LOST AIR FORCE ONE SAVED FROM SCRAP ALONG WITH IKE'S PROPHETIC WARNING

The resurrection of Eisenhower's lost Columbine Two is somewhat parallel to his almost forgotten presidential farewell speech of 1961 where he prophetically warned of the dangers of an out of control Military-Industrial complex which he helped create and we are now directly experiencing 53 years later: Allen L Roland, Ph.D

 

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." President Dwight Eisenhower 1961

 

THE LOST AIR FORCE ONE / 5 MINUTE VIDEO
https://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=ehwvZXVKmPU

 

 Eisenhower holding forth on Columbine Two

All of Eisenhower's warnings in his 1961 Presidential address have come true but now we are dealing with a Military-Industrial-Congressional complex of immense size and added danger to our Republic ~ which could become obvious to all in the upcoming mid-term elections.

Eisenhower's three minute statement ~ YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8y06NSBBRtY

 
In other words, the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex is real, And it’s bigger and more dangerous than ever in 2014.

President Eisenhower was ridiculed as a conspiracy theorist for his famous remark about the “military-industry complex.” But Edward Snowden’s leaks have reminded us it’s real, it’s bigger and more wasteful than ever, and its bloat can even threaten our national security.

As John Avlon writes in The Daily Beast ~  " Snowden wasn’t the danger Ike imagined in his Farewell Address, given from the Oval Office in the predawn of the computer age. Some might argue that Snowden represents the “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” that Eisenhower said would be the best check on the interests of military-industrial complex. But there is no debate that Ed Snowden’s unlikely access to the nation’s security secrets in the first place is a reflection of the overextended partial privatization of our intelligence operations. This is what Ike explicitly warned about more than a half-century ago: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties.”  See article:  http://thebea.st/1wjmhI3

Eisenhower would likely be appalled by the size of the industrial and governmental workforce committed to war or counter-terrorism activities. Military and homeland budgets now support millions of people in an otherwise declining economy. Hundreds of billions of dollars flow each year from the public coffers to agencies and contractors who have an incentive to keep the country on a war-footing ~ footing the bill for an eternal war on terror which has now become the never ending war of terror.

The 2014 midterm election will change nothing in the United States ~ 2014 is set to be the most expensive non-presidential election in US history and unfortunately money buys elections. Not only do politicians do the bidding of the wealthy, they themselves are increasingly numbered among the rich and super-rich and they follow their corporate masters.

 

Whoever is elected is indebted not to voters but to the special interests that provided the campaign money. Once elected the official serves the private interest groups that put the official in office. In America the government can be bought and sold just like everything else. In its Citizens United ruling, a Republican Supreme Court put its stamp of approval on the right of corporations to purchase the US government: Paul Craig Roberts

 

The American dream has vanished ~ Mike Whitney explains the 15 documented reasons why most Americans rightfully feel we are still in a recession . See article http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40116.htm 

 

Social inequality rules in America and the 2014 midterm election has been reduced to Kabuki theater as millionaire Republicans and Democrats rearrange the chairs on the deck of the sinking Republic while the main stream press tries to convince us that it all really matters. See my article in Veterans Today ~ http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/10/26/2014-midterm-elections-will-change-nothing/


From 1953-1961, Eisenhower, as Commander in Chief and through Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and  his brother, CIA Director Allen Dulles, they constructed a nascent military-intelligence-law enforcement-industrial complex influenced by Nazi ideology and technological know-how. No wonder IKE warned the American people about his creation, the military-industrial complex ~ he had created a Frankenstein and he was forewarning us of what evil mischief it was capable of.

"At one time in the early 21st Century it was uncomfortable to call out America’s ties to the Nazis. But that has changed particularly with the release of Eric Lichtblau’s The Nazis Next Door (2014) and “The Collaboration” by Ben Urwand. It has also been confirmed by the overthrow of a nationally elected leader in Ukraine ~ Victor Yanukovych ~ and the open support of neo-Nazi groups largely responsible for that event. Is it a coincidence that the head of the CIA, John Brennan, visited with the neo-Nazi usurpers not long after the coup given the CIA’s history?"

See article ~ Modern Day America: One Step Away from the Third Reich http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article40109.htm

The only way we can kill this Frankenstein is to stop funding it ~ as such, the most important under reported and ignored political event in the United States at the present time continues to be the Move To Amend movement ~ where scores of resolutions urging the overturning of Citizens United have been introduced in state legislatures ~ and sixteen such resolutions have now passed .

