I've often heard it said that if anything happens in politics, you can pretty well be sure somebody planned it that way. Oh sure, world events can develop that change things dramatically, but unless it is a natural disaster even the unforeseeable, was foreseen by someone.
Take the events of September 11, 2001 for instance. Most clear thinkers doubt that George W. Bush saw that attack coming. And no doubt it changed his agenda. But obviously those who participated in that attack had someone with a plan behind it all.
Conventional wisdom has it that Osama Bin Laden was the mastermind. Of course some of his closest advisers helped as well, but OBL is given the credit for that infamous day. The question most people fail to ask, however, is what was he trying to accomplish?
Was it all about destruction of two buildings and causing the loss of life? Or might he have intended for that event to set in motion a larger plan which he, or someone else, calculated would follow?
If you are asking yourself, what plan might one calculate would follow, then look at what has changed since 9-11-01.
First, the target was not just the two tallest buildings in Manhattan, or symbols of America. The buildings housed the western worlds most prominent financial firms. Not only did the destruction cost the city of New York for the massive cleanup, it cost the financial firms and their markets, a huge sum as well.
The response of President Bush was to wage a war on two fronts. That cost America all of the surplus accumulated during the presidency of Bill Clinton, triggered massive spending and distracted a nation from the pursuit of prosperity, toward the pursuit of foreign enemies.
The response also cost us dearly in terms of civil liberties. Never before would we stand still and willingly tolerate a government agent making us take off our shoes to board an airplane. Never before would we have imagined a government employee having enough power over us to run her hands up under the bra of an airline passenger to check an ordinary citizen for weapons.
Little by little we have received training how to become obedient to government intrusions into our lives "for our own good". Little by little we have been conditioned to look to government to protect us, to save us and to deliver us from evil.
Not each and every turn of events can be planned with precision, but for those with a bigger plan than we might see, they can afford to be flexible, adaptable, resourceful and more cunning.
Today the world still sits on pins and needles waiting for the next surprise attack. Today the world economy reflects depleted US government resources, both in talent and in treasure. And as the people have become conditioned to look to government for salvation, the inherent inability of government to deliver it increases frustration.
In the United States someone has begun organizing TEA parties. Unions have begun organizing group protests. In Europe mobs have been planning riots, and demonstrations at various events all intended to display the building pressures within the general population.
Some commentators have begun to express concern that anarchy and lawlessness are about to break out. Some have suggested that the safety concerns of corporate executives will soon become legitimate concerns for government leaders.
Who wins if anarchy breaks out? Who comes out on top if some event precipitates a civil war in the United States, or a race war in the United States, or a class war in the United States?
Who wins if millions of people living in cities have no access to food, electricity or water and no way to get them except by going out into the countryside where these things might be found and taking them from others just in order to survive? Who wins if mass foreclosures render millions of people homeless?
Wouldn't that situation justify martial law, the complete suspension of civil rights? Couldn't that situation be used to justify mandatory disarmament of civilians? Might the arrest of a new class of lawbreakers so overburden our prisons that "temporary" encampments would have to be constructed?
Wouldn't the civil unrest so disrupt our nation that our ability to mobilize to defend against other threats would be severely weakened?
Some are talking about the coming days of "mob rule". No government with an army will tolerate mob rule for long without a dangerous clash of authority.
Nothing ever happens in politics without someone having planned it that way. Who is behind the planning? Who benefits from a broken economy, civil unrest, anarchy and the predictable results which follow? And who has the kind of money to plan these things?
It is hard for most Americans to conceive of the kind of money some in this world have access to. We hear about legitimate billionaires like Bill Gates. We see huge salaries being paid to sports figures. But we don't understand the kind of money available to the worlds richest people. To them the pursuit of money is no longer a challenge. To them, the pursuit of power is their addiction.
Look into the backgrounds of those with the most money behind Barack Obama and peer into their hearts. Is he their power? Or is he their pawn, put into a position where his agenda is merely the valve which tightens down and increases the pressure beneath him within the general population?
