|
|
||
|
|
|
Obama's Defense Department appointees
– The $3.4 Trillion Dollar Question
by Andrew Hughes
|
| Global Research, February 13, 2009 |
Email this
article to a friend
Print this
article
Former Raytheon lobbyist, William Lynn, was
appointed
deputy defense secretary on Wednesday, February 11th after a
contentious Senate confirmation hearing that led Republican Senator for Iowa,
Charles Grassley, to forcefully object to the appointment on the basis of Mr.
Lynn's "very questionable accounting practices that were obviously not in the
public interest" while in the position of Pentagon Comptroller during the
Clinton administration. The Senator's objection did not go far enough in
exploring the "very questionable accounting practices" that Lynn engaged in
during his tenure at the Defense Department from 1997 to 2001. The relevant
question that should have been asked is "Where did the $3.4 Trillion
go?"...........more
|
Obama: Amaze us!
by Michael Carmichael
|
|
|
|
|
|
Global Research, January 20,
2009
|
|
As Barack Obama approaches the helm of the American ship of
state, he is facing many challenges.
Just as she was being born at the dawn of her journey into history, the
American nation is poised on the brink of a new beginning. In those
revolutionary times, America faced a roiling sea of danger, uncertainty and
trepidation. Today, after more than two centuries of venture, America moves
forward beyond and away from the final and most tragic acts of the second Bush
presidency.
The American journey has been filled with triumph and tragedy. Triumph over
the bonds of colonialism transformed into the tragedy of slavery, Manifest
Destiny and the genocide of Native Americans followed by Civil War. Abolition
began to right the wrongs of slavery, but America careened forward into the
excesses of the Gilded Age and the arrogance of her Imperialist Presidency
that extended her empire to the islands of the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean
Sea..... more
Published on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 by Consortium News
Historical Mystery of Bush's Presidency
After little more than two years of the Watergate scandal, Richard Nixon resigned and his successor, Gerald Ford, famously declared, "our long national nightmare is over." But the painful end game of Nixon's presidency was nothing compared to the eight excruciating years of George W. Bush.
Even on Inauguration Day 2009, as most Americans rejoice that Bush's
disastrous presidency is finally heading into the history books, there should
be reflection on how this catastrophe could have befallen the United States -
and on who else was responsible............more
Obama Should Worry About the Bush Family Tentacles Undermining His Plans
As George W. Bush leaves office and Barack Obama takes over, we are in danger of missing the opportunity for change our new president has promised -- unless we come to grips with what the great historian and Librarian of Congress Daniel Boorstin called our "hidden history," not just of the past eight years but of the past half-century and more.
President Obama will face a staggering array of challenges, most, if not
all, of which stem from the policies of Bush. But efforts at reform will fall
short if we fail to probe and confront the powerful forces that wanted this
disastrous administration in the White House in the first place -- and that
remain ready and able to maintain their influence behind the scenes
today......more.
"A nation can
survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive
treason from within. An
enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner
openly. But the traitor
moves amongst those within the gate freely, his
sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of
government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents
familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he
appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the
soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the
pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer
resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor
is the plague."
Marcus Tullius Cicero
(106- 43 BC)
''When elected public servants use taxpayer dollars to manipulate or deceive the very people whose consent they require for their legitimacy, our public servants then become our masters,'' Sanho Tree
"The problems we face today cannot be solved by the minds that created them" Albert Einstein
"Fear can only prevail when victims are ignorant of the facts." Thomas Jefferson
"Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace": Charles Sumner
"In a democratic government, the right of decision belongs to the majority, but the right of representation belongs to all." - Ernest Naville, 1865
"The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little." - Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable... Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals." - Martin Luther King
When one who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, they will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest.
