Libya: Soros behind "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) as a form of Global Governance, from Peter Myers

Interesting to see that Peter Myers includes articles from World Net Daily in his latest forward. This is the first I've heard of the R2P. Haven't been keeping up and things change so quickly, new terms are introduced almost every day now.

From Peter Myers' elist:

Libya: Soros behind "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) as a form of Global Governance
http://mailstar.net/Soros-Chomsky-R2P.html (full updated post here)

(1) Petras vs Chomsky on "Oil" motive in the Libya war; neither notices Soros' role
(2) Libya: Soros behind "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) as a form of Global Governance
(3) Obama says R2P (Responsibility to Protect) is basis of Libya intervention
(4) Hillary says she'll institutionalize R2P (Responsibility to Protect) in the State Dep't
(5) Soros: Sovereignty is an anachronistic concept. It stands in the way of outside intervention
(6) The Responsibility to Protect, by Gareth Evans and Mohamed Sahnoun - Foreign Affairs
(7) Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty - Evans & Sahnoun
(8) CIGI (Centre for International Governance Innovation) welcomes Ramesh Thakur
(9) Ramesh Thakur: UN was urged to allow "R2P war" on Burma to force the delivery of aid
(10) CIGI and Soros' Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) form a Partnership
(11) Soros' Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET) "to Remake Entire Global Economy"
(12) Chomsky: Libya is about Oil. True, Western companies already had the Oil, but Gaddafi was unreliable
(13) Petras: Intervention not about Oil; multinationals already had Libyan oil. Goal is military, not economic
(14) Juan Cole defends bombing
(15) German Greens agitate for war
(16) Spain's "reformed Leninist" Government joins war on Rebel side
(17) Saudi King detests Gaddafi; Gaddafi tried to assassinate him
(18) Arab leaders long hated Gaddafi. Bernard-Henri Lévy met rebels & persuaded Sarkozy
(19) Western intervention into Libya not sanctioned by UN: Russian Foreign Minister
(20) Nobel Committee asked to Strip Obama of Peace Prize
(21) Libya rebels make oil deal with Qatar (home of Al Jazeera)
(22) Gaddafi says Ben-Gurion ordered the killing of Kennedy, because he insisted on monitoring Dimona
(23) Vanunu: Peres ordered my kidnapping; AND was the father of the Israeli nuke
(24) Divided Libya (oil-rich East / poor West) as the new Vietnam - Pepe Escobar

(1) Petras vs Chomsky on "Oil" motive in the Libya war; neither notices Soros' role

- Peter Myers, April 3, 2011

"Whereas the Iraq and Afghan wars were brought about through agitation by Israel and the Zionist lobby in the US, this is not the case with the Libya war. It's more similar to the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, with the US siding with Islamists (Kosovo, the Saudi monarchy, and a would-be Emirate in Benghazi) against Socialists of the neo-Stalinist camp (ie critics of Stalin who nevertheless somewhat followed his path).

"Chomsky, in his analysis of world events, emphasises the role of Empire but ridicules claims of a significant role for the Zionist lobby. Petras depicts the Empire often tweaked by the Zionist lobby, like a henpecked spouse. But on occasions like this, the spouse is quiet and the Emperor acts of his own accord. Whereas in his writings over the last decade, Petras portrayed a major role played by the Zionist lobby, this is not so in his analysis of the Libya war.

"During the Iraq and Afghan wars, Chomsky's reputation declined. The ongoing agitation of the Zionist lobby, culminating in intervention, was plain for all to see, yet Chomsky "wrote it out" of his account.

"The Left's leading expert on the US media had not noticed its Jewish ownership and management. Nor commented on Mordecai Vanunu's capture by Mossad (with the complicity of Western agencies) and incarceration for revealing Israel's nuclear program, despite its relevance for the Iran nuclear debate. Nor made any mention of Norman Finkelstein's book The Holocaust Industry, despite praising Finkelstein's earlier anti-Imperial writings.

"But now that we see the Empire acting without Zionist prompting, Chomsky's writings have regained some of their cogency (item 6 below).

"But lest a Jewish role be written out prematurely, it shoud be noted that George Soros is a major backer of "Democracy" movements, and he does this in the name of "the Open Society", recalling H. G. Wells' book The Open Conspiracy (for World Government). Karl Popper was Soros' mentor, and the Russian Jewish refusniks were aligned with Sakharov, who espoused Convergence to World Government: http://mailstar.net/convergence.html.

"This was also Gorbachev's policy; it was who who let the refusniks leave Russia. He pardoned Sakharov, yet he never pardoned Solzhenitsyn. David ben-Gurion also advocated Convergence to World Government: http://mailstar.net/bengur62.jpg

"At Gorbachev's 80th birthday party in London, he was shown posing with Simon Peres and Sharon Stone. Peres' face was beaming; he certainly was not thinking of Mordecai Vanunu. Yet Vanunu accused him or ordering his capture: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/vanunu-if-peres-got-a-nobel-i-don-t-want-one-1.266270

'The Soviet Union was created by communist Jews, but Stalin overthrew them. In response most moved, over time, to the Trotskyist camp and, via the Frankfurt School, anti-Authoritarian forms of Marxism bordering on Anarchism. Despite Trotsky's book justifying the Red Terror (when he was in power), the Trotskyist movement today has ties with the Anarchists who organize Black Blocs. Both groups oppose Stalin, but the Anarchists also blame the earlier (Jewish) phase of Communism for paving the way to his regime.

"Soros represents not Zionism but Libertarian Socialism - the same cause as Chomsky. But Soros backs intervention in Libya, whereas Chomsky opposes it. On closer inspection, however, Chomsky endorses R2P (Responsibility to Protect) IN PRINCIPLE. His objection is that it being used for ulterior motives.

"In item 12 (below), he writes, "There are two cases to consider: (1) UN intervention and (2) intervention without UN authorization. Unless we believe that states are sacrosanct in the form that has been established in the modern world (typically by extreme violence), with rights that override all other imaginable considerations, then the answer is the same in both cases: Yes, in principle at least."

'As for Soros' proclasimed loyalty to the Empire, he has in the past called for Regime Change in the United States, and item 11 (below) is about INET, his initiative for a new world economic system, forcing rich countries (and classes) to consume less so that poor ones can consume more (and to save the planet).

'Not so different from Chomsky, after all. Almost the same, in fact.

'Even where there are differences between them, both Soros and Chomsky can be seen as part of a single (but fractured) movement.

"The anti-Stalinist Left falls onto both sides of the Intervention debate.

"AGAINST Intervention are the WSWS Trots as well as the "Trotskyoid" Green Left Weekly; but FOR intervention are their Green comrades, Juan Cole, and the PSOE (Socialist Workers Party) Government of Spain."

(2) Libya: Soros behind "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) as a form of Global Governance

http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=278685

Soros fingerprints on Libya bombing

Leftist mastermind puts up big bucks to erase borders

Posted: March 23, 2011

By Aaron Klein © 2011 WorldNetDaily

Philanthropist billionaire George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the global organization that promotes the military doctrine used by the Obama administration to justify the recent airstrikes targeting the regime of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya.

