So a brave woman working in a Chinese forced labor camp wrote a letter pleading for someone to speak up on behalf of the millions of people imprisoned and tortured there en route to re-education at the hands of the Communist party. You can read the letter below or here with analysis. She slipped it inside the plastic Halloween decoration she was packaging for shipment to America.
There's nothing wrong with refusing to shop at Wal-Mart, looking for the "Made in the USA" icon (look hard...) or writing your Congressperson in response. These actions make us feel like we're helping. In reality, that's not likely to affect change in China any more effectively than it would in America.
I offer this letter not to bring attention to what is happening in China, not to scoff at our own rampant consumerism but as a warning to Americans. Many of us find it disturbing to learn of large-scale, "legally" established forced labor camps operating today in other countries. Still many more never learned of the Russian Gulag system per this Nobel Prize-winning book or exactly how the Spanish were able to extract mountains of gold and silver from the Americas, legally sanctioned by the crown. And lest we forget our own White House was built by forced labor that was legally established in the Constitution. No need for a longer list.
With the non-stop operation of forced labor camps spanning the world for thousands of years, why do so many Americans find it incomprehensible that forced labor camps could ever exist right here in the USA?
And I'm not even referring to our corrections industry, which imprisons more people than any other on the planet - and includes forced labor - nor am I referring to the wacky Web sites that claim we're all to be rounded up and sent to a FEMA camp for re-education. There's no need for such speculation when we have laws on the books that clarify what may be coming down the pike. The NDAA (full text pdf) and follow-up executive order "gives the government, through the Secretary of
Labor, the right to proactively mobilize U.S. citizens for 'labor' as
the government deems necessary." You can read all about it here on the Huffington Post and on other links within that article. In fact, any and all resources may be confiscated if the government deems it necessary. It seems we may be forced to hand over our food, water, money and shelter and toil in a work camp at gunpoint - but as long as it's all legal I guess that's just fine. All we need now is something worthy of being labeled a national emergency to trigger the taking!
Forced labor camps, secret police forces, torture and government theft of property are simply the logical result of an all-powerful, collectivist government. It was as obvious to Thomas Jefferson as it has been to millions upon millions of helpless victims throughout human history. Why many Americans today seem unable or unwilling to grasp what is happening right in front of our noses is baffling beyond words.
And I didn't even mention weather modification.
Follow @PaulEntin
Showing posts with label letter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label letter. Show all posts
Saturday, December 29, 2012
Saturday, February 04, 2012
School Board Eliminates Voters from Budget Process
Most school board elections in New Jersey are or were typically held in the spring and voter turnout rarely topped 15 percent. People involved in the school system sometimes devised clever tricks to involve kids in getting their parents to show up and vote yes on the budget but by and large, it was widely understood that if the vote were simply held on the general election day in November then people would be far more willing to show up and vote.
And so let it be written, so let it be done. School elections have been moved to November for nearly all of the Hunterdon County districts. Is that really worthy of a news story? The Hunterdon Democrat thought so and ran this headline, "County's school elections moved". Snooze.
But the Democrat didn't focus on the important part of the story: that the school budget is to be automatically approved every year without voter consent, and is likely to include a two percent annual increase. This guarantees the budget will never be cut. One might think a journalist - or any of the four different reporters involved in this piece - would consider this the real news story. Hopefully, they weren't trying to hide this from the voters, who already pay the highest state and local taxes in the country. This is the letter I sent to the Democrat:
Per the story at http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2012/02/fourteen_community_members_wil.html and the headline from the Observer, "County's school elections moved", this is either intentionally deceptive or simply less than the stellar reporting I'd come to expect from the Democrat. The issue worthy of Renee's and your other reporters' efforts isn't that the date was moved - obviously it always made sense to vote for the school board positions and the school budget at the same time as we vote to fill other positions. What makes this an important story is that the school budget approval is to be automatically approved without consent of the voters, as far as I can tell from the story. I cannot comment on the legality or potential illegality of this move but it ensures that the budget can never be cut and will always increase by at least two percent per year. If the Democrat ever resumes a role as watchdog of the government on behalf of the people, please let me know and I'll renew my subscription.
Paul Entin
Bethlehem Twp.
If anyone could comment on any illegality involved, it would be appreciated.
Thanks to the Democrat's Curtis Leeds for the paper's editorial stand against the removal of the voters from the budget process.
Follow @PaulEntin
And so let it be written, so let it be done. School elections have been moved to November for nearly all of the Hunterdon County districts. Is that really worthy of a news story? The Hunterdon Democrat thought so and ran this headline, "County's school elections moved". Snooze.
But the Democrat didn't focus on the important part of the story: that the school budget is to be automatically approved every year without voter consent, and is likely to include a two percent annual increase. This guarantees the budget will never be cut. One might think a journalist - or any of the four different reporters involved in this piece - would consider this the real news story. Hopefully, they weren't trying to hide this from the voters, who already pay the highest state and local taxes in the country. This is the letter I sent to the Democrat:
Per the story at http://www.nj.com/hunterdon-county-democrat/index.ssf/2012/02/fourteen_community_members_wil.html and the headline from the Observer, "County's school elections moved", this is either intentionally deceptive or simply less than the stellar reporting I'd come to expect from the Democrat. The issue worthy of Renee's and your other reporters' efforts isn't that the date was moved - obviously it always made sense to vote for the school board positions and the school budget at the same time as we vote to fill other positions. What makes this an important story is that the school budget approval is to be automatically approved without consent of the voters, as far as I can tell from the story. I cannot comment on the legality or potential illegality of this move but it ensures that the budget can never be cut and will always increase by at least two percent per year. If the Democrat ever resumes a role as watchdog of the government on behalf of the people, please let me know and I'll renew my subscription.
Paul Entin
Bethlehem Twp.
If anyone could comment on any illegality involved, it would be appreciated.
Thanks to the Democrat's Curtis Leeds for the paper's editorial stand against the removal of the voters from the budget process.
Follow @PaulEntin
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
