IF YOU CAN SEPARATE THE “SOCIALIST” FROM THE “MARKET” YOU KNOW MORE THAN I DO

“Socialism?” or “Free Markets?” “Left or Right?” “Public Ownership or Libertarianism?” “Anarcho-Capitalist or Anarcho-Syndicalist?” “Left Libertarian or Right Libertarian?”

It was our compatriot Lynda who once wrote in these pages, “we´d have had the perfect candidate in 2008 in we could have mixed Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul up in a blender.” I agree, and might add Cynthia McKinney to the milkshake.

To me, the whole thing is a big mess and creates more fights that it resolves. That, of course, is the intention of labels, of nailing one´s colors to the mast.  You look for either safety in numbers or extreme individualism, so the whole pathology plays out in psychology as well as ideology and I´m fucking sick of it.

The purpose of BuelahMan´s Redstate Revolt was to get past the labels to where we can agree, so we can stop the theft and destruction of our countries and our world, to get “Rednecks” and everyone else into the conversation as full respected participants.  Because, sisters and brothers, every way I play this out it ends badly.  The amount of debt load the USA is carrying cannot be repaid in full.  Not in currency that has any value at all, anyway.  That does not change one immutable rule of finance (despite what happened at GM, that was pure Wall Street/US Government piracy): The Creditors — successful litigants, labor, debtholders — Have First Call On The Assets Of A Bankrupt Company. Or Country. That is called “capital structure,” in gear-head terminology, and merely means if you put up the cash as cash first, you get paid back first.  Here is a nice explanation in very plain language in bullet points.  It´s something everyone should know.

POWERPOINT

http://finprzed.wzr.pl/pliki/196.Capital%20structure%20Intro%20lecture%201.ppt.

HTML: http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:abkFrVbmMdgJ:finprzed.wzr.pl/pliki/196.Capital%2520structure%2520Intro%2520lecture%25201.ppt+seniority+of+debt&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&lr=lang_en

Play out the global “chessgame” to all the conclusions you can think of.  A million of them are very, very bad, the worst being global thermo-nuclear war for US DOLLAR PARITY. There is only one path through that has a chance of success: peace followed by a series of meetings of the new arrangement of sovereign regions and independent nations: NAFTA (inclusive of Israel and Iraq), UK-EUROPEAN UNION, BRIIC, APEC, UNASUR-ALBA, the Gulf Oil Monarchies, Norway, Switzerland, Pakistan, South Central Asia, etc.  At these meetings, which would have nothing to do with any NEW WORLD ORDER (which is taken to mean sovereign dominance by one world government ruled by NAFTA or a combination of NAFTA-UK-EU),

The meeting would merely have the purpose of agreeing that the USA is carrying too much debt and has committed to too much budget deficit going forward and will never be able to repay all of it in full.  Instead, of acting unilaterally and invoking each´s “corporate structure rights,” putting the USA into default and seizing what is rightfully theirs, each sovereign region and independent creditor nation and the USA with it´s not to be trifled with threat of global destruction, come up with a discounted figure that the USA could pay back and but would not destroy the value of all the US Treasury debt or the dollar overhang held outside the USA.  The loans would have to be unwound slowly and the dollars traded slowly into world markets very slowly so as not to create a run.

A few weeks ago, the man many or most in America including the President, Mr Obama,  consider a “communist,” “terrorist,” and “greatest threat to the security of the United States Of America,” Hugo Chávez Frías, President of the Republic of Venezuela and his Mininister Of Finance Dr Ali Rodríguez announced what they thought that “number” should be.  It was very favorable to the US and I´m damned sure China and Saudi Arabia would be thinking much higher. By devaluing the US Dollar-fixed Bolivar by 1/2, Chávez effectively said he was comfortable with only taking 50c-on-the-dollars-owed-him.

You know who agrees with these ideas. Most economists and responsible market traders and investors arund the world. From Michael Hudson on the “left” to Paul Craig Roberts on the “right.” Who disagrees? Paul Krugman on the “American Propaganda Fantasy Left” to Ben Bernanke of the “American Propaganda Fantasy Right.” Marc Faber worries that no such negotiation will ever take place because of American bad faith.

This was hardly a terrorist act by Venezuela.  It was an invitation to the USA and the world to get the discusssions going.  But, yes, I agree, on the continuum of world nations more “socialist” or more “free market,” Venezuela is at the “socialist” end, though by no means the most.

This is an article by Greg Palast, which I first saw re-posted here at B´Man´s. It describes how GM/Wall Street/USA Executive Branch of government violated the law of corporate structure.

http://www.gregpalast.com/grand-theft-auto-how-stevie-the-rat-bankrupted-gm/

Read all of these articles, listen to Dr Faber and you´ll start to get a sense of where and these ideas of “capitalism” and “socialism,” “free-markets and regulation,” MUST co-exist in a civil, democratic-republican, directly democratic, parliamentary, constutional, self-governing nation.

This is something else that´s important to know.  “Nationalization” of industry happens for all sorts of reasons, good and bad, well-reasoned or impetuous.  The re-nationalization of the Ecuadorean potable water supply from Vivendi Corporation was a good one, well-reasoned and humane.  The expropriation of GM was a terrible one, ill-reasoned, and as close to piracy as the seizure of farmland in Zimbabwe.

As bad as it was, the partial “nationalization” of General Motors did not happen the way people fear nationalization happens elsewhere, with left-wing guerrillas or right-wing para-militaries carrying machine guns and invading the corporate headquarters.  It did not happen that way in Ecuador when the water supply was re-nationalized either. The “Bolivarian socialist” government of Rafael Correa (PhD, Economics, University Of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana) made a series of bids to the board of directors of Vivendi Corporation until they got one they accepted, approved by the shareholders and the deal was done. There´s your “socialist nationalization” and how it works.  Not any different than any other sort of legitimate, legal buyout, in any of what are considered “capitalist” or “free-market countries”.

So, leaving aside autocratic, failed communist states like, North Korea and Cuba, what we have everywhere in the self-governing and non-self governinng nations, is always a blend of free-market capitalism for efficiency of allocation of resources and collective-ownership for fairness.

And now….a link to a table of G-20 nations ranked by “collective ownership” of productive capatcity. I got it from that COMMUNIST SOURCE, The CIA World Factbook.

http://openleft.com/diary/12706/just-how-socialist-a-survey-of-major-countries

B’Man’s Marijuana Watch: The Return Of The Hippies (Its About Damn Time)

I remember the Hippies. Even tho I was raised in a southern, redneck kinda culture (I was given some break from the fact that my mother was German and much more cosmopolitan than all my southern family and friends). But, by and large, I am a product of my southern heritage and everyone I knew had a certain disdain for the Hippies. This hatred and misunderstanding, of course, enamored them to me.