"It is part of the general pattern of misguided policy that our country is now geared to an arms economy which was bred in an artificually induced psychosis of war hysteria and nurtured upon an incessant propaganda of fear." - General Douglas MacArthur "Corporations cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls" Lord Edward Coke
"By liberty I mean the assurance that every man shall be protected in doing what he believes is his duty against the influence of authority and majorities, custom and opinion." - Lord Acton
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." - John Quincy Adams
"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime": Ernest Hemingway - "If we let people see that kind of thing, there would never again be any war": Pentagon official explaining why the U.S. military censored graphic footage from the Gulf War
"If it were proved
to me that in making war, my ideal had a chance of being realized, I would
still say "no" to war. For one does not create a human society on mounds of
corpses": Louis Lecoin
"As so often before, liberty has been wounded in the house of its friends. Liberty in the wild and freakish hands of fanatics has once more, as frequently in the past, proved the effective helpmate of autocracy and the twin-brother of tyranny": Otto Hermann Kahn
"Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost." - John Quincy Adams
Perfection Is Our Goal
We are a part of a gigantic creation, and
it is not strange that everything does not work in perfection; our universe
was not created in perfection. Perfection is our eternal goal, not our origin.
Hope that Transcends Fear
And throughout every trial and in the
presence of every hardship, spirit-born souls are sustained by that hope which
transcends all fear because the love of God is shed abroad in all hearts by
the presence of the divine Spirit.
The Power of an Idea
In influencing the expanding evolutionary
mind, the power of an idea lies not in its reality or reasonableness but
rather in its vividness and the universality of its ready and simple
application.
Goodness, Beauty, and Truth
The sincere pursuit of
goodness, beauty, and truth leads to God.
Service
Service -- more service,
increased service, difficult service, adventurous service, and at last divine
and perfect service -- is the goal of time and the destination of space.
Greatness
Greatness lies not so much
in possessing strength as in making a wise and divine use of such strength.
The
Privilege of Service
The privilege of service
immediately follows the discovery of trustworthiness. Nothing can stand
between you and opportunity for increased service except your own
untrustworthiness, your lack of capacity for appreciation of the solemnity of
trust.
Trustworthiness
Trust is the crucial test of
will creatures. Trustworthiness is the true measure of self-mastery,
character.
Achievement
Your actual achievement is
not so important as the fact that the direction of your progress is Godward.
A Heart
Dominated by Love
Let your hearts be so
dominated by love that your spirit guide will have little trouble in
delivering you from the tendency to give vent to those outbursts of animal
anger which are inconsistent with the status of divine sonship.
Time
You all have time in which
to insure your survival; and time is fatally squandered only when it is buried
in neglect... Failure to improve one's time to the fullest extent possible
does not impose fatal penalties; it merely retards the pilgrim of time in his
journey of ascent.
Mercy requires...
Mercy requires that every
wrongdoer have sufficient time in which to formulate a deliberate and fully
chosen attitude regarding his evil thoughts and sinful acts.
The
Educated Person
Truly educated persons are not satisfied
with remaining in ignorance of the lives and doings of their fellows.
Regrettable Experiences
Be not downcast by your
failure wholly to forget some of your regrettable experiences. The mistakes
which you fail to forget in time will be forgotten in eternity.
Opportunity
What you begin in time you
will assuredly finish in eternity -- if it is worth finishing.
Ambition
Ambition is dangerous until
it is fully socialized. You have not truly acquired any virtue until your acts
make you worthy of it.
Love
your Enemies
Love your enemies -- remember the moral
claims of human brotherhood.
Heroism
Mind bravery is a higher type of human
courage, but the highest and supreme is uncompromising loyalty to the
enlightened convictions of profound spiritual realities. And such courage
constitutes the heroism of the God-knowing man.
Change
without Growth
Change without growth, expansion of
meaning and exaltation of value, is valueless -- is potential evil.
Acts of
Goodness
No act of good is ever
wholly lost; it may be long thwarted but never wholly annulled, and it is
eternally potent in proportion to the divinity of its motivation.
Hardships of Life
When thinking men and women look upon
Jesus as he offers up his life on the cross, they will hardly again permit
themselves to complain at even the severest hardships of life, much less at
petty harassments and their many purely fictitious grievances.
