Europe Is Awakening!
Posted: March 31, 2016 Filed under: European Union, Immigration, Politics, terrorism | Tags: Brexit, EU, European Union, john birch society, John McManus Leave a commentEurope Is Awakening!
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
In Europe, over several decades, there were numerous warnings about the creation of what would become the European Union. Those who saw the full intention of its early promoters sounded many alarms about the loss of sovereignty for their nations to a burgeoning “Eurostate.” But the concerns raised over previous years didn’t stop the piece-by-piece progression toward one central government for all of Europe. Many throughout the continent are now seeing where they are being taken.
“Great Britain will stage a national referendum on June 23 on whether to leave the European Union” reports The New American, Feb. 25, 2016.
In 2003, for instance, British authors Christopher Booker and Richard North weighed in with their condemnation of the sovereignty compromising European Union in a full-length book entitled “The Great Deception: The Secret History of the European Union.” It awakened some. In that same year, Czech Republic President Vaclav Klaus objected to the creation of a European Union Constitution designed to govern each of the EU’s member states. With its clearly stated subservience to the United Nations, the document stated: “… this Constitution establishes a European Union [that] shall have primacy over the law of member states.” Of this proposed EU Constitution, Klaus said passage would mean “there will be no more sovereign states in Europe – only one state will remain.” He pointed to EU headquarters in Brussels at the seat of that eventual “one state.”
In 2005, when voters were asked to approve the new EU Constitution, those in France and Holland soundly rejected it. Dealt a stinging rebuke but not a defeat, the Eurocrats regrouped and in 2006 sent the proposed Constitution (now termed a “treaty”) for another try at ratification. They didn’t send it back to the people however. It was sent to national leaders who met in Lisbon and, there, it won unanimous acceptance and became the dominant government for all of the 25 EU nations.
In Britain over the past few decades, a newly formed United Kingdom Independence Party gathered increasing strength with its call for withdrawal from the EU. On June 23rd, the people of Britain will get a chance to reject EU membership in a long-promised referendum. Supporters of leaving, collectively known as the Brexit (BRitish EXIT) movement, may well pull their country out of the EU. If they prevail, other nations where negativity about EU membership has grown are likely to follow.
On March 15th, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban delivered a major speech in which he blamed “Brussels” for the massive immigration of Middle Eastern refugees into Europe. He thundered, “Today Europe is as fragile, weak, and sickly as a flower being eaten away by a worm.” Pointing to numerous attitudes that he and others were “forbidden” by political correctness to mention, he nevertheless noted that Europe was “threatened by migration,” that “immigration brings crime and terror,” that the arriving masses “endanger our way of life, our culture, our customs, and our Christian civilization,” and that Brussels is “now making a plan for a United States of Europe” that will accomplish destruction of each European nation state. He added that Hungary would refuse to accept hundreds of thousands of Islamic immigrants (as Germany has already done) in a “forced resettlement scheme.”
Yes, many more Europeans are awakening to the designs of the European Union’s leaders whose goal, said Orban, is to “blend cultures, religions and populations until our proud Europe will finally become bloodless and docile … swallowed up in the enormous belly of the United States of Europe.” And he called on his countrymen and fellow Europeans “to defeat, rewrite, and transform the fate intended for us.” His countrymen owe him a great debt of appreciation.
Such awareness and the accompanying courage to publicly speak out about the very real threats to Europe’s nations are welcome developments. The rising tide of resistance in Britain to EU dominance is more good news. Similar awareness and courage must also arise and grow here in the United States because plans have already been formulated to do to our country what has been done in Europe.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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Obama’s Trip to Cuba Solidified Tyranny
Posted: March 25, 2016 Filed under: Communism, Politics, terrorism | Tags: Bay of Pigs, Che Guevara, Cuba, john birch society, John McManus 3 CommentsObama’s Trip to Cuba Solidified Tyranny
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Call it a big plus for Raul and Fidel Castro and their oppressive rule. Barack Obama’s trip to the island nation 90 miles from Florida could be termed, “He came, he saw, and they triumphed.”
President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama (in Carolina Herrera), daughters Malia and Sasha greets dignitaries upon arrival in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, March 20, 2016. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza).
