If you’ve been paying attention over… THE LAST DECADE, we’ve been bombarded with one thing to fear after the other. Remember when all the computers were going to crash and send us back to the stone age? They called it “Y2K.” We bought generators, stored food, prepared for the Apocalypse. Well, at least I did. Yeah, they got me. A lot of merchants got paid though.
9/11 The Fear Of Terrorism
Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. That was certainly an international tragedy! We lost close to 4,000 United States Citizens that day. We saw the “Twin Towers” fall and the Pentagon hit. They used our own air planes against us. Yes, we were angry, but our fear fanned the flame of that anger. Because of our fear and anger, we invaded two countries, one of which had NOTHING to do with the attacks. We’ve lost more lives fighting over there than we lost on “911.” If you count the maimed and wounded, our casualties are easily over 30,000. Yet, in that exact same year, we lost 37,862 people in fatal car accidents. Not one move was made to outlaw automobiles or restrict driving. Why?
Fear is what drives our economy. Fear is why our gasoline prices fluctuate wildly from day to day. Start a rumor about an oil spill or a slow down in production anywhere in the world, and like lemmings going over a cliff, oil speculators will drive the price of gas through the roof. Fear is both expensive and profitable.
When we go to war, large industrial corporations make billions! War is good for their businesses. All of them have full time, paid lobbyist who lobby your representatives. Whom do you think your representatives, represent? You or them?
Political Fear
With the election of our first Black President, there has been the constant drumbeat of fear. I don’t know how white people – those who haven’t gone insane – keep their sanity. “We’re becoming socialist!” Ever hear that? Next time you do, ask the person saying it to define socialism. Bet you almost anything they won’t be able to. Fire departments, police departments, ambulance services and public schools are technically socialism. We seem to have done alright down through the years with these institutions.
Race Fear
Zombie Apocalypse?
Nit wits such as Bill O’Reilly predicted that if George Zimmerman were acquitted, this nation would erupt in race riots. I wonder how many frightened white people got their guns, ammo and hunkered down for that one? We hear terms like “Zombie Apocalypse!” We all know what that means. The Zombies are the inner city urban people – Blacks and other minorities – who are going to come to the suburbs and rural areas to kill white people and take what they’ve got. The NRA sure makes a bunch of money feeding this fear. Gun manufactures make money feeding this fear. Conservative talk radio gets listeners by feeding this fear and their advertisers make money feeding this fear. Buy gold! Buy Silver! Question, what is a gold coin worth? If you’re starving, it is just about worth a single slice of bread.
Because of fear, we allow ourselves to be subjected to invasive searches and body scans whenever we fly and we allow our children to be groped. Why? The rules were rewritten by flight 93 on September 11, 2001. You no longer need to search anyone getting on a plane. If a terrorist pulled out a sub machine gun he’d get beaten to death by the passengers before he could holler “Allah Akbar!”
Police State?
Because of fear we are watching our nation and the nations of the world, turn into “Police States.” Police departments are armed damn near as heavily as army combat units. They have their own armored personnel carriers, helicopters with FLIR and other various weapons systems. They patrol our streets in “Jackboots” with armor and full automatic weapons. Yet, we don’t seem to mind because we’ve deluded ourselves into *believing* that they’re keeping us safe… but who will keep us safe from them?
Rule By Fear
It’s all one big game. The objective is absolute control and subjugation of the population. Consider poor white people during the time of Slavery in the United States. Talk about being had! These poor fools supported the very institution that was keeping them in poverty! The mind control trigger was in convincing them that because of their skin color, they were better than the Slaves. Never mind the fact that they weren’t really living any better. Some were living worse off than the Slaves. On the plantation the Slaves were fed.
They should have joined forces.
Why were these white people poor? They were poor because they were out of work. Who was in a position to hire? The plantation owners of course. However, why should they hire white people whom they’d have to pay a wage, when they could make the Black Slaves do the work for free?
We had a commonality of interest that was derailed by deluding these poor white people to focus on race and skin color. If they’d been smart, they’d of been fighting to free the Slaves. Freed slaves would have meant that the plantation owners would have to hire them and pay them a wage. That money would have made it possible for them to move up the social ladder, and build a better life for them and their own children.
Nothing has changed! You can see poor white people, blinded by racism, wanting to kick all the undocumented workers out of this country under the impression that these people from south of or border are costing them jobs. Many of these people are wearing clothes that they purchased from Walmart. They’re buying groceries to put on their tables, from Walmart. The irony approaches the surreal!
Fear Of Immigrants
Let’s call it what it is.
Hispanic people come to this country, undocumented or not, work here, pay taxes here, buy goods and services here and for the most part, the money stays right here. They contribute to our economy. When you shop at Walmart – we really should call it by its true name, China-Mart – the people manufacturing the products you buy are in China. Many times working in slave conditions. They do not pay taxes here, nor do they support the American economy. They are the cause of American factories and plants closing and our jobs going to China. Big business gets richer and you get poorer. Don’t focus on the *real* problem. Fear people who don’t look exactly like you do. They must be the problem! Not big business. We are gullible and being ruled by a fear that has no merit, but has been fostered and fed to keep us distracted from the real problems. The reality? In the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, “We have nothing to fear, but fear itself!” It is time to dispose of childish fears.
Germany didn’t wake up one fine morning to discover they were under the dictatorship of Adolph Hitler. It was a gradual process. Hitler *seemed* quite sane with the best interests of Germany at heart. Hitler’s first act upon coming to power was not to open death camps. That came later. His was a subtle dance of seduction. Rarely does great evil spring upon a people full blown. It begins as a little cloud in the sky. The weather is beautiful a few days before a hurricane.
We are at a fork in the road. Fortunately, we have the advantage of being able to look at history. I personally do not believe in coincident. Everything that happens is the result of cause and effect. Often the *cause*is plotted and planned in dimly lit, cigar smoke filled rooms. The *effect* is designed to take you by surprise.
