Thursday, November 26, 2009

BLINDSIDED

By Michael R. Shannon

Last week marked the debut of two movies featuring overweight black teenagers as the central character. Movie reviewers (a chronic incubator of "progressive" thinking) found one movie "important," "inspiring," "compelling," "transformative" and "a triumph." It won the Grand Jury & Audience awards at the Sundance Film Festival and received a 15-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival.
The other movie was described as "unremarkable," "undemanding," "superficial," "obvious" and "unsatisfying" with an overall failing grade of 57 percent at the Rotten Tomatoes web site.
From the following descriptions, can you guess which movie was the darling of the intellectual set and which movie resonates with Wal-Mart shoppers? (Warning mild to detailed plot spoilers to come.)
In Precious, a functionally illiterate, morbidly obese, black teenage girl is raped repeatedly by her father. One incestuous coupling produces an infant with Down syndrome. Precious lives at home with a cruel and physically abusive mother in a ghetto neighborhood. She is withdrawn, hates her appearance, uses fantasy as a coping mechanism and has no social skills.
A second pregnancy results in her being sent to an alternative school where a lesbian teacher and social worker combine to try and reach the girl hidden inside her shell. The movie ends with Precious, who is still the size of the Hindenburg, landing in a new government program and being informed that during one of his rapes her "father" has infected her with AIDS.
In 1987, the time period of the movie, this is a death sentence.
The Blind Side starts with Michael Oher functionally illiterate, living on the streets in a ghetto neighborhood, with a crack 'ho for a mother, eating discarded concession stand food, possessing only a single change of clothes, hidden in a shell, with no social skills.
So far what's not to like about The Blind Side? Sounds like the movie is well on the way to wild applause on the film festival circuit.
But then differences rear their ugly heads.
In The Blind Side an evangelical Christian white woman takes Michael into her home and into her family. He is given a scholarship to a prestigious Christian school and a private tutor - hired by his new family - brings his grades up. Michael starts to play football and earns a scholarship to a major university. He grows to love his adopted family and becomes a new person.
At the university, Michael achieves All-American football status, his grades put him on the Dean's List, he is drafted in the NFL's first round by the Baltimore Ravens and, judging from the pictures over the credits, he has slimmed down without resorting to fad diets.
In "elite opinion" circles a black person is allowed to indulge in many varieties of degraded behavior and exhibit any number of dangerous pathologies without causing so much as a raised eyebrow, but nothing keeps elite festival-attendee behinds in the seats like the hero relying on white people, the private sector or a Christian to change his life.
As the reviewer for the Village Voice hissed, "the (Blind Side) peddles the most insidious kind of racism, one in which whiteys are virtuous saviors, coming to the rescue of African-Americans who become superfluous in narratives that are supposed to be about them."
"Progressives" are much more comfortable with white people dragging black teenagers behind pickup trucks. It confuses them when Christians act like Christians.
Precious a feel-good movie for liberals because what miniscule progress the girl makes is facilitated by a lesbian teacher, a social worker and a halfway house. It's a trifecta for modern "progressives!"
"Progressives" watch Precious and pretend to empathize while still feeling superior. Because Precious does not ask the uncomfortable question of why aren't YOU doing more to help, because, as the New York Times says, "An unstated but self-evident moral of Precious, . is that government can provide not only a safety net, but also, in small and consequential ways, a lifeline."
So the viewer is personally off the hook, just keep voting for Gerry Connolly and stand by for Nirvana.
Christians see The Blind Side and feel inadequate because the movie asks Christians in the audience are you doing enough? And the answer is no, we are not doing enough. We need to do more. We need to do it now.
Christians and conservatives (not always one and the same) complain that Hollywood doesn't make good movies. But if Christians want Hollywood to make good movies, then Christians have to buy tickets to see the good movie Hollywood makes.
The Blind Side is that good movie. Unless you are a "progressive intellectual" you will enjoy it, but you will also wonder what can you do to make a difference?
You don't have to start a foundation, pass legislation or ride your unicycle across America to raise money. Just take the advice of Thomas a Kempis: "Do the duty nearest you."
Michael R. Shannon is a public relations and advertising consultant with corporate, government and political experience around the globe. He is a dynamic and entertaining keynote speaker. He can be reached at michael-shannon@comcast.net.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

WHO WANTS A JOB?

By James Nathan Post

Like to play around with numbers? Let's say you are single, and have no dependents. You get a minimum wage job. If the MW is about $6 (to keep the arithmetic easy), and you work 40 hours, your gross earnings are $240. Your SS and IRS deductions will each be about $10. If you drive about 25 miles going to work and back, you'll spend about $20 a week on gasoline. Liability (only) on a cheap old car will run you about $80 a month, or $20 of that weekly check. Lunch is probably a burger combo on the run, at $5 a day, or $25 the week. After those deductions and daily expenses, your weekly take-home is about $150.

Not included in those figures is a payment on the car you need to have the job ($120/month?), uniforms or other special clothes, using a coin-op laundry for cleaning ($10/week?), makeup and grooming ($5?), and parking costs ($5?). If these are included, your net discretionary income is $100 a week.

That is to say, you must spend 60% of a minimum wage income for taxes, transportation, and lunch just to service the job. Counting the two hours you must commit to rise, dress, and drive, the lunch hour you aren't paid for, and eight hours of sacktime, you have five hours a day left in which to live the life you are working for, and $20 each working day to spend. If you are very careful, and save $5 of that each day, you will be able to buy a pizza and a 12-pack of beer for the weekend.

Not included in these figures are your rent, utilities, other food, and whatever you do besides eat, sleep, and work…. and oh, yes, your health care.

Get a better job, you say? How about a good job, breaking that $10 per hour barrier? OK, start with $400 a week gross, and deduct IRS and SS at about $30. You'll be able to afford a newer car, raising your payment to $50 a week, and adding comprehensive ups your insurance to $40. You'll be able to eat at a restaurant for lunch at $10. You will likely need to improve your wardrobe, and add dry cleaning costs, as well as professional grooming. Even only doubling those from the very frugal costs above, that will consume $40. This goes way up if you are a woman. You drive to work in a nicer car, wear a nicer outfit, and you get to sit down to eat. Now you are left with $190 you can call your own (before your rent and living costs... and your health care), which is $38 per working day. If you are very careful, and save that extra $8, you will be able to take your sweetie to a movie on Saturday, and buy a bag of popcorn to go with that pizza and the 12-pack.

It surprises me to hear people whine they just don't understand why our youth, when told they need education to get a job, decide they don't want one, and drop out of school to hang out with their friends selling weed to the working man to buy the beer.
James Nathan Post Albuquerque NM www.postpubco.com/anticyclops.htm VYDYOFYL James Nathan Post
Have friends who would appreciate reading something warm-hearted and fun for the Holidays? The three stories in this trilogy of novelettes capture the character of old 1850's New Mexico, and also the mystery and enchantment of today. From the drunken chile farmer Cabrito who wins The Devil's Own Horse, and declares God has made him the town of Lastima's new priest, to little Chulita who prays for a miracle for the town's celebration of La Posada, to Buck Tyler, the archaeology prof who gets trapped in an ancient ceremonial cave, with a psychic Indian girl and the spirit of the old Medicine Chief "El Cacique"...

