Most Influential People in the Alternative Media 2012

I found this list while researching Paul Craig Roberts and added my own.  If you are trying to figure out what the New World Order is and how the Council on Foreign Relations calls the shots in America, then start reading and listening to what these people have to say.

Most Influential People in the Alternative Media (2012)

Activist Post

The criteria we've chosen to base these rankings of the most influential alternative media figures are the following;

• people that have the courage to seek the truth no matter where the information leads them; 
• those with the courage to question 9/11; 
• those who are gurus or experts in their field, whether it be military, finance, psychological warfare, etc.
• those who don't buy into the false left-right political paradigm;
• those who are grounded in peace and liberty;
• those with the communication skills and platform to affect real change.

Significantly, each of the people who made our list is clearly driven by unyielding passion.  Despite some natural disagreements, they each provide a unique bridge to forbidden knowledge and they all deserve high praise for their efforts and commitment to inform the public. Sincerely, it is very encouraging to have so many talented voices leading the stampede for truth, liberty, justice, and peace.

With so many people doing great work in the real alternative media, we are sure that some deserving reporters will be left off the list. Although Activist Post has forged relationships with some of the people on this list, we've tried to remain as non-biased as possible in our observations.  At the end, we've also included a list of those who deserve honorable mention for their tireless work and talent providing the truth.

10. Dr. Paul Craig Roberts:  Paul Craig Roberts is one of the most respected columnists in the alternative media.  His syndicated articles can be seen on many leading alternative news websites including Lew Rockwell, Infowars, Counterpunch, InformationClearingHouse and countless others. Roberts scores huge points in the credibility department having been the former head of policy at the Department of Treasury under Reagan, and the editor of the Wall Street Journal -- among a long list of other accolades.  His research is impeccable and his vision of how the world really operates is second to none.  He knows why and when the global chess pieces are moving, and has the incredible talent to communicate difficult concepts to the general public.  He has written several books including The Tyranny of Good Intentions, and How the Economy was Lost. His many interviews can be seen on Russia Today and Prison Planet TV.  Roberts is also a recent contributor to Gerald Celente's esteemed Trends Journal.  There is no one better at reporting the reality of geo-political events and the workings of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

9. Gary Franchi: Franchi is a longtime researcher and liberty activist.  His essays and reports have been published all over the Internet and in the book Songs of Freedom: Tales From the Revolution.  He's also the producer of several documentaries likeCamp FEMA and Don't Tread on Me.  Because of his tenacious work, he now has one of the best alternative media platforms on the Internet.  His liberty social network, RTR.org (Restore the Republic) has over 32,000 members and is growing quickly.  The quality of his Reality Report newscasts rival the multi-million dollar productions at any cable news outfit -- except he reports TRUTH news.  Franchi does an excellent job aggregating the most important stories in the alternative news and presenting them in a concise and visually appealing newscast.  We've found each of Franchi's recent Reality Reports to be must-see TV, and only expect this up-and-comer's influence to continue to grow.

8. Adam Kokesh: Kokesh is a former Iraq war veteran turned peace activist, a former Libertarian congressional candidate, and the current host of Russia Today's Adam Vs. The Man nightly cable TV show.  He recently gained recognition when he was brutally arrested for silently dancing at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial with other activists.  The video of the alarming arrest went absolutely viral and surely brought many new viewers to his TV show and to the truth movement.  Kokesh is well-informed, well-spoken, committed to individual liberty and peace, and has the legitimacy of having served his country in combat. Kokesh recently received high praise from a fellow journalist who details his appeal here.  Watch for Kokesh's influence to grow as more people become aware that a genuine truther has an entertaining and informative TV show.  The establishment is in big trouble with the likes of Kokesh on the airwaves.

7. Stefan Molyneux: Stefan Molyneux may be perhaps the most eloquent "red pill" in the alternative media. A self-described philosopher, Molyneux has a strong knowledge of history and a core compass reading of freedom and non-violence.  He hosts a popular radio broadcast on his FreedomainRadio; his Youtube uploadshave been viewed over 6 million times on his channel alone, and his site claims over 25 million downloads making his ideas the "largest and most popular philosophical conversation in the world."  His articles can be seen on mega-sites like Lew Rockwell and others; he has published several books on the philosophy of liberty and non-violence (many of which are offered FREE from his site) and how they apply in today's world, and he is a frequent guest on RT's Adam Vs. The Man  and the Keiser Report.  Despite his overwhelming knowledge of the corrupt system, Molyneux always remains optimistic in his presentation, which is quite refreshing among all the doom-and-gloom.  Molyneux remains authentic in that he survives solely from donations and book sales --so please support his efforts.  We expect Molyneux to end up as one of the most important voices of our time.

6. Max Keiser: Max Keiser is perhaps the fastest rising star in the alternative media.  He is a literal boy genius having invented the virtual specialist technology / prediction markets, Hollywood Stock Exchange,  Karmabanque, and PirateMyFilm.  His economic and geo-political analysis has appeared on the BBC, in documentary movies, and on sites like Huffington Post and Zero Hedge.  Traffic on his personal website, MaxKeiser.com, has nearly doubled since April according to Alexa.  He is currently the host of the must-see Keiser Report on Russia Today in addition to several other projects.  He is arguably the most powerful anti-bankster voice in the world, openly and relentlessly referring to them appropriately as "terrorists and rapists" and having helped drive silver purchases to new heights with his viral "Crash the Bankers" campaign.  He is also emerging as a leading anti-austerity voice for global citizens, having visited and spoken to growing protest groups in Ireland, Egypt, and soon Greece. He has an uncanny ability to boil down complicated economic "problems" for easy consumption by the general public.  In short, Max Keiser has deservedly become the most influential voice of the "Resistance" to bankster tyranny.

