by Harry Browne

Originally published July 4, 2003

Unfortunately, July 4th has become a day of deceit.

On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress formally declared its independence from Great Britain. Thirteen years later, after a difficult war to secure that independence, the new country was open for business.

It was truly unique — the first nation in all of history in which the individual was considered more important than the government, and the government was tied down by a written Constitution.

It was the one nation where you could live your life secure in the knowledge that no one would ask for your papers, where you weren’t identified by a number, and where the government wouldn’t extort a percentage of your income as the price of holding a job.

And so each year July 4th has been a commemoration of the freest country in history.

But the America that’s celebrated no longer exists.

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There is always some reason that they will try to convince you not to believe what you feel in your gut. They will try to bamboozle you
– Barack Obama

I admit I was swept up in the national euphoria of President Obama’s election. I really believed that something would be done about the economic crisis, our unjust “War on Terror”, and the creeping fascism these wars have engendered. But by now it should be clear that President Obama has no plans to change anything.

According to the mainstream media, the financial meltdown has been contained. Consumer confidence is rising along with the stock market, and the battered US economy is on the mend. President Obama has been widely praised, and given most of the credit, for his deft handling of this crisis.

The press and pundits are right about one thing: Obama’s economic solution is ingenious, even miraculous. It requires almost no sacrifice, no belt-tightening, no spending cuts or tax increases. His administration will simply print three trillion dollars worth of U.S. Treasuries, and we will borrow and spend our way out of this depression.

The Federal Government will run a deficit of $1.85 trillion this year, and another $1.2 trillion next year. Printing all these Treasury Bonds over the next two years will be easy. The hard part will be finding enough suckers to buy them, and then financing the interest payments on our skyrocketing debt.

During the campaign Obama referred to our imploding economy as “the most serious crisis since the Great Depression”. He was absolutely right. We are in the midst of a financial disaster, and we have been through this before, twice.

The Gilded Age ended with a monetary crisis in the first decade of the twentieth century. The Roaring Twenties ended when the stock market crash of 1929 ushered in the Great Depression. After each of these economic crises, there was a backlash against the excesses of capitalism.

Incoming President Teddy Roosevelt was forced to borrow money from wealthy elites to finance the government. Yet he did not become a tool of the financiers. He earned the nickname “trustbuster” for reining in monopolies, and passed the first income tax into law.

In 1936, at the bottom of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt raised the top income tax rate to 79 percent. He made the oligarchs howl, and financed the New Deal that lifted millions of Americans out of poverty. Incidentally, the US economy grew by a record 14 percent that year, and the following year FDR balanced the federal budget.

Unfortunately for us, Obama is no Roosevelt.

Not only is President Obama not raising taxes, he won’t even repeal the Bush tax cuts, which aren’t scheduled to expire until 2011. While we’re running multi-trillion dollar deficits over the next two years, the richest Americans will pay a 35% income tax and only 15% on dividends. This is a disgrace.

Things would really change for our financial class if they paid 79% of their income in taxes to the U.S. Treasury. In 2007 The richest one percent of Americans were worth over $16 trillion, more than the bottom 90 percent of U.S. Households. The idea that we cannot raise taxes on these people, and have to run these massive deficits, is absurd.

Half of this year’s Federal Budget is debt, and half of the deficit is the President’s $787 billion “stimulus” package. Obama’s emergency spending initiatives ignore the fastest growing outlay in the Federal budget; interest on our national debt. We will pay $460 billion this year, and five trillion dollars over the next ten years, to the holders of US treasury bonds.

President Obama has done nothing but protect the moneyed interests, yet he is at the height of his popularity and prestige. His first 100 days in office were a whirlwind of public speeches and appearances on popular TV shows. All carefully choreographed to maintain the fiction that he is a Populist, ready to take on the elites who are exploiting us.

It’s working. A CNN poll conducted after Obama’s first 100 days revealed that 63 percent of Americans believe the President has the “right priorities”. Two thirds of those surveyed think President Obama is doing a “good job” keeping his campaign promises.

As a Presidential candidate, Obama vowed to get us out of Iraq, end the use of torture, close the illegal prison at Quantanamo Bay, and investigate those responsible for these crimes.

True to his word, Obama has announced plans to withdraw all combat troops from Iraq. But he fails to mention that another 50,000 military personnel will remain in Iraq indefinitely, guarding U.S. Bases. After calling the war a “mistake” during the campaign, his administration plans to permanently occupy the country.

The President has put a stop to all “enhanced interrogation methods”, but he has continued the policy of extraordinary rendition. This allows the United States to hand foreign detainees over to other countries for interrogation. The Obama administration no longer condones torturing prisoners, they simply transfer suspects to foreign nations who will torture them.

Two days after being sworn in, President Obama signed an executive order to close the Quantanamo Bay prison within one year. The problem is, if the detainees held there are transferred to the United States, then our own laws apply and they would receive a fair trial. After throwing out all the illegal evidence gathered through torture, many of them wouldn’t even be convicted.

The President admitted as much last month: “We are going to exhaust every avenue that we have to prosecute those at Guantanamo who pose a danger to our country. But even when this process is complete, there will be a number of people who cannot be prosecuted for past crimes because evidence might be tainted, but who nonetheless pose a threat to the security of the United States.”

During the same speech Obama unveiled plans to incarcerate these individuals indefinitely, without trial. This new system of “preventative detention” is of course unconstitutional, and will eviscerate the Bill of Rights. The erosion of our civil liberties continues under our new President, in the name of national security.

Obama recently banned the release of the US torture photos depicting sexual assaults on detainees at US prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has stymied private lawsuits by refusing to declassify secret documents, citing national security concerns. Finally, the President has rejected calls to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush administration’s war crimes.

The Obama administration’s plans for our future are even more ominous than their refusal to investigate the past. Right now a bill is working its way through Congress that will give the President authority to regulate and restrict internet traffic. The CyberSecurity Act of 2009 is the Patriot Act writ large over the internet, and once again national security is the excuse to restrict our liberties.

When this bill was introduced, the mainstream press began covering a strange story: Allegedly our energy grid had been hacked, and the culprits were Russia and China. No evidence for this cybercrime has been presented, all we have are the statements of our government officials.

It should be noted that we spend more on our CIA and National Security Agency than China and Russia spend on their militaries. Yet we cannot locate Osama bin Laden, the man who allegedly masterminded the 9/11 attacks. Nor can our intelligence agencies even provide evidence that links him directly to the crime.

Nevertheless, Obama has put America and the world on notice that the War on Terror goes on. In his famous speech in Cairo on June 4^th, the President warned his listeners: ”The battle against terrorists will continue, in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere.”

Nobody knows what will happen next, but by now we know what’s not going to happen. We’re not getting our country back. The Obama administration will not raise taxes on our financial class, or make drastic spending cuts. We are not going to withdraw from our wars in the Middle East. Nor will our government prosecute those who carried out these war crimes.

Obama was America’s last chance. He could have saved this country. But he didn’t.