I have always been a person that wants to ask questions… to speak out to be heard… to protest when protest was called for… to question authority to insure they look after my best interests. I looked up to the hippies, not necessarily because they got high all the time (I didn’t know much about that back then, me being less than 10 years old), but because they were ready to stand, fight and protest what I knew to be a bogus war (that turned my father into a raving lunatic). I remember Woodstock (not that I went), but that I desperately WANTED to go. I knew something about what it represented and I felt a kindred spirit calling me.

But, not only did the hipsters know something about getting high, they knew something about medicinal usages of marijuana (and all sorts of natural herbs, etc). They knew that even back then, there was a healing property to marijuana (and I found this out early on, as well).

I have never written this here, but I am convinced that cannabis healed me from migraines. People who knew me before I started regular usage in the 80′s, knew that I could suffer from the most horrible migraine headaches imaginable (as a teen I would be totally debilitated) . There was but one thing that could stop them… sleep. The rub was that I couldn’t go to sleep without some injection of morphine or something (and every opiate I have ever taken makes me sick as a dog… throwing up). I simply cannot take pain meds.

But, later, with a migraine, my wife would take me to the doctor’s office about 2 or 3 times per year and I would get my shot, stop somewhere on the way home to puke (stopped in front of an apartment full of kids one day, but I couldn’t stop the puke and they saw it all). Up until then (with exception to my college days, where I smoked daily… and didn’t get any migraines) I was a casual user… socially used with the buds, etc.

But I read way back in the mid 80′s that cannabis would help with migraines and it got me to thinking about my college days, so I got some and for several years, did some every night after work.

I have not had another migraine since (and I have quit partaking on any regular basis).

Some will argue that it wasn’t the weed, but something else. Prove it. I know my body and I know what that stuff does for me, just like it was necessary when I had my last back surgery, for the pain pills made me puke and nothing is worse than puking with a back all messed up. Believe me.

Now, I read that the older folks (especially the 55-59 year olds) are beginning to remember those days and are starting to increase their usage again. And good for them. More power to them. But where the hell have you been all this time?

From Raw Story:

Long a fixture among young people, use of the country’s most popular illicit drug is now growing among the AARP set, as the massive generation of baby boomers who came of age in the 1960s and ’70s grows older.

The number of people aged 50 and older reporting marijuana use in the prior year went up from 1.9 percent to 2.9 percent from 2002 to 2008, according to surveys from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

The rise was most dramatic among 55- to 59-year-olds, whose reported marijuana use more than tripled from 1.6 percent in 2002 to 5.1 percent.

Observers expect further increases as 78 million boomers born between 1945 and 1964 age. For many boomers, the drug never held the stigma it did for previous generations, and they tried it decades ago.

Some have used it ever since, while others are revisiting the habit in retirement, either for recreation or as a way to cope with the aches and pains of aging.

Siegel walks with a cane and has arthritis in her back and legs. She finds marijuana has helped her sleep better than pills ever did. And she can’t figure out why everyone her age isn’t sharing a joint, too.

“They’re missing a lot of fun and a lot of relief,” she said…

Did I mention that weed is fun, too? Of course it is (to most people). Kelso would beg to differ, as would many of my friends. To each his own and I believe that it affects people differently, depending on their genetic makeup (just about like any other known substance).

And let me explain something about potency of cannabis now compared to then: there was good weed back then. As good as now, just not as plentiful. The Killer was available, if someone knew where to get the seeds and how to cultivate it.

As a matter of fact, the farther down family lines seeds go, the potency begins to decline. This tells me that families of pot have been good, excellent, bad, whatever, for as long as history records. I believe that in the year 523 one could have found the Killer, if they knew where to look (perhaps in India or Pakistan, or whatever their names were back then). I can’t prove it, but I would bet it is so. I have partaken of weed in the 70′s that, even to this very day, I doubt I will find any better. Ever.

But my rants about weed have nothing to do with the “fun” part. I have motives and they are medical. As a matter of fact, this subject came up yesterday at my wife’s doctor’s office. You see, years ago, she and I experimented to find out if it would help her condition (Bi-Polar disorder). At the time we had no idea what was going on and the doctors were using her as a guinea pig with no clear results. After turning her into a walking pill bottle with so many side effects we couldn’t keep count, she got off all that stuff and medicated herself for about 6 months. And the difference was amazing.

However, her fear of the law made her stop and she found another doctor that began his trial and testing and after two years and BuelahLady wanting to die, that doctor said he needed to put her in the hospital so he could “detox” her (from the very SHIT he had been giving her for years). Does anyone else see a problem with this? Well, we found another doctor and after about 2 years, he has her on 6 medications and her issue is still rampantly in her face. The meds are worthless. And he is worthless. And every Psychiatrist in the world is worthless.

It is nothing more than a money making scheme while we have the solution readily available any time I would want to get it. But she won’t due to fear of the law and thus, she is stuck in lala land of pill pushers and dope fiends (it is just that they are considered “professional” pill pushers and dope fiends).

So, when I read and see something like this (even tho it doesn’t include her issues), I am given another shot of hope that they will finally allow it to be used for its best properties… MEDICINE.

h/t Kenny’s Sideshow

Yes, this is in Tennessee. Believe that or not.

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AGAIN, FAKE COMMUNIST STYLE, AND THE USUAL BULLSHIT

Brom Keifetz

(1)I´ll try this one more time. As a % of GDP which country is higher in social sector, USA or Venezuela? unfunded mandates don´t count, nor does social security

(2) You know that the USA is about 15 TRILLION in debt and has projected deficits for 7 more years projected to leave the debt at $40 TRILLION (using their own projections. Is Venezuela a net debtor or net creditor and do they generally run surpluses or deficits
… See More
(3) How high was the overnight repo rate in VEB when oil hit its peak in 2009?

(4) Given that the VEB is pegged to the USD what is the UNITED STATES overnight repo rate?

(5) What does this phrase mean: OBAMA A LAVARSE A ESE PALTÓ?

Brom Keifetz
Sisters and Brothers: this is not the parochial concern of some white guy. Forms of government are partly by choice and partly because of geology and topography and weather and ecosystems and cultures interactions. Has anyone here had the pleasure to see a NEW DEMOCRACY OR REPUBLIC? It is an experience you will never forget.

