A Warning To The Tea Party Nation
By Chuck Baldwin
February 12, 2010


This column is archived at
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2010/cbarchive_20100212.html


As far as grassroots activism goes, the surge in Tea Parties across America
is one of the more encouraging developments to recently take place. It
reminds me of the "Conservative Revolution" of 1994, when the GOP reclaimed
both the US Senate and House of Representatives. At that time, it had been
over 40 years since the Republican Party controlled both the US House and
Senate. And, between the two, the House victories were the most significant.

Spurred mostly by the election of Bill Clinton in 1992, a host of young,
energetic freshman Republicans marched into Washington, D.C., determined to
return a burgeoning and out-of-control federal leviathan to the
constitutional precepts of limited government. I'm talking about
then-freshman House members such as Helen Chenoweth, Steve Largent, Bob
Barr, Joe Scarborough, Sonny Bono, John Shadegg, J.C. Watts, etc. These
young conservatives went to Washington, D.C., determined to reduce the
growth and size of the federal government.

The vehicle used to transport these young conservatives from grassroots
activism to US House and Senate seats was the highly touted "Contract with
America" (CWA), which was orchestrated by House Speaker-to-be, Newt
Gingrich. The CWA included a promise to the American people that if they
would give the GOP a majority in Congress, they would eliminate up to 5
federal departments--such as the Departments of Energy and Education--and
many federal agencies.

Obviously, not only did the GOP-controlled Congress not eliminate a single
federal department or agency--or even shrink the size of the federal
government at all--it expanded the size and scope of the federal government
at every level. And there is one reason for it: Big Government neocons
posing as champions of conservatism co-opted and destroyed the Conservative
Revolution of 1994.

If one wants to put names to these treasonous wretches (and I do), I'm
talking about charlatans such as Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott. Anyone who
thinks that Newt Gingrich is a real conservative or that he will do anything
to reduce the size and scope of the federal government needs to speak with
any of those Republican members of the freshman class of 1994.  (Sadly, too,
some of the members of that great freshman class went on to become Big
Government toadies themselves. Such is the power of that Putrid Province by
the Potomac.)

The Tea Parties of 2010 remind me very much of the Conservative Revolution
of 1994. And if the Tea Party Nation is not very careful, they will succumb
to the same fate. The signs of a silent takeover of the movement are already
appearing.

First of all, the Tea Parties were actually born during the Presidential
campaign of Congressman Ron Paul of Texas in 2007 and 2008. For all intents
and purposes, the Tea Parties and the Ron Paul Revolution were one and the
same. These were (mostly) young people, who were sick and tired of the same
old establishment Republican Party. They were tired of establishment
Republicans selling out the principles of limited government; they were
tired of the US Constitution being ignored and trampled by both Republicans
and Democrats; they were tired of an incessant interventionist US foreign
policy that keeps sending US forces overseas to advance a burgeoning New
World Order (NWO); they were tired of perpetual war; they were tired of the
bank bailouts; they were tired of the Federal Reserve; etc.

I know this because I met--and spoke before--the Tea Party Nation in State
after State as I campaigned for Dr. Paul during the Republican primaries
back in 2008. And I met them again all over America, as I was running as an
Independent candidate for President--with Ron Paul's endorsement, no less. I
was with them in scores of meetings (big and small) from Washington, D.C.,
to Spokane, Washington, and all points in between.

But now many of the Tea Parties are distancing themselves from Dr. Paul and
embracing establishment players such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Even
Newt Gingrich is being courted. Watch out, Tea Party Nation: you're in
danger of losing your soul! Newt Gingrich is not one of you. He is not your
friend. He is an imposter. He will destroy you just like he almost
single-handedly destroyed the Conservative Revolution of 1994.

Plus, be careful about Sarah Palin and other establishment Republicans.
Palin is currently playing both sides. She is promoting Big Government
neocons such as John McCain on the one hand, and sincere
conservative-libertarians such as Rand Paul on the other hand. But if one
wants a real barometer of Palin's true colors, look no further than her
endorsement of Rick Perry in Texas.

Perry is the quintessential establishment Republican. Perry has been in
office for some 9 years, and what has he done to thwart the NWO in Texas?
Nothing! Perry is even a Bilderberg Group attendee. What has he done for
State sovereignty in Texas? Nothing! In fact, he supports the North American
Union and the NAFTA superhighway. What has he done to resist Obama's
universal health care proposals? Nothing! What has he done to protect the
citizens of Texas against an emerging Police State? Nothing! What has he
done to fight illegal immigration? Nothing!

As a result of both Rick Perry's establishment business-as-usual politics in
Texas and the proliferating grassroots Tea Party movement, counterattacking
establishment politics, a Tea Partier herself has entered the race for Texas
governor. Her name is Debra Medina. As the Tea Party Nation in Texas already
knows, Medina is one of you.

