Welcome to the Occupation

I keep hearing and reading people say that the problem with the Occupation is that no one can give them a single reason why they're doing it. But that's the problem right there; there isn't a single reason - there are hundreds of reasons. And yes, it might seem confusing and disorganized at the moment, but as people put their heads together things will get sorted out. The thing about Thinkers, as opposed to the Believers whom Occupation is protesting, is that it's a Big Tent. Far bigger than the Democratic Party. Far bigger than "The Left". We are the 99%, the middle, the left, and even the right. We are us, them, you, I, we, he, she...and even it. So while we communicate with one another and sort ourselves to address all these issues, give us time. Because this isn't just for us, it's for ALL of us. (R.E.M. - 'Welcome To The Occupation' )

Response and agreement with a friend's Facebook post

You're right. Arch-conservatives have long had the goal of privatizing every part of government they could so that they could profit from it. They duped social conservatives like evangelical, fundamentalist, and extremist christians into voting for them with the God-Gays-Guns scheme and it worked. It was a propaganda program that Joseph Goebbels would have been proud of, and it's still working for them today. You have to hand it to them, they did their demographic and psychological research. You can pretty easily divide humanity into 2 groups, when thought about in this way, Thinkers and Believers. Believers are the type who want to...believe...in things rather than do the skeptical work of research, no matter how simple that might be. Thinkers are skeptics, not accepting everything at face value until they've had a chance to research it. So, the arch-conservatives went after the Believers - christians. They made it SEEM like they were pro-god, pro-gun, and anti-gay. In reality, they couldn't have given two shits about god, guns or gays, they just wanted a voting bloc who could elect their proxies to office in order to establish the conservative agenda. Again, you've gotta hand it to them, it worked...beyond their imaginings, at that. Now they can sit back, throw a handful of money at this or that campaign and have their work done for them by people who actually believe that they're better off with a privatized government. But when ALL roads become toll roads, when ALL schools are for-profit, when ALL medicine is pay-upon-receipt-of-services, when credit is denied to everyone (the wealthy don't need credit), and EVERYTHING you do requires payment at the time you need it...it will be too late to do anything about it because the police will be on the side of the wealthy...for that matter, they already are. Just take a look at what's happening with Occupy Wall Street at this very moment. Arch-conservatives want no middle class. They want but 2 classes: Theirs, and the workers who do their bidding.

Why we fail to understand conservatives

I think the reason that so many of us have trouble understanding the actions of Republicans, Tea Partiers, and other sundry conservative politicians is that they treat political office like a business, whereas we see it as a post from which one might contribute to the general weal. They see it as a profit center. We see it as a public service. They see it as a sinecure. We see it as a temporary position.

These are fundamental differences that can't be easily rectified. Republican politicians often come from the private sector with the intent of bending the power of their political office to their own will, and for personal profit. Few of us on the left have been able to sort through the warp and weft of their political fabric to unravel what was really right on the surface all along: The truth that they came to politics because they view government as inefficient and even immoral and then set about operating government as inefficiently and immorally as possible in order to bring those ends about, making them self-fulfilling prophecies.

It seems to me that when people put on blinders which limit their sight lines to only those ideas which they wish to see, it becomes not merely impossible, but sincerely impossible (pardon the WoO pun) to get them to see anything else, regardless how imposing, how credible, or how popular it might be.

I will support the President so long as he follows this simple concept: Do that which you set about to do, that which we elected you to do, not bending to the political will of your opponents, and never, EVER losing sight of the fact that we elected YOU to make CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

Military discharge of gays prior to DADT

People forget that prior to DADT, it was simply illegal to be gay or lesbian and serve in the US military. When I served, our battalion commander initiated a witch hunt to eliminate gays, lesbians and atheists (while it isn't/wasn't illegal to be an atheist and serve, he looked for any excuse, discharging one linguist for being 2 pounds over the weight limit). Since I fall into 2 of those 3 categories, I was high on his list to discharge. Luckily, I was at the end of my term of service, so I left voluntarily, although he tried to retain me so that he could have a court martial. That would have resulted in incarceration at the Federal holding barracks in Mannheim, Germany. He made very clear what he wished to do, which worked in my favor. I was able to enlist the aid of the then-Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sam Nunn, D-GA (who intervened only from a cost standpoint since my term of service was over), in order to get out without being jailed. The commander had gone to great lengths to carry out his witch hunt, using two junior enlisted men to seduce soldiers of rank in order to prosecute and discharge them. The plan was to claim use of force and fraternization although force was never used and the younger soldiers weren't in my, or any of the other affected soldiers' chain-of-command. It was a witch hunt, plain and simple.

Just after I left the unit and the Army, Congress sent a delegation to Augsburg to find out why this battalion had the lowest re-enlistment rate...not just in Europe...not just in the Army...but in the entire US military. Since we were an Intelligence battalion, US taxpayers had spent MILLIONS of dollars training each one of us, sending us to language school for a year or more, lengthy and entailed technical training, not to mention the year-long investigations into the soldiers and their families going back 3 generations for the required security clearances. He lost his command, but in an upside-down turn of events, went on to get his full bird (the rank of colonel). It was at that time (the late 80s, early 90s) that Fundamentalist Christians were infiltrating the military...all branches...in order to create what they thought of as God's Army. And that always made me wonder...if their god is so powerful...why does he need an army?

