Iraqi Union Opposition to Petroleum Industry Privatisation

GUOE Position on Privatisation

August 2005 - Statement by Union President Hassan Jum'a Awwad Al-Assadi, translated from Arabic by Dr Kamil Mahdi, University of Exeter

In The Name of God the Merciful and Beneficient

Subject: The Stance of the GUOE in the southern region on privatisation

Greetings (Assalamu Alikum wa rahmatu-allhi wa barakatuhu)

Friends, I wish to convey to you the greetings of your friends the members of the Executive Board of the Union, and we wish to clarify to you our view on privatisation, an issue of major concern for us as workers' movement leaders in this most important of work venues, i.e. oil. Our stance on this intricate issue is clear and explicit.

The privatisation of the oil and industrial sectors is the objective of all in the Iraqi state [Government], and we must state that we will stand firm against this imperialist plan that would hand over Iraq's wealth to international capitalism such that the deprived Iraqi people would not benefit from it.

We reaffirm our unshakeable position on this basic issue for the future of the new Iraq, for we cannot build our country unless its wealth is in its own possession, and we need your assistance and support as we are fighting our enemies on the inside and you are our support outside.

The GUOE is the only union which has taken this courageous stance of fighting privatisation, and we are taking this path for the sake of Iraq's glory even if it costs us our lives. The reason for this is that we feel that the Iraqis are capable of managing the their companies and their investments by themselves, because they have huge capabilities and technical knowledge.

We want you to know that we transformed the Iraqi Drilling Company from a non-existent entity into a company that is akin to international one, and it now owns 13 Drilling Towers which is a pride to all of us. For that and for all the achievements in the Oil Sector, we stand firm against privatisation, and I trust you confidence in the Union will not be shaken, for we have charted our steady and clear path from which we cannot ever never deviate.

---

Looks like those ungrateful Iraqis want to steal our oil

Tags: oil, iraq, war, bush, globalisation

US Will Use Nuclear Weapons First

"no customary or conventional international law prohibits nations from employing nuclear weapons in armed conflict."

Articles of interest follow:


The Role of U.S. Nuclear Weapons: New Doctrine Falls Short of Bush Pledge

A nuclear draft doctrine written by the Pentagon calls for maintaining an aggressive nuclear posture with weapons on high alert to strike adversaries armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD), pre-emptively if necessary.
The doctrine, the first formal update since the Bush administration took office, is entitled “Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations”[1] and has been strongly influenced by the Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) and other directives published by the Bush administration since 2001. A final version is expected later this fall. (more)


Bush's New Military Policy: First Strikes, Unrivaled Power
(Article from 2002)

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration will publish a comprehensive rationale today for shifting American military strategy toward pre-emptive action against hostile states and terrorist groups. It will also state, for the first time, that the United States will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged the way it was during the Cold War.The document, titled "The National Security Strategy of the United States" sketches out a far more muscular and sometimes aggressive approach to national security than any since the Reagan era. (more)


Government Gives In-Principle Support to US First-Strike Policy

The Australian government should have RSI in their knees by now. Read about it here.
The two following quotes are from Mark Latham (the ex-leader of the Australian opposition party) and are as valid today as the day he made them.

"Mr Howard and his Government are just yes-men to the United States. There they are, a conga line of suckholes on the conservative side of Australian politics. The backbench sucks up to the Prime Minister and the Prime Minister sucks up to George W. That is how it works for the little tories, and they have the hide to call themselves Australians. In my book they are not Australians at all, just little tory suckholes. That is all they have left on their rotten little side of politics ..."

"The truth is the Prime Minister has forgotten how to stand up for the national interest. He has forgotten how to be a good Australian, not some yes-man to a flaky and dangerous American President ..."

Read more excerpts from that speech here.

Tags: war, politics, military, bush, australia

FEMA definitely is the 'Final Authority'

Some people have referred to it as the "secret government" of the United States. It is not an elected body, it does not involve itself in public disclosures, and it even has a quasi-secret budget in the billions of dollars. This government organization has more power than the President of the United States or the Congress, it has the power to suspend laws, move entire populations, arrest and detain citizens without a warrant and hold them without trial, it can seize property, food supplies, transportation systems, and can suspend the Constitution. Not only is it the most powerful entity in the United States, but it was not even created under Constitutional law by the Congress. It was a product of a Presidential Executive Order. No, it is not the U.S. military nor the Central Intelligence Agency, they are subject to Congress. The organization is called FEMA, which stands for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Originally conceived in the Richard Nixon Administration, it was refined by President Jimmy Carter and given teeth in the Ronald Reagan and George Bush Administrations.

FEMA had one original concept when it was created, to assure the survivability of the United States government in the event of a nuclear attack on this nation. It was also provided with the task of being a federal coordinating body during times of domestic disasters, such as earthquakes, floods and hurricanes. Its awesome powers grow under the tutelage of people like Lt. Col. Oliver North and General Richard Secord, the architects on the Iran-Contra scandal and the looting of America's savings and loan institutions. FEMA has even been given control of the State Defense Forces, a rag-tag, often considered neo-Nazi, civilian army that will substitute for the National Guard, if the Guard is called to duty overseas.

THE MOST POWERFUL ORGANIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

Though it may be the most powerful organization in the United States, few people know it even exists. But it has crept into our private lives. Even mortgage papers contain FEMA's name in small print if the property in question is near a flood plain. FEMA was deeply involved in the Los Angeles riots and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some of the black helicopter traffic reported throughout the United States, but mainly in the West, California, Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Colorado, are flown by FEMA personnel. FEMA has been given responsibility for many new disasters including urban forest fires, home heating emergencies, refugee situations, urban riots, and emergency planning for nuclear and toxic incidents. In the West, it works in conjunction with the Sixth Army. FEMA was created in a series of Executive Orders. A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress is by-passed.

Executive Order Number 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies. The bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic.

Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry. Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 30 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11310 grants authority to the Department of Justice to enforce the plans set out in Executive Orders, to institute industrial support, to establish judicial and legislative liaison, to control all aliens, to operate penal and correctional institutions, and to advise and assist the President.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11049 assigns emergency preparedness function to federal departments and agencies, consolidating 21 operative Executive Orders issued over a fifteen year period.

EXECUTIVE ORDER 11921 allows the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency to develop plans to establish control over the mechanisms of production and distribution, of energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money in U.S. financial institution in any undefined national emergency. It also provides that when a state of emergency is declared by the President, Congress cannot review the action for six months. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has broad powers in every aspect of the nation.

General Frank Salzedo, chief of FEMA's Civil Security Division stated in a 1983 conference that he saw FEMA's role as a "new frontier in the protection of individual and governmental leaders from assassination, and of civil and military installations from sabotage and/or attack, as well as prevention of dissident groups from gaining access to U.S. opinion, or a global audience in times of crisis." FEMA's powers were consolidated by President Carter to incorporate: The National Security Act of 1947, which allows for the strategic relocation of industries, services, government and other essential economic activities, and to rationalize the requirements for manpower, resources and production facilities; The 1950 Defense Production Act, which gives the President sweeping powers over all aspects of the economy; The Act of August 29, 1916, which authorizes the Secretary of the Army, in time of war, to take possession of any transportation system for transporting troops, material, or any other purpose related to the emergency; and The International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which enables the President to seize the property of a foreign country or national. These powers were transferred to FEMA in a sweeping consolidation in 1979.

HURRICANE ANDREW FOCUSED ATTENTION ON FEMA.

FEMA's deceptive role really did not come to light with much of the public until Hurricane Andrew smashed into the U.S. mainland. As Russell R. Dynes, director of the Disaster Research Center of the University of Delaware, wrote in The World and I, "...The eye of the political storm hovered over the Federal Emergency Management Agency. FEMA became a convenient target for criticism." Because FEMA was accused of dropping the ball in Florida, the media and Congress commenced to study this agency. What came out of the critical look was that FEMA was spending 12 times more for "black operations" than for disaster relief. It spent $1.3 billion building secret bunkers throughout the United States in anticipation of government disruption by foreign or domestic upheaval. Yet fewer than 20 members of Congress, only members with top security clearance, know of the $1.3 billion expenditure by FEMA for non-natural disaster situations. These few Congressional leaders state that FEMA has a "black curtain" around its operations. FEMA has worked on National Security programs since 1979, and its predecessor, the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency, has secretly spent millions of dollars before being merged into FEMA by President Carter in 1979.

FEMA has developed 300 sophisticated mobile units that are capable of sustaining themselves for a month. The vehicles are located in five areas of the United States. They have tremendous communication systems and each contains a generator that would provide power to 120 homes, but have never been used for disaster relief. FEMA's enormous powers can be triggered easily. In any form of domestic or foreign problem, perceived and not always actual, emergency powers can be enacted. The President of the United States now has broader powers to declare martial law, which activates FEMA's extraordinary powers. Martial law can be declared during time of increased tension overseas, economic problems within the United States, such as a depression, civil unrest, such as demonstrations or scenes like the Los Angeles riots, and in a drug crisis.

These Presidential powers have increased with successive Crime Bills, particularly the 1991 and 1993 Crime Bills, which increase the power to suspend the rights guaranteed under the Constitution and to seize property of those suspected of being drug dealers, to individuals who participate in a public protest or demonstration. Under emergency plans already in existence, the power exists to suspend the Constitution and turn over the reigns of government to FEMA and appointing military commanders to run state and local governments. FEMA then would have the right to order the detention of anyone whom there is reasonable ground to believe...will engage in, or probably conspire with others to engage in acts of espionage or sabotage. The plan also authorized the establishment of concentration camps for detaining the accused, but no trial.

Three times since 1984, FEMA stood on the threshold of taking control of the nation. Once under President Reagan in 1984, and twice under President Bush in 1990 and 1992. But under those three scenarios, there was not a sufficient crisis to warrant risking martial law. Most experts on the subject of FEMA and Martial Law insisted that a crisis has to appear dangerous enough for the people of the United States before they would tolerate or accept complete government takeover. The typical crisis needed would be threat of imminent nuclear war, rioting in several U.S. cites simultaneously, a series of national disasters that affect widespread danger to the populous, massive terrorist attacks, a depression in which tens of millions are unemployed and without financial resources, or a major environmental disaster.

THREE TIMES FEMA STOOD BY READY FOR EMERGENCY

In April 1984, President Reagan signed Presidential Director Number 54 that allowed FEMA to engage in a secret national "readiness exercise" under the code name of REX 84. The exercise was to test FEMA's readiness to assume military authority in the event of a "State of Domestic National Emergency" concurrent with the launching of a direct United States military operation in Central America. The plan called for the deputation of U.S. military and National Guard units so that they could legally be used for domestic law enforcement. These units would be assigned to conduct sweeps and take into custody an estimated 400,000 undocumented Central American immigrants in the United States. The immigrants would be interned at 10 detention centers to be set up at military bases throughout the country.

REX 84 was so highly guarded that special metal security doors were placed on the fifth floor of the FEMA building in Washington, D.C. Even long-standing employees of the Civil Defense of the Federal Executive Department possessing the highest possible security clearances were not being allowed through the newly installed metal security doors. Only personnel wearing a special red Christian cross or crucifix lapel pin were allowed into the premises. Lt. Col. North was responsible for drawing up the emergency plan, which U.S. Attorney General William French Smith opposed vehemently. The plan called for the suspension of the Constitution, turning control of the government over to FEMA, appointment of military commanders to run state and local governments and the declaration of Martial Law. The Presidential Executive Orders to support such a plan were already in place. The plan also advocated the rounding up and transfer to "assembly centers or relocation camps" of a least 21 million American Negroes in the event of massive rioting or disorder, not unlike the rounding up of the Jews in Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

The second known time that FEMA stood by was in 1990 when Desert Storm was enacted. Prior to President Bush's invasion of Iraq, FEMA began to draft new legislation to increase its already formidable powers. One of the elements incorporated into the plan was to set up operations within any state or locality without the prior permission of local or state authorities. Such prior permission has always been required in the past. Much of the mechanism being set into place was in anticipation of the economic collapse of the Western World. The war with Iraq may have been conceived as a ploy to boost the bankrupt economy, but it only pushed the West into deeper recession. The third scenario for FEMA came with the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King brutality verdict. Had the rioting spread to other cities, FEMA would have been empowered to step in. As it was, major rioting only occurred in the Los Angeles area, thus preventing a pretext for a FEMA response.

