others and depend on plunder for their existence, as they have throughout history, taking from the productive by force.

J. Bronowski described the barbarian Genghis Khan in The Ascent of Man:

From AD 1200 to 1300 they made almost the last attempt to establish the supremacy of the robber who produces nothing and who, in his feckless way, comes to take from the peasant (who has nowhere to flee) the surplus that agriculture accumulates.

Modern plunderers realize they don't need Genghis Khan's horsemen, and can use the power of the state in place of the sword. Known by various names, the left, liberals, socialists, communists, progressives, et al., these new plunderers are able to corrupt the civilized rule of law, enlisting government as plunderer-in-chief. The most aggressive American plunderer is the radicalized Democratic Party, whose hold on power depends on distributing the loot. This, of course, requires the use of force. There is no box to check on the tax return, "I agree to contribute to the Plunderer's Fund."

The victim of plunder is not free, as Mark Levin remarks in Liberty and Tyranny:

In the civil society, private property and liberty and inseparable. The individual's right to live freely and safely and pursue happiness includes the right to acquire and possess property, which represents the fruits of his own intellectual and/or physical labor. As the individual's time on earth is finite, so, too, is his labor. The illegitimate denial or diminution of his private property enslaves him to another and denies him his liberty. Read More

Hillary's - and now Obama's - Vast Left-Wing Cover-Up

May 25, 2013
americanthinker.com
By Jim Guirard

Almost 20 years ago, early in the Clinton-Rodham-Gore era, the late New York Times columnist William Safire charged that First Lady Hillary Clinton was so routinely dishonest in her reaction to the many scandal-"gates" of which she and Husband Bill were being accused as to merit the label of "congenital liar."

According to that highly acclaimed political affairs commentator and author of the Times "On Language" column, Hillary's tendency to spin, scam, deceive, and lie in her response to charges of impropriety and corruption (e.g., in Whitewater-gate, S&L-gate, Travel Office-gate, Cattle Futures-gate, Missing Files-gate, Hubble-gate, Vince Foster-gate, Lippo/China-gate, and many more) was so deeply rooted as to be in her genes.

Now that President Barack Obama is being accused of similar spins, scams, and cover-ups, the reaction of the White House, the left-wing Democrats, the establishment media, and most of academia is -- like then -- one of indignant outrage. But are not Barack and Hillary joined at the hip in their Saul Alinsky ideologies, their Rules for Radicals tactics, and their current tar baby of the Benghazi cover-up?   Read More

Obama's Faustian bargain

May 25, 2013
americanthinker.com
By Richard Butrick

President Obama recently gave a speech at the National Defense University, titled "The Future of Our Fight against Terrorism."

Moreover, we must recognize that these threats don't arise in a vacuum. Most, though not all, of the terrorism we face is fueled by a common ideology - a belief by some extremists that Islam is in conflict with the United States and the West, and that violence against Western targets, including civilians, is justified in pursuit of a larger cause. Of course, this ideology is based on a lie, for the United States is not at war with Islam; and this ideology is rejected by the vast majority of Muslims, who are the most frequent victims of terrorist acts.

Translation: The theofacist ideology (er, religion), Islam, is not fundamentally at odds with Western Enlightenment values (Human Rights). It is just some extremist misfits who don't understand their own religion of peace.

According to Barry Rubin, Mideast analyst for PJMedia, the subtext of the speech just confirms the unspoken strategy of Obama's war on terrorists to the effect that the Muslim Brotherhood can be enlisted in the war against extremist groups like al Qaeda if we just ally ourselves with their takeover of the Arab Spring nations.

Mr. Rubin characterizes the strategy as being based on the belief that:

If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt, that is not a strategic threat but a positive advantage because it is the best organization able to curb al-Qaeda. And that policy proves that the United States is not at war with Islam.

If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Tunisia, that is not a strategic threat but a positive advantage because it is the best organization able to curb al-Qaeda. And that policy proves that the United States is not at war with Islam.

If the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Syria, that is not a strategic threat but a positive advantage because it is the best organization able to curb al-Qaeda. And that policy proves that the United States is not at war with Islam.

Cut to the bone, to follow the meat packing metaphor, here is the Obama pitch:

Follow me little lambs. We are not at war with Islam. It is just those deranged Al Qaeda meatpackers in Afghanistan and their ilk that would put you on a skewer. In fact the Muslim Brotherhood Meatpackers Inc. are keeping us safe from Al Qaeda.

Unfortunately, in this Faustian deal with the devil, it is not Obama but the citizens of the US that will suffer.