5. David Icke: David Icke is most appropriately called a researcher and presenter of knowledge.  In addition to his voluminous writing of in-depth books, his main platform is his all-day stage performance that still leave audiences wanting more. These performances are regularly sold out in large venues across the planet. Significantly, he is the only presenter in the alternative media arena to consistently draw crowds in the thousands to hear him speak.  His research goes "beyond the cutting edge" of the alternative news and his popular website has become a valuable news aggregator.  Besides brilliantly dissecting the "5 sense reality", as he calls it, Icke also dives head first down the rabbit hole and provides historical evidence of some very bizarre and thought-provoking phenomena. In turn, this makes him one of the most courageous and interesting figures of our time.  David Icke may be one of the most dangerous people to the establishment, because he has the ability to convince regular people of their immense power to affect positive change.

4. Jeff Rense: Jeff Rense has built a massive audience of those seeking the truth inside and outside of the Matrix. His website, Rense.com, has been by far the best news aggregator covering the Gulf oil disaster and the current Fukushima nuclear meltdown.  His website is the 2101st most-viewed in the United States on Alexa -- a powerful ranking indeed.  Agree with him or not, Rense deserves credit for venturing down the rabbit hole of reality which brings a unique perspective to alternative news.  He is one of the only sources attempting to responsibly cover the metaphysical and extra-planetary nature of the Matrix.  He is quietly building a strong radio presence with talented voices like Mike Rivero and Charlie McGrath being added to his network.  Look for Rense's influence to continue to escalate as we have not heard the end of the Fukushima nuclear holocaust of the Northern Hemisphere which he's so brilliantly covering.

3. Lew Rockwell:  Lew Rockwell is a liberty icon.  Rockwell has immense credibility having served as Ron Paul's chief of staff and his presidential campaign manager, as a scholar of Austrian School of economics, and as the chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. It's telling how powerful Rockwell's platform is when others on this list include being published atLewRockwell.com as a benchmark of their success. His website is visited by millions each month, his radio showcontains high-brow intellectual discussions with other great minds, and his books The Left, The Right and The State andSpeaking of Liberty are worth their weight in gold.  As the 2012 presidential race approaches, look for Rockwell's loud megaphone to propel Ron Paul's message of peace, liberty and economic sanity to the masses.  Rockwell brings much-needed legitimacy to controversial issues like ending the Fed, ending the wars, and bringing about a system of non-coercive Anarchy.  He has indeed paved the way for many others, while also remaining a growing influence.

2. Mike Adams: Mike Adams, known as the "Health Ranger", is a consumer health advocate and independent journalist.  Mike Adams is young, authentic, well-spoken, and a savvy businessman.  He is the founder and editor of the very popular website NaturalNews.com (ranked 1,184 overall in the U.S.) and NaturalNews.TV.  His articles have been republished all over the Internet, and his radio show and short films are viewed by millions. Through his unyielding passion, he has built a team of respected contributors to his flagship news site which offer some of the best natural health and freedom news on the Web.  He never ceases to improve his platform for his expanding audience and knows how to monetize his business with products he genuinely believes in.  The sky is the limit for the Health Ranger's influence in the alternative media.

1. Alex Jones: Love or hate his style, Alex Jones is the King of alternative news.  His radio show reaches millions per day; his movies like Fall of the Republic and The Obama Deception have been seen by tens of millions the world over on Youtube and elsewhere; his website rankings for Infowars and PrisonPlanet are off the charts with many investigative articles frequently supported by Drudge, and many on his staff are nearly deserving of being in the top-10 in their own right.  The quality of his production has improved every year and is easily the best in the alternative media.  Jones gets the most informative expert guests who expose a wide variety of inconvenient truths.  He is a pioneer in encouraging fans to make copies of his material and give them away for free to help awaken more minds.  Anyone who follows Alex Jones knows that he is driven by intense passion for humanity and never stops working.  It's hard to believe that Jones is still only in his thirties, given his 15 years of dedicated reporting.

G. Edward Griffin.  Griffin is widely considered one of the most brilliant researchers and writers of actual history.  He exemplifies the notion of following the evidence no matter where it leads him. But he is so much more than that to the group above in terms of his philosophy of individual liberty and non-aggression. His book,The Creature From Jekyll Island is one of the most powerful indictments of the Federal Reserve and is still a bestseller. Hismany other books, websites at RealityZone.com and his foundation Freedom-Force.org, with movies like his recent documentary What in the World Are They Spraying are all ground-breaking in their own right.  This is not meant to be a runner-up award, but more of a lifetime influence shout out to a true pioneer.  We're all indebted to Griffin's hard work.