The activist who founded and coined the name of the doctrine, "Responsibility to Protect," sits on several key organizations alongside Soros.

Also, the Soros-funded global group that promotes Responsibility to Protect is closely tied to Samantha Power, the National Security Council special adviser to Obama on human rights.

Power has been a champion of the doctrine and is, herself, deeply tied to the doctrine's founder.

According to reports, Power, who is married to Obama regulatory czar Cass Sunstein, was instrumental in convincing Obama to act against Libya.

The Responsibility to Protect doctrine has been described by its founders and proponents, including Soros, as promoting global governance while allowing the international community to penetrate a nation state's borders under certain conditions.

Libya regarded as test of global doctrine

The joint U.S. and international air strikes targeting Libya are widely regarded as a test of Responsibility to Protect – which is a set of principles, now backed by the United Nations, based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility.

According to the principle, any state's sovereignty can be overrun, including with the use of military force, if the international community decides it must act to halt what it determines to be genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity or ethnic cleansing.

The term "war crimes" has at times been indiscriminately used by various U.N.-backed international bodies, including the International Criminal Court, or ICC, which applied it to Israeli anti-terror operations in the Gaza Strip. There has been fear the ICC could be used to prosecute U.S. troops.

An organization calling itself the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect is the world's leading champion of the doctrine.

Activist Gareth Evans, who sits on the global group's advisory board, is widely regarded as the founder of the Responsibility to Protect principle.

Soros' Open Society Institute is one of only three nongovernmental funders of the Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Government sponsors include Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda and the U.K.

Board members of the group include former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, former Ireland President Mary Robinson and South African activist Desmond Tutu. Robinson and Tutu have recently made solidarity visits to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip as members of a group called The Elders, which includes former President Jimmy Carter.

Annan once famously stated, "State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined – not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are ... instruments at the service of their peoples and not vice versa."

During his tenure as Australia's foreign minister, Evans served as co-chair of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, which invented the term "responsibility to protect."

In his capacity as co-chair, Evans also played a pivotal role in initiating the fundamental shift from sovereignty as a right to "sovereignty as responsibility."

Evans presented Responsibility to Protect at the July 23, 2009, United Nations General Assembly, which was convened to consider the principle.

Soros: Right to 'penetrate nation-states' borders'

Soros himself outlined the fundamentals of Responsibility to Protect in a 2004 Foreign Policy magazine article entitled "The People's Sovereignty: How a New Twist on an Old Idea Can Protect the World's Most Vulnerable Populations."

In the article, Soros said "true sovereignty belongs to the people, who in turn delegate it to their governments."

"If governments abuse the authority entrusted to them and citizens have no opportunity to correct such abuses, outside interference is justified," Soros wrote. "By specifying that sovereignty is based on the people, the international community can penetrate nation-states' borders to protect the rights of citizens.

"In particular, the principle of the people's sovereignty can help solve two modern challenges: the obstacles to delivering aid effectively to sovereign states, and the obstacles to global collective action dealing with states experiencing internal conflict."

Evans sits on multiple boards with Soros, including the Clinton Global Initiative.

Soros is on the executive board of the International Crisis Group, a "crisis management organization" for which Evans serves as president-emeritus.

WND previously reported how the group has been petitioning for the U.S. to normalize ties with the Muslim Brotherhood, the main opposition in Egypt, where longtime U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak was recently toppled.

Aside from Evans and Soros, the group includes on its board Egyptian opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei, as well as other personalities who champion dialogue with Hamas, a violent offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood.

WND also reported the crisis group has also petitioned for the Algerian government to cease "excessive" military activities against al-Qaida-linked groups and to allow organizations seeking to create an Islamic state to participate in the Algerian government.

Soros' own Open Society Institute has funded opposition groups across the Middle East and North Africa, including organizations involved in the current chaos.

Power pushes doctrine

Doctrine founder Evans, meanwhile, is closely tied to Obama aide Samantha Power, who reportedly heavily influenced Obama in consultations leading to the U.S. president's decision to bomb Libya.

Evans and Power have been joint keynote speakers at events in which they have championed the Responsibility to Protect principle together, such as the 2008 Global Philanthropy Forum, also attended by Tutu.

In November, at the International Symposium on Preventing Genocide and Mass Atrocities, Power, attending as a representative of the White House, argued for the use of Responsibility to Protect alongside Evans.

With research by Brenda J. Elliott

(3) Obama says R2P (Responsibility to Protect) is basis of Libya intervention

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=281345

White House fellow founded Soros-funded military scheme

Doctrine cited by Obama as justification for bombing Libya

Posted: March 31, 2011

By Aaron Klein © 2011 WorldNetDaily

TEL AVIV – A White House fellow served on the advisory board to the commission that founded the military doctrine "Responsibility to Protect," used by President Obama as the main justification for U.S. and international airstrikes against Libya.

As WND was first to report, billionaire philanthropist George Soros is a primary funder and key proponent of the Global Centre for Responsibility to Protect, the world's leading organization pushing the military doctrine.

Also, several of the doctrine's main founders sit on boards with Soros. ...

Annan once famously stated, "State sovereignty, in its most basic sense, is being redefined – not least by the forces of globalization and international co-operation. States are ... instruments at the service of their peoples and not vice versa."

Obama cited doctrine multiple times

In his speech Monday, aside from his direct citation of the "responsibility" doctrine, Obama alluded to the doctrine four more times.

The following are relevant excerpts from his address:

• In this effort, the United States has not acted alone. Instead, we have been joined by a strong and growing coalition. This includes our closest allies – nations like the United Kingdom, France, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Italy, Spain, Greece, and Turkey – all of whom have fought by our side for decades. And it includes Arab partners like Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, who have chosen to meet their responsibility to defend the Libyan people.

• Last night, NATO decided to take on the additional responsibility of protecting Libyan civilians.

• To brush aside America's responsibility as a leader and – more profoundly – our responsibilities to our fellow human beings under such circumstances would have been a betrayal of who we are.

• The task that I assigned our forces – to protect the Libyan people from immediate danger, and to establish a No Fly Zone – carries with it a UN mandate and international support. So would the costs, and our share of the responsibility for what comes next. ...

(4) Hillary says she'll institutionalize R2P (Responsibility to Protect) in the State Dep't

http://globalsolutions.org/08orbust/pcq/clinton

2008 Presidential Candidate Questionnaire

Response From: HILARY CLINTON

Our 2008 Presidential Candidate Questionnaire, or PCQ as we call it in-house, is part education material and part questionnaire for the candidates. ...

16. Will you work to operationalize the "Responsibility to Protect," an emerging international norm, in response to humanitarian crises around the world? How?:

ANSWER

Yes. In adopting the principle of the responsibility to protect, the United Nations accepted the principle that mass atrocities that take place in one state are the concern of all states. It is essential that the new Secretary General of the United Nations begin to bridge the gap between these words and the institution's deeds through a series of reforms intended to operationalize this concept. I am also committed to seeing that the United States and other economic and militarily capable states and organization take steps to bolster UN action.

