Tea Party termed a blip
on history’s radar screen

When I read the letter in your June Daily Planet, ”Despite Smears, Tea Party termed true U.S. patriots,” the image that came to mind was the opening of “Gone with the Wind.”

All those boys whooping and jumping over rose bushes, everybody sure that one gentleman could whip 20 yankees. The fervor of a new movement …and ideas that can’t survive.

The letter is a recruiting tool for the Tea Party, and the writer does it well. She lists 10 Tea Party beliefs, using the frame, “If you believe X, you are the Tea Party” – something like Jeff Foxworthy uses in comedy.

As I read down the list, I nodded “yes” on six items, two others got a “yes but,” and two got a “Say what?“
I said, Yes, I love America, I believe in secure borders, personal responsibility, private property, and that the country is on a collision course with economic disaster.  I believe that “our rights are endowed by our Creator” is the spiritual rock of our democracy.

But here the Tea Party goes quirky.  The words are everyday English, but the meanings behind the words aren’t everyday.  They’re in-group jargon, “keywords” that are only understood in the context of an ideology.

The words and phrases of their creed have private definitions.  For example, I said “yes” to “personal responsibility” because I believe everybody should own up to their mistakes and not blame others.  But we’ve all heard Republicans (not necessarily Tea Partiers) using “personal responsibility” as an anti-welfare line.  

And the Tea Party’s pet problems have in-group solutions. When the Tea Party talks about “a collision course with economic disaster,” we’ve all seen what that means in Congress. It means absolutely no new revenue of any kind.

And what the heck does this mean: “It’s the parent’s right — not the government’s —  to raise and educate your children”?  

Do they envision a society without public schools and child protective services?  Yoiks!

This is where the Tea Party will crash.  The letter-writer’s list shows the movement’s shallowness.

They’re tree-cutters, not forest-planters. They’re slogan-mongers; they have no coherent plan for a sound national future.  I’m reminded of Rhett Butler’s words as he observed the war euphoria: “It’s hard to win a war with words. All we’ve got is cotton and slaves and arrogance.”  

The Tea Party will go the way of so many similar movements before them. The anti-immigrant Know-Nothing movement of the mid-19th century elected mayors and governors across the country in 1854, but then fell apart on the issues of slavery and prohibition.

The Tea Party will drag down the Republicans in 2012, their funding from shadowy billionaires will stop because they’ve served their usefulness, and they will disappear.

They will get a paragraph in history because of the 2010 election.

LEE BALLARD
Mars Hill

Eichenbaum condemns bogus Twitter account

Late Tuesday afternoon (June 14), I spoke with Jeff Miller to assure him I had absolutely no knowledge of, nor would I EVER condone such a reprehensible and heinous act (regarding a Twitter account that was launched in his name) as was perpetrated against him.

He indicated to me that he was dropping the matter and asked me to respect his decision.

Dr. Dan Eichenbaum
Murphy

EDITOR’S NOTE: Eichenbaum finished second to Miller in the race for the Republican nomination to face U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler,  D-Waynesville.

Libs accused of distorting
GOP’s record with blacks 

Republicans are racists according to many liberals. They think Republicans hate blacks, that is, African-Americans, for the politically correct, at least for now. That is the liberal media and Democrat Party line every time a conservative Republican criticizes President Obama’s policies.

The irony is that the Republican Party was established to end the slavery of blacks. A Republican, Abraham Lincoln, issued the executive order, the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing black slaves. A Republican Congress passed and spearheaded the ratification of the 13th Amendment, ending slavery. Frederick Douglass, the most influential black of his time, campaigned for every Republican presidential candidate until he died in 1895.

The women’s suffrage movement (giving women, including black women, the right to vote in 1920) was led by Republican men. Well, no one is perfect.

The first woman ever elected speaker of a state legislature was Minnie Davenport Craig in 1932, a Republican black woman from North Dakota. The 1940 Republican platform called for the integration of the armed forces; FDR refused.