THREE TALES IN LASTIMA

bon appetit, and best wishes,
James

Saturday, November 21, 2009

DOGS ARE JUST LIKE PEOPLE

By Jim Beers

Fifteen years ago I was washing my golden retriever (Bud, short for Budweiser King of Beers) with soap and water and rinsing him with tomato juice in my Virginia yard. My lawyer neighbor saw the dog all wet and looking truly "sheepish" and wanted to know what I was doing. I told him the dog had just bungled into his first skunk and that despite my commands (at this point I nudged the dog with my elbow), mister he-knows-best walked right into a full spray from a pretty large skunk. When my lawyer neighbor then said that it probably taught the dog a lesson (he was neither woodsy nor a dog guy), I told him it only taught the dog one of two things based on my experience. Either he will kill every skunk he sees from now on or he will avoid every skunk he blunders into from now on. The truth of this was never born out because Bud (to the best of my knowledge) never met up with another skunk.
This truth was taught me at an early age. We raised Dobermans when I was young and once they were let out of their pens to run in the yard and one of the male "dobes" got sprayed by a skunk, evidently before the skunk snuck back out under a low spot in the fence. About two weeks later that male Doberman (Red) came back to the house smelling of skunk. I went out to see where the skunk had gotten in the yard and what I found was shredded skunk in several locations. To my knowledge no skunks ever came back in our yard.
A few years later I was quail hunting in Arkansas with some relatives of some brothers I hunted ducks with back in Illinois. The bird dog was an Irish Setter. As she wandered into the edge of some woods bordering a field we were working she suddenly came running back out toward her owner. When I looked into where she had came from (hogs were a common problem) I yelled out that there was a skunk in there where the dog had just run from. His owner just looked disgusted and said she had been sprayed by a skunk a couple of years earlier and ever since she ran from them like a little kid running from a bully.
I thought about old Bud and Red the other day as President Obama cautioned us all to not rush to judgment about the Army "Major" that killed and wounded all those innocent military personnel at Fort Hood. As he prattled on about law enforcement requirements and trials and how the poor "Major" just snapped I was outraged. My thoughts went back to President Bush telling us all right after 9/11 that those that perpetrated this would pay for it. President Bush kept us attack-free for 7 ½ years and now we see both incidents and increasing terror incidents since the new President took office.
President Bush reminds me of my Doberman Red. When Red killed that skunk and left a lot of carnage, the skunks stayed away from our yard for years and years.
President Obama reminds me of that Irish Setter in Arkansas (whose name I don't even remember) that ran from every skunk it encountered for the rest of its life. Skunks never paid her any attention and probably not only nested under her porch but likely ate from her food dish at night.
If you want to keep the skunks away, get a Doberman: if you want skunks under the porch, get an Irish Setter. If you want a safe and free America, elect a conservative. If you want a smelly home that isn't fit to live in, elect liberal radicals that will infest the Congress and the White House with poisonous fumes that will soon cause you to have to abandon your own home.
See, dogs are just like people.
Jim Beers Veterans Day, 11 November 2009

TRAGEDY AT FT HOOD

By Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (US Army, Ret)

This past Thursday 13 American Soldiers were killed and another 30 wounded at a horrific mass shooting at US Army installation, Ft Hood Texas . As I watched in horror and then anger I recalled my two years of final service in the Army as a Battalion Commander at Ft Hood, 2002-2004.
My wife and two daughters were stunned at the incident having lived on the post in family housing.
A military installation, whether it is Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine, or Coast Guard, is supposed to be a safe sanctuary for our Warriors and their families. It is intended to provide a home whereby our “Band of Brothers and Sisters” can find solace and bond beyond just the foxhole but as family units.
A military installation is supposed to be a place where our Warriors train for war, to serve and protect our Nation.
On Thursday, 5 November 2009 Ft Hood became a part of the battlefield in the war against Islamic totalitarianism and state sponsored terrorism.
There may be those who feel threatened by my words and would even recommend they not be uttered. To those individuals I say step aside because now is not the time for cowardice. Our Country has become so paralyzed by political correctness that we have allowed a vile and determined enemy to breach what should be the safest place in America , an Army post.
We have become so politically correct that our media is more concerned about the stress of the shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan. The misplaced benevolence intending to portray him as a victim is despicable. The fact that there are some who have now created an entire new classification called; “pre-virtual vicarious Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)” is unconscionable.
This is not a “man caused disaster”. It is what it is, an Islamic jihadist attack.
We have seen this before in 2003 when a SGT Hasan of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) threw hand grenades and opened fire into his Commanding Officer’s tent in Kuwait . We have seen the foiled attempt of Albanian Muslims who sought to attack Ft Dix, NJ. Recently we saw a young convert to Islam named Carlos Bledsoe travel to Yemen, receive terrorist training, and return to gun down two US Soldiers at a Little Rock, Arkansas Army recruiting station. We thwarted another Islamic terrorist plot in North Carolina which had US Marine Corps Base, Quantico as a target.
What have we done with all these prevalent trends? Nothing.
What we see are recalcitrant leaders who are refusing to confront the issue, Islamic terrorist infiltration into America , and possibly further into our Armed Services. Instead we have a multiculturalism and diversity syndrome on steroids.
Major Hasan should have never been transferred to Ft Hood, matter of fact he should have been Chaptered from the Army. His previous statements, poor evaluation reports, and the fact that the FBI had him under investigation for jihadist website posting should have been proof positive.
However, what we have is a typical liberal approach to find a victim, not the 13 and 30 Soldiers and Civilian, but rather the poor shooter. A shooter who we are told was a great American, who loved the Army and serving his Nation and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) stating that his actions had nothing to do with religious belief.
We know that Major Hasan deliberately planned this episode; he did give away his possessions. He stood atop a table in the confined space of the Soldier Readiness Center shouting “Allahu Akhbar”, same chant as the 9-11 terrorists and those we fight against overseas in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters of operation.
No one in leadership seems willing to sound the alarm for the American people; they are therefore complicit in any future attacks. Our Congress should suspend the insidious action to vote on a preposterous and unconstitutional healthcare bill and resolve the issue of “protecting the American people”.
The recent incidents in Dearborn Michigan , Boston Massachusetts , Dallas Texas , and Chicago Illinois should bear witness to the fact that we have an Islamic terrorism issue in America . And don’t have CAIR call me and try to issue a vanilla press statement; they are an illegitimate terrorist associated organization which should be disbanded.
We have Saudi Arabia funding close to 80% of the mosques in the United States , one right here in South Florida, Pompano Beach . Are we building churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia ? Are “Kaffirs” and “Infidels” allowed travel to Mecca ?
So much for peaceful coexistence.
Saudi Arabia is sponsoring radical Imams who enter into our prisons and convert young men into a virulent Wahabbist ideology….one resulting in four individuals wanting to destroy synagogues in New York with plastic explosives. Thank God the explosives were dummy. They are sponsoring textbooks which present Islamic centric revisionist history in our schools.
We must recognize that there is an urgent need to separate the theo-political radical Islamic ideology out of our American society. We must begin to demand surveillance of suspected Imams and mosques that are spreading hate and preaching the overthrow of our Constitutional Republic……that speech is not protected under First Amendment, it is sedition and if done by an American treason.
There should not be some 30 Islamic terrorist training camps in America that has nothing to do with First Amendment, Freedom of Religion. The Saudis are not our friends and any American political figure who believes such is delusional.
When tolerance becomes a one way street it certainly leads to cultural suicide. We are on that street. Liberals cannot be trusted to defend our Republic, because their sympathies obviously lie with their perceived victim, Major Nidal Malik Hasan.
I make no apologies for these words, and anyone angered by them, please, go to Ft Hood and look into the eyes of the real victims. The tragedy at Ft Hood Texas did not have to happen. Consider now the feelings of those there and on every military installation in the world. Consider the feelings of the Warriors deployed into combat zones who now are concerned that their loved ones at home are in a combat zone.
Ft Hood suffered an Islamic jihadist attack, stop the denial, and realize a simple point.
The reality of your enemy must become your own.
Steadfast and Loyal,
Lieutenant Colonel Allen B West (US Army, Ret)