As President I will adopt a policy that recognizes the prevention of mass atrocities as an important national security interest of the United States, not just a humanitarian goal. I will develop a government-wide strategy to support this policy, including a strategy for working with other leading democracies, the United Nations, and regional organizations. I will authorize my Secretary of State to institutionalize atrocity prevention into the work of the State Department, and I will direct my Secretary of State to strongly support the mission and activities of the office of reconstruction and stabilization, which plays an increasingly critical role.

Amitai Etzioni and Sec State Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton and her communitarian guru, Amitai Etzioni

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitai-etzioni/hillary-the-next-secretar_b_86704.html

"There is Only One Fight" by Hillary Rodam 1969

Gertee, April 21, 2008

Breakup

Darren Weeks sent me a pdf of Hillary's senior thesis at Wellesley College in 1969. Here's a url that has it posted: http://www.gopublius.com/HCT/HillaryClintonThesis.html

It's "An Analysis of the Alinsky Model." Clinton apparently was prompted to write about it by Mr Alinsky himself, and her acknowledgements say he also offered her a job. Alinsky "created a particular approach to community organizing," a kind that "many considered [it] a dangerous socio/political philosophy."

Darren wrote:

"As I said, he was such an idol to Hillary Clinton, that she wrote her senior thesis on him. Yet, in his second book, published in 1971 by the title of Rules for Radicals, he openly expresses his admiration for Lucifer.

"Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins -- or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom -- Lucifer."

Clearly, Saul Alinsky was a man who took pride in being a radical for the "common good". And he is one who apparently helped to shape the mindset of the woman who we now know as presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton." {end quote}

Darren's in contact with Nancy Levant still so maybe we'll get an update on her current situation very soon. I miss her articles and her spirited defiance, and I'm sure there are many others looking forward to whatever it is she's preparing to write next. We continue to wish her all the best.

Are Both Obama and Hillary DLC Candidates?

There's no doubt what-so-ever that Hillary Clinton is a friend of the DLC and its primary funders, the Sir Evelyn de Rothschilds. I'm sure Hillary knew American Democratic organizer Lynn Forrester before she married Sir Evelyn and the newlywed Rothschilds were invited to spend their wedding night in the White House.

The DLC's mission was to define the Third Way. I did some research on this a few years back, and Obamas name did come up: http://nord.twu.net/acl/thirdway.html

From the New York Observer, March 4, 2008:

"Mr. From said Mr. Obama had an intellectual, and not just tactical, connection to the D.L.C.

“I mean his chief economist, Austan Goolsbee, is a fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, which is our think tank,” he said."
http://www.observer.com/2008/barack-obama-d-l-c-clintonite#comment-446036

It looked like Obama "left" the DLC in March 2005, at least that's what I quoted at the ACL. I'm not sure if using a DLC boy as his chief economist qualifies him to claim he left the DLC. I guess what this really means is we can't expect a revival of our economy based on the American System of Political Economy, besides, the PPI is only one of hundreds of think tanks that promote communitarian economics; the American system is outdated and a dangerous influence on Third World nations. Nobody who's anybody would ever be so uncouth as to bring it up in mixed company.

Here's a Rep Major Owens explaining in Jan 2008 why Hillary must rescue herself from the DLC. He gives a little background on it for us: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rep-major-r-owens/hillary-must-rescue-herse_b_81827.html

Clinton Global Initiative or Is Hillary funded by the Rothschild's Bank of England?

Just got an email of a New Zealander's article about the Clinton's connections to the British Fabian-Rhodes Society, and the Fabian basis for the 1987 movie "Amerika."

It's a really good article, but I can't use it at the ACL Fabian Society research page because the writer didn't include all his references. Much of what he says in the beginning I already checked out after I was introduced to it by Joan Veon, Henry Lamb, Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin in 1999. So I did the same thing with this writer as I've done with every other. I started checking his facts. Seems like no matter how much I read and study there's still major things that slip past me.

For example:

1. I've never heard of nor seen the 1987 movie "Amerika." Has anybody else?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092316/

2. I do know about Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and his American DLC bride Lynn Forrester being the finance behind getting the first Clinton elected. But I don't think I've ever spent a second researching the Clinton's Global Initiative.
http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?&pid=1390&srcid=1389

According to author John Christian, the Rothschilds, several other billionaires and royals are part of Clinton's lovely sounding vague mission to save the planet. Now Brad Pitt, husband to UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie (who owns a house near the Rothschilds outside London) is leading their urban renewal projects.

I followed the events in New Orleans until I took a break from research in May 2006. I knew they would rebuild it as a model communitarian city because they said they would. It hurts so much to know this once great multi-cultural center no longer exists, I can't imagine the pain it causes to former residents. It's pure anguish to know that THIS rebuilding scheme is the fate of every city, town and rural area in America. What they're replacing it with is a Hollywood Disney movie set, all cute and sweet up front and laden with sinister motives underneath (which Christian goes into great detail about).

Why is Clinton's agenda called "Rebuilding a Sustainable New Orleans"?

SPECIAL SESSION

Saturday, 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm

"Rebuilding a Sustainable New Orleans "
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans faces the simultaneous tasks of rebuilding infrastructure, expanding equitable economic and educational opportunities, revitalizing community relations, and pursuing development in environmentally-sustainable ways. This special session will examine the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans, including eco-friendly development and community integration, and provide students and universities with tools to contribute to this vital effort.

It's a national shame the residents of New Orleans haven't got the first clue what's in store for them. This CGI planning meeting is next week and there won't be ANYBODY there who opposes communitarian rebuilding methods (or will there?). If I had the money I'd offer to fly down and support a public meeting on the topic. Maybe I should go anyway, hitch-hike down and join the homeless. Maybe that's the only way to get my free gertee instructable out to people in the Southern states who remain homeless or stuck in government camps. It's a ridiculous plan, I know. Nordica would be furious with me for even considering it. But it's funny how often I'm labeled a "selfish individualist" because of my unwavering stand against communitarianism when I've been a volunteer for the American people for almost a decade. I know I'm supposed to find a way to make money and I should be trying to sell GerTee instead of giving it away. But it's just an idea. I don't want to make them for everybody, I just want them to know they can make them themselves. The American housing crisis is real. In theory, Gertees can pass the eco-friendly sustainable building requirements for new development.

Here's how much more the Clinton royal family cares about helping poor folks:
http://www.clintonglobalinitiative.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=1870&srcid=1853

And Hillary did talk about her and Obama joining forces. Democrats are called it a "dream ticket." Obama says it's "premature." They will win, won't they? http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/Vote2008/story?id=4394015&page=1

Now for another example of a writer talking all about communitarian law without ever saying the term. The right is as well trained as the left. Bipartisan crimes indeed. : http://www.aim.org/aim-column/bipartisan-crimes-against-the-constitution/

You're All Invited to a Communitarian Party!

