History Unfolding...I hope not...

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal .. He attended Harvard University , graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.

He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College . He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University . Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.
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Dr. David Kaiser
History Unfolding

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy.. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x ten...And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska .. All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)

Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning..

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative "losers" read it right now.

And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did - regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,

How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and .... . .. change. And the people surely got what they voted for.

If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books.

So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.

Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me..

I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe-and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.

David Kaiser
Jamestown , Rhode Island
United States

Teddy's Legacy:

For you younger folks out there, who did not live through this event, this reporting explains why Teddy never made it beyond his senate seat.

Senator Edward Kennedy, who has died after a long battle with a brain tumor, was always expected to follow his elder brothers Jack and Robert - both assassinated in the 1960s - to the highest level of political life. But then came the Chappaquiddick incident, a scandal from which he never was able to recover.

"As long as I am in public life, the incident will be raised," he once admitted, and he couldn't have been more right.

The precise details of what happened on the night of July 18, 1969, have now gone to the grave with the 77-year-old senator. What is known for certain is this:

Kennedy, already a senator at 37, attended a party on Martha's Vineyard, the holiday island off the coast of Massachusetts where Barack Obama and his family are currently spending their summer holiday. The party was held on Chappaquiddick Island, which is linked to the eastern tip of the main island by the narrow Dike Bridge.

The party was being held for the so-called 'Boiler Room Girls', a group of young women who had worked on his brother Robert Kennedy's presidential campaign before he was shot in June the previous year.

Lat that night, after leaving the party with a 28-year-old woman, Mary Jo Kopechne, Kennedy drove his black Oldsmobile sedan off the Dike Bridge. The car was not found until the next morning, July 19, when it was spotted overturned and submerged in the water beside the bridge, with Kopechne's body inside.

A short while after the discovery, Kennedy walked into the Edgartown police station on Martha's Vineyard and said that he had been the driver of the car.

The scandal erupted because Kennedy, who had a reputation for drinking, did not immediately report the accident. It got worse when it became clear that Kennedy had extricated himself from the submerged car and swum to safety - but was unable to prevent Kopechne drowning.

Rumors abounded that Kennedy and Kopechne were involved in a sexual act when the car went off the bridge. But while the young senator pleaded guilty on July 25 to leaving the scene of an accident, he denied driving under the influence of drink or any 'immoral conduct'.

In a national broadcast following the court hearing, he said: "I regard as indefensible the fact that I did not report the accident to the police immediately."

The following January, an inquest into Kopechne's death was held at Edgartown under Judge James A Boyle. At the request of Kennedy's lawyers, the inquest was conducted in private.

The inquest report was held back until a grand jury had convened on Martha's Vineyard in April the same year. When the grand jury decided against issuing any indictment, Judge Boyle released his report, in which he concluded that some aspects of Kennedy's version of what happened on July 18-19 were not true, and that "negligent driving appears to have contributed to the death of Mary Jo Kopechne".

Kennedy stated that Judge Boyle's conclusions were "not justified".

Nationally, however, public doubts about his behavior that night never went away. His only attempt to run for the White House was a miserable failure when he lost to the incumbent Jimmy Carter in the 1980 presidential primaries.

…..from The First Post

"Back in 1990, the Government seized the Mustang Ranch brothel in Nevada for tax evasion and, as required by law, tried to run it. They failed and it closed. Now we are trusting the economy of our country to a bunch of people who couldn't make money running a whore house and selling booze? "

And how serendipitous is this? That old whore Barney Frank, who not only began the crash, but is now in charge of making it worse, actually did run a whorehouse out of his Capitol Hill townhouse. It's all too rich for me.

This is why the Nigerians don't stop.....

Woman out $400K to 'Nigerian scam' con artists
YouNews™

Story Published: Nov 11, 2008 at 2:01 PM PST

Story Updated: Nov 21, 2008 at 4:30 AM PST
By Anna Song KATU News and KATU.com Web Staff
Video

SWEET HOME, Ore. – Janella Spears doesn’t think she’s a sucker or an easy mark.

