What was missing for the past 17 years?

Karl Schwarz
Jan 20, 2006

If you get a chance, I am the guest on the Derek and Sharon Gilbert radio show Saturday night from 10 pm to midnight CST. They now have a show on www.rbnlive.com every Saturday night in addition to their PID Radio, www.peeringintodarkness.com . They come on after the two hour program hosted by Retired LTC Karen Kwiatkowski, the lady who exposed the Office of Special Plans (aka: The Lie Factory) that was being run inside the Pentagon to falsify the intelligence prior to the invasion of Iraq.

I took time off Monday, January 16 to listen to Al Gore’s speech that was billed as a landmark speech on the U. S. Constitution. After hearing that speech, several things occurred to me.

First, Al Gore did not do anything while in office to stem the Constitutional abuses of the Clinton – Gore Administration. I question why we should trust him to do now what he has never done while in public office.

Second, as President of the Senate, Al Gore helped to ramrod through legislation that has directly harmed many American citizens and put many into the poor house. The 1994 Bankruptcy Reform Bill that made equity stock worth $0 in bankruptcy, the 1995 change in accounting rules and press release immunity by SEC and the removal of RICO as a remedy for stock fraud to stem corporate fraud just to name a few. Those steps cleared the way for the Wealthy Elite to steal over $1 trillion in our capital markets from people like you and I and they were backers of Bush and backers of Clinton – Gore. Nothing was left un-plundered – IRA accounts, retirements, pension funds, value of stock in companies, etc.

Third, although the speech was billed as non-partisan and Constitutional, Al Gore could not resist making it partisan and added in his views on the environment and global warming. Gore failed to mention, while wrapped up in the Constitution and the flag, the many steps he and Clinton took to undermine the Constitution and not live up to their oath of office.

Not once did I hear Gore mention his complicity in what occurred in the Clinton – Gore Administration regarding the lead up to 9-11. The illegal CIA renditions, the Patriot Act, and the 20 Year War Plan were planned under the Clinton Gore Administration, and in the case of CIA renditions these were initiated under that administration. It may have been Bush that implemented the 20 Year War Plan, but the design was hatched under Clinton – Gore. The Patriot Act is just a side effect to make sure Americans do not rise up and clean house in Washington, DC.

Bridas Corporation signed agreements with Turkmenistan in 1992 and 1993 on two large tracts of oil and gas producing areas. The bashing from the Clinton – Gore Administration started in earnest by 1995 as Bridas moved to get Afghanistan under contract and Pakistan too. In fact, before the Bhutto government was overthrown in what might have been a CIA coup, US Ambassador to Pakistan Tom Simmons made a request to Benazir Bhutto asking that exclusive rights for the pipeline be given to Unocal. The Pakistani Prime Minister was offended and in March 1996 during the Clinton Gore Administration demanded an apology from the United States.

Was Bush wrong to have NSA spy on U.S. citizens? Yes, he was and it is illegal and an impeachable offense.

Is there any fundamental difference in what Bush did with NSA and what Clinton – Gore did with FBI files on people? Not much and both are despicable affronts to the civil liberties of citizens of this Republic. Just remember Waco and Ruby Ridge if you have doubts about what the Clinton Administration was capable of doing and did in fact do.

One of the problems with our Two Party system is they try to one-up each other and point to sleaze in either RNC or DNC but will not admit at the time that they are just as bad as those they point the fingers at. It is all suspense and drama they stage for election years and advantage in the polls and public perception.

Make no mistake about it – Al Gore was not speaking as an American on fundamental American constitutional issues. He was speaking as a 2008 candidate for President of the United States and pointing the finger only at Bush - Cheney.

Words are cheap and the words of partisan politics are even cheaper than words normally are.

For the past three presidential administrations, I have been directly involved on several battle lines that provided firsthand experience in what type of cancer this nation has and what it would take to fix it. It has not been a pleasant experience for the same things that affected many Americans and kept them under huge financial pressures were also experienced by me, my ex-wife and our three children.

Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood -- the virtues that made America.
- Theodore Roosevelt, 1917

The last two truly great presidents may well have been Teddy Roosevelt and Ike Eisenhower for one simple reason. They alone have stood up in the 20th Century to the corruption and called a spade a spade. Roosevelt was quoted several times that blindly following the president or any other elected official (when he does not deserve respect) is morally treasonable to all other Americans. It is a matter of Civics 101, a class that they no longer teach in our public schools so children will learn what public governance means. Eisenhower made it clear when he was departing office that the military – industrial complex threatens the very survival of our Republic. His message was clear – watch your back and your civil liberties for they are in danger. In both instances, it took guts and integrity for these men to stand up and tell the truth.

What we now see out of Washington, DC is the guts to stand up and lie to all of us convincingly and that is not a mark of character, honor or integrity. They do it every day, they do it so you will not detect what the true agenda is and that it is not in your best interest in any manner whatsoever.

Lying is not a Christian virtue but these elected leaders will claim on the one hand to be Christian and on the other hand lie without end to all of us.

In a nation that brags that it is the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free, I have watched as our elected leaders have proven with each passing year that they grow more gutless. Truth and our government are not synonymous.

I have watched elected officials pledge to uphold the Constitution and then put their actions into undermining the very thing they swore to uphold.

I have watched as they craft weasel words and weasel rationalizations to justify their actions, and their words never add up.

I have watched as the simple act of being honorable can no longer be found in our National Capital where honor is bereft and sleaziness and greed are the norms.

I have watched as our courts have evolved from a servant of the people for justice into a mechanism that serves only injustice and the Wealthy Elite and government. I have watched for many years as the phrase rule of law has been turned into a laughable joke and the United States into the laughing stock of this world every time they utter that phrase. What they say and what they do are two diametrically opposed matters and most in this world see it very clearly.

I have watched elected leaders come on TV and with all sincerity lie to all of us with impunity. We have far too many people in our government that if you ask them a question to which there is no downside to the truth – they will lie and smile at you while doing it.

Al Gore’s message centered around impeachment of Bush for the illegal spying on American citizens, but he is not the first to raise that issue. Like a good politician in the election years of 2006 and 2008, he figured out which way the parade was heading and tried to take the lead.

Where has Gore been during the past five years when Bush has broken about every law on the books? Why wait until an election year to talk about what has been apparent since 2001?

Was his silence because of how much of this Global War on Terror and even 9-11 was hatched on the watch of Clinton – Gore? What Sibel D. Edmonds found inside the FBI in the way of ongoing drug and money laundering investigations dating back to 1998 is screaming loudly of Clinton – Gore complicity.

Was he being a mere political opportunist when something would come up that could only be pinned on Bush without disclosing to the world how dirty the hands are of Clinton and Gore?

My instincts say yes, that is why he has been silent until now.

The Patriot Act was passed in 2001 shortly after 9-11. The undermining of our civil liberties started then, not here in 2006. The Clinton – Gore era Presidential Decision Directives #39 and #62 have every appearance of being the outline and origin of the Patriot Act and those date back to 1997. This “constitutional crisis” matter addressed by Gore in the election year of 2006 could have been addressed at any time since the passage of Patriot Act in 2001. Over four and a half years of silence is not deafening, it is screaming political agenda.

Is Bush wrong to spy on U.S. citizens? Yes, he is and that is an impeachable offense. It is a direct violation of our laws and our Constitution and blatantly so. However, the 2001 Patriot Act is when this government started treating all Americans as the enemy and as Al Qaeda suspects, so why the silence over the past 5 years by Al Gore?

The reason is simple and has two edges. First, the Patriot Act and 20 Year War Plan were conceived under the Clinton Gore Administration. Secondly, this is an election year and every DNC member is maneuvering for position in 2006 and 2008.

Far too many Americans expect their solutions from a government that could not care less if they live or die. It seems that the self-reliance that made this nation great is not shared by enough Americans to make the changes that are needed to get this Republic back on the right track.

