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Mining Affairs Forum November 17, 2008
By Ken Thornberg
“Now What?” (and a vignette on global warming and environmentalism)
Anyone in the know in business knows what dangers lurk in Washington from the middle of January on--I don’t think I can add much to what everyone is lamenting. The upcoming danger of socialism infecting every aspect of American society represents the greatest threat to our nation that we have ever known. Most voters, in my opinion, had no clue as to what they were voting for and their “future shock” may take a few years to wake them up. If they ever wake up, that is. The vetoes of the past will be unable to stop legislation that seeks to bring a governmental stranglehold over business and citizens now. Executive orders and a liberal Democratic Congress, possibly soon with a veto-proof majority in the Senate, will be able to pass socialistic legislation at will.
Only one thing can potentially stop it: us. If you are one of those who has talked to colleagues and friends about how bad things are but have never called or written your governmental leaders, you have a short window to change those bad habits. Without all of us being a “dripping faucet” to our state and national legislators, we will get exactly what we deserve. I’m sure most of you have heard the phrase that the only defense of liberty is eternal vigilance. That phrase cannot mean more than it does today as far as American history is concerned.
Presidential honeymoons last only so long, even when the president is the media’s darling. Sure, our leftist media and press will give Obama a longer one than most presidents get, but if he eventually steps over a line and accidentally does something contrary to the media’s bias, they will turn on him the same way they have every president. Our job is to help make that sooner than later, move decision-making in favor of free enterprise, and do all we can to stop Obama’s socialist agenda. Learning from history, we have found that once a free market republic loses ground to socialism, it never recovers. This is like “Custer’s Last Stand;” if we do not stop this ground from being lost, we will never enjoy real freedom again in America. I am not trying to be a doomsday reporter, but simply look at facts. As the philosopher Santayana said, “If you do not learn from history, you are condemned to repeat it.” May we not condemn ourselves any more than we already have! So many young people voted for Obama because they have never been taught the true history of this nation like those of us over 50. They have no clue what our forefathers went through to hand us a nation built upon Judeo-Christian principles that have now been trashed for decades. The citizens of Rome went through the very same process that we are going through. If you employ young men and women, it would be wisdom to get them something to read that will open their eyes to the truth so we don’t repeat history. My heart is breaking for my nation. My wife and I travel for work all over the world and it is getting harder and harder to act proud of being an American, especially when all foreigners know of America is our situation comedies on television. I pray you will join me in doing all you can to overcome what is about to unfold before our very eyes!
Global Warming Advocate Goes Extreme
New American magazine reported that James Hansen, an atmospheric scientist and the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, has long been the most prominent scientific advocate of the catastrophic global-warming theory. Last June 23, Dr. Hansen called for the chief executives of large fossil-fuel companies to be put on trial for “high crimes against humanity and nature,” accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies allegedly tried to hide the connection between smoking and cancer. He made these statements before the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Climate Change. In 1999, Hansen stated, “The forces that drive long-term climate change are not known with an accuracy sufficient to define future climate change.” Recently he carried a different tune in saying he was certain that the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has already risen beyond the safe level, but he has not explained why his opinion changed. Is it not refreshing to know that our tax dollars are helping support such extremism?
CFR Promotes Climate Change and Open Borders
The Council on Foreign Relations, which no doubt supported Obama’s election, is strongly blaming man’s responsibility for all climate change. In addition, it is continuing its push for open borders and feels that America has already gone too far in putting walls up along our border with Mexico.
Michael Levi, a CFR Senior Fellow for Energy and the Environment, says that the government “has created an obstacle course that has made it vastly harder for people from across the world to come to the U.S., hurting America’s image abroad and damaging its economic prospects at home.”
The CFR, one of America’s most influential think tanks, and possibly the most liberal, will have inside influence with our president-elect, seeking to allow a full free-flow of immigrants into our borders. What difference does it make what others think of America and how we wish to protect ourselves? It is our nation, not theirs! Part of our nation’s problem is that we have made it too easy for others to enter our land in the past two decades. It is important that everyone get a commitment from his Congressional representatives for completion of the wall on our southern border, which Congress has already approved. Your letters now will help guarantee closed and terrorist-safe borders.
Environmentalists Have Socialist Roots
It is obvious that leftist environmentalists will try hard to promote laws and regulations in order to impact every American’s pocketbook in an effort to reduce our standard of living to that of the rest of the world. Obama will be very open to their support. When in college, I subscribed to the Social Democrats USA monthly publication, New America. SDUSA was the largest socialist organization in America at the time and sponsor of the Socialist Party. In its final publication, it announced to its membership that they were terminating the SDUSA and instead were going to infiltrate the environmental movement. Most major environmental organizations today were created by these socialists because they believed that they could implement their agenda more easily through this movement than if they were openly socialist. They were indeed right! Today’s leftist environmental groups heavily support the socialist agenda and now they will have one of their own in the White House. Instead of whining about it, we all need to spread the truth as to the environmentalist’s roots and speak up more than ever in support of what made this nation great. Our future, and that of our children, depends upon it. |