We need to decide what type of society we’re going to become. Those who are enlightened and evolved, care little about the ethnic designation of those in charge, we care only about their integrity and competence. We recognize the mutual commonality of humanity. We all share the same needs. Safety, opportunity, a clean environment and being able to educate our children such that each successive generation will surpass the last. We also care about the welfare of our fellowmen. We understand that as a society we are no richer than the poorest amongst us. For us to prosper, we all must prosper together.
Unfortunately, there exists a dark cabal who are more concerned with securing and maintaining power for those of their own ethnic designation. For them, power and control is the objective. If you’ve been paying attention, you can see them sliding the pieces in place to set up a society that does not represent the lofty goals, hopes and dreams of the majority of U.S. Citizens. Rather than pass a Jobs Bill to put people back to work rebuilding our infrastructure, they’d rather take another meaningless vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act which will provide health care for children and poor families. Rather than fund our system of education, they’d rather give away billions in subsides to oil companies that don’t need them.
Though we cannot see the wind, we can mark its passage by the leaves it blows and the grass it bends. Thus it is by looking at the areas receiving their most ardent focus, we can determine their true motives. Look. Pay attention and connect the dots.
Ask almost anyone in these United States, “what are the top 3 issues facing our nation” and you’ll get pretty much the same answer: Jobs. Jobs. Jobs. What there is little agreement on, is the cause of the problem and the solutions to the problem. Axiomatically, before one can solve a problem, one must define the problem. To define the problem one must understand the problem. It is time to take a hard look at how and why we find ourselves at this point and place in our history.
Greed Is Good – Gordon Gekko – Wall Street
A basic foundation of our Democracy is Capitalism. One of the fundamental premises of Capitalism is that people will do what is in their own selfish interests. Where they work, what they buy, how they vote, the fundamental premise is that people will look out for “number 1” before all others. You raise capital because you have an idea you believe is profitable. I invest in your idea – give you capital – because I’m anticipating a nice – ROI – Return On my Investment. Or, as Gordon Gekko says, it is all about “greed.” I’m greedy to make more money without having to do anything but loan money. You’re willing to go into debt to me and other investors because you’re anticipating all of the money you’ll eventually make.
Government’s Role
The 10th Amendment which recognizes that any powers not specifically enumerated within the United States Constitution, remain within the province of the various States, has as it’s basis the premise that local government being closer to the needs/greed, issues and concerns of the citizen, is much more responsive and reflective of those needs.
It does make a certain amount of sense. Farmers in Iowa are going to have a different set of issues and concerns than bankers in New York. People who work in a Steel Mill in Cleveland are going to have a different set of concerns than peanut farmers in Georgia or cotton growers in Mississippi. The theory is, communities govern themselves much more efficiently than a centrally located federal government. Again we embrace the theory that greed or selfishness with regard to issues works best when it comes to government.
Corporations
Ayn Rand High Priestess of the Virtue of Selfishness. Darling of Paul Ryan and Guru of the Republican philosophy
The problem of course is, when you take the “virtue of selfishness” – thank you Ayn Rand – turn it into a fundamental principle and apply it across the board. Suddenly you have businesses and corporations operating on this exact same premise. To wit: do what is best for the corporation and everything else will take care of it’s self. This requires quite a leap of faith, since there haven’t been any real studies done – at least that I’m aware of – which have actually studied the effect on society of a “me first, damn everyone else, philosophy.”
Corporations exist for two purposes only. The first is to become as profitable as possible. The second is to grow as large as possible. These two objectives may not be what is best for our planet or it’s population. Balance is critical to the health of all living organisms. Make no mistake about it, our planet, this Earth is a living Biosphere. When things get out of balance, whatever it takes, balance will always be restored. One way or another.
Usually the largest cost for any corporation is labor. It is also the one cost over which management of the corporation can exercise the most control. The cost of supplies, raw materials, the building, land etc., are fixed costs. The labor however, can be manipulated relatively easily.
Unions Fight Back
Children Working in a Textile Mill
Collective bargaining – Unions – were created to protect the workers. Before Unions you worked 7 days a week. You had no vacations, no sick days, no benefits, no healthcare. Children could work in factories, mines and scampered along the steel girders of “sky scrapers.” There was the very real danger that going off to work in the morning might be the last time your family, wife and children would see you alive.
You were paid a pittance for your labor and the company owner – usually a “robber baron” – kept all the profits. Unions changed everything. The conditions for the workers improved. Children no longer could work when they were supposed to be in school. Profits were shared with the employees and the “middle class” was born. Prior to Unions, there was little to no upward mobility within our society. If you were not born rich, chances were you were going to die in poverty.
The only people who could afford a higher education were the wealthy. Thus, one could not better one’s self through education. It simply was not available. Remember the “Gold Rushes” in the 1800’s? The only chance you had for upward mobility was to strike it rich. People were willing to endure unbelievable hardships for the opportunity to have financial security. Unfortunately, without the education to go along with it, there were a lot of people who became millionaires but still died penniless. They did not know what to do with their money. They did not understand how to invest it or what to invest it in.
Return of the Robber Barons
“The Strong Takes From the Weak and the Smart Takes From the Strong.”
The “Robber Barons” and their bastard offspring, the modern mega- corporations have not forgotten their “Golden Age.” They are doing everything they can to return to those times of rapacious profits and the labor force is their primary target.
Union Workers On Strike for a Living Wage.
Unions and collective bargaining have always been their arch enemy. Their technique and methodology has been subtle and insidious. The first thing they did was get the government to pass laws to protect workers. This may seem counter intuitive until you realize, by doing this, they’ve been laying the ground work to make the argument that Unions are obsolete. We now have OSHA laws to protect workers in the work place. We’ve got child labor laws to protect children. You get the picture. The next step was to use their media outlets to begin disseminating the idea that Unions were the reason for the high costs of goods and services.
