Two Conventions – Lifelong Lessons…

I thought I would bring to your attention an article that I recently wrote for a local rag called the Idaho Observer.  I have been a subscriber of the IO for a year and a half now and hold it in high regard. When I was presented the opportunity to write an article from my perspective about the Washington State Republican Convention, I was honored by the request.  Though it took some work to get the article into a mangeable length, I was rather pleased with the end result.  You can check out the article here in it’s entirety – or, for convenience, I have copied the body of the article below.

And of course, here’s a video of the Spokane, Washington Ron Paul march that spontaneously erupted moments after the convention ended.

[flv]https://old.jeffwhiteside.com/video/spokane_rally.flv[/flv]

It wasn’t all that long ago that I found myself in the improbable position of being a key coordinator for Ron Paul’s national delegate effort at the Washington State Republican Convention. I was on the inside, amongst the most trusted, dedicated and capable Ron Paul supporters in the state of Washington. This group was amazing. Like me, they were willing to deny themselves sleep, spend months of man-hours and do whatever it took to give Ron Paul a fighting chance of getting national delegates at the Washington State Republican Convention.

Together, we had planned out almost every possible scenario, locked down hundreds of details and pushed this State Convention well beyond where any had been before. We had a strong delegation – nearly 40%, or about 450 people. We owned the perimeter with a decked out Ron Paul RV command center, a glow-in-the-dark Ron Paul van and hundreds of Ron Paul signs deployed in the surrounding area. We even had our very own Ron Paul bottled water and an awe-inspiring Ron Paul display directly across the street from the convention center. It was a masterpiece of the grassroots. We were ready.

So were they. During an executive session a few days before the convention the Washington State Republican Party (WSRP) illegally passed an executive rule, ultimately ratified by the Washington State Republican delegation, that essentially controlled the ballots and prevented legal voters from fairly electing a large number of national delegate positions.

Undeterred, we hit the convention floor running – we were prepared to challenge the rules, the credentials report, and the order of business – essentially, we intended to lay down an intellectual fight at every level. It was clear early on that this would be no easy battle…and in hindsight, what we wanted never would have happened. The deck was stacked and the other side was willing to break laws to maintain its position.

Despite being outright denied any semblance of fair representative elections, our delegates were able to win 10 national delegate and alternate positions for Ron Paul. But then something unexpected began happening: At the cost of adopting by acclimation a so-called Soviet style “Unity Slate,” the tide began to change. We were then able to utilize core conservative values to break up McCain leadership’s stronghold and methodically cause their delegates to vote against their conservative conscience in the process of Resolutions and Platform. This caused a crisis in the ranks of the party faithful. Leadership had led them to vote against things like right to life and 2nd Amendment rights just to oppose Ron Paul supporters. If we could claim one major victory during this convention, it would be this: Members of the party who believe in the system discovered that it is a closed system, that your voice will be heard and your vote counted only if they are in agreement with leadership.

As we broke for lunch, there was a definite shift in the attitude among many McCain supporters. It was as if we were no longer the enemy. McCain campaign strategists on the floor were sensing the shift and made a deal with us. They agreed to make no attempt to block our resolutions so long as we did not resolve to withdraw from Iraq. They warned that they would leave the convention and deny us a quorum if we brought up our war resolutions.

Just two hours before the end of the convention, the John McCain leadership began instructing their delegates to leave the convention floor when we resolved to oppose Real ID. Delegation chairmen and McCain leaders, like sheep in the fold, followed orders and began evacuating their willing delegates. Hundreds upon hundreds of delegates sheepishly stepped out of the room. Their plan was to deny the Ron Paul delegates a quorum (a majority) and consequently end the convention right there.

What the McCain camp hadn’t anticipated was that our previous methods had worked. Those who remained, all 700+ of them, established a quorum…we had won over the hearts and minds of the majority. What time we had was only able to be used for passing a resolution that requires the WSRP to officially observe the Constitution when declaring war, thereby requiring an official declaration by Congress. We were about five minutes away from approving a motion to extend the convention until all business had been completed when the McCain people started filing back in and diluted our 2/3 majority. Nonetheless, we had accomplished our goal all along – to cause McCain delegates to question their leadership, realize their hypocrisy and rethink everything they had been told about Ron Paul and his supporters.