Income parity and class war

Patriot Day 2011 - I've been sitting here this morning watching the coverage of the sad reminder of the first attack by an alien force on the sovereign territory of the United States since Pearl Harbor. I spent 13 years in the military, in service to my homeland. I had an odd journey through the military, beginning as an enlisted infantryman in my state's National Guard, going on to Officer Candidate School (OCS) and a commission in the Infantry. After 5 years, I had the opportunity to move to the Army Reserve in a teaching position, then after my full 6 years were up, into the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). But I wasn't done, I wanted a tour in the Regular Army, so I again enlisted rather than seeking to have my commission reinstated because I wanted to choose where I went and what I did. Young officers usually have no choice in the matter, but because of enlistment guarantees, and a generous bonus, I was allowed to choose my first duty station as an enlistee. Throughout my career, I raised my right hand and swore to protect the United States from all enemies, foreign and domestic, a total of 5 times, and I still hold myself to that sacred oath. 


And that's what I was thinking about this morning as I watched the sun rise over Manhattan. We're faced with threats from without and threats from within. At least the external threats are known: Al Qaeda, the Taliban, others who wish harm on our citizens. The internal threats are far harder to sound because they come from us, from the body America. 


But we can, if we remove the blinders from our eyes which prevent us from seeing the immediate and familiar, suss out the cancer which gnaws us root and bone. It can be a challenge, an agony, because the enemy, we're told, should be our paradigm. Our internal national enemy is the disparity between the super rich and the rest of us. 


Greed in any form is bad. Amazingly though, we've been told that it's good to be greedy. It's a noble purpose to seek wealth. Increasingly we're told that charity is bad. During the GOP Presidential debate, last week, several candidates came right out and said that we need to cut off assistance to those who need it, that charity causes poverty. Jesus said that, right? One would imagine that he did, or at least these characters think so, since each and every one claims to be a staunch Christian, to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, and to accept him as their personal savior. Or were they lying for the sake of political expediency? 


I was reared as a Jehovah's Witness. Trust me, it's a cult, regardless that they protest to the contrary. But one thing that you can't take away from them - they study the bible. Evangelicals and other Christian Fundamentalists claim that Witnesses don't use the right bible, but the fact is that the Jehovah's Witness' 'New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures', the bible that they had translated using the newly-found Rosetta Stone as a translation guide, something that all other bible translators are now doing, is a much more accurate translation than the problematic King James Version. 


Growing up in that religion, I read the bible. Actually read it twice from cover to cover, and probably a third and fourth time by chapter and verse. Jehovah's Witnesses read their bible regularly, they read it to understand it and not just be able to quote by rote. They have certainly misinterpreted it, but it is a modern translation in modern English and any reader should be able to understand it clearly, unlike the poorly translated KJV. 


Having read it and studied it, even though today I am an atheist, I have a pretty good grasp of what it was that Jesus was trying to teach his disciples. Recurring themes were love, forgiveness, and charity. Nowhere I read of his teachings did it mention greed, wealth, or revenge, but you wouldn't know it from his modern followers. In fact, greed, wealth, and revenge seem to be their bywords, their mantra, their New Ideal.  I can't purport to know why his followers have missed the message, but I have some ideas. 


First and foremost is ignorance. Agreed, I'm rusty on the bible's specifics today, even though I still get the general gist. But so many who claim Jesus as their savior haven't really bothered to read his teachings. Instead, they keep a bible by their bed and they read a few passages late at night after they're already drowsy, they take them out of context because they don't bother to read entire stories or chapters and they soon forget the morals of the stories if indeed they even understood them anyway. It's alarming how many think that popular sayings like 'A penny saved is a penny earned' come from the bible rather than from popular folklore. So I suppose it should be no surprise that these people sit in a building at least once a week and listen to their religious leaders tell them what to think. It's the very definition of propaganda. Tell a story (or lie), keep telling it, keep swearing to its truth, and if anyone should question you about it, scream it...because SCREAMING ALWAYS PROVES YOUR VERACITY...RIGHT?


Of course not. But it's a tool they use. And that's part of my second point - propaganda. Adolf Hitler and his henchman Joseph Goebbels, his Reich Minister of Propaganda, were masters of the Big Lie. They believed that for a lie to be believable, it needs to be a big lie, it needs to be repeated, and it needs to grossly distort the truth. 

Reply to comment on ApplePaul's FB page about government being "in charge of stuff"

Both government and business are subject to the laws of human nature. Government can run efficiently, but it takes oversight to keep people focused on their jobs, just like in business. Business needs oversight to prevent issues like the debacle with sub-prime lending, using toxic chemicals in our children's toys, and keeping their effluent out of our waterways. The right course is somewhere in the middle, not on one of the extremes in either direction; in other words, right where most things work best. Government, when run by concerned individuals, not like the current Nay Sayers we have in Congress, has given us a national system of freeways, free education, airports that all can access, and a host of other things that every successful person in this country has taken advantage of on the way to success. It's folly to think that government, properly run, isn't a boon to individual prosperity. The Works Progress Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Rural Electrification Administration and other projects of the New Deal program helped the United States pull itself out of the morass of the Great Depression...which was caused by the crash of the Stock Market, a PRIVATE endeavor. In our grandparents' or great grandparents' lifetimes, government was trusted to ensure the common weal, because it was the lifeline which saved the nation from economic apocalypse. It seems very short-memoried to claim that government shouldn't be "in charge of so much stuff...", making me wonder, what is it that people are doing that they don't want government to know about?