The caving in started a year ago when Mr. Obama announced his intention to reestablish diplomatic relations with Cuba after more than five decades of cold war animosity. The Castro brothers, known to be lifelong communists by many, assumed power on January 1, 1959, but the Eisenhower administration not only refused to admit that the two were unworthy of diplomatic recognition, the U.S. aided their takeover. Finally, in 1961, relations were broken. But for more than 50 years, the small nation has been a bastion of tyranny for its people and the spreader of communist subversion throughout the Western Hemisphere.
Whenever they could flee, Cubans numbering in the thousands left their home country and fled in small boats and rickety rafts to Florida. Many perished in the sea. Those left behind continued life in a totalitarian state where human rights were non-existent and fear of government was everywhere. In 1962, U.S. leaders reluctantly announced that Russian missiles, troops, and bombers had been placed in Cuba. The so-called “Cuban Missile Crisis” ended when the Soviet ruler Nikita Khrushchev agreed to take his missiles back to Russia. But the cost to America, other than being humiliated by the Castro brothers and their Soviet allies, included removal of U.S. missiles from Turkey and Italy.
Sustained monetarily by the Kremlin and by the Soviet forces stationed in the island, Cuba paid for the help it received by sending some of its own troops to maintain communist control of the African nation of Angola. The Castro-led regime demonstrated in many ways its subservience to Moscow, receiving financial and military aid along with schooling in how to maintain a brutal and repressive tyranny.
In 2015, with no indication of relaxation from the Castros, President Obama reopened the U.S. embassy in Havana and laid down a welcome mat for a Cuban emissary to Washington. The State Department then erased Cuba’s name from its list of state sponsors of terrorism. President Obama met with Raul Castro at the Summit of the Americas in Panama, the first instance of dignity bestowed on a Cuban leader in half a century. Most restrictions on travel to Cuba were cancelled. And several U.S. cabinet members traveled to meet with Cuban counterparts in Havana.
One would think that Cuban leaders would respond to all these favors showered on them by relaxing the oppression of their people. But tyranny has actually worsened with more than a thousand arrests in the single month of November 2015, according to Amnesty International (AI). Even the United Nations joined AI in condemning the escalating number of arrests and detentions.
So far, the Obama gestures regarding Cuba have amounted to proceeding down one-way street. The nation is still a huge prison. But Barack Obama’s disastrous legacy is filling up. He swapped five Islamic terrorists for an American military deserter. He arranged to pay millions to Iran for a nuclear arms promise no one expects Tehran to keep. He failed to build the wall at our Mexican border. And now he’s the architect of bestowing favors on the murderous regime located 90 miles from Florida. If the Castro brothers could arrange it, they’d surely keep Mr. Obama in office. That is something the Cuban people don’t want, and neither do many Americans.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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Social Security: Broken Promises and Costly Changes
Posted: March 24, 2016 Filed under: Communism, Property Rights | Tags: FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, john birch society, John McManus, Social Security Leave a commentSocial Security: Broken Promises and Costly Changes
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Social Security has been built over an array of broken promises and costly changes. The alterations are costly, not only for government, but also for the nation’s working people. The program’s initiator, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, promised that it would be completely voluntary. Try to withdraw from it, and you’ll see the non-existing worth of that promise.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933, Photo by Elias Goldensky (1868-1943), United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division.
From a required payment of one percent of a participant’s first $1,400 of earnings when SS began in the 1930s, wage earners now see 7.56 percent of the first $90,000 extracted from their pay. And the employer has to match the amount taken from each worker – money that might otherwise be used to expand his business or given to employees. Many workers 50 years ago would see their paychecks grow every mid-summer when required payments into the program were met. That boost in take-home pay no longer exists. Formerly, payments to Social Security were deductible from taxable income. Like horse-drawn carriages, that practice too is gone.
All funds collected in the name of Social Security were supposed to be kept in a sacrosanct “trust fund” where they would be distributed only to legitimate SS beneficiaries. But there never has been a trust fund because the federal government spends Social Security funds at will. In the vaunted trust fund will be found only a stack of IOUs issued by the federal government. This practice existed from Social Security’s inception. In 1937, the Supreme Court decreed that funds collected in the name of the program were labeled taxes that “are not earmarked in any way.”