That is the real tragedy of President Barack Obama.

The creation of clean energy jobs is very vague and the parts that are clear center not on industry but on educating people about global warming - this appears to signal the creation of a new class of bureaucrat-teachers, not industrial jobs.

Energy independence?  Transition to a clean energy economy?  Get real, there is nothing of substance in the document that details such a plan, and this is a pipe dream for government to create this.  What will you ask?  Only a free market, driven by the consumer and free from government interventions can do so, in my opinion.

“Reduce global warming pollution?”  Somehow I missed the scientific debate where the global warmers square off against the global coolers and those who believe that ‘the weather just changes, weather you want it to or not’ as I suggested here “Anthropogenic Global Warming or an Ice Age, Which Is It? (PART 2/2)“.  Is carbon dioxide really a pollutant? Don’t plants need it to live and don’t we all respire it? It would be a lot cheaper and a lot more useful than HR 2454!

My own private analysis of HR 2454 can be summarized up with:

• Inefficient energy sources will instead be propped up and buffered from free market competition by the government.
• The taxed companies will pass down the taxes to We the People, and energy costs will rise for us, the consumers.
• The State will subsidize and hence sponsor, mandated education that “global warming” is fact, stifling debate.
• Wall Street will have a great time doing all the carbon credits trading using derivatives with “underlying assets” that are literally in many cases, just hot air.

Or, in three words, as “Crap ‘N Trade”

On the last point above, let’s ask the question, “Cui bono?” Who benefits?

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GOVERNMENT SACHS – THE BUBBLE BLOWERS

Goldman Sachs recently announced that RECORD bonuses will be generated in 2009. The $10 billion dollars in bailout money will be returned, although undisclosed amounts lent to GS by the Federal Reserve via the discount window and other off-balance sheet transactions will not be discovered until the FED is audited by Ron Paul’s bills HR 1207 and S 604. How can this be?

Goldman Sachs are our country’s premier inside traders – former Secretary of Treasury Hank Paulson and his appointed lieutenant Neel Kashgari are only the tip of the iceberg in terms of GS alumni in government. They are aware of, and even exercise control over, the next steps our government will take.

This means in upturns as well as downturns, it is possible to profit. Some say it’s even easier to profit during downturns, as Catherine Austin-Fitts discusses in the latter half of this June 26 interview with Max Keiser.

In a recent Rolling Stones piece entitled “The Great American Bubble Machine,” Max Tiabbi does us all a great service by - sarcastically but realistically - detailing the history and prior bubbles of this firm. Tiabbi’s next prediction for a bubble (mine, for the record, is still the U.S. Treasury and gold markets, where GS plays a vital role as well) is that of carbon credit trading. He details how GS has promoted this legislation and how they will profit from this market – which, bottom line, is a government-created tax market where the carbon credits issued to energy producers increase in scarcity year after year.  (Photo courtesy Steve Ford Elliot  License)

Who will deliver these ‘mandated profits’ to Goldman Sachs? That’s our job as the energy consumers!

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A “First-Class Democracy”??

In a seething conclusion, Tiabbi finishes with:

“It’s not always easy to accept the reality of what we now routinely allow these people to get away with; there’s a kind of collective denial that kicks in when a country goes through what America has gone through lately, when a people lose as much prestige and status as we have in the past few years. You can’t really register the fact that you’re no longer a citizen of a first-class democracy, that you’re no longer above getting robbed in broad daylight, because like an amputee, you can still sort of feel things that are no longer there.

“But this is it. This is the world we live in now. And in this world, some of us have to play by the rules, while others get a note from the principal excusing them from having to do homework until the end of time, plus 10 billion free dollars in a paper bag to buy lunch. It’s a gangster state, running on gangster economics, and even prices can’t be trusted anymore; there are hidden taxes in everything you pay. And maybe we can’t stop it, but we should at least know where it’s all going.“

Here is where, in my opinion, Tiabbi grasps part of the truth, but makes a fatal mistake, the same made by many Americans. Let me attempt to correct it briefly.

Tiabbi relates that most Americans think we live in a “first-class democracy,” and fervently believe this is beneficial. It’s not.  Democracy is a Greek word from demos (the majority) and -cracy (rule), or literally “rule by majority.”  Search the both the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution for the term and you will not find it. Our founders – to a man - recognized the dire dangers of democratic rule. This is why they created for us a nation of laws protecting the natural rights of the individual – a constitutional republic, a union of nation-states, consisting of checks and balances, with both democratic and special-rule elections or appointments, and both democratic and special-rule voting practices. This is why:

“A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”

- Thomas Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration of Independence and 3rd President of the United States

“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”

- John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

“A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way… Liberty has never lasted long in a democracy, nor has it ever ended in anything better than despotism… Democracy pollutes the morals of the people before it swallows up their freedoms.”

- Fisher Ames, U.S. Congressman 1789-1797

A choice between a “gangster state” or a nation of laws should be an easy one for most to make.  For the Republic!

Below is an essay which Thomas Paine wrote on June 8th, the 200th anniversary of his death.  He generously approached me to inquire as to whether I would be willing to transcribe it for readers worldwide who might benefit from his posthumous words of wisdom.  He, and therefore I, shall be forever indebted to you if you shall take the time to read (2,000 words) and consider it for publication or to, otherwise, share with your friends and colleagues.

It is Monday, 8 June 2009, two hundred years to the day since my miserable death, though I should add that while death was, indeed, miserable it was a swim in the sea compared with my life as it finally turned out.  However, I have been dead for too long to want to harp on those wretched final years of my life—the assassination of my character, of my person, the unspeakable hypocrisy of it all, my freefall from grace and renown, the poverty, ill health, my seeking refuge in a bottle.  But if there remains even one son or daughter of Liberty and Democracy in this present day—that is, the person to and for whom I write, as opposed to those who celebrate the cartoon Tom Paine, never thinking to read my works or to carry forth the struggle—then I should think that such a son or daughter of Liberty is unlikely to protest my assuming the privilege of penning this brief posthumous account.

If not a single such person remains who is, in word and deed, committed to Liberty and Democracy—the only fit state for a human being who wishes to live as a whole person and who refuses to be infantilised—then rather than to assume the privilege, if there’s none worthy to grant it, I shall steal it back as rightfully my own.

I can quite quickly sum up what befell me and what has befallen countless other revolutionaries over the course of history; however, I do so not out of a desire or need to explain myself, but rather as a word of warning to those whom I consider my rightful progeny.  My task is made easier by the fact that my rightful progeny, by the nature of the task which lies before them, shall already have apprised themselves of the historical accounts of revolutions, failed and successful, if in fact there has ever been an example of the latter.  In brief, revolutionaries with integrity—those who hold, still, to the original stated aims of the revolution, the aims of Liberty and Democracy—are, at the point of the revolution’s failure (as opposed to the success touted in history books), quickly stripped of their honours, hollowed out, and hung safely out to die so that the ‘revolutionaries’ who were merely playing a part can usurp The Powers That Were to become those That Be.   This perverted outcome must be avoided, and it shall not be avoided unless those who are in the struggle forever keep this near-inevitable outcome in mind, day in and day out, and for ever more, as the innumerable false actors lie constantly in wait.