Honorable Mention
Many in this group are deserving of far more praise than this format allows, but we'd be remiss not to mention the following names.  Here are some of the rising stars and the unsung heroes of the alternative media in no particular order:

• Richard Grove, 9/11 whistleblower has been a constant source of knowledge and wisdom since his near encounter with the powers that be.  His Peace Revolution Podcast is at least 6 months of research if you were to take it all in non-stop 4 hours a day.  
• James Corbett: Terrific analyst, researcher, writer, web TV presenter and founder ofCorbettReport.com
• Global Research: Michel Chossudovsky, Andrew Gavin Marshall and staff brilliantly report on global events and have a fast-growing Internet presence.
• Jim Marrs: Author of many books on conspiracy truth, and one of the foremost experts on the JFK assassination.  His work can be found at JimMarrs.com and has influenced many of the above.
• Lauren Lyster: Financial news reporter that does a phenomenal job of covering the inside stories and real causes behind the ups and downs of the markets.  You can find her old broadcasts on YouTube under a search for #CapitalAccount, also on Hulu and RT.com
  
• James G Rickards is a currency wars expert, so much so that he wrote THE book on Currency Wars and has consulted the Pentagon.  You must pay attention to what he says if you are interested in understanding global economic warfare.
  
• Mike Shedlock is also an excellent source of contrarian economic analysis with his own blog and several appearances on Capital Account with Lauren Lyster.
  
• Dean Henderson: Dean writes a blog called the Left Hook with excerpts from his book "BigOil and their Bankers".  Dean is well versed in the Illuminati New World Order conspiracy and how they operate.  Much of his work focus' on 1950 onward.
  
• Grace Powers and her Ring of Power series are mind blowing exposures of the historical occult elite bloodlines that run the world.
  
• Michael C Ruppert.  While Mike has gone underground recently to work on a book, his documentary Collapse on peak oil set me off in the light direction to understand oil, war, and global economic interdependencies.  Whether or not petroleum is abiotic or a fossil fuel is still to be determined but Mike's efforts cannot be left out of any researchers treasure chest.

I am not familiar with these but expect to do so in the near future as they are listed by others as insightful.

• Bob Tuskin: Terrific interviewer and fearless investigator who has worked extensively with The Intel Hub, and has his own radio show and website at BobTuskin.com
• Bill Ryan: His website and forum at Project Avalon are terrific resources, as well as his interviews with alternative media personalities and government insiders.
• George Noory: Huge Internet presence and the most-listened-to overnight radio show in America at Coast to Coast AM.
• Alan Watt: Consummate researcher into the history of elite control, and frequent guest on the Alex Jones Show.  His website and his own radio show can be found at Cutting Through The Matrix.
• Shepard Ambellas, Alex Thomas:  True investigative reporters who share their knowledge at TheIntelHub.com They are fearless journalists who utilize the full range of the Internet to release their intel.  
• Cassandra Anderson: Writer and editor for MorphCity.com, as well as G. Edward Griffin's news editor and research assistant.  She is one of the leading experts on Agenda 21 and the globalist plan of collectivization.
• Rady Ananda: Brilliant investigative journalist and editor for blogs Food Freedom andCOTO Report whose work has been published across the Internet on all major alternative media news sites.

Paul Craig Roberts on the New World Order and the Invisible Empire

In case some of you think I am often spewing conspiracy nonsense, catch up on what Paul Craig Roberts has to say.  He was the Deputy Secretary of the Treasury under Ronald Reagan.  You can not get any more current and inside than that.

Link: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/01/15/attack-on-sovereignty-paul-craig-roberts/

Understand that the power elite that control both parties and greatly controlled by the Council on Foreign Relations, from which nearly every White House cabinet member has come for over 40 years.  

Once you've read this, watch this documentary called "Invisible Empire" on YouTube with quotes from many presidents, and high government officials referring to the New World Order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Dv7fOhPJMY

 

Eight Things I Miss About the Cold War By Jon Wiener

Originally found here.

 
Fifty Years Ago, College Was Cheap, Unions Were Strong, and There Was No Terrorism-Industrial Complex 
By Jon Wiener

At a book festival in Los Angeles recently, some writers (myself included) were making the usual arguments about the problems with American politics in the 1950s -- until one panelist shocked the audience by declaring, “God, I miss the Cold War.”  His grandmother, he said, had come to California from Oklahoma with a grade-school education, but found a job in an aerospace factory in L.A. during World War II, joined the union, got healthcare and retirement benefits, and prospered in the Cold War years.  She ended up owning a house in the suburbs and sending her kids to UCLA.

Several older people in the audience leaped to their feet shouting, “What about McCarthyism?”  “The bomb?”  “Vietnam?”  “Nixon?”

All good points, of course.  After all, during the Cold War the U.S. did threaten to destroy the world with nuclear weapons, supported brutal dictators globally because they were anti-communist, and was responsible for the deaths of several million people in Korea and Vietnam, all in the name of defending freedom. And yet it’s not hard to join that writer in feeling a certain nostalgia for the Cold War era.  It couldn’t be a sadder thing to admit, given what happened in those years, but -- given what’s happened in these years -- who can doubt that the America of the 1950s and 1960s was, in some ways, simply a better place than the one we live in now? Here are eight things (from a prospectively longer list) we had then and don’t have now.