You must never forget, our media is totally corporate owned. The stories you read, programs you watch are controlled, approved and directed by powers and people with agendas you never see, never hear about and do not know exist. As a friend once advised me, “whenever I hear something in the media, I always ask myself, why do they want me to believe this.” I’ve found this to be invaluable advice. Everything that happens, happens for a reason. For every effect, there is a cause. There are no coincidences.
“I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be so low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one — and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God’s great open spaces..” __Henry Ford
Henry Ford
Looking out for and treating workers fairly has always been good for business. Henry Ford realized this and built Ford Motor Company on the principles of paying his workers enough money so that they could afford to purchase the products they were assembling. Thus, he had a built in customer base.
Somewhere along the line, businesses, corporations and industry rejected Henry Ford’s wisdom. It has become “open season” on the American workforce.
Globalization – That New World Order
I was a virgin when I got married for the first time at the tender age of 23. I heard you were supposed to talk and really get to know one another during the courtship phase. To that end, my prospective wife and I talked about anything and everything. From how many children we wanted, to finances – always an important issue – and of course sex. “Oh,” she said, “once we’re married, why you can have it any time and as often as you’d like!” Damn! That sounded good! As those of you who have been married already know… Boy was I in for a surprise!
What was promised, sold and delivered… turned out to be nothing like what I had envisioned. Thus it was with the promises made when it came to the wonders of globalization!
President Nixon greets Chairman Mao
In 1972 when President Richard M. Nixon went to China, all the talk was about how a whole new market was being opened up. There would be billions of Chinese just waiting to buy American products. Our economy would boom trying to keep up with the Chinese demand for American goods and services. So, how’d that turn out? Like my first marriage… not well!
Sleeping With The Enemy
Young woman in a Chinese sweatshop assembling Nike shoes
To be fair, it has turned out pretty well for the “neo-Robber Barons” of today. We began to get our first intimations of what was going on back in the early 80’s. Some of you will remember? There were a series of news stories that exposed the working conditions in 3rd World countries where some of our popular athletic shoes were being manufactured. Nike was heavily criticized for their practice of manufacturing and assembling shoes for sale and distribution here in America, that were made in 3rd World “sweatshops.”
A popular Nike shoe
The new model was make it there and sell it here. Because of their extensive marketing campaigns we did not seem to mind that their $80 – $150 dollar shoes only cost about $5 dollars to make and were being manufactured by – in some cases – children working 14 hour days for $50 cents an hour. Nike shoes became a fashion statement and we just had to have them.
Other companies took notice. If you could manufacture your product in a part of the world without minimum wage laws, without having to pay for benefit packages such as healthcare, payroll taxes, social security etc. what a deal! The steady exodus of jobs began.
Why Congressional Bills Are Written By Lawyers
Believe it or not, short, simple contracts are often the hardest to break.
If you’ve ever looked at a piece of congressional legislation, I’m sure you found it long, wordy, hard to read and even more difficult to understand. This of course is by design. It accomplishes several things. The first of course is the insertion of loopholes. Lawyers and our courts would be out of business if laws and contracts were written in plain English. There would be no dispute over our intent. If you and I wrote up a contract saying, “You were going to paint my house for $1,200 and I was going to supply the paint.” We sign and date it and it’s an enforceable contract. It could easily be written on a napkin.
IRS Tax Code
When you have a bill that’s 500 pages or more long, you’d best believe there’s plenty of chicanery buried in that bill. Who’s responsible? Lobbyist are. This is what they get paid big bucks to do. Our tax code is an excellent example. It would take you longer to read all the way through it than it would take you to read your King James version of your Bible… twice! What’s worse? It’s much more difficult to understand. Buried within our tax code are such gems as:
A Foreign Tax Credit.
Companies pay taxes on their profits to foreign nations, usually at a reduced rate because of tax incentives given them by that nation to open a manufacturing plant there. Then they get a deduction from the IRS for foreign taxes paid.
Reinvestment In The Foreign Location.
The American company has the option, or loophole as some have called it, to reinvest the profits made in the foreign country back into the foreign location. If the profits are never transferred to the company in the United States, the company is not required to pay taxes on those profits. These profits are used to expand overseas operations and remain not taxable by the IRS. The IRS calls this money, “Unrepatriated Earnings”, and the total of unrepatriated earnings reaches well into the $600 billion range.
Savings On Payroll Taxes
For many corporations in the United States payroll expense represents half of their total expenses every year. Overseas companies do not have the employer contributions, unemployment taxes and the minimum wages that contribute to the large expenditure that it is in this country. Coupled with the literally thousands of people in other nations for whom a $7.00 per hour job would be a windfall, many companies see these tax benefits as more than making up for the negative publicity and the constant campaign against outsourcing.
Hitting The Snooze Button
The alarm clock has been ringing and the American people are starting to wake up! As the “Middle Class” sees it’s self decline, along with a shrinking job market, they’re becoming concerned. They should be! If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve noticed sleeping potion has been delivered through our media. The first concoction was a dose of “the American worker is not competitive on the World Market.” This was back during our trade war with Japan.
Rising Sun Movie Poster
The movie “Rising Sun” (1993) starring Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes, based on a book by Michael Crichton, was a fictional account of the very real business philosophy of Japanese corporations. They were in essence dumping products onto our markets to gain market share. It wasn’t until our Government began fighting back that things evened out. The Japanese wanted to sell their cars in our market. Thus we demanded that they not only open their markets for the sell of American made and manufactured cars, but that they build manufacturing plants here in America and employ American workers.
There was some hemming and hawing at first, but things got better for both countries when the doctrines of fairness and fair trade were introduced into the equation. Nevertheless, at first the excuse for the imbalance in trade was to blame the American worker for not being as competitive and competent as his Japanese counterpart.