"We need a massive grassroots movement to have state after state, and we have, I think, 16 of them already on-board saying, we support a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United. I think there's something like 500 communities around America saying the same thing. Then when we do that, we move to public funding of elections. You want to run? I will not be able to outspend you:"  Bernie Sanders to Bill Moyers


Allen L Roland, Ph.D
http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/lost-airforce-one-saved-from-scrap.html


Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational consultant Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com

 

Allen L Roland is also a lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

 

2014 MIDTERM ELECTIONS WILL CHANGE NOTHING

 The 2014 midterm election will change nothing in the United States ~ 2014 is set to be the most expensive non-presidential election in US history and unfortunately money buys elections. Not only do politicians do the bidding of the wealthy, they themselves are increasingly numbered among the rich and super-rich and they follow their corporate masters. Social inequality rules in America and the 2014 midterm election has been reduced to Kabuki theater as millionaire Republicans and Democrats rearrange the chairs on the deck of the sinking Republic while the main stream press tries to convince us that it all really matters: Allen L Roland, Ph.D

 

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to the point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power. ": President Franklin Delano Roosevelt  

 

The 2014 midterm election is a particularly menacing level of Donkey Kong for Democrats. But 2016 isn't. Why? Ezra Klein offers a simple explanation of this political game in this excellent three minute video ~  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GANnzyFXVBU

 

To fully understand this reoccurring political theater we must fully understand the American Oligarchy. WSWS cuts to the chase in their recent article ~ THE AMERICAN OLIGARCHY ; " What accounts for this hollowing-out of American politics and the transformation of elections into empty biennial rituals? As with all significant political transformations, these changes are rooted in deeper social processes. One does not have to look all too far to identify them. Over the past several weeks, report after report has been released documenting the extraordinary growth of social inequality in the United States and throughout the world. Late last month, Forbes magazine reported that the 400 richest people in the United States saw their wealth grow 14 percent over the past year. The following week, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reported that global social inequality has eclipsed the pre-Great Depression highs of the 1920s."

How can these vast changes in economic relationships not have had a profound and transformative impact on political life?

Andre Damon, WSWS explains ~ "The historian Edward Gibbon once summed up the political form of the Roman Empire as “an absolute monarchy disguised by the forms of a commonwealth.” Taking our cue from his definition, we can say that the United States has become an oligarchy disguised by the outward, increasingly threadbare trappings of a democracy…..Whatever the pretense of “one person, one vote,” the fact is that the top 0.1 percent dictates policy and essentially selects the personnel tasked with carrying it out." See WSWS article  ~  http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/18/pers-o18.html

 

The Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission helped unleash unprecedented amounts of outside spending in the 2010 and 2012 election cycles. The case, along with other legal developments, spawned the creation of super PACs, which can accept unlimited contributions from corporate and union treasuries, as well as from individuals; these groups spent more than $600 million in the 2012 election cycle. It also triggered a boom in political activity by tax-exempt "dark money" organizations that don't have to disclose their donors.

Citizens United, in essence, established corporate personhood where corporations have the same weight as individual voters but with obvious incredible financial clout and leverage.

 

It always seems to come back to George Carlin telling the truth about Banksters, Corporations and who really controls America ~ 3 minute video http://agreenroad.blogspot.com/2012/05/george-carlin-who-really-controls.html

 
As such, the most important under reported and ignored political event in the United States at the present time is the Move To Amend movement.

 

Move to Amend is a coalition of hundreds of organizations and tens of thousands of individuals committed to social and economic justice, ending corporate rule, and building a vibrant democracy that is genuinely accountable to the people, not corporate interests. It calls for an amendment to the US Constitution to unequivocally state that inalienable rights belong to human beings only, and that money is not a form of protected free speech under the First Amendment and can be regulated in political campaigns.

 

Find out more and how you can participate so that our future elections will no longer mean nothing. Sign up now ~ https://movetoamend.org/november-6-10-arizona-barnstorming-tour-shara-smith

 

 

Jon Stewart on Corporate personhood.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Allen L Roland, Ph.D

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2014/10/2014-midterm-elections-will-change.html

 

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com

 

Allen L Roland is also a lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

 

 

SENIORS, VETS UNITE / OBAMA IS PUSHING US OVER THE CLIFF

Seniors and vets, it's happening before our very eyes ~ President Obama, not Paul Ryan, is pushing our highly dependable Social Security benefits program over the cliff while playing politics with the Republicans and over the wishes of 87% of those over 50 years of age who oppose any cuts to social security benefits: Allen L Roland

"Social Security...is not a dole or a device for giving everybody something for nothing. True Social Security must consist of rights which are earned rights ~ guaranteed by the law of the land." Harry S. Truman, August 13, 1945

Voters should know that Social Security is not an entitlement but rather a system of wage replacement insurance, which we, as workers, pay for in payroll taxes throughout our working lives. The system provides benefits when workers stop receiving wages due to retirement, disability or premature death. And voters should also know that Social Security is solid and dependable; it hasn't missed a payment in 77 years, is currently running a surplus of $2.7 trillion, and is solvent for the next quarter century. In an economy that continues to be sluggish, with unemployment unacceptably high, Social Security is the solution, not the problem ~ and it must now be strengthened, if not increased, and most certainly not undermined by millionaire politicians who answer to the financial elite and ignore the public.