On July 5, 1987, the Miami Herald published reports on FEMA's new goals. The goal was to suspend the Constitution in the event of a national crisis, such as nuclear war, violent and widespread internal dissent, or national opposition to a U.S. military invasion abroad. Lt. Col. North was the architect. National Security Directive Number 52 issued in August 1982, pertains to the "Use of National Guard Troops to Quell Disturbances." The crux of the problem is that FEMA has the power to turn the United States into a police state in time of a real crisis or a manufactured crisis. Lt. Col. North virtually established the apparatus for dictatorship. Only the criticism of the Attorney General prevented the plans from being adopted. But intelligence reports indicate that FEMA has a folder with 22 Executive Orders for the President to sign in case of an emergency. It is believed those Executive Orders contain the framework of North's concepts, delayed by criticism but never truly abandoned. The crisis, as the government now sees it, is civil unrest. For generations, the government was concerned with nuclear war, but the violent and disruptive demonstrations that surrounded the Vietnam War era prompted President Nixon to change the direction of emergency powers from war time to times of domestic unrest.

Diana Reynolds, program director of the Edward R. Murrow Center, summed up the dangers of FEMA today and the public reaction to Martial Law in a drug crisis: "It was James Madison's worst nightmare that a righteous faction would someday be strong enough to sweep away the Constitutional restraints designed by the framers to prevent the tyranny of centralized power, excessive privilege, an arbitrary governmental authority over the individual. These restraints, the balancing and checking of powers among branches and layers of government, and the civil guarantees, would be the first casualties in a drug-induced national security state with Reagan's Civil Emergency Preparedness unleashed. Nevertheless, there would be those who would welcome NSC (National Security Council) into the drug fray, believing that increasing state police powers to emergency levels is the only way left to fight American's enemy within.

In the short run, a national security state would probably be a relief to those whose personal security and quality of life has been diminished by drugs or drug related crime. And, as the general public watches the progression of institutional chaos and social decay, they too may be willing to pay the ultimate price, one drug free America for 200 years of democracy."

The first targets in any FEMA emergency would be Hispanics and Blacks, the FEMA orders call for them to be rounded up and detained. Tax protesters, demonstrators against government military intervention outside U.S. borders, and people who maintain weapons in their homes are also targets. Operation Trojan Horse is a program designed to learn the identity of potential opponents to martial law. The program lures potential protesters into public forums, conducted by a "hero" of the people who advocates survival training. The list of names gathered at such meetings and rallies are computerized and then targeted in case of an emergency.

The most shining example of America to the world has been its peaceful transition of government from one administration to another. Despite crises of great magnitude, the United States has maintained its freedom and liberty. This nation now stands on the threshold of rule by non-elected people asserting non-Constitutional powers. Even Congress cannot review a Martial Law action until six months after it has been declared. For the first time in American history, the reigns of government would not be transferred from one elected element to another, but the Constitution, itself, can be suspended. The scenarios established to trigger FEMA into action are generally found in the society today, economic collapse, civil unrest, drug problems, terrorist attacks, and protests against American intervention in a foreign country. All these premises exist, it could only be a matter of time in which one of these triggers the entire emergency necessary to bring FEMA into action, and then it may be too late, because under the FEMA plan, there is no contingency by which Constitutional power is restored.

Tags: fema, emergency, politics, katrina

How the Free Market Killed New Orleans

By Michael Parenti

The free market played a crucial role in the destruction of New Orleans and the death of thousands of its residents. Armed with advanced warning that a momentous (force 5) hurricane was going to hit that city and surrounding areas, what did officials do? They played the free market.

They announced that everyone should evacuate. Everyone was expected to devise their own way out of the disaster area by private means, just as the free market dictates, just like people do when disaster hits free-market Third World countries.

It is a beautiful thing this free market in which every individual pursues his or her own personal interests and thereby effects an optimal outcome for the entire society. This is the way the invisible hand works its wonders.

There would be none of the collectivistic regimented evacuation as occurred in Cuba. When an especially powerful hurricane hit that island last year, the Castro government, abetted by neighborhood citizen committees and local Communist party cadres, evacuated 1.3 million people, more than ten percent of the country's population, with not a single life lost, a heartening feat that went largely unmentioned in the U.S. press.

On Day One of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, it was already clear that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of American lives had been lost in New Orleans. Many people had "refused" to evacuate, media reporters explained, because they were just plain "stubborn."

It was not until Day Three that the relatively affluent telecasters began to realize that tens of thousands of people had failed to flee because they had nowhere to go and no means of getting there. With hardly any cash at hand or no motor vehicle to call their own, they had to sit tight and hope for the best. In the end, the free market did not work so well for them.

Many of these people were low-income African Americans, along with fewer numbers of poor whites. It should be remembered that most of them had jobs before Katrina's lethal visit. That's what most poor people do in this country: they work, usually quite hard at dismally paying jobs, sometimes more than one job at a time. They are poor not because they're lazy but because they have a hard time surviving on poverty wages while burdened by high prices, high rents, and regressive taxes.

The free market played a role in other ways. Bush's agenda is to cut government services to the bone and make people rely on the private sector for the things they might need. So he sliced $71.2 million from the budget of the New Orleans Corps of Engineers, a 44% reduction. Plans to fortify New Orleans levees and upgrade the system of pumping out water had to be shelved.

Bush took to the airways and said that no one could have foreseen this disaster. Just another lie tumbling from his lips. All sorts of people had been predicting disaster for New Orleans, pointing to the need to strengthen the levees and the pumps, and fortify the coastlands.