Blame It On Mexico
The next dose of sleeping potion has been to place the blame for the loss of American jobs, on illegal immigrants. The party line is, they’re sneaking across our southern border at night to steal our good American jobs.
Undocumented Migrant Workers
It is not that I wonder whether or not there is intelligent life in the Universe. I wonder if there is intelligent life right here in these United States! I really have to take my hat off to the corporate propaganda machine that has silly “Red Necks” screaming about building a fence across our entire southern border and staying up all night with night vision goggles and walkie-talkies trying to catch Pedro. Waste your time on any and everything except, rounding up and arresting corporate CEO’s who hire and employ undocumented workers. It’s lunacy. It’s like watching someone try to go up the “down escalator.” After you’ve had a good laugh, you really should take them by the hand and lead them around to the up “escalator.”
Scene from the Untouchables starring Costner and Connery.
It is like that scene in the movie “The Untouchables” starring Kevin Costner. I’m referring to the scene where Sean Connery’s character is giving him the “how far are you prepared to go speech?” Everybody knew where the booze was. The problem was that the money had corrupted, government, law enforcement and the courts. Sort of sounds like what we’ve got going on today doesn’t it?
They know where all the factories, meat packing plants and farms employing undocumented workers are. The problem is, our prices are now based on exploiting the cheap – though invaluable – labor these workers provide. The equation is simple. The lower the labor cost the higher the profits. The more profitable the company the larger the compensation package for the CEO.
Stop and think! When is the last time you or someone you know, filled out an application to pick fruit on a farm? When is the last time you or someone you know filled out an application to work in a meat packing plant? How about cleaning an office building at night? It is all smoke and mirrors. A shell game. It is based on misdirection. Focus on the undocumented workers simply trying to make enough to get by. Pay no attention to the owners of the corporations!
Outsourcing
One China is Enough
The average annual salary of an American middle class worker is right in the neighborhood of $48,000 dollars. The average annual salary of a Chinese middle class worker is less than $7,000 dollars U.S. See the problem? There is no way that the American worker can compete with a Chinese worker. To do so America would have to become like China. I don’t think this is what we want. Truth be told, it’s not what “big business” wants either. Why? Because people making $7,000 a year cannot afford the products they must sell to remain profitable.
Sensata Made over $450 million in profit during their 4th quarter. It wasn’t enough and the plant is being moved from Illinois to China.
Outsourcing will ultimately bring down American corporations. Outsourcing is like heroine being injected into the veins of corporate America. It may feel euphoric at first, but eventually there is going to be a fatal overdose. As more and more Americans lose their jobs to outsourcing, the American market will contract and there will be no one able to purchase those new iPads, SmartPhones, automobiles or new homes. Families will be unable to send their children to college. Indeed it becomes pointless to obtain a college education when there will be no jobs guaranteeing you can pay back your “student loans.”
Colleges and Universities will begin to fail and we will no longer produce the people necessary to maintain our society. Doctors, teachers, engineers, scientists, computer programmers, the people who have designed and invented American society and culture will vanish.
The Future Of The Path We’re On
Damage from Hurricane Katrina
Those post-apocalyptic movies we’ve all seen about a dystopian future will become prophetic. It is already happening around us right now. Hurricane Katrina devastated our Gulf Coast. That was seven years ago and we still haven’t fully recovered and rebuilt. What’s worse, the hi-tech preventive measures that need to be put in place, have not been because we simply cannot afford it. When your philosophy is to shrink government to the size you can drown it in a bathtub, you discover that nature and the oceans may drown you first.
A dystopian future is a great setting for a movie… but not in real life. This is how Hurricane Sandy left a portion of New Jersey. Can we rebuild?
Now we see that New York is equally at risk. Hurricane Sandy dealt a devastating blow to an area of the Country that has basked in the delusion that they were largely immune from the types of storms that hit the Gulf Coast . We need “Storm Surge Barriers” similar to the ones in Amsterdam. These types of projects require significant government expenditures. Where does the government get it’s revenue? From taxes, both corporate and personal.
They’ve got Storm Surge Barriers in Amsterdam. Why can’t we build them here? Oh, right! That might involve raising taxes…
When corporations outsource jobs to China and other places, American workers lose their jobs. If they’re not working, they’re not paying income taxes. When corporations take advantage of loopholes in the tax system, when rich people are not paying their fair share, we do not have the revenue stream to repair and rebuild after a natural disaster.
Let’s say you live in Wyoming or somewhere and you feel that hurricanes are the least of your worries, where is your money invested? Where is your pension fund? What stocks are held in your mutual fund and or annuities? You may not live on the Atlantic seaboard or on the Gulf Coast, but believe me, you took a sizeable hit along with everyone else. We’re all in this together and yes, you’re affected too.
Outsourcing Our Way To Poverty
Small Business Owners are affected when their customer base becomes unemployed. We’re ALL in this together.
You may feel relatively secure because you are self-employed or own your own business. What you need to understand is, in order for you to survive, you need a customer base. When people in your community are out of work, your business takes a hit. Think about this the next time a factory closes and ships it’s jobs overseas.
You just lost a percentage of your customer base. Yes, outsourcing affects you. When people have to make those hard decisions with regard to rent/mortgage, food, clothing and transportation, there is no money left to patronize your “ice cream parlor,” car wash, or whatever your business is. You need to be concerned and you need to not only support those workers who’ve lost their jobs due to outsourcing. You need to become an activist.
Greed
Is this fair?
Let’s go back to where we began. Believe it or not, it actually is in your own selfish best interest to look out for your fellow man. The better he does, the better you can do. The more he achieves, the more you can achieve. I’m not talking about those CEO’s who are raping the profits from their companies and giving their employees the down elevator shaft. They’re not putting their money back into the community any ways. This is why painting them as the “job creators” is such nonsense. If I give $100,000 dollars to a poor person, that person is going to spend it to buy goods and services. If I give that same $100,000 to a millionaire, they’re going to tuck it away with all their other 100’s of thousands of dollars and it will not be circulated back into the economy.