Medina is committed to preserving Texas' independence and sovereignty. She
is opposed to the Patriot Act. She will secure the Texas border. She will
give Texas Vermont-style open carry freedoms for gun owners. She wants to
get rid of unconstitutional property taxes in Texas. She will stop the NAFTA
superhighway. Medina is the real deal.

So, what did Sarah Palin do? She went to Texas and endorsed Rick Perry! I'm
sorry, ladies and gentlemen, playing political games in order to rake in
hundreds of thousands of dollars on the speaking and book-signing circuits
is not what the Tea Parties are all about.

Tea Parties are supposed to be about putting principle over politics,
supporting and defending the US Constitution, supporting limited government
and personal liberty, getting rid of the Federal Reserve, abolishing the
IRS, ending preemptive and pervasive wars, and putting truth and integrity
back into government.

Don't get me wrong; there are things about Sarah Palin that I like. I
especially appreciate her pro-life and pro-Second Amendment stands. I also
appreciate her signing the Alaska State sovereignty resolution while she was
governor. By all indications, she did a good job as Alaska's chief
executive. At the national level, however, she favors the Patriot Act--and
even wants to expand it. She supported the banker bailouts. And when it
comes to foreign policy issues, Palin is just another neocon. Plus, as with
most Republicans at the national level, I think she is clueless about the
NWO. And please remember, it was Mr. New World Order himself, Henry
Kissinger, who vetted Palin on behalf of McCain.

The Tea Party Nation should expect better!

The Nation also needs to be careful about Glenn Beck. He says many of the
right things. He is likeable and charismatic; but he's also dead wrong on a
number of issues--issues that are critical to the Tea Party Nation. He's
dead wrong when he attempts to disparage and impugn Congressman Ron Paul,
saying Dr. Paul is a "crazy, kooky guy." He's dead wrong in supporting the
banker bailouts. He's dead wrong when he supports raising taxes (which he
has done on several occasions). He was dead wrong when he supported the
Patriot Act. He is dead wrong when he viciously attacks the 9/11 victims'
families who demand further information about what happened to their loved
ones on that fateful day. And he is dead wrong when he mocks people such as
Alan Keyes and Joe Farah for demanding that Barack Obama release his birth
certificate--if he indeed has one.

And now I hear that there are some self-professed members of the Tea Party
Nation who are actually running for Congressman Paul's US House seat in
Texas. If this is not a sign that establishment Republicans are hijacking
the Tea Party movement, I don't know what is. Remember, the Tea Party
movement began as a support base for the Ron Paul Revolution back in 2007.

I strongly encourage the Tea Party faithful to read Jane Hamsher's recent
column on this subject:

http://tinyurl.com/tea-party-soul

I say again, be careful, Tea Party Nation. You are being infiltrated. You
are being compromised. You are being neutered. Stick to your principles.
Stick with the Constitution. Keep opposing unconstitutional, preemptive
wars. Keep calling for the abolition of the Federal Reserve. Keep fighting
for less taxes, reduced federal spending, and states' rights. Keep opposing
the Patriot Act and the New World Order. Don't abandon Ron Paul. Be wary of
people such as Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. You don't need "big name"
celebrities to give you credibility. As Samson's strength depended on
keeping his hair uncut, your strength lies in keeping your principles
intact. And unless you want to wind up like the Republican freshmen in 1994,
avoid Newt Gingrich like the plague!

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Dear readers,

I felt I had to post something about this. Have you heard much of anything about this recently? What is going on behind closed doors? If we don't pay attention and get involved what do you think our children and grand children will have?

Wake Up America!

by Kirkpatrick Sale

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but secession is in the air.

First of all, a fellow named Bill Miller has started a new website, SecessionNews.com, and it is a Drudge-Report-like compilation of anything connected with secession across the land and around the world. It is an extraordinary endeavor, and it reflects a great deal of talk about, interest in, separatism and independence these days. Miller, a retired computer engineer, has undertaken this, he says, because he has a passionate interest in getting Americans to understand that secession is a legitimate and honorable political strategy. Increasingly, it seems, they’re listening.

A regular contributor to the Miller site is Russell Longcore, who has also started up a new site of his own, the bluntly named DumpDC.com. Longcore, who seems to have insurance and publishing businesses in Georgia, writes long and vigorously about secession in his fairly regular posts. "Secession," he says, "is on the lips of many Americans today. When they look at a Federal Government that is spinning wildly out of control, state secession begins to have an allure as a remedy. America has gone from a nation of sovereign states with a carefully defined Federal Government to a nation where states are but subservient territories of a rapacious, tyrannical ruling entity that entirely ignores any restrictions on its power." His site figures to do something about that.

