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Martin Luther King: “Everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was Legal”

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Even if you have read Martin Luther King’s celebrated “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” I insist you read it again. For those that have never read it, the inspired prose may very well change your life.  The letter’s message is eternal and extraordinarily relevant in the current global struggle of the 99.9% against the criminality, corruption and oppression of a very small, but very powerful 0.01%.  One of the key tactics this tiny minority uses is to claim that their immoral deeds are “legal.”  He spends much of his time in the letter outlining the distinction between “just laws” and an “unjust laws,” and one of the key points he makes that we should all keep close to our hearts and minds in these trying times is:

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers.

I also think it’s important to recognize that many of his contemporaries referred to his tactics as “extremist,” very similar to how the term “terrorist” is used currently to demonize public dissent in America.  Below are some of the excepts I found most powerful:

But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here.

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.

Lamentably, it is an historical fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups tend to be more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.

The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

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Flashback to 2007: Obama’s Speech on Warrantless Wiretapping

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At this point we all understand that there is absolutely zero in common with Presidential-candidate Barack Obama and President Barack Obama.  He has so consistently lied while in office I have become convinced that he ranks deception as one of his most cherished hobbies.  Right up there with rounds of golf and posing for pictures … Read more

Even the Author of the Patriot Act Slams the NSA and Eric Holder on Spying

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You know it’s bad when the author of what might be the most unconstitutional bill in U.S. history criticizes you for being too authoritarian on civil rights.  Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wisc.), the man who introduced the Patriot Act in October 2001 has written a letter to Eric Holder at the Department of Injustice expressing dismay about … Read more

The CIA’s Latest Investment: Robot Writers

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I’ve covered the CIA’s venture capital arm, In-Q-Tel, before (yes the CIA has a venture capital arm.  In that instance, I raised concerns about Palantir, a company started by Peter Theil in 2004 and in which I-Q-Tel was an early investor. The post was titled:  Is Peter Thiel Assisting the Government in the Creation of … Read more

So Who is James Comey, Obama’s Nominee to Head the FBI?

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In light of the latest revelations that the NSA is spying on the communications of millions of Verizon customers courtesy of information provided by the FBI, it probably makes sense to know a little more about Obama’s nominee to head that Bureau.  That man is James Comey, and he was a top Department of Justice attorney under John Ashcroft during the George W. Bush Administration (since then he has worked at Lockheed Martin and at the enormous Connecticut hedge fund Bridgewater Associates).  This guy defines the revolving door cancer ruining these United States.

Comey’s defenders point out that he stood up to some of the more egregious spy programs that Bush officials wanted to pursue, and that he also expressed reservations about the torture program.  Nevertheless, he signed off on, and provided the legal justification for both.  This is the man being recycled back through the revolving door by Obama.  I have read many articles on Mr. Comey ever since it surfaced he would be nominated and, as usual, Glenn Greenwald did the best work.  From the Guardian:

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Department of Homeland Security: We Can Search and Confiscate Electronic Devices Based on a “Hunch”

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Regular readers know my complete and total disdain for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). An organization that is quite clearly gearing itself up for confrontation with the American public, rather than offering any meaningful protection from foreign “terrorists.” These folks think that because they have a big budget and a badge they do not have to abide by the Constitution.  They have such little respect for the supreme law of the land that they claim they can search through travelers’ electronic items, and even confiscate them, based on a “hunch.”  No, really.

Terrorists don’t take away freedoms.  Governments take away freedoms…and ours is doing a damn good job of it.

From CBS:

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — U.S. border agents should continue to be allowed to search a traveler’s laptop, cellphone or other electronic device and keep copies of any data on them based on no more than a hunch, according to an internal Homeland Security Department study. It contends limiting such searches would prevent the U.S. from detecting child pornographers or terrorists and expose the government to lawsuits.

The 23-page report, obtained by The Associated Press and the American Civil Liberties Union under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, provides a rare glimpse of the Obama administration’s thinking on the long-standing but controversial practice of border agents and immigration officers searching and in some cases holding for weeks or months the digital devices of anyone trying to enter the U.S.

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American Insanity: How to Buy a Home in Martha’s Vineyard with Zero Money Down

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The absurd new housing bubble created by Banana Ben Bernanke’s cheap money, private equity slumlords and crony foreign oligarchs looking to launder their ill-gotten funds, continues to provide what would be hilarious headlines if only they weren’t so sad.  In the following story, we find that courtesy of the Department of Agriculture (USDA), the struggling folks on Martha’s Vineyard have access to zero money down home loans.  The USDA you ask? Well, it turns out that the “entire island is designated as a rural area eligible for a USDA loan.”  Why do we even have a government at this point?

From CNBC:

The zero down mortgage is back—in Martha’s Vineyard.

Ira Stoll at the Future of Capitalism bloghas come across an article on “Home Buying 101” in the spring of 2013 “Real Estate & Homes” supplement to the Vineyard Gazette. A local mortgage broker by the name of Polly K. Bassett is quoted as touting how.

Bassett, the “co-owner and a broker of Martha’s Vineyard Mortgage Company, L.L.C., said: “We have access to a wide range of programs such as USDA, which is a program where you can put no money down, 100 percent financing, and we also do a 97 percent financing with three percent down….There are a lot of programs out there for people buying their first home.”

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The IRS Claims it Can’t Find its Own Receipts

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At this point we have all heard of the IRS being caught redhanded with regard to its political targeting, but revelations of corruption and cronyism get worse and worse each day. Yesterday, we found out that the IRS has wasted tens of millions of dollars on hundreds of conferences over the past few years. Conferences … Read more

Time Magazine Cover: This is What Propaganda Looks Like

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Still don’t believe mainstream media outlets are engaged in deliberate propaganda against U.S. citizens?  If not, these images should shake you out of your stupor.  I’ve pointed out the difference in Time Magazine covers for the U.S. market versus what they show the rest of the world before, and at times it is nothing short … Read more

Taiwanese Fight Back Against Internet Censorship and Win!

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Great update here from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), of the outcome from government attempts to censor the internet in Taiwan in a similar manner to what was proposed in the U.S. with SOPA/PIPA. Just goes to show that we can stop these authoritarians if we stand up for ourselves.  From the EFF:  

Taiwan’s intellectual property office proposed a new Internet blacklist law that would have targeted websites for their alleged use in copyright infringement. The initiative would have forced Internet Service Providers to block a list of domains or IP addresses connected to websites and services found to enable “illegal” file sharing. In the face of massive online opposition and a planned Internet blackout, the IP office has now backed down and abandoned support for the law.

Taiwanese users were going to stage an Internet black out on Tuesday June 4th. Several websites, including Wikipedia Taiwan and Mozilla Taiwan pledged to go dark in order to raise awareness. At the time this was written, more than 45,000 people had shown their commitment to protest the bill.

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