Reply to a comment on Rachel Maddow's blog

You're right. I've been watching fairly closely and I think this is how the process goes: First, somewhere in a room filled with the Faithful (faithfully defending their stacks of money, that is), talking points are created. Then, they're handed off to Fox News for initiation in the early day's news cycle. Next, other Fox talking heads cite the FIRST Fox report using the same talking points, and that continues and escalates throughout the day. Simultaneously, emails convey those talking points to GOP members who are likely to have media exposure during that news cycle, reinforcing their fictions. And so it goes. A new day brings a new talking point, and the GOP cycle-of-life continues because the Believers don't do their own research. Only Thinkers do that.

Jim's GOP debate summary

Rick Perry and Mitt Romney, AKA Tweedledum and Tweedledumber - I know you are, but what am I?; Michelle Bachman - Look, Mama, I eated all my Obamacare!; Herman Cain - The tax is TOO DAMNED HIGH!; Ron Paul - It'ssss the MANDATESSSS, My Preciousssss!; John Huntsman - 請問這條領帶讓我看中國人?; Newt the Gingrich - Thou shalt not...JESUS CHRIST, look at the T*TS on that chick!; Rick Santorum - *insert Standard Protest #51 and prayer*

The coming, and necessary, Class War

Here in America, we tend to view things in an 'Us' versus 'Them' scenario, but the time has come for us to take a step back and realize that the lessons learned from people other than Americans needn't be reinvented by us. We can look to see what they've learned, what they've done right, what they've done wrong, and try to avoid the pitfalls that befell them.


In the Spring of 2011, the simmering pot which has been the Arab world boiled over. The "Arab Spring", as it's been dubbed, saw the overthrow of dictator after despot, continuing right on through the late summer. While it's still too early to tell what outcome this will have on the citizenry of each newly-freed country, the mandate of the people in revolt was heard 'round the world...and it was even heard here, in America. Here, in the Bible Belt. Here, in Georgia. And it's Georgia, specifically, that I want to concentrate on. 


My family moved from Florida in 1972 and resettled in Coffee County in central southeast Georgia. Coffee County is primarily an agricultural area with a focus on poultry production, soybeans, tobacco, and cotton. It's located in what I refer to as the Interstate Quadrangle, a chunk of remoteness bordered by I-16 to the north, I-95 to the east, I-10 to the south, and I-75 to the west. The Interstate Quadrangle includes a slice of far north Florida from Jacksonville in the southeast corner to about Lake City in the southwest. It's northern corners are Macon in the northwest, and Savannah in the northeast. Within the boundaries of the Interstate Quadrangle lie some of the most remote areas in the Atlantic coastal states. It's also one of the least densely populated areas in those same states. There are no large cities, nor even large towns beyond those on the corners. In short, it's an area that has had little direct outside influence, and that lack shows every day in how those of means think about those without. You would be hard pressed to find an upper-middle income or upper income person in that area, and that majorly means white, who doesn't daily use the N-word, or who doesn't look down on those of us educated in public schools as "public school trash" as one business owner in that area puts it. Of course, she has had the benefit of a religious private school education as have her children. Or the business owner whose business is predicated primarily upon serving Medicare recipients with home health products who tries to ram  products he can profit from most down the throats of those least capable of protesting rather than working to ensure proper fit and match of products to the clients. He tried to do that to my mother. It didn't work, and he's angry, threatening to charge her for something she can't use. He'll be answering to Medicare for that gaffe. 


In the 26 August 2011 New York Times, Georgia Congressman John Lewis (D), has an article entitled 'A Poll Tax By Another Name', in which he discusses, from his deeply experienced point of view, how even today conservatives scheme to prevent African-American and Latino voters from voting, disenfranchising anyone that they feel might be a threat to their stranglehold on power. John Lewis was a leader of the civil rights movement in America, and one of the few dedicated people left in Congress who truly represents the will of the people, especially those who lack the voice to speak for themselves. John Lewis is a living American hero.


While Congressman Lewis' article focused on the Civil Rights Act as well as other playing field-leveling legislation and the impact these have had on the lives of African-Americans, it also warns us that those who hold power over the lives and livelihoods of others will go to any extreme to hold onto that power. This prejudice affects anyone who hasn't the financial wherewithal to fight back, to stand toe-to-toe with those who seek to oppress rather than liberate. This affects almost half of all Americans. As late as April of 2011, less than 46% of Americans had jobs, and that number is likely to have decreased, not increased. 


In early-Twenty-first-century America, money is power. True, that's always been the case, but with so many wealthy Americans now, the disenfranchisement of the poor and the dichotomy of wealth disparity puts them at a disadvantage when it comes to finding a meaningful, living-wage job. Nepotism and cronyism are the new rules-of-the-day. Those who consider themselves to be of a certain social stratum look down at the poor and loathe them, often publicly. Case in point, Fox News' recent campaign targeting the poor and unemployed. Fox commentator, Neil Cavuto, cited a figure which showed that 99.6% of the "poor" (Fox's quotation marks, not mine) have refrigerators, and the list went on showing that certain members of the "poor" have a few modern conveniences or even small luxuries. Bill O'Reilly and Lou Dobbs, both notoriously snobbish towards the poor and bottom-tier-working-class people, went on to hash out how they really didn't look down on the poor but they clearly didn't grasp how a poor person might own a refrigerator or cell phone, and even compared them to the poor in Europe. Which made me laugh because I've lived in Europe and never did I see the squalor that can be found here in America.  


