There are times then I find it worthwhile to republish an old column that I wrote – back a long time ago. Why? To show off? NO – to show that little has changed in this nation or around the world. It has only gotten worse.
What you are about to read is quite dated – but it shows that we are living in circles these days. I will assume that I wrote and posted this piece nearly 20 years ago on the first generation Federal Observer. Tell me what has changed! ~ Jeffrey Bennett, Editor
Can you explain this to me? As I rocked my granddaughter to sleep the other night, I wept for this little girl. Second thoughts anyone? No child of any deserves this!
The following email was received by The Federal Observer in response to a picture depicting a dead child, mutilated, with her foot dangling…
Jeffrey Bennett, The Federal Observer,
O.K., lets just call it off. You call the shots, seriously, its your war now, or not yours, what are you going to do? Let things continue on in a downward spiral? Do nothing? Let the U.N. take care of the middle east? Who controls the last remaining oil supplies in the world?
Hey, let’s let France and Russia take it. GREAT IDEA! Do you have an alternative fuel to power society NOW, ready to transform industry, so we don’t have to buy anything from these jackasses?
Before you fall for the emotional photos, how about the pics of the dead Marines paraded in front of us? Do you like that? You think Bush is bad? Go over there and tell me how you like it.
I don’t like this war either, but you know it all, what are we going to do Mr. President?
Mark Ruesch
Response from the Editor:
Our purpose in posting the photo in question, was not to attack the President (although we agree with little, which has been done by his administration so far), but to make a statement on the cost of war – period! If one can not see this for what it is meant to be, then I feel truly sorry for them.
I have been around the world, Mr. Ruesch – two years in Viet Nam – picking up wounded people in medical Air Ambulance helicoptors with the 498th Medical Company – “Dust Off”. We did not differentiate between friend or foe, military or civilian – we flew them all – we treated them all. The deaths of small children are the hardest to take of all.
Yes, I feel for those who have lost family members, however I grow weary of all the rhetoric about violations of the Geneva Convention by the Iraqi government during these times of war, when we support the biggest violator of all – Israel. It was said that “war is hell” – damned right it is – but the only rules of war are to win – and unfortunately – governments believe in winning at all costs – no matter what the cost. History has proven that. And in that, both sides are right and both sides are wrong.
Jeffrey Bennett, Editor
It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?
Not being a professionally trained writer something has to “click” within me before attacking the keyboards. For many reasons, I have not been motivated to write since early February. In addition, the cost in time of preparation of our daily radio program, Perspectives on America, the planning and execution of our first Gathering of Eagles seminar in Phoenix, Arizona and the subsequent event scheduled for Fort Worth, Texas on Patriot’s Day weekend 2003 has all kept me busy. Then of course there was the personal business of being a husband, father and grandfather to my precious Taylor Marie – and the ongoing remodeling projects, which life seems to keep throwing my way. Life is a gas baby, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Let me take some time to address several issues, which I have been questioned about recently.
* The loss of our long time friend and Associate Editor, Louis Turner (due to a horrific misunderstanding of the intent and purpose of a commentary, letter and article, which I had posted) has certainly placed intense time constraints on me.
NOTE: The previous two paragraphs are certainly dated. As time went on – Louis and I got back together – but we are both getting older and continue to deal with “old age” health issues. ~ J.B., October 26, 2023
All of this came about due to a letter received by me from my Webmaster, questioning a series of articles, which we had posted (with graphics) likening President Bush to Adolph Hitler. In fact, we could have easily made the comparison with Stalin or a handful of other leaders of the 20th Century, who are now considered infamous. Why? Because of murder? Absolutely not – but for the reasons of – in our present state – the loss of our freedoms and liberties – the death of our Constitution, the increase of the polizei state in our nation – all in the name of Homeland Security.