A LESSON IN THE CARNAGE

By Jim Beers

This is being written the morning after the shooting rampage by a Moslem US Army Major at Fort Hood Texas. Watching the continual news coverage and the questions asked and statements given by both the media and the US Army, there appears to be an aspect of this that is both misunderstood and that we should all consider.
As a former Naval Officer that lived on a ship and on a Naval Base as well as someone that has been on numerous Navy and Army bases over a long government career as both a law enforcement officer and biologist, I am surprised by the naiveté of reporters and the general public regarding the presence of guns on military bases. The diminishing number of citizens that have "served" in the military probably has lots to do with this ignorance. This common misperception reinforces such dangerous fantasies as gun control, gun-free zones, and the elimination of the Constitutional "right" in the 2nd Amendment "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
While modern day citizens often think this "right" only applies to hunting or target practice, modern dictatorships like Russia and its former satellites also allow "favored" citizens to hunt and target practice but their guns are held by the police or Army and only checked out when government grants such specific use to "cooperative subjects" for a specific time period. Please watch the news for the current gun violence and unsolved political assassinations that go on every day in "gun-free" Russia. "Gun-free" nations and nations without a 2nd Amendment "Right" not subject to the power of governments to deny are not safer, nor are they places to be emulated by freedom-loving Americans concerned about themselves, their families, and their neighbors.
American Military Bases in the United States are "gun-free" zones. None, to my knowledge recognize the concealed carry rights of licensed gun owners in the state in which the base is located, that means no civilian or military personnel can possess or carry any handgun anywhere on the base. Searching automobiles and trucks going onto the base is a totally impossible task. Those that live on the base must "register" all the guns they own, the guns must be kept unloaded, cased, and in the home. Transport and use of any rifle or shotgun (special hunts on the base or target practice) is only by permit from the Provost (Military Police or Shore Patrol). [Special Note: One "politically ambitious" Base Commander hoping to attract the attention of the newly elected anti-gun politicians in Washington even tried recently to make military personnel living OFF- Base report all guns they owned OFF-Base. "YOO HOO, over here Attorney General Holder, look at me: wouldn't I make a great 2, 3, or 4 Star General?]
The Bottom line is that all military arms and ammunition on the base are carefully kept locked up in the arsenal and only issued for shooting practice or for law enforcement. Only MP's or SP's carry weapons on duty and evidently even a dwindling number of them are armed on duty as law enforcement officers. Enforcement, like everything else, is being "contracted out" to "female-owned" companies or "minority-owned" enterprises or in this case the "Local Police". So you see, the Base is a "gun-free zone" just like:
- Columbine High School shot up by disgruntled students.
- The New York Government office shot up by a disgruntled immigrant welfare recipient.
- Chicago and Washington DC streets shot up by gangs, drug dealers, and robbers.
- Virginia Tech where a loner killed fellow students at will.
- National Parks, Government Buildings, Post Offices, and growing numbers of National Wildlife Refuges where crime rates grow both in reality and in the lurid justifications of bureaucrats seeking more money, more employees, and more supreme authoritarian authority for a social environment they create for themselves.
There are many other such examples but my time and your patience are limited.
In the twisted mind of some anti-infidel Moslem; in the fantasies of some children soaked in fantasy worlds; in the minds of fatherless, violent, school dropout, gang members; in the mind of some displaced person depressed about the loss of his culture and uncaring neighbors; as well as in the mind of robbers, rapists, and just plain vicious persons - one thing is sure. When they plan to "get even" or "show them" or " get some loot" or "rape and kill" or "make a statement" they gravitate to places where they are reasonably sure that they can maximize or just achieve their evil intent. The more sure they are sure of a "gun-free zone" (be it an apartment in New York City, or a "gun-free" mall parking lot at night, or a school, or a church, or a Boston alley, or even a US Military Base but not near the arsenal or the shooting range evidently), the more likely they are to perpetrate their atrocities. One need look no further than the comment yesterday by a relative of the Moslem US Major about how he "hated" going to the shooting range. Why do you suppose he chose to shoot up the helpless and unarmed occupants of the Administrative Area instead of the "hated" shooting range and its ARMED occupants? Duh.
All of this is conjecture and reflects our deeply held beliefs. The anti-gun person says, "this would never happen if there were no guns". The pro-gun person says, "this would never get started, or if it did it would be quickly stopped, if more citizens were armed in all such places". Proving either of these is just like "proving" if "the Stimulus worked" or if Socialism "worked". One side says it only failed because "we didn't do enough": while the other says it failed because "we did it". Suffice it to say that if I or you were in Columbine or that NY Government office or at Virginia Tech or on a dark Chicago street or at Fort Hood yesterday you would quickly realize that only if you were armed was there any chance to save our own life and/or the lives of those around us. When I was a law enforcement officer and bar room discussions got around to what caliber or model of gun was best (another never-ending discussion) I would always say the if, God forbid, I ever HAD to use my gun I would hope I had a bazooka (I am old, today I would hope for a Metalstorm, electronic ignition, multiple barrel, 9mm, automatic firing 16K rounds/second).
There are reasons of military discipline and décor (you can't have soldiers, sailors, etc. going around with "one-sided tummy rolls" in uniform. There are often military behavior problems on and near bases but anyone that is a danger carrying a gun doesn't belong in the military (see yesterday's "Major"). Be that as it may, each reader should consider the exceedingly high rate of incidents and violence where guns are prohibited but most importantly think about how a gun in your possession or in the possession of a neighbor or coworker may be the ONLY thing between you and your maker.
Permitted concealed-carry gun owners assume great responsibility and liability when they go armed. They not only deter crime and criminals in the act of attempting violence, they create an atmosphere of uncertainty in the minds of violence-prone individuals that, like so many other things is immeasurable but real. Public perception of areas where guns are forbidden attract and encourage the worst among us to take advantage of others for nefarious purposes.
May God take those that died yesterday to His bosom and may those hurt yesterday be healed both in body and in spirit. Amen.
Jim Beers 6 November 2009

SHAME, SHAME!

The following is a Letter to the Editor of my St. Paul Pioneer Press concerning an article published as a feature Op-ed on the 4 November, 8B editorial page. It was titled "Wind power has threats of its own" by Michael Fry, and was written for the Los Angeles Times. JB
By Jim Beers
Shame on Michael Fry (director of conservation advocacy for the American Bird Conservancy) and the US Fish and Wildlife Service and all their duplicitous cohorts for the hidden agenda sold so smoothly in the recent Op-ed piece, "Wind power has threats of its own". The crocodile tears they shed for "sage grouse" and "prairie chickens" unable "to engage in cacophonous courtship" "each spring" due to wind turbines are disgusting.
So, "bird collisions (with swirling turbine blades) are mounting" while "Environmentalists and the wind industry have been discussing for several years how to protect birds" (like "Eagles, hawks, and falcons")? So "pressure from conservation groups" and the US Fish and Wildlife Service "Wind Advisory Committee" have agreed to "early consultations" with wind developers? So all these worthies hope to develop "recommendations" "to be released next year" and that may be "voluntary"?
The dirty little secret here is that ever since modern wind turbines began cropping up all over (Russia in 1931; UK in 1954; and the American Wind Energy Association in Washington, DC in 1974) they have killed billions of birds. They are "scientifically and exactly" located where wind (and coincidentally bird movement and migration routes) is most prevalent. Local predators and scavengers soon learn to clean up the evidence during the periodic abundance of dead birds apparently "falling from the sky".
Dismissing the assertion that such devices can ever replace oil, coal, gas, and nuclear power - where was the US Fish and Wildlife Service and all these "concerned environmentalists" and their lobby groups for the past four decades? If those "turbines" were oil pumps or derricks or radio towers killing birds, they would have been quickly forbidden in a flurry of righteous indignation and donations by incensed activists to their lobbyists complete with "payments" by the "bird-killing" oil folks or others to beg public forgiveness. The same goes for similar myriad federal private property "takings" without compensation under auspices such as the Endangered Species based on similarly specious claims of harm to birds as near Austin, Texas and elsewhere. If these groups were truly "concerned" they would develop management practices to keep bird abundance as we advance American society, instead they use these inevitable clashes of man and an ever-adapting environment as excuses to dismantle American society.
What this 11th hour conversion by federal bureaucrats and their environmental partners-in-crime is all about is a thinly veiled but audacious attempt to get what they have been trying to otherwise get for decades with unproven "science" and bureaucratic maneuverings on federal lands. That is, stealing State jurisdiction over sage grouse and prairie chickens. State bureaucrats are AWOL here because they have come to rely on federal grants like drug users on their pusher. These radical federal bureaucrats and lobby groups intend to manipulate such federal authority (ostensibly cloaked as "saving" these widely occurring birds) to depress and eliminate rural community improvements, grazing, energy development, hunting, road building, ranch operations, animal control, rural land values, etc. all over the Upper Plains and Northern Rocky Mountain states.
Shame, shame on them; and shame on you for publishing this two-faced propaganda. Why shame on you Pioneer Press? Shame on you for publishing this energy development and energy production killing tripe right after your front page trumpets how the "cap-and-trade" political chicanery by these same perpetrators and their political enablers was responsible for the recent death of the Big Stone II, a large energy production facility vital to future Minnesota and Upper Midwest power needs.
We used to pray to be saved from communism or the Russians or the Chinese: today we should pray to be saved from ourselves.
Jim Beers 4 November 2009

