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DamianTV
01-18-2014, 09:05 AM
http://lastresistance.com/4408/obama-continues-prove-anti-federalists-right/


In a short speech on Wednesday, Obama declared, “When I can act on my own without Congress, I’m going to do so.” He may have been referring specifically to unemployment benefits. But the fact remains that this characterizes his presidency (or should we say “reign”?). In the years preceding the ratification of the US Constitution, a group of wise and prescient men wrote some articles that unfortunately did not have the impact they should have. These men, known now as the Anti-Federalists, were wary (among other things) of the powers we were then investing in the executive branch. Check out this uncannily accurate warning, more relevant now than ever:

It is, therefore, obvious to the least intelligent mind [The Anti-Federalists may have “mis-over-estimated” our intelligence…] to account why great power in the hands of a magistrate, and that power connected with considerable duration, may be dangerous to the liberties of a republic. The deposit of vast trusts in the hands of a single magistrate enables him in their exercise to create a numerous train of dependents. This tempts his ambition, which in a republican magistrate is also remarked, to be pernicious, and the duration of his office for any considerable time favors his views, gives him the means and time to perfect and execute his designs; he therefore fancies that he may be great and glorious by oppressing his fellow citizens, and raising himself to permanent grandeur on the ruins of his country. . . . His power of nomination and influence on all appointments; the strong posts in each state comprised within his superintendence, and garrisoned by troops under his direction; his control over the army, militia, and navy; the unrestrained power of granting pardons for treason, which may be used to screen from punishment those whom he had secretly instigated to commit the crime, and thereby prevent a discovery of his own guilt; his duration in office for four years—these, and various other principles evidently prove the truth of the position, that if the president is possessed of ambition, he has power and time sufficient to ruin his country.

The Anti-Federalists were concerned that the executive branch was nothing more than a thinly-veiled monarchy. That seemed less accurate in 1787. People then believed that the legislative power would balance the executive. The President needed a Congressional declaration of war to deploy troops. The legislative held the purse strings. The President couldn’t just write laws.

Not so much. Congress hasn’t formally declared war since World War II, yet we have troops deployed all over the world. Congress is strong-armed into funding whatever the current administration deems fit. And the President can legislate through executive orders all he wants. If you were still wondering whether the Anti-Federalists were right, let me just repeat what Obama said yesterday: “When I can act on my own without Congress, I am going to do so.” If Obama needed a motto, I would recommend this: “Raising myself to permanent grandeur on the ruins of my country.” It has a certain ring to it, no?

Anti Federalist
01-18-2014, 11:07 AM
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Anti Federalist
01-18-2014, 12:30 PM
Obama’s NSA Speech: What Reform?

Daniel McAdams

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/obamas-nsa-speech-what-reform/#more-472070

Speaking from a set that could have been designed by Leni Riefenstahl, President Obama yesterday informed us that not only does our freedom depend on the work of spies, but the very birth of our republic was dependent on the same kind of surveillance network that so many are criticizing today. Critics, therefore, are not only unpatriotic but deeply anti-American. The message was clear: “surveillance equals freedom.”

As Constitutional scholar Michael Ratner of The Real News Network points out, if Obama wanted his speech to reassure critics of an intelligence community that has seemingly turned its lens inward, he got it precisely backwards. He did not come out and acknowledge from the start that given recent revelations about NSA surveillance of US phone calls, computers, text messages, etc., our concerns are legitimate and he intends to do something about it. He did not affirm the importance of protecting the First and Fourth Amendments. He did not come out preaching real and concrete reform.

Instead, the president opened his speech placing himself clearly on the side of the surveillance state and opposed to citizens.

He told us that “the folks at NSA and other intelligence agencies are our neighbors. They’re our friends and family.”

Well that was true in East Germany under the Stasi as well. Is that supposed to reassure us? Are we supposed to feel better that our neighbors, friends, and family are part of an enormous domestic spying network looking into the lives of others?

Obama’s speech was devoid of any concrete item of reform. There were no specific fixes presented by the president because he does not really believe that anything is broken. It is a perception problem, and the president intends to take a close look at the recommendations made by his hand-picked intelligence review commission.

He vows to strengthen executive branch oversight of intelligence, which would in effect be strengthening the source of the problem and closing the system to outside oversight. Congress seems little bothered by this.

He wants to introduce new, unspecified measures for more “transparency” in the process.