1. The president didn’t claim the right to kill American citizens without “the due process of law.”

Last year we learned that President Obama personally approved the killing-by-drone of an American citizen living abroad without any prior judicial proceedings. That was in Yemen, but as Amy Davidson wrote at the New Yorker website, “Why couldn’t it have been in Paris?”  Obama assures us that the people he orders assassinated are “terrorists.”  It would, however, be more accurate to call them “alleged terrorists,” or “alleged terrorist associates,” or “people said by some other government to be terrorists, or at least terroristic.”

Obama’s target in Yemen was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen who was said to be a senior figure in al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  According to the book Kill or Capture by Daniel Klaidman, the president told his advisors, “I want Awlaki. Don’t let up on him.”  Steve Coll of the New Yorker commented that this appears to be “the first instance in American history of a sitting president speaking of his intent to kill a particular U.S. citizen without that citizen having been charged formally with a crime or convicted at trial.”  (Awlaki’s 16-year-old son, whom no one claims was connected to terrorist activities or terror plots, was also killed in a separate drone attack.)

The problem, of course, is the due-process clause of the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits “any person” from being deprived of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law.”   It doesn’t say: "any person except for those the president believes to be terrorists."

It gets worse: the Justice Department can keep secret a memorandum providing the supposed “legal” justification for the targeted killing of a U.S. citizen, according to a January 2013 decision by a federal judge.  Ruling on a Freedom of Information lawsuit brought by the ACLU and the New York Times, Judge Colleen McMahon, wrote in her decision, “I can find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that effectively allow the executive branch of our government to proclaim as perfectly lawful certain actions that seem on their face incompatible with our Constitution and laws while keeping the reasons for their conclusion a secret.”

It's true that the CIA has admitted it had an assassination program during the Cold War -- described in the so-called “family jewels” or “horrors book,” compiled in 1973 under CIA Director James Schlesinger in response to Watergate-era inquiries and declassifiedin 2007.  But the targets were foreign leaders, especially Fidel Castro as well as the Congo’s Patrice Lumumba and the Dominican Republic’s Rafael Trujillo.  Still, presidents preferred “plausible deniability” in such situations, and certainly no president before Obama publicly claimed the legal right to order the killing of American citizens.  Indeed, before Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. regularly condemned “targeted killings” of suspected terrorists by Israel that were quite similar to those the president is now regularly ordering in the Pakistani tribal borderlands, Yemen, and possibly elsewhere.

2. We didn’t have a secret “terrorism-industrial complex.”

That’s the term coined by Dana Priest and William Arkin in their book Top Secret America to describe the ever-growing post-9/11 world of government agencies linked to private contractors charged with fighting terrorism.  During the Cold War, we had a handful of government agencies doing “top secret” work; today, they found, we have more than 1,200.

For example, Priest and Arkin found 51 federal organizations and military commands that attempt to track the flow of money to and from terrorist networks.  And don’t forget the nearly 2,000 for-profit corporate contractors that engage in top-secret work, supposedly hunting terrorists.  The official budget for “intelligence” has increased from around $27 billion in the last years of the Cold War to $75 billion in 2012. Along with this massive expansion of government and private security activities has come a similarly humongous expansion of official secrecy: the number of classified documents has increased from perhaps 5 million a year before 1980 to 92 million in 2011, while Obama administration prosecutions of government whistleblowers have soared.

It’s true that the CIA and the FBI engaged in significant secret and illegal surveillance that included American citizens during the Cold War, but the scale was small compared to the post-9/11 world.

3. Organized labor was accepted as part of the social landscape. 

“Only a fool would try to deprive working men and women of their right to join the union of their choice.” That’s what President Dwight D. Eisenhower said in 1952.  “Workers,” he added, “have a right to organize into unions and to bargain collectively with their employers,” and he affirmed that “a strong, free labor movement is an invigorating and necessary part of our industrial society.”  He caught the mood of the moment this way: “Should any political party attempt to… eliminate labor laws, you would not hear of that party again in our political history.”  “There is,” he acknowledged, “a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things, but their number is negligible... And they are stupid.” 

You certainly wouldn’t catch Barack Obama saying anything like that today.  

Back then, American unions were, in part, defended even by Republicans because they were considered a crucial aspect of the struggle against Communism.  Unlike Soviet workers, American ones, so the argument went, were free to join independent unions.  And amid a wave of productive wealth, union membership in Eisenhower’s America reached an all-time high: 34% of wage and salary workers in 1955.  In 2011, union membership in the private sector had fallen under 7%, a level not seen since 1932.

Of course, back in the Cold War era the government required unions to kick communists out of any leadership positions they held and unions that refused were driven out of existence.  Unions also repressed wildcat strikes and enforced labor peace in exchange for multi-year contracts with wage and benefit increases. But as we’ve learned in the last decades, if you’re a wageworker, almost any union is better than no union at all.

4. The government had to get a warrant before it could tap your phone. 

Today, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Amendments Act (yes, thatrepetitive tongue twister is its real name) gives the government vast powers to spy on American citizens -- and it’s just been extended to 2017 in a bill that Obama enthusiastically signed on December 29th.  The current law allows the monitoring of electronic communications without an individualized court order, as long as the government claims its intent is to gather “foreign intelligence.”  In recent years, much that was once illegal has been made the law of the land.  Vast quantities of the emails and phone calls of Americans are being “data-mined.”  Amendments approved by Congress in 2008, for instance, provided "retroactive immunity to the telecom companies that assisted the Bush administration in its warrantless wiretapping program," which was then (or should have been) illegal, as the website Open Congress notes. 