The First OPENLY Communitarian President of the United States of America could be elected by the American people in 2008.

Why isn't this headline news? Isn't this history in the making? What's the big secret?

I can't believe I still have to ask this, but why isn't communitarianism an issue in the 2008 campaign? Why aren't American voters discussing what a communitarian political agenda is? Is it true most of them have still never heard the word spoken out loud, not even once?

Yes, it's true. Our voters don't know what it is and they certainly don't have the first clue what it means when the two leading Democrats are committed communitarians.

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are BOTH communitarian candidates. This is a fact that is being reported in mainstream press now. (Not hugely covered, but enough to validate my research anyway.) We really should listen to Etzioni. He would know. If he says we're gonna have a communitarian president, we're gonna have one. Besides, it should be a no-brainer by now. It WILL be one of them chosen as the Democratic candidate. And if it's Hillary, she will win, won't she? How many women will vote for her simply because she's the first woman to run for high office? I wanted to vote for Mondale because he picked Ferraro, and I was a registered Libertarian. What if Hillary chose Barack as her V.P.? (Can she do that?) Or maybe they'll pick Oprah... she's a big fan of communitarian guru Marianne Williamson, and she's been teaching (very weird) communitarian classes at Northwestern University (home to ABCD) for years.

Can you imagine if our history books explained Hitler's rise to power like this: Hitler was elected as a "Democrat." Only the elites in Germany knew there was a politcal ideology called National Socialism. The German voters were told what it was AFTER the NAZI candidate was elected.

Who do you think will be attending Etzioni's bash in the Oval Office?

".. communitarians should not uncork the champagne quite yet, but they cansafely put a bottle or two into the fridge." Amitai Etzioni on Jan 17, 2008

The American people are going down in history as the first nation to elect a communitarian president, and 99% of the citizens don't know what it is. Amitai Etzioni hopes more of us will learn what it is after we unknowingly elect a communitarian. I wonder if he hopes Americans will also quit calling me a conspiracy theorist because I write about communitarianism... or maybe the only viewpoint the American people will ever get to "learn more about" is Etzioni's.

"At least many more people will learn a lot more about communitarian ideas—what more can we ask for…?" ~ Amitai Etzioni, Notes, Jan 17, 2008~

I can think of more to ask for. I can ask for our "free press" and our free public educators to start writing about the difference between communitarian principles and the communitarian legal and political system and the ORIGINAL American constitutional system. If we are to live under an entirely NEW system of government WHY CAN'T OUR CITIZENS BE TOLD THAT FACT????

Working on 2020 took me right back to all the frustration and hope I used to have. I really used to believe that once people knew what communitarianism was, the millions of good and decent people who live in our country would do everything in their power to stop it. That first mass email I sent out after I found Etzioni was totally flipped out. I sent it to everybody I could think of, including Bill Maher and Ophra. The subject was something like: "THEY HAVE A NAME!!!"

What a letdown it was when nobody answered. That was eight years ago. Today I can laugh at the style of those earliest writings, but I still can't laugh at the emotions behind them. It's painful witnessing our people endorse and support communitarians and repeat communitarian propaganda without knowing it. I just spent 10 days in Anchorage, and my life could be a living nighmare if I allowed myself to care what happens every time somebody asks me who I'm gonna vote for. After all I got back were insults and arrogant accusations that my "weird" conspiracy theory has nothing to do with "real" national politics, I've started saying, "oh I don't follow politics." Because I don't, not really. I don't read up on all the "issues." I don't watch their debates on TV. I did see Obama's victory speech in South Carolina though... and I heard Caroline Kennedy is endorsing him now.

For the most part I try to avoid dialectical issues and concentrate on their synthesis. This makes me too weird for most people I meet, and I suppose it's good that I live so far away from the city. If I defect in November I hope it's to a country with lots of wilderness areas open to immigrants; I'm looking for the same kind of deal the Russian immigrants get when they come to Alaska. I wonder if the former USSR will finance my move?

Here's a fairy typical American grasp of communitarianism, from http://onecity.wordpress.com/2008/01/08/vote-early-vote-often-vote-dharma-just-vote/

"I also think between Obama and all other candidates, there is one factor you won’t hear the American media discussing at all: HOW MUCH THE REST OF THE WORLD HATES US, AND HOW MUCH PRESIDENT OBAMA WOULD HELP OUR WORLD IMAGE. Electing a cool and likeable leader who speaks in (vague but inspiring) communitarian language of unity, AND WHO LOOKS MORE LIKE THE REST OF THE WORLD, immediately restores a lot of faith in the USA."

Obama, Clinton and other Communitarians

Latest New Hampshire Primary news:
http://www.thenewhampshireprimary.com/results/

With 62% reporting at 6:30 pm AK time, Clinton leads Obama by 3% points, 39 to 36.

Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are both described as communitarians. I've already shown how Hillary fits their bill, so let's take a quick look at Obama.

Amitai Etzioni in the Huffington Post on August 8, 2007:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amitai-etzioni/obama-an-opportunistic-h_b_59645.html

"... I met Senator Obama in a private home in Bethesda, MD, and was very taken with his emphasis on community-building as a key theme. (I admit that I was unduly flattered when he mentioned my books on the subject.) I stand with Senator Obama in favoring in principle the extension of this key idea beyond our borders, both in working with our allies and in trying to bring our adversaries into at least some kind of dialogue (although, under what conditions and how one proceeds requires some deliberation). Since he launched his presidential campaign earlier this year, and even before that in both of his books, Senator Obama has stuck consistently to this communitarian message. It is hence quite disconcerting when he suddenly flashes some claws, especially since they are such a sudden and unbecoming acquisition. Such out of character toughness makes him seem like an opportunistic hack."

New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks on January 8, 2008:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html

"Out of that perceptiveness comes a distinct way of seeing the world. Obama emphasizes the connections between people, the networks and the webs of influence. These sorts of links are invisible to some of his rivals, but Obama is a communitarian. He believes you can only make profound political changes if you first change the spirit of the community. In his speeches, he says that if one person stands up, then another will stand up and another and another and you’ll get a nation standing up."

Edward Lazarus at Findlaw inAaugust 2004:
http://writ.lp.findlaw.com/lazarus/20040805.html

"But generally speaking, the conception of equality that Kerry and Obama advanced seemed subtly but importantly different from past iterations. In their speeches, Kerry and Obama advanced what might best be described as a "communitarian" (instead of "rights-based") view of equality."

My neighbors moved to Alaska to get away from New Hampshire. They explained to me that owners of property cannot live on their land for more than six months without an inspection signoff and government permission to stay. Part of the building requirements is a 4 foot deep concrete foundation. He also told me that he fixed a porch roof for a lady last year, and her neighbor called and reported it to the local building inspectors, because the owner did not apply for the proper permit to fix her porch. So what's "individualistic" about NH? I know they were the "live free or die" state, but it looks to me like they all died or moved away.