Brom Keifetz
The lesson in all that is to have socialism you need a budget surplus to PAY FOR THE FUCKING SOCIAL SECTOR AND TO COLLECTIVIZE THAT WHICH NEEDS TO BE COLLECTIVIZED.

This is where socialism meets libertarianism.

National health ADDS to the surplus and the private sector GDP as well. So long as there are strict privacy rules and the ability to choose your own doctor, it´s the humane and economically responsible way to go…. See More

I´m still going to kick the ass any leftist or right wing imperial expansionist from here to the Southern Cone if they fuck with my money, my family or any of my shit.

No matter what Obama or the CPC say, it doesn´t belong to them. It belongs to me.
10 hours ago ·

Giovanni Navarrete
Take a look at nationalization that has taken place in various countries. You will notice that its the UK that has the most, and the US even has more than Vz has. Btw, are all these countries ‘fascist” because they nationalized? That is absurd.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalization

“The motives for nationalization are political as well as economic. It is a central theme of certain brands of ‘state socialist’ policy that the means of production, distribution and exchange, should be owned by the state on behalf of the people to allow for rational allocation and operation, and rational planning or control of the economy. Many socialists believe that public ownership enables people to exercise full democratic control over the means whereby they earn their living and provides an effective means of distributing output to benefit the public at large, such as providing a means of public finance.

Nationalized industries, charged with operating in the public interest, may be under strong political and social pressures to give much more attention to externalities. They may be obliged to operate some loss making activities where social benefits are clearly greater than social costs – for example, rural, postal and transport services. As an instance, the United States Postal Service is guaranteed its nationalised status by the Constitution. The government has recognized these social obligations and, in some cases, provides subsidies for such non-commercial operations.”

Giovanni Navarrete
Funny hearing the libertarians talk about private negotiation and non-aggression, when all we have to do is look at private property to see that that almost every patch of land on Earth was stolen (i.e. obtained through initiation of force) at some point in its history. The stolen land was later inherited or sold until it reached its present owners… See More. Thus, property over land and natural resources is based on the initiation of force. So if private property over natural resources is based on the initiation of force, by extension, private property over all goods derives from violence, because natural resources are required in the production of all goods. So much for the libertarian non-aggressive principal! Nationalization is anti-privitatization, and its the control of society over resources necessary for its good. Corporations are absolutist, but a democratic govt. is controlled by the people, to the degree its democratic.
9 hours ago

Giovanni Navarrete
In a democratic state, at least there is some ability of the people (depending on how democratic it really is) to have some say and influence for the public interest and welfare. Private tyrannies are worst, less accountable, less rights, less transparent, essentially private anti-democratic fascistic, i.e. the corporation.

The problem with govt. is that its captured by this class and thus the politics are marinated with money. It really is the best democracy money can buy, literally speaking. The vast gap of wealth that you saw accelerated starting during the 80’s was from the conservative “that which governs least governs best” approach, cutting back govt. controls and regulations over the financial sectors, for example, allowing their organized crime (capitalism) to go even more unfettered, with predicable consequences.

The solution is not to leave it all ‘individuals’ since that just means the wealthy get to control everything, as they will then control the capital, which is ill-gotten wealth, obtained without

Also, consider how the ‘free’ market restrains the liberty of others? The private ownership of a commodity necessarily presupposes non-ownership of that thing by everyone else, no? If I own something I am free to use that thing, while others are deprived of the freedom to use that thing. If ‘my’ yard was owned in common in some way (e.g. it was a park) then you could use it as a place to rest or gather. But as things stand right now if you tried to rest on my private property, you would be breaking the law, and I could call the police and have you removed.

Brom Keifetz

It means “asswipe”. Or is every American so EXPERT at EVERYTHING that this dude can speak and write Andino and Llanero and all the Andian dialects! Son, have you been to Caracas? Do you know for example what a FORD MOTOR COMPANY 5 YEAR SENIOR DEBENTURE TRADES AT?

I don´t presume to know what you know.What makes you such an expert at shit you haven´t any experience with.?

Giovanni Navarrete
As far as moving there, sure, i’d love to visit, but I know its far from perfect. I want a full blown socialist rev right here in the belly of this imperialist beast, which is where my internationalist responsibly lies.

Brom Keifetz
gio: do you know what a full blown socialist revolution would end up looking like? 80,000,000 dead citizens. And the rebellion put down. That´s why Cindy´s doing it this way. Non violent dissent.

But there´s nothing wrong with getting mad you sonsofbitches!

There are a bunch of libertarian concepts Xavier said which I liked pretty much…. See More

I think for myself, thanks.

Hank Xavier
on stolen lands:

I cannot address the actions of others, only my own and only those directed against me. I will negotiate with peace and defend my property and my freedom with force. So really dear Giovanni, it is up to you how much you want to get rid of private property… want to fight over it? I say you can do with YOUR property anything you … See Morewant. Want to share it equally, do so…. but the second you come and make some kind of claim on that which is mine… there will be war. Plain and simple. Otherwise, you do your thing and I will do my thing. I suspect however that’s not good enough for you, and you will seek to use government violence to enforce your agenda. I however simply seek to be left alone.
Brom Keifetz
G: The US is fighting 25 wars, 5 shooting, 20 in which they´re on the wrong side of a proxy civil war. I counted Mexico.

The USA is finished. The imbeciles let PC liberal bullshit let the 1000 richest people get 10 trillion to play with as personal add ons to their aleady multi billion dollar holdings.

The Americans oppress themselves. And that lets this fascist government go wild all over the world and why Ron Paul is right that it´s what makes us hate them…. See More

I see no difference between Obama and Palin. They are both limited people intellectually who seem to do the same kind of sales job, Obama far more effectively.

Giovanni Navarrete
Ah but who says that anyone has any legitimate claim on ‘property” in the first place? What makes it yours? What if what you ‘own’ was because of others? You can’t separate how you get something from your claim over it, and if it comes from someone else, then by accepting that as ‘yours’ you also accept responsibility that comes with where it came from, and that you just morally defend. So, yes, you do have to address the actions of others if what you have comes from the actions of others. Can’t have it both ways, claiming ownership but putting on the blinders as to the means of that ownership.

Then there is the question of your “right” to benefit from the goods attached by SOCIETY to the exercise of whatever talents, goods, or services you have. The benefits come from society, no? No one lives alone, no one is self-sufficient. We are all interconnected and mutually reliant on each other and must co-exist.