My good friend Benjamin Franklin did his best to warn us.  In response to being asked at the close of the Constitutional Convention, ‘Well, Doctor, what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?’, Dr. Franklin said, simply, ‘A Republic, if you can keep it.’  A prescient warning, indeed.  And it is clear even, or perhaps particularly so, in this post-Obamamania, post-Democratic-controlled-Congress present day that the Republic has been lost, for the Republic cannot coexist with an undermined Constitution.  The Republic is dead when the State itself no longer abides by the rule of law, no matter what pseudo-legislation is ushered through Congress, usually unread, in an attempt to provide a cover of legitimacy which no one is fooled by, certainly not the politicians nor their corporate paymasters.

The situation is at least as bad in Britain—Closed Circuit TV capital of the world—but in both the U.S. and the UK, the rule of law, any protection against the State, has been wilfully obliterated under the false pretext of National Security, which rightfully understood covers anything which might threaten not the well-being of the people, the mock citizenry, but the powers of the State.  And, so, blatant lies which have been proven to be lies have enabled myriad murderous and treasonous crimes to be committed by the State, including the supreme international crime of wars of aggression, the murder of one-million-plus innocent civilians, numerous political assassinations, international kidnappings, torture, widespread domestic surveillance, and other intrusions into our civil liberties.  And those persons who repeatedly and blatantly lied to the public and who committed the crimes which followed from those lies stand not in prison but remain protected by the full powers of the State under the pretext of National Security.

Let me state now that revolutions never end, and that it is not a fixed state which we are shooting for but, rather, an asymptotic ideal which requires a never-ending commitment to process rather than an end, for the ideal end is hogwash if the process does not remain.  Democracy—very far, indeed, from what nauseatingly passes for it today, as I write—cannot be institutionalised, it cannot be spoken of as an objective achieved, it cannot reside, ever, in the State, and it can never be brought to bear upon a people by a foreign occupier, the very idea of which is absurd and oxymoronic.  Democracy and its sacred sister, Liberty, reside within the individual, and such an individual who is committed to protecting these innate ideals from those who would usurp them from without must pursue, always, an anti-authoritarian way of life, a mode of being, which requires that we be adults, not overgrown children.

We shall no longer look to the State as provider, as head of the family, or as Big Brother, but shall, instead, seek to govern ourselves, the very act of which shall nullify in an instant any presumed pretensions of the State as our benefactor.  We shall act in our own best interests, for we have all witnessed everywhere around us what happens when the State purports to so provide—the law is used against us to empower and enrich the State and those within its favour, and we, the people, pay the price.  We must also—if we are to become and remain free—disassemble the myriad mechanisms by way of which the rotten State derives and attempts to maintain its rotten powers, as opposed to the only legitimate source of government—that is, through the will of the people, fully realised.

Such mechanisms which must be abolished include, but are not limited to, the various agencies and machinations of the secret State, the State (and the corporate-State) media as its controlled propaganda arm—the primary means by which, in conjunction with the ‘education’ system, the mock citizenry is kept under heel, ignorant, and wholly uneducated irrespective of the attainment of virtually meaningless university degrees—the corrupted courts of justice, the torture centres, the criminalised military, and the militarised police forces which do far more to tyrannise than to protect the people.

For those who might wonder, still, whether they are free, whether this account seems too strong, too reactionary—as no doubt many in America, England and Europe thought my words too strong, too reactionary more than two centuries ago—then there exists a simple litmus test which tells us immediately whether we are, in fact, a free people or enslaved.  If the majority finds itself in the demeaning position of having to ask the State, to beg of it, to plead with it, to protest against it, then we are no longer free, but in chains and fetters.  This is true even when the State obliges us and fulfils our request, which it should be noted typically permits the transfer of power from us to the State, a dynamic which is unfortunately lost on so many, who think they’re getting something for nothing.  But, if a majority of the people finds itself asking the State to serve it or to abide by the rule of law, and it either refuses outright or deliberates and finally fails to deliver, then we live not in a democracy but under the dictates of a despotic and authoritarian regime which has no rightful place amongst us but which has over the years, decades and centuries slowly stolen our Liberty because we ceded it, in exact measure.

If we are to live as adults rather than as children, each and every one of my rightful progeny must hold a truth within their innermost selves which must always be kept alive, for in dark times such as those presently upon us the flame of Liberty shall surely flicker, waver, and without a steady stream of fresh air, fresh energy and fresh commitment it shall die, first, within you, and then as surely as we ourselves are mortal, Liberty herself shall be frog-marched to her death.  That aforementioned truth is this:  The State is not and shall never be your friend, its intentions are not yours.  You are its enemy.

In authoritarian regimes like the ones which I see have befallen all of you, the State, of course, spares no horses in co-opting the terms of Democracy, of Liberty, of Freedom, but those words have been drained of life, of meaning; worse, they’ve been inverted just as George Orwell prophesied—Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace, Ignorance is Strength.  They’ve become, in short, tools of oppression which, while some of us might more readily accept the truth that these emptied-out concepts are being used to justify unjust wars against the peoples of lands outside our own—Iraq and Afghanistan come readily to mind; however, this is but the tip of the iceberg, for there’s nary a land beyond which the State and the State of its Ally-in-Arms is not overtly or covertly oppressing, tyrannising at this very moment—while there are, I know, quite a few of you who might more readily accept this truth, there are unfortunately many more of you who might find it more difficult to recognise that these same emptied-out concepts are being deployed against the State’s more foundational enemy—those of you who live within its borders.

Do you really think that those CCTV cameras which are multiplying more quickly than springtime bunnies are there to protect you?  Do you think the War OF Terror is being fought to protect you?  Do you think that the news which you watch, which you listen to, which you read, exists to inform you?  Did the State protect you on 9/11, or did it, in fact, commit the crimes?  Did the State protect you during the 7/7 London bombings, or did it, in fact, commit the crimes?  Did the State prove to you beyond any reasonable doubt who actually perpetrated those acts?  Were independent investigations forthcoming, or were they precluded and the facts buried by those guilty of or complicit in the crimes?  Were the politicians readily forthcoming, or did they, too, seek to bury the facts?  And were such facts buried in large part by the State’s media-propaganda-arm?  With CCTV cameras ubiquitous in airports and Tube stations even in 2001-2005, there would be video footage which demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt who committed these inhuman crimes.  But why have we not seen such critical footage?  Why has it been kept from you—the public—the bedrock upon which any good government gains its legitimacy?

These are just a few of the many questions you must ask yourself, if you are to carry on the struggle which I gave my life and my creative energies to more than two centuries ago, and if you are to remain amongst my rightful progeny who desire Liberty and Democracy not only in word but in deed as well.  I shall leave off with something I said a long time ago:  ‘Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.’  And, lastly, a corollary quip from Henry David Thoreau:  ‘That government is best which governs least.’  Is this, rightful progeny, what you have, here, in this moment?
* Transcribed by Sean M. Madden on 8 June 2009.  Thomas Paine also transferred the copyright to Sean M. Madden, 2009.

