Pat Buchanan’s Day of Reckoning: Good-bye to America?

By Paul Craig Roberts Pat Buchanan is too patriotic to come right out and say it, but the message of his new book, www.amazon.com%2FDay-Reckoning-Ideolo... size="3" color="#0000ff">Day of Reckoning , is that America as we have known her is finished.  Moreover, Naomi Wolf agrees with him.  These two writers of different political persuasions arrive at America’s demise from different directions.Buchanan explains how hubris, ideology, and greed have torn America apart. A neoconservative cabal with an alien agenda captured the Bush administration and committed American blood, energy, and money to aggression against Muslim countries in the Middle East, while permitting America’s domestic borders to be overrun by immigrants and exporting the jobs that had made the US an opportunity society.  War and offshoring have taken a savage economic toll while open borders and diversity have created social and political division.  In her new book, www.amazon.com%2FEnd-America-Letter-W... size="3" color="#0000ff">End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot , Wolf explains America’s demise in terms of the erosion of freedoms.  She writes that the ten classic steps that are used to close open societies are currently being taken in the US. Martial law is only a declaration away.The Bush administration responded to September 11 by initiating military aggression in the Middle East and by using fear and the “war on terror” to implement police state measures at home with legislation, presidential directives, and executive ordersOvernight the US became a tyranny in which people could be arrested and incarcerated on the basis of unsubstantiated accusation.  Both US citizens and non-citizens were denied habeas corpus, due process, and access to attorneys and courts.  Congress gave Bush legislation establishing military tribunals, the procedures of which permit people to be condemned to death on the basis of secret evidence, hearsay, and confessions extracted by torture.  Nothing of the like has ever been seen before in the US.The cancer might have metastasized if the Guantanamo detainees had actually been the dangerous terrorists and enemy combatants that the Bush regime declared them to be. Had the administration actually possessed evidence against the detainees, the Bush regime might have succeeded in dispensing with the Constitution. Conviction of the detainees could have led to what Wolf calls a “fascist expansion.”  Following the exercise of its new powers, the regime could have broadened the definition of terrorist to include the regime’s critics, thus pulling citizens in general into tribunals devoid of civil liberty protections. It could still turn out this way in the event of another 9/11 attack, whether real or orchestrated.  But momentarily the drive toward tyranny has been blunted, because the vast majority of detainees turned out to be hapless individuals sold into American captivity by warlords responding to the bounty the US paid for “terrorists.”  Any unprotected individual was vulnerable to being captured by Afghan and Pakistani warlords and sold as a “terrorist.”  The Americans needed to show results, and the Bush regime needed “terrorists” in order to feed the fear its propaganda had generated.In Stalinist Russia or Nazi Germany, the absence of evidence would not have mattered as the judicial system produced the results demanded by the tyrants.  However, the US military had not been sufficiently corrupted for the Bush regime’s Guantanamo agenda to succeed.  Honorable officers, such as Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham, were able to discern that the US government had no information on the detainees and used interrogations in order to rubber stamp the a priori determination that a detainee was a terrorist or enemy combatant. Military officers made these revelations known to real courts before the tribunal process could establish itself.  Andy Worthington’s recently published book, www.amazon.com%2FGuantanamo-Files-Sto... size="3" color="#0000ff">The Guantanamo Files: The Stories of the 759 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, proves that the regime’s claim that it had hundreds of dangerous terrorists at Guantanamo was just another Bush administration lie.Currently, support for Bush, Cheney, and the neoconservative agenda is low.  However, Congress, the press, and elections have proven to be feeble opponents of the Bush regime’s drive toward war and tyranny.  It remains to be seen whether the regime has sufficient credibility or audacity to initiate war with Iran or a false flag attack that would revive the fascist expansion of which Naomi Wolf warns.The Bush administration has been a catastrophe.  Its failures are unprecedented.  Energy prices are at all time highs.  The US is deeply in debt and dependent on foreign creditors. The dollar has lost 60% of its value against other tradable currencies, and its reserve currency status, the basis of American power, is in doubt.  The US has lost millions of middle class jobs which have been replaced with low paid domestic service jobs.  Except for the very rich, Americans have experienced no gains in real income in the 21st century. As the ladders of upward mobility are dismantled and the middle class struggles and fails, America is left with a few rich and many poor.  America’s reputation and credibility are damaged perhaps beyond repair.  Congress and the press have enabled the executive branch’s disregard of the Constitution and civil liberty. The US is mired in two lost wars which are pushing Lebanon and nuclear-armed Pakistan into deepening political crises.  As Buchanan concludes, “Our day of reckoning is at hand.”COPYRIGHT CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.Paul Craig Roberts [email him] was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration. He is the author of Supply-Side Revolution : An Insider's Account of Policymaking in Washington;  Alienation and the Soviet Economy and Meltdown: Inside the Soviet Economy, and is the co-author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s Forbes Magazine interview with Roberts about the recent epidemic of prosecutorial misconduct. 