Sure, your ‘personal property” is probably just fine for you to keep, but this does not include owing the major means of production, or the exercise of capital within society that generates profits, as being solely yours by any moral right. This is basic social contract theory. To claim absolute rights on the fruits yielded is akin to thinking that a tree produces its fruits without the need for the soil, underneath it. Society is that soil that makes possible the wealth accumulated by individuals operating with it, and thus they are not divorced from society but share its social welfare…. See More

Of course, this is in addition to the argument of not having any good reason for accepting morally arbitrary factors(for example, the family we’re born into, the genetic lottery) as determinative our life chances or opportunities, i.e. we do not especially deserve inborn talents, and thus we are not entitled to all the benefits we could possibly receive from them. Given this and the social contract, society surely can with good moral cause legitimately regulate the distribution of social and economic advantages across society under terms of fairness, not to mention justice, which then rightly includes the suppression of the “right” to exploit and oppress others (which is no right as exploitation is itself rooted in violence), and allow people basic guarantees of political and economic rights, without which there is very little liberty to speak of in a meaningful sense. And among these basic economic rights are rights to control the resources that are essential for the public’s well being, and not allow it to be concentrated into the hands of the few, who end up turning us into wage slaves for them.

8 hours ago
Giovanni Navarrete
Giovanni Navarrete
Just to be clear, by your logic, if someone else steals property by force, and violence, and then gives it to you, or you buy it fair and square, this stolen property rightfully and morally belongs to you?

And, the money or means you used in order to buy this stolen land, is rightfully yours because?

I’ll say it again, PROPERTY is THEFT. Almost every patch of land on Earth was stolen (i.e. obtained through initiation of force) at some point in its history. The stolen land was later inherited or sold until it reached its present owners. Thus, property over land and natural resources is based on the initiation of force…. See More

So if private property over natural resources is based on the initiation of force, by extension, private property over all goods derives from violence, because natural resources are required in the production of all goods.

This negate the libertarian non-aggressive principal, and exposes it as a fraud. Also, exploitation, which is at the root of capitalist relations (profit, rent and interest) are inherently violent. Hunger, lack of shelter, lack of healthcare, poverty, that it all entails, are also all violent, very ‘agressiing” against people. So by your own principals, you can’t defend property or the system of private property.

ank Xavier
Who says my house is mine? I do and my proofs of negotiation and exchange. I am not responsible for anything but my own actions, period. If I invest my money in a company, something YOU may define as “means of production”, that is also mine. Not yours. If you CHOOSE to work there, what belongs to you is the wage your labor earns you. What labor … See Morerequires is the ability to negotiate in its own self interest without the interference of government either for or against. I’m strongly in favor of unions in a free market. Again, the problem happens when you introduce government (force) which throws things out of equilibrium, which then demands (and justifies) greater intervention of force to maintain the balance…. and so we see what we see now… All we need to do is maintain the freedom to act in our own rational self interest in absence of force. Socialism doesn’t work, and will never work. Neither does fascist mercantilism, which is what the US / UK maintains.

Giovanni Navarrete
You are avoiding my points, and being contradictory. You say you want the govt. out because the govt is force, but how pray tell do you think you have this property here in the first place? I’ll give you a hint: govt./force. So you want it now that YOU OWN it, after it was the GOVT that took it by force. But, now you dont want any govt/force, … See Morebecause you already have it as ‘yours.’ Do you see the contradictions and lack of a moral justification?

Do the millions of people who die each year of starvation “choose” to starve? They ave no choice. Did the native people have any choice to have their lands taken and made into private property for the white man who can then claim it his own moral right to own? Can we workers choose to work at a company that is not based on the wage system that is inherently exploitative? There is no real freedom without taking control of capital out of the hands of the few, and place it under public control for society. There is only the freedom to choose which slave master to belong to.

Hank Xavier
Property is not theft. That’s ridiculous… lol. If there is no claim on the property and I am ignorant of its origin, of course the actions of the perpetrator do not apply in any assessment of the exchange. If I am aware of the theft, I will simply refuse to do business with that person. That’s called personal responsibility, a core ethic of the individualist perspective.

Bottom line is this… if you want it, come and take it… we’ll see where that gets you.

http://www.freedomain.com

Hank Xavier
sorry… for a dose of rational thought on property http://www.freedomainradio.com

Giovanni Navarrete
You should be aware of the theft. Open any history book. Of course, stolen property, the basis of the system, is defended by the STATE, which is what protects the private wealth and the system behind it, so much so that the top 1% own as much as the combined bottom 95%

So, its not you, but the cops, i.e. agents of the State, who will defend … See Moreprivate property. And, the State is not neutral but acts to defend the interest of one class or another, in the main. If the masses are able to take state power and use it in their interests, they will be able to expropriate the ill-gotten wealth and take public control of resources, and end private control over it. That is what progressive revolutions are about.

Giovanni Navarrete
You haven’t answer my question, and I’m curious. What makes the wealth/money you are able to make, rightfully yours? Not legally mind you, but from a moral perspective?

The privileged claim to the benefits that come from the exercise of talents and/or class position within market economic relations, in amassing fortunes?

Consider that such class positions, and our ability for the accumulation of wealth is largely not even of our own doing, but result family circumstances, social and cultural contingencies for which we as individuals can claim no credit in the first place. Even our effort, our striving work ethic, etc are largely products of a privileged state we are born into. And, even if our wealth is the result of genuine natural talents, we are still rewarding something that we had no choice in the matter either: winning the genetic lottery, being born gifted, etc. Is that really a fair and just way to command the flow of societies resources so much that it justifies the concentration of so much into the hands of so few? Any principal of freedom and justice must begin with a repudiation, of such a society, and challenge the philosophical assumptions of its system of wealth distribution.

Giovanni Navarrete
I also point out that there is nothing intrinsically necessary or inherently worthy in the wealth that is attached to those who can make a lot of money in a capitalist society, for society as a whole. We need only look at the vast sums accumulated by CEO… See More’s and executive bonuses, while they wreck havoc on millions in the banking industry, for example. There was this study by the progressive British think tank The New Economics Foundation (they came up with the happy people index) which shows that bankers take away seven British pounds for every one pound they earn, and by contrast, hospital cleaners create ten pounds of economic value for every pound they earn. So pay structures do not reward jobs that create societal benefit, either. So what is so worthy of respect for capitalist market relations placing profit above all else? Seems to me civil society needs to intervene in the interests of justice.

rom Keifetz
@ HANK X: Cierto, buddy! Somebody had to shut this delicate parlor Marxist up for a bit. I don´t care who it is: the USA military, the special ops forces, or poseurs. Come and try to take my shit from me and I will hurt you. If you treat me as another human being and stay out of shit that doesn´t concern you, no problem. It´s fine.