In their campaign to starve out the public sector, the Bushite reactionaries also allowed developers to drain vast areas of wetlands. Again, that old invisible hand of the free market would take care of things. The developers, pursuing their own private profit, would devise outcomes that would benefit us all.

But wetlands served as a natural absorbent and barrier between New Orleans and the storms riding in from across the sea. And for some years now, the wetlands have been disappearing at a frightening pace on the Gulf' coast. All this was of no concern to the reactionaries in the White House.

As for the rescue operation, the free-marketeers like to say that relief to the more unfortunate among us should be left to private charity. It was a favorite preachment of President Ronald Reagan that "private charity can do the job." And for the first few days that indeed seemed to be the policy with the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina.

The federal government was nowhere in sight but the Red Cross went into action. Its message: "Don't send food or blankets; send money." Meanwhile Pat Robertson and the Christian Broadcasting Network --- taking a moment off from God's work of pushing John Roberts nomination to the Supreme Court --- called for donations and announced "Operation Blessing" which consisted of a highly-publicized but totally inadequate shipment of canned goods and bibles.

By Day Three even the myopic media began to realize the immense failure of the rescue operation. People were dying because relief had not arrived. The authorities seemed more concerned with the looting than with rescuing people. It was property before people, just like the free marketeers always want.

But questions arose that the free market did not seem capable of answering: Who was in charge of the rescue operation? Why so few helicopters and just a scattering of Coast Guard rescuers? Why did it take helicopters five hours to get six people out of one hospital? When would the rescue operation gather some steam? Where were the feds? The state troopers? The National Guard? Where were the buses and trucks? the shelters and portable toilets? The medical supplies and water?

Where was Homeland Security? What has Homeland Security done with the $33.8 billions allocated to it in fiscal 2005? Even ABC-TV evening news (September 1, 2005) quoted local officials as saying that "the federal government's response has been a national disgrace."

In a moment of delicious (and perhaps mischievous) irony, offers of foreign aid were tendered by France, Germany and several other nations. Russia offered to send two plane loads of food and other materials for the victims. Predictably, all these proposals were quickly refused by the White House. America the Beautiful and Powerful, America the Supreme Rescuer and World Leader, America the Purveyor of Global Prosperity could not accept foreign aid from others. That would be a most deflating and insulting role reversal. Were the French looking for another punch in the nose? Besides, to have accepted foreign aid would have been to admit the truth- --- that the Bushite reactionaries had neither the desire nor the decency to provide for ordinary citizens, not even those in the most extreme straits. Next thing you know, people would start thinking that George W. Bush was really nothing more than a fulltime agent of Corporate America.

Michael Parenti's recent books include Superpatriotism (City Lights) and The Assassination of Julius Caesar (New Press), both available in paperback. His forthcoming The Culture Struggle (Seven Stories Press) will be published in the fall. For more information visit:
http://www.michaelparenti.org

Tags: hurricane, katrina, New Orleans, cuba, evacuation

The Real Costs of a Culture of Greed

What the world has witnessed this past week is an image of poverty and social disarray that tears away the affluent mask of the United States.

Instead of the much-celebrated American can-do machine that promises to bring freedom and prosperity to less fortunate people abroad, we have seen a callous official incompetence that puts even Third World rulers to shame. The well-reported litany of mistakes by the Bush administration in failing to prevent and respond to Katrina's destruction grew longer with each hour's grim revelation from the streets of an apocalyptic New Orleans.

Yet the problem is much deeper. For half a century, free-market purists have to great effect denigrated the essential role that modern government performs as some terrible liberal plot. Thus, the symbolism of New Orleans' flooding is tragically apt: Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal and Louisiana Gov. Huey Long's ambitious populist reforms in the 1930s eased Louisiana out of feudalism and toward modernity; the Reagan Revolution and the callousness of both Bush administrations have sent them back toward the abyss.

Now we have a president who wastes tax revenues in Iraq instead of protecting us at home. Levee improvements were deferred in recent years even after congressional approval, reportedly prompting EPA staffers to dub flooded New Orleans "Lake George."

None of this is an oversight, or simple incompetence. It is the result of a campaign by most Republicans and too many Democrats to systematically vilify the role of government in American life. Manipulative politicians have convinced lower- and middle-class whites that their own economic pains were caused by "quasi-socialist" government policies that aid only poor brown and black people --- even as corporate profits and CEO salaries soared.

For decades we have seen social services that benefit everyone - education, community policing, public health, environmental protections and infrastructure repair, emergency services --- in steady, steep decline in the face of tax cuts and rising military spending. But it is a false savings; it will certainly cost exponentially more to save New Orleans than it would have to protect it in the first place.

And, although the wealthy can soften the blow of this national decline by sending their kids to private school, building walls around their communities and checking into distant hotels in the face of approaching calamities, others, like the 150,000 people living below the poverty line in the Katrina damage area --- one-third of whom are elderly --- are left exposed.

Watching on television the stark vulnerability of a permanent underclass of African Americans living in New Orleans ghettos is terrifying. It should be remembered, however, that even when hurricanes are not threatening their lives and sanity, they live in rotting housing complexes, attend embarrassingly ill-equipped public schools and, lacking adequate police protection, are frequently terrorized by unemployed, uneducated young men.

In fact, rather than an anomaly, the public suffering of these desperate Americans is a symbol for a nation that is becoming progressively poorer under the leadership of the party of Big Business. As Katrina was making its devastating landfall, the U.S. Census Bureau released new figures that show that since 1999, the income of the poorest fifth of Americans has dropped 8.7% in inflation-adjusted dollars. Last year alone, 1.1 million were added to the 36 million already on the poverty rolls.
For those who have trouble with statistics, here's the shorthand: The rich have been getting richer and the poor have been getting, in the ripe populist language of Louisiana's legendary Long, the shaft.