The people who will spend that money – the poor and middle class – are the ones patronizing your business and creating demand for your products or services. It is thatdemand that causes businesses to have to hire more people and that is what creates jobs!
Do me a favor, the next time one of your Republican associates starts reciting his silly talking points and mentions “illegal immigration” as a huge problem, ask him how many American jobs Mexicans have outsourced to China? Enjoy the ensuing silence.
trea·son (trzn)
n.
1. Violation of allegiance toward one’s country or sovereign, especially the betrayal of one’s country by waging war against it or by consciously and purposely acting to aid its enemies.
2. A betrayal of trust or confidence.
It has been said that a Democracy will only last as long as it takes the citizenry to figure out they can vote themselves money out of the treasury. I would like to add my corollary to this: A Republic will only last as long as it takes the Plutocrats to figure out a way to buy the Democratically elected Representatives. This pretty much sums up where we are today. But how did we get here? It was not always this way. While a thorough examination of the history of this nation is beyond the scope of this article, there are some milestones, some key indicators that show an America that might have been had we not allowed the greed of a few to seduce us from the path of progress.
The Bankers
You can see how much of the world lives in poverty, merely by looking at the lights.
What is the biggest concern in the world today? Food? Medical care? Access to technology? Education? Clean water? All these things are vitally important to be sure, but none of them are within reach without access to energy. Energy makes modern life possible. When our Earth is viewed from Space at night, you can tell where the wealth, industry and technology centers are merely by looking at the portions which are lit up. You can tell where poverty is by noting the darkness. Imagine what this planet would look like, where we’d be if people everywhere had access to abundant free energy. It almost happened.
Nikola Tesla and Wardenclyffe Tower
In 1903 Nikola Tesla was finishing up work on his “Wardenclyffe Tower.” It was built with the backing of financier J.P. Morgan. Yes, the same J.P. Morgan now associated with the J.P.Morgan/Chase name. It was nearing completion when Mr. Morgan learned that it would transmit electrical power for free through the air. Upon learning this, he was stunned. He immediately withdrew his backing causing the project to halt just prior to completion. Why did he do this? As it turns out, J.P. Morgan was heavily invested in copper and had anticipated making a fortune off of the copper wiring needed to bring electricity into each and every home and business. Had Nikola Tesla’s project come on line, Morgan’s profit stream would have vanished like a light fog on a windy day.
J.P. Morgan
We were that close! Imagine a world with no power outages. A world where electricity was free. A world where power could be brought to every hamlet and village without the need to run wiring. Power to run pumps for water. Power to run your electric vehicle with no need for a battery. Power to run factories and food processing plants. Think of how much cleaner the air would be. Mountains and hilltops that have been strip mined for coal would still be in their pristine condition. Streams that were defiled by slag and run off from the mining process would be clear and clean. There never would have been a BP oil spill because we wouldn’t need oil except for the production of some polymers. Our demands for that could be easily filled by the oil wells we already have.
The banking houses were not finished with us by a long shot. There has been a war for primacy which has been going on between banking houses for maybe 1,000’s of years. It started in the “Old World” and moved here. Just as with the Hollywood serials we grew up with, Banking Houses have been having showdowns and shoot-outs with the American economy caught in the crossfire. Make no mistake, this game is about global domination and in the words of the Highlander, “there can be only one.”
Think of the movie Underworld. The movie about a war between Vampires and Lycans. Society was blissfully unaware – as sheep often are – of the battles raging all around them. Though unstated in the movie, the ultimate prize was to have the human population as a prey item all to themselves. The banking houses like packs of Werewolves were battling between themselves using full automatic weapons and hand grenades. It occurred to some of them that in their fight for supremacy, the very people who’s harvested money made their profits possible were being destroyed. The “Great Depression” was symptomatic of this.
Run on the American Union Bank during the Great Depression
Stock manipulation, insider trading, leaking of false information caused bank stocks to plummet and the blood letting was fierce. J.P. Morgan and others were behind this. In the process people lost everything. So vicious were these internecine banking wars, people were rapidly losing confidence in the entire banking system. The only purpose for banking – particularly at that time – was the assumption that it was safer to store your money at a bank than under your mattress at home. It was being proven in the most poignant way possible that this was simply not the case. If people began taking their money out of banks, the entire banking system would collapse and none of the Banking Houses would make any money. In fact, like a virus this realization could spread to Europe and the global game for world domination could come crashing down. Something had to be done and it had to be done quickly.
The Not So Federal Reserve
Just as smart farmers practice crop rotation and soil conservation, the Banking Industry needed a set of rules and guidelines to protect the crop of human sheep they depended upon for economic sustenance . Think about how bad things must have been for natural rivals, foes and in some cases outright enemies, to come together and put in place rules and regulations limiting to what extent they could “gut” the American people.
J.P. Morgan family’s Jekyll Island Resort
In 1910 a group of high ranking banking cartel members met on Jekyll Island – a resort island off the coast of Georgia owned by J.P. Morgan – to draft the plans for a “Central Bank” that would serve to regulate how much blood letting banks could do and protect the crop of American sheep so desperately needed for their profits to continue. Although there were several fully owned, bought and paid for Congressmen present, the Federal Reserve law was crafted and written in it’s entirety by the Banking Houses. It was a law for the Bankers, of the Bankers and by the Bankers. The U.$. citizens were being sold into slavery. The dollar sign actually stands for the “slave behind bars.” Fitting.