Divine
Love
The beauty of divine love, once fully
admitted to the human heart, forever destroys the charm of sin and the power
of evil.
Life's
Opportunities
Ability is the practical
measure of life's opportunities. You will never be held responsible for the
accomplishment of that which is beyond your abilities.
Graciousness
You can cultivate gracefulness, but
graciousness is the aroma of friendliness which emanates from a love-saturated
soul.
Exhibiting Mercy
You should realize that there is a great
reward of personal satisfaction in being first just, next fair, then patient,
then kind. And then, on that foundation, if you choose and have it in your
heart, you can take the next step and really show mercy; but you cannot
exhibit mercy in and of itself.
Love
Others
If you love people, they will draw near
you -- you will have no difficulty in winning them.
Love
Love is the desire to do good to others.
Evil
The possibility of evil is necessary to
moral choosing, but not the actuality thereof....Evil becomes a reality of
personal experience only when a moral mind makes evil its choice.
Living
Truth
Truth is living; the Spirit of Truth is
ever leading the children of light into new realms of spiritual reality and
divine service.
Faith
and Fear
Few persons live up to the
faith which they really have. Unreasoned fear is a master intellectual fraud
practiced upon the evolving mortal soul.
Triumphant Faith
Belief may not be able to
resist doubt and withstand fear, but faith is always triumphant over doubting,
for faith is both positive and living.
Fatherly
Love
Fatherly love has singleness of purpose,
and it always looks for the best in man; that is the attitude of a true
parent.
Hope
Sometimes the planting of a seed
necessitates its death, the death of your fondest hopes, before it can be
reborn to bear the fruits of new life and new opportunity.
Prejudice Blinds the Soul
Prejudice blinds the soul to
the recognition of truth, and prejudice can be removed only by the sincere
devotion of the soul to the adoration of a cause that is all-embracing and
all-inclusive of one's fellow men.
A
Philosophy of Living
An effective philosophy of living is
formed by a combination of cosmic insight and the total of one’s emotional
reactions to the social and economic environment.
Human
Rights
Every human right is associated with a
social duty; group privilege is an insurance mechanism which unfailingly
demands the full payment of the exacting premiums of group service.
Things
Spiritual
Your only assurance of a personal God
consists in your own insight as to your belief in, and experience with, things
spiritual.
Our
Earthly Goal
At first life was a struggle for
existence; now, for a standard of living; next it will be for quality of
thinking, the coming earthly goal of human existence.
Our
Relationships
The relationships between personalities
are never scaffolding; mortal memory of personality relationships has cosmic
value and will persist.
Dangers of Pride
Of all the dangers which beset man's mortal nature and jeopardize his
spiritual integrity, pride is the greatest. Courage is valorous, but egotism
is vainglorious and suicidal.
Personality
If this were a mechanistic universe . . .
there would be no disagreement; there would be no friction. But in our
evolving universe of relative perfection and imperfection we rejoice that
disagreement and misunderstanding are possible, for thereby is evidenced the
fact and the act of personality in the universe.
Afflictions
Man should not blame God for those
afflictions which are the natural result of the life which he chooses to live;
neither should man complain of those experiences which are a part of life as
it is lived on this world.
Perfection
We are a part of a gigantic creation, and
it is not strange that everything does not work in perfection; our universe
was not created in perfection. Perfection is our eternal goal, not our origin.
Humor
Humor functions as an automatic safety
valve to prevent the building up of excessive pressures due to the monotony of
sustained and serious self-contemplation..
Effective Praying
You must make a wholehearted choice of
the divine will. You must obliterate the dead center of indecision.
A
Victorious Human Life
The consciousness of a victorious human
life on earth is born of that creature faith which dares to challenge each
recurring episode of existence when confronted with the awful spectacle of
human limitations, by the unfailing declaration: Even if I cannot do this,
there lives in me one who can and will do it.!