These are people who have long since been abandoned to their fate. Despite the deep religiosity of the Gulf States and the United States in general, it is the gods of greed that seem to rule. Case in point: The crucial New Orleans marshland that absorbs excess water during storms has been greatly denuded by rampant commercial development allowed by a deregulation-crazy culture that favors a quick buck over long-term community benefits.

Given all this, it is no surprise that leaders, from the White House on down, haven't done right by the people of New Orleans and the rest of the region, before and after what insurance companies insultingly call an "act of God."

Fact is, most of them, and especially our president, just don't care about the people who can't afford to attend political fundraisers or pay for high-priced lobbyists. No, these folks are supposed to be cruising on the rising tide of a booming, unregulated economy that "floats all boats."

They were left floating all right.

Tags: hurricane, katrina, New Orleans, greed, katrina

Intellectual Espionage

At the start of WWII millions of men showed up at registration offices to take low-level academic tests before being inducted. The years of maximum mobilization were 1942 to1944; the fighting force had been mostly schooled in the 1930s, both those inducted and those turned away. Of the 18 million men were tested, 17,280,000 of them were judged to have the minimum competence in reading required to be a soldier, a 96 percent literacy rate. Although this was a 2 percent fall-off from the 98 percent rate among voluntary military applicants ten years earlier, the dip was so small it didn’t worry anybody.

WWII was over in 1945. Six years later another war began in Korea. Several million men were tested for military service but this time 600,000 were rejected. Literacy in the draft pool had dropped to 81 percent, even though all that was needed to classify a soldier as literate was fourth- grade reading proficiency. In the few short years from the beginning of WWII to Korea, a terrifying problem of adult illiteracy had appeared. The Korean War group received most of its schooling in the 1940s, and it had more years in school with more professionally trained personnel and more scientifically selected textbooks than the WWII men, yet it could not read, write, count, speak, or think as well as the earlier, less-schooled contingent.

Click here to read the rest of this article.

Tags: education, culture, military, gatto

9/11: A barrel of conspiracies

Today is the fourth anniversary of the World Trade Centre collapse. Nearly every TV network has run images of the dramatic and final collapse of the 1,362 feet tall South Tower.
Pentagon, the high security nerve centre of the US war machine, was also hit while a fourth plane lay scattered all over an 8 km stretch in Pennsylvania. Now four years on, the images and the story of the ‘terrorist attack’, repeatedly carried by nearly every TV channel and print media, remain deeply embossed in public memory.

Click here to read the full article.

Tags: 911, WTC, terrorism, new york

Comparison: USA v. USSR

By Luke ExilArch

Is life today in the USA like life yesterday in the USSR?

The centralisation of political power in the hands of the federal government has allowed it to create a totalitarian state that in many ways is reminiscent of the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Yes, there still are significant differences between the USA and the former USSR. Consumer goods are readily available in the USA (although our gigantic trade deficits indicate they are not produced here.) Some of our Constitutional rights remain intact, albeit eroded.

But let’s look at the similarities. Quotations about the USSR are from USC Professor Rodger Swearingen’s book - “The World of Communism” (1962).

Constitution, Government, Political Parties

USSR:

“In theory, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics is a federally organised constitutional democracy ... in practise, the constitution is relatively unimportant. ... The various republics have little actual power ... The Soviets have a “one-party system of government” ... No other political parties are deemed necessary ... The nature of the Communist system makes voting in the Soviet Union a meaningless gesture, an exercise in rubber-stamping the party’s choice.”

USA:

The USA claims to be a Constitutional Union of States, but the federal government routinely disregards the Constitution. The fifty State governments have little actual power. We are continually told that we have a “two party system.” In pr actice, the two nominal parties function as one party, having no significant areas of disagreement. Third parties are legal, but deemed unnecessary. Only two of the 535 members of Congress are independents.

As a result of the one-party system, voting is a meaningless gesture. The reelection rate for Congressional incumbents is 95 - 98%.

Politicians

USSR:

“There are fundamental differences between professional politicians in other systems and in the Communist system. ... In communist system, he who grabs power grabs privileges and indirectly grabs property. Consequently in Communism, power or politics as a profession is the ideal of those who have the the desire or the prospect of living as parasites at the expense of others.”

USA:

Federal judges and Congressmen are paid a minimum salary range of $145,000 to $158,000. These salaries place them in the top 5% of all income earners - public or private.

Yet federal judges complain constantly that they are underpaid, and Congress automatically grants itself a pay raise every year.

In the event that tax revenues become insufficient to pay these salaries, federal judges decided in Kelo v. City of New London that private property can be grabbed and sold in order to generate more taxes.

Many would agree that the federal government has an essentially parasitic nature.

Foreign Policy

USSR:

“The fundamental attitude of the United States toward other peoples is that they should have the right to determine their fate themselves, without any other nation telling them what they can or cannot do. ... our policy generally has been “hands off” ... we have not adopted a policy of wholesale intervention in all countries of the world for the purpose of imposing American-style regimes on people everywhere.”

“The Soviet policy has been the opposite. While paying lip service to the principle of self-determination, the Russians have repeatedly, as a matter of policy, interfered with the affairs of other states whenever they thought it to their advantage, and whenever they thought they could get away with it.”

“The United States finds it difficult to combat such a ruthless foe by traditional, peaceful means. The Communists have no reluctance about using force. ... If the Soviet threat were removed, we could, no doubt, move more quickly to abolish such unbecoming means altogether.”

USA:

Regardless of what it might say, the federal government does not believe that other nations have a right to self-determination. The federal government currently stations troops on over 6,000 military bases in 146 different countries.

That government routinely deploys those troops to enforce UN resolutions or impose what it calls “democracy.”

Contrary to Professor Swearingen’s prediction, the fall of the USSR did not result in the federal government curtailing the “unbecoming means” of force. On the contrary, it occasioned a binge of warmongering. Since the fall of the USSR, the federal government launched wars in Panama, Iraq (twice) Somalia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

The “Bush doctrine” claims that the federal government has the right as the “world’s sole remaining superpower” to launch “preemptive wars” against other countries.