And here's the Big Picture: It's still 'Us' versus 'Them', except now the two sides are Wealthy versus Poor. How do those who have not compete with those who have? It's hard to do...unless we look at recent examples abroad. Maybe they have it right, those who stood up for their rights in the Arab Spring. While the riots in Britain turned violent and vandals took the reins, it began as a protest for economic rights. A protest for rights for those who have been disenfranchised. The street hoodlums in Britain had it all wrong, vandalism is never an acceptable answer.  


Whatever non-destructive form that answer has to take, it's time has come. One would hope that parties representing both sides could sit down diplomatically and discuss the problems, work out a solution, and everything would move apace towards equality. But our own politicians can't do that amongst themselves, so what hope do the rest of us have for that? Right now, there is a political party that has a wing bent on enriching the already enriched while the rest go without. And don't think that they feel remorse for the plight of the needy, because if they did, they would've already done something. 


Ask yourself this, though; if these people are truly the patriots they claim to be, why do we have so many homeless veterans, and why are the same "patriots" calling for cutting veterans' benefits? In fact, why is it that so few of THEM are veterans? The nation already puts many of the 1% of those who serve into the poverty category WHILE they're serving, but now the ones who have most profited from staying behind while true patriots served their nation are the staunchest supporters of cutting veterans' already-meager benefits. Used and thrown away. It's shameful. But they have no shame. None. They'll simply pray the shame away and after that 2-second prayer, they'll go right back to the same behavior as before it.


THERE WILL BE NO CHANGE UNLESS WE CHANGE IT OURSELVES!


Freedom isn't free; it's paid for in blood. Everyone is faced with life and death decisions, but some employ others to make those decisions for them. The time has come for those who have been disenfranchised, those who have served, those who are made to feel like second-class citizens in their own country, those whose skin color or religion is deemed deficient by the monied...the time has come for them to stand up and say no to that behavior. 


I find it no surprise that John Lewis is a Georgian. He's a fighter, and he's a winner. I aim to be like him.

THE TEA PARTY TALIBAN

Shortly after the various Tea Party groups came to prominence and began holding meetings (conclaves?) around the country, I began to take note of their positions on various issues. In the early days, some advocated for secession from the Union. As a veteran, I took umbrage at that. Fomenting secession is tantamount to treason. Treason is a capital offense. It was at that time that I named them the Tea Party Taliban. Their recent crimes and misdemeanors in the debt debacle bear out that I was right and I'll add this to my earlier caveat: The Tea Party Taliban are accomplishing in Congress with Eric Cantor at the helm what Al Qaeda couldn't do - Bring the USA to its knees.

Treason is a capital crime and after due process the punishment for treason is one that the "Eye for an eye" crowd wholly supports. I'm sure you catch my drift.

DEBT DEFAULT EXPLAINED IN LAYMAN'S TERMS

Governments themselves aren't rated, their bonds are. When a government needs money, one way to create it is to sell bonds - that's how debt is created. The credit rating is how secure the bond is, in other words how likely the issuing government is to repay that bond on time with the promised amount of interest. We've always paid on time, in full, so we've always had a triple A rating. Some governments, say Zimbabwe, might pay late, not pay the full amount of promised interest, or might not pay at all, so their bonds have a lower...much lower...rating. BUT...when they need to borrow money that they can't get from selling bonds, then the creditors look at how they repaid their bonds and they charge them interest to get that money based on their repayment history; full repayment of bonds, on time, means they get a high rating, providing the rest of their fiscal house is in order. If they didn't fulfill their promises on their bonds, they get charged more interest. That higher interest is then passed down to banks which issue credit (say as a credit card or auto loan, etc) and then it's passed down to the consumer. So the effect of the US defaulting on it's bonds on August 2 could be the government having to borrow money at a higher interest rate and then that comes down to consumers at a higher interest rate in the form of credit and loans; basically a "tax" on EVERYTHING. Why don't the Republicans care? Because they're already wealthy and they can access sources of money that the average consumer can't, and they can get that money cheaper than the average consumer will be able to get it, too. The end result of debt default will end up costing consumers...taxpayers...billions if not trillions. But the Repukes are holding up the process for political gain. I told you back when they first formed that I named them the Tea Party Taliban. Well, I was wrong about one thing:  The Taliban can't damage our economy like the Tea Partiers are about to do. Our worst enemy isn't Al Qaeda, it's the Tea Party. Fact!

WHY WE WANT WORLDWIDE REVOLUTION

I recently read an article on Salon.com, 'The New “Let them eat cake”' by John Sirota. I've also been keeping abreast of the budget battles going on in the US legislature, as have many others. What's struck me as surreal is how little attention is being paid to the very root of the problem: The disparity between the richest and the poorest Americans, and by extension, the world's rich and poor. If every news outlet jumped on this topic and covered it 24/7, enough couldn't be made of it until the playing field is level. There will always be entrepreneurs and there will always be ne'er-do-wells, but when the difference between the working class and the wealthy is as great as it is today, something is desperately wrong...broken...in our way of doing things.