WHO YA' GONNA CALL?

By Jim Beers

A retired Minnesota law enforcement officer just "lost his face and ear" to a bulldog. The latest report is that he is slipping in and out of a coma. His girlfriend reported that the attack came quietly and without warning as she was upstairs. The dog was purchased from a "rescue" source in Houston, Texas and according to reports the rescue outfit actually traveled to Minnesota to inspect the retired officer and his living arrangements before permitting him to adopt the dog.
In Nova Scotia, Canada a 19-year-old girl hiking in the Cape Breton Highlands National Park (located on a large island compromising the NE one-fourth of the Province of Nova Scotia) was recently killed by a "pair of coyotes". While Provincial and animal rights "biologists" warble about how "rare" such incidents are, and about how the coyotes probably came "across the (several decades-old) causeway connecting the island to the mainland" another explanation is emerging. Several lifelong Nova Scotia residents report how the Provincial Wildlife Authorities "introduced" the coyotes in the 1980's "to control rabbits that were destroying large tree plantations and plantings." One resident that has lived for decades near one such tree farm reports how the coyote population exploded upon introduction in the 1980's and how "packs of coyotes" up to as many as seven were common and increasingly aggressive, dangerous and hostile to humans in the areas. He was "not surprised" by the fatal attack. As with the historic (from colonial times) coyotes in the Eastern US and the recently returning (since the 1970's) coyotes in the NE US, these coyotes are reportedly very large as well as aggressive (like one on cape Cod that tried to kill and drag a toddler out of his backyard in broad daylight.)
Minnesota urbanites are all atwitter as I write this about recent reports of "a" (or several?) mountain lion in the river bottoms that skirt the southern Twin Cities area. The State DNR is pretty sure (as opposed their decades of denials about numerous reports from N Minnesota) that there is a cougar in the bottoms. Their advice is to keep your pets on a leash and to "remember" that cougars are protected in Minnesota and may not be harassed or harmed. Gun carrying of concealed weapons, open holstered guns, or gun bans in parks and certain urban areas have not been modified as party-goers speculate about how exciting it would be to glimpse a cougar.
Minnesota has many wolves. A recent multi-page article in the Minnesota paper about the steady decrease in moose numbers cited "experts" prattling on endlessly about how "global warming" is the culprit. Curiously, there was no mention of wolf predation as the decrease in moose numbers follows the increase in wolf numbers and distribution in Minnesota since their protection by federal authorities. Like the expanding cougar population in California following their protection by an animal rights ballot initiative, Minnesota wolves kill adult male moose in the winter but a steady wolf harvest of cows and calves (just like the California cougars learned how to do with California Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep or Nevada coyotes learned how to do with Pronghorn Antelope) will steadily decrease the prey numbers while eventually making them "Endangered" and even "extinct in ." unless the predators are regularly killed and their numbers and distribution are kept lower.
Iowa has had several mountain lions reported in recent years. Iowa state biologists likewise deny their presence while warning everyone that they are protected and a "valuable" part of "the ecosystem". When South Dakota state biologists parroted that animal rights/environmental line several years ago while increasing mountain lion populations were killing South Dakota livestock and pets and threatening people, it took a massive effort by ranchers and rural residents to have the legislature finally force the state "nature worshippers" to allow for a healthy harvest of cougars every year to keep their numbers and effects tolerable.
When wolves killed a young man hiking in Saskatchewan, the Provincial Wildlife Authorities at first denied it was wolves and then fought any stories about the danger of living near wolves or about the difficulty of being able to defend yourself against wolves (or coyotes, or mountain lions, or grizzly bears, or black bears, or wild dogs). No Provincial or National Wildlife Authorities, just as in the USA State or Federal Wildlife Authorities, took any responsibility for failing to protect citizens, commerce, and human activities from numerous, protected and uncontrolled predators. Handguns in Canada are still prohibited from Cape Breton National Park to Saskatchewan and British Columbia. The point being that while Canadians, just like Americans are free to run their nation as they will, the young lady in the Park or the young man in Saskatchewan would have had at least a chance to live if they could have and did avail themselves of carrying a pistol as they hiked in a Park or in winter brushlands near a mining town where deadly abound - of this there can be no doubt.
Deaths and attacks by grizzly bears on humans in British Columbia, Canada are reported similarly to deadly and damaging attacks by California and Colorado cougars are reported as "unusual" and "rare" and often "the fault of the (hiker, biker, camper, hunter, etc.)" that "failed to 'puff up'" or that "ran instead of (what??)". The numbers and distributions of wolves, coyotes, bears, cougars, and wild dogs are invariably and almost always under-reported by government authorities concerned about being tagged as "inefficient" or as "uncaring". When such incidents or complaints occur they are never reported with any accuracy just as when wild claims are more and more cooperatively confirmed by "experts" when made by animal rights/environmental groups as they are either on a rampage or threatening to sue.
The situation is disgraceful. Rescue organizations and state wildlife authorities have evolved from admirable enterprises into threats to society, American freedoms, human lives and families.
Persons concerned about mistreated animals are to be admired for their concern. That they take in animals that others abandon or willingly surrender is a credit to their activity. It does not give them any traction in our free Republic to use their concerns as a reason to pass laws, seize private property, gain law enforcement authority and discourage animal breeding, animal use, and animal control by private owners and government. Not only have many "rescue" outfits done all these things, they have discouraged people from buying puppies from reputable breeders by untrue myths about mistreated adult dogs like the above bulldog being suitable for families and even a retired law enforcement officer. IF you want to "adopt" such a dog, good for you but to tell families that such dogs (as opposed a pup from a reputable dealer that is taken into a family at a young age to become accustomed to the family) are suitable is akin to selling pythons to said families. Dog Breeders are disappearing as new laws, draconian law enforcement, propaganda in the media and schools, and myths about "adopting" are spread by animal rights and rescue advocates.
Counterparts to these "rescue" extremists (not all rescuers are extremists) are more and more majorities in state and federal Wildlife Agencies and Universities. - Spreading and protecting deadly predators that we are told to "live with".
- Spreading myths about how to avoid attacks and denying attacks whenever possible.
- Dismissing the economic and human behavior losses caused by redators.
- Denying disease dangers and game animal losses to predators.
- Covering up necessary animal control by the all-but unknown APHIS in USDA.
- Manufacturing population data on a dime as over-abundant predators are denied and "disappearing" predators are claimed as environmental/animal rights lobbyist desire.
- Calling predator losses things like dog attacks or global warming as environmental/animal rights groups want and government growth advocates encourage.
- Working actively to undermine the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution they used to be sworn to uphold.
- Holding up an evil and imaginary goal (Native Ecosystems) to divert public attention from their legitimate primary purpose for existing. - Protecting the lives, livelihoods, families, and welfare of the CITIZENS THAT EMPLOY THEM.
Here is all you need to know about "rescue":
- Puppies are always your best bet for a family pet or a dog to be trained to perform some function.
- Adopting is admirable but must be carefully considered.
- Rescue groups can require all they want but you can refuse to encourage neutering or not having more than one dog, etc. by refusing to adopt.
- Accept that some unwanted or abused animals must be euthanized and disregard all the hoopla about "so many" animals in various shelters or rescue homes. Once people understand that unwanted animals are euthanized, fewer will be purchased frivolously.
- Fight attempts to expand "animal warden" or "animal welfare" "officers". Seizing private property or searching without warrants is wrong for merely suspected citizens and is grotesque for thin horses or breeding dogs that are privately owned. As respect for the rights of animal owners are eroded on the whims of others, so too can and will all rights be eroded and eventually disappear.
- Except for health or noise nuisances or where elderly persons become overrun with animals, animal owners and animal users should be respected as any other citizen. Such nuisances "need" "special officers" about as much as littering needs specialists to detect and deter littering.
Predator numbers and distribution are LOCAL, NOT FEDERAL, matters. Since Constitutional powers "not delegated to the United States" "are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people" per the 10th Amendment, State government and (here's a novel assertion) their employees are responsible to LOCAL communities where "the people" live. State government employees that disregard "the people" are targets for "the people" of that state to expand, contract, and set goals for them to accomplish. Uncooperative politicians should be ripe targets for replacement. So here is what you need to know about Predators:
- Predators are not necessary for anything. Doubt that? Travel to New Zealand where contented people, healthy economic ventures, and animal diversity including (Gasp!) introduced Non-Native plants and animals thrive together in an "ecosystem" LACKING ANY large predators.
- Any group or government employee that is responsible for protecting or introducing a deadly predator that kills or maims a citizen should be held as responsible as the owner of a dog that gets loose and kills someone in the neighborhood.
- Local rural communities should be supreme within a state concerning whether they will be expected to tolerate any or some or no predators IN THEIR COMMUNITY. Far off urban areas in the state, no more than far off cities and government offices IN OTHER STATES should have little or no role in saddling rural communities with unwanted predators.
- Only Federal land under EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION (land NEVER placed under State authority - the District of Columbia and Yellowstone are about the only examples) should be subject to federal overriding of state predator determinations.
- Gun rights, especially handgun availability and carry rights, ought to be particularly easy where large predators exist or are to be tolerated.
- Citizen rights to protect life and property ought to be no less concerning an encounter with a deadly predator than when encountering a dangerous and threatening human assailant.
- Deadly predators no more "belong" on Cape Cod or in Iowa than they belong in Central Park or San Francisco's Chinatown.
- Killing predators should primarily be the responsibility of landowners and hunters licensed under agreed-to state management plans for maintaining, increasing, or eliminating predator numbers and distributions. Government control should only be an expensive last resort for all but federal properties or in cases like geese or other federal Treaty-protected birds around airports or in populated areas where Local governments cannot do it for various reasons.
- States like Florida, New Jersey, and Louisiana should reduce their black bear populations and distributions not only because of the cost and damage being caused by excessive bear numbers but because ---
As bears and cougars and coyotes and wolves search for food, learn to kill other animals for fun (like cats with birds or mice whenever available) and as they live near people without any fear (from shooting, trapping, poisoning, harassment, etc.) they get more familiar with people and therefore more dangerous. Kids, old people, and hikers, and anyone else become merely something to eat or "bluff" or simply attack JUST LIKE THAT "RESCUED" BULLDOG.
Whether it is an "isolated" incident or whether or not you are the one being "damaged" by livestock or pet attacks or your kid is threatened at bus stops; whether it is one death a year or whether you never hope to hunt for moose in Minnesota: you can no more rely on government "biologists" than that retired officer could rely on those "concerned" (primarily with him evidently) rescuers.
Watching this bizarre drama for years and listening to all the propaganda reminds me of a silly movie based on a fantasy theme. Remember that tune? "Who Ya Gonna Call? Ghostbusters". We have been playing bit parts in these animal rights/government comedies for long enough. Getting rescue and wildlife management back under American Constitutional control needs to start with repositioning the animal rescue efforts and the wildlife management and control "professionals" that have strayed far from public purposes to harmful agendas that I leave to you to judge as to whether they spring from ignorance, self-interest, or evil intent.
Jim Beers 2 November 2009