In conclusion, the most important thing we accomplished was a political education for hundreds of new people in the state of Washington. I can only pray that these individuals, further resolved by their treatment at the convention, realize the imminent need to further the Ron Paul Revolution, with or without Ron Paul. This is the only hope we have for regaining control over our country and avoiding tyrannical big brother government, bent on keeping us in a prison without bars.

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The Awe Inspiring Ron Paul Revolution…

OK…I’ve seen some protests.  I’ve seen some marches.  Heck, I’ve orchestrated such things.  But nothing prepared me for viewing the Ron Paul Revolution march on Washington, DC.

It was funny…as I was watching this video, I began to be a little disappointed.  I was like, “that’s it?” – over a million votes and “that’s it?”  But then the camera man zoomed in on the approaching demonstrators and I did a complete 180.  I can’t even imagine what Minneapolis / St. Paul is gonna be like…but this march is on the magnitude of insane.

I wish I coulda been there…this energy is just fantastic.

[flv]https://old.jeffwhiteside.com/video/revolutionmarch1.flv[/flv]

[flv]https://old.jeffwhiteside.com/video/revolutionmarch2.flv[/flv]

Good things ARE happening in the world…I just hope the mainstream hops on.

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US Economics – Crashin’ & Burnin’

Cash Fails!Things aren’t so hot on the US economic front these days.  Word is that mortgage giants, Freddie Mack and Fannie Mae – the largest backers of US mortgages – are facing serious finanical troubles.  Just as with Bear Stearns, a major investment banker, the Federal Reserve is being asked to make up the shortfall.  Don’t misunderstand, such an act will have a devastating impact to our economy and will send us into a downward spiral that will last for years to come.

Where the Bear Stearns bailout alarmed me with billions of US taxpayer’s dollars going towards preventing assured destruction of the US economy (from systemic collapse), this latest bailout has me in an absolute state of panic.  These two mortgage firms financially back nearly half of all US mortgages – trillions upon trillions of dollars of investment dollars.  We’re talking a multi-TRILLION dollar bailout here with the capacity to nearly double the US national debt overnight.  Yes, folks, that means our money will be worth nearly HALF as much once the trickle effect of that money being spent into the world’s economy is felt.

Oddly, after the news of the Federal Reserve backing the failed mortgage firms came out, the US dollar rallied back up.  This is completely counter-intuitive and clearly shows how well the market is manipulated and misinformed.  With multiple trillions being induced into the economy, the only *logical* result is for the value of the dollar to go DOWN.  More money in the economy, unbacked by anything of value EQUALS inflation.  Yet, mark my words, it will fall…and it’s gonna fall harder than I ever expected.

News reports are also saying that this bailout marks the last and final we will see from the Federal Reserve.  On one hand, that’s good news because US taxpayers are footing the bill – but on the other hand, it means that systemic collapse is a very real risk.  Once the collapse begins to occur, there is no stopping it – and we WILL feel an economic recession that makes the 1920’s look like child’s play.

As was expected, gold and silver rallied back up to levels seen several months ago – a surefire indication that things are in trouble.  I only expect these to continue their upward trend, despite being heavily manipulated.  Those who control the market can only do so much.  These two investments will be one of the few that can survive the up and coming disaster that is looming on our doorstep.

Have a great week.  😉

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The Global Warming Band-Aid…

So, I’ve been seeing a lot about water powered vehicles lately. This technology has been around for some time (I have copies of patents going back to the early 80’s), but somehow the technology just simply wasn’t allowed to exist. Probably because it seriously threatens major oil profiteers and other interests that have billions of dollars to insure that you don’t hear about it. The cat’s out of the bag these days, though…we got it on video!

[flv]https://old.jeffwhiteside.com/video/waterpoweredvehicle.flv[/flv]

I was also thinking about this global warming problem, right? Now, I’ve researched both sides of the arguments and it’s clear that no one has any idea what’s going on. One side says there’s no evidence of humans causing global warming…and another side says, oh my God, look out, we’re all gonna die. Some even say there is no global warming, and yet even others would forget to breathe if it weren’t pre-programmed into our brains. While all these politicians and so-called experts doddle on what-ever-to-do about this supposed problem, I came up with a band-aid.