Thomas Paine (January 29, 1737 – June 8, 1809) was a British pamphleteer, revolutionary, radical, inventor, intellectual, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He lived and worked in Britain until age 37, when he emigrated to the British American colonies, in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely-read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), advocating colonial America’s independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series.

Later, Paine greatly influenced the French Revolution. He wrote the Rights of Man (1791), a guide to Enlightenment ideas. Despite not speaking French, he was elected to the French National Convention in 1792. The Girondists regarded him as an ally, so, the Montagnards, especially Robespierre, regarded him as an enemy. In December of 1793, he was arrested and imprisoned in Paris, then released in 1794. He became notorious because of The Age of Reason (1793–94), the book advocating deism and arguing against institutionalized religion, Christian doctrines, and promoted reason and freethinking, for which he would become derided in America.

In France, he also wrote the pamphlet Agrarian Justice (1795), discussing the origins of property, and introduced the concept of a guaranteed minimum income.

Paine remained in France during the early Napoleonic era, but condemned Napoleon’s dictatorship, calling him “the completest charlatan that ever existed”. At President Jefferson’s invitation, in 1802 he returned to America.

Thomas Paine died at 59 Grove Street, Greenwich Village, New York City on June 8, 1809 at the age of 72. Alienated by his religious views, only six people attended his funeral. He was buried at what is now called the Thomas Paine Cottage in New Rochelle, New York, where he had lived after returning to America in 1802. His remains were later disinterred by an admirer, William Cobbett, who sought to return them to England and give him a heroic reburial on his native soil. The bones were, however, later lost and his final resting place today is unknown.

(Source:  Wikipedia, “Thomas Paine” entry.)

Sean M. Madden is an American writer-educator living in East Sussex, England. His articles have been headlined by a wide range of online media outlets, including Information Clearing House, United Press International’s ReligionAndSpirituality.com, After Downing Street, Guerrilla News Network, Online Journal, Atlantic Free Press, Scoop, OpEdNews.com, Thomas Paine’s Corner, Carolyn Baker’s popular website and the Populist Party of America’s website. Sean also edits and writes for his iNoodle.com and MindfulLivingGuide.com blogs, and welcomes correspondence from readers. His email address is sean@inoodle.com.

Mr. Osborn-

I greatly appreciated your June 18th post Answer to Mr. Obama. As a nineteen year old who worked and believed in the Obama campaign, I can heartily say I am greatly disillusioned with the lack of change I have seen. I like to think that it will still come, that it is just a factor of the economy and war, the standing order of things, why it has not. As each day goes by and each story breaks I fear I shall continue on disillusioned. Where does one find solace? Or something to believe in? Everywhere I turn I find a different construct designed to deceive and continuate a blank and bleak existence. Lies and bullshit upon more lies and bullshit–I cannot even find a point of reference from which to judge my surroundings. You seem like an interesting man. I’ve just finished my first year at Dartmouth and have never been more certain of the inanity of my path and surroundings. I am sure you are busy, but if you took a moment to send some advice to an aspiring writer and, more importantly, an aspiring “person” in the fullest, most romantic and realest sense I can muster, it would be much appreciated.

Sincerely,
Jake

Dear Jake,

Thank you for the kind words. I have been trying to awaken the American People for quite a few years now. When I get a letter like yours, it brings me hope. It is the youth of the world that our future depends upon, and we are leaving you one hell of a mess to deal with. I hope you are up to the task. With great misgivings, I voted for Obama. My misgivings were well placed. I fear that whatever, or whomever, is controlling this country does not give a tinker’s damn about which “party” wins because it owns them both. The emphasis changes a little when the parties change, but the bottom line is always increasing the bottom line of the rich and powerful and the increasing emasculation of the common man.

It is a fact that the predecessors of the Neocons hated Roosevelt for the New Deal, for stripping the wealthy of some of their power and wealth and giving the common man some dignity and safety. They have hated such things as Social Security, Medicare, Aid to Education. To them, that is all a waste of money that should go into their pockets. They cannot vote them out of existence, that is political suicide, but they have finally hit upon a scheme that will return us to the days of the “Robber Barons.” Give all the money in the US Treasury (our tax money) to the wealthy and the military, promote still more wars and pour more billions into those. One of these days, the government is going to turn its pockets inside out and say, “Sorry folks, but we have no more money for social programs. If you need help, go beg pennies from a billionaire.” The new Fed Chairman said to Congress the other day that we need “austerity” in the United States to survive. We need to cut back on Medicare, Social Security and other social services. Not a word about cutting back on our bloated military budget or ending our wars. That is where the money is, that’s where the profits flow.

As to education, any dictatorship does its best to reduce or eliminate it, for the last thing they want is youth that are taught to use their minds, analyze, recognize errors and correct them. A nation of the ignorant, the lazy, satisfied with sports and American Idol, or whatever is current these days, is perfect for what they want. Hence, lots of “bread and circuses” and carefully managed propaganda presented as “news.”

I’ve asked students and young folks if they study government in school. Some have no idea what I am talking about. They draw a complete blank when asked about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. If we don’t have any idea of what we are losing, we’ll never know what we’ve lost, and that will suit the powers that be right down to the ground.

You’ve just completed your first year at Dartmouth. Work on getting your core courses out of the way and seek out teachers and mentors who really know what is going on. Evaluate, question, don’t accept anything or take it for granted! And, watch out for the propaganda! The “think tanks” have received hundreds of million$ to study how to control us, what words will trigger what reaction, etc. Believe me, that crap is everywhere, and used to do everything from sell us soap to engendering hatred towards people who don’t even know we exist (until the bombs start falling).

When I was nineteen, I was halfway through my navy enlistment and watching H-Bombs being detonated at Bikini. (Operation Redwing, Bikini Atoll, 1956) I’ve had radiation poisoning (and survived) and have seen the future if we don’t take back our country.

As to writing, be honest, say what is in your heart and not what you think people want to hear. That way you will keep your own moral integrity, and perhaps awaken yet more people. Here are a couple of links to some of my writings during the past nine years.

http://www.populistamerica.com/steve_osborn This will take you to around a hundred articles, should you suffer from insomnia.

http://www.poetsagainstthewar.org/displaypoem.asp?AuthorID=10508 This is a site that was begun around the time the Afghan and Iraqi wars started. The site has thousands of poems, many by great poets. I’ve put in my two cents worth from time to time.

Well, I don’t know what else to write at this time. You probably got more than you bargained for. Please put me in your address book and keep in touch from time to time. Adrienne and I wish you all the best.

Yours for peace and sanity in our time,
Steve

Mr Osborn-

I am very pleasantly surprised at the speed and content of your message, it gives me faith that there are people out there still willing to talk to young people and to take the time to write a sincere message.

