Thursday, 28 January 2010


The State of the Nation: I am afraid

Posted on 27 January 2010

By John W. White head
Pres i dent, The Ruther ford Institute

“As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.” – Bertram Gross,Friendly Fas cism: The New Face of Power in America

Omi nous devel op ments in America have been a long time coming, in part pre cip i tated by “we the people” – a cit zenry that has been asleep at the wheel for too long. And while there have been wake-up calls, we have failed to heed the warnings.

Just con sider the state of our nation:

We’re encased in what some are calling an elec tronic con cen tra tion camp. The gov ern ment con tinues to amass data files on more and more Amer i cans. Every where we go, we are watched: at the banks, at the gro cery store, at the mall, crossing the street. This loss of pri vacy is symp to matic of the growing sur veil lance being car ried out on average Amer i cans. Such sur veil lance grad u ally poi sons the soul of a nation, trans forming us from one in which we’re pre sumed inno cent until proven guilty to one in which everyone is a sus pect and pre sumed guilty. Thus, the ques tion that must be asked is: can freedom in the United States flourish in an age when the phys ical move ments, indi vidual pur chases, con ver sa tions and meet ings of every cit izen are under con stant sur veil lance by pri vate com­pa nies and gov ern ment agencies?

We are meta mor phosing into a police state. Gov ern mental ten ta cles now invade vir tu ally every facet of our lives, with agents of the gov ern ment lis tening in on our tele phone calls and reading our emails. Tech nology, which has devel oped at a rapid pace, offers those in power more inva sive, awe some tools than ever before. Fusion cen ters – data col lecting agen cies spread throughout the country, aided by the National Secu rity Agency – con stantly mon itor our com mu ni ca tions, every thing from our internet activity and web searches to text mes sages, phone calls and emails. This data is then fed to gov ern ment agen cies, which are now inter con nected – the CIA to the FBI, the FBI to local police – a rela tion ship which will make a tran si tion to mar tial law that much easier. We may very well be one ter rorist attack away from seeing armed forces on our streets – and the Amer ican people may not put up much resis­tance. According to a recent study, a greater per centage of Amer i cans are now willing to sac ri fice their civil lib er ties in order to feel safer in the wake of the failed crotch bomber’s attack on Christmas Day.

We are plagued by a fal tering economy and a mon strous finan cial deficit that threatens to bank rupt us. Our national debt is more than $12 tril lion (which trans lates to more than $110,000 per tax payer), and is expected to nearly double to $20 tril lion by 2015. The unem ploy ment rate is over 10% and growing, with more than 15 mil lion Amer cans out of work and many more forced to sub sist on low-paying or part-time jobs. The number of U.S. house holds on the verge of losing their homes soared by nearly 15% in the first half of last year alone. The number of chil dren living in poverty is on the rise (18% in 2007). As his tory illus trates, author i tarian regimes assume more and more power in trou bled finan cial times.

Our rep re sen ta tives in the White House and Con gress bear little resem blance to those they have been elected to rep re sent. Many of our politi cians live like kings. Chauf feured around in lim ou sines, flying in pri vate jets and eating gourmet meals, all paid for by the Amer ican tax payer, they are far removed from those they rep re sent. What’s more, they con tinue to spend money we don’t have on pork-laden stim ulus pack ages while run ning up a huge deficit and leaving the Amer ican tax payers to foot the bill. And while our rep re sen ta tives may engage in a show of par tisan bick ering, the Wash ington elite – that is, the Pres i dent and Con gress – moves for ward with what ever it wants, paying little heed to the will of the people.