The poor want a better life, one with some sense of security in both their finances and abode. The wealthy simply want, how and from whence that money flows to them is of minor consideration. In America, we have created the false sense that to own a home is a privilege, not a right. Thank the wealthy for that notion; they own the rentals. There isn't and will not be anything approaching equality until every person who attains adulthood has his or her own home, a place that can't be taken away save by death.

The notion that a home in the US of 2000+ square feet is a minimum requirement for a family of 3 or 4 was created by the same people who profit from the sales of the building materials, land, and occasionally even the homes themselves to the working class who dreamt of a better life, but were thwarted by a "bubble" created by the very same people who ripped them off the first time around. The notion that the wealth built up prior to the Great Recession just disappeared would be laughable if it didn't have such dire consequences for the great middle and working classes. That money didn't disappear entirely - it merely flowed back uphill to the ultrawealthy and disappeared from view. Make no mistake, the Rupert Murdochs, the Brothers Koch, the oilmen and arms manufacturers and their friends are all better off today than they were at the peak of the housing bubble. Oh, their mouthpieces will show you nice charts and graphs showing that the poor billionaires are suffering too, and then ask if you have no pity for them. Well, I don't.

At the turn of the last century, the ultrawealthy - the Morgans, the Vanderbilts, the Duponts and others - were building empires for themselves just like the Murdochs and Kochs of today. They were raping resources and stepping on anyone who got in their way, just like the Murdochs and Kochs of today. And they were amassing wealth in a fashion never before seen...just like the Murdochs and Kochs of today. If we learn nothing else from this, let's let this one thing be our history lesson:  We fail to learn our history lessons.

For example, why do we keep having these budget battles? They're a sideshow, nothing more. Why are we engaged in 3 wars? They're a sideshow, nothing more. Why are we watching yet another televised murder trial? It's a sideshow, nothing more. It's all distraction, all the time, everywhere, every when, and every damned day. It's a sideshow, nothing more.

The Arab spring and the rioting in Europe, those are the real deals; people saying, like the ubiquitous commercial, “It's MY money, and I want it NOW!” And they're right, they should be upset, damned upset. Upset enough to strike, to riot, to picket, to protest. Angry enough to challenge the status quo, to stick it out until real change is made, to be prepared to be arrested, beaten, pepper-sprayed, jailed, even imprisoned. Do you REALLY believe that the police in the US “protect and serve” the people? Open your eyes! Because the wealthy will be angry and upset too, and they're the ones with their own private armies, their own police forces, their own national armies, and in some cases their own countries. They'll be mad, mad enough to kill...and kill they will. They'll do anything to protect their wealth and themselves. They'll be like rabid dogs when cornered, and they'll need to be dealt with in the same way that rabid dogs are dealt with because they suffer from a disease. Their disease isn't fatal to the carriers, only to those who dare to oppose them. Their disease is greed.

How do we go about wiping out greed? That's a great question and it's beyond me to answer it. Greed may be so deeply ingrained in humans that it can't be rooted out without killing the host. But perhaps it could be somewhat mitigated. I believe that a world where the disparity between the bottom and top is small would be a world that would inhibit the formation of greed, a world where greed would be looked at as the vice it is, and not something to be emulated as it is in the world in which we currently live. I believe that a world where poverty is nonexistent, hunger is unknown, a world in which one's sense of security is never questioned would be a world where greed couldn't get traction. But it would also be a world that would threaten those who just can't stand to view others as equals. And that's why it will take a worldwide revolution to bring that world to fruition.

One day, and that day may not be that far off – I do believe that the United States' time in the sun draws closer to slipping away – one day Americans will wake up, they will realize that they've been lied to by corporations, by politicians, by the ultrawealthy, by the entertainment industry, and even by the media, the Fourth Estate, the one institution which should have remained above the fray. But didn't. Americans will wake up and as someone once observed about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which served to draw the United States into World War II, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Americans will indeed be filled with a terrible resolve and the purpose of that will be to bring down the ivory towers in which the ultrawealthy hide. Americans have been lied to in such an insidious way that their anger will be unlike anything seen before and it will reach out far beyond the shores and borders of their nation to find the culprits and grind them to powder. The institutions that have been built to rape the meager treasuries of the poor and working classes will suffer their wrath. The great banking houses will be plundered. The world's armorers will find their own manufacture deadly when they themselves become the target. The multinational corporations which control the food supply will know the hunger that the bellies of small children from Appalachia to Asia Minor have felt. And perhaps worst of all will be the special celebration which will obtain for the middle men, the stockbrokers, the moneychangers who produce nothing but consume wastefully. The gluttony of Wall Street will provide tinsel and garland from the sinew and bone of its hacks. Only those who sought to fatten their own larders on the backs of those least capable of withstanding it will rue its loss.

There will come such a day. There always comes such a day at the changing of the guard of empires. As China rises, so America shall wane. It will be at that time that the argent light of truth will shine brightest on the dark machinations of greed.

But...as we look around and see the brightest, the boldest, the best informed and the most informative waging war on the unwary warrens of waste and class diminution, we may be looking at the genesis of our own struggle. Our time to strike out and strike back may be NOW. Look around. LOOK around. Open your eyes and LOOK. Turn off the TV. Put down your games. Pull your heads out. Stand up. And get mad, very very mad. Why are you unemployed? When has “trickle down” economics ever actually trickled down? If the Bush Era tax cuts were supposed to create so many jobs...where are they? That horse has been beat, shot, grilled, milled, and now resides in a bottle of glue; it ain't gonna run no more. Why do they really want a lower tax rate? Why the hell do you THINK they want a lower tax rate? They want it ALL. Every. Last. Dime. Because there're a couple things that they don't want us to know.