There were several modest congressional attempts to amend the 2012 FISA extension act, including one that would have required the director of national intelligence to reveal how many Americans are being secretly monitored.  That amendment would in no way have limited the government’s actual spying program.  The Senate nevertheless rejected it, 52-43, in a nation that has locked itself down in a way that would have been inconceivable in the Cold War years.

It’s true that in the 1950s and 1960s judges typically gave the police and FBI the wiretap warrants they sought.  But it’s probably also true that having to submit requests to judges had a chilling effect on the urge of government authorities to engage in unlimited wiretapping.

5. The infrastructure was being expanded and strengthened.

Today, our infrastructure is crumbling: bridges are collapsing, sewer systems are falling apart, power grids are failing.  Many of those systems date from the immediate post-World War II years.  And the supposedly titanic struggle against communism at home and abroad helped build them.  The best-known example of those Cold War infrastructure construction programs was the congressionally mandated National Defense Highways Act of 1956, which led to the construction of 41,000 miles of the Interstate Highway System. It was the largest public works project in American history and it was necessary, according to the legislation, to “meet the requirements of the national defense in time of war.”  People called the new highways “freeways” or “interstates,” but the official name was "the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways."

Along with the construction of roads and bridges came a similar commitment to expanding water delivery systems and the electrical and telephone grids.  Spending on infrastructure as a share of gross domestic product peaked in the 1960s at 3.1%.  In 2007, it was down to 2.4% and is assumedly still falling.

Today the U.S. has dropped far behind potential global rivals in infrastructure development.  An official panel of 80 experts noted that China is spending $1 trillion on high-speed rail, highways, and other infrastructure over the next five years.  The U.S., according to the report, needs to invest $2 trillion simply to rebuild the roads, bridges, water lines, sewage systems, and dams constructed 40 to 50 years ago, systems that are now reaching the end of their planned life cycles.  But federal spending cuts mean that the burden of infrastructure repair and replacement will fall on state and local governments, whose resources, as everyone knows, are completely inadequate for the task.

Of course, it’s true that the freeways built in the 1950s made the automobile the essential form of transportation in America and led to the withering away of public mass transit, and that the environment suffered as a result.  Still, today’s collapsing bridges and sewers dramatize the loss of any serious national commitment to the public good.

6. College was cheap.

Tuition and fees at the University of California system in 1965 totaled $220.  That’s the equivalent of about $1,600 today, and in 1965 you were talking about the best public university in the world.  In 2012, the Regents of the University of California, presiding over an education system in crisis, raised tuition and fees for state residents to $13,200.  And American students are now at least $1 trillion in debt, thanks to college loans that could consign many to lifetimes as debtors in return for subprime educations.

In 1958, in the panic that followed the Soviet Union’s successful launch of Sputnik, the first satellite, public universities got a massive infusion of federal money when the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was passed.  The Department of Education website today explains that the purpose of the NDEA was “to help ensure that highly trained individuals would be available to help America compete with the Soviet Union in scientific and technical fields.”  For the first time, government grants became the major source of university funding for scientific research.  The Act included a generous student-loan program.

With the end of the Cold War, federal funding was cut and public universities had little choice but to begin to make up the difference by increasing tuitions and fees, making students pay more -- a lot more.

True, the NDEA grants in the 1960s required recipients to sign a demeaning oath swearing that they did not seek the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, and that lots of government funding then supported Cold War military and strategic objectives.  After all, the University of California operated the nuclear weapons labs at Livermore and Los Alamos. Still, compare that to today’s crumbling public education system nationwide and who wouldn’t feel nostalgia for the Cold War era?

7. We had a president who called for a “war on poverty.”

In his 1966 State of the Union address, President Lyndon Baines Johnson argued that “the richest Nation on earth… people who live in abundance unmatched on this globe” ought to “bring the most urgent decencies of life to all of your fellow Americans.”  LBJ insisted that it was possible both to fight communism globally (especially in Vietnam) and to fight poverty at home.  As the phrase then went, he called for guns and butter.  In addition, he was determined not simply to give money to poor people, but to help build “community action” groups that would organize them to define and fight for programs they wanted because, the president said, poor people know what’s best for themselves.

Of course, it’s true that Johnson’s “War on Poverty,” unlike the Vietnam War, was woefully underfunded, and that those community action groups were soon overpowered by local mayors and Democratic political machines.  But it’s also true that President Obama did not even consider poverty worth mentioning as an issue in his 2012 reelection campaign, despite the fact that it has spread in ways that would have shocked LBJ, and that income and wealth inequalities between rich and poor have reached levels not seen since the late 1920s.  Today, it’s still plenty of guns -- but butter, not so much.

8. We had a president who warned against “the excessive power of the military-industrial complex.”

In Eisenhower’s “farewell address,” delivered three days before John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, the departing president warned against the “unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.” He declared that “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”  The speech introduced the phrase “military-industrial complex” into the vernacular.  It was a crucial moment in the Cold War: a president who had also been the nation’s top military commander in World War II was warning Americans about the dangers posed by the military he had commanded and its corporate and political supporters.