I don´t have to justify myself to any FANTASY COMMUNIST. My dad was the real fucking thing. They´d fight the fachas and the government with straight razors or broom handles filled with lead. That´s what it takes, baby boy, to be a real Marxist-Leninist. Not this bullshit intellectual whining.

I am not a commuist or brawler. I´m a pacifist and I believe in a mixed economy that´s fair and not coerciive but don´t push me. Your military is occupying my country and you are preaching Marxism at the son of a Marxist? That´s a good one!… See More

You aren´t man enough to be talkng about “propety is theft” and question my right to my shit. My right is not granted to me by anything other than my willingness to fight to keep it. You aren´t even man enough to get out into the interior to organize the centerleft PRD here.

And again with WHITE MAN? I love this. I wish my civil libertarian mom were alive. She´d say “what is this cocksucker, eight years old?” There is nothing I love more than Americans who occupy countries and then preach politcally correct ideologies they aren´twilling to fight for.

Que leche.

Giovanni Navarrete
“my right is not granted to me by anything other than my willingness to fight to keep it.”— This is the old “might makes right” argument, which is a position hardly needs refutation, and its already a self rejection of moral principal. But, apt for capitalist logic, which pretends to be based on ‘the rights of man,’ etc, but when it comes down … See Moreto it, its all based on force, might, not right. Such is the nature of imperialism.

Not sure I follow this ‘man enough” argument, you make. Sounds like a logical fallacy.

Brom Keifetz
But Gio you take the cake. It´s “pacifists like Cindy and me…” but you think you can fight and survive in a violent revolution? I already said I don´t depend on anythng or anybody other than myself to protect my shit.

It´s not been that long since I had a gun pulled on me, maybe 9 months ago. Hardly the first time. Unarmed, I was able to figure out what the thing was and it turned out to be a costeño rough sense of humor. So, whatever.

I tell you, friend, it´s been years since I´ve gotten them up in earnest, but you put me in the mood to do it again. This american threat and viiolence and coecion has got me very angry and I got to tolerate PROPERTY IS THEFT FROM A GUECO LIKE YOU? OR WHITE MAN WHATEVER?

Wow. You know who´d dig this, Angela Keaton. She has zero patience for poseurs and she´s a tireless libertarian consciousness raiser against war.

Giovanni Navarrete

I still don’t follow this logic. Truth is truth no matter who says it. The veracity of a claim is not dependent on the one who make it. If Obama or Palin says 2+2=4, then is it false because they said it? Of course not. What is at issue here is the merits or lack thereof of the argument itself, not who says it. This is not about me or you, this is … See Moreabout my argument and claim that property is theft, that the capitalist system is based on organized robbery, exploitation and plunder, and that the masses have a right to rise up and change these things. Obviously I am a communist, but being so I’m an internationalist, and reject “identify politics” –even though I am latino.

Brom Keifetz
You are quite something. You act as if Igive a rat´s ass about some theory, for real? It “hardly needs refutation,” you son of a bitch? That´s fucking sophistry you cunt. So, if you are so interested in robbing my shit to give it to some other guy, PLEASE COME DOWN AND TRY AT YOUR EARLIEST CONVENIENCE.

Robbery is a crime, asshole. You aware of that? But no cops involved. Old fashion way of settling. No rules or anything. You try to take my shit. You get fucked.

Giovanni Navarrete
I am amused. Have you been drinking tonight? hehe

Brom Keifetz
This has to be a practical joke by Kevin Jones. This poseur CANNOT BE REAL. Nobody is that deaf dumb and blind to reality.

Or else, I know what it is…the Barack Obama thing. You´ve never been `poor so you don´t really know what it´s like NOT TO HAVE A BASIC STAPLE.

I know that all too well.

Giovanni Navarrete
Well, the resort to argumentum ad hominem (“argument toward the person” or “argument against the person”), linking the validity of a premise I’ve made to an irrelevant characteristic or belief of the person advocating the premise, i.e. myself, is a logical fallacy, faulty reasoning, and thus fails on its face. If you have a good argument, by all … See Moremeans, I’m game, but this is rather childish. Although, it could be indicative of a lack of a good argument to justify a system that just can’t be justified on

Brom Keifetz
I… See More´m interested in being with my girlfriend, making money, hanging out with my friends at our favorite restauants, listening to music, shooting pool, watching a good movie or sports on TV. That´s it. There´s no more to me than that: fucking, plata, friends, food, music, a billar, movie or sporting event.

I don´t want to have some arcane argument against a parlour Marxist whose country´s INVADERS HAVE FUCKED UP MY LIFE. AND ALSO BECAUSE I HAVE TO HUG MY DAD EVERY DAY WHEN HE´S´HERE CAUSE HE REALLY DID SOME DARK SHIT IN SERVICE OF MARXIST REVOLUTION. AND THE GUILT IS OVERWHELMING TO HIM.

You are a toy poodle or a minature yorkshire terrier.

Brom Keifetz
good nite white man

Brom Keifetz
I don… See More´t have a good argument. I´m a fucking nobody. I cant write english like you. I doubt I could write spanish 1/8 as good as you write english. But we got a problem here. You are making a Marxist confistcatory argument to me when you know nothing about being below the fucking working class, like lumpen proletariat, q si o no? I have. I had a father who was a bruiser in the PC. But you think you can make me surrender my money or admit I dont deserve it WITH JUST AN ARGUMENT?

You´re nothing- A fancy american schoolgirl. I cannot out argue you because im not as smart as you. But I want to see if you can back up your words with deeds and come down to panamá and try to physically rob me of my THEFT. I dont know for sure, but i got a pretty good idea that id hurt you permanently because at least i know how to defend myself and my property. even if my words arent always too great.

Brom Keifetz
This in retrospect has been one of the greatest threads I´ve ever been part of. It was only after getting lambasted by a communist that I felt for the first time in many years just how low class I was. It was my dad´s dream for me to go to day prep school in Manhattan and to a fine college and graduate program in the USA.

I realized how low class my father is and the problems we had. I remembered eating a can of sardines and a Hires root beer for dinner. And darker stuff too.

When I got to the upper East side of manhattan ,I was so naive, I thought all Jews spoke Spànish!… See More

At any rate, this fancy fellow told me that PROPERTY IS THEFT and that I don´t deserve what I have, and I never deserve to own any of any means of production.And was somewhat threatening. It was also a violation of about 10 rules of courtesy in Latin America. I explained that my dad was in the party and I had read El CAPITAL.