London Times online, January 4, 2008
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3130401.ece

"The difference between communitarian Iowa and individualistic New Hampshire is also reflected in how they vote."

So, hmm, maybe individualistic NH will choose Clinton over Obama, because they want a president who promotes a middle ground called radical individualistic communitarianism.

From the Radical Middle Newsletter in 2006:
http://www.radicalmiddle.com/x_obama.htm

But oh, I'm so sorry, I forgot... in the USA, communitarianism is a conspiracy theory, so none of these articles can possibly exist anywhere but in my vivid imaginiation, and, you obviously dreamt this blog post.

Iran stops selling oil in U.S. dollars-Reuters-UK

I get a lot of unsolicited email forwards from people who find our work and think they have permission to fill my inbox with whatever they decide I need to see. I've gotten into the habit of sending most all of it to my spambox. But sometimes I open ones from Anon, who sent this:

Iran stops selling oil in U.S. dollars -report

Reuters-Sat Dec 8, 2007 10:10am GMT
http://uk.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUKDAH83366720071208

"For nearly two years, OPEC's second biggest producer has been reducing its exposure to the dollar, saying the weak U.S. currency is eroding its purchasing power.

"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who often rails against the West, has called the U.S. currency a "worthless piece of paper.""

So many things we all need to consider now, and decisions that have to be made quickly.

According to MSNBC, it's not a done deal..

"A day earlier, Saudi Arabia opposed a move by Iran on Friday to have OPEC include concerns over the falling dollar included in the summit’s closing statement after the weekend meeting. Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister even warned that even talking publicly about the currency’s decline could further hurt its value.

"But by Sunday, it appeared that Saudi Arabia had compromised. Though the final declaration delivered Sunday did not specifically mention concern over the weak dollar, the organization directed its finance ministers to study the issue.

"OPEC will “study ways and means of enhancing financial cooperation among OPEC ... including proposals by some of the heads of state and governments in their statements to the summit,” OPEC Secretary General Abdalla Salem el-Badri said, reading the statement."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21870271/

We are in the final stage of the coup against the American system, and the international bankers who run the private banking cartel called the "federal" reserve have planned our economic collapse for over a century. What will we do when the curtain drops and we see the grand finale in all its horrible manifestations? Will we put our faith in the same people who brought us to our knees?

There IS a reason why the federal government and many states have passed laws granting them the power to confiscate all people, property, and supplies during a "national emergency."

I can't help thinking about Congressman McFadden's "tirade" against the fed where he accused them of "causing the Great Depression." The official response was that yes, the fed DID cause the Great Depression in 1929, but they didn't mean to do it, so McFadden was wrong in accusing them. He wasn't wrong in accusing them of DOING it, but in doing it WILLFULLY. When the Rothschild's Bank of England took Germany off the gold standard, the mark became "worthless" as a currency and unemployment skyrocketed to 5 million within six months. Then along came Herr Hitler (funded by the Rothschilds?), who rose to power by rebuilding a national bank and the German economy. This is why many people still see Hitler as a good guy. History shows us that any well-financed murderer who comes along and "restores" the system can be viewed as a "hero." Will Americans keep falling for the same line of b.s. as the German people did?

Hmm. Isn't Hillary Clinton funded by the Rothschild's Bank of England? How well does she know Lynn Forrester de Rothschild (the American who helped turn the Democratic Party into a Third Way communitarian party in 1990, and then married the president of the Bank)?

How long before our people are told the seriousness of our situation? Are we like children who are never included in the grown-up's plans and discussions? Yeah, when the time comes for us to move out of the way of global social progress, all we will be told is what to do and where to go.

And don't go thinking you can run to the forest or the mountains when they start rounding people up in the urban centers... our enemies began locking up our forests a hundred years ago. Nearly all the American wilderness is under the "protection" of the internationalists. The good news is, the greenies in the forests don't carry firearms ('cause the bears are their friends). The bad news is, all our U.S. forest rangers are sniper trained by the Israelis.

Our not-so-secret enemy

This is a post I made tonight at leftrightunite.com.

As a political researcher interested in information relevant to recent changes to the structure of the United States government, my work includes studying everything that has anything to do with changing the U.S. from a constitutional, rights based nation into a supranational, responsibilities based colony.

Our ACL website includes all related research topics and over 10,000 exit links to referenced sources, plus we link to many other global researchers. I am also, incredibly (and mainly by default), the leading American voice against Communitarian integration. After eight years of non-stop studying and hoping somebody with influence or authority would pick up the trail, it still strikes me as implausible that so few other American researchers "exposing" globalism bother to put any focus on the actual system.

Why won't they? It should be a no-brainer. It's already been exposed. It can't even be categorized as a conspiracy theory (only our anti-thesis can). There are hundreds of thousands of published, verifiable academic and government documents that describe the developing U.S. and EU communitarian systems in detail. Hundreds of new laws, treaties, agreements, programs and policies have been adopted that incorporate the new principles into American life. So, what gives? If it's such a well-used term, why aren't the American people being told the name of the new political system that's replacing their constitutions?

You may never have heard of it before, it may never have been included in any American history class you ever took, but leading constitutional scholars are claiming the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights were written as communitarian documents. I think if we really want to know what's happening to our liberty, we could just listen to the real experts on global integration:

"Akhil Reed Amar, a leading scholar of constitutional law and author of The Bill of Rights: Creation and Reconstruction, explains that the word people is used in a collective sense in the US Constitution. "But the libertarian reading must contend with textual embarrassments of its own. The amendment speaks of a right of 'the people' collectively rather than a right of 'persons' individually. And it uses a distinctly military phrase: 'bear arms.'....The rest of the Bill of Rights confirms this communitarian reading. The core of the First Amendment's assembly clause, which textually abuts the Second Amendment, is the right of 'the people'--in essence, voters--to 'assemble' in constitutional conventions and other political conclaves. So, too, the core rights retained and reserved to 'the people' in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments were rights of the people collectively to govern themselves democratically. The Fourth Amendment is trickier: 'The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.' Here, the collective 'people' wording is paired with more individualistic language of 'persons.'"(Gun Information.org)

"Americans are fond of liberty, particularly the liberty of the individual. We have numerous words to describe it: liberty, freedom, autonomy, privacy, and rights, among others. Until very recently, however, we have not placed as much emphasis on the common good or the public welfare. If the horrific events of September 11 are any indication, this may - and arguably must - change. Community and the Constitution: Our relative lack of focus on the common good is actually quite surprising, given that the preamble to our national Constitution is mostly communitarian, rather than individualistic, in orientation." (TERRORISM, LIBERTY, AND COMMUNITY: Why We Need a Stronger Focus On the Common Good By SCOTT IDLEMAN, Tuesday, Sep. 18, 2001 at findlaw.com.)