We have gone from the horror of September 11, 2001 to the World-Wide search for the elusive Osama (Usama) bin Laden, to our now state of war against Sadaam Hussein (the spellings of the names of these people seem to change each time their names are written – you take your pick.). We now have a newly created cabinet level position with Tommy Ridge as it’s first Commissar. The mis-named Patriot Act was shoved down our throat in the middle of the night without ever having been read nor understood by our selected prostitutes in CON-gress, subsequently followed up by S.22: Justice Enhancement and Domestic Security Act of 2003 and the more secretive Patriot Act II – Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003 – which as of a week ago, few in Washington were aware of its existence. The authorship of this little gem seems to be from the offices of Herr Ashcroft’s Justice Department. Because of these acts of treason, many American’s web-sites are being shut down, access to the internet of emailing by these same individuals are being denied because Big Brother wants all dissent and freedom of speech shut down in this nation – unless it goes along with the party line.
Sounds like the Gulags to me! It sounds like 1936 Germany to me!
At the time, my webmaster disagreed and stated so in his email. I then chose to write a forward to a column, post the email and followed it all up with the column, which supported the reasoning of The Federal Observer.
Louis awoke that morning after after having been ill for several days, opened up the front page, read about 3 paragraphs into the article (which had raised several questions by our webmaster regarding Louis’ site and the type of articles, which he had written, researched and posted) – and then promptly blew a gasket. Without asking for an explanation, Louis promptly felt that he had been personally attacked and slandered – which was never my intent – I have too much respect for his talents. Mr. Turner and I have not spoken nor corresponded since. He talents are missed. (See note above)
* The Federal Observer has once again – and will continue – to go through changes. Due to over 30 columns, which we currently maintain, we have become more careful regarding the quality of what we post – and that has created an angry group of readers – many of whom we suspect will not return to our publication – because we don’t conform to their idea of what The Federal Observer should be. We’ll get to the labels later!
It seems that many readers expect – no demand – that The Federal Observer only represents the American story one way – Ultra Right, Anti-Jew, anti-black – anti-anything, which strokes their warped sense of – anything. The Federal Observer posts columns by the likes of Edgar J. Steele (whose ISP has booted him off the internet because of his scathing, yet thought provoking editorials), Barbara Stanley (who has received untold amounts of hate mail from readers of The Federal Observer due to her pro-Bush stance) and Alan Caruba (who, based upon his heritage and ethnic backround, is obviously pro-Israel – and who in fact has been labeled a Zionist by some readers of this publication.).
Consider the following: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Pretty powerful words if you ask me. Oh yes, that gives our readers the right to express their opinions as well. It gives the reader the same rights to criticize an author as it gives me to carry the writers work – and I shall continue to do so. I don’t always agree with the work of Geoff Metcalf, nor the opinions of Kevin McCullough – however, unlike other more well known web-sites, I will not pick and choose which of an authors articles I will post or not – based upon my personal beliefs – or because some folks expect to pigeon-hole me or my publication into a certain ‘type’.
* What made America the great nation it once was, was the sharing of different thoughts and ideas. The moment we trapped ourselves into right vs left, Republic-RAT vs Demogogue, Christian vs Jew, black vs white, conservative vs liberal, hawk vs dove – we ceased to be the great nation we were. We ceased to be that free-thinking nation (although with the current state of our Public Fool System, it’s a wonder that anyone in this country has the ability to think at all). As I stated in my commentary at the Phoenix Gathering of Eagles, I hate labels (and hate ain’t a good thing to have). First and foremost – I am a Christian – and I’ll not apologize for it. Secondly, I am an American. None of the rest matters to me – nor should it to you. Recently, a reader (leaving his comments on one of our articles, which he obviously disagreed with) labeled The Federal Observer as a liberal publication. Why I asked? Because maybe we have published articles which he or she felt went against their beliefs? Who knows – I stopped questioning the human animal long ago. This publication (The Federal Observer) has always been about providing a forum for opinion – not mine – but those of many Americans. The Observer has never been a news site – that you can get anywhere – at any time of the day – from a wide variety of sources, CBS, CNN, NBC, ABS, FOX, World Net Daily, NewsMax, your local morning, noon and night-time show-business wannabes, etc, etc. The Observer has always been an editorial and commentary publication – an extension of our nearly eight year old radio program, Perspectives on America – and I will apologize to no one for the content of any column in our over 5200 article database.