I've said 'Good-bye' to the America I used to know and cherish and trust 'a long time ago', sad to say.

 

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They said that Ron Paul is close to obtaining his 12 million goal in fund raising for the 3rd qrter.

Looks like the people are putting their money where their mouth is for a change.

A Paul-Buchanan Ticket?
New Book Echoes Ron Paul's Positions

Drudge Report -- November 25 New Buchanan book declares 'end of America' Buchanan's Recommendations... A new foreign-defense policy that closes most of the 1000 bases overseas, reviews all alliances, and brings home U.S. troops A purge of neoconservative ideology and the "Cakewalk" crowd" from national power. To avert a second Cold War, the United States should "get out of Russia's space and get out of Russia's face," and shut down all U.S. bases on the soil of the former Soviet Union To prevent America becoming "a tangle of squabbling nationalities" Buchanan urges: No amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal aliens; a border fence from San Diego to Brownsville; Congressional declarations that children born to illegal aliens are not citizens and English is the language of the United States; and a "timeout" on all immigration.

NEW BUCHANAN BOOK DECLARES 'END OF AMERICA'
Sun Nov 25 2007 20:40:15 ET

**Exclusive**

"America is coming apart, decomposing, and...the likelihood of her survival as one nation...is improbable -- and impossible if America continues on her current course," declares Pat Buchanan. "For we are on a path to national suicide."

The best-selling author and former presidential candidate is on the eve of launching his new epic book: DAY OF RECKONING: HOW HUBRIS, IDEOLOGY AND GREED ARE TEARING AMERICA APART.

[The book's release date has been moved up to this week. It ranked #237 on AMAZON's hitparade Monday morning.]

This time, Buchanan goes all the way:

"America is in an existential crisis from which the nation may not survive."

The U.S. Army is breaking and is too small to meet America’s global commitments.

The dollar has sunk to historic lows and is being abandoned by foreign governments.

U.S. manufacturing is being hollowed out.

The greatest invasion in history, from the Third World, is swamping the ethno-cultural core of the country, leading to Balkanization and the loss of the Southwest to Mexico.


The culture is collapsing and the nation is being deconstructed along the lines of race and class.

A fiscal crisis looms as the unfunded mandates of Social Security and Medicare remain unaddressed.

All these crises are hitting America at once -- a perfect storm of crises.

Specifically, Buchanan contends:

• Pax Americana, the era of U.S. global dominance, is over. A struggle for global hegemony has begun among the United States, China, a resurgent Russia and radical Islam

• Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a product of hubris and of ideology, a secular religion of “democratism,” to which Bush was converted in the days following 9/11

• Torn asunder by a culture war, America has now begun to break down along class, ethnic and racial lines.

• The greatest threat to U.S. sovereignty and independence is the scheme of a global elite to erase America’s borders and merge the USA, Mexico and Canada into a North American Union.

• Free trade is shipping jobs, factories and technology to China and plunging America into permanent dependency and unpayable debt. One of every six U.S. manufacturing jobs vanished under Bush

• “Sovereign Wealth Funds,” controlled by foreign regimes and stuffed with trillions of dollars from U.S. trade deficits, are buying up strategic corporate assets vital to America’s security

• As U.S. wages are stagnant, corporate CEOs are raking in rising pay and benefits 400 to 500 times that of their workers

• The Third World invasion through Mexico is a graver threat to our survival as one nation than anything happening in Afghanistan or Iraq

* European-Americans, 89% of the nation when JFK took the oath, are now 66% and sinking. Before 2050, America is a Third World nation

• By 2060, America will add 167 million people and 105 million immigrants will be here, triple the 37 million today.