My biggest worry is that your hope for my generation is unfounded. I look around and I see complacency and ignorance. We take government courses and learn how to navigate the current system, not the principles on which it was founded. We look forward to taking advantage of the way things are, not changing them. No one has grand ideals about getting into politics and changing the way things are done. I think this is because we realize, rightly, that no one man can change the status quo. I hate myself for harboring such cynicism, but the layers upon layers upon layers of deceit and power seem impermeable to any conscientious objector. We have it too good, we are too easily entertained. Why think about the way things are, when thinking about it only yields frustration and depression? Why do this when we can easily live our lives, deceive ourselves into believing we are on the progressive end of things, that we are edgy and unique, even though we are as complicit in the illusion that we wish to escape as “whatever, or whomever” controls our lives?

It seems the corporatism and market values are impossible to change or escape en masse. I can leave the comforts of society, or even live on the edge and protest, but I feel I can never truly change. You speak of awakening, but I fear we sleep so soundly that you could not convince us we are asleep in the first place. Which way is up, Mr Osborn? They know how far they can push us, and they give us our victories when needed. Give us gay marriage, decriminalize our pot, but where is peace? Or education? Transparency? We are kept running, Mr Osborn, running through school, to the best college, to the best internships, to the best jobs to buy the best things. I’m tired of running, as I think most of us are, but we’re too tired to do anything else.

I apologize for ranting, though I feel as though it is necessary to do so. I don’t often get a chance to discuss my view of the world. My parents are too steeped in their values, my friends are unable to discuss any real issues without turning the debate into a big irony. Perhaps that is all we have left, anything can be rationalized away with an ironic witticism. I’ve added you to my contacts, and I look forward to hearing from you from time to time as well.

Sincerely,
Jake

Hi Jake,

You say that you fear that my hope in your generation is unfounded. You are here to prove that it is not. As you’ve no doubt noted, I have been writing (ranting?) for a long time. There Must Be No Day was written in the early eighties, and based on my experiences in the fifties.

I was born in the latter days of the depression. I grew up during WW-II. My brother was a Pearl Harbor survivor who had three ships sunk from under him during the war. My sister was a WAC. Technically, my service time crosses both Korea and Vietnam, but thank God I never had to fight in either one! I wrote and demonstrated against the slaughter in Vietnam, and what it was doing to our young people. I mourned, and investigated, the deaths of John and Bobby Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, who had presented the world with hope and youth. When Bush was appointed, I wrote reams of protest and warning.

After the shock of 9-11 had worn off, many people from many professions joined together in disproving the myth of 9-11 and proving that it was a controlled demolition of all three buildings. The profits to the owners and the “in crew” were enormous and, it rallied the people for yet another pair of unjust wars. It is easy to get a war started and supported. Here are two experts on the subject
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“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Joseph Goebbels 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945
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“Naturally the common people don’t want war: Neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same for any country.”
Herman Goering to Gustave Gilbert at Nuremberg, 18 April, 1946
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For quite a while, I could not find a home for my writing. Everywhere I submitted it, it bounced. CommonDreams published What Happened to My Country, which was picked up and went around the world. Then Michael Boldin, owner and manager of the Populist site saw one of my articles and asked me to become one of his writers. Also, OpEd News opened their site to me. Globalresearch.com asked me to write on nuclear war and weaponry and so it has gone. I keep swearing to quit as I’ve said it all, then somebody else does something stupid or greedy, or destructive, and I feel compelled to man the keyboard.

For a long time, I felt I was just shouting into a rain barrel. Adrienne kept telling me that I was being read, I was having an effect. Got a fair amount of right-wing hate mail, of course. Then, occasionally, somebody would write me back, who said I had expressed what he or she felt. That was my vindication and my reward!

A true “pearl of great price” comes to me every once in a while. One man, who had read some of my stuff, sent me an article he had written and asked if it might be worth publishing. It was excellent and I referred him to Michael. He is now one of his best writers! I get an occasional “old fart” like me who tells me to “keep up the good work.” But the true treasure, my young friend, is you. You and a number of other young folks with whom I correspond and, who wish to work out some way to change the world for the better, beginning with here. Some ideas are excellent, and some are impractical, but all of them are seeking for something that transcends the bottom line of power, greed, bigotry, violence and war.

Where there is one, or two, or three who write me, there must be ten or twenty or thirty who feel the same, but do not write and for each of them, there must be an even larger number who feel that something is wrong, and that there must be a way to fix it.

Look up the title The Hundredth Monkey, sometime. It is a small book by a naturalist or ethnographer studying a colony of monkeys on an island. When the monkeys would receive food tossed to them, it would land in the sand. The monkeys would scramble for the food and eat it, sand and all. Then, a monkey started taking his food to the water and washing it off before eating it. After a while, another noticed and started doing the same thing. The movement spread and soon all the monkeys were washing their food. Then, somebody noticed that, for no apparent reason, monkeys on other islands in the area, with no connection to the original island began washing their food. The author’s premiss was that, when a sufficient number of monkeys were doing the same behavior, then, somehow, it began to spread and become universal.

My hope is that, if a few of us keep working for peace and sanity, and others join in, eventually we will reach the “hundredth monkey” for peace and it will become acceptable behavior for all humanity.

Mohandas Gandhi was an attorney, educated in England. He had a good law practice, was comfortable and well off. Then, as he saw miscarriages of justice against the poor and the powerless, he gave up his practice, took off his suit, donned the loincloth and shawl of his religion (he was a Jain) and began to teach by example. His principles were non-violence and love, but he practiced civil disobedience. As Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity, so Gandhi through asceticism and personal example stole the brightest jewel in the Crown of the British Empire and gave it to his people. The Raj had ended and he was well on his way towards healing the religious breaches in India when he was killed. Much is left to be done there, but it is a work in progress.

We could use a Gandhi in this country, but the road would be much steeper uphill, for while the British didn’t think it sporting to machine gun thousands of non-violent demonstrators, I fear our government has no such scruples. None-the-less, it may come to that before too long. We have degenerated into a third world dictatorship. Millions are losing their homes, have lost their jobs to other countries, are living in the streets, trying to survive

As the economy continues to tank, more people are going to look at the faces of their hungry families, living in tents or under cardboard, and they are going to look at the limousines driving by, and the sumptuous banquettes given by the wealthy, for the wealthy, and sooner or later, they are going to kick over the traces. If violence is the only way to get redress of grievances, than we will descend into anarchy and chaos. If there are some leaders who can show the way, perhaps the change can be peaceful and we can once again become a great nation, governed by a Constitution and Bill of Rights written by some of the greatest minds that have ever lived. As long as there is even the slightest chance of gaining that goal, I shall work toward it.

Jefferson said:
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The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first.
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And:
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“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
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He also noted:
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“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.”
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Jefferson and the other founders of our nation knew what dangers our new nation faced, and they knew that the worst peril came from within. They had, for the most part, studied history and were determined to avoid the mistakes of the past and create something new. They did, and for two centuries it worked well, until the new crew learned how to destroy it from within. Whether it can be resurrected again is problematical, but that does not mean we should not try.