One: You've heard that there are two sets of rules - one for the rich, and one for the poor. That's wrong; the rich have no rules.

Two: In the end, the ultrawealthy...and when I use that term, I don't mean the guy down the street who bought the Jag, has a pool, and vacations for a month in the Caribbean; I mean the WEALTHY...billionaires...families worth...megabillions... In the end, the ultrawealthy just don't give a good goddamn about you or me. No, there's no selfless thought to them. They don't do anything for the greater good unless it may serve to substantiate their legacies. In the end, hell from the beginning, it's always been us versus them, in their minds.

So I say, OK. Fine. You want to dance? Let's! Let's see Wikileaks, Anonymous, and anyone else who can provide evidence that the bastards have been crapping on the working poor and middle classes show us the evil. Let's get up, get dressed, get to our posts and stand guard. And steel yourselves because the light at the end of the tunnel will only shine after the tunnel is dug, as as yet not a single shovelful has been lifted. The moguls will fight hard, and they will use any arms and means at their disposal. Their propaganda war began the day that Murdoch's media empire fired the first tyrannical shot over the heads of the dispossessed.

Let's get the word out, fire people up, and let's get this party started!




28 July 2011 addendum:  "The U.S. is experiencing an 'end of empire' moment and the dollar share of global reserves is likely to fall gradually," said Jim Leaviss, head of retail fixed income at M&G Investments in London." - regarding the US debt ceiling debate currently before the US leadership.

WHY WE WANT WORLDWIDE REVOLUTION

The poor want a better life, one with some sense of security in both their finances and abode. The wealthy simply want, how and from whence that money flows to them is of minor consideration. In America, we have created the false sense that to own a home is a privilege, not a right. Thank the wealthy for that notion; they own the rentals. There isn't and will not be anything approaching equality until every person who attains adulthood has his or her own home, a place that can't be taken away save by death.

The notion that a home in the US of 2000+ square feet is a minimum requirement for a family of 3 or 4 was created by the same people who profit from the sales of the building materials, land, and occasionally even the homes themselves to the working class who dreamt of a better life, but were thwarted by a "bubble" created by the very same people who ripped them off the first time around. The notion that the wealth built up prior to the Great Recession just disappeared would be laughable if it didn't have such dire consequences for the great middle and working classes. That money didn't disappear entirely - it merely flowed back uphill to the ultrawealthy and disappeared from view. Make no mistake, the Rupert Murdochs, the Brothers Koch, the oilmen and arms manufacturers and their friends are all better off today than they were at the peak of the housing bubble. Oh, their mouthpieces will show you nice charts and graphs showing that the poor billionaires are suffering too, and then ask if you have no pity for them. Well, I don't.

At the turn of the last century, the ultrawealthy - the Morgans, the Vanderbilts, the Duponts and others - were building empires for themselves just like the Murdochs and Kochs of today. They were raping resources and stepping on anyone who got in their way, just like the Murdochs and Kochs of today. And they were amassing wealth in a fashion never before seen...just like the Murdochs and Kochs of today. If we learn nothing else from this, let's let this one thing be our history lesson:  We fail to learn our history lessons.

For example, why do we keep having these budget battles? They're a sideshow, nothing more. Why are we engaged in 3 wars? They're a sideshow, nothing more. Why are we watching yet another televised murder trial? It's a sideshow, nothing more. It's all distraction, all the time, everywhere, every when, and every damned day. It's a sideshow, nothing more.

The Arab spring and the rioting in Europe, those are the real deals; people saying, like the ubiquitous commercial, “It's MY money, and I want it NOW!” And they're right, they should be upset, damned upset. Upset enough to strike, to riot, to picket, to protest. Angry enough to challenge the status quo, to stick it out until real change is made, to be prepared to be arrested, beaten, pepper-sprayed, jailed, even imprisoned. Do you REALLY believe that the police in the US “protect and serve” the people? Open your eyes! Because the wealthy will be angry and upset too, and they're the ones with their own private armies, their own police forces, their own national armies, and in some cases their own countries. They'll be mad, mad enough to kill...and kill they will. They'll do anything to protect their wealth and themselves. They'll be like rabid dogs when cornered, and they'll need to be dealt with in the same way that rabid dogs are dealt with because they suffer from a disease. Their disease isn't fatal to the carriers, only to those who dare to oppose them. Their disease is greed.

How do we go about wiping out greed? That's a great question and it's beyond me to answer it. Greed may be so deeply ingrained in humans that it can't be rooted out without killing the host. But perhaps it could be somewhat mitigated. I believe that a world where the disparity between the bottom and top is small would be a world that would inhibit the formation of greed, a world where greed would be looked at as the vice it is, and not something to be emulated as it is in the world in which we currently live. I believe that a world where poverty is nonexistent, hunger is unknown, a world in which one's sense of security is never questioned would be a world where greed couldn't get traction. But it would also be a world that would threaten those who just can't stand to view others as equals. And that's why it will take a worldwide revolution to bring that world to fruition.