"However, when we move to reset the balance between individual rights and the common good, we inevitably step on the slippery slope that we face whenever we reset legal doctrines, religious Do's and Don'ts and moral taboos. We hence need to be careful that we not open the floodgates to gross violations of individual rights-that we not end up on our backside on the lowest end of the slope. Some civil libertarians are so concerned about this danger that they would rather not set foot on the slope at all, and prefer to remain frozen in whatever position they find themselves. However, adjustments are often needed. The secret is to set clear markers for the new place on the slope beyond which we will not slide, a new definition of what is reasonable, a specific new point of balance between rights and the common good." (Amitai Etzioni, Communitarian Newsletter #4, received on the COMMLAW@hermes.gwu.edu elist, October 17, 2005, also in The National Law Journal Online on September 19, 2005.)

"In emphasizing the effect a broad per se rule could have on governmental efforts to implement comprehensive planning goals through diverse land use regulations, Justice Stevens endorsed the communitarian principles that land is a natural resource to be used and enjoyed by present and future generations, and that individual property rights are naturally limited by the fact that human beings are social persons who belong to communities. Decisions regarding the use of privately owned land are subject to reasonable regulations imposed by the government on behalf of the community." (The Supreme Court Upholds Moratoria Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, No. 00-1167, 535 U. S. ___, 122 S. Ct. 1465 (2002), by Peter W. Salsich, Jr., Saint Louis University School of Law,Co-author, Planning and Control of Land Development: Cases and Materials.)

"The court's decision is a benign communitarian decision. It's endorsing people acting through their representative government. So people should fight like hell in that political arena for one's individual values./ In this case, there's genuine people involved. But in many cases, these are opportunists waiting to hold out. The court said we aren't going to be the engine for that anti-communitarian process." (STEVEN SLOAN, in the Wall Street Journal on 24jun2005, quoting Berkeley land-law professor Antonio Rossmann speaking about the landmark U.S. Supreme Court's Kelo decision. http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2005/Eminent-Domain-Supreme24jun05.htm)

"[communitarianism is] a notion that years of celebrating individual freedom have weakened the bonds of community, and that the rights of the individual must be balanced against the interests of society as a whole. Inherent in the philosophy is a return to values and morality, which, the school of thought believes, can best be fostered by community organizations." (Robert Putnam of Harvard University and a Bush speechwriter, explaining President Bush's belief in the communitarian philosophy for The Washington Post, 2002)

"The Socialist Alliance programme is the foundation upon which everything else is built, including in time our exact organisational forms and constantly shifting tactics. The programme links our continuous and what should be all-encompassing agitational work with our ultimate aim of a communitarian, or communist, system. Our programme thus establishes the basis for agreed action and is the lodestar, the point of reference, around which the voluntary unity of the Socialist Alliance is built and concretised. Put another way, the programme represents the dialectical unity between theory and practice." (Posted by Towards a common Socialist Alliance programme Weekly Worker 368, January 25 2001. See also: 5. The transition to the communitarian system in the same issue of the American Communist Party's Weekly Worker.)

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain." (Frederic Bastiat, 1850)

"Jean Thiriart's doctrinal works of the early eighties and those developed in the same period by the P.C.N., assume this last tendency. For this purpose, this party presents Communitarism as an "ideology of synthesis that wishes to fuse Marxist-Leninist ideologies and national-revolutionary ones into a synthesis of doctrinal offensive: the socialism of the XXI century"" (47). (Marxism-Leninism and National- Bolshevism at Bolsheviks.org)

"Critics argued that we should not have been involved in either conflict, or we should have acted unilaterally. But we have learned that by acting in unison with other nations, we avoid being perceived as a global bully. Still, putting our armed forces, even in a limited and temporary way, under a supranational command is a significant step toward a new world order, indeed one that may require amending our Constitution." (319. "When Does Global Good Outweigh Our Own Sovereignty?" by Amitai Etzioni, USA Today, December 8, 1999, page 31A.)

"In a passage that is notable for its vagueness, Azevedo says that the CEBs should be the basis for a new communitarianism that rejects the two "bankrupt" models and systems "that are now polarizing the world," capitalism and Marxist socialism. This communitarianism is to be "a dialectical synthesis, a new creation, superimposing itself on thesis and antithesis rather than retrieving them." The passage illustrates the controversy in Latin American Catholicism between those who continue to endorse the "third-position-ism" (tercerismo) of Catholic social teaching and those (including all liberation theologians that I know of) who believe that only socialism can be in accord with Christian values." (Theology Today-Basic Ecclesial Communities in Brazil: The Challenge of a New Way of Being Church By Marcello deC. Azevedo, S.J.Washington, D.C., Georgetown University Press, 1987. 304 Pp.)

"The old ideologies positioned politics as a struggle for ownership, the historic battle between socialism and capitalism. The Third Way, by contrast, sees politics as an exercise in communitarianism: rebuilding the relationships and social capital between people. It aims to put the social back into social justice. This is an important strategy for combating individualism and generating a sense of collective responsibility in society. " (Australian Fabian Society, Re-inventing Collectivism: The new Social Democracy by Mark Latham, Member for Werriwa Third Way Conference, Centre for Applied Economic Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney, 12 July 2001)

"Commercial immorality indeed. This is the recognizable universe of our own time where the rich, capital, markets, and profit are still all attacked in the fashionable press, academia, and art by people educated in Marxist Sixties radicalism but completely ignorant or uncomprehending of the most elementary principles of free market economics. The full force of Hegel's statism, whether today it is called "communitarianism," the "politics of meaning," or something else, thus descends on property. And when any kind of private action becomes a matter of money, employment, children, weapons, or political activity (in someone's definition), then the state continues on in, police (which may be Hegel's own neologism, by the way), prosecutors, prisons, and all. Hegel, indeed, would be proud." (Dr. Kelly Ross, Ph.d.)

Seminar on "Community Development Law," including "Property Theory: This seminar, taught by Professor Wyman, examines contemporary debates about property using a range of legal, historical, and philosophical materials. The seminar begins by considering four theoretical approaches to property law: the classic utilitarian justification for private property; the Lockean case for property; contemporary rights-based theories of property; and communitarian perspectives. The seminar applies these approaches to live controversies in areas such as environmental and intellectual property law. Drawing on the four theoretical perspectives, the seminar then addresses a range of topics, including property and economic development, the tragedy of the commons, the limits of property rights and markets, social norms, takings, and reparations." (Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy, NYU)

"Pope John Paul's great vision of communitarianism and a New Global Order has yet to receive the recognition it deserves in furthering the understanding that humanity is built on religious values, without which transformations in totalitarian regimes would have been impossible. The essence of communitarianism, as put forth by the Vatican, consists of seeking middle ground between Marxist collectivism and rigid individualism and capitalism. Phillips traces the history of communitarianism through Aristotelian and Judeo-Christian writings, clarifying the proper function of the community in helping individuals help themselves by mobilizing church resources and countering anti-religious movements such as Nazism and communism. Communitarianism presents an encouraging universal notion of freedom, transcending the one-sided stances of Marxism and libertarian capitalism and promoting the vision of a unified human destiny." (Communitarianism, the Vatican, and the New Global Order by Robert L. Phillips, Carnegie Council.org. )