Religion

USSR:

“The current phase ... is one of rampant propaganda against religion. Mandatory public schools teach atheism as a regular part of the program.” “From the first grade, the child learns that “there is no God.” “The government press maintains a constant campaign against religion.” ... This takes the form of making jokes about the “old-fashioned people” who still believe the “nonsense about God.”

“Why, then does the Soviet government permit some churches to remain open? Isn’t this freedom of religion? ... Religious freedom is more than an open church building. It has to do with attitudes, laws, policies and goals. True, there are a number of of Protestant, Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches open throughout Russia. So long as the churches remain open, the men in Moscow can use this fact to convince the uninformed that there is religious freedom. After all, the churches are open!”

USA:

In theory, the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion. In pr actice, federal judges have ordered a “separation of church and state” that finds no mention in the Constitution.

Government schools or government funded organisations are ordered to make no reference to religion. For example, federal judges banned public school students from reciting the pledge of allegiance because it contains the words “under God.” The whole point of the phony “separation of church and state” is to ensure that the Christian religion never affects “attitudes, laws, policies and goals.”

But the Churches are open.

Education

USSR:

“The search for genuine truth has no place in Communist education. Students are not allowed to hear both sides of a question in courses in the social sciences and humanities. Much of his education turns out to be indoctrination and propaganda. His education is specialised, limited and slanted. If he is bright, he will have been well prepared to be a cog in the Soviet machine.”

USA:

“Politically correct” curricula in the social sciences and humanities amount to propaganda and indoctrination. State and local public schools operate under the direction of federal authorities - the “No Child Left Behind Act” (a/k/a the “No Child Moves Ahead Act”)

Local school boards lack authority to prescribe their own curriculum. For example, a federal judge ordered that Georgia schools must teach evolution as a fact, not just a theory.

The federal government’s educational system is designed to achieve mass indoctrination and produce a politically uniform, tractable citizenry.

Press

USSR:

“The Soviet Press ... has no freedom, no life of its own. There are 10,000 newspapers in the Soviet Union, but not one dares express an opinion which differs in the slightest degree from the official Party view on any major issue” ... On the other hand, the “press of the Free World represents a wide range of differing political viewpoints and purposes.”

USA:

Nominally, there are thousands of newspapers and radio stations and hundreds of television channels. But the FCC and the Department of Justice (sic) allow most of them to be owned and controlled by a few media conglomerates.

According to media expert Tom Wolzien, 80% of the prime time TV audience is watching channels owned by media conglomerates such as Viacom, Disney, Time-Warner, News Corp. and NBC/Universal. For example, he notes that of the top 25 cable channels, 20 are now owned by one of the big five media companies.

In exchange for the federal government granting them an oligopoly, the media conglomerates refrain from criticising its policies or exposing its corruption. Paul Craig Roberts notes that the media’s historical role as government watchdog has diminished as a result of media consolidation.

The media conglomerates permit a narrow range of political viewpoints that more or less correspond to those of the Republicrat Party. The voices of independent journalists like Nat Hentoff, Joseph Sobran or the late Samuel Francis are not heard.

Family Life

USSR:

“Many of the jobs customarily held by men in America are done by women in the Soviet Union” The USSR boasts: “we have eliminated discrimination based on sex.”

“From the Soviet government’s point of view, it is in fact essential that as many women as possible work ... The great majority of families in the Soviet Union would find it difficult to exist on the wages of the husband alone. Salaries are too low ... Sunday is almost always taken up by shopping. ... Recreation in leisure time, as we know it in the United States, is not part of the average Soviet citizen’s daily life.”

Divorce is legal for almost any reason. “The old quip was “Just marriage is grounds for divorce in Russia” The early revolutionaries prided themselves on the contempt with which they held the marriage relationship”

USA:

Through various trade, monetary, immigration and tax policies, the federal government has depressed the value of its citizens’ labor. According to the federal government’s own statistics, the average private sector hourly wage, adjusted for inflation and before taxes, declined from over $9.00 in 1973 to $7.50 in 1996.

During this period, families found it difficult to exist on the wages of the husband alone. Women were pressured to enter the workforce in order to maintain their family’s standard of living. This hardship to family life was sold as “women's liberation.”

Since most women are employed outside the home during the week, weekends are filled with household chores, errands and shopping. Many families lack time for recreation. Paid vacations of two weeks or more, which used to be standard for America’s middle class, are becoming a rarity.

Also, as America’s culture has become less Christian and more materialistic, Sundays are often spent at the shopping mall.

Divorce and cohabitation have become rampant. As a result, 37% of America’s children grow up apart from one or both of their biological parents - the highest percentage among Western nations.

Possibility of Reform

USSR:

“Why don’t people in the Communist countries rebel against the system, or leave, if it’s a bad as we hear it is?”

“Rebellion is never an easy task. It is especially difficult in a totalitarian police state ... we find an extensive system of surveillance ... All Soviet citizens must carry identification papers.”

“Economic and social pressures are now the favourite means of enforcing the party’s demands for strict conformity. ... Punitive unemployment can be the equivalent of a death sentence in the Soviet Union today. Not only does the individual lose his job and housing; no one will hire him.”

“The fact that people who conform get ahead and live more happily also promotes acceptance of the Soviet system.”

USA:

In order to identify and eventually suppress political dissent, which it calls “extremism,” the federal government is increasing surveillance of its own citizens.

The Patriot Act (sic) allows warrantless seizures of private records without probable cause and “sneak and peek” searches of private residences.

For years, the federal government has been using the Social Security Number and Drivers’ License to identify and track its citizens. The government’s use of surveillance cameras is expected to rise sharply.

Again, due to federal government policies, good jobs are hard to find, and once secured, people are reluctant to jeopardise their employment by engaging in dissent or resistance.

Many Americans subscribe to “politically correct” conformist views in order to “get ahead,” or out of a reasonable fear that an honest expression of their views will lead to reprisals, such as getting fired.

