1960S PAYBACK
Liberals longingly look back on the 1960s as the "best decade – ever!"
These lefties remember that period for their 'icons of the left': JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., RFK – and their all-time favorite, the anti-war protester.
Almost 40 years later, the 1960s leftists – now steeped in the politically correct – have infected our society at every level.
The widespread corporate corruption dominating the news is a direct result of '60s liberalism.
Back in the mid-to-late 1960s, our social fabric began to unravel. With Vietnam as a background, the educated, white, upper middle class totally abandoned traditional
values and morality. Suddenly everything that had been judged 'bad' was acceptable – and everything that had been traditional was suddenly rejected as 'too old-fashioned.'
Thus we had the following: children hating their parents – and getting away with it. Leftist parents, afraid of the wrath of their suddenly empowered rebellious children, caving
in and trying to be "friends" with their kids. Discipline went out the door – and the predictable results of despicable conduct soon followed.
Drugs soon became one of the staples of this rebellion. LSD and marijuana were the two most prevalent. Often these accommodating parents actually used these drugs with
their children!
Sex, too, radically changed. With the advent of the Pill we suddenly saw the 'free sex' movement take hold all over the nation. Sex without love was the new 'way of life.'
Commitment – even love – went by the boards.
And, of course, there was Vietnam – and the draft. Don't fool yourselves: The intensity of the anti-war movement stemmed directly from the fear of being drafted and sent to
the war. All the highfalutin talk about the 'moral consequences' of the American war against the North Vietnamese Communists was pure bunk. These protesters were
simply afraid of getting killed!
Using their numerical power – and connections – and the hypocritical liberal Democrats then running the Congress and the White House, these so-called liberals created a
deferment system that protected upper-middle-class whites and allowed poor black men to die in their place. And yet these lefties claim to "care about minorities"? Hello?
What a mess the 1960s were!
Out of that mess came the following:
1) A generation of liars. The children of the 1960s are the very people running our corporations today. Their upbringing – or lack thereof – is exactly why
these CEOs and CFOs happily lie, alter the books and steal. After all, they were raised in the "anything goes" era.
2) A sex-obsessed society. The 'free sex' movement of the 1960s – "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with" – has now taken over our lives.
Everything is about sex. TV commercials, movies, books, magazines are all premised on a public hungry for more and more sex. Of course, this leads to
extramarital affairs – and the lies necessary to sustain such behavior. No wonder the divorce rate is over 50 percent. And no wonder so many people happily accepted Bill
Clinton's Oval Office escapades.
3) A heavily drugged-out society. Drug use – both illegal and prescribed – has never been higher. We are medicated out of our minds! A child has lots of extra energy – perhaps as the result of a selfish parent – and what do we do? Ply him with Ritalin. Someone is sad or unhappy and what do we do? Load him or her up with Prozac.
Twenty-five years ago doctors were prescribing Valium like it was aspirin. The result? Millions of addicted users of a drug that we later learned was harder to stop using that
heroin. (This is a fact. One can go 'cold turkey' from heroin, but not Valium. It has to be a gradual reduction – 5 percent every 3 days. And during this period the user is paranoid
and schizophrenic.) Today Valium is regulated by the DEA. How do we know that in another 10 or 20 years we won't discover similarly awful effects from drugs that are acceptable today?
And illegal drugs – especially cocaine, dope and date-rape drugs like Ecstasy – are more prevalent than ever.
4) A society that has lost its moral compass. Indeed, there is no leadership in this country today. The president switches back and forth on everything. One day he's
against the 'corporate cheating' bill and the next, when his poll numbers sink, he's happy to sign it. Same for John Walker Lindh. One day Bush called him a "poor fella"
and the next he directs the full force of the Justice Department against him.
America is in a pickle. And it comes from the amorality of 1960s PC liberalism.
We have to fight back – bit by bit and argument by argument – until the good values that made America great are once again dominant.
AGAINST INTERESTS
Watching Al Sharpton on HBO last night allegedly listening to a proposed cocaine deal must make us all realize just how phony the Democratic Party has become.