THE TWO "F" WORDS

By Jim Beers

A recent lecture on the relation between the prolific writings of GK Chesterton (in the late 19th and early 20th century England) and modern environmentalism was well worth the evening commute and time I spent at a nearby University. The speaker, Mr. Ahlquist the President of the American Chesterton Society, made many thought-provoking observations from Chesterton but one in particular was, to me, very relevant to the US in the past 40 years and especially to all of us today.
In early 20th century England, just like in the USA today, there was a political "Right" and a political "Left". Their characteristics have been practically identical over the past century.
The "Right" is synonymous with Republican, "Conservative", business, "the rich", and "tradition" (this latter being synonymous in popular mythology with the "rich keeping their riches"). The "Right" is the champion of "Individual Rights" as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and as treated in the strict interpretation of the Constitution. In short, the "Right" sees the RIGHTS of an INDIVIDUAL as "Unalienable" and the root for everything else from private property rights to gun rights.
The "Left" is similarly synonymous with Democrat, "Liberal", workers, "the non-rich", and "change" (this latter being synonymous in popular mythology with "everyone eventually being as rich as 'the rich'"). The "Left" is the champion of "Community" broadly defined (as opposed the "individual"). Their model is a changeable government system subject to the values they attribute to being for the good of the community based on what they say it to be. In practice, that means the desires of those that elect the leaders, no matter the words of the Constitution or any previous "precedents". In essence, the "Left" sees the WILL of the COMMUNITY as being superior to Individual Rights and either the Constitution or the ideals stated in The Declaration of Independence.
As nations like England, Canada, and the United States swing back and forth over time between these two "sides" certain things become evident. I believe it is proper to generalize about the periods of "Left" and "Right" governments in these countries over the past century.
When "Left" governments rule they tend to disregard and even replace local governments (State, County, City, etc.) that are not of their own party and/or not cooperative. They tend to create more powerful and more all-inclusive (of human rights and activities) authorities in the name of "controlling business" and "redistributing wealth" (from the "rich", naturally). They tend to disregard tradition and precedent as they struggle to form a new model that will create a "Brave New World" as described in Aldous Huxley's depressing 1931 book (written during a World Depression when Liberals were taking control for a decade simultaneous with German and Japanese world-war planning.) Symptoms such as Consider the periods of 1914-1918 under Wilson, the 1930's under FDR, the late 1960's under Johnson, the late 1970's under Carter, and the current debacle under Obama as examples of Liberal rule. Actually, the periods of Clinton, both Bushes, Teddy Roosevelt and Nixon were Liberal or "Left"-"Lite", truth be known. Look at spending, government growth (in size and jurisdiction), the unchecked meddling in the affairs of all, the diminishment of state and local authorities, and the embrace of world government from the League of Nations to the present UN.
When "Right" governments rule they tend to resist "change" even the "change" wrought by a previous "Left" Administration. They are not openly usurping state and local governments except when financial supporters lobby for it. They embrace the status quo while giving lip service to the wording of the Constitution. They tend to be supportive of deterring crime through punishment and they are more assertive and unforgiving to international threats and terrorism. They are more aligned with traditional and cultural defenders although their more affluent supporters often resist being identified with or supportive of the cultural, sex, marriage, or Life issues. Although they run on "cutting" government and spending, they have evolved to being a party that only represents a slower slide into a massive central government that controls everyone and everything. Relations with the One-world government types tends to be one of resisting things like Kyoto and Climate Change Treaties while signing on to Endangered Species, UN Natural Area designations, and Whaling Agreements that are all not only counter-productive but more importantly grow domestic federal government authority over all manner of associated things in massive spurts that ultimately destroy state and local Constitutional authority. The periods of Harding, Coolidge, Eisenhower, and Reagan would be typical "Right" periods, while the period of JFK and Harry Truman might be definable as "Right"-"Lite".
To sum it up, the "Right" touts Individual Rights while the "Left" touts Community Rights. Neither really protects state and local government (who, other than "local" government guarantees "local community" rights?). There is not the slightest doubt, and I will argue anyone on this point, that the current lock on power by the Left (White House and massive majorities in the US House and Senate) is characterized by a true "Blitzkrieg" by the federal government on business, private property, INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS, and COMMUNITY GOVERNMENT. The combination of political majorities, extremely radical appointees, an unfamiliarity with the truth, unparalleled massive spending, and a ruthless disregard for precedent and tradition that has accounted for a 9-month swing to the Left unmatched in American history.
The Founding Fathers drew up and signed a Constitution that essentially did three things.
- First, it clearly stated an explicit list of INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS guaranteed to all citizens.
- Second, it clearly limited the necessary (but yet to be always feared) central government to specific and limited responsibilities and powers, mainly national defense and interstate commerce "regulation" meaning preserving fairness and trade between states not the massive and all-encompassing power claimed over the past century.
- Third, all other powers and responsibilities were left with the "States respectively, or to the people" per the 10th Amendment. That means the "people" can control their State (and not vice versa) and thereby have "control" of THEIR OWN COMMUNITIES.
While each of these three purposes has been stood on its head over the past century, can anyone disagree that they are being spun like a baton in a parade by the current "Left" government?
So what did Chesterton have to say about his back in the beginning of the 20th century? He said that neither Individual Rights nor Community Controls are an answer unto themselves. He postulates that the environment created by explicit INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS and COMMUNITY CONTROLS that are truly controlled by the local community EACH creates a balanced environment where Liberty thrives; and where Liberty thrives FREEDOM nurtures the true cornerstone and foundation of all human societies, THE FAMILY.
As this is written the family is under attack by every imaginable force. Children, parents, religious values, and religious institutions are all being attacked by political (mainly Left) actions encouraging same-sex sex, abortion, euthanasia, fatherless children, population control, birth control, divorce, and cohabitation, while discouraging marriage and timeless moral values by the shameless use of propaganda by teachers on the public payroll. This attack has paralleled both in speed and intensity the loss of INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS and COMMUNITY CONTROLS in western nations over the past century. As we have watched and fought about our individual loss of Individual Rights and Community Controls, the environment that supports Freedom and the Family has deteriorated proportionately.
In the US this argument between Left and Right has become an "either/or" confrontation with no answer. Like the, "you're either for or against Wilderness" or hunting or animal ownership or animal use or "clean" air/water/environment, or "science", etc., etc. argument, there is no answer. Only when we recognize Individual Rights as applying to each of us regardless of how someone else "feels" must be respected by all will we break the power politicians hold and expand when they promise to take away the rights of others for their own personal gain. Only when we realize that we must accept LOCAL COMMUNITY CONTROLS and not clamor to use federal powers or the political power of large cities that "control" state governments on rural residents or dog owners or parents, etc., etc., that we disagree with will we restore the environment necessary for Liberty and Freedom to fluorish.
THE FAMILY is the cornerstone of any society and it needs FREEDOM to flourish. As we wonder about how to preserve Liberty for our descendants, perhaps we should first and foremost consider the Family and Freedom. As those two "F" words go, so go we all.
Jim Beers 31 October 2009

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

DESPERATE CLIMATE-TORS!

By Paul Driessen

You can hear, feel and almost taste the desperation within the dyed-in-the-wool climate alarmist camp.
The planet is no longer cooperating with their cataclysmic warnings. It is in fact not warming “furiously” and “dangerously” – not any longer, or ever in recent millennia. Their favorite whipping boys – carbon dioxide, fossil fuels, Western living standards and civilization – may not be guilty of planetary murder, after all.
So now, to protect and advance their Copenhagen agenda, it is critical that they rewrite history, delete the inconvenient episodes, pooh-pooh ignorant geologists who bring up Earth’s history of never-ending climate change, and create some idyllic past when Planet Earth was forever bathed in constant temperatures, summer lingered ‘til September, winter exited March the second on the dot, and by order of the Crown the climate was perfect all year. Thus we hear from Reinhold Leinfelder and Tagesspiegel in the November 10 CCNet that:
“… the CO2 emitted by us is now gathering in the atmosphere, unlike other greenhouse gases over thousands of years, where it now exceeds all historical values for at least a million years. Therefore, the CO2 increase is the main driver of the processes warming.
Our civilization, based on agriculture … relies on a stable climate. So far, we have been lucky: In the last 5000 years, the climate at a global (not regional) level has only varied by a few tenths of a degree per 100 years. Only the 20th Century, with its warming of 0.8 degrees, is an exception.
“Planet Earth did not care three million years ago that the climate was about three degrees warmer and sea level was 25 to 35 feet higher. For our civilization today, a rise by just one meter would have negative consequences.” Et cetera.
So the proof is in, Leibfelder claims. CO2 levels are rising, due mainly to human activities. QED. This is, ipso facto, proof that carbon dioxide is “the main driver” in global warming. The natural forces have simply ceased to exist, one must assume, or at least no longer play a noticeable role in climate change.
But now that planetary temperatures have stabilized and even dropped a bit, is CO2 also the main driver in global cooling? That would be rather complicated, and inconvenient. As would these other inconvenient truths:
Sea levels have risen 400 feet since the last Ice Age ended, and all those mile-thick glaciers melted. Granted, 11,000 years ago is a bit more than 5,000 years. But it is quite a bit less than the “three million” years ago that those troublesome geologists were talking about in Berlin – before they discussed the Pleistocene and even more recent Earth history. Did mammoth flatulence and cave man fires perhaps cause those repeated glacial and interglacial epochs?
In northern Africa, green river valleys used to be home to contented hippopotami and happy human villagers. Then, rather suddenly, 4,000 years ago, the region somehow metamorphosed into the Sahara Desert. That’s certainly within Leinfelder’s highly selective time frame. Do you suppose Egyptian slaves did it, cooking over their open fires, while also breathing very heavily as they built pyramids for pharaohs?
What about the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age? Fires from sacked cities, perhaps? Admittedly, the Northern Hemisphere isn’t exactly planetary. But it’s a lot of territory. (And maybe the Southern Hemisphere doesn’t count now, since this much more watery expanse doesn’t behave quite the same way as its Northern cousin.) But in any event, how did our ancestors, even more dependent on agriculture than we are – and even less technologically advanced – manage to cope? Historians tell us they ADAPTED! One would suppose we could adapt, as well, since thinking humans don’t usually just sit there and get pummeled by callous natural forces, and we have learned a lot over the past centuries.
What about the Dust Bowl? It blew away soil, destroyed agriculture and displaced thousands of American families. It was a climate disaster, by any definition. It was the same kind of regional disaster that Climate Armageddonites routinely seize on to “prove” global warming. Did the Model T, Wright Brothers or World War I cause that extended drought? Did the Dust Bowl destroy the planet? What made it go away? More carbon dioxide, which presumably cooled the planet until 1975, when we had the global cooling scare? And is CO2 now causing planetary temperatures to stabilize and even cool off again, after a 20-year interlude of warming?
All this alarmist caterwauling and revisionist history really is getting a bit tedious, though it is also very amusing – and great fodder for cartoonists.
Does Herr Leinfelder really think the 1975-1998 temperature was ideal? Or perhaps the much cooler average global temperature between 1940 and 1975 were more ideal? Or during the twenties and thirties? Or maybe during the Roman or Medieval times, or Greenland’s during the Viking Colonization period? Or maybe it was the Little Ice Age global average, of just a few centuries ago? (Or maybe, as Michael Mann suggests, the LIA never happened.)
Does Leinfelder really think we humans can set the Earth’s thermostat? And who exactly does he suppose should have the power to decide what is the “ideal” temperature, humidity, rainfall and storm setting for Planet Earth and all its various regions?
One more inconvenient question. How exactly does he know global climate varied by only “a few tenths of a degree per 100 years” during the last 5000 years. That’s quite a precise estimate. Did he perhaps find a stash of Celtic, Inca, Mesopotamian, ancient Chinese and late Neolithic thermometer data that had been overlooked by historians? Perhaps it was filed among the “missing” CRU data? Or with Dr. James Hansen’s airport, blacktop and air conditioning-modified ground temperature measurements?
As I said, you can almost taste the desperation. Bring on Copenhagen. It will be a very entertaining circus.
Paul Driessen
Senior policy advisor
Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and Congress of Racial Equality