Presumably, HIS PROPERTY WOULD NOT BE THEFT. This was the problem wiht the Russian Revolution. I have ancestors who fought and won it and realzied that it wasnt merely a case of new boss same as old boss. It was the same people. The permanent government.

So, I reiterate, I know that young neo-liberal Obamabots are the worst. I´ve always thought the parlour Marxiast was worst. And If this putz or any tried t they were in for a world of pain.

Brom Keifetz
You see what white guilt brought the USA?

Barack Obama.

How about what it brought South America? O-BUMMER IS GOING TO FIGHT EVERY COUNTRY DOWN HERE FROM COLOMBIA AS A STAGING AREA…. See More

In a way we are all counting on you folks to oppose the American government. I see three people with the sense to handle that responsibility: Cindy, Hank Xavier, and Camille.

But no other country not even China or Russia has the military power of the USA. We need dedicated people to represent us and our freedom. We don´t need politically correct scolds or hyperintellectual patronizing asswipes.

Kimberli Rose
The crowd that calls him that intermingles the words socialist, communist and fascist. Obviously they have no clue what any of those words mean. BTW, he is not trying to kill Medicare and Social Security. Its the Republicans who want to because otherwise they look like big hypocrites when they say “no government healthcare– oh yeah, except Medicare, VA and Social Security…” Please.

Jay Jurie
The tea-baggers and libertarians on this thread need to go see “Avatar” and understand what the movie is about. Then, apply that lesson to our own present circumstances.

Ty Shlackman
He’s a fascist and imperialist.

Ty Shlackman
Venezuela is a capitalist country but unlike most countries they are moving toward socialism. They are going through a transition process right now.

Brom Keifetz
@ KIMBERLI: everybody knows the Democratic talking points…Obama is, as Ty said, a fascist and an imperialist

Brom Keifetz

Besides, you are the American not me. Thus, you are the invader with the White culture and I´m the local who you´re trying to fuck over. I´ve written it before and I´ll write it again: gringos suck

Prepare For The Bank Runs

Citigroup Warns Customers It May Refuse To Allow Withdrawals

John Carney

The image of banks locking their doors to keep customers from making withdrawals during a bank run is what immediately came to mind when we heard that Citigroup was telling customers it has the right to prevent any withdrawals from checking accounts for seven days.

“Effective April 1, 2010, we reserve the right to require (7) days advance notice before permitting a withdrawal from all checking accounts. While we do not currently exercise this right and have not exercised it in the past, we are required by law to notify you of this change,” Citigroup said on statements received by customers all over the country.

h/t PrisonPlanet and originally at Business Insider

The article explains that there was a mistake made (they were only supposed to send this to Texans). But, no matter who it was intended for, does anyone look at this as a good sign?

Think about this for a second (especially you poor rednecks like me): you take your Friday’s paycheck to the bank and deposit it. Then, next week, you figure out that you re a bit short of cash for your kid’s lunch money, because you had to pay that plumber who came in and fixed the bad belt on your 10 year old clothes dryer and tapped you dry of cash. What do you do?

The conspiracy nut in me says, they want you to use their debit card so they can track your money. For the fact of the matter is that most poor rednecks like myself cannot wait SEVEN days to get our own cash from a bank who now refuses to give us what is OURS.

Think about this. It is YOUR money, but they limit you access to YOUR money.

I would say that all those liberal sites you hate with such a passion may be on to something when they tell you to pull your money from the Big Banks (I know I have). I can assure every living person in this world that I will NEVER do business with CitiBank again. This goes for each and every entity that has been bailed out, as well. What few dollars I do have in a bank are in a local bank. What very few dollars I have i savings (less than $200) is in a Credit Union.

The days of this redneck making these Elitists even richer are over (except for the tax money they were shoveled by our corrupt and thieving congress officials). They can kiss my redneck ass.

I have my own cash reserves ready. I have some silver coinage, just in case the fall comes faster than I think. I have enough food to make it months without access to my cash. I am growing even more this year. I am prepping for the worst and will be fine if it doesn’t happen. None of this costs me much more than I normally spend. Prep in chunks (add a few extra cans of food or beans and rice every time you go to the store).

Be ready, for this tells me that something is brewing and you better get your shit together if you want to make it through the end of 2010.

You have been warned.

Speaking With Idiots

I have been very outspoken about marijuana legalization, especially from a medical standpoint. I have offered more links to data and studies that disprove the rhetoric you grew up with and if you haven’t taken the time to view them, you should. (Just peruse all the posts from the above link to find an amazing amount of links to data that breaks down the lies.)

But this is about Stupid Americans who simply will not believe anything other than the lies they hear from propagandists whose sole purpose is to keep Americans in the dark about the substance. Reefer Madness is alive and well with the stupid redneck bunch.

I had a conversation with a lady I don’t know on Facebook, after I responded to a post she made about marijuana and all the usual propagandistic lies she spewed, especially about how cannabis causes cancer (hoping to educate her). I wanted to show the conversation here (taken from private messages on facebook… I have changed the name) so I can share how many people are so idiotic and simply WILL NOT study for truth. Notice how I had to take her apart (I tried to be as nice as possible) and offered over and over and over again to provide the information:

Hi MaryJane,
I am a 49 year old non user of marijuana. However, I am extremely familiar with this medicine. I just wanted to point out that the facts you state about the cancer incidence of marijuana is untrue. But, nevertheless, if one simply doesn’t smoke it (which burns the stuff and emits gases that can harm). One can vaporize the stuff and eliminate, completely, any carcinogens. Eating works, but more slowly.
What I am saying is that you regurgitated an untrue talking point (for there has NEVER been a single death attributed to marijuana usage… I know, I have looked). But even if it were true, all one has to do is NOT smoke it. It can be taken other ways with the same (better) effect.
Thanks,

B’Man, Thanks for your opinion, and you are entitled to it. At least you are somewhat nice about your disagreement with me. I have a friend whose daughter used to be a counselor to young pre-teen and teen inner city gang members who are drug addicted. (She quit to pursue a nursing career because the stress was so great.) I called her, and she agreed that there are over 400 different chemicals in marijuana and it is extremely addictive and almost — not always — but almost always a springboard to more damaging and harmful drugs.
As a recovered addict, I can tell you that I started with what I thought was just smoking a joint with friends and kickin’ back. I didn’t come from a welfare family either. But the addiction grew and grew and it wasn’t something I set out to do. As my friend told me, even one joint shared with friends in what you may think is a harmless way, impairs your judgment. That’s why they call it “getting high”. My friend is also on this group and was really pissed at what was said on there. She is older than I am and as she says, “survived the 60′s”. She laughs at all you people and your “nothing’s wrong with smoking a little marijuana to relax” kind of attitudes.
The point is and always has been with regard to this group: How do we help people in need without paying for or tossing them into a culture of drug use? You can disagree with me and my friends till the cows come home, but you aren’t doing me, yourself, or those welfare moms a favor. So, regardless of what you say I regurgitated, here is my opinion which has not been copied and pasted from any website: Drug use by people who are not terminally ill or who do not have a prescription for it by a doctor IS STUPID. And by the way, I do know people who died because of marijuana usage. One caught his house on fire while he was sleeping and one dropped a handgun while he was night fishing and it went off and shot him in the groin. I miss him everyday. When your judgment is impaired, things happen.