One day, and that day may not be that far off – I do believe that the United States' time in the sun draws closer to slipping away – one day Americans will wake up, they will realize that they've been lied to by corporations, by politicians, by the ultrawealthy, by the entertainment industry, and even by the media, the Fourth Estate, the one institution which should have remained above the fray. But didn't. Americans will wake up and as someone once observed about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor which served to draw the United States into World War II, “I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

Americans will indeed be filled with a terrible resolve and the purpose of that will be to bring down the ivory towers in which the ultrawealthy hide. Americans have been lied to in such an insidious way that their anger will be unlike anything seen before and it will reach out far beyond the shores and borders of their nation to find the culprits and grind them to powder. The institutions that have been built to rape the meager treasuries of the poor and working classes will suffer their wrath. The great banking houses will be plundered. The world's armorers will find their own manufacture deadly when they themselves become the target. The multinational corporations which control the food supply will know the hunger that the bellies of small children from Appalachia to Asia Minor have felt. And perhaps worst of all will be the special celebration which will obtain for the middle men, the stockbrokers, the moneychangers who produce nothing but consume wastefully. The gluttony of Wall Street will provide tinsel and garland from the sinew and bone of its hacks. Only those who sought to fatten their own larders on the backs of those least capable of withstanding it will rue its loss.

There will come such a day. There always comes such a day at the changing of the guard of empires. As China rises, so America shall wane. It will be at that time that the argent light of truth will shine brightest on the dark machinations of greed.

But...as we look around and see the brightest, the boldest, the best informed and the most informative waging war on the unwary warrens of waste and class diminution, we may be looking at the genesis of our own struggle. Our time to strike out and strike back may be NOW. Look around. LOOK around. Open your eyes and LOOK. Turn off the TV. Put down your games. Pull your heads out. Stand up. And get mad, very very mad. Why are you unemployed? When has “trickle down” economics ever actually trickled down? If the Bush Era tax cuts were supposed to create so many jobs...where are they? That horse has been beat, shot, grilled, milled, and now resides in a bottle of glue; it ain't gonna run no more. Why do they really want a lower tax rate? Why the hell do you THINK they want a lower tax rate? They want it ALL. Every. Last. Dime. Because there're a couple things that they don't want us to know.

One: You've heard that there are two sets of rules - one for the rich, and one for the poor. That's wrong; the rich have no rules.

Two: In the end, the ultrawealthy...and when I use that term, I don't mean the guy down the street who bought the Jag, has a pool, and vacations for a month in the Caribbean; I mean the WEALTHY...billionaires...families worth...megabillions... In the end, the ultrawealthy just don't give a good goddamn about you or me. No, there's no selfless thought to them. They don't do anything for the greater good unless it may serve to substantiate their legacies. In the end, hell from the beginning, it's always been us versus them, in their minds.

So I say, OK. Fine. You want to dance? Let's! Let's see Wikileaks, Anonymous, and anyone else who can provide evidence that the bastards have been crapping on the working poor and middle classes show us the evil. Let's get up, get dressed, get to our posts and stand guard. And steel yourselves because the light at the end of the tunnel will only shine after the tunnel is dug, as as yet not a single shovelful has been lifted. The moguls will fight hard, and they will use any arms and means at their disposal. Their propaganda war began the day that Murdoch's media empire fired the first tyrannical shot over the heads of the dispossessed.

Let's get the word out, fire people up, and let's get this party started!

The Antoinette Brothers - John Boehner and Eric Cantor

Tax equality for all, not just ‘tax the wealthy’