Retirees were promised that their Social Security benefits would never be classified as taxable income. That too was blown away and recipients must now add the bulk of their SS retirement income to their earnings and pay income tax on the total. So, people are taxed by Social Security while building their retirement fund, and when they actually retire, they get taxed again. What a great program!
During the Carter administration (1977-1980), the Social Security administration started giving benefits to immigrants, even those who never paid anything into the program. No wonder people come to the U.S. illegally.
The original 1935 Act contained the government’s “right to alter, amend, or repeal any provision.” In other words, the government can renege at any time on any portion of what the people have been told are firm promises. It can even abolish the program and cease sending checks to anyone. If a private insurance company operated the way Social Security performs, it would be hounded mercilessly and put out of business by the government.
Social Security should be phased out by Congress with the government continuing to pay the elderly, and then having younger workers keep their own money, so they can invest it into a privately run program or do whatever they want with it. It’s their money. Unfortunately, Big Brother government won’t let them escape its clutches.
Even though the program is bankrupt – fiscally, morally, and constitutionally – it will continue to function as long as the federal government can continue to tax, borrow, print, or computer generate new funds. Today’s government uses all four of those options with the result that the dollar’s value continues to shrink and each weekly trip to the supermarket requires leaving more dollars at the checkout counter.
Though he initially denounced anything resembling anything like the Social Security program, Franklin Delano Roosevelt reversed course completely in 1933 after he won the presidency. The plan he got through Congress and the Supreme Court was eerily identical to the proposal sought by U.S. Communist Party leader William Z. Foster in his 1932 book “Toward Soviet America.” He called for creation of a government-run “system of social insurance against unemployment, old age, sickness, accidents, etc.”
That’s exactly what the U.S. federal government gave us. And the American people are constantly inundated with cries claiming Communism is dead. What’s dead is honesty and freedom from unconstitutional taxation.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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Lindsey Graham: A Leading Political Change Artist
Posted: March 22, 2016 Filed under: 2016 Presidential Election, Politics | Tags: Donald Trump, john birch society, John McManus, Lindsey Graham Leave a commentLindsey Graham: A Leading Political Change Artist
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
As the 2016 nomination and presidential sweepstakes nears its longed-for completion, a political change artist has emerged to switch his positions and allegiances.
Political change artist Senator Lindsey Graham now supports Senator Ted Cruz for President, after savagely attacking him mere weeks ago (Official portrait from U.S. Senate: public domain.)
Consider South Carolina’s Senator Lindsey Graham. He offered himself as a candidate for the GOP nomination. Polls put him at the very bottom of those seeking the nod – even in his own state. Never considered a serious contender, he became one of the first of many to bow out of the crowded field.
Before he threw in the towel, he trashed fellow Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas). Calling the Texan “an opportunist,” Graham added that the Cruz ideology “won’t sell with the American people,” adding that the only accomplishment he’d achieved in his Senate saw him “run down other Republicans.” But that wasn’t the only insult Graham aimed at Cruz.
After characterizing the Texas senator for foreign policy positions that were “just as wrong as Obama,” Graham went to great lengths to criticize his fellow Republican in a rather unique outburst. He stated, “If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you.” And he added, “If you’re a Republican and your choices [as of mid-March 2016] are Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, it’s the difference between being poisoned or shot. You’re still dead.” So Graham obviously doesn’t think much of Trump either.
But hold on a minute! On March 17th, Graham did a complete about face and announced that he’s now supporting Ted Cruz for the nomination. He said he would help raise funds for the man he savaged only weeks earlier explaining, “I think he’s the best alternative to beat Donald Trump and I’m going to help him in any way I can.” From Graham, we now await some sharply worded condemnations of the real estate mogul. But is there anyone left who considers his opinion worth anything?
Lindsey Graham seems to be more interested in gaining press coverage for himself than maintaining a position. Donald Trump might even welcome being targeted by the sharp-tongued South Carolinian. Should Trump win the nomination, it seems likely that Graham would then support him. But what would that be worth?