Republicans appointed the first and only two blacks to the U.S. Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas. I had dinner with Thomas and his wife and have never been more awe struck of a prominent figure’s integrity and genuine warmth – and I have been fortunate enough to have met a number of world leaders. Democrats brought totally unfounded vicious charges against Thomas in order to prevent his confirmation to the Supreme Court.

It was Republican President Eisenhower who introduced the Civil Rights Act of 1960 against staunch Democrat opposition. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing major forms of discrimination against blacks and women, had a much bigger percentage of Republicans than Democrats voting for it. The Nixon Administration strictly enforced the Act. On the other hand, Affirmative Action, which is essentially reverse discrimination against whites, is a Democrat construct.

Richard Nixon selected the first black American to be National Teacher of the Year. It was Republican President Gerald Ford who rescinded Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt’s racist executive order authorizing the interment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans. President Reagan appointed the first black cabinet secretary, Samuel Pierce and the first black National Security advisor, Colin Powell.

Republican President Bush I appointed the first black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the first black Secretary of State, Colin Powell.  Bush also appointed the first black ambassador to the UN, Edward Perkins and the first black Secretary of Education, Rod Paige. Have you noticed a consistent trend?

Bush II nominated the first Hispanic to the Appeals Court. Democrats filibustered his nomination.

Michael Steele was elected the first African-American elected head of a national political party. Guess which one?

When Michele Bachmann, congresswoman and potential candidate for president, was asked recently which political columnists and authors she most often reads, she mentioned Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams, two very black economists, who are arguably the two most respected by conservatives.

Over the weekend I listened to newly elected black Republican Congressman Allen West’s speech at the N.C. Republican Convention. Recommend you find it on U-Tube.

Hmmm. Herman Cain, another African-American, is a favored candidate of conservative Republicans and those racist Tea Party activists. How can that be?

What most liberals do not seem to understand or notice because of their ideological blindness is that what conservative Republicans and Tea Party activists do not like about our half black president is not the color of his skin, but the red color of his decidedly socialist destructive political agenda. Why does anyone take serious the dominant media talking heads statements about Conservatives, Republicans and Tea Party being racist?

Martin Luther King Jr. is famously remembered for saying he was looking for a world where it is “the content of a man’s character” and his beliefs that count, not the color of his skin or ethnic origin. That is what virtually all conservatives and Republicans believe. On the other hand, Democrat ideology appears to be to divide people into ethnic groups and try to make them feel inferior so they will more readily accept special favors and handouts from their government masters in return for their votes.

James F. Davis
Asheville

Candidates needed to end fiscal mismanagement

Those who do take part in voting in this self-governing nation we still call “America” might find interesting an online six-minute video clip excerpt from the monetary policy hearing on June 1, featuring committee Chairman Ron Paul and Federal Reserve lawyer Scott Alvarez.  Alvarez admits that the Federal Reserve owns no gold, but rather holds gold certificates from 1934.

Then ask yourself whether or not the dismal economic management of America over the last 100 years is not the single most important current national issue which not only affects us all, but our future generations. How can any nation do any good for its people, or anyone on this planet for that matter, if it doesn’t have a sound and transparent financial system?

Shall we continue to travel down the same road we’ve been for nearly a century? Or shall we finally take a turn for the better?

The people of a self-governing nation deserve the government they elect. While the election system in America has been corrupted by the partisan duopoly, we still have the opportunity to search out those candidates who understand the truth about our financial condition and willing to correct it, and support them in the primaries.

If the people wait until the general election, the political parties will have already selected their favorites among whom the masses can choose to lead this country, all of whom are beholden to the party itself and Wall Street, rather than to the people.

No, I don’t think we humans can or will fix everything in this present world ... but I do think we should try our best to do so!

Bernard Baruch Carman
Asheville

Gold ownership ban,
dollar collapse looming

During an era of frightful panic, Americans are hugely buying both silver and gold. At the same time, nations such as China, Russia and Mexico, are buying gold and silver by the hundreds of tons. At first, Americans were told there’s no real reason to hoard the precious  metals. Yet, other nations are seeking gold’s bracing comforts.