This morning, I had a great conversation with a friend in Portland via chat. We agree about quite a bit, but differ along some lines, just as friends should do. Where we differ is this:  When I think tax equality, I think that means that everyone should pay the same rate regardless of who you are, where you're from, your religion, color or creed, and regardless of your income. I believe in a national sales tax which would replace ALL other taxes. 
The way I have this envisioned is this:  First, we would have a star-chamber panel of non-politically-aligned experts...that is to say not politicians...who would pore over each and every part of the Federal budget, as well as similar individual panels for each state, in order to assure that any waste in government that could possibly be eliminated would be, and that duplication of services, offices, and programs would be erased.  Then, we would remove all other taxes, whether we call them taxes or not - if you pay it to the government...ANY government whether Federal, state or local...it's a tax - and replace them all with a national sales tax.  Built into this system would be the ability to adjust the rate up or down as needed, quarterly or yearly. We may find it necessary to have a sliding scale built in so that luxury items would be taxed at a higher rate than standard items; a Mercedes taxed at 50% vs a Chevy at 40%. If those rates sound high, then consider that in 2007, MSN Money stated that the average median tax rate was 40.3% across all income groups. They took into consideration the same principles I set forth here that all taxes were considered - Federal, state, and local, sales taxes, income taxes, property taxes, et cetera. The advantage of having a luxury rate, and the equality, is that if Joe SixPack happens to score a lottery win and buys himself a Jaguar, then he still pays the luxury rate for it, just like a regular buyer of that car would. Equality.  Also, this would encourage saving more money than we currently do, which would have the long-term benefit of people having enough money set aside to make large purchases rather than borrowing money on which they would have to pay interest as in the current system.  And that means a higher standard of living.
But the other side of the coin is what's really on my mind, this morning. I notice when I talk to people, especially those of lower income groups, that they want tax parity for the wealthy. But at the same time, they'll tell you that they think that working families with children shouldn't have to pay taxes, or should be taxed at a lower rate. If that were done, or if these people were allowed to have their taxes rebated, even the sales taxes, then this breaks tax equality out of the gate.  It's not tax EQUALITY if lower income groups pay LESS.  The only way that it's e-q-u-a-l-i-t-y is if every income group pays the same for the same items. Again, luxury items could be taxed at a higher rate, but all income groups, that means any buyer from any group, pay the same amount of tax on that item. 
I have the fortune ("fortune" being defined as hard work, ingenuity, and an entrepreneurial spirit) to have hoisted myself out of the lower and middle income groups. While I had help polishing the ideas I dreamed of, it was my own determination that put me into an upper income group. I state this for one reason:  I know what it's like to grow up poor.  My parents worked hard to pay for me and didn't take handouts.  But like every other average parent, they received help in the form of a free education for me.  My healthcare, dental, and vision needs were paid for by them, not by a government agency.  They clothed me.  They fed me.  We got no WIC or food stamps.  But we also didn't take lavish vacations or drive cars that were priced beyond our means; we ate well and dressed modestly, too.  In sum, we lived within our means.  
And there lies the rub.  Americans have come to expect to live beyond their means.  At first, that meant driving a nicer car and wearing designer clothes, but it's come to mean buying more house than we could afford and having others pay for our kids...or ourselves.  The wealthy are justified in their anger at having to pay for others when those others are the recipients of handouts, regardless of whether we call them handouts or not.  BUT...the wealthy are NOT  justified when they shirk their tax obligations.  And that happens far too often.  Some of my wealthy friends tell me that they feel justified paying no or little income tax because they pay so much in sales taxes for the many things they buy.  I understand that.  But I also know that many of them shop exclusively online or in states with no sales tax (yes, those exist, in fact Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon have no sales tax, but they compensate with higher income and/or property taxes).  So in a sense, even the wealthy are living beyond their means, or at least beyond their desire to pay their fair share of taxes.
What we have is a national tax-disassociative disorder.  We're fraught with debt and don't have the national will to pay it down because we're so used to living beyond our means.  We have politicians tell us every day that we need to lower taxes in order to stimulate growth, but what they don't tell us is the pain that will follow.  And it WILL follow.  Except for the super rich.  
Don't get me wrong, I believe in, and actually do, pay my full tax rate. Honestly.  I take no deductions.  At all.  Why?  Because I believe that the tax money I pay goes to fund programs that I have used to my advantage, and many that I continue to use.  In a sense, I'm just paying the system back for that I "borrowed".  And it's important to remember that we have the luxury of having a national freeway system, not a national toll-road system.  We have a national park system that is the match of any.  We have institutions of higher learning that are subsidized by our tax payments that provide education for those who wouldn't be able to pay the rate that for-profit, private institutions charge.  We have a Coast Guard that keeps our nation's shoreline safe from invasion, and rescues us when we tip over our boats or our cruise goes awry, not to mention the heroic work they do for the fishermen of our oceans.  We have a military that keeps us as safe as they possibly can from foreign invasion and whose clandestine work often goes unheralded, and unappreciated; but not for certain military units dismantling terrorist cells worldwide BEFORE they can reach our shores, bombings and other acts of terrorism would be as common place here in America as in parts of the Middle East, if not more so.  
But, we have rancor and dissent, too.  We have a new political faction that feels that taxes are evil and should be repealed, eliding the fact that many of the services they take for granted would simply vanish without them.  We also have a segment which believes that government should provide for them cradle-to-grave, despite the fact that we have a national debt that's staggering and not one, but two political party entities which purport to represent the will of an America that wishes them gone, dead, divorced from the marriage of our union.  
So, what path do we take out of our morass?  I know no one  with a crystal ball who can provide that answer.  But I do know this for certain:  If we do not address, civilly, all of the issues which plague our nation then we can expect that divorce to happen sooner rather than later.  It would not surprise me to see the new South attempt secession again.  I could foresee the Midwest going along with them.  But I also have faith in our ability to weather even this perfect storm.  Perfect shit storm, would be more like it.  And it's all of our own making.  
Failing to have a real leader with real, prudent ideas...not a Ronald Reagan whose trumped-up legacy is as much a fiction as any children's fairy tale...means that we'll continue to stagnate and will take our places as a has-been along with Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal.  What we need is an FDR, a George Washington, or an Abraham Lincoln.  We need someone with the clarity of mind, the willpower, and the charisma to lead us to a new place, a new road at the least, one that would take us to a common goal of respect for our fellows, civility in politics, and concern for our fellow planetary citizens.  What we don't need is one of the loony tunes nut-fudge-fringe candidates put forth by some, today.  We don't need leaders who seek to serve only their benefactors.  We don't need leaders who seek to lead by division like so many in our current situation.  We need someone who will lead us firmly together while respecting our differences, but like a good nanny or school teacher, one who will glance sternly at the offending parties to quieten them to maintain order while never stopping, slowing, or looking over her shoulder to see if the kids are following; she will know they are because they're holding hands, not pushing and shoving and trying each to run his own way. 
And perhaps that's the real problem:  We've forgotten as adults what we were taught in kindergarten - how to be nice to one another, share and share alike, and that everyone has to do her and his part to make the project work, whether it's the kid who came to school chauffeured in luxury or the poor kid with the hand-me-down wardrobe who rode the bus.  Everyone.  Together.  "...One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all".