American voters deserve better. Once having taken the stands about Cruz, Graham should either hold firm or keep his mouth shut. But politics and many politicians count on a poorly informed electorate. The country needs statesmen whose stances are based on the needs of the country. Lindsey Graham doesn’t even come close to meeting that need.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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Foreign Meddling in U.S. Politics
Posted: March 18, 2016 Filed under: 2016 Presidential Election, European Union, north american union, Politics, World Government | Tags: Donald Trump, European Union, john birch society, John McManus, NAFTA, north american union, Vicente Fox 2 CommentsForeign Meddling in U.S. Politics
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
As president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, Vicente Fox disappointed both his countrymen and his neighbors in the United States. Concerned Americans were already feeling the effects of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) that spurred the flood of migration into the U.S. It also paved the way for relocation of numerous industries and countless jobs to Mexico after its passage.
President George W. Bush, Mexico’s President Vicente Fox and Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper, right, stand in front of the Chichen-Itza Archaeological Ruins Thursday, March 30, 2006. White House photo by Kimberlee Hewitt.
Soon after his surprising election victory that broke a 70-year stranglehold on the Mexican presidency held by the the PRI (Partido Revolucionario Institucional), Fox became Mexico’s leading cheerleader for NAFTA, even, as the Wall Street Journal noted, calling for it to become “something like the European Union.” In 2002, he told an audience in Spain of his goal: “Eventually our long-range objective is to establish … an ensemble of connections and institutions similar to those created by the European Union.”
NAFTA opened the floodgates for U.S. factories to close their doors and head for Mexico’s lower worker pay. Many U.S. workers lost their livelihoods and the bleeding hasn’t stopped. General Motors will soon open a huge automobile production facility in the middle of Mexico. But the harm done to U.S. manufacturing and workers isn’t the only negative aspect of NAFTA because America’s sovereignty is at stake should a Fox-backed plan to merge Canada, the U.S., and Mexico into a North American Union materialize. That would constitute a huge step toward building a Western Hemisphere union similar to the European Union that has already compromised the independence of its 28 member nations.
Based on his statements and performance, it’s easy to classify Vicente Fox as a world government booster. But many in England are now backing a plan to have their nation quit the European Union. Other Europeans are reconsidering their entanglement in the EU because they increasingly realize that the pact they thought was merely a trade agreement has become their de facto ruler. The rush toward a “new world order” has been slowed in Europe but Fox has cheered building it in the Western hemisphere.
It comes as little surprise, therefore, to hear Fox outspokenly injecting himself into current race for the presidency here in America. GOP frontrunner Donald Trump has stirred Fox’s ire with his plan to build a fence along the Mexico-U.S. border and to have Mexico pay for it with tariffs on Mexican goods heading north. Trump has also pointed to the cascade of drugs and crime that entered through the America’s porous southern border.
From his home in south-central Mexico, Fox has brazenly called on Americans to reject Trump. He adds that Hillary Clinton will “save” the U.S. from a “Trumpist nightmare” and that Donald Trump is “making the United States look very bad.”
Trump ought to remind Fox that his own people thought so little of the leadership he gave them that millions fled to the United States.
Foreign leaders are certainly entitled to their opinion regarding candidates for office in other countries. But they ought to keep their choices to themselves. In this instance, however, Vicente Fox’s openly stated choice of Hillary Clinton and his distaste for Donald Trump will likely help swell support for the real estate mogul in his bid for the U.S. presidency.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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Will There Be a Brokered GOP Convention?
Posted: March 17, 2016 Filed under: 2016 Presidential Election, Politics, World Government | Tags: brokered convention, CFR, Council on Foreign Relations, john birch society, John McManus 1 CommentWill There Be a Brokered GOP Convention?
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
As the candidates for the Republican nod in the presidential race become fewer (down from 17 to 3 as we write), and the voters don’t seem to have made a clear choice, the possibility of a brokered convention has emerged.
ABC News’ David Muir and Martha Raddatz host the Republican Debate from St. Anselm College in Manchester, NH, airing Saturday, Feb. 6, 2015 on the ABC Television Network and all ABC News platforms. (ABC/ Ida Mae Astute) Some rights reserved. Photo by Disney | ABC Television Group.