President Kennedy
Think about it this way. If I owe you a sum of money… but the only money you will accept in payment is money I have to borrow from you, will I ever be able to pay off my debt? This is the Federal Reserve System in a nutshell. Back when the national debt was only $400 million dollars – owed to the Federal Reserve – President John Fitzgerald Kennedy realized the scam being perpetrated on the American people. On June 4, 1963 he issued Executive Order 11110.This order brought the printing of money back under the Federal Government. These dollars printed became known as “Red T-Notes” or “Red Treasury Bills” instead of the “Green Treasury Seal” you’re so accustomed to seeing, the seals on these bills were printed in “red.” President Kennedy paid off our national debt and America was debt free. 5 months later he was dead. One of the first acts by President Lyndon Baines Johnson was
Red Treasury Bill issued under President Kennedy. Did it cost him his life?
to put us back under the Federal Reserve. Coincidence? Only if you believe in the “accidental theory of history.” To my Republican friends, that’s right, the only time in living memory when the entire national debt was paid off was under a Democratic President. I suspect it cost him his life.
Treason
The Banking Houses are by no means the only villains we’ve had to contend with. Wealthy Industrialist, owners of some of the largest corporations of their time, were supplying and supporting the NAZI war machine at the same time our boys were fighting and dying to stem the tide of Nazism and liberate Europe. Below is a partial list of some of the companies and industrialist that supported Hitler and supplied the Nazi war machine with much needed goods and services.
J.P. Morgan
Rockefeller
Henry Ford
Prescott Bush (Grandfather of President G.W. Bush)
General Electric Company
Standard Oil
National City Bank
Chase Manhattan Bank
Kuhn Loeb and Company
General Motors
Ford Motors
DuPont
Warburg Manhattan Bank
Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH)
International Business Machines (IBM)
These are but a few of the companies and industrialist who put profits above American lives. Did they have to wring the American blood from those dollars before stacking them in their vaults? Isn’t it comforting to know that these things are no longer happening today? Or are they?
Same Game With Players Added
First it was just the Banking Houses playing for total Global domination. The Game hasn’t changed. The goal is still the same. All we’ve done is added more players. No matter how it goes. No matter whom wins, for you the end objective remains the same. Your destiny is to be a totally controlled slave. Your only reason for existence will be to benefit and power their wealth. Nothing more. Nothing less. Here is the hard truth put in a way that is easy to understand.
All one need do is look around. What you see happening is not happening by random chance. It is not the chaos principle rolling the cosmic dice. What you see is the result of planning and scheming. When you’re not a part of the plan, chances are better than average, the plan doesn’t benefit you!
Grazing Our Way to the Slaughterhouse
The Judas Goat leading sheep into the Slaughterhouse
Anyone who’s ever taken “Economics 101,” was taught three seminal principles. The first is that the self-regulating “Invisible Hand of the Market” is the best, most efficient way to run an economy. The second is “Supply and Demand.” As supply goes up, demand goes down and vice versa. According to your instructor this is what causes the fluctuations in price. The third principle is what is known as the “Guns vs. Butter Paradigm.” The more you spend of your Gross Domestic Product on “guns” – hard items, infrastructure what have you – the less of your GDP you can spend on “Butter” – the luxury items – such as entertainment, ball games, nights out to the cinema or more relevantly, PBS, Sesame Street and Big Bird.
It makes sense. It is easy to understand. It can be regurgitated on demand for tests… and it’s all a total fantasy! I can prove it to you right now. Consider the price of gas. Republicans will tell you that gas is so high because President Obama won’t let Big Oil drill in our National Parks and other precious federal lands. Yet, when you look at the actual facts – something Republicans run from like they’re the plague – Oil production is at an all time high. Thus the supply from the United
Note the wild fluctuations in gas prices? They’ve got nothing to do with oil production.
States – which by the way only controls 20% of the worlds oil reserves – is higher than what it was under the Bush Administration. If the price of gas had anything to do with the supply of oil from the United States, our gas prices should be hovering around $1.40 per gallon. One myth down. Two to go.
The Not So Invisible Hand Of The Market
What about the “Invisible Hand of the Market?” The problem with this myth goes to the definition of “Free Market.” Take the Stock Market. Is the Stock Market free? Of course it isn’t. To be free everybody would have to have equal information. Equal ignorance and equal opportunity to buy and sell. You only make a profit in the stock market one of two ways. You have the luck of the Irish – not that the Irish have ever been particularly lucky – or you know something your fellow traders do not yet know. For example. A buddy of mine calls me up and gives me a stock tip. A company he’s working for is about to bring a new widget to the market. Their stock is about to “spike” up significantly. I call my broker and buy 5,000 shares. Sure enough, within a month I’ve tripled my initial investment. Is this the Free Market at work? Of course not. He could have just as easily told me that he’d gotten word that the profit and loss statements due to be released were going to show a loss for the quarter and that I should sell.
Stock Market Analyst – Jim Cramer of Mad Money
They’re not even bashful about things any longer. They pay analyst huge sums of money to predict what a stock is likely to do. Investors live by those reports. It never occurs to them, these analyst might be getting a check under the table to upgrade or downgrade a stock to benefit the bottom line of some huge corporation. Is the Market free? Of course not! If I know something you don’t know then I have an advantage. When it comes to money there is nothing some people and corporations will not do to gain an advantage. Am I saying they are all corrupt? No, of course not. However, how do you know which ones are and which ones are not?
What happens if I use my gun to take your butter?
The “Guns vs. Butter” paradigm is probably the most easy to see through. Sure it makes sense in the civilized confines of the economics classroom. It’s an excellent exercise in erudition to juggle the numbers, plug them into spreadsheets and watch the colorful graphs and projections tumble across your screen. The real world is quite a bit different however. What happens if I simply spend allmy GDP on guns, then come and take your butter? This worked for Russia and led to the formation and consolidation of the Soviet Union. It worked for Hitler and brought us WWII. In point of fact, this is exactly how many countries in the real world work. All that stuff they taught you in school is just a fantasy. It gives you just the background trivia you need to become a trainable drone for the corporate machine.
