"Akabano"

In the news Today:

July 20, 2010
FreeRepublic.com
An Iced Tea Party?--Mary Frances Berry defends the Tea Party from charges of racism!!!

"Tainting the tea party movement with the charge of racism is proving to be an effective strategy for Democrats. There is no evidence that tea party adherents are any more racist than other Republicans, and indeed many other Americans. But getting them to spend their time purging their ranks and having candidates distance themselves should help Democrats win in November. Having one’s opponent rebut charges of racism is far better than discussing joblessness."
Mary Frances Berry
Professor of American Social Thought and Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania
Former chairwoman of the United States Commission on Civil Rights

In the news Today:

May 2, 2010
From New York Post
EU agrees to bail out Greece

BRUSSELS — European governments and the International Monetary Fund today committed to pull Greece back from the brink of default, agreeing on euro110 billion in emergency loans on the condition Athens make painful budget cuts and tax increases.

Related History:

Throughout history, governments have used inflation to relieve the burden of government debts, the most famous example being Germany's Weimar Republic between the two world wars, where easy-money policies, driven in part by the need to repay American loans that it had used to pay war reparations, caused hyperinflation.
From: Investmentnews.com

In the news Today:

March 26, 2010
From Presstv.ir
Final US healthcare changes approved

The US Congress approves final healthcare changes. After removing two provisions from President Barack Obama's healthcare bill, the US Congress has approved a package of final changes. The new package would make insurance more affordable, raise taxes on the wealthy and close a gap for prescription drug coverage for seniors. The House of Representative on Thursday passed the reform bill by a 220 to 207 vote. The US Senate also approved the overhaul by a 56 to 43 margin earlier in the day. The bill now goes to Obama for his signature. The House had passed the legislation on Sunday, but had to approve the changes again after the Senate parliamentarian ordered two minor provisions on the student loan revamp be removed. The legislation will extend health coverage to 32 millions of uninsured Americans, bringing to 95 percent the proportion of under-65 US citizens with private insurance.

Related History:

"As if we’re not already overextended enough financially, the issue of National Health Care is now on the table once more vote. Here’s some perspective you might find interesting.
Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.
One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it."
Ronald Reagan Speech 1961
More from No! FannieMed

"We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government,"
Fidel Castro 2010

“Che Guevara used to say” noted Chavez, “that doctors had to be at the center of the heart of the people,” and added that 2,480 Venezuelan medical students, along with a group of professors, will return from Cuba to continue studying in Venezuela, where they will join the 24,300 students currently attending Venezuelan medical schools -of whom 8,000 are in fifth year.

All of them have been assigned a short term mission: completing the staff of doctors at the people’s clinics by the second half of October -which is good news for the Venezuelan people.

“These programs are powerful instruments,” Chávez said, “They were born of the union of two revolutions, and we move forward every day.” Chavez sent his regards to the Venezuelan and Cuban members of the brigade and said that this recognition was an expression of gratitude toward Cuba and its people, which will last forever and ever.”
Article about Hugo Chávez from periodico26.cu

"They have gun control in Cuba. They have universal health care in Cuba. So why do they want to come here?"
Paul Harvey Quote from quotes.liberty-tree.ca

"If the people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson Quote from quotes.liberty-tree.ca

"Communism and socialism is [sic] seductive. It promises us that people will contribute according to ability and receive according to needs. Everybody is equal. Everybody has a right to decent housing, decent food and affordable medical care. History should have taught us that when we hear people talk this stuff -- watch out!"
Walter E. Williams Quote from quotes.liberty-tree.ca

In the news Today:

February 26, 2010
CNN Poll: Majority says government a threat to citizens' rights
From CNN Deputy Political Director Paul Steinhauser

Washington (CNN) – A majority of Americans think the federal government poses a threat to rights of Americans, according to a new national poll. Fifty-six percent of people questioned in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Friday say they think the federal government's become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. Forty-four percent of those polled disagree.

Related History:

"What constitutes the bulwark of our own liberty and independence? It is not... the guns of our war steamers, or the strength of our gallant and disciplined army... our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in our bosoms." --Abraham Lincoln, 1858

"Obviously, a man's judgment cannot be better than the information on which he has based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning process, and make him something less than a man." --Arthur Hays Sulzberger, 1891-1968, American newspaper publisher

Daniel Webster: "God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it."

Found on the wall of Dachau when it was liberated in 1944. It was written by the Protestant Clergyman Martin Niemuhler (Niemoller). "When they came to get the Jews I didn't say anything because I wasn't one of them. When the Nazis came to get the Blacks I didn't say anything because I wasn't one of them. When they took the crippled, the mentally unstable and the insane away I didn't say anything. When they took the Catholics away I didn't say anything because I wasn't one of them. Now I can't say anything because they have come and taken me away."

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle! Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did, and it never will. Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." --Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857

In the news Today:

Monday, April 13, 2009
From U.S. Department of Homeland Security,
Office of Intelligence and Analysis Assessment.
Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.

"Rightwing extremism in the United States can be broadly divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration." More from rogerhedgecock.com

Related History:

Regarding State and Local Authority:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Regarding opposition to "Illegal" immigration:
"This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." Article VI, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution.

In the news Today:

Thursday, April 09, 2009
Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better. More from Rasmussen Reports

Related History:

“Education should aim at destroying free will so that after pupils are thus schooled they will be incapable . . . of thinking or acting otherwise than as their school masters would have wished.” - Bertrand Russell

“This [Outcome-Based Education plan] is the idea where we drop subject matter and we drop Carnegie Units (grading from A-F) and we just let students find their way, keeping them in school until they manifest the politically correct attitudes. You see, one of the effects of self-esteem (Values Clarification) programs is that you are no longer obliged to tell the truth if you don’t feel like it. You don’t have to tell the truth because if the truth you have to tell is about your own failure, then your self-esteem will go down and that is unthinkable.” - William Coulson

"Children are the prize to the winners of the Great Civil War of Values. Those who control what young people are taught and what they experience — what they see, hear, think, and believe, will determine the future course for the nation. Given that influence, the predominant value system of an entire culture can be overhauled in one generation, or certainly in two, by those with unlimited access to children." Children at Risk by James C. Dobson , Gary Lee Bauer

"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built." The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln edited by Roy P. Basler, Volume VII, "Reply to New York Workingmen's Democratic Republican Association" (March 21, 1864), pp. 259-260.

"The true foundation of republican government is the equal right of every citizen in his person and property and in their management." --Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:36

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery. Winston Churchill