Brotherhood
Brotherhood constitutes a fact of
relationship between every personality in universal existence. No person can
escape the benefits or the penalties that may come as a result of relationship
to other persons. The good effort of each man benefits all men; the error or
evil of each man augments the tribulation of all men.
Unexpected Situations
The mortal personality, never sure as to
which will next be encountered, through humor swiftly grasps... the unexpected
nature of the situation be it fact or be it truth.
Our
Future and Past
The future signifies struggle and
advancement; it bespeaks work, effort, and achievement; but the past savors of
things already mastered and achieved.
Peace on Earth
Without God, neither freedom and
liberty, nor property and wealth will lead to peace.
Unremitting Service
Jesus taught men to place a high
value upon themselves in time and in eternity. Because of this high estimate
which Jesus placed upon men, he was willing to spend himself in the
unremitting service of humankind.
Uncertainty
When the clouds gather overhead,
your faith should accept the fact of the presence of the indwelling Spirit
Adjuster, and thus you should be able to look beyond the mists of mortal
uncertainty into the clear shining of the sun of eternal righteousness ...
Misguided Conscience
A misguided conscience can become
responsible for much conflict, worry, sorrow, and no end of human unhappiness.
Spiritual Loyalty and Wealth
Riches have nothing directly to do
with entrance into the kingdom of heaven, but the love of wealth does. The
spiritual loyalties of the kingdom are incompatible with servility to
materialistic mammon. Man may not share his supreme loyalty to a spiritual
ideal with a material devotion.
Freewill
Choice
The portal of eternity opens only in response to the
freewill choice of the freewill sons of the God of free will.
Courage
Is courage -- strength of
character -- desirable? Then must man be reared in an environment which
necessitates grappling with hardships and reacting to disappointments.
Pressure
Man is not saved or
ennobled by pressure...Spiritual growth is greatest where all external
pressures are at a minimum.
Providence
When men pray for providential intervention in the
circumstances of life, many times the answer to their prayer is their own
changed attitudes toward life.
Mind -
The Referee
The mind of evolutionary man is
ever confronted with the intricate problem of refereeing the contest between
the natural expansion of emotional impulses and the moral growth of unselfish
urges predicated on spiritual insight.
Partnership with God
...When man and God enter into partnership, no
limitation can be placed upon the future possibilities of such a partnership.
Truth
The more truth you know, the more
truth you are, the more of the past you can understand and of the future you
can comprehend.
The
Sincere Religionist
The sincere religionist is conscious of universe
citizenship and is aware of making contact with sources of superhuman power.
Genuine
Religion
Genuine religion renders the
religionist socially fragrant and creates insights into human fellowship.
Genuine
Prayer
Genuine prayer adds to spiritual
growth, modifies attitudes, and yields that satisfaction which comes from
communion with divinity.
Effective Prayer
If you engage in effective
praying, you must make a wholehearted choice of the divine will. You must
obliterate the dead center of indecision.
An
Eternal Quest
Knowledge is an eternal quest;
always are you learning, but never are you able to arrive at the full
knowledge of absolute truth.
Love
Human things must be known in
order to be loved, but divine things must be loved in order to be known.
True
Religion
Always keep in mind: True religion
is to know God as your Father and man as your brother.
Greatness
To be great is to be
Godlike.
Egoistic
Desires
Jesus seemed to be utterly free
from all egoistic desire to win an argument merely to experience logical
triumph over his fellows, being interested supremely in just one thing: to
proclaim everlasting truth ...
Eternal Life
When, by living faith, you become
divinely God-conscious, you are then born of the spirit as children of light
and life, even the eternal life wherewith you shall ascend the universe of
universes and attain the experience of finding God the Father on Paradise.
Work
Have faith in God to the end of
your days on earth. Never forget that, when you are a faith son of God, all
upright work of the realm is sacred. Nothing which a son of God does can be
common. Do your work, therefore, from this time on, as for God.