Social Security is built to last and here's a short 4 minute video that demonstrates that reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHAcy4SNVbo

As Thom Hartman correctly wrote in his blog on Monday ~ There is nothing Grand about Obama's grand social security bargain ~ " Despite the fact that Americans want Medicare and Social Security protected, President Obama has once again included cuts to the vital programs as part of his new budget proposal. As he's done previously, the President has offered up a change to cost of living increases - called the chained CPI - which reduces benefits paid to seniors, veterans, and the disabled… A new report from AlterNet highlights several facts that the President should consider before asking the poor to bear the brunt of more budget cuts. According to the report, half of American workers are "not at all confident" that they will be financially stable in their retirement, and only 57% have managed to save $25,000 or less."

Call the White House right now and tell President Obama: No cuts to Social Security benefits.

So what does CPI stand for and what's the bottom line on this latest Obama betrayal ?

CPI stands for consumer price index, a formula that looks at how the prices of stuff we need (food, for example) change over time. It's used to make cost-of-living adjustments in programs such as Social Security, veterans benefits and food stamps.

The chained CPI is a twist on that: It measures living costs differently because it assumes that when prices for one thing go up, people sometimes settle for cheaper substitutes (if beef prices go up, for example, they'll buy more chicken and less beef).

The Bottom line is  Cost-of-living adjustments would be lower with the chained CPI than with the plain old CPI. So depending on which formula is used, the amount of your Social Security payments could negatively change over time.

As Richard Eskow explains in Common Dreams ~ "What makes the chained CPI particularly unkind is the fact that millions of Americans have already had their Social Security benefits cut.  Benefits are determined based on a person’s lifetime earnings, so any significant loss in income now results in a benefit cut later. (More details here.)

Long-term unemployment is a benefit cut. A stagnating wage is a benefit cut. Wealth inequity is a benefit cut.

How many more cuts can the American people stand? A Deep Cut

How big is the President’s chained-CPI cut? For someone who retires at 65, it would be:

a 3.7 percent cut at age 75;
a 6.5 percent cut at age 85;
and a 9.2 percent cut at 95.

What about the dollar cost of the President’s cut? For the average earner, cumulative benefits would be cut by:

$4,631 – more than three months of benefits ~ by age 75;
$13,910 – nearly a year of benefits ~ by age 85;
and $28,004 – more than a year and a half of benefits ~ by age 95.

Unless the President’s budget excludes the chained CPI from IRS calculation, it would also lead to tax increases for all income except that in the highest tax bracket. So his Social Security cut would also be a middle-class tax hike."

Read full article ~ http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/04/08?nocache=1

It should be obvious that the formula for calculating Social Security's COLA's should realistically reflect the actual increases in beneficiaries' living expenses over time. The chained CPI fails that test because it assumes that when one particular product becomes more expensive, consumers can simply substitute a cheaper one. But the cost of health care, especially medication, is a major expense for seniors and it's not accounted for.

George Carlin knew the big picture on who really owns America ~ that education sucks as well as the mass media and that eventually they would come after our social security ~ three minute video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dpcd0woY2KY

The movement that all Americans should get behind now is the Move to Amend Movement that states " We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling and other related cases, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights." https://movetoamend.org/

Before President Obama’s second term began, the World Socialist Web Site warned that Obama was preparing an unprecedented attack on the bedrock social programs. On the day of Obama’s second inaugural address, the WSWS warned, “It is already clear that the second term will mark an intensification of the right-wing policies of the first. The byword in domestic policy is austerity, targeting the core programs remaining from the 1930s and 1960s ~ Social Security and Medicare… The actions of the Obama administration in its second term are a confirmation of what was already clear from the first term: that the political system in the United States, whether headed by a Democrat or a Republican, is impervious to the needs and interests of the vast majority of the population, the working class. It is a system completely subordinate to the demands of the corporate and financial elite." See report http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/04/08/pers-a08.html

The future is here, people ~ and there is no change without action. The survival of our Republic is at stake. It's We the people, not we the corporations.

Allen L Roland

http://allenlrolandsweblog.blogspot.com/2013/04/seniors-vets-unite-obama-is-pushing-us.html

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and psychotherapist Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations (allen@allenroland.com )

Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net