We are embroiled in global wars against ene mies that seem to attack from nowhere. Our armed forces are pushed to their limit, spread around the globe and under con stant fire. The amount of money spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is nearing $1 tril lion and is esti mated to total some where in the vicinity of $3 tril lion before it’s all over. That does not take into account the rav aged coun tries that we occupy, the thou sands of inno cent civil ians killed (including women and chil dren), or the thou sands of Amer ican sol diers who have been killed or irreparably injured or who are com mit ting sui cide at an alarming rate. Nor does it take into account the fam i lies of the 1.8 mil lion Amer i cans who have served or are cur rently serving tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

America’s place in the world is also under going a drastic shift, with China slated to emerge as the top economy over the next decade. Given the extent to which we are finan cially beholden to China, their influ ence over how our gov­ern ment car ries out its affairs, as well as how it deals with its cit i zens, cannot be dis counted. As of July 2009, China owned $800.5 bil lion of our debt – that’s 45% of our total (for eign) debt – making them the largest for eign holder of U.S. for eign debt. Little wonder, then, that the Obama admin is tra tion has kow towed to China, hes i tant to overtly chal­lenge them on crit ical issues such as human rights. The most recent example of this can be seen in the Obama administration’s ini tial reluc tance to con front the Chi nese gov ern ment over its reported cyber at tacks on Google and other Amer ican tech nology companies.

As national bor ders dis solve in the face of spreading glob al iza tion, the like li hood increases that our Con sti tu tion, which is the supreme law of America, will be sub verted in favor of inter na tional laws. What that means is that our Con sti tu tion will come increas ingly under attack.

The cor po rate media, increas ingly acting as a mouth piece for gov ern mental pro pa ganda, no longer serves a pri­mary func tion as watch dogs, guarding against encroach ments of our rights. Instead, much of the main stream media has given itself over to mind less, celebrity-driven news, which bodes ill for our country. It doesn’t matter whether you’re talking about tabloid news, enter tain ment news or legit i mate news shows, there’s very little dif fer ence between them any more. Unfor tu nately, most Amer i cans have bought into the notion that what ever the media hap­pens to report is impor tant and rel e vant. In the process, Amer i cans have largely lost the ability to ask ques tions and think ana lyt i cally. Indeed, most cit i zens have little, if any, knowl edge about their rights or how their gov ern ment even works. For example, a national poll found that less than one per cent of adults could name the five free doms pro­tected in the First Amendment.

Finally, I have never seen a country more spir i tu ally beaten down than the United States. We have lost our moral com pass. A growing number of our young people now see no meaning or pur pose in life. And we no longer have a sense of right and wrong or a way to hold the gov ern ment account able. We have for gotten that the essen tial premise of the Amer ican gov ern mental scheme, as set forth in the Dec la ra tion of Inde pen dence, is that if the gov ern ment will not be account able to the people, then it must cer tainly be account able to the “Creator.”

But what if the gov ern ment is not account able to the people or the Creator?

As Thomas Jef ferson writes in the Dec la ra tion, it is then the right of “the People to alter or abolish it” and form a new government.

— —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  —  — —

Con sti tu tional attorney and author John W. White head is founder
and pres i dent of The Ruther ford Insti tute. He can be con tacted at
johnw@rutherford.org. Infor ma tion about the Insti tute is avail able
at www.rutherford.org.

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One Response to “The State of the Nation: I am afraid”

  1. patricia says:

    Dear Mr.Wood,

    Amen as usual. Re: Police State in America

    I live in New York City and once a week I take the subway to Grand Cen tral Sta tion. Right there in the subway are armed police with metal hel muts and rifles!

    What is so hor rific about this is the com pla cency of Amer i cans. There they are, dressed in busi ness clothes doing their jobs the best they can, sur viving the best they can and at this point, not even noticing this. They seem to be numb and zombie like.

    Last week, I walked into my local sta tion at East 59th Street and all of a sudden, there were the police in riot gear and added to this were German shepard dogs. Now I can see grand Cen tral Sta tion, but East 59th Street? If ter­ror ists were to attack, they would have nothing but Bloom ing dales depart ment store to blow up.

    This is not the America I grew up with. It’s get ting more biz zare as we speak.

    I have no desire to even listen to Obama tonight. I’ve already got the pic ture of America today, a one party system masa que rading as a two party system with the pri vately owned Fed eral Reserve Bank behind the cur tain run ning the show. If not for you and Mr.Sutton,I would have gone to my grave as a dumbed down American.

    God Bless you for all your work on our behalf.

    Patricia