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

WE'RE ALL IN CHINA NOW

New Initiative Launches Police State Under Guise of Mental Health
© 2009 Beverly Eakman

It's zero hour in America. Do you know where your country went?
Now that America's education system and parenting "experts" have brainwashed a generation of now-grown schoolchildren-cum-parents into believing that what we once called personality quirks, character flaws and moral issues are, in essence, mental disorders, politicians have taken the ball and run with it. Law enforcement agencies and the judicial system are in the process of adopting Stalinist and Mao-inspired methods of controlling dissidents at home.
Only a few, short years ago, what was held up as independent thinking, speaking one's mind, and robust dialogue is now decried as a prelude to terrorism. Our nation's leaders are pulling off communist-style thought-control by implying that any words uttered in print or out loud that run contrary to "accepted wisdom" (and that can change in a "New York Minute") is the result of mental illness.
Don't believe it? Well, "google" this:
A recent report out of Missouri labeled "not-for-public-distribution" (circulated anonymously by a shocked and patriotic police officer) specifically describes supporters of the three presidential candidates as potential "militia"-influenced terrorists and instructs police to be on the lookout for bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with, of all things, the Constitution-such as "Campaign for Liberty." Even a few Members of Congress were implied to be security risks themselves (potential domestic terrorists). The document, entitled "The Modern Militia Movement" (February 20, 2009), emanated from the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), one of several so-called "Fusion Centers" established by the federal government around the country.
Most people are probably not familiar with the term "Fusion Center." These were originally intended to allow local and state law-enforcement agents to work alongside federal officers after 9/11so that terrorist-related activities could be identified, then pounced upon by all three entities at once. "Fusion Center" offices, therefore, incorporate local, state and federal law-enforcement personnel, a strategy which, prior to the launching of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was deliberately avoided to maintain independence and preserve impartiality. Predictably, these Centers got out of hand and fell into what is referred to as "mission creep."

Mission creep is defined by Wikipedia as:

"the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes.. [I]t is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs. The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to [other] fields, mainly the growth of bureaucracies."
Ongoing improvements in tracking and monitoring of opinions via magazine subscriptions, charitable gifts, school and household surveys, and other computerized data collection has made political prediction on hot-button topics that much easier to secure. "Predictive computer technology" (already a staple of school assessment testing) entails analysis by behavioral psychiatrists with concurrent degrees in statistics. This same capability has greatly accelerated mission creep among the nation's Fusion Centers.
The PBS News Hour (not known for its conservatism or, for that matter, for being "alarmist") recently reported on how political dissidents in China are forced into to psychiatric hospitals Video: Chinese Dissidents Committed to Mental Hospitals. In the segment, aired September 13, 2009, the manner in which complainants (called petitioners), whistleblowers and outright protesters are "managed" bears an eerie resemblance to a policy shift right here in America. States' rights (or the 10th Amendment) are among the first casualties of a top-down, federal effort to minimize, and eventually suppress, dissent.
Take, for example, an individual or group complaining about government "land seizures" without proper compensation-a property-rights issue that is becoming very familiar to people in the Southwest and Northwest, such as Oregon, Arizona. Ron Ewart, president of National Association of Rural Landowners and nationally recognized author on freedom and property rights issues can document dozens of cases where farms, livestock and people have had water and other infrastructure cut off, forcing them from their homes and their properties to depreciate on spurious environmental grounds. But such "land grabs" are moving even into liberal-left states like Connecticut, and for no other reason than "the common good." The Kelo v. New London decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2005 essentially allows the State to condemn or take over private residences and small businesses that happen to be in the way of "better" taxation prospects.
Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center in the Washington, DC Metro area explains it this way:
"Say a councilman and a developer decide they could make money using 'eminent domain' to take an entire neighborhood of small-tract houses - tearing them down to build a hi-rise condo. That new building would fit the Kelo decision's definition of 'common good' because it would create new and higher taxes than the existing small-tract houses. Building the condo would mean creating jobs; it would help realtors and furniture stores, and so on, by giving them new products to sell. The only losers would be the old property owners who lose their homes - oh, well.."
Regardless of the strength of a plaintiff's grievance, it typically costs more to fight than it does to just pack one's bags.
The point? That people are suddenly afraid to balk at government overreach, especially if such overreach is tinged with politically correct dogma, as in the case of the "common good."
And why is that? Psychopolitics.
Psychopolitics is as the art and science of asserting and maintaining dominion over the thoughts and loyalties of individuals, officers, bureaus, and "the masses," via various techniques ranging from "group dynamics," "cognitive dissonance," "de-sensitization," "super-imposing alternate value structures," "artificial disruption of thought," the Delphi Method, the Tavistock Technique, to negative or positive "reinforcement." If you don't recognize any of these, don't feel too badly, because they are not part of any school curriculum. The people who created them are, for the most part, unknown in our own country, except among those groomed by extremist political organizations to become "change agents," professional agitators or "provocateurs." The pioneers of psychopolitics, including attitude prediction, include individuals such as Wilhelm Reich, Kurt Lewin, Theodor Adorno and Erich Fromm (Germany); A. S. Neill, A. J. Oraje and John Rawlings Rees (Great Britain); Antonio Gramsci (Italy); Anatoly Lunacharsky and Georg Lukacs (Russia); G. Brock Chishom and Ewen Cameron (Canada); and the U.S.'s own Ralph Tyler and Ronald Havelock.
Although psychopolitics originated under Vladimir Lenin as "political literacy" and "polytechnical education" in the old Soviet Union, and was carried to the free world via Peter Sedgwick (1934-1983) a translator for Victor Serge, author of PsychoPolitics and a revolutionary socialist activist as well as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, the term psychopolitics found its way into the American lexicon via Isaac Asimov, a master of the sci-fi genre. But psychopolitics is no science fiction adventure, and never was.
By the 1970s, a slew of enablers were establishing a system of numerical codes for so-called mental disorders that would accommodate computerization. This lent legitimacy to what would otherwise have been considered "questionable illnesses." The goal was to ensure that medical professionals, the media and government accepted these terms as they might "diabetes," thereby ensuring that the mental illnesses so codified would remain indelible, beginning with the youngest and most vulnerable.
The long-term game plan of psychopolitics is the conquest, usually by proxy, of enemy nations through "mental healing," better known as "re-education." This entails what we know as "encounter groups," extensive self-disclosure surveys and peer pressure to conform. If all that doesn't work, if certain individuals are still not amenable, then the first step is marginalization as "mentally unbalanced."
Example: A study by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation, funded by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of $1.2 million, announced on 1 August, 2003, that adherents to conventional moral principles and limited government are mentally disturbed. NIMH-NSF scholars from the Universities of Maryland, California at Berkeley, and Stanford attribute notions about morality and individualism to "dogmatism" and "uncertainty avoidance." Social conservatives, in particular, were said to suffer from "mental rigidity," a condition which, researchers assert, is probably hard-wired, condemning traditionalists to a lifelong, cognitive hell, with all the associated indicators for mental illness: "decreased cognitive function, lowered self-esteem, fear, anger, pessimism, disgust, and contempt" (Jost, J. T., J. Glaser, et al. (2003). "Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition." Psychological Bulletin 129(3): 339-375 online at http://www.apa.org/journals/bul/503ab.html). [Note: this study has been moved to Apa.org]
This is the sort of ultimately unprovable, but nevertheless libelous, condescension that is heaped upon anyone from talk show hosts, to authors to patriots who dare to contradict "common wisdom" (a.k.a. "political correctness"). If that doesn't work, contempt may be followed up with "mandatory [psychiatric] counseling" (already a feature of the American judicial system), or even forcible psychiatric drugging (well on its way to legitimacy in this nation's schools). Finally there is incarceration in a psychiatric hospital, which gratefully is not yet a fixture in American democracy for potential dissenters, but the handwriting is on the wall, as the expression goes.
Totalitarian states like Communist China and Russia may be more blatant in their affronts to human rights and personal property - inasmuch as they don't need a "reason" - but the differences are narrowing precipitously.
As emphasized during interviews on the PBS segment, the Chinese system is set up in such a way as to pre-empt complaints. The Chinese government doesn't wait around for somebody to sound off; it pre-emptively seeks out individuals likely to become troublesome, by assigning a mental-health diagnosis to anyone at the first sign of a provocative or inflammatory remark.