Perhaps one of you young folks out there will be the new Prometheus or Gandhi, leading us to the light. I certainly hope so. As Perry said so long ago, as he lay dying on the quarterdeck of his sloop, “Don’t give up the ship!”

Your friend,
Steve

The dialogue will continue…

Michael Boldin of the 10th Amendment Center discusses how the doctrine of enumerated powers has become quaint, how the Constitution provides persuasive talking points for a strictly limited government for those otherwise undisposed, why activist priorities should be on limiting federal power as it is the most expansive and potentially destructive and how the states are, in some cases, resisting federal laws and asserting their own.

I just received the letter below, so obviously you have not been reading my letters to you.
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Stephen –

Last year, millions of Americans came together for a great purpose.

Folks like you assembled a grassroots movement that shocked the political establishment and changed the course of our nation. When Washington insiders counted us out, we put it all on the line and changed our democracy from the bottom up. But that’s not why we did it.

The pundits told us it was impossible — that the donations working people could afford and the hours volunteers could give would never loosen the vise grip of big money and powerful special interests. We proved them wrong. But as important as that was, that’s not why we did it.

Today, spiraling health care costs are pushing our families and businesses to the brink of ruin, while millions of Americans go without the care they desperately need. Fixing this broken system will be enormously difficult. But we can succeed. The chance to make fundamental change like this in people’s daily lives — that is why we did it.

The campaign to pass real health care reform in 2009 is the biggest test of our movement since the election. Once again, victory is far from certain. Our opposition will be fierce, and they have been down this road before. To prevail, we must once more build a coast-to-coast operation ready to knock on doors, deploy volunteers, get out the facts, and show the world how real change happens in America.

And just like before, I cannot do it without your support.

So I’m asking you to remember all that you gave over the last two years to get us here — all the time, resources, and faith you invested as a down payment to earn us our place at this crossroads in history. All that you’ve done has led up to this — and whether or not our country takes the next crucial step depends on what you do right now.

Will you donate whatever you can afford to support the campaign for real health care reform in 2009?

It doesn’t matter how much you can give, as long as you give what you can. Millions of families on the brink are counting on us to do just that. I know we can deliver.

Thank you, so much, for getting us this far. And thank you for standing up once again to take us the rest of the way.

Sincerely,

President Barack Obama
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We the People worked hard to get you elected, it is true. We got you elected because were tired of endless wars, lies and double-talk. We were tired of seeing our own tax money being given to rapacious billionaires so they would not lose by their endless gambling on the market and their manipulations.

We the People had hope that you would restore the Constitution and Bill of Rights to us after their having been shredded for the preceding eight years.

We the People listened to your rhetoric about “more openness in government.” About closing Guantanamo and restoring habeas corpus. About healing the economy and getting more jobs; jobs for those who had lost theirs through outsourcing and downright theft and malfeasance by the big corporations and cartels. About getting rid of the draconian laws passed by the previous regime; the mis-named Patriot act and its many descendants, the Military Commissions Act, etc.

What have we seen since you got into office? You have plenty of money to widen the wars in the Middle East; Plenty of money to increase surveillance of your own people; Plenty of money to bail out the Banksters and Wall Street gamblers.

I like many others got my share of the great bailout, a one time payment of $250. So did my wife. That $500 is our share of the several $trillion given away to the Banksters with no accounting, no checks and balances. The request to audit the Fed was ignored with contempt for apparently they are above the law, as is the Cheney/Bush Gang, the torturers, those who authorized the torture and gulags that are a stain on what used to be the honor of our nation. Yet, those things still go on, aided and abetted by you and your administration. Apparently the rubber-stamp Reichstag called Congress that has functioned so well during the past eight years is still in the pocket of the rich and powerful.

Apparently none of this is the business of We the People, who are just here, apparently, to provide the cannon fodder for your wars for oil.

Every patriot who fights the occupier and the oppressor of his country is deemed a “terrorist,” while every village we raze by remote controlled drones and hellfire missiles is just an “act of war” and the dead are just more “collateral damage.”

Reading between the lines, it seems that we are going to “save” the Middle East if we have to kill every man, woman and child to do it. And, of course, if we do that, we get the oil and the pipeline routes, etc., by default, and nobody can gripe for they will have been given the “peace and freedom” of the grave.

Now, you have the chutzpah to ask We the People to sacrifice, to send you money? Ask your Bankster and gambler friends, after all, you gave them our tax money and that of our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. This enabled some of them, after being on the brink of annihilation, to proudly post the highest profits in their history. Surely they can pop a piggy bank or two for you.

Or is it that you can’t because they already own you?

Millions of We the People had hoped for an end to the Bush years, a return to a Constitutional government and the rule of law. What have we seen? Bush Lite! And it is getting heavier every day. I greatly fear we are just getting Bushwhacked again.

So, Sir, my answer to you is No! No money, no sweat equity. Anything I have left to give will go for real change, to help my family, neighbors and community. Not just to provide small change for you and your Bankster friends.

Sadly and with Great Anger,

Steve and Adrienne Osborn

At least three US federal laws should concern all Americans and suggest what may be coming - mandatory vaccinations for hyped, non-existant threats, like H1N1 (Swine Flu). Vaccines and drugs like Tamiflu endanger human health but are hugely profitable to drug company manufacturers.

The Project BioShield Act of 2004 (S. 15) became law on July 21, 2004 “to provide protections and countermeasures against chemical, radiological, or nuclear agents that may be used in a terrorist attack against the United States by giving the National Institutes of Health contracting flexibility, infrastructure improvements, and expediting the scientific peer review process, and streamlining the Food and Drug Administration approval process of countermeasures.”

In other words, the FDA may now recklessly approve inadequately tested, potentially dangerous vaccines and other drugs if ever the Secretaries of Health and Human Services (HHS) or Defense (DOD) declare a national emergency, whether or not one exists and regardless of whether treatments available are safe and effective. Around $6 billion or more will be spent to develop, produce, and stockpile vaccines and other drugs to counteract claimed bioterror agents.

The Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act slipped under the radar when George Bush signed it into law as part of the 2006 Defense Appropriations Act (HR 2863). It lets the HHS Secretary declare any disease an epidemic or national emergency requiring mandatory vaccinations. Nothing in the Act lists criteria that warrant a threat. Also potential penalties aren’t specified for those who balk, but very likely they’d include quarantine and possible fines.

The HHS web site also says the Secretary may “issue a declaration….that provides immunity from tort liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of (vaccine or other pharmaceutical) countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency….”

The industry-run US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notoriously rushes inadequately tested drugs to market, putting their efficacy and safety into question, and turning those who use them into lab rats. It includes everyone if a mass vaccination is ordered on the mere claim of a public emergency - no proof required.

The Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act (S. 3678) is the other worrisome law, effective December 19, 2006. It amended “the Public Health Service Act with respect to public health security and all-hazards preparedness and response, and for other purposes.” Even its supporters worry about issues of privacy, liability, and putting profits over public health. Critics express greater concerns about dangerous remedies for exaggerated or non-existant threats as well as mass hysteria created for political purposes.