Ike was prompted to give the speech because of his disputes with Congress over the military budget.  He feared nuclear war and firmly opposed all talk about such a war being fought in a “limited” way.  He also knew that, when it came to the Soviet Union, American power was staggeringly preponderant.  And yet his opponents in the Democratic Party, the arms industry, and even the military were claiming that he hadn’t done enough for “defense” -- not enough weapons bought, not enough money spent.  President-elect Kennedy had just won the 1960 election by frightening Americans about a purely fictitious “missile gap” between the U.S. and the Soviets.

It’s true that Ike’s warning would have been far more meaningful had it been in his first or even second inaugural address, or any of his State of the Union speeches.  It’s also true that he had approved CIA coups in Iran and Guatemala, and had green-lighted planning for an invasion of Cuba (that would become Kennedy’s Bay of Pigs disaster).  He had also established Mutual Assured Destruction as the basis for Cold War military strategy, backed up with B-52s carrying atomic bombs in the air 24/7.

By the end of his second term, however, Ike had changed his mind.  His warning was not just against unnecessary spending, but also against institutions that were threatening a crisis he feared would bring the end of individual liberty.  “As one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization,” the president urged his fellow citizens to resist the military-industrial complex.  None of his successors has even tried, and in 2013 we’re living with the results.

...But there is one thing I do NOT miss about the Cold War: nuclear arsenals on hair-trigger alert.

Our Cold War enemy had nuclear weapons capable of destroying us, and the rest of the planet, many times over.  In 1991, when the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union had more than 27,000 nuclear weapons.  According to the Federation of American Scientists, these included more than 11,000 strategic nuclear weapons -- warheads on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched missiles, and weapons on bombers capable of attacking the US -- along with more than 15,000 warheads for “tactical” use as artillery shells and short-range “battlefield” missiles, as well as missile defense interceptors, nuclear torpedoes, and nuclear weapons for shorter-range aircraft.  We learned in 1993 that the USSR at one time possessed almost 45,000 nuclear warheads, and still had nearly 1,200 tons of bomb-grade uranium.  (Of course, sizeable Russian -- and American -- nuclear arsenals still exist.)  In comparison to all that, the arsenalsof al-Qaeda and our other terrorist enemies are remarkably insignificant.

Jon Wiener teaches American history at the University of California-Irvine and is a contributing editor at the Nation. His latest book, How We Forgot the Cold War: A Historical Journey Across America (University of California Press), has just been published.

Copyright 2013 Jon Wiener

A Message To The 'Left' From A 'Right Wing Extremist'

This article is true to my heart as I too am a former Republicrat.  Recognize there is a shadow government of elite that manipulate our foreign and domestic policies.  Elections are nothing more than political theater   Obama is a puppet to the High Cabal.  For more on that you'll need to listen to the Peace Revolution Podcast put together by 9/11 whistleblower Richard Grove.

Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market blog,

A Message To The 'Left' From A 'Right Wing Extremist'

Some discoveries are exciting, joyful, and exhilarating, while others can be quite painful.  Stumbling upon the fact that you do not necessarily have a competent grasp of reality, that you have in fact been duped for most of your life, is not a pleasant experience.  While it may be a living nightmare to realize that part of one’s life was, perhaps, wasted on the false ideas of others, enlightenment often requires that the worldview that we were indoctrinated with be completely destroyed before we can finally resurrect a tangible identity and belief system.  To have rebirth, something must first die...

In 2004, I found myself at such a crossroads.  At that time I was a dedicated Democrat, and I thought I had it all figured out.  The Republican Party was to me a perfect sort of monster.  They had everything!  Corporate puppet masters.  Warmongering zealots.  Fake Christians.  Orwellian social policies.  The Bush years were a special kind of horror.  It was cinematic.  Shakespearean.  If I was to tell a story of absolute villainy, I would merely describe the mass insanity and bloodlust days of doom and dread wrought by the Neo-Con ilk in the early years of the new millennium.

But, of course, I was partly naïve...

The campaign rhetoric of John Kerry was eye opening.  I waited, day after day, month after month for my party’s candidate to take a hard stance on the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I waited for a battle cry against the Patriot Act and the unconstitutional intrusions of the Executive Branch into the lives of innocent citizens.  I waited for a clear vision, a spark of wisdom and common sense.  I waited for the whole of the election for that man to finally embrace the feelings of his supporters and say, with absolute resolve, that the broken nation we now lived in would be returned to its original foundations.  That civil liberty, freedom, and peace, would be our standard once again.  Unfortunately, the words never came, and I realized, he had no opposition to the Bush plan.  He was not going to fight against the wars, the revolving door, or the trampling of our freedoms.  Indeed, it seemed as though he had no intention of winning at all.

I came to see a dark side to the Democratic Party that had always been there but which I had refused to acknowledge.  Their leadership was no different than the Neo-Cons that I despised.  On top of this, many supporters of the Democratic establishment had no values, and no principles.  Their only desire was to “win” at any cost.  They would get their "perfect society" at any cost, even if they had to chain us all together to do it. 