Besides her work as a registered nurse, Spears – no relation to the well-known pop star – also teaches CPR and is a reverend who has married many couples. She also communicates with lightning-fast sign language with her hearing-impaired husband.

So how did this otherwise lucid, intelligent woman end up sending nearly half a million dollars to a bunch of con artists running what has to be one of the best-known Internet scams in the world?

Spears fell victim to the "Nigerian scam," which is familiar to almost anyone who has ever had an e-mail account.

The e-mail pitch is familiar to most people by now: a long-lost relative or desperate government official in a war-torn country needs to shuffle some funds around, say $10 million or $20 million, and if you could just help them out for a bit, you get to keep 10 (or 20 or 30) percent for your trouble.

All you need to do is send X-amount of dollars to pay some fees and all that cash will suddenly land in your checking account, putting you on Easy Street. By the way, please send the funds though an untraceable wire service.

By this time, not many people will fall for such an outrageous pitch, and the scam is very well-known. But it persists, and for a reason: every now and then, it works.

For Spears, it started, as it almost always does, with an e-mail. It promised $20 million and in this case, the money was supposedly left behind by her grandfather (J.B. Spears), with whom the family had lost contact over the years.

"So that's what got me to believe it," she said.

Spears didn't know how the sender knew J.B. Spears' name and her relation to him, but her curiosity was piqued.

It turned out to be a lot of money up front, but it started with just $100.

The scammers ran Spears through the whole program. They said President Bush and FBI Director "Robert Muller" (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help.

They sent official-looking documents and certificates from the Bank of Nigeria and even from the United Nations. Her payment was "guaranteed."

Then the amount she would get jumped up to $26.6 million – if she would just send $8,300. Spears sent the money.

More promises and teases of multi-millions followed, with each one dependent on her sending yet more money. Most of the missives were rife with misspellings.

When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bush’s letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course.

She wiped out her husband’s retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for.

For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.

Spears said she kept sending money because the scammers kept telling her that the next payment would be the last one, that the big money was inbound. Spears said she became obsessed with getting paid.

An undercover investigator who worked on the case said greed helped blind Spears to the reality of the situation, which he called the worst example of the scam he’s ever seen.

He also said he has seen people become obsessed with the scam before. They are so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of sending money in hopes the false promises will turn out to be real.

Now, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim.

She hopes her story will warn others to listen to reason and avoid going down the dark tunnel of obsession that ended up costing her so much.

Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold.

My comments: the total ended up to be $400,000. The only reason she stopped, the Oregon Department of Justice accidentally stumbled onto the scam in progress. They were investigating another fraud case when they noticed somebody sending $144,000 to Nigeria in three weeks. They threatened to charge her with a crime if she didn't stop. She went, "Okay." That finally did the trick and now some guy in Nigeria is sitting on almost half a million dollars just from her. So what is it that we're supposed to learn from this, I guess? That greed is good? Greed blinded her. It's what caused her to dump almost her entire savings out the window. Greed. It's unbelievable.

Writing on the wall?

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But,under the name of “liberalism,” they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation,without knowing how it happened.”
....... Norman Thomas, U.S. SocialistParty
presidential candidate 1940, 1944 and 1948

Worried about forthcoming gun control? So were these guys:

Robert Heinlein:
Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor and the contrary opinion are wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and freedoms.

Robert Heinlein:
An armed society is a polite society.

Robert Heinlein:
"Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd and evil and self-serving men."

Mahatma Gandhi:
"Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest." (Autobiography, by M.K. Gandhi, p.446)

George Orwell, the author of Animal Farm and 1984, himself a socialist:
"That rifle on the wall of the labourer’s cottage or working class flat is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there."

George Orwell:
People sleep peaceablyin their beds at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.

THOMAS JEFFERSON:
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable that I wish it always to be kept alive.

Patrick Henry, 1775:
"It is in vain, Sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace! But there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the North will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that Gentlemen want? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

The Dalai Lama, (May 15, 2001, The Seattle Times):
"If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun." speaking at the "Educating Heart Summit" in Portland, Oregon, when asked by a girl how to react when a shooter takes aim at a classmate.

Just thought this was funny...but maybe not so much...