A “brokered” convention occurs when no candidate wins enough delegates in the primary/caucus contests to assure nomination on the first ballot. The decision then passes to convention delegates, something that hasn’t happened at a Democrat or Republican convention over the past 50+ years. When it does occur, the possibility exists that all primary/caucus results can legitimately be ignored by the delegates.
Labeling this eventuality a “brokered” convention is an interesting word choice. The term developed because the eventual choice of the party shifted to “power brokers,” the obvious, or not so obvious, party leaders. This convention type invites bargaining or horse-trading, and it would likely also result in bribery, threats, and other examples of behind-the-scenes skulduggery.
Looking back, we find that Republicans failed to nominate their candidate on the first ballot in 1948. Thomas Dewey, Robert Taft, and Harold Stassen failed to gain victory on the first ballot. Dewey’s numbers rose during the second ballot after persuasive forces began to flex their muscles. Taft and Stassen then withdrew and Dewey became the party’s unanimous choice on the third ballot. He lost to Harry Truman.
At the Democrat Convention in 1924, exhausted delegates finally selected John Davis on the 103rd ballot. Without doubt, the “brokers” made bargains, issued threats, and handed out bribes to hand Davis the victory. He lost to Calvin Coolidge.
Current commentators claim that television coverage of the proceedings pretty much guarantees that there won’t be any brokered conventions. I don’t agree. Today’s power brokers, who should be known as “The Establishment,” have gained control of both major parties. For many years, both Democrat and Republican candidates have either been members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) or surrounded by members who were their “advisers.” Founded in 1921, the CFR’s leaders have always favored big government and eventual world government.
A short article in the March 4th New York Times tells of the CFR’s influence. It notes that Donald Trump had a “private briefing” with CFR President Richard Haass in mid-2015. It quotes Trump saying, “I respect Richard Haass … I have a few people that I really like and respect.” It also told of similar Haass briefings already for Republicans Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Jeb Bush. The Democrats who trooped to the CFR for their Haass briefing include Jim Webb and Hillary Clinton.
Among current GOP candidates, the Times article didn’t mention Ted Cruz. But it turns out that his wife held membership in the CFR until 2011. While holding that dubious credential, she worked with the late Dr. Robert Pastor in a CFR project designed to have the United States, Canada, and Mexico become a single nation.
So, will the Republicans end up with Trump? Or Cruz? Or Rubio? Or Kasich? You can bet the power brokers at the CFR aren’t terribly concerned because each will be influenced by the CFR. In like manner, they aren’t a bit concerned about the choice of Mrs. Clinton by the Democrats.
So where does an American turn? The Constitution states very clearly that the House of Representatives has the power of the purse and can put a stop to much of what is driving this country away from its roots. The CFR doesn’t control the House the way it controls who will be President. So, for those who care, the way to rescue our country from power brokers at the CFR and like-minded organizations is to elect uncorrupted individuals to the House. And if anyone reading this brief column wants to learn more about the CFR, read “The Shadows of Power.”
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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Neocon Lindsey Graham Calls For Bypassing the Constitution
Posted: March 16, 2016 Filed under: Military, NATO, neoconservatism, Politics, United Nations, World Government | Tags: john birch society, John McManus, Lindsey Graham, military, NATO, neocon, United Nations, war Leave a commentNeocon Lindsey Graham Calls For Bypassing the Constitution
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham parades as a conservative. But he and his ideological confrere, Arizona Republican Senator John McCain, are neoconservatives. The distinction is important because neoconservatism has become a dominant force among many elected officials and media pundits.
What is neoconservatism? The man who always claimed to be the “godfather” of the movement is Irving Kristol. In his 1995 book Neonconservatism: The Autobiography of an Idea, he wrote, “We accepted the New Deal in principle, and had little affection for the kind of isolationism that then permeated American conservatism.” He also bared the roots of his political and economic preferences when he additionally stated, “I regard myself as lucky to have been a young Trotskyite and I have not a single bitter memory.” So, he wanted the socialism desired by FDR’s New Deal and the U.S. to be the policeman of the world on the way to world government.
