George Rebane
Readers know that I believe our country is already past the tipping point and headed for a bad transition. For me the tipping point represents that unfortunate state of affairs in our nation from which recovery by ‘normal’ or historically successful corrective measures will not be enough to save us from a disastrous transition. If we are to be saved, we now must prepare for more dramatic efforts and draconian events to restore the republic. But not to lose heart, dear reader, we have been through such dire straits in the past, the last one was called the War Between the States, The War for Southern Independence, or erroneously The Civil War.
Let me be clear and state that there are also other ways that nations have navigated such waters, Germany’s Weimar Republic comes to mind. And we all know its aftermath.
Evidence of our being past the tipping point is what I want to memorialize in these offerings. I am reminded that all posts on the internet will survive ‘forever’, so that these offerings could inform or amuse a future cyber-anthropologist digging back into the history of the early 21st century.
Two major national institutions are now beyond normal repair – K-12 public education and our justice system. Since the feds’ Great Society (1964-68) started the destruction, we have revamped public education by spending trillions and getting nothing out of it save a workforce ever more out of touch with the realworld labor markets. (See figure and the Friedman Foundation report and more details here.) Instead we have built up an extremely ignorant and state-dependent teacher class, led by their corrupt unions, that in the aggregate is barely smarter than the students they claim to matriculate. Socialism is openly taught in government schools as the correct way to organize society. Nevertheless, education remains the Republic’s ONLY hope.
The legal industry has turned our justice system into their private sinecure. Again in the aggregate, America’s justice system from the law enforcement agencies, through ‘justice departments’, to the courts are corrupt beyond comprehension by the average citizen. Two decades ago we saw an obviously guilty OJ Simpson exonerated of criminal charges, and then convicted of the same crime in a turn-around civil suit that essentially deprived him of his property but left him free. Double jeopardy has become institutionalized under the ruse of “different sovereignties” and back-to-back criminal and civil liabilities – it is nothing more than a full employment provision for trial lawyers.
A more recent case underlines this. A 90 year-old man was attacked in his home by an armed meth head with a criminal record who broke into his house. The senior citizen grabbed his gun and fought off his assailant in an ensuing indoor gunfight that did not end entirely successfully. The homeowner was shot in the jaw, and was only able to wound his assailant who then took the old man’s gun, pressed it to his head, and pulled the trigger. Fortunately the gun was empty and the wounded low-life fled. He was picked up by police a short distance away profusely bleeding in his stopped car.
After long stays in the hospital for both criminal and victim, the criminal was tried and faces a long prison sentence. And here’s the rub, the criminal’s father and attorney have filed suit against the elderly homeowner for causing the criminal bodily harm, emotional distress, problems with his marriage, and financial loss. The corruption inherent in our justice system is that the court, instead of throwing out the suit amid peals of communal laughter, has accepted the case for trial.
Reports from many quarters describe a fearful government that is readying its multiple departments through massive purchases of arms and ammunition, surveillance drones, urban fighting vehicles, and new 18-24 year-olds being trained by FEMA as ‘disaster relief corps’ who march with military precision. Preparations are afoot for things we are not told.
This kind of rot drizzles down from the top and did not start with President Obama. However, he has pushed Executive Branch lawlessness and lying to new heights. (Nixon’s Watergate was a piker’s pursuit compared to what we already know about Benghazi.) For example, brazenly advising corporations to ignore the Warn Act, end-running Congress on using regulatory agencies to instigate policies that will change the economic landscape of the country with no elected representative having a say, and using Executive Privilege to cover up communications (‘Fast and Furious’) between agencies and departments that involved no communications with the President or the White House, and the list goes on.
(BTW, I believe the Benghazi tragedy, as originally mishandled and then covered up, appears to involve one or more impeachable offenses, and that a Republican House will so indict Obama.)
And regarding our Fourth Estate – the see, hear, speak no leftwing evil media – they are no longer the watchdogs of the Republic, but are solidly in the tank for anything and everything that promotes socialism and globalization. They report no inconvenient news, pursue no obvious leads of government malfeasance, have become unabashedly virulent against capitalism, and will go to any length to appropriately propagandize the news. Journalists are vying with lawyers for the muck at the bottom. Woodward is now a lonely old relic, still doggedly pursuing his trade.
(H/T to a reader who suggested the appropriate inclusion of the above graphic.)
Finally, the corruption of our politicians is unchanged and continues apace along its historical and well-documented lows.
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