• Hispanics will be over 100 million in 2050 and concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans believe belongs to them

Buchanan’s Recommendations:

• A new foreign-defense policy that closes most of the 1000 bases overseas, reviews all alliances, and brings home U.S. troops

• A purge of neoconservative ideology and the “Cakewalk” crowd” from national power.

• To avert a second Cold War, the United States should “get out of Russia’s space and get out of Russia’s face,” and shut down all U.S. bases on the soil of the former Soviet Union

• To reach a cold peace in the culture war, Buchanan urges a return to federalism and the overthrow of our judicial dictatorship by Congressionally mandated restrictions on the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

• To end the trade deficits and save the dollar, Buchanan urges a Hamiltonian solution: a 20% Border Equity Tax on imports, with the $500 billion raised to be used to end taxation on American producers

• To prevent America becoming “a tangle of squabbling nationalities” Buchanan urges: No amnesty for the 12-20 million illegal aliens; a border fence from San Diego to Brownsville; Congressional declarations that children born to illegal aliens are not citizens and English is the language of the United States; and a “timeout” on all immigration.

my wife and i said it also "Goodbye" years ago . sometimes we sit and just talk bout the Old America and her beauty .

a real point of Bushco cabel , this pass veterans day . I used to always watch on tv the Memorial at the Tomb of the Unknown . The silent guards and commands , the President laying the Wreath . I looked at the wife and said "I haven't seen it in years " . I understand Mr. 5 daft defurment Cheney laid it , what a slap in the face of all Citizen . Bush aka Dubya and his Cabel are beyond words in their Greed . I spit on all of them

plus the fact Buchanan warned us of all this yr's ago and we laughed at him and hung labels on him

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I wonder what will happen to the election "polls" if this book hits number 1 in America and people read it and understand it and vote to make sure it stops and his recommendations on how to "fix it" are taken.

Umm - Huckabee - no

Obama - no

Richardson - no

Edwards - no

Rudy - no

Hillary  - no

Rommney - no

Dodd - no

????

Paul, Tancredo, Hunter - only ones left standing.

That's funny.....I said good-bye to Pat Buchanan a long time ago!

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FireWing said: That's funny.....I said good-bye to Pat Buchanan a long time ago!

Pat Buchanan goes to far in some things, but in others, he's right on the mark.

marijam said:

FireWing said: That's funny.....I said good-bye to Pat Buchanan a long time ago!

Pat Buchanan goes to far in some things, but in others, he's right on the mark.

Yes, he is right-on about many things, it's too bad he had to go over the edge on some things so that a lot of people stopped listening to him.

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There's a good chance Pat is right. Thngs started falling apart in about 1962 and Americans did nothing to stop it. In fact, most embraced it ! If we have not totally passed the point of no return, we are very close to doing so.

We are coming apart at the seams people.  Forget party, vote American !

If voting no longer works, there's only one thing left to do.

One of the reasons why America is "disappearing" is that what we aren't legislating away, we are selling and then having to repurchase.  Personally, I think we should buy it ALL back.

The 91 Express Lanes in California opened in 1995 and were built inside the median of an existing freeway (State Route 91) between Orange County and Riverside County.  The toll road was constructed at a cost of $130 million by the California Private Transportation Company (CPTC), a consortium led by Compagnie Financiere et Industrielle des Autoroutes of France.  When the project was completed, CPTC gave the lanes to California, then leased them back for thirty-five years.  Within five years, however, Orange County traffic was in virtual gridlock and the government needed once again to expand the roads.  But due to the structure of the lease with CPTC, it was prevented from doing so:  In order to build the roadways, it had to buy out the lease.  In 2002 California paid more than $207 million to recover the lanes from the French consortium -- almost double what it had originally paid to build the roads just seven years earlier.  The Reason Foundation cites Route 91 as one of its success stories.  (excerpt from Lou Dobb's book Indenpendents Day, page 107).

 America is being destroyed by its infrastructure, that American taxpayers bought and paid for, being sold to the highest foreign bidder.  Its outrageous that governors and mayors are so afraid of raising taxes that they would sell America off bit by bit to foreign entities.

marijam said:

FireWing said: That's funny.....I said good-bye to Pat Buchanan a long time ago!

Pat Buchanan goes to far in some things, but in others, he's right on the mark.