Here is a man running for President of the United States who has a sordid record going back to the Tawana Brawley fiasco and including repeated attempts to play the 'race card.' Yet not one member of the Democratic Party has ever or will ever criticize Sharpton. Not one!
The same thing happened in the 1980's with Jesse Jackson's shameful "hymietown" reference to New York City. Instead of castigating Jackson, key democrats were soon embracing him!
Lest we think this leadership vacuum only applies to the Democratic Party, let's look at the massive corporate stock meltdown presently enveloping Wall Street. What we have is the shocking realization that many, many big shot business 'leaders' are crooked liars who are happy to doctor the books in order to raise stock prices to they can cash out their own personal holdings.
This phenomenon is not confined to a few so-called 'rotten apples.'
It is widespread. A recent survey of Fortune 500 corporate Chief Financial Officers reveals that 53% admit that "higher ups pressured them to falsify financial reports." This can only mean that even more – say 70% - actually had that happen to them.
Imagine that! 70% of big corporate CEO's are pressuring their subordinates to lie and to falsify crucial reporting data. No wonder the markets are crashing. And no wonder foreign investors are beginning to yank their money out of American markets.
Meanwhile the Pope arrived in Toronto. Perhaps the greatest leader alive today – along with Reagan and Thatcher, these three defeated the Soviet Union - he has purposely avoided coming here because of the widespread sex scandal plaguing the American Catholic Church.
What an image we project to the world! A sex-obsessed, crooked, greedy mass of people happy to rip each other off for personal gain.
This is not the Shining City on a Hill we should be projecting to the world.
What is needed is clear: real leaders who act against interests. In other words, a leader who is willing to hurt his "own" has much more credibility than a pseudo-leader who only plays the partisan game.
Teddy Roosevelt went after that era's Big Wealth – the corporate trusts – even though he came from an aristocratic background. His cousin, FDR, tried to emulate TR and went even farther in implementing the New Deal and thus earning the lifelong antipathy of his fellow Ivy League blue bloods.
But, by acting against their own interests these great leaders earned the respect of all sides and were able to dwarf the typical partisan squabbling.
Today we are saddled with leaders in name only more concerned with being a 'somebody' rather than doing 'something.'
And, all the while, the once-great image of the United States of America is declining – and fast.
We need to begin anew by educating the young that basic morality is the key to life. Lying is just plain unacceptable. Period. And that anything in excess – greed, drink, eating for example - is also bound to lead to bigger difficulties down the road.
This country is in real trouble. And only a return to the basics is going to put us back on the right track.
RELEASE THE DOCUMENTS
President Bush – and the Republican Party – are in real trouble because of the stock market meltdown and the sure-to-follow economic slowdown, which threaten our control of the House this November.
But what imperils Bush's presidency even more is his refusal to release all the documents relating to his Harken Energy stock sale back in 1990. He says that deal has been "vetted," with "nothing found." OK, so why not take away a Democratic and media target – these so-far-unreleased documents still sitting under lock and key inside the SEC – and get the focus off himself and back on to the macro-problems of Wall Street?
Similarly, why doesn't Vice President Dick Cheney open his Energy Task Force papers and show the world that he, too, has nothing to hide?
We conservatives are begging the president and vice president to take these issues away from the Democrats and the so-called mainstream media by releasing all the documents and thus putting these issues in the rearview mirror.
Instead, the Bush administration has gone into total lockdown and behaves like a police state. In the past week we have the feds 'forcibly detaining' a National Review reporter, Joel Mowbrey, inside the State Department for reporting on 'easy' visas obtained in Saudi Arabia, and federal agents running around Capitol Hill questioning elected members of the House and Senate about leaks from within the Bush administration of Iraq war plans.
Why all the secrecy – especially from a Republican administration that should believe – unlike the grifter Clintons – in openness and honesty?
Let us examine what may be behind this politically damaging 'stonewall':
1) Harken Energy. G.W. Bush says he has "nothing to hide." But he refuses to release those SEC documents and he won't release Harken Energy board meeting minutes either. Furthermore, the broker who arranged the private sale of Bush's stock still refuses – 11 years later – to name the buyer. Why?
2) Public records now show that in January 1990 Bahrain awarded Harken a potentially huge deal to drill there. Harken – and G.W. Bush – had never before drilled anywhere outside the USA. And, amazingly, Harken beat out Amoco for this contract.