TREASON! How America was Bought, Stolen and Sold!
In my perfect world, all those who worship at the altar of capitalism would be rounded up and put into an institution for the criminally insane. Sound harsh? Perhaps. However, when we look at some of the things that have been done to the American people in the name of Capitalism and the free market I think my response is actually rather mild.
Hey Waiter! There’s a Fly in my mashed potatoes!
In truth when one examines American corporations and their history, one might be looking at a book review for “Angels and Demons.” There have been some corporations that have been very beneficial to these United States and whom were essential for it’s growth and development. However, if I set before you a steaming bowl of mashed potatoes with a large pat of butter melting in a pond on top… and you look down and notice a large green housefly swimming in that butter, what do you see? All those nice fluffy mashed potatoes? Or that hideous housefly? Suppose I told you to just eat around the fly, would you? Perhaps if you merely fished the fly out? Would the potatoes be all better now? Somehow I get the feeling that the entire bowl of mashed potatoes would have to go.
So it is for me when I look at some of the horrific things corporations have done to the American people and the American Economy. It is not my purpose to give an exhaustive list, but I will hit a few highlights or perhaps we should call them “low-lights?”
ENRON a Tragedy in 2 Parts
ENRON Logo
Remember Enron? This mega-corporation nearly cornered the American Energy Market. Be it electrical, gas or oil, Enron had it’s fingers all in it. Things got so good for them, they began creating the demand to justify raising their prices by creating “rolling brown-outs” on the west coast during the height of the summer heat. These brown-outs were artificially induced. They caused auto-accidents and people died!
The first part of this tragedy is what was done to the entire west coast of our nation. The traffic accidents, people who died because ambulances couldn’t reach them in time or couldn’t get them to the hospital in time, What price would you place on those lives? What if it were a family member? Your grandmother suffering in the heat of an apartment or nursing home with no power. The only reason? To artificially inflate the price that a vastly overvalued stock was being traded at, and to artificially inflate the cost of energy. Had a foreign nation done this, we would have considered it an act of war. However because it was an American corporation, we bowed at the altar of Capitalism.
What Enron did in California and up the West Coast was the “bridge too far” that brought about their ultimate ruin. Market analyst were already noticing anomalies with their stock price. They began digging a little deeper. Once you come on the radar, people notice and start to investigate. The house of cards was starting to crumble. This response by then CEO of Enron, Ken Lay, to columnist, Paul Krugman on Mr. Krugman’s New York Times column pointing out that Enron was the quintessential example of why we need more regulation, Mr. Lay said the following:
“The broader goal of [Krugman’s] latest attack on Enron appears to be to discredit the free-market system, a system that entrusts people to make choices and enjoy the fruits of their labor, skill, intellect and heart. He would apparently rely on a system of monopolies controlled or sponsored by government to make choices for people. We disagree, finding ourselves less trusting of the integrity and good faith of such institutions and their leaders. The example Mr. Krugman cites of “financialization” run amok (the electricity market in California) is the product of exactly his kind of system, with active government intervention at every step. Indeed, the only winners in the California fiasco were the government-owned utilities of Los Angeles, the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. The disaster that squandered the wealth of California was born of regulation by the few, not by markets of the many.”
Here is a company who’s accounting practices were so corrupt they brought down Arthur Anderson one of the largest and most reputable accounting firms in the nation. They were hiding money in dummy companies all around the globe, they were transferring losses from Enron to other dummy companies and it all came crashing down when they attracted intense scrutiny because of their criminal conduct in managing the power and dealing with their customers on the west coast.
This brings us to part 2 of the tragedy. Many people had an awful lot of Enron stock in their portfolios and pension plans. A whole lot of people lost their shirts. If you had an IRA or a Pension plan back then, you probably took a hit as well. Although you may have never even considered buying Enron stock, the mutual funds that pensions and IRA’s invest in often have holdings investors are not aware of. One pension fund in Florida lost over $300 million when Enron’s stock dropped to $1. If you’re in your 20’s and just starting out, no big deal. However if you were close to retirement, that type of loss to a pension fund would be devastating.
Outsourcing
Uncle Sam in a Chinese work shop
There’s nothing quite like buying a brand new American Flag, reading the tag only to discover it was made in China! Here are a few facts. The average median income here in America is right around $48k per year. The average median income in China is around $6,700 per year. There is no way we can compete with those labor rates nor should we.
When an American worker makes $48k, out of that money comes taxes which support our schools, roads, infrastructure, police and fire departments, hospitals etc. Also, out of that $48k groceries are purchased which help the American farmer. Products are purchased at shopping malls which help other businesses. Cars are bought and maintained and the money that is paid to the American worker is circulated all throughout our economy benefiting all of us.
When that American worker’s job is outsourced to China, yes he’s in a world of hurt, but the reality is, all of us are hurt. Yet, many continue to graze like dumb sheep. The wolves grab one of their brethren and their position is, “well, at least it wasn’t me. He/She must have done something wrong.” This is a recipe for ultimate disaster. One by one the sheep are picked off until they finally get around to you. You are on the menu and they will get to you eventually.
Let’s say you’re retired and living happily on your pension and Social Security. The Social Security fund is set up on the premise that people who are currently working and paying their Social Security are funding the program for you. As more and more jobs are transferred out of the country, the Social Security fund will shrink. This is true for Medicare as well. No matter where you are, where you live, you are affected by factories closing and those jobs being sent to other countries. Even if you’re self-employed, you’re affected.
The Real Reason Jobs are outsourced.
The only way to compete with China is for us to become China. One China is enough. We do not want to lower our lifestyle to that of the people of China. You wouldn’t want to live here if we did. Thus when they talk about the American worker not being as competitive on the world market as the Chinese worker, understand what they’re really saying. What they’re saying is they don’t want to pay American wages period.