Conclusion: USA v. USSR

A “totalitarian” government is defined as one in which an “authoritarian government tolerates only one political party, to which all other institutions are subordinated and which demands the complete subservience of the individual to the state.” OED

Such a government will centralise all political power at the federal level, in order to impose its policies universally and uniformly. The centralised government will feature only one political party (either nominally or in pr actice) in order to limit the scope of political debate and marginalise dissent. Anything that can limit the authority or discretion of government officials, like a written Constitution, is routinely dispensed with. The members of the ruling political party enjoy lavish salaries and privileges. Private property is subject to heavy taxation and the threat of confiscation.

Randolph Bourne observed that for totalitarian governments, “War is the Health of the State.” Such governments respect the sovereignty of other nations as little as that of their own citizenry.

Totalitarian governments insist that all other human institutions - Church, School, Press and Family - must obediently serve their purposes. No institution may rival their power or stand in their way. No person, even the divine Person, may stand above or apart from totalitarian governments. Their subjects are not allowed to pledge allegiance to the State’s being “under God.”

If any person reserves to himself the autonomy to think or act freely, to form his own beliefs and purposes, the totalitarian government will seek his destruction. The complete subservience of individuals to the State means that individuals cannot be free to serve anything or anyone else. The totalitarian State permits no rivalries.

Since totalitarian governments repress human freedom to the point of denying human nature, their own citizens will eventually seek to overthrow them. Totalitarian governments know this, and try to quash incipient rebellion through the use of surveillance and other police-state tactics.

The inexorable conflict between the totalitarian government’s need for repression and man’s desire for freedom can only be resolved by revolution.

The federal government - Not in control

Recent events indicate that the federal government is losing control over parts of the United States and its economy.

The governors of New Mexico and Arizona have declared a state of emergency because the federal government has allowed an invasion of illegal immigrants. In the aftermath of a predicted hurricane, the National Guard was unable to protect our Gulf Coast citizens from violence, looting and a complete breakdown of public order. The price of oil and gasoline is increasingly unaffordable, threatening the existence of our economy’s transportation and distribution network.

Despite these national emergencies, eighty thousand members of the National Guard are in Iraq and Afghanistan, including more than a third of the Louisiana and Mississippi Guard.

The National Guard’s deployment to the Middle East has rendered it less capable of protecting our country’s borders or responding promptly to a natural disaster. The National Guard is part of the organised Militia of the Several States, but the federal government has usurped its Constitutional mission, which is “to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.” U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8

In the face of these domestic calamities, Bush II and the Republicrats remain fixated on foreign countries. They are telling U.S. citizens to “stay the course” on federal government’s military occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush II administration continues to provoke oil-rich Iran and Syria, looking for an excuse to spread war throughout the entire Middle East. One of his so-called Christian supporters, Pat Robertson, has called for the assassination of the Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected President of another oil-rich country, Venezuela.

The federal government seems incapable of dealing with our country’s problems except by attacking other countries. This militaristic and expansionist approach characterised the penultimate phase of another welfare/warfare empire - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as explained by Seweryn Bialer in his book, The Soviet Paradox: External Expansion, Internal Decline.

Mirabile dictu, the USSR’s final phase was the breakup of its federal government on Christmas Day, 1991.

Is the collapse of the federal government impossible, or just, for some, inconceivable?

Some commentators have remarked that not a single media or academic expert predicted the collapse of the USSR.

One reason might be that American establishment had become too emotionally invested in the USSR to be able to conceive of its destruction. Well into the 80s, the political left continued to sympathise with communism in general and the USSR in particular, opposing President Reagan’s hard line and supporting a nuclear freeze. For decades, the Cold War against the Soviets united and galvanised the political right. To varying extents, the full continuum of America’s political establishment defined itself in relation to the USSR. To contemplate its fall was to stare uncomfortably into a void. So no one looked.

But to say that the USSR’s collapse was unpredicted is not to say that it was unpredictable. Looking back, cracks in the Soviet edifice were visibly widening. The collapse of the USSR could have been predicted, even though it was not. But this only confirms Mark Twain’s observation: “The art of prophecy is very difficult, especially in respect to the future.”

For elites and their minions in media and academia, the notion that the United States federal government could collapse is similarly inconceivable. But their inability or unwillingness to imagine such an event does not mean that it is unpredictable. Like their predecessors who missed the harbingers of the Soviet collapse during the 1980s, they are so invested in the status quo that they are blind to the forces that imperil it. If anything, their collective myopia is yet another sign of the federal government’s vulnerability.

As outlined in the first part of this essay, the federal government’s gradual slide into totalitarianism yields numerous points of comparison between the USA and the USSR. These similarities and others suggest that the the federal government may soon imitate the USSR in one conclusive aspect - by unravelling. Examples of these other similarities are:

Demographics: Falling birthrate

A nation that does not invest in its birthrate has no future.

At the time of its dissolution in 1991, the USSR’s birthrate was 17 per thousand. The USSR’s ethnic Europeans, the Russians, were on the verge of becoming a minority. The Russians had dwindled to just 50.2 % of the population of the USSR as a whole.

The remainder of the USSR epitomised the false ideal of diversity, and was an agglomeration of various ethnicity's, nationalities and religions - Asian, Islamic and Pagan. Wikipedia fulsomely praised this ethnic hodgepodge as making the USSR “one of the world’s most ethnically diverse countries.” (But not for long.)

For 2005, the birthrate in the United States is projected to be 14 per thousand, low enough for America to be ranked 164th out of 220 nations.

To deal with this birth dearth, the federal government has not created incentives for childbearing, like Australia did with its “baby bonus” tax credit. Neither has the federal government re-criminalised the twin evils of abortion and homosexuality.

The federal government’s answer to the falling birth rate is to encourage mass immigration. The combination of a falling birth rate and mass immigration from Third World countries means that our country’s European-American population is on the verge of becoming a minority. The Census recently announced that Texas has joined California as “minority-majority State.” European-Americans are projected to become an ethnic minority nationwide by the year 2050. In the meantime, mass immigration is transforming America into a facsimile of the USSR: a powder keg of various national, ethnic and religious groups that sooner or later will detonate.