Okay. Still think I made it up, or it's just not very important? I've just shown you a sample of the extent to which Communitarianism is defined in minute detail. It is verifiably the only theory that's creating the global community. This is the legal philosophy that upholds "balancing" individual and national rights against the global community's rights. There is an entire body of law called communitarian law. There are thousands of academic journals and books explaining the theory. There are hundreds of new government agencies devoted to communitarian integration procedures and requirements (openly called this in the E.U. and inside CAFTA papers). So it doesn't make sense that you haven't been told about it, does it? Here's why you haven't:

"The world needs a new global architecture, additional layers of governance, to deal with issues that neither nations nor traditional forms of intergovernmental organizations can cope with." ("Europe, A Beautiful Idea" by Amitai Etzioni, September 2004 conference at the Hague)

"One must act 'as if' in Europe: as if one wanted only very few things, in order to obtain a great deal. As if nations were to remain sovereign, in order to convince them to surrender their sovereignty. The Commission in Brussels, for example, must act as if it were a technical organism, in order to operate like a government ... and so on, camouflaging and toning down. The sovereignty lost at national level does not pass to any new subject. It is entrusted to a faceless entity: NATO, the UN and eventually the EU. The Union is the vanguard of this changing world:it indicates a future of Princes without sovereignty. The new entity is faceless and those who are in command can neither be pinned down nor elected ... That is the way Europe was made too: by creating communitarian organisms without giving the organisms presided over by national governments the impression that they were being subjected to a higher power. That is how the Court of Justice as a supra-national organ was born. It was a sort of unseen atom bomb, which Schuman and Monnet slipped into the negotiations on the Coal and Steel Community. That was what the 'CSC' itself was: a random mixture of national egotisms which became communitarian. I don't think it is a good idea to replace this slow and effective method - which keeps national States free from anxiety while they are being stripped of power - with great institutional leaps - Therefore I prefer to go slowly, to crumble pieces of sovereignty up litle by little, avoiding brusque transitions from national to federal power. That is the way I think we will have to build Europe's common policies..." - (Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, later Vice-President of the EU Constitutional Convention, interview with Barbara Spinelli, La Stampa, 13 July 2000. Posted in a great list of quotes compiled by Free Europe.org.)

"The argument advanced here presumes that it is neither necessary nor prudent to attempt to end nationalism by head-on attacks on the legitimacy of the nation-state or by favoring its demise. The vision of replacing the nation-state by regional governments and ultimately by a world government (as UN enthusiasts dream), or envisioning a state that acts as a mere framework for the interactions of groups of people of different cultures but commands no loyalty and involvement of its own, is normatively dubious and unnecessarily threatening. Nationalism can be and is best ended by a much more moderate approach." (On Ending Nationalism* by Amitai Etzioni, Politik und Gesellschaft Online, International Politics and Society 2001)

While there are many smaller theories that make up this whole "philosophy of history," communitarianism is the foundation for every modern assault on national liberty. Several U.S. Presidents were reported in mainstream media as embracing it. It's a real word. Hillary Clinton just used the term last month to describe Iowa (a state which openly calls their plan Local Agenda 21). Yet, and this is the real mystery to me, even the writers who do occasionally refer to it don't seem to ever consider it important enough to explore any further. As a result, we all live in a reinvented communitarian system, we fight communitarian wars, and hardly anyone in America has the first clue what it is. Do you know anyone who does? Is it still too early to tell?

"It is still too early to tell exactly, or even approximately, what the powers and purview of the new Political Advisory Council will be. It does, however, seem safe to say that the new council, when it officially meets in early July, will not be a precursor to the Western version of democracy, an aggressively secular regime embodying a one-person-one-vote principle and strict majority rule. Rather, it appears to be communitarian in make-up, cleverly designed to give each distinct group a voice and each substantial group an effective veto over recommendations or decrees." (Leonard J. Hochberg, Ph.D, and James D. Hard, Jr., Ph.D., "Creating Democracy in Iraq?" NMIR, June 19, 2003.)

Is Hillary Clinton a Communitarian?

"We're going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good." --Hillary Clinton at Boxer fundraiser, 6/29/04

(http://www.aapsonline.org/newsletters/nov07.php)

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton is introducing the communitarian synthesis to Americans. Here's some of my initial research tonight... I'm going to have to write an article on this now.

"The word she kept coming back to was “partnerships.” She described an array of different social entities — individuals, the federal government, insurance companies, doctors and hospitals — coming together and exercising shared responsibility for creating a better system."

"But Clinton, at her most hopeful moments, is a communitarian. When she’s asked to describe a system that works, she describes diverse people coming together around a big table to reach a consensus."

" But the Clinton plan does have the weaknesses of the communitarian approach. She creates a magic circle of companies, providers, government entities, all interlocked in a system to provide health security. But there will still be forces outside the magic circle that will be adapting and innovating in ways that might upset the plan." Hillary Clinton, From Revolution to Evolution, by David Brooks, Sept 2007. http://screwsubwalls.blogspot.com/2007/09/hillary-clinton-from-revolution-to.html

"But then she seems to imply she's not surprised that's the case down South, but given the "quality," "openness" and "communitarianism" of Iowa she is surprised that's the case in Iowa."

Quoting Clinton directly:
""I think Iowa poses a special burden, or a special obstacle to me because when you look at the numbers, how can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi? That's not what I see. That's not the quality. That's not the communitarianism, that's not the openness I see in Iowa."" http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2007/10/what-is-hillary.html

One response in the comments to the above post:
"Posted by: James Danley | Oct 23, 2007 4:44:37 PM

""communitarianism"???? WTH?
They really need to stop making up new words. There are a lot of people who haven't mastered their, they're and there yet. Communitarianism? Come on."

And here's a long discussion of what Hillary "means" from: http://race42008.com/2007/10/26/%E2%80%9Clet%E2%80%99s-talk-about-communitarianism%E2%80%9D/

And Johnathan Martin's blog:http://www.politico.com/blogs/jonathanmartin/1007/Hillarys_Mississippi_comments.html

See also:
Security and Opportunity for the Twenty-first Century, by Hillary Rodham Clinton
From Foreign Affairs, November/December 2007 http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20071101faessay86601/hillary-rodham-clinton/
security-and-opportunity-for-the-twenty-first-century.html

Here's Etzioni explaining what she means by her above article: http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2299520/22988412

and from the Hoover Institution: http://www.hoover.org/publications/policyreview/3585126.html

"They called themselves "New Democrats," and much of their intellectual inspiration came from a school of political theory called communitarianism. Communitarians argued that man fundamentally is not a rights-bearing, property-seeking individual, but a social being who flourishes in stable associations and communities. Communitarians criticized both liberals for placing too much faith in bureaucracy and conservatives for stressing the power of the marketplace; they claimed that bureaucracy and the marketplace together had displaced the community as the locus of American life.