Hi MaryJane,

Thanks. I believe I understand your view and disagree. The entire argument is a straw man when you claim that someone killed themselves with weed using accidents as proof (as in your friend’s boating accident). But, it is generally easier to blame the wacky weed (when people die in the sleep all the time and are probably not “getting high”). My aunt died in a house fire in her sleep and she never, ever, would have smoked dope (or even drink wine). I had a friend shot himself square in the forehead with a rifle (he never smoked a joint in his life, or any other drug, for that matter). It was simply a dumb accident. You cannot use such instances as legitimate rationale for your argument, if you want to be serious.

When I said you were regurgitating, all I meant was that you were repeating the propaganda we have all been inundated with our entire lives. However, if you look at studies of the medicine, if you look at studies surrounding the “gateway” theory, when you look at the benefits that this medicine offers (yet is NEVER discussed in America’s news media outlets), then any curious, societally-friendly/loving person would have to question the rhetoric driven by a Prison Industrial Complex. It is easy to “follow the money” on that and see the motivation to keep it illegal and to outright lie to the public (exactly the way they did during alcohol prohibition).

None of this is to say that you have not had personal experiences that caused you discomfort. I know folks who simply don’t like the effect. But, true scientific study proves most of the rhetoric as baseless and that has nothing to do with your/my own feelings, but based upon study of many individuals and tests, etc. Besides, I was not defending personal use for “getting high” sake. I was very specifically discussing the medicinal usage and how the only harmful thing you discussed (cancer) is actually discounted when using a vaporizer (I would be most interested in that issue… not your hatred for the vile weed).

What if you knew that THC, injected into Glioma cells (the cancer that took Senator Kennedy and a dear friend of mine last year) killed the Glioma cells without damage to normal brain tissue. That there are studies showing that statistically, marijuana is NOT a gateway drug (meaning that most people do NOT go on to dangerous drugs like cocaine or heroin). Did you know that alcohol and many prescribed drugs cause major brain damage and the constituents of marijuana have been proven to NOT cause problems (as we all heard growing up). I can give you links, if you are truly interested for self-awareness/education. Just ask.

As for personal use: I’m all for it. It should be a Constitutional right for any person to put whatever they want to in their body. Who am I to tell you what to do, eat, drink, think, whatever?

Thanks, again.

B’Man

PS- Please search for real data (if you don’t ask me for links)… not a phone call to a friend who apparently hasn’t researched the numerous studies available.

B’Man, I just typed in “Can marijuana use cause cancer” on ask.com and found a site that backs up what you say about SOME of the useful chemicals in marijuana. That is something I already knew. However, they talked about the fact that there are over 400 chemicals in marijuana, many are the same that are in cigarettes, and there are really few studies that can prove or disprove that marijuana use can cause lung cancer. There is evidence that long term use makes a male twice as likely to develop testicular cancer as males who do not use marijuana. Chemicals, whether illegal or legal, should not be put in the body without the advise of a doctor. Cancer patients, glaucoma patients have all benefited from marijuana, so I don’t consider it vile. Used properly, just like opium or any other chemical compound, I am not against it.
There is nothing in the Constitution that allows a person to break the law just because they think they should have a personal right to do whatever they want to their body. Put that same person behind the wheel of a car and have them run down a little old lady crossing the street because their judgment was impaired and then you have a situation where you have to ask if he had the right to put others in danger because he felt he had the right to do what he wanted with his body. He didn’t have the right to do what he wanted with the little old ladies’ body, now did he? Addiction, whether it is marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, meth, or cigarettes doesn’t effect just the user. It effects their family, friends and even strangers have to pick up the cost when they od or get in an accident or have to go to court. We the People have to pay for it.
One of my friends, fell asleep because he was high with a cigarette in his hand and that’s why his house burned down. My other friend was my fiance and he was night fishing — not in a boat but by the lake — and he used the gun to scare off snakes and muskrats. Because he had smoked pot, his reactions were slow—according to eye-witnesses—and he dropped the gun and it went off and shot him. He had smoked pot everyday of his life for years. I started with pot and beer and moved on to much stronger drugs and every addict I know started the same way. You’re right. Not everyone moves on to stronger stuff, but it just takes that one little thing to tip the scale. Job loss, a bad break up, a friend dying and drowning in poverty with no way out.
Do what you want and think what you want about marijuana. I’m not against medical uses for this drug. And I am a supporter of growing hemp as it has many good uses. But don’t come on here and try to tell me I know nothing about marijuana or that my friends who are also recovering addicts don’t know anything about drugs. We have been to the other side and made it back. Few of us do.

MaryJane,

Thanks for the research. I have many links that apparently ask.com doesn’t have access to. I offer, again.

What do you mean there is nothing in the Constitution? You don’t get the point. Laws against drug usage are unconstitutional. Just because the PIC has been able to vilify it and cause enough “Reefer Madness” to make the politicians create a law, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t break the very basic foundations of the Constitution.

Did you know that early Americans were forced to grow hemp if they owned land? Most of the early Founding fathers grew hemp and Cannabis. There were no laws against it until the medical establishment made it scary. Thousands of years prior history prove what I say correct and the drug/medical establishment wrong.

And for goodness sake, stop the usage of strawmen arguments. When you say “put that person behind the wheel”, you are making a play for the illegality of driving under the influence of some substance. That has NOTHING to do with the legality of doing the substance (in and of itself, say staying at home). It has to do with not being able to drive and becoming a hazard. Of course, a person under the influence of anything that harms his driving should be held accountable. But that, in and of itself, should not make usage illegal.