 

all i can say is "Are we in any better shape being sold out and made fools out of "?  Buchanan is a tuff old nut for sure . but i for one have a hard time believing he'ld sell out his country and spit on the Constitution as Dubya & company has . looks to me some of you'll Still don't get it

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We are in a mess, for sure, with the dollar in freefall, foreign nations pulling back on purchasing our debt and with the foreclosures expected to escalate in 2008.  Who to vote for?  Who can we trust to put the "America" back into America?

The argument for outsourcing our roads:

New life for turnpike-lease plan

Act 44 alone won't raise enough money for transportation.

Matthew J. Brouillette > and Leonard Gilroy>

Pennsylvania lawmakers should reconsider the money they left on the table earlier this year after rejecting Gov. Rendell's initial plan to lease the Pennsylvania Turnpike to a private-sector partner. Such an agreement could generate billions of dollars needed for transportation infrastructure and transit systems without raising taxes, adding tolls, or incurring more taxpayer debt.

> Amid increasing doubts about the viability of Act 44 of 2007 - the law that permitted the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to raise money by putting tolls on Interstate 80 - the governor will soon announce a short list of teams that will make multi-billion-dollar bids for a potential turnpike lease.

> Last month, 34 financial, engineering and management companies submitted 14 proposals to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, for operating the turnpike. If Rendell obtains a high-enough bid, he plans to take that offer to the General Assembly for consideration. The legislature would do well to give the idea serious thought this time around.

> Increasing public backlash to Act 44 has prompted Rendell to revive his turnpike-lease plan. To begin with, Act 44 fails to address the identified annual transportation funding need of $1.7 billion. Despite billions in new bonded debt, higher turnpike fees, new tolls on I-80, and no plan to achieve meaningful congestion relief, Act 44 provides less than half the money needed to repair and maintain transportation infrastructure.

> Additionally, Act 44 is predicated on federal approval for tolls on I-80, an outcome in doubt given recent communications from federal officials to the turnpike commission, and Act 44's failure to comply with federal rules on adding tolls to interstates. If the turnpike commission is denied permission to add tolls to the 311-mile road, then the shortfall in revenue for infrastructure only grows. And the people of Pennsylvania will be on the hook for the billions in bonded debt incurred by the turnpike commission. > Lastly, from a "good government" perspective, it doesn't make sense to reward the turnpike commission with even more power, size and authority. The commission is hardly a model of transparency, accountability and efficiency. Indeed, its long history as a patronage playground for the Pennsylvania Senate is well-documented.

> By contrast, a properly written lease of the 514-mile Pennsylvania Turnpike under a public-private partnership would drive out the corruption and waste of the turnpike commission while generating a large infusion of privately raised capital, eliminating the need for more debt, more fees and more taxes. Under a lease agreement, the state could hold its private-sector partner to high and rigorous standards through a performance-based contract. If the company failed to comply with the terms of the agreement - whether related to snow or road-kill removal, maintenance requirements, or road-widening projects triggered by high traffic volumes - it could be financially penalized or even stripped of its contract.

> Projections suggest that a lease could generate at least $1.7 billion annually - the amount needed to close the long-term funding gap. The final amount, of course, will not be known until the bids are in.

> Indiana decided it wanted to fully fund its long-range transportation plans through a public-private partnership on the Indiana Toll Road. After reaping nearly $4 billion for the lease of the 157-mile highway, the state reinvested that money into transportation infrastructure projects. Today, the Hoosier State is the only one in the nation with a fully funded, statewide transportation plan. Because of this one public-private partnership, Indiana will be able to expand and modernize its transportation network and confront its major challenges in moving people, businesses and goods into, out of, and around the state.

> Regardless of how the Act 44 issue plays out, Pennsylvania is at a crossroads. Business as usual - higher taxes, higher fees and higher debt - will not deliver the infrastructure that could meet the transportation needs of the 21st-century economy. Policymakers need to embrace a new paradigm for highway funding and operation, and teaming with the private sector offers that. Even better, it does so without more debt or tolls on I-80.

> Matthew J. Brouillette is president of the Commonwealth Foundation (www.CommonwealthFoundation.org) in Harrisburg. Leonard Gilroy is director of government reform at the Reason Foundation (www.Reason.org) in Los Angeles.  

