Comments on: Autumn of the Republic?

By: Stein Josh

Stein Josh — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:41:18 +0000

They have said that when graduates from the elite schools such as Harvard and Stanford enters an industry such as investment banking and venture capital at record levels, that is when the industry will start suffering a collapse as these bright minds keep coming up with innovative financial thinking that bends the rules and too difficult for the common folks to understand. Greed then takes over leading to problems that we have seen today. – homedepot

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By: Anonymous User

Anonymous User — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:33:13 +0000

The purported reasons that this article cites to show that the US has been moving towards totalitarianism in the past 10 years are so partial and blatantly ignorant that I had to laugh to keep me from crying. Our move towards totalitarianism also has to be put in perspective by defining the role of the Western Left, and publications such as the nascent Miller-McCune, to gives us a glimpse of where we are headed. I agree that the West, not just the US, is moving towards totalitarianism. The freedoms that we love are quickly disappearing due to the interference of Government in our way of doing business and the myriad of laws that prevent freedom of expression; i.e., if I criticize Obama is because I must be racist. If I present the Jewish holocaust in the context of the II Bolshevik Revolution is because I am an anti-Semite. Making use of the Hate Laws, which is nothing more than a clever way to subjugate my constitutional rights, I must be punished. What we have today is nothing more than an ideological war between Western values and culture and non-Western values and culture. Unfortunately for the West, its worse enemy is inside – the angry Left, the Liberals (which are nothing more than closet leftists) and their acolytes. How did this people acquire this much power in a representative Republic, which is what the U.S. is? Come in Cultural Relativism, a platform launched by the leftists Jewish academicians escaping Hitler (another Leftist, in case people don’t know it) to protect their interests (read about the School of Frankfurt), back in the early 70s. They advanced this platform, and it was quickly populated by other opportunistic groups. What is their aim? To question the legitimacy of Western style democracies and undermine their ability to command loyalty. How can I defend my Western principles and values when the Left has taught in our public institutions that there are no absolute standards for assessing human values and culture? Values like universal human rights, individualism and liberalism are regarded merely as ethnocentric products of Western history. The scientific knowledge that the West has produced is simply one of many “ways of knowing”. In place of Western universalism, this ideology offers cultural relativism, a concept that regards the West not as the pinnacle of human achievement to date, but as simply one of many equally valid cultural systems.Moreover, how can I defend my Western culture, principles and values when the Left has deprived it of the opportunity to be part of the debate? The West cannot judge other cultures but must condemn its own. Today, we live in an age of barbarism and decadence – from the malicious teachings of the morally bankrupt charlatan, Ward Churchill to Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, John Pilger, Sunera Tobani, the late Susan Sontag, ad nausea. There are barbarians outside the walls who want to destroy us and there is an enemy within in the form of decadent culture, where right or wrong does not matter that the Left is responsible for creating. That’s why the survival of the Republic is questioned. That’s why the Constitution will be under siege in the not too distant future. The rest of us are also responsible for allowing this to happen. We are only getting what we deserve. I accuse our academic left and cultural elite of our decadence through their relentless critique of Western culture and values, which has emboldened our adversaries while at the same time sapped our will to resist.The consequences of this adversary culture are all around us. The way to oppose it, however, is less clear, although I suspect it will generate blood in the not too distant future. The survival of Western principles, which includes free inquiry and free expression – true Western phenomena – now depend entirely on whether we have the intelligence to understand their true value and the will to face down their enemies – not only outside, but also inside. That will be the only way to save the Republic.

By: Herb Ruhs

Herb Ruhs — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 01:32:40 +0000

If the Pakistani army is backed into a corner, which seems increasingly likely, they are capable of launching a series of suborbital primitive nuclear explosions to even the odds, and end up freeing us all.

By: Matt Holsen

Matt Holsen — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 21:57:21 +0000

Hedges wrote a chilling book about war hysteria (“War is a Force that Gives us Meaning”) which I recently re-read. If you’d seen what he’s seen, you would likely also be haunted by the possibility of “… a national crisis that will allow them, in the name of national security and moral renewal, to take complete control… ” He saw exactly that happen in more than one place. For a “persuasive book telling me how it isn’t exactly so…” I’d recommend “The Fourth Turning,” by William Strauss and Neil Howe. It’s a 1997 sequel to their 1991 book, “Generations”. Both books advance a particular theory of history (and spend many tedious pages defending it). Mor einterestingly, both books predicted subsequent developments in the political and social climate startlingly well. Both predicted a major crisis starting about now. They also predict a re-writing of the social contract comparable to that following the great depression, with the pre-crisis right-wing movement wiped away and forgotten, and a strong communitarian ethos taking over. Not entirely good news, though. The cause of this change is a terrifying crisis, possibly involving total war, and the generation that emerges will be characterized not just by communitarian values but by highly conformist ones. A good read (although you might want to skip the long defense, in both books, of their cyclical theory and just read what they predicted.) there’s a decent wikipedia piece on them at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strauss_and_Howe

By: Anonymous User

Anonymous User — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:37:11 +0000

Three quotes from long ago seem appropriate to the review and the books. =”As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.” : U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 – (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) – Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY) =They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls: Lord Edward Coke =criminal, n. A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation: Howard Scott

By: Judith Feldman

Judith Feldman — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:46:13 +0000

Autumn of the Republic?Thursday 24 December 2009by: Kirk Nielsen | Miller-McCune “Meanwhile, I’ll be on the lookout for a persuasive book telling me how it isn’t exactly so, and why America can escape from the economic and ecological spectacle it has made itself.”I recommend “Hoodwinked” by John Perkins (2009) Broadway Bookis

By: Stephen Bonser

Stephen Bonser — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:26:44 +0000

For a nation to have a healthy body politic, it takes a self-aware public. Jingoism has long been the Achilles heel of the American psyche and unfortunately it has provided fertile ground for the kind of dunderheaded culture that we see all around us. Third rate news reporting, woefully inadequate public education and a political system hijacked by corporate interests and ideologues have all contributed to the toxic mix, the result of which we see today. Every system has a tipping point beyond which the process feeds off itself and accelerates. Clearly for America that turning point has already been reached or at best is not more than a heartbeat away.

By: Anonymous User

Anonymous User — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 09:04:10 +0000

Yes, of course one must entertain all sides to any questions. I have always heard that it is so and so it must be. That is why I listen every time someone wants to convince me Santa is real and acts according to the legend, and it explains why I must open wide my doors to the Jehovah’s Witnesses and any stray blithering idiot who can figure find my front door. For how would we ever learn were we to discard ignorant drool out of hand?That is why I have a timer in my hand to switch between MSNBC and Faux Noise so I can achieve that elusive and illusory balance we hear is so important. I am in the final analysis aware of the legend of the kingdom in which vast stores of lithium and other substances deletorious to good sense leaked into the community aquifer. The king, of course, had his own purified water supply, yet he ordered the community river be routed for his own use. He realized that the one who keeps his wits in bedlam is by simple definition crazy.