Decline in Economic Production

The economy of the USSR was notorious for its inefficient and ultimately inadequate economic production. But the undeniable decline of the Soviet economy was not necessarily reflected in all of its official statistics.

Many economists questioned the accuracy of communist countries’ economic data, a product of governments controlled by one political party. Their suspicions were later proven to be well-founded. For example, in 1989, the communist government of the former East Germany announced that its budget deficits, trade deficits and currency inflation rate were much higher than had been previously disclosed. According to the New York Times, this revelation caused “gasps of amazement” from those who attended one its Parliament’s final sessions.

Like the USSR, the federal government’s rosy press releases about the growth in America’s Gross Domestic Product doesn’t necessarily tell the whole story. As was the case with the USSR and East Germany, one-party governments tend to provide inaccurate economic data. Lacking a true opposition party, the Republicrats are free to “cook the books.” No one is watching.

Yet certain undeniable facts indicate a decline in economic production. Congress recently raised the federal government’s debt ceiling to accommodate a debt of more than $8 trillion.

Trade deficits set a record every year, indicating we are consistently producing less and less of what we consume.

Twenty-three percent of working age males are totally and completely unemployed. Record government debt, record trade deficits and widespread unemployment are inconsistent with a growing, productive economy.

So we should be more than sceptical as the federal government rhapsodises about impressive magnitude of our GDP. We should remember that Orwell’s Ministry of Plenty announced every year that the standard of living rose 20%. All the while, life in Oceania grew more miserable, as is citizens toiled to support their totalitarian government and its endless wars.

Currency decline; rising commodity prices

A decline in a nation’s economic production is normally accompanied by a decline in the value of its currency. Why hold a currency unless you are assured you can buy things with it?

In 1988, after decades of economic decline and three years before its dissolution, the USSR had grossly overvalued the ruble relative to the United States Dollar. As of 1988, the ruble’s official exchange rate was .6 ruble to 1$. The unofficial black market exchange rate was 4 to 6 rubles per $1. The market decided that dollars were much better than rubles for buying things.

Like the USSR, the United States faces an internal decline in economic production. But until recently, the United States Dollar has been shored up by its continuing status as the world’s “reserve currency” - a status conferred by foreign investment in the federal government’s dollar-denominated debt securities. The dollar’s “reserve currency” status has enabled federal government to accumulate its $8 trillion debt.

But lately the Dollar has come into unyielding downward pressure relative to the price of an indispensable commodity - oil. Demand for oil tends to be inelastic. Constant US demand for oil coupled with a steep spike in oil prices means a weakening US Dollar. If unchecked, this decline in the dollar will lead foreign investors away from the dollar and towards other currencies or commodities such as gold or oil itself.

Should the federal government’s military misadventures continue, yet another reason to short the dollar will present itself. To hold its value against more expensive commodities, a fiat currency needs plenty of fiat behind it. Like the ruble, the dollar fate’s is tied to the fortunes, or misfortunes, of its government’s Armed Forces.

Military Failures in Afghanistan and the Middle East

After a decade of economic stagnation and decline during the 1970s, the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The resulting Soviet occupation lasted eight years and cost 13,000 Soviet soldiers lives. Dubbed “Brezhnev’s biggest blunder”, the unpopular war set the stage for the rise of Mikhail Gorbachev, who allowed the the USSR to be dissolved.

The federal government’s current attempt to occupy Afghanistan and Iraq is going badly. The present casualty count for American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq is 13,000 dead or wounded.

Public opinion has turned against the Middle Eastern War; it is increasingly unpopular. Yet not one prominent federal Republicrat has called for an end to the war. According to one Congressional Republicrat, the subject is “taboo.”

How long until some start asking the question the Russians did: “Is putting an end to the federal government the only way to end this stupid war?”

The Soviet’s display of military weakness in Afghanistan stirred rebellion from other quarters. The USSR appeared reluctant, perhaps unable, to deal forcefully with other insurgencies and secessionists. After admitting defeat and withdrawing from Afghanistan in February, 1989, the Soviet government had to pivot and confront opposition along its Eastern European border. In January of 1990, various ethnic groups demanded sovereignty for their respective national republics and threatened secession. Chief among them were the Baltic republics, led by Lithuania. In April of 1990, Gorbachev admitted that secession was legally possible. In May, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia all declared their independence, and pronounced that Baltic conscripts were no longer required to serve in the Red Army. The USSR collapsed the following year.

The federal government is now questioning whether its own military strategies and capabilities are sufficient for it to carry out its purposes. Its politicians openly question where the federal government is going to get the troops necessary to carry out its missions. The Pentagon has admitted that its “two major regional conflict” strategy is inadequate and outmoded.

Will not this show of weakness embolden those who would oppose the federal government by insurgency or secession? Like the Soviet government of yesteryear, has not the federal government breached Machiavelli’s advice in two important respects, becoming neither loved nor feared?

Conclusion:

Totalitarian governments rule their citizens with power, not principle. Because they deny the existence of a higher authority or higher law, they wage atheistic campaigns against the Christian religion. They deal with falling birth rates by promoting multiculturalism and immigration. When they face a decline in economic production, they resort to currency manipulations and finally, military interventionism, e.g., the “Brezhnev doctrine” or the “Bush doctrine.”

The internal decline that is inevitably the fate of totalitarian states cannot be remedied by their external expansion. The necrosis of a State, or of its people, cannot be cured by allowing it to spread to other States and other peoples. In a futile attempt to outstrip the effects of internal decline, the totalitarian government’s expansionist ambitions will overtake the its military capabilities. The shortfall will result in its failing occupation of foreign States, and its inability to provide for the welfare of its domestic State and its own citizens.

The domestic failures of totalitarian States eventually cause widespread dissatisfaction in their citizens. Then, the political upheaval involved in dissolving their federal governments will appear to them no more threatening than what they already face - the collapse of public order or the disappearance of their nations’ borders.

What happened to the USSR can happen here, and for the sake of America’s citizens, and their forefathers, and their children, will happen here.

Tags: US, USSR, economy, collapse