D.C. insiders now are speculating that this contract was in fact a way to ingratiate Bahrain with then-President George Bush. And some even suspect that the June 1990 sale of Bush's Harken stock to the still-secret buyer may have been yet another way for someone – Bahraini perhaps – to further make the Bush family happy.
What a scam that would have been! Award a contract, thus boosting the stock price, then buy the stock privately as a 'backdoor payment.'
The 1991 SEC investigation of G.W. Bush was deemed "inconclusive." Then why not release those documents and get rid of this news story?
3) Cheney's Energy Task Force is now in federal court trying to suppress the minutes and meeting notes of its 2001 meetings. Why? What is to hide? Why are our fellow conservatives behaving like Hillary did during her Health Care Task Force back in 1993?
Why not make all these papers public and thus deprive our political enemies of the ammo to attack us?
Knowledgeable insiders have suspected that Enron and Halliburton had undue influence over the Cheney Task Force and may even have been working on a pre-9/11 pipeline deal with the Taliban to build a pipeline through Afghanistan.
Perhaps the Bush-Cheney team is afraid that this revelation in the post-Sept. 11 and post-Enron environment would have devastating political consequences.
But hiding and stonewalling almost always fail. It is always better to release everything and move on.
The Bush administration is in real trouble. Some of these problems – Wall Street's accounting frauds – are beyond their control.
But their own 'secrecy' and paranoid behavior are causing deep concern – even among their staunchest supporters. Many conservatives are beginning to wonder, "What are Bush and Cheney hiding?"
MAJOR PROBLEMS
1) Bush's Harken Problem: As the stock market slide dominates the news – including the political agenda – it is now becoming obvious that the so-called 'mainstream media' will not rest until the Securities and Exchange Commission makes public all the documents relating to G.W. Bush's 1990 stock sale. Refusing to release them will only keep the focus on this 10-year old deal – and call into question Mr. Bush's personal credibility.
The media – and the Democrats – just love to string this out. The more the market tanks and Bush is seen as personally under a cloud, the better it is for Democrats.
The November elections are now shaping up as a potential disaster for the GOP.
2) The Cheney Problems: Vice President Dick Cheney's woes are going to hurt the White House more than we know, but not for the expected reasons. His strength is as a behind-the-scenes advisor, but he cannot function effectively if he is distracted and worried about his own situation. Good advisors must be able to take a dispassionate look at a problem and offer selfless advice. How can Cheney do that with SEC probes, Energy Task Force court cases and even Judicial Watch breathing down his neck?
No wonder White House aides describe the Veep as "unusually quiet" last week.
3) The War: public polls show a majority of people do "not believe we are winning the war." This, too, presents a problem for the Administration. What do they do? They seem incapable of capturing or killing Osama – despite repeated news stories that he is alive somewhere in the mountain range linking eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan. But the White House refuses to blame CIA's woeful performance on Director George Tenet. Instead they have all hunkered down together and seem content with the status quo. This is a major mistake.
4) Iraq talk. The Bush Administration loves to leak Iraq war plans almost daily. Why they do this is a mystery as they are alerting Saddam that we are coming. And they are hardening anti-American positions in other nations who do not favor a pre-emptive attack. Instead of the tried-and-true "Speak softly and carry a big stick" foreign policy of Teddy Roosevelt, the Bushes bluster and boast and threaten. Why? What is the point? To score a few cheap domestic political points to offset the stock market?
5) Speicher Case. The Administration's decision late last week not to send a delegation to Baghdad to discuss the case of Captain Michael Scott Speicher is another baffling move in the mysterious case of the first apparent casualty of the Gulf War. Speicher may very well be alive and the Iraqi government invited the Bush Administration to send a team to Baghdad to discuss the case. Why not take them up on it? Is it because we do not want to afford Saddam the opportunity to appear 'cooperative' at a time when we are preparing public opinion for war?
Such an attitude makes hollow the words "we are making every effort to determine the fate of Captain Speicher."
Secretary of State repeated that phrase five times last week in announcing that we are not sending a team but instead will send a letter to the Iraqis.