At least one other measure is also worrisome - The Model State Emergency Health Powers Act (MSEHPA). So far it’s just a proposal by the Center for Law and the Public’s Health - “A Collaborative at Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities (as) a primary, international, national, state, and local resource on public health law (and) policy for public health practitioners, judges, academics, policymakers, and others.”

MSEHPA is now “track(ing) legal responses to the emerging international response to the 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) outbreak, including declarations of public health emergency at the international, national, state, and local levels….” even though forensic evidence can’t confirm any H1N1 deaths. No emergency exists anywhere, and reporting one is all hype to sell dangerous drugs to unsuspecting people globally.

On its web site, the ACLU says this about MSEHPA:

It’s “written in a way that doesn’t adequately protect citizens against the misuse of the tremendous powers that it would grant in an emergency. (It’s) replete with civil liberties problems. Its three top flaws are that:

(1) It fails to include basic checks and balances (by) grant(ing) extraordinary emergency powers (that) should never go unchecked. (It) could have serious consequences for individuals’ freedom, privacy, and equality.”

(2) “It goes well beyond bioterrorism (with) an overbroad definition of ‘public health emergency” that may be anything a local or national authority declares for any reason with no conclusive evidence for proof.

(3) “It lacks privacy protections (and) undercut(s) existing protections for sensitive medical information.”

MSEHPA worries other organizations besides the ACLU, both conservative and progressive - including the Free Congress Foundation, American Legislative Exchange Council, conservative association of state legislators, Human Rights Campaign, and Health Privacy Project.

The Real Threat of Dangerous, Mandatory Vaccinations

In the wake of the hyped Swine Flu scare, media reports suggest mass vaccinations are coming. The May 6 Kimberly Kindy - Ceci Connolly Washington Post one, for example, headlined “US May Add Shots for Swine Flu to Fall Regimen” without saying they’ll be mandatory but reading between the lines suggests the possibility this year or later.

The writers report that “The Obama administration is considering an unprecedented fall vaccination campaign” to include regular and Swine Flu shots, the latter because it’s “spreading across the globe.”

HHS’ Dr. Robin Robinson said “We are moving forward with making a vaccine,” and if the government proceeds with a national program, enough supply will be produced to provide two doses for all Americans with spokespersons like National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Anthony Fauci, claiming adverse reactions aren’t to be expected and adding another shot for Swine Flu “should not present a problem.”

The New York Times also hypes the scare with reports of city schools closed after unconfirmed Swine Flu cases, a few adult deaths blamed on H1N1 bringing the claimed total in the city to seven, and the World Health Organization (WHO) saying on June 3 that it’s moving closer to declaring a worldwide (Level 6) Swine Flu pandemic - even though none exists.

With all the hype, misinformation, and willful lies WHO’s Dr. Keiji Fukuda, in charge of flu, said only 117 deaths globally have been “blamed” on Swine Flu and any warning may include the caveat that the virus isn’t very lethal. A more accurate statement would explain that no forensic evidence links any deaths to H1N1, and influenza annually kills about 30,000 people in America alone - something the major media never report or that scattered accounts of any type flu deaths worldwide are no cause for alarm or reason for scary headlines.

It’s also unconscionable for the WHO, US and other nations’ officials to spread lies, deception, and hysteria so major pharmaceutical companies can foist dangerous vaccines and other drugs on unsuspecting people, harming their health and making them vulnerable to later diseases and possible early deaths.

Massachusetts May Be A Forerunner of What’s to Come

On April 28, the Massachusetts Senate unanimously passed a pandemic flu preparation bill that rises to the level of martial law. If approved by the House and signed into law, it will mandate among other measures:

– “vaccination, treatment, examination, or testing of” all individuals involved in providing health care - as perhaps step one before ordering the same process for all state residents;

– owners or occupiers of all premises “to permit entry into and investigation of the premises;”

– closure, evacuation, and decontamination of all suspected facilities; and

– restricting or prohibiting “assemblages of persons.”

Other states may be planning similar measures as precursors to mandatory nationwide vaccinations and overall suspension of civil liberty protections.

Adverse Vaccination Effects on Gulf War Troops

Before deploying to the Persian Gulf in 1990 - 91 (and thereafter to the present), all US troops got a standard series of inoculations against infectious diseases - the same ones given to all US citizens traveling to the region. After arriving, 150,000 also got anthrax vaccinations and 8000 botulinum toxoid ones even though concerns were raised about adverse long-term health consequences.

A National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine (IOM) study was conducted to assess them with results released in September 2000. In December 1997, the Department of Defense (DOD) announced that all US military forces would receive anthrax vaccinations. The Anthrax Vaccine Immunization Program (AVIP) began in March 1998 even though IOM found little published peer-reviewed scientific information on its safety.

In its study, IOM reported evidence of an association between vaccinations studied and transient acute common health effects, including redness, swelling, and fever commonly associated with other vaccinations. However, conclusive proof of long-term problems wasn’t determined - likely because study findings were skewed not to find them. More on that below.

IOM also studied botulinum toxoid vaccines and found evidence of an association between the vaccine and transient acute local and systemic effects similar to anthrax vaccinations. Again, conclusive proof of long-term adverse health effects wasn’t found - another very dubious conclusion as evidence below explains.

Military personnel usually get multiple vaccinations. IOM studied their effects but didn’t prove or disprove any long-term adverse effects. However several independent studies of British Gulf War veterans found some link between multiple vaccinations and later health problems.

Gary Matsumoto is a New York-based award-winning investigative journalist. His 2004 book, “Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That’s Killing Our Soldiers and Why GIs are Only the First Victims” took sharp issue with IOM results and the Pentagon’s denial of Gulf War syndrome.

Investigating the shadowy vaccination development world, he discovered US military-employed doctors and scientists conducted secret medical experiments on US citizens in violation of the Nuremberg Code and fundamental medical ethics.

For its part, Nuremberg established legal medical experimental standards now incorporated into ethical medical codes, including:

– requiring voluntary consent of human subjects without coercion, fraud, deceit, and with full disclosure of known risks;

– experiments should avoid “all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury;”

– experiments should never be conducted if there’s “an a priori reason to believe death or disabling injury will occur;”

– risk “should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved..;” and

– experiments should be terminated if there’s reason to believe they’ll cause “injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.”

According to Matsumoto, the Pentagon violated these and other standards, betrayed the troops, and the fundamental duty of military and civilian leaders to protect them. Since at least 1987, biowarfare development trumped the welfare of tens of thousands of GIs used as human guinea pigs for inoculation with experimental unlicensed anthrax vaccines containing squalene - an oil-based adjuvant (to enhance immunity) known for decades to cause severe autoimmune diseases in lab animals, yet administered involuntarily without disclosure of its harmful effects to human health. Matsumoto wrote:

“The unethical experiments detailed in this book are ongoing, with little prospect of being self-limiting because they have been shielded from scrutiny and public accountability by national security concerns.” He suggested the “writing (was) on the wall” of what’s to come with prospects now it may be soon.