Changes:
I can’t keep up with them, how can I expect you to? Ha, ha – I don’t – just keep coming back. For reasons, which we explained on the radio, in March I chose to close the ‘Commentary’ section at the end of each article on The Federal Observer. There will be a daily interaction with many of our readers, which I will miss – however, as time went on, I noted a greater number of infiltrators and those of opposing views who were leaving messages, which were based on pure ignorance. Others were attacking The Observer because of our flap with Mr. Turner – and these people didn’t even know what they were talking about. Still others were using the privilege as a forum for personal attacks against myself, the author of an article or even America itself. Heck, I’m a big boy – I can take the attacks against me – they don’t even matter – but when a nation has been infiltrated with Communists, Socialist and Globalists for as long as ours has – I’m not going to give these bastards any more of a forum than they already control (see CBS, CNN, NBC, ABS, FOX above). Oops – don’t forget your daily local bird cage lining material.
Other changes will continue to take place at The Observer – stay tuned – it’s going to be a bumpy night!
For many of us broadcasting and publishing on the alternative media – we have remained hard hitting on issues, which we believe are highly pertinent in our day and time. These issues include education, property rights, tyranny by government, government out of the control of the people, moral decay and rot, tax and sovereignty issues, a deeper drift into Socialism, the breakup of the family, protection of children and families, treason in high places of our government, cover-ups and conspiracies within the government itself, in addition to a sundry of other choice subjects. And now we have this little thing called ‘war’, which is being waged in the most PC (Politically Correct) manner possible. As a veteran, I have seen the horrors of war and what it can do to families of friends and foes alike. The rest of the world stands by while the leaders of these international cabals send the unwitting to the slaughter like lambs. The perpretators serve their own interest – NOT those of a nation nor her people.
Predictably, many of us have been accused of being anti-government. In response to those accusations, I must say: To the best of our ability, we are reporting the truth. Are the people making these claims against us listening to us, and to our programs on a regular basis? Do they take a serious look at what we are reporting and is the information confirmable from other sources? If what we are reporting is true, is it a matter of concern to our detractors? In the words of Jack Nicholson, “You can’t handle the truth!” The people who broadcast on the alternative media or speak out all across this great land, are for the most part volunteers. It is a lot of hard work. There’s not a one who would be doing this job if they weren’t concerned and held the belief, that in some minuscule way, they might be able to reverse the downhill slide of this wonderful nation and restore its former austerity before God and before the world.
We are not anti-government. This could not be farther from the truth. We are however. anti-corrupt government. Each of us stands for the intent of the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, and all of the Amendments thereof.
This commentator spent 4 1/2 years in the military service of this nation, nearly two of which were spent in Viet Nam in an unpopular and unholy police action, however I swore to uphold the Constitution and guard it from all enemies, foreign and domestic. When I left the service in 1970, it did not mean that my obligation to this nation had ended.
Any American out there that doesn’t believe that we have serious corruption in government today, need to get their head out of their – sand box – and look around. With the disintegration of the family in this nation, problems relating to abuse of children, juvenile and adult crime and many more woes will increase instead of decrease.
Sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind.
With these thoughts in mind, Kettle Moraine Productions, through its programming and this web-site, dedicates itself to exercising those rights bestowed upon us by our Constitution: Freedom of Speech and Freedom of the Press. Thereby, we hope that, in the end, what we do shall be constructive and will lead to a better world in which future generations will live . . .
. . . and to the Republic – which must always stand!
War, What is it good for? Absolutely NOTHING!
Without Apology I am,
A veteran of Viet Nam, student of history (both American and film), Jeffrey Bennett has broadcast for over a quarter century as host of various programs and has been considered the voice of reason on the alternative media – providing a unique and distinctive broadcast style, including topics such as health and wellness, news, financial well-being, political satire (with a twist), education and editorial commentary on current events through the teaching of history. In addition, he is the CEO of Kettle Moraine, Ltd.