Last December another new voice was added to the cause, from something called Attackthesystem.com that considers itself to represent the "radical Left." It argued that secession should be supported because it was the best way to bring down the American empire and all that it stands for, including its support for corporate capitalism, longtime goals of the traditional Left. Vermont liberals of the Sanders persuasion should take a look at it ("Why the Radical Left Should Consider Secession").

In January one notable event, carried by the AP to the lengths of the land, was the launch of the campaign by Dennis Steele and Peter Garritano (and others) for an independent Vermont, but you know all that. You might not have known that another secession campaign, or something very close to it, was launched just before that in Texas, where the Texas Nationalist Movement ("Independence. In our lifetime") announced its support for the Libertarian candidate for governor, Debra Medina. She is "in line with the core beliefs of our organization," it said, and she believes that the people of Texas should vote on the issue of independence, a core TNM demand. (Medina rejected the support, alas.)

(Just as an aside: Libertarians, particularly the smarter Paulists, are important allies for secessionists, since they get to the nullification/secession place with only a few prompts if they’re not already there. Ron himself has said it’s a workable option.)

Also in January the invaluable website TenthAmendmentCenter.com began tracking the number of legislatures coming back into session this year and considering bills to reassert their sovereignty and Tenth Amendment rights. By the end of January resolutions were introduced in 11 states (Washington, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Nebraska, Missouri, Mississippi, Kentucky, Illinois, Maryland, and Rhode Island). Last year (also tracked on this site) Tenth Amendment resolutions were introduced in 33 states, passed both houses in five, and were OK’d by the governors in two. The movement looks to be gaining momentum again.

In February that movement held a Tenth Amendment Summit, in Atlanta, assembling state representatives and candidates from across the country for a one-day closed meeting on strategies, and next day hearing presentations from Judge Napolitano, the Fox commentator, and Ray McBerry, a secessionist candidate for Georgia Governor.

Also in February there took place a remarkable conference boldly announced as on "Nullification, Secession, and the Human Scale of Political Order" in Charleston, South Carolina, maybe the first ever large-scale scholarly conference on secession open to the public. It featured many leading secessionist scholars, including Donald Livingston, Thomas DiLorenzo, SVR’s Thomas Naylor, Marshall DeRosa, Kent Brown, and yours truly, and was attended by upwards of 100 people, an impressive turnout, especially considering the admission cost of $2–400.

A national Tea Party Convention was also in February, not exactly a secessionist event but a measure of the underlying discontent that is leading people at least to protest the system (and the debt) they’ve been given and start thinking (some of them) about alternatives.

So what’s going on?

Basically, of course, it is the growing dissatisfaction, in blue states as well as red, and the purple and mauves, too, with a government grown too big, complicated, and corrupt to function. It can’t do health care, swine flue, stimulus payments, carbon limits, education, jobs, corporate bonus control, or airport security. It can send 30,000 soldiers to the sinkhole of Afghanistan, because Congress long ago gave up any role in military policy and the peace movement long ago folded up, but that’s what Presidents always do when they want to seem to be strong. Reagan invades Granada, Bush I Panama and Iraq, Clinton Kosovo, Bush II Iraq and Afghanistan. All for no reason than showing that they can do something in Washington.

But there’s more to it than that. There is a deep and fundamental perception that corporate America – briefly, Wall Street – really is in the saddle and runs the country, and for its own benefit, of course. Very successfully, too, and with complete impunity. It cares nothing for public opinion and has no shame. Now this may always have been true, but there used to be the accepted illusion that the corporations had some interest in making the people happy, or prosperous – "What’s good for General Motors is good for the country." But now that the country owns General Motors they make no pretense that they are interested in spreading the wealth at all. And it is because the public perceives it – unconsciously if not knowingly – that there is the general sense of unease, of anger.

Many of those feeling this unease and anger, of course, don’t know what to do about it other than going to tea parties and shouting at town halls. But it is clear that a great many others are following the inexorable logical train that leads to secessionist thinking: this system is broken and can’t be fixed, party (including third party) politics is part of the problem not the solution, armed rebellion doesn’t have a chance against an apparently ruthless state, and the only way to change things and have a chance of a better world is through peaceful secession – getting out, not getting back. It has, too, the virtue of seeming to be doable – not like revolution or regime change or socialism or any other variant of extreme politics.

It’s not that I have any great faith in the mass of people of this nation using logic, but it just feels as if more people are following this line of thinking these days than… than any time since, say, 1865.

February 9, 2010

Kirkpatrick Sale [send him mail], scholar and prolific writer, heads the Middlebury Institute.

Copyright © 2010 Middlebury Institute

Are "We the People" even aware of this as the main stream media completely omits mention of it? I believe most average U.S. Citizens are not even aware that this 2009 Congress was convened. Educate yourself. Make time to learn how to take back our country.

Wojack

These grass-roots proceedings are NOT a Constitutional Convention, which the Delegates are wholeheartedly against as such a Convention would only serve to limit our unalienable rights. The terms are easily confused, especially because it's been 225 years since "We The People" have had to convene a Continental Congress. 