This lies at the heart of what is going on here in America, and we absolutely must put a stop to it, if it isn't already too late. Data-mining (which actually pre-dates 9/11), along with longitudinal tracking (that's tracking over long time periods) and, therefore, ongoing monitoring of individual perceptions, worldviews and beliefs is gaining momentum with every moment that computer technology evolves - which means constantly. Combine this with the practice of assigning mental-illness labels to private opinions, based on snippets of various information - with anything that might be favorable to the individual conveniently left out!
This "diagnosis," like the American school child's, follows the person for life, often compromising his or her college and career prospects. An why not, after all? Computerization makes it impossible for anyone to prove that an erroneous or falsified accusation has been purged from the system with no backup copy.
Today's Chinese authorities, like Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong (Tse-tung) before them, in order to avoid drawing attention to policies that may be morally or ethically distasteful abroad (e.g., the one-child policy and forced abortion) or invite protests that coincide with an event at which international media attention is expected (such as the Olympics), they employ spies, block careers and intimidate family members.
It may be shocking to hear from your college-age children that we going down the same road. Several universities, like the University of Delaware, in which a lawsuit was filed, have planted paid opinion-monitors in university dormitories (called "resident assistants," or RAs).
Adam Kissel, Director of the Individual Rights Defense Program, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, provides this shocking, real-life example in a January 2008 speech at the Constitutional Coalition (St. Louis, Missouri), which resulted in a lawsuit:
The freshman arrived for her mandatory one-on-one session in her dormitory at 8 pm. Classes had been in session for about a week. Her resident assistant handed her a questionnaire. He told her it was "a little questionnaire to help [you] and all the other residents relate to the curriculum." She "looked a little uncomfortable."
"When did you discover your sexual identity?" the questionnaire asked.
She wrote in response: "That is none of your damn business."
Another question: "When was a time you felt oppressed?"
Her response: "I am oppressed every day [because of my] feelings for the opera. Regularly [people].jeer me with cruel names.. But I will overcome! Hear me, you rock-loving majority?"
The resident assistant felt appalled.. He wrote up an incident report and reported her to his superiors.
This one-on-one session was not a punishment.for a recalcitrant student who had committed an infraction. It was mandatory sensitivity training, indeed, but it was part of a program that was mandatory for all 7,000 students in the University of Delaware dorms. It was a thorough thought-reform curriculum that was designed by the school's Residence Life staff in order to treat and correct the allegedly incorrect thoughts, attitudes, values, and beliefs of the students..
Many other features - the mandatory one-on-one and group sessions throughout the year; the "confrontation" training to help RAs challenge students who were not complying [with political correctness]; the posters with [politicized] messages spread throughout the dorms; the zero-tolerance policy against anything deemed "oppressive"; the individual files on students and their beliefs, in some cases called "portfolios," which were to be archived after graduation; the RA reports on their "best" and "worst" one-on-one sessions; the scientific analysis of the questionnaires in order to measure improvement toward the "educational objective"; the "strong male RAs" who were hired to break the "resistance to educational efforts" among [especially] the young male students - all of this, according to the university's own materials, was part of a cutting-edge educational model that had won awards from a professional association for university administrators, the American College Personnel Association.
As if this weren't enough to prove that psychopolitics is alive and well in America, with the pervasive undercurrent of "mental illness" as justification, schools below the college level have thoroughly succeeded in exchanging academic testing for mental-health "assessment"; left out, rewritten, and altered history texts until virtually nothing is left of the Framers ideals of a constitutional republic; redefined and watered down morality into something called "situation ethics"; removed the physiology from health classes and replaced it with graphic sex education, beginning in kindergarten.
Already, we see the results:
Do you vocally promote the right to self-defense? Do you voice support for the intact family; national sovereignty and strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution? Do you criticize easy immigration (i.e., without an citizen-sponsor); unrestricted free trade; free condoms hanging on some college freshmen's dormitory doors; formalization of same-sex unions; abortion on-demand; mandatory mental-health screening of all pregnant women and schoolchildren? Do you have a problem with the policies of the Federal Reserve; with "traffic" cameras and other surreptitious surveillance devices; industry-wide bailouts; no-fault divorce and illegitimacy? Then, my friend, you are not merely holding to a "divergent viewpoint," to use the 1950s term; you are mentally ill and a potential terrorist. You are a person who is ripe for radicalization and therefore suspect. Did you volunteer for certain political candidates in the 2008 election? Do you, by your choices of magazine literature and religious preference, show that you have "bought in to" theological tenets such as the Creation?
If any of these apply to you, good luck in ever securing a government grant or contract, or getting your child into a top university, when there are others who carry none of this psychological "baggage."
Americans are supposed to view any opposition to all this as "paranoia." Of course, the term paranoia carries a chilling effect, because it screams "mentally unbalanced" to the world.
Once it becomes possible, via technology, to track and legislate private opinions - and even to classify those that don't conform as "mentally ill" - then we have left the realm of politics and moved into coercion. We have facilitated the stigmatization of political dissent and vocal objection using labels like "acute stress disorder" or "paranoid schizophrenia," just as they do a right now, today, in China, according the aforementioned PBS segment.
As a former employee of the U.S. Justice Department, I personally saw several precursors to the MIAC document - "watch-out" reports (for lack of a better term), on a smaller scale, under Janet Reno's tenure there. These were distributed to employees following the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Obviously, such alerts have been greatly expanded, what with the network of government "Fusion Centers" in state after state.
With pharmaceutical company moguls and politicians sitting on each other's boards (E. I. Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, sat on the Homeland Security Council under George W. Bush's administration); with nationwide mental health assessments like the New Freedom Initiative (funded by the House in 2002) sizing up the political "health" of schoolchildren (and curriculum being altered accordingly); and with "behavioral detection officers" ("BDOs") looking for any signs of irritation among model citizens in airport security lines, while U.S. borders are left open for drug-runners, who then get to sue Border Patrol agents for shooting at them-all this points to an America in big trouble.
"Political dissent" is now in the eye of the bureaucratic beholder - or the surveillance camera, erected under the guise of traffic safety to pursue revenue and to intimidate through meaningless "gotchas."
We're all in China now.

About Beverly Eakman:
Beverly K. Eakman is a former educator and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies and as editor-in-chief of NASA's newspaper at the Johnson Space Center. Today, she is a Washington, DC-based freelance writer, the author of five books, and a frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent work is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (Midnight Whistler Publishers).