The Leon Trotsky he lauded partnered with Lenin in the takeover of Russia in 1917. A few years later after Lenin died and Stalin emerged as the top criminal, Trotsky fled for his life. The two had split because Stalin favored head cracking and gulags while Trotsky wanted to impose Marxist socialism slowly and patiently. His technique called for propagandizing people into choosing it. Both shared the ultimate goal of a tyrannical world government and differed only in how to obtain it.
So, a neoconservative advocates big government socialism and worldwide internationalism via undeclared wars and entangling pacts. Neocon Charles Krauthammer boldly spelled out these goals in a 1989 article appearing in Kristol’s journal, The National Interest. He advocated U.S. integration with other nations to create a “super-sovereign” entity that is “economically, culturally, and politically hegemonic in the world.” His ultimate goal called for a “new universalism [which] would require the conscious depreciation not only of American sovereignty but of the notion of sovereignty in general.”
Neoconservatives love war. Not the kind authorized by a congressional declaration that might result in a quick victory and the troops coming home, but a conflict started by presidential mandate with full authorization supplied by the United Nations or its NATO subsidiary. As Senator Graham stated in a recent Capitol Hill press conference, he wants the president given a green light for another undeclared war: “I agree with the president that Congress should act regarding giving him the authority to fight ISIL.”
War without the constitutional requirement for a formal congressional declaration has been our nation’s policy since World War II. Our forces haven’t won a war since that struggle because they have been hamstrung by rules imposed by the UN, NATO, or presidential dictate. The U.S. never lost a war until our leaders departed from formally issuing a required declaration. Congress, which should have insisted on adherence to the Constitution, lamely tolerated stalemates or losses in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and now in Afghanistan. If U.S. forces are to be employed to defeat ISIS (or ISIL), there should be a declaration of war, not a presidential dictate.
Neocon Lindsey Graham swore an oath to the Constitution, not to presidential power. He violated that oath when he supported granting President Obama trade promotion authority, the power to entangle the U.S. in sovereignty-compromising deals with the European Union and Pacific nations. He also voted for reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank, raising the national debt ceiling, and supplying another trillion dollars to fund socialistic agencies of the federal government. And that’s just some of his record over the past year. Check out his voting adherence to the Constitution as calculated by the Freedom Index.
Not alone in what he supports, Senator Graham has become an outspoken leader of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party. He supports going to war without a required declaration, entangling the U.S. in the UN and harmful trade pacts, and backing continuation and expansion of federally imposed socialism. This isn’t conservatism; it’s neoconservatism. And it’s terribly bad for our country.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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NATO: A Military Entangling Alliance
Posted: March 10, 2016 Filed under: Military, NATO, United Nations, World Government | Tags: john birch society, John McManus, military, NATO, Syrian Refugees, United Nations 1 CommentNATO: A Military Entangling Alliance
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
On February 10, 2016, defense ministers from the 28 member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) met in Brussels at the organization’s headquarters. NATO Secretary General, Norway’s Jens Stoltenberg, announced unanimous approval of a plan to beef up the alliance’s presence in Eastern Europe.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and other members of NATO Ministers of Defense and of Foreign Affairs meet at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, Oct. 14, 2010, to give political guidance for the November meeting of Allied Heads of State and Government at the NATO Summit in Lisbon, Portugal. DOD photo by U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Jerry Morrison.
One day later, Stoltenberg revealed that participants in the alliance agreed to deploy ships in the Aegean Sea to aid refugees fleeing from war-torn Syria. He anxiously told reporters that the new mission was “not about stopping or pushing back refugee boats.” It was a humanitarian venture.
Asked about U.S. participation in the new mission, American General Philip Breedlove, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, said that he and his staff would be figuring out how to accomplish the task before them. Breedlove said, “This mission has literally come together in the last 20 hours, and I have been tasked to go back and define the mission. We had some very rapid decision making, and now to go out and do some military work.”
It all sounds very nice. Humanitarian needs arise and people work together to keep desperate refugees from harm, even from losing their lives in rickety boats and rafts. But there’s another issue that no one seems willing to discuss. We think it’s worth mentioning. It is that U.S. forces are being directed by other than U.S. superiors. They should not be ordered here or there by other than America’s leaders.