To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.
- Donald A. Adams

One will not find those traits coming from any of our federal agencies in Washington, DC. Over the past 20 years we have seen it over and over again that many of our corporations are corrupt and our government is well past corrupt and has become a criminal enterprise working for itself and their wealthy contributor Both are decidedly working against your best interest and mine. One of the biggest reasons the dot.coms failed was they had no customer service. Most corporations have now reduced customer service to a laughable joke and should be renamed Customer Disservice. Our government and customer service are an oxymoron if those three words appear together.

Many Americans are now much poorer as a result of the combined effects of government corruption and corporation fraud, with little to no enforcement of our laws against the Wealthy Elite that devised many schemes to rob Americans of their hard earned money and in many instances even their retirements. Both sides of the aisle did it and they did it for their contributors and to Hell with the rest of Americans.

That Gore speech about the Constitution and rule of law was mere words. The words that come from our national capital are mere dirt. They are all dime-a-dozen politicians and hardly a remarkable human being amongst them.

Every poll on that subject makes it clear that Americans know there is a problem. Question is – what and when are they going to do anything about it?

President Bush and numerous House Republicans hastily jettisoned campaign donations from Jack Abramoff yesterday as the former Washington lobbyist pleaded guilty to a second set of felony charges in as many days. According to the guilty plea entered in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, Abramoff acknowledged he had worked to provide "things of value to public officials in exchange for a series of official acts and influence" in a section of court papers headed "corruption of public officials." (AP)

Do you think corruption is a widespread, occasional or rare problem in the U.S. Congress?

Widespread 80% => 2025 votes
Occasional 17% => 440 votes
Rare 1% => 46 votes
I'm not sure 0% => 19 votes

Continued...

When poll after poll indicates that up to 80% of Americans and more clearly know that Congress is corrupt, it begs the question as to why people within each Congressional District and each State keep re-electing their Pet Politicians for the House and Senate. It also begs the question of what part of the poll they do not understand. In the one above, 80% admit to knowing that Congress is corrupt on a widespread basis and another 17% on an occasional basis. If these leaders were people of moral character and had integrity, those two numbers should read 0%, yet they keep re-electing them again and again.

It makes one wonder why Americans no longer clearly see what traits are needed to make great nations and have great leaders. That 97% is a public opinion indictment of both the RNC and DNC elected officials in Congress, not just the Bush Administration.

There is plenty of evidence that George H W Bush lied us into Desert Storm as part of an overall agenda to dominate the Middle East.

There is plenty of evidence that the Clinton – Gore Administration was the origin of the Patriot Act, the 20 Year War Plan that we now see being played out as a result of 9-11, and just lately, the entire CIA rendition program started under Clinton – Gore.

There are mountains of evidence that George W. Bush lied us into the Global War on Terror and Iraq. The glaring error is that neither the Bush Administration, nor the Clinton - Gore Administration people or the 9-11 Commission have said a word about this nation using military force to take over a pipeline that we could not otherwise get under the control of US companies collectively dubbed Big Oil.

What has been missing for the past 17 years? Teddy Roosevelt said it best in 1917:

Americanism means the virtues of courage, honor, justice, truth, sincerity, and hardihood -- the virtues that made America.

George H W Bush, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, George W Bush stand for many things but none of those words describe any trait they have.

Here is my assessment of the State of the Union. This nation is in very deep trouble in many categories and we have no one else to blame but the Republicans and Democrats in Washington, DC that have proven to me that they are unfit for leadership.

What do I think about Gore’s speech? It was long overdue, tardy and without clean hands are the first thoughts that come to mind. Otherwise, he was right, this nation is in danger but is has been for the past 17 years through the past three presidential administrations. Gore’s speech did not change those facts whatsoever.

What do I think Al Gore will do to clean up Washington, DC? Absolutely nothing for he is part of the system that is corrupt all the way to the bottom of the barrel and down to the last apple.