Sensata is a company in Freeport, IL. In the 4th quarter of 2011 they had a net revenue of $453.4 million dollars. This was up 16.9% from the 4th quarter of 2010. They were acquired by Bain Capital – Mitt Romney’s Company – and Bain decided that they could greatly increase their profits by moving operations to China. How much profit is enough? Do we sit quietly by while the wolves pick those employees off one by one? At what point do we rise up and say enough is enough? With each job shipped overseas we move one step closer to becoming a 3rd World Nation.
Corporate Misdirection
Make no mistake, the corporate objective is no different than the big banking houses. They too are playing a zero sum game for total global domination as well. If you’ve ever watched Survivor on CBS, this should be familiar to you. In the beginning of the game alliances are formed. People work together to eliminate other people in the group. The problem is, there can only be one winner. Thus you know at some point in the game, treachery will ensue. Someone is going to get stabbed in the back. I suppose some find this entertaining which is why the show is still on.
Right now corporations and industrialist are working together. They’re working to break up the Labor Unions that made the “Middle Class” possible. They’re working together to buy congressmen and by extension they’re stacking the courts, getting rid of regulations and slowly their noose is tightening around the necks of the American people. They’ve been working on their plan for years now. There has been a steady stream of propaganda that goes out over the talk radio networks they own, vilifying Labor Unions. Drip, drip, drip it’s been going on for years now. Most people have a dim view of Labor Unions. They forget that Labor Unions are the reason they only have to work 40 hr. weeks. Labor Unions are the reason that kids aren’t working in factories. It was Labor Unions that forced corporations to profit share with their employees. Labor Unions are the reason you have health care. Paid vacations? Labor Unions. Yet, many people now believe that Labor Unions have outlived their usefulness.
She’s angry about the wrong things.
Corporations spend copious sums of money lobbying and advertising. It’s all about control and if you think they’re not spending equal amounts of money to frame and shape the debate and conversation, you’re naive. The “Tea Party” is an excellent example of this. TEA Party = Taxed Enough Already Party. Most of these people aren’t even paying taxes to speak of. They’re out fighting against the very revenue stream that benefits them and will help them make it into the Middle Class or remain there if they’re borderline Middle Class.
A tax is a fee for services provided by the government. If your issue is all about how much you’re paying, shouldn’t you be focusing on the corporations that are gouging you at the gas pump, grocery store, interest rates and all those other things we purchase everyday? We can elect our public officials. We cannot elect those corporate board members who make the polices that really gouge our pocketbooks. The only agency that can protect us from them, is our government.
I’m not going to tell you that government is our saviour because it’s not. However, government is not our enemy. It is there to protect and serve the people and we do have control over our government through our vote. The large corporation that’s charging you usurious interest rates? The only advocate you have against them is government. This is why they’re trying to use you to hamstring government by putting the people they’ve already bought into power.
This is a zero sum game. The wolves are hungry and you’re on the menu. It has always been about the control and enslavement of the world. Unless you’re sitting in a spaceship with some sort of a warp drive, you don’t have a lot of options. We outnumber them. This is why one of their main techniques has been “divide and conquer.” Black against White against Latino. Man against woman, pseudo-rich against the poor. It’s all a game but it’s played “for keeps.”
TREASON! How America was Bought, Stolen and Sold
Think about the contrived “undocumented worker” problem. Why is everyone up in arms about shutting down our borders? It is an expensive, wild goose chase that won’t be effectve. Undocumented workers come here to work. If they really wanted to stop them from coming, there would be no need to play hide and go seek along the border. All you’d have to do is start arresting CEO’s and business owners who hire people who are here illegally. It is simple and cost effective and it would solve the problem with in a month, two months at the most.
The truth of the matter is, this is yet another case of corporate misdirection. They’ve got you looking at the border for the people who they’ve got working in their back rooms and factories. They’re telling you that the reason your pay check is so low is because of the people they’re hiring illegally. Instead of picketing these businesses and demanding the arrest of these employers, we’ll get shirt tail militias to sit in lawn chairs watching the border.
We complain about how bad things are and make noises about our jobs being shipped overseas and then go shop at Wal-Mart where most of their inventory comes from China. We have the power to choose. We should use it wisely. Don’t bank with banks who don’t have your best interests or this nation’s interest at heart. Don’t buy things not made in America. Don’t elect politicians who are owned by corporate America and for God’s sake! Do not vote Republican. At some point in the future? Maybe. However, right now, the Republicans have been co-opted by corporate interests that are antithetical to what is best for this nation.
I don’t want to live in a 3rd world nation. If I did, I could move to one. I like children having good schools. I like teachers to make a decent living. I like fire fighters, police and medical responders to be well paid. I like having our roads cleared in the winter and potholes filled in the spring. I think Social Security and Medicare are just fine the way they are. I believe we owe the young men and women who serve in our military a job when they get back and the peace of mind knowing that their families are well fed, cared for and bills paid while they’re gone. Gosh darnit! I want the pilots who are flying the plane paid well enough that they’re not distracted by thoughts of making ends meet while they’ve got my life in their hands at 30,000 feet. I’m not interested in a race to the bottom. I want us to race to the top. How do we do all this? The first step is you’ve got to wake up.
by Benjamin T. Moore, Jr.
Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. That was certainly an international tragedy! We lost close to 4,000 United States Citizens that day. We saw the “Twin Towers” fall and the Pentagon hit. They used our own air planes against us. Yes, we were angry, but our fear fanned the flame of that anger. Because of our fear and anger, we invaded two countries, one of which had NOTHING to do with the attacks. We’ve lost more lives fighting over there than we lost on “911.” If you count the maimed and wounded, our casualties are easily over 30,000. Yet, in that exact same year, we lost 37,862 people in fatal car accidents. Not one move was made to outlaw automobiles or restrict driving. Why?