Created in 1949, NATO was sold to the Congress and the American people as a military force able to block any additional conquests of the Soviet Union. Its real purpose was to place the forces of several nations under United Nations control. From its outset, the alliance has derived its legitimacy from Articles 51-54 of the United Nations Charter. It is and always has been a UN “regional arrangement”, a UN subsidiary.
The action noted above includes a General of the United States Air Force receiving his orders from a Norwegian politician. Sadly, no one other than ourselves wants to point this out. Not only will U.S. forces under General Breedlove be carrying out a mission assigned to them by Jens Stoltenberg, other U.S. forces in Afghanistan and elsewhere follow orders issued ultimately by other foreign military and civilian officials.
The issue we raise is not whether someone who has the ability to do so should take on the responsibility of rescuing or guiding desperate refugees fleeing the horrors of war in their homelands. The issue is that, if American forces are employed in carrying out such a mission, their leaders should be Americans. And whatever mission they undertake should fall within the legitimate parameters contained in the U.S. Constitution and congressional action in accord with the Constitution. Placing American military personnel under the command of anyone but an American leader is a betrayal of their intent to serve our nation. If some wish to be policemen of the world, they should turn in their uniform and find some other way to do their will.
America’s forces are currently serving in 130+ separate nations. Various alliances and commitments, NATO being the most obvious, have given a green light for U.S. forces to be involved in just about every spat large or small. The Constitution does not permit our nation to be the “policemen of the world.” And NATO, sold as something other than what its creators really wanted, is an entangling alliance the U.S. should leave.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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A New Abortion Case Reaches Supreme Court
Posted: March 7, 2016 Filed under: Abortion, U.S. Supreme Court | Tags: abortion, john birch society, John McManus, Roe v. Wade, Texas, U.S. Supreme Court 1 CommentA New Abortion Case Reaches Supreme Court
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
Only recently, the Texas legislature succeeded in imposing a brake on the practice of abortion within its boundaries. Pro-abortion partisans sued to overturn the law, but the federal Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it. Unsurprisingly, the Appeals Court ruling has been challenged and will be decided by the Supreme Court where only eight members remain as a result of Justice Antonin Scalia’s passing. Both sides have already presented their arguments to the high court and a verdict on Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstadt will be handed down before the summer recess begins.
As ProLife Wisconsin asks, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
Looking at the current makeup of the Supreme Court, it is safe to assume that four justices (Ginsburg, Breyer, Kagan, and Sotomayor) will favor reversing the Fifth Circuit’s support for the Texas law. It also seems safe to conclude that three justices (Thomas, Alito, and Roberts) will uphold it. That leaves the eighth member, Justice Anthony Kennedy, with the deciding vote. If he sides with the three presumed upholders, the Court will have registered a non-decision and the Fifth Circuit decision will remain in force. If he joins the four and favors reversal of the Texas law, the abortion industry will have been given a new green light to continue its widespread taking of life in the womb.
The Texas law under scrutiny imposes regulations on abortion clinics and the purveyors of the practice. It says that abortionists must have hospital medical staff credentials and admitting privileges within 30 miles of their clinic. And it insists that the abortion providers must be equipped to provide the same medical treatments available as the many hospitals and surgery centers throughout the state.
Almost all of the Texas abortion clinics cannot meet those two requirements. Consequently, more than half of the 40 abortion clinics in the state have already closed their doors. More are expected to shut down because they are either not close enough to a hospital that has awarded their people admitting privileges, or they don’t have medical staff on hand to deal with complications arising from taking a fetus from a woman’s womb.
The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS), an anti-abortion association of doctors frequently at odds with the American Medical Association (AMA), claimed in its amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court that more than 75 percent of abortions throughout the nation lead to a need for a surgical procedure that most abortion clinics are unable to perform. What these facilities aren’t equipped to provide are the ambulatory surgical procedures routinely performed by hospitals. Women seeking abortions at most of the clinics in Texas have heretofore placed themselves in jeopardy of untreatable complications such as uterine perforation, infection, bleeding, and more.
Speaking for the Obama administration, U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli told the high court’s justices on March 2nd that the Texas law “closes most abortion facilities in the state, puts extreme pressure on the few facilities that remain open, and exponentially increases the obstacles confronting women who seek abortion.” He has thereby correctly yet ruefully summarized the effect of the law. He added that the few remaining Texas clinics still open for abortion were already overloaded and could not meet the demands of women who seek to terminate the life in their wombs.