To those with evil intent thousands of lives in the World Trade Center and on those airplanes that day were acceptable loses. The planners of that event positioned people who gave up their own lives to spark the consequences which followed. If they did it once, they might do it again.
But ours is a nation designed to overcome these insidious threats. Our founding fathers gave us a republic and we the people have it within our power to change to course of events set in motion by those who would destroy us, if only we see the coming challenge in time to resist.
It is there, the plan to divide us. It is in the works, the plan to tamper with liberty. It is underway, the plan to weaken our faith in the principles which unite us. But we can stop that plan, reverse course and claim victory only if we pay very careful attention, all the time, and reject through the election process anyone, and everyone, who is not strong enough for the challenge of holding the line against the things that will destroy us.
Next year every single member of the United States Congress will be up for election. One third of the United States Senate will be up for election. We have it in our power to change the direction of this nation away from the edge of the cliff but only if we become highly engaged and prepared to un-elect familiar names, friendly faces and well funded incumbents where a stronger more principled candidate is available.
And this challenge may require that some who would never think of running, step up for the good of the nation.
Remember what Sir Edmund Burke once said:
“How often has public calamity been arrested on the very brink of ruin, by the seasonable energy of a single man? Have we no such man amongst us? I am as sure as I am of my being, that one vigorous mind without office, without situation, without public functions of any kind, (at a time when the want of such a thing is felt, as I am sure it is) I say, one such man, confiding in the aid of God, and full of just reliance in his own fortitude, vigor, enterprise, and perseverance, would first draw to him some few like himself, and then that multitudes, hardly thought to be in existence, would appear and troop about him.”
We are in such times as require good men and women to step up. Those who are planning against us have an advantage, they have a plan. We need one now ourselves, a better one, and one that cannot fail. We need, here to highly resolve:
that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
I'm ready, are you?
Marc, Very nice piece. I too believe that the upcoming elections may be among the most important elections in our history. It may be our last opportunity to decide if
1) we will govern ourselves or abdicate that responsibility to others
and
2) we will choose to live as a free society secure in our beliefs or as a society driven by fear that opts for the security of tyranny
There are far too many people that have yet to make those choices.
I honestly do not know who your favored candidates may be, but I know you will make choices only after considerable deliberation. I hope we all take the time to do the same.
Posted by: Lou | July 13, 2013 at 11:10 AM
I know you have a favorite for President, I am not harping on that. Good people will disagree, and still be pushing for many of the same things. I just wanted to share with you a picture popular with RP supporters in the 2008 election, because it kind of goes with your article, this one and the one you wrote today.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/11122279@N04/1046949803/
And I have a variation on this shirt (you have to put your cursor over the picture on the shirt in this one to see it. ) http://www.zazzle.com/cut_the_strings_ron_paul_shirt-235890067420479872
This is a huge part of his appeal, and that of his son. And to us it is a big reason their ideas are fresh. Or old, if you look at the Constitution. They are their own men.
Posted by: spinnikerca | February 16, 2011 at 11:53 AM
"dumb'ed down electorate"
How else to explain 2000 and 2004?
Posted by: Redman | March 28, 2009 at 10:50 AM
Nice Marc! I'm afraid that it is no longer as simple as it once was. The population at large, those who elect our leaders are not willing to learn what those whom they elect believe. They certainly are not able to anticipate their behavior once elected. You can now unfortunately create and sell an image, a persona that eclipses the reality of a mans heart and soul, and slip past the public a "wolf in sheep's clothing". All that we see today in government has been bought by someone, or some organization with an agenda unrelated to our national interest. We elect a finely polished and very expensive hologram of a person, and then act disappointed, like a child who has received an unwanted gift when we see the hologram morph into the reality that was known to those who researched the the candidate prior to voting. A am afraid my friend that we have so dumb'ed down the electorate that we will never again have governance of the people, by the people, and for the people again. The general election process is now so corrupted by special interest we may never be able to turn back. God help us!
Posted by: Jim | March 28, 2009 at 04:26 AM
To bad Tim McVey is not around to help out.
Posted by: Redman | March 27, 2009 at 05:35 PM