There was no doubt in my mind that if the Democrats reoccupied the White House or any other political power structure one day, they would immediately adopt the same exact policies and attitudes of the Neo-Conservatives, and become just as power-mad if not more so.  In 2008 my theory was proven unequivocally correct.

It really is amazing.  I have seen the so-called “anti-war” party become the most accommodating cheerleader of laser guided death and domination in the Middle East, with predator drones operating in the sovereign skies of multiple countries raining missiles upon far more civilians than “enemy combatants”, all at the behest of Barack Obama.  I have seen the “party of civil liberties” expand on every Constitution crushing policy of the Bush Administration, while levying some of the most draconian legislation ever witnessed in the history of this country.  I have seen Obama endorse enemy combatant status for American citizens, and the end of due process under the law through the NDAA.  I have seen him endorse the end of trial by jury.  I have seen him endorse secret assassination lists, and the federally drafted murder of U.S. civilians.  I have seen him endorse executive orders which open the path to the declaration of a “national emergency” at any time for any reason allowing for the dissolution of most constitutional rights and the unleashing of martial law.

If I was still a Democrat today I would be sickly ashamed.  Yet, many average Democrats actually defend this behavior from their party.  The same behavior they once railed against under Bush.

However, I have not come here to admonish Democrats (at least not most of them).  I used to be just like them.  I used to believe in the game.  I believed that the rules mattered, and that it was possible to change things by those rules with patience and effort.  I believed in non-violent resistance, protest, civil dissent, educational activism, etc.  I thought that the courts were an avenue for political justice.  I believed that the only element required to end corruption would be a sound argument and solid logic backed by an emotional appeal to reason.  I believed in the power of elections, and had faith in the idea that all we needed was the “right candidate” to lead us to the promise land.  Again, I believed in the game. 

The problem is, the way the world works and the way we WISH the world worked are not always congruent.  Attempting to renovate a criminal system while acting within the rigged confines of that system is futile, not to mention delusional.  Corrupt oligarchies adhere to the standards of civility only as long as they feel the need to maintain the illusion of the moral high ground.  Once they have enough control, the mask always comes off, the rotten core is revealed, and immediate violence against dissent commences. 

Sometimes the only solutions left in the face of tyranny are not peaceful.  Logic, reason, and justice are not revered in a legal system which serves the will of the power elite instead of the common man.  The most beautiful of arguments are but meaningless flitters of hot air in the ears of sociopaths.  Sometimes, the bully just needs to be punched in the teeth.

This philosophy of independent action is consistently demonized, regardless of how practical it really is when faced with the facts.  The usual responses to the concept of full defiance are accusations of extremism and malicious intent.  Believe me, when I embarked on the path towards the truth in 2004, I never thought I would one day be called a potential “homegrown terrorist”, but that is essentially where we are in America in 2013.  To step outside the mainstream and question the validity of the game is akin to terrorism in the eyes of the state and the sad cowardly people who feed the machine. 

During the rise of any despotic governmental structure, there is always a section of the population that is given special treatment, and made to feel as though they are “on the winning team”.  For now, it would appear that the “Left” side of the political spectrum has been chosen by the establishment as the favored sons and daughters of the restructured centralized U.S.  However, before those of you on the Left get too comfortable in your new position as the hand of globalization, I would like to appeal to you for a moment of unbiased consideration.  I know from personal experience that there are Democrats out there who are actually far more like we constitutionalists and “right wing extremists” than they may realize.  I ask that you take the following points into account, regardless of what the system decides to label us...

We Are Being Divided By False Party Paradigms

Many Democrats and Republicans are not stupid, and want above all else to see the tenets of freedom respected and protected.  Unfortunately, they also tend to believe that only their particular political party is the true defender of liberty.  The bottom line is, at the top of each party there is very little if any discernible difference between the two.   If you ignore all the rhetoric and only look at action, the Republican and Democratic leadership are essentially the same animal working for the same special interests.  There is no left and right; only those who wish to be free, and those who wish to control.

Last year, the “Left and the “Right” experienced an incredible moment of unity after the introduction of the NDAA.  People on both sides were able to see the terrifying implications of a law that allows the government to treat any American civilian as an enemy of war without right to trial.  In 2013, the establishment is attempting to divide us once again with the issue of gun disarmament.  I have already presented my position on gun rights in numerous other articles and I believe my stance is unshakeable.  But, what I will ask anti-gun proponents and on-the-fence Democrats is this:  How do you think legislation like the NDAA will be enforced in the future?  Is it not far easier to threaten Americans with rendition, torture, and assassination when they are completely unarmed?  If you oppose the NDAA, you should also oppose any measure which gives teeth to the NDAA, including the debasement of the 2nd Amendment.

Democrats Are Looking For Help In The Wrong Place

Strangely, Democrats very often search for redress within the very system they know is criminal.  For some reason, they think that if they bash their heads into the wall long enough, a door will suddenly appear.  I’m here to tell you, there is no door. 