Continental Congress '09

CONTINENTAL CONGRESS '09: THE NEXT STEP FOR A FREE PEOPLE

 

 

by Tom DeWeese
January 13, 2010
NewsWithViews.com

In recent years Americans have become more and more alarmed at the lack of adherence to the U.S. Constitution exercised by Congress and other elected representatives. The list of violations has grown large indeed.

Some have tried to fight the violations through the election process, attempting to remove those representatives who have perpetrated them. Others have tried to fight infringing legislation as it is introduced. Still others have fought in the courts, attempting to defend liberties in front of judges who have sworn to uphold the Constitution.

To date, little has worked as many elected representatives and court rooms openly defy the Constitution, calling it antiquated. Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court announce that they now look to international law for precedence and guidance, rather than the Constitution. Government at all levels is growing ever further from the reach of the people. In such a growing desperate situation is it possible to restore the Republic to the vision of the Founding Fathers?

On November 11, 2009 116 delegates from 48 states gathered at Pheasant Run Resort in St. Charles, IL to see if they could bring together a plan to restore the Republic and reign in our runaway government. The event was the Continental Congress 2009 and was the brainchild of Robert Schulz, President of the We The People Foundation.

Throughout 2009, Schulz traveled the nation speaking out on the need for the People to take action to restore the Republic, citing in each case that “the Constitution cannot defend itself.” As he explained it, “for 14 years, the People, through various means, have exhausted their administrative and judicial remedies – for example, the People have used their First Amendment Right “to petition the Government for a ‘Redress of Grievances,’ and have received no legitimate response from either the Judicial, Congressional or Executive branches.”

That action that Schulz envisioned was taken directly from the history of the nation, specifically the actions taken by our nation’s founders in 1774 when they were faced with a similar government that refused to listen. Then they called a Continental Congress with delegates representing the 13 Colonies. And so, just as in 1774, Continental Congress 2009 was called, with delegates elected by popular vote in each state. Their purpose was to review the Government’s violations of the Constitution and come up with a workable plan to fix it.

For ten solid days the delegates met, debated and worked in committees until the wee hours of the night to review the Government’s violations of fourteen of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights. Each matter was then referred to a sub-committee that was charged with recommending “Remedial instructions” to federal officials and to each of the several States, and Civic Actions for the People of the nation to take to assure elected representatives follow through with their instructions. I was privileged to have been elected as the first delegate from Virginia. I was also honored to address the Congress on issues such as the North American Union and to serve on the Property Rights Committee.

The final document produced by the Continental Congress, containing all of the reviews of violations, instructions to Congress and state legislature and the civil actions have been tied into one document called the “Articles of Freedom.” Schulz summed up the work of the Continental Congress 2009, saying, “The Articles of Freedom demonstrate that we are in our Republic’s 11th hour. It is undeniable that the leaders and members of each branch of the federal Government have failed to uphold their oaths of office, are ignoring the Constitution, committing acts far outside the law, and when petitioned for redress by the People they refuse to respond.”

What happens now to the tireless efforts of delegates? The work has only just begun, as each member of Congress and each state legislature will be personally presented with a copy of the Articles of Freedom as the demands of the People. It is, of course, expected that most officials will again ignore the documents.

That’s why the most important work will be to get the Articles of Freedom into the hands of millions of Americans across the nation, asking them to join the effort to bring pressure on Congress for action. The Continental Congress 2009 intends to enjoin a critical mass of at least 15million Americans to sign the Articles of Freedom. The documents will be used to give the TEA Party rallies a specific goal. Candidates for office, hoping to gain the support of the recharged freedom movement will be asked to sign the Articles of Freedom as their pledge to uphold the Constitution if elected.

If we Americans don’t claim and exercise our right to hold our servant government accountable, then each of our natural, un-alienable, individual rights will atrophy and die. Indeed, this process is well underway.

The documents and more details may be seen at the website www.cc2009.us. They will also soon be brought to your community through rallies, public meetings and into your mailbox as part of a direct mail campaign. All are planned as part of the effort to build the critical mass of Americans necessary to make these documents historic, effective and powerful.

It is vital that every freedom-loving American take the same action as our Founders, to sign and support the Articles of Freedom and demand that our elected representatives take the actions outlined in these historic documents.

The Articles of Freedom establish the pathway back to Constitutional governance. It is time to instruct our servants on how to remedy what we have allowed them to ruin.

© 2010 Tom DeWeese - All Rights Reserved

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Tom DeWeese is president of the American Policy Center and Editor of The DeWeese Report , 70 Main Street, Suite 23, Warrenton Virginia. 
(540) 341-8911

E-Mail: ampolicycenter@hotmail.com

Website: www.americanpolicy.org

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