Forceful nations throughout the world gather their thoughts toward  the petro dollar. What began with Russia, China and India has  substantially grown. Lately, France and Japan have joined the  allegiance, while Germany is being encouraged to revoke the dollar.  If a concurrence transpires, the Federal Reserve Note will be  rendered nil.

Most Americas aren’t aware that the dollar, which lines our pockets, also purchases oil worldwide. This course was initiated on, Dec.  27, 1945, when 29 nations led by the USA, formed the International Monastery Fund. The IMF was provided with a fund which guaranteed associate countries that gold would shroud the US dollar.

How did the USA accrue enough gold to insure participating countries trust? On April, 5 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed Executive Order 6102, forbidding the hording of gold by U.S. citizens.

American citizens had 26 days to obey the governments demands to  sell their gold or face a $10,000 fine and 10 years in jail.  Americans were allowed to personally keep only $100 in gold coins. (Think: Swiss accounts).

Although FRD died 4/12/1945, the IMF was drafted between 1942-44.  The 1933 president that passed E.O. 6102 is the same president that supervised the IMF outline, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The president  that took the citizens gold in 1933, also fashioned the gold standard between 1942-44.

Since both events 6102 and the IMF surrounded gold, had Washington, D.C. planned for 12 years to control and scheme world finances through the IMF? NAFTA took 16 years to internationally intertwine.

From 1971, it took 40 years to change world economic stability  through the gold standard and Federal Reserve Note. It’s obvious  American spending both by civilian and leadership rolls have  developed into a worldly hate. American loathing is warranted by  those nations that trusted America then, and now.

Since above-ground gold will fit into one Olympic size swimming pool, will physically removing gold from the world market affect  its purpose? During the ‘60s, many nations, mainly France, began filling their safes with gold. The petro dollar was losing its  appeal. By  1971, international world banks were altering their outlook regarding the gold standard. The same thing is happening today. Reference (“The Nixon Shock”).

Most nations, except America, are fiscally preparing. Our daily media shows say there’s no reason to panic, while other media shows shout, “Buy gold!” Will another Executive Order 6102 with fines and jail time emerge? Will the dollar collapse? Both appear to be possible, with losing prospects. It currently appears there’s no way Americans can win.

Jerry Soesbee
Asheville

Gas prices cause hurt,
while Fed steals savings

The recent article, “What Can Be Done to Lower Gas Prices?” on the RSC website at http://rsc.jordan.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=238652 doesn’t address a major cause of increasing gas prices or prices in general.

We see prices of gasoline, milk, food and even services going up.  The major cause of this increase is profligate monetary expansion by the “unelected” Federal Reserve (the Fed).

For each new dollar they print, a dollar in your pocket becomes worth less. Oil merchants don’t want to sell their oil for worth less dollars so they increase their prices to keep up with the dollar’s declining value.  Consumers see this as a price increase at the pump.

Milton Friedman, Nobel Prize recipient in economic sciences, author, and past leader of the Chicago school of economics, highlights the main reason for inflation to continue in his 1994 book, “Money Mischief, Episodes in Monetary History.”

Friedman notes the relationship between monetary expansion (foisted upon us by monetary easing) and the resulting inflation.  Other renowned economists, such as Ludwig von Mises, Frederick Hayek, and even that venerable Maynard Keynes, have written warnings on this subject, according to Friedman.

Friedman proves empirically and mathematically that when the total quantity of money expands at a faster rate than the productivity of the society (or nation), inflation results shortly thereafter. The Fed is stealing the savings of American workers and retirees by depreciating the true purchasing power of their earnings and pensions. People marvel over the dollar amount of their investments going up, but is it really compensating for their buying power going down?

Write your congressmen and demand that they audit of the Fed and put a stop to the printing of baseless currency BEFORE run-away inflation sets in with a vengeance.

George Danz
Flat Rock