"In the communitarians' view, 19th-century America offered the ideal model of community, with an active citizenry working locally to address shared concerns. Late 20th-century America, however, had witnessed the growth of big government and big business, which served to isolate and atomize Americans. The weakening of families and local community institutions, the communitarians warned, was beginning to erode fundamental elements of the American way of life.

"According to the communitarians, the growth of bureaucracy, the instability of marketplace relationships, and an explosion of self-interested behavior -- increasing litigiousness is just one indicator -- all signaled a decline of the responsibility to community that is the essence of citizenship. Communitarians reminded us that it is civil society, not the marketplace or the bureaucracy, in which Americans interact and flourish. And it is civil society, they proclaimed, in which America's increasingly inaudible moral voice lies, for here is where the institutions that shape moral character are to be formed."

Are there any other communitarian candidates in 2008?

In the words of the guru Amitai Etzioni, Bush's Senior Communitarian advisor, at http://aladinrc.wrlc.org/bitstream/1961/4030/1/Democrats+represented+by+Communitarians.doc.:

"If the current lineup holds, the Democrats will be represented by a communitarian if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama becomes the presidential candidate. Hillary’s communitarian leanings have been long known. They are especially well spelled out in her book It Takes A Village. She also delivered the keynote address at the 1996 meeting of the Communitarian Network, and met frequently with communitarian thinkers, especially William Galston.

"Barack Obama showed great familiarity with communitarian ideas and thinkers during a meeting at the home of Susan Ness and Larry Schneider. However, given that this was a private meeting, I considered it inapposite to quote what he said. Luckily, at least for communitarianism, his new book The Audacity of Hope, lays out his communitarian leanings in clear and strong terms:

If we Americans are individualistic at heart, if we instinctively chafe against a past of tribal allegiances, traditions, customs, and cases, it would be a mistake to assume that this is all we are. Our individualism has always been bound by a set of communal values, the glue upon which every healthy society depends. We value the imperatives of family and the cross-generational obligations that family implies.

We value community, the neighborliness that expresses itself through raising the bar or coaching the soccer team. We value patriotism and the obligations of citizenship, a sense of duty and sacrifice on behalf of our nation. We value a faith in something bigger than ourselves, whether that something expresses itself in formal religion or ethical precepts. And we value the constellation of behaviors that express our mutual regard for another: honesty, fairness, humility, kindness, courtesy, and compassion.

In every society (and in every individual), these twin strands- the individualistic and the communal, autonomy and solidarity- are in tension, and it has been one of the blessings of America that the circumstances of our nation’s birth allowed us to negotiate these tensions better than most. (Obama, p. 55)

There are many other communitarian passages in the book. The special importance of this one is that it shows that Obama is what is varyingly called a neo or liberal or responsive communitarian. These communitarians (among which I count myself) differ from East Asian or authoritarian communitarians in that the latter see community as trumping individual rights in the name of the greater whole, while neo communitarians see a tension between the common good and rights—which needs to be worked out case by case. But neither trumps the other conclusively. In effect, on this key point the parallelism between the Obama text and the communitarian platform is truly remarkable and very welcome indeed. The response communitarian platform, excerpted here, is very much in accord with Obama on a number of issues:

"A communitarian perspective recognizes that the preservation of individual liberty depends on the active maintenance of the institutions of civil society where citizens learn respect for others as well as self-respect; where we acquire a lively sense of our personal and civic responsibilities, along with an appreciation of our own rights and the rights of others; where we develop the skills of self-government as well as the habit of governing ourselves, and learn to serve others– not just self."

From the midwest populists at http://www.midwest-populistamerica.com/articles/threats-to-civil-liberties-arising-from-virginia-tech/:

"Modern efforts to criminalize mental dysfunction have a long history dating back to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and are typically part of a broader right-wing agenda of oppression and euthanasia. But in the United States, the primary advocates of criminalization are the forcible disarmament cult and the Communitarian movement, members of which universally (and often vehemently) claim to be leftists and/or “progressives.”

"The Communitarians have argued for at least two decades that diagnosis of mental illness should instantly terminate not only all one’s civil rights but also strip one of all privileges as well, driver’s licenses included, after which the victim of such determination could then theoretically earn back the abolished rights and privileges in carefully supervised increments. Toward this end the Communitarians — who despite their leftist disguise and innocuous-sounding name are radical Skinnerian fascists of the harshest sort — are demanding creation of a national registry of mental patients. Deliberately established and maintained as a powerfully oppressive tool of social control, this roster of official pariahdom would include the names of anyone now or ever in any form of mental health treatment, regardless of the relative mildness or severity of the condition for which they are being treated. (Google “communitarians” and scroll at will for additional information.)

"Despite its huge contempt for the Constitution, the Communitarian faction is but one small portion of the forcible disarmament cult, but it is probably disproportionately powerful. Its intellectual prowess is considerable, and it often assumes a behind-the-scenes leadership role, focusing on the development of strategy, tactics and ideology. Another venue of profound Communitarian influence is the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. It was the Communitarians who provided the Clintons and their cronies with the ideological justification for the Democratic Party’s abandonment of New Deal principles and its subsequent wholesale betrayal of the working class. The Communitarians’ grasp of Orwellian principles is also very evident in the present-day effort to redefine forcible disarmament as “gun safety” and the present tactic of concealing disarmament schemes behind apparently friendly but patently false gestures toward firearms owners."

Checked out Hillary's offical page on Health Care Reform. Not a word about communitarianism anywhere on her site. Has anyone in the media asked her to define it yet? Americans are going to elect another communitarian president without a clue what it is. What a horrible joke.

My interview with Vyzygoth went very well. It will be available at his site on Nov 12. I'll be a guest on Darren Weeks this weekend. I'll post the time tomorrow.

In the meantime, we could all ponder this:

"Over the past few years, however, the Bushes and Clintons have made a kind of peace, with Clinton and the elder Bush raising $1 billion for tsunami relief in Asia and with Clinton generally muting his criticism of the current Bush White House. As these two formidable families continue to find more common ground, there are echoes not only of Hillary Rodham Clinton's communitarian book, It Takes a Village, but also of George H. W. Bush's "a thousand points of light" campaign to promote volunteerism during his presidency. And there is another connection-to Jimmy Carter's post-presidential work of fighting disease and poverty." Sometimes, It Only Takes a Bit of Goodwill By Kenneth T. Walsh, US News and World Report, Posted 9/24/06 (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060924/2week.htm)

And this:
"And what is the opposite of libertarianism? Libertarians would say fascism. But in the American political context, it is something infinitely milder that calls itself communitarianism. The term is not as familiar, and communitarians are far less organized as a movement than libertarians, ironically enough. But in general communitarians emphasize society rather than the individual and believe that group responsibilities (to family, community, nation, the globe) should trump individual rights." Libertarians Rising, by Michael Kinsley, Time Magazine, Oct 18,2007 (http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673265,00.html)