The biggest difference between progressives and conservatives is that progressives consistently look to government to solve all the troubles of the world, when government is usually the CAUSE of all the troubles in the world.  The most common Democratic argument is that in America the government “is what we make it”, and we can change it anytime we like through the election process.  Maybe this was true at one time, but not anymore.  Just look at Barack Obama!  I would ask all those on the Left to take an honest look at the policies of Obama compared to the policies of most Neo-Cons, especially when it comes to constitutional liberties.  Where is the end to Middle Eastern war?  Where is the end to domestic spy programs?  Where is the end to incessant and dictatorial executive orders?  Where is the conflict between the Neo-Cons and the Neo-Liberals?  And, before you point at the gun control debate, I suggest you look at Obama’s gun policies compared to Mitt Romney’s and John McCain’s – there is almost no difference whatsoever…

If the two party system becomes a one party system, then elections are meaningless, and electing a new set of corrupt politicians will not help us.

Democrats Value Social Units When They Should Value Individuals Instead

Democrats tend to see everything in terms of groups.  Victim status groups, religious groups, racial groups, special interest groups, etc.  They want to focus on the health of the whole world as if it is a single entity.  It is not.  Without individuals, there is no such thing as “groups”, and what we might categorize as groups change and disperse without notice.  Groups do not exist beyond shared values, and even then, the individual is still more important in the grand scheme of things. 

As a former Democrat, I know that the obsession with group status makes it easy to fall into the trap of collectivism.  It is easy to think that what is best for you must be best for everybody.  This Utopian idealism is incredibly fallible.  Wanting the best for everyone is a noble sentiment, but using government as a weapon to force your particular vision of the “greater good” on others leads to nothing but disaster.  The only safe and reasonable course is to allow individuals to choose for themselves how they will function in society IF they choose to participate at all.  Government must be left out of the equation as much as possible.  Its primary job should be to safeguard the individual’s right to choose how he will live.  You have to get over the fact that there is no such thing as a perfect social order, and even if there was, no government is capable of making it happen for you.   

Democrats Can Become As Power-Mad As Any Neo-Con

I think it is important to point out how quickly most Democratic values went out the door as soon as Barack Obama was placed in the White House.  Let’s be clear; you cannot claim to be anti-war, anti-torture, anti-assassination, anti-surveillance, anti-corporate, anti-bank, anti-rendition, etc. while defending the policies of Obama at the same time.  This is hypocrisy. 

I have heard some insane arguments from left leaning proponents lately.  Some admit that Obama does indeed murder and torture, but “at least he is pushing for universal health care…”.  Even if it did work (which it won’t), is Obamacare really worth having a president who is willing to murder children on the other side of the world and black-bag citizens here at home?  Do not forget your moral compass just because you think the system is now your personal playground.  If you do, you are no better than all the angry bloodcrazed Republicans that bumbled into the Iraq War while blindly following George W. Bush. 

There Is A Difference Between Traditional Conservatives And Neo-Cons

Neo-Cons are not conservative.  They are in fact socialist in their methods, and they always expand government spending and power while reducing constitutional protections.  The “Liberty Movement”, of which I am proudly a part, is traditional conservative.  We believe that government, especially as corrupt as it is today, cannot be trusted to administrate and nursemaid over every individual in our nation.  It has proven time after time that it caters only to criminally inclined circles of elites.  Therefore, we seek to reduce the size and influence of government so that we can minimize the damage that it is doing.  For this, we are called “extremists”. 

Governments are not omnipotent.  They are not above criticism, or even punishment.  They are merely a collection of individuals who act either with honor or dishonor.  In the Liberty Movement, we treat a corrupt government just as we would treat a corrupt individual.  We do not worship the image of the state, nor should any Democrat.

Liberty Minded Conservatives Are Not “Terrorists”

There will come a time, very soon I believe, when people like me are officially labeled “terrorists”.  Perhaps because we refuse gun registration or confiscation.  Perhaps because we develop alternative trade markets outside the system.  Maybe because some of us are targeted by federal raids, and we fight back instead of submitting.  Maybe because we speak out against the establishment during a time of “declared crisis”, and speech critical of the government is labeled “harmful to the public good”.  One way or another, whether you want to believe me now or not, the day is coming. 

Before this occurs, and the mainstream media attacks us viciously as “conspiracy theorists” and traitors, I want the Left to understand that no matter what you may hear about us, our only purpose is to ensure that our natural rights are not violated, our country is not decimated, and our republic is governed with full transparency.  We are not the dumb redneck racist hillbilly gun nuts you see in every primetime TV show, and anyone who acts out of personal bias and disdain for their fellow man is not someone we seek to associate with.  We fight because we have no other choice.  Our conscience demands that we oppose centralized tyranny.  We do what we do because the only other option is subservience and slavery.   

Many of the people I have dealt with in the Liberty Movement are the most intelligent, well-informed, principled and dedicated men and women I have ever met.  They want, basically, what most of us want:

• to be free to determine their own destinies.
• To be free to speak their minds without threat of state retribution.
• To be free to defend themselves from any enemy that would seek to oppress them.
• To live within an economic environment that is not rigged in favor of elitist minorities and on the verge of engineered collapse.
• To live in a system that respects justice and legitimate law instead of using the law as a sword against the public.
• To wake up each day with solace in the knowledge that while life in many regards will always be a difficult thing, we still have the means to make it better for ourselves and for the next generation.
• To wake up knowing that those inner elements of the human heart which make us most unique and most endearing are no longer considered “aberrant”, and are no longer under threat.