Tact and
Tolerance
You cannot hope for a large
measure of success in either secular or religious work unless you can learn
how to persuade your fellows.... You simply must have tact and tolerance.
True
Believer
The true believer does not grow weary in well-doing just
because he is thwarted. Difficulty whets the ardor of the truth lover, while
obstacles only challenge the exertions of the undaunted kingdom builder.
Every
Moral Choice
Every time man makes a reflective
moral choice, he immediately experiences a new divine invasion of his soul.
God Concious Mortal
The God-conscious mortal is
certain of salvation; he is unafraid of life; he is honest and consistent. He
knows how bravely to endure unavoidable suffering; he is uncomplaining when
faced by inescapable hardship.
Religious Faith
Religious faith is available alike to the learned and the
unlearned.
God's
Will
Never forget there is only one adventure which is more
satisfying and thrilling than the attempt to discover the will of the living
God, and that is the supreme experience of honestly trying to do that divine
will.
Jesus'
Religious Life
The secret of Jesus' unparalleled
religious life was a consciousness of the presence of God; and he attained it
by intelligent prayer and sincere worship ...
Fatherly Love
Fatherly love has singleness of purpose, and it always looks for the best in
man...
Fear and
Anger
Fear and anger weaken character and destroy happiness.
Effective Praying
You must qualify as a potent
prayer by sincerely and courageously facing the problems of universe reality.
You must possess cosmic stamina.
Moral
and Spiritual Adjustments
Only moral and spiritual adjustments can be made on the
spur of the moment, and even these require the passing of time for the full
outworking of their material and social repercussions.
Values
You can best discover values in
your associates by discovering their motivation. If someone irritates you,
causes feelings of resentment, you should sympathetically seek to discern his
viewpoint, his reasons for such objectionable conduct.
Our
Father Within Us
Do not allow the magnitude of the infinity, the immensity
of the eternity, and the grandeur and glory of the matchless character of God
to overawe, stagger, or discourage you; for the Father is not very far from
any one of you; he dwells within you...
Brotherhood
Brotherhood constitutes a fact of relationship between every personality in
universal existence. No person can escape the benefits or the penalties that
may come as a result of relationship to other persons. The good effort of each
man benefits all men; the error or evil of each man augments the tribulation
of all men.
A Victorious
Human Life
The consciousness of a victorious
human life on earth is born of that creature faith which dares to challenge
each recurring episode of existence when confronted with the awful spectacle
of human limitations, by the unfailing declaration: Even if I cannot do this,
there lives in me one who can and will do it...
TRUE Government
The ten steps or stages to the evolution of a true democracy.
Slavery, serfdom, and all forms of human bondage must disappear.
Unless a free people are educated -- taught to think intelligently and plan wisely -- freedom usually does more harm than good.
Liberty can be enjoyed only when the will and whims of human rulers are replaced by legislative enactments in accordance with accepted fundamental law.
Representative government is unthinkable without freedom of all forms of expression for human aspirations and opinions.
No government can long endure if it fails to provide for the right to enjoy personal property in some form. Man craves the right to use, control, bestow, sell, lease, and bequeath his personal property.
Representative government assumes the right of citizens to be heard. The privilege of petition is inherent in free citizenship.
It is not enough to be heard; the power of petition must progress to the
actual management of the government.
Representative government presupposes an intelligent, efficient, and universal electorate. The character of such a government will ever be determined by the character and caliber of those who compose it. As civilization progresses, suffrage, while remaining universal for both sexes, will be effectively modified, regrouped, and otherwise differentiated.
9.
Control of public servants.
No civil government will be serviceable and effective unless the citizenry possess and use wise techniques of guiding and controlling officeholders and public servants.
10.
Intelligent and trained representation.
The survival of democracy is dependent on successful representative government; and that is conditioned upon the practice of electing to public offices only those individuals who are technically trained, intellectually competent, socially loyal, and morally fit. Only by such provisions can government of the people, by the people, and for the people be preserved.