“When UCLA Medical School’s Michael Whitehouse and Frances Beck injected squalene combined with other materials into rats and guinea pigs back in the 1970s, few oils were more effective at causing the animal versions of arthritis and multiple sclerosis.” In 1999, immunologist Dr. Johnny Lorentzen at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute found that on injection, an “otherwise benign molecule like squalene can stimulate a self-destructive immune response,” even though it occurs naturally in the body.

Other research shows that squalene is the experimental anthrax vaccine ingredient that caused devastating autoimmune diseases and deaths for many Gulf War veterans from the US, UK, and Australia, yet it continues in use today and for new vaccines development in labs. There’s a “close match between the squalene-induced diseases in animals and those observed in humans injected with this oil: rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis and systemic lupus erythematosus.”

Other autoimmune diseases are also linked to humans injected with squalene. “There are now data in more than two dozen peer-reviewed scientific papers, from ten different laboratories in the US, Europe, Asia and Australia, documenting that squalene-based adjuvants can induce autoimmune diseases in animals…observed in mice, rats, guinea pigs and rabbits. Sweden’s Karolinska Institute has demonstrated that squalene alone can induce the animal version of rheumatoid arthritis. The Polish Academy of Sciences has shown that in animals, squalene alone can produce catastrophic injury to the nervous system and the brain. The University of Florida Medical School has shown that in animals, squalene alone can induce production of antibodies specifically associated with systemic lupus erythematosus.”

Micropaleontologist Dr. Viera Scheibner conducted research into the adverse effects of adjuvants in vaccines and wrote:

Squalene “contributed to the cascade of reactions called “Gulf War syndrome. (GIs developed) arthritis, fibromyalgia, lymphadenopathy, rashes, photosensitive rashes, malar rashes, chronic fatigue, chronic headaches, abnormal body hair loss, non-healing skin lesions, aphthous ulcers, dizziness, weakness, memory loss, seizures, mood changes, neuropsychiatric problems, anti-thyroid effects, anaemia, elevated ESR (erythrocyte sedimentation rate), systemic lupus erythematosus, multiple sclerosis, ALS, Raynaud’s phenomenon, Sjorgren’s syndrome, chronic diarrhea, night sweats and low-grade fever.”

Matsumoto’s book includes numerous case studies of GIs afflicted with one or more of the above syndromes, their devastating effects, and the outlandish US government reaction - failing to acknowledge their existence or a connection between them and administered vaccines. Also denying the effects of other toxic Gulf theater exposures (like depleted uranium) as well as withholding meaningful treatments or protocols.

US Army Captain George L. Skypeck spoke eloquently for many when he said:

“Was the character of my valor less intense than those at Lexington? Was the pain of my wounds any less severe than those at Normandy? And was my loneliness any less sorrowful than those at Inchon? Then why am I forgotten amonst those remembered as ‘heros?’ ”

If mass vaccinations are ordered, millions of Americans may ask: Why do you keep using unsafe vaccines and other drugs when clear evidence shows their dangers? Why do you jeopardize all Americans by unleashing a future plague of serious illnesses, diseases, and disabilities? Why have you willfully and maliciously ruined my health?

Immunologist Dr. Pamela Asa first recognized autoimmune diseases showing up in GIs that mirrored those in lab animals injected with oil formulated squalene adjuvants. By 1997, hundreds of millions of dollars had been spent testing vaccines containing them, in animal studies since 1988 and human clinical trials since 1991 - by leading research institutes like NIH, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

According to Matsumoto, today, “Squalene adjuvants are a key ingredient in a whole new generation of vaccines intended for mass immunization around the globe” even though researchers at Tulane Medical School and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research proved “that the immune system responds specifically to the squalene molecule.”

The immune system “see(s) and recognizes it as an oil molecule native to the body. Squalene is not just a molecule found in a knee or elbow - it is found throughout the nervous system and the brain.” When injected in the body, the immune system attacks it as an enemy to be eliminated. Eating and digesting squalene isn’t a problem. But injecting it “galvanize(s) the immune system into attacking it, which can produce self-destructive cross reactions against the same molecule in the places where it occurs naturally in the body - and where it is critical to the health of the nervous system.”

Once self-destruction begins, it doesn’t stop as the body keeps making the molecule that the immune system is trained to attack and destroy.

Immunologist Dr. Bonnie Dunbar also did extensive research on hepatitis B-inflicted illnesses and found similar autoimmune processes involved in molecular mimicry in people with devastating neuroimmune syndromes after getting vaccine injections.

Matsumoto says “Squalene is a kind of trigger for (a) real biological weapon,” what Soviet researchers called “a biological time bomb!!” and Matsumoto says is “the immune system.” When its “full repertoire of cells and antibodies (attack) tissues they are supposed to protect, the results can be catastrophic.” He and Dr. Pam Asa conclude that “Oil adjuvants are the most insidious chemical weapon ever devised,” including ones with squalene - something the Soviets knew could be used as a weapon in the 1980s.

Matsumoto says that “the real problem with using squalene (isn’t) that it mimics a molecule found in the body; it is the same molecule. So what American scientists conceived as a vaccine booster (or what’s now being developed in labs) was another ‘nano-bomb,’ instigating chronic, unpredictable and debilitating disease. When the NIH….argued that squalene would be safe because it is native to the body, just the opposite was true,” and, of course, still is. “Squalene’s natural presence in the body made it one of the most dangerous molecules ever injected into man” and using it in vaccines is outlandish and criminal.

So why does Washington sanction its use? According to Matsumoto: “scientists in the United States are now literally invested in squalene. Army scientists who developed the second generation anthrax vaccine have reputations to protect and licensing fees to reap (as well as) worldwide rights to develop and commercialize the new recombinant vaccine for anthrax” and ones for other health threats.

Disturbingly, “Many of the cutting-edge vaccines currently in development by the NIH and its corporate partners contain squalene in one formulation or another. There is squalene in the prototype recombinant vaccines for HIV, malaria, herpes, influenza (including the swine strain), cytomegalovirus and human papillomavirus.” Some of these “are intended for mass immunization(s) around the globe” and that possibility should terrify everyone enough to refuse any mandate or doctor’s prescription to take them.

Another problem is that “Autoimmunity (takes) years to diagnose” because early symptoms (headaches, joint pain, etc.) are so vague they can easily be from other causes.

From inception, vaccines have always been dangerous enough for some experts to call them biological weapons undermining health, manipulating and crippling the immune system, and creating the possibility of future debilitating diseases. So Big Pharma’s solution is new, more potent genetically engineered vaccines and drugs that may end up harming or killing many who take them, especially people with weakened immune systems.

Matsumoto and others sounded the alarm to alert everyone to avoid these poisons masquerading as protective drugs. In fact, they benefit only the bottom lines of companies that manufacture them and scientists reaping generous royalties.