He will ask Congress to “authorize the establishment of a panel of advocates from outside government to provide an independent voice” in some cases before the FISA court. Even this seemingly concrete proposal is incredibly vague. Who will these advocates be? Who will pay them? To whom will they answer?

Adding an additional layer to the bureaucracy to give the appearance of a “peoples’ advocate” sounds more like something out of the old Soviet Union. It is a terrible idea.

The American people already have an advocate against the government. It is called the US Constitution.

The president ended his speech with a Cold War-inspired flourish: you sure would never see this little speech given in Russia or China!

It was a dose of the American exceptionalism that is the neocons stock-in-trade:

No one expects China to have an open debate about their surveillance programs, or Russia to take privacy concerns of citizens in other places into account. But let’s remember: We are held to a different standard precisely because we have been at the forefront of defending personal privacy and human dignity.

The truth is this speech could have been given by surveillance state uber-hawk Rep. Peter King (R-NY). It was a return to the “9/11 changed everything” argument that has been the standard excuse for the list of abuses aimed at those of us who had nothing to do with 9/11. The fact that it was delivered by Obama tells us that he and King are on the same side of this issue. For the surveillance state. And against us.

Danke
01-18-2014, 12:40 PM
Author of ‘shock and awe’ doctrine says elite threatened by non-state actors like Edward Snowden

Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet.com
January 17, 2014

Writing for the Atlantic Council, a prominent think tank based in Washington DC, Harlan K. Ullman warns that an “extraordinary crisis” is needed to preserve the “new world order,” which is under threat of being derailed by non-state actors like Edward Snowden.

Think Tank: Extraordinary Crisis Needed to Preserve New World Order 170114atlantic

Image: Atlantic Council Meeting (Wikimedia Commons).

The Atlantic Council is considered to be a highly influential organization with close ties to major policy makers across the world. It’s headed up by Gen. Brent Scowcroft, former United States National Security Advisor under U.S. Presidents Gerald Ford and George H. W. Bush. Snowcroft has also advised President Barack Obama.

Harlan K. Ullman was the principal author of the “shock and awe” doctrine and is now Chairman of the Killowen Group which advises government leaders.

In an article entitled War on Terror Is not the Only Threat, Ullman asserts that, “tectonic changes are reshaping the international geostrategic system,” arguing that it’s not military superpowers like China but “non-state actors” like Edward Snowden, Bradley Manning and anonymous hackers who pose the biggest threat to the “365 year-old Westphalian system” because they are encouraging individuals to become self-empowered, eviscerating state control.

“Very few have taken note and fewer have acted on this realization,” notes Ullman, lamenting that “information revolution and instantaneous global communications” are thwarting the “new world order” announced by U.S. President George H.W. Bush more than two decades ago.

“Without an extraordinary crisis, little is likely to be done to reverse or limit the damage imposed by failed or failing governance,” writes Ullman, implying that only another 9/11-style cataclysm will enable the state to re-assert its dominance while “containing, reducing and eliminating the dangers posed by newly empowered non-state actors.”

Ullman concludes that the elimination of non-state actors and empowered individuals “must be done” in order to preserve the new world order. A summary of their material suggests that the Atlantic Council’s definition of a “new world order” is a global technocracy run by a fusion of big government and big business under which individuality is replaced by transhumanist singularity.

Ullman’s rhetoric sounds somewhat similar to that espoused by Trilateral Commission co-founder and regular Bilderberg attendee Zbigniew Brzezinski, who in 2010 told a Council on Foreign Relations meeting that a “global political awakening,” in combination with infighting amongst the elite, was threatening to derail the move towards a one world government.

Ullman’s implied call for an “extraordinary crisis” to reinvigorate support for state power and big government has eerie shades of the Project For a New American Century’s 1997 lament that “absent some catastrophic catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor,” an expansion of U.S. militarism would have been impossible.

In 2012, Patrick Clawson, member of the influential pro-Israel Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) think tank, also suggested that the United States should launch a staged provocation to start a war with Iran.

Ullman’s concern over failing state institutions having their influence eroded by empowered individuals, primarily via the Internet, is yet another sign that the elite is panicking over the “global political awakening” that has most recently expressed itself via the actions of people like Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, Bradley Manning and their growing legion of supporters.

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Paul Joseph Watson is the editor and writer for Infowars.com and Prison Planet.com. He is the author of Order Out Of Chaos. Watson is also a host for Infowars Nightly News.