 

I truely believe that we are already so far gone that we can't come back.  Without an all out armed revolution we are done for because we don't have the time to wait and hope to elect Senators and Representatives as well as a President who will enforce our laws and get tough and say to hell with anything global or politically correct.  Oh and "Go to hell Calderone and all of Mexico.  Mind your own business and stay out of ours."  We just don't have the time to wait.  Nothing gets done in the Senate or House because they are too busy trying to get their pet projects slipped into important bills and then the other side tries to stop it so all they do is waste time.  No people armed revolution is the only way things are going to change.

I agree that Pat Buchanan is a little bit of a crank on some things, such as free trade.  But even on that I am beginning to rethink my free trade tendencies and definitely NAFTA because it is looking like NAFTA was just the first step in created the NAU and was not really about free trade.  But maybe Buchanan will be proved right on free trade in the future.  Also, I think he goes a little overboard in lamenting the fact that we are becoming less and less white.  I don't know if he is saying that because he is racist or because sometimes certain people groups have unhealthy aspects to their culture.  Let's hope it'st he second, not the first.

But to my point:  I believe that fundamentally the cause of the decline of our great (or once great) nation is primarily ourselve.  Sure, immigration is bad but it is our own greed and laziness and social welfare policies that is encouraging it, enabling it, causing it to be such a strain on our pocketbooks.  Remember that if we could deport every illegal alien today (which would be nice) we would still have to contend with socialism at home, gay marriage, murder of the unborn and "the pornification of america" on the airwaves.  We have become so successful we now expect everything to be quick and easy.  We watch hours of T.V. a day because it's easier than reading, thinking, or talking (read Fahrenheit 451).  Many Americans are deeply in debt because we live above our means even though we are the wealthiest nation in history.  That's where the sub prime woes have come from.  I can't predict the future I have a hunch that the credit crises is going to get better before it gets worse.  I know there is always somebody shouting about how the sky is falling and we are headed to economic disaster yada yada yada but in this case it might be true.  And whom to blame?  The Chinese might have been happy to buy up our debt when it sill looked like we could pay, but nobody forced us to go in to debt to begin with.  As much as the government is at fault for some of our demise, much of it also lies with the average Joe.

Empires rise.  Empires fall.  And they usually rot from within before they can fall from without.

There is a good chance he is right, as he has been in the past and the public has not paid enough attention.  We'll see if he and  Paul strategize a campaign.  It will be interesting at best. 

I do agree that we all must vote American. 

i can honestly kick my own azz for not listening 20 years ago . hindsite is a bad feeling now a days

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I was always told that the smartest thing you can do is buy locally.  That way, your money stays in town and helps put food on the table of people you know. Globalism destroys that activity. Globalism assures that your money will go all over the world before your neighbor can put any food on his table. The idea of globalism is and always was a handout, but for what in return ?  We went out of the way to help China arise from the 18th century, but they laced toys with lead paint to repay us, knowing that kids put toys in their mouths. Thanks, Hu. The UN could have been a cooperative organization helping spread prosperty and education and fellowship all across the world, but they are a corrupt black market instead.  We could have forced the UN to correct it's evil ways, but instead, the democrats forced Bolton to step down which allows the business as usual in the UN. In their zeal to take yet another dump on Bush, the donkeys have thrown their weight against America and a world aligned with American values. Never vote for a democrat, toss the UN out of the US, and destroy all global agreements. It's time to start over and do it right or don't do it at all.

So in the holiday spirit, shop locally, and give Uncle Sam Walmart the finger. And put up a nativity scene, it will help identify the enemy within.  

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I do have to say that Bush is the worst President this country has ever seen.  He would sell his soul to the devil - or perhaps he already has.

I am an Independent and I have voted in both parties and in the Independent party before but I don't think if someone 8 years ago would have told me where our country is today I would have believed them.  I never believed that one man could do so much harm to a country - but then look at Hitler.

Wow - Bush is amazing with his NAU and SPP and Superhwy and trucking for Mexico where ever they please and no fence and Katrina and ..... I not only would not want to be him when it comes to "payback time" ie what goes around comes around - but I would not want to be anywhere near him.

I truly wonder how he sleeps at night?  When you work so hard to bring a country down, you must really believe that by destroying America something good will come of it - that is the only reason I can think of at why he continues to believe flooding America with 38 million illegal aliens and all the other bull ..... is a good thing.

Do you think he has lost his mind?  like literally?