We have not heard the last of the Speicher Case – not by a long shot.
6) Over this past weekend I again watched the videotape – SILENCED – Flight 800 and the Subversion of Justice. In light of 9/11, this tape is shocking. There is no doubt that TWA 800 was shot down - and the Clinton Administration covered it up.
How can we properly win the War on Terror if that crime goes unpunished –and our government clearly covered it up?
The CIA and the FBI are clearly 'dirty' in this case. How can we have faith in them if they lied to us – and got away with it?
LOSING FAITH IN SOCIETY?
Let's look at the main pillars of our society – democracy, capitalism, and religion – to see how far we have fallen:
1) Democracy. 'Faith' in our electoral process was severely damaged by the 2000 election debacle in which ballots were created that even educated people could not properly complete, minorities were poorly instructed in proper ballot procedure and machines older than most of the voters were still used.
This all happened in front of the world and set an awful example for how we conduct our elections. However, be that as it may be, what has been done to correct this problem? Virtually nothing!
The federal government should have moved immediately in 2001 to provide the funds – while we had a surplus – to each and every state to bring their voting machinery up to modern-day ATM standards.
The fact that we have not shows that we refuse to address problems that go to the heart of our society's decline.
No wonder more than 60% of the American adult populace doesn't register or vote.
2) Capitalism – or the 'free enterprise system.' Along with democracy, we constantly preach our systems to developing countries. Russia, for example, repeatedly sends delegations here to study our business models, our stock markets – and our constitutional democratic system.
Don't you know they are just laughing at us these days? Our big shot CEO's are behaving exactly like Soviet Commissars – ripping off everyone below them and caring only about feathering their own nest.
The spate of corporate and accounting revelations has caused investors to lose 'faith' in the truthfulness of the numbers, the reports and the key accounting statistics by which a business is judged.
Soon, the American people – and the world – may lose 'faith' in the American economy. And if that happens, watch out.
3) Religion – specifically the American branch of the Roman Catholic Church – has shown itself susceptible to the most horrible scandal imaginable. The apparently widespread pedophilia by trusted priests is an unconscionable act of betrayal. But, perhaps even worse, is the way senior church officials have clearly engaged in a cover-up. The more we learn about this scandal, it is clear that many, many high-ranking catholic officials have harbored, protected, paid and defended criminal priests for years.
American Catholic Cardinals want to sweep this scandal under the rug instead of firing each and every man involved with such horrendous acts of depravity.
No wonder so many people have lost 'faith' in the church.
Yes, indeed, we are witnessing a crumbling of the pillars of our society. But the real story behind all of it is reprehensible human behavior: lying, greed, and a total lack of good, old-fashioned character.
It begins in our homes and our schools. The old "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" mentality needs to be replaced by the old American "my word is my bond" attitude.
Until honesty is once again the currency of our faith, then we will be in decline.
MENTAL DIET
Eleven years ago – coming off a "bad" relationship – I was fortunate to find a religious writer who wrote and spoke often of the need to see the good in everything, to focus on the Presence of God in everybody, and to train our minds to shut out all negative thoughts.
The theory is simple: You are what you think.
If you think you have a problem, then – wham! – you really do have a problem.
If something difficult comes along – what you could call a problem – treat it as an opportunity to grow, to learn and to make things even better.
OK, I know this sounds like pie in the sky. But believe me, when trouble arises, it is better to try to think and act positively rather than give in to the despair that can
overtake us.
One of the unique exercises recommended was to put yourself on a Mental Diet. Simply stated, this is an attempt to get through one entire day without one negative
thought. Be assured: This is one of the toughest things you will ever do.
From the minute you wake up until you go to sleep that night, you have to consciously reject all negative thoughts – about everything.
Now, of course, something negative will come to mind – for example, if you were to see Hillary Clinton on TV, how could you not think negatively? Well, what you do is
quickly put those thoughts out of your mind and, instead, focus on something good. The author put it this way: "When a negative thought approaches your front door, that
is OK. Just don't let it in."
So you have to concentrate all day long on turning away these negative thoughts.
Well, one thing you quickly realize is that we all have too many negative thoughts. Secondly, what good are they? Why not think good thoughts? It makes you happier and
thus makes others in your orbit happier, too.