So the Supreme Court, where laws against abortion were abolished nationwide in the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, is facing a severe test. If the court rules 4 to 4, the Texas law will remain in effect and it will apply in all 50 states. Those who believe, as does this writer, that abortion is terribly wrong because it snuffs out an already created life, will be watching for the court’s decision, a ruling that seems to be Justice Anthony Kennedy’s to decide.
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Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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Brexit: EU on Trial
Posted: March 5, 2016 Filed under: European Union, Politics, Trade | Tags: Brexit, European Union, john birch society, John McManus, UKIP Leave a commentBrexit: EU on Trial
by JBS President Emeritus John F. McManus
England’s Prime Minister David Cameron has announced he will make good on a promise made in 2013. Even though very opposed to Britain leaving the European Union, he has scheduled a national referendum on the matter of membership for June 23rd. The possible loss of the second largest contributor to the EU budget has the moguls managing the Brussels-based EU quite worried. Cameron will do all he can to persuade his countrymen to remain tied to the 28-member super government knowing that other EU member nations may follow if Britain leaves.
Online petition for UK to leave the EU.
England has been a member of the EU since its founding by virtue of already holding membership in the European Economic Community (EEC). In 1973, the EEC was known as the Common Market, a clever but deceitful name persuading many to think their country would benefit from increased trade and nothing more. But after Britain and other European leaders signed the Maastricht Treaty of 1993, the EEC became the European Union and member countries were now not only trading goods; they were trading away sovereignty.
Britain’s membership in the EU is somewhat unique in that the nation variously known as the United Kingdom has never given up its own currency. Where the Euro prevails in almost all of the 28 formerly independent nations, including nearby Ireland, the British pound still exists and is a constant reminder for many Britons of the desire to remain aloof from the many political and economic ties to the continent. Resistance to being dominated by a multiplicity of EU regulations and subjection to the decisions of the European Court of Justice have led many to prefer to quit the EU and go it alone.
In 1994, a Referendum Party formed by Sir James Goldsmith gathered support from many desirous of exiting the EU. But it never gathered enough strength to force a vote on membership and faded out of existence. Almost simultaneously, the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) arose and has attracted greater support. UKIP members even won a few seats in Parliament but its main effect has been to increase opposition to the EU.
Soon after Prime Minister Cameron’s Conservative Party won the 2015 election, Parliament passed the EU Referendum Act and the fight to stay or leave the EU captured the nation’s attention. Those who want out are referred to as advocates of a “Brexit,” a cleverly coined term formed from the words Britain and exit. Though an opponent of quitting, Cameron has released his party’s membership from any requirement that they oppose Brexit. A recent count shows that 140 of the 330 Conservative members of Parliament, including half a dozen cabinet ministers, support breaking away. Their numbers are growing. London’s popular Mayor Boris Johnson has announced favoring Brexit even though he is a Conservative Party member and Cameron’s close ally.
Here in America, the Obama administration has proposed the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) that will initiate a tying of the United States to the European Union. Just as small steps resulted in Britain becoming subject to the huge EU bureaucracy in Brussels, passage of the TTIP will start in the process of having the United States similarly subjected to Brussels. Should Brexit partisans prevail in the June referendum, prospects for congressional passage of the TTIP will surely be dealt a crippling blow. In what surely would be a huge bit of historical irony, English voters, whether they know it or not, stand poised to provide assistance in the campaign here in breakaway America to scuttle entanglement of our nation in the sovereignty-compromising EU.
Are you receiving our free weekly e-newsletter? Sign up today! Be sure to also get our free Top Daily Headlines from The New American.
Mr. McManus served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the late 1950s and joined the staff of The John Birch Society in August 1966. He has served various roles for the organization including Field Coordinator, Director of Public Affairs, and President. Mr. McManus has appeared on hundreds of radio and television programs and is also author of a number of educational DVDs and books. Now President Emeritus, he continues his involvement with the Society through public speaking and writing for this blog, the JBS Bulletin, and The New American.
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