The world’s oil consumption is somewhere around 87 million barrels per day, or approximately 3.65 billion gallons *per day*. The proposed major problem with global warming is that sea levels might rise and cause major flooding of coastal towns, right?

Water Vehicle!So, to band-aid the earth of all it’s supposed global warming woes, all we gotta do is switch to water powered vehicles, start sucking that 3+ billion gallons of water per day out of the sea and we’ll neutralize the global warming threat. And since there’s about 326 million trillion gallons of water on earth, that’ll last us for the next 244 million years, plus or minus a couple years.

This method has some major benefits, aside from the obvious of using a clean fuel.

We can keep doing whatever the heck we want to do without worry…like driving our ten wheel diesel trucks to pull obscenely oversized RV’s, pumping cubic foot after foot of putrid nastiness into the air, and God-forbid, we can keep breathing without having to pay a tax just to be alive. To boot, we’ll eventually get more real estate to solve our burgeoning population problem. We’ll also get better weather unless you live in Arizona or Dubai – in which case, I hate to break it to you, but people were not designed to survive living in a desert.

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Internet 2 In 2012?

Internet 2I’ve been hearing about I2, or “Internet 2” for several years now. Basically, the concept is a revolutionary redesign of the internet and it has been headed up by a consortium of universities, technology leaders, government officials and corporations. Critics fear that this somewhat obscure group could be responsible for regulatory acts over the internet in order to bring about systems of taxation, further surveillance and and greater control exercised over the global internet.

One arm of this has been the Net Neutrality legislation that has recently been discussed by congress. Essentially, net neutrality is the idea behind giving certain precedence to some websites over others, based on the ability of the service provider to pay the proper fees. So, for example, Google could afford to pay for massive usage and get fast speeds – whereas my site would be slow (or completely unavailable) because I am unwilling to pay or can’t afford such usage fees. This is bad stuff for the internet as it will completely favor large corporations and cause smaller, less-popular websites to suffer viewership because of such regulation.

Another branch of this is the technology aspects of Internet 2. There is great question over what this could encompass, however, concern is placed over what technologies would be allowed to exist over such a network. Most people think of the internet as “the web” – but it’s much larger than that. For example, IRC (internet relay chat) is a sub technology, like “the web,” that rides over the internet. Another example might be a voice-over-IP telephone connection. Little is truly known about what Internet 2 might actually look like from the technology perspective.

Now, I’ve been hearing “crying wolf” stories about the regulation of the internet so many times that I’ve almost become numb to it. However, just recently, another alarm has gone off on this front and I feel obliged to reveal it to you. Sources have uncovered what may be leaked information about some of the potential design aspects of this new internet technology, informally termed Internet 2.

Essentially, leaked information suggests that internet service providers may go to a “pay per view” model, as early as 2012, where users are charged based for their internet usage habits. Going even further, the information also suggests that a certain list of “approved sites” would be readily available for anyone to access, however, the millions of *other* websites out there would require pay-per-view type access accounts and/or a more costly tier of service to access them.

There is no doubt that a move like this would radically transform the look, feel and freedom of the internet. Many of the sites and things that we enjoy on the internet could be significantly threatened if a business model like this is allowed to come to fruition.

I’m still waiting for several independent sources to confirm this information and awaiting further investigation to be released, but this latest threat appears to be somewhat credible with the news that has been released so far.

This is bad stuff, folks. Please feel free to watch these videos to get some more information about the subject matter. There are also several web articles out there.

I Power Net Neutrality Analysis:

[flv]https://old.jeffwhiteside.com/video/ipower_netneutrality.flv[/flv]

Alex Jones Analysis:

[flv]https://old.jeffwhiteside.com/video/alexjones_deathofinternet1.flv[/flv]

[flv]https://old.jeffwhiteside.com/video/alexjones_deathofinternet2.flv[/flv]

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