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 of America
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