But here is the biggest benefit: By thinking positive, good, kind and happy thoughts, you will find that you are actually healthier, happier and more energetic. Things actually
will go better for you. Your own world will improve.
This is a fact. Period.
When you go on a food diet, you eventually get thinner, more attractive and thus more confident of your appearance. This Mental Diet will have an even more
profound effect, because the human mind is undoubtedly the single most wonderful creation on Earth. The power of the mind is untapped – in part due to negative thinking, which, in turn, gums up the mechanism.
The Mental Diet is the first step in training a mind to harness this vast power that God has given us.
Try it for a day. When – not if – you fail to keep out a negative thought, don't worry. Move on and keep trying to reject all other negative thoughts, doubts and criticisms. You will be exhausted at the end of the day. But you will have taken a huge step in totally changing your life – for the better.
THE SPEECH BUSH SHOULD HAVE GIVEN
Last week, flanked by Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush spoke in the Rose Garden about the Palestinian leadership and the preconditions for a future Palestinian state. This is the speech he should have given.
Good afternoon. Please be seated.
I was going to keep the focus of this speech today on the present situation in the West Bank and on the leadership of the Palestinian Authority. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the very problems besetting the PLO in fact characterize those very Arab and Muslim states that support, finance and arm the Palestinian Authority.
Let me expand:
1) First, the plight of women. No society that allows the second-class status of more than half its population can ever achieve modern-day success. It is simply barbaric to treat women as chattel, to hold them to a different set of laws, to stone them to death for behavior for which men are glorified. Furthermore, these societies are missing the great 'civilizing' effect that women bring. Preventing women from working, from achieving their professional and intellectual goals, is a self-defeating policy certain to keep these societies wallowing in poverty and discontent.
2) The mistreatment of children. Those Mideast societies that brainwash their children with hateful messages – and deprive them of a modern education – are dooming themselves to permanent 'backward' status. But even worse, these societies use or glorify young – teen-age – children as 'human missiles' and 'human bombs.' What kind of society allows 16-year-old girls to become 'suicide bombers'? Until these Muslim and Arab states stop the glorification of 'martyrdom', we in the United States can never view them as partners in peace. We can no longer even think of working with them.
3) Control of the media. In a glorious era dubbed the 'Information Age' in the rest of the world, these very Arab and Muslim states exercise total state control over the electronic media and, in some states, over the Internet as well. While the rest of the world is sharing and learning from each other, these Mideastern regimes and autocracies use their state-owned media to control the information to their people. We deplore this. And we want all the Arab states and the Muslim nations to open their media up – now.
4) And now to my last point: democracy. It is no coincidence that only one nation in the Middle East is prospering. That happens to be the only democracy in the region. Which country is this? Israel. Yes, in Israel it is the will of the people – all the people, including Jews, Arabs and Christians – through the power of the vote that determines public policy. Meanwhile, Israel's neighbors all suffer from the hand of powerful, centralized dictatorships or monarchies in an age of democracy.
Yes, there are positive signs in a few nations. Jordan, under the enlightened King Abdullah, has opened his regime up to many good democratic reforms. His is a voice of common sense that his fellow Arabs should heed. Bahrain is an oil kingdom with a modern, visionary leader.
But overall, Arab and Muslim leaders are purposefully keeping their people in a permanent state of economic servitude – while those very leaders live high off the hog of their enormous oil reserves.
We in the United States condemn it all: the virtual enslavement of women, the abuse and misuse of children, the state control of the media and, most of all, the refusal to adopt democracy as the governing principle.
So let me conclude by making it very, very clear: We stand with Israel – a true democracy. And we join with all forces wishing to implement true democracy in any and all Arab and Muslim states. Our so-called alliances with un-elected dictators and monarchs will soon come to an end.
The American dream – freedom to pursue life, liberty and happiness – applies to everyone.
From today on, the American policy will be to wean ourselves off of Mideastern oil – hopefully through the mass production of hydrogen fuel cell cars – and the active support for individuals and groups who wish to bring freedom and democracy to a region of the world that is otherwise doomed to Fourth World status.