If true, I assume you want alcohol and many medications banned (and that is assuming that pot hinders driving). So, please stop mixing two distinctly different issues. THAT is the straw man. I will never argue against people being harmful to another. But you, or I have NO say in what someone does to himself. Neither (most especially) should the government.

Most everyone doesn’t go to stronger drugs. That is a fact. And even by your own admission, you started with pot AND alcohol. So which was the gateway or are you simply an addictive personality (which is likely the reason for addictions to any substance… not the fact that they are available).

And don’t think you are talking to someone that doesn’t know intimately about drugs and drug usage. I would venture to say that I am much more “experienced” than you (suffice it to say). I don’t do it now because I can’t afford it (so much for the addiction lie).

And I know far more people like me, who can pick it up and put it down with absolutely no side effects whatsoever, than I know of the others who are incapable (at least, nearly incapable, for you make pot sound like it was the most devastating, near-death creating substance known to man that you barely escaped the clutches of). Excuse me, but that is your experience and resembles virtually nothing of anyone I know (and I know a lot of heads).

I ask friends all the time, if hard drugs were made legal, would you start doing heroin?

I think your answer would be, “hell, yes.”

Me? No way.

You see, Annie, your own addictive personality disorder has you broad stroke brushing EVERYONE as you see things and experience them. It simply ain’t so for the majority of the world.

I still have all those links you don’t seem interested in. But somehow, I suspect you have absolutely no interest in the truth about it, do you?

I hope our interaction is enough for you to search for more truth, instead of the propaganda. If you ever change your mind, send me a message. I have the info and the truth might set you free.

Take care,

B’Man

I’m sorry B’Man, but no I would have never done heroin. And I never have done heroin. You don’t know me and don’t know whether I have “addictive personality disorder” or if I just liked to party. And for crying out loud, do you think the Constitution was written so we could just have one giant free-for-all? With freedom comes responsibility. What we do as an individual or as a nation should serve the greater good and not just our base, self-serving animal instincts. The Constitution does not promote lawlessness, but indeed proves us to be a nation following the rule of law. The Constitution is law. The Bill of Rights must be what you are talking about and I don’t remember anything about marijuana in any of that. And you have rights as long as your rights don’t interfere with my rights. In other words, you can’t step on my toes just because you can.
I believe I said in my previous message to you that I agreed to legalizing hemp. A few years ago while on vacation I went into a shop that sold products made from hemp. There was a beautiful sweater there that I almost bought. I was joking around about smoking the sweater to get high and the guy who owned the shop told me I could smoke all the sweaters I wanted but hemp lacks the chemical THC and therefore wouldn’t get me high. That’s why they use it. Hemp got a bad rap because of pot heads who smoked it’s cousin marijuana. (I didn’t buy the sweater because of the price tag not because it was made with hemp.) I also said there were uses for medical marijuana under a doctor’s care. Guess you didn’t read that part.
I think it is time for you and I to agree to disagree on this because it isn’t doing any good to debate something when we both have such strong feelings about our views. I’ve made it a rule that my friends would be drug and alcohol free people for a reason. I have pity on those who still use these for recreational reasons and will help anyone who wishes to quit. Other than that, I don’t care to discuss it anymore. I’ve quit the group so no one can attack me anymore. I’m just done with it all.

MaryJane,

I said the heroin thing tongue-in-cheek. Of course I don’t know you, but the stuff you have written thus far is only propaganda I have heard before, dispelled with my own experimentation and usage and the study done overseas (for you won’t find the information here) proves everything you “regurgitate” as erroneous and misleading.

I, like you (and EVERY OTHER person I have ever asked this question) have told me no. Studies in Europe bare this out. Usage goes DOWN in a legalized society. This is FACT.

And, yes, the Constitution is one big free-for-all as individuals. What do you think the document represents? The limits we have or the limits the government has to govern us? This is a very important question that it appears you have a wrong answer to.

What if the government told you that you could not consume raw, whole milk? Is that fair? Or vitamins? what if they outlawed vitamins and you took some only to find out that you were going to jail and pay a big fine (you realize that there are countries where this is occurring and will come here… the raw milk thing is already being legislated). MJ, the Constitution is there to provide you rights. Not to give the government control. You are backwards in this thought.

So, according to you, I have rights, as long as they don’t interfere with your rights. Well, you gotta lotta ‘splaining to do to convince me or anyone else how any marijuana usage I have ever had has affected or interfered with your rights, EVER. This should be interesting. And hence the rub. You and I both know that your usage never interfered with my rights, nor mine yours. You know that, yet can’t help but write such inane stuff. That is amazing and I wish you would rethink your argument, for if this were a debate, you would lose hands down.

Hemp didn’t get a bad rap because of pot heads and that is another ludicrous (and ignorant) statement. I told you I have a plethora of links that show you all this, but curiously, you will not ask for them. MJ, to me, this is extremely telling about motivations. There are plenty of educational devices that can easily show you “why” marijuana was demonized and banned. As an example, did you know that Henry Ford’s vision for automobiles was to run them from alcohol made from hemp? That he even made a car from hemp and owned hemp fields.

There are plenty of historical records showing people using pot for medicinal means going backs several thousands of years, but only in the last 100 has it been illegal. You really need to study the facts before arguing. It makes you look silly (thank goodness this is between us, for your friends would surely think you are clueless on this subject).

Whatever your experience with pot is your experience with pot. Your usage never affected me in one iota. Mine never affected you. You know this, yet can’t stop the bogus argument.

This, MaryJane, shows that you are not very serious about learning and would rather blather BS than learn truth. Such is America and the Sheople that inhabit her.

Baaa, Dear. Baaaa.

B’Man

PS- AGAIN: just ask for the readily available information that disproves your every point in this argument. You know, if you ever get serious about wanting to know truth, that is. I won’t hold my breath

B’Man,

1. I do not consider laws that protect me as control. The role of the government is to service and protect and promote the well being of the people. Without it we would have lawlessness. I’m not saying you in particular, but generally speaking.

2. I did not say that potheads caused the demise of hemp. However, there was a time when people feared it due to some people abusing marijuana, so maybe that did have something to do with it. Today, we now know that hemp and marijuana are not the same in their uses. Marijuana has two uses: medicine for cancer patients and getting high. Hemp has many uses none of which include getting high.

3. Your personal use does not effect me unless you should lose your job because of your use, get into an accident, go to court or go to prison for breaking the law, or become sick, physically or mentally (I’ve seen this happen with over use of marijuana) The law making marijuana illegal is a law that the majority support, sheople or not. Look up the number of people drug use of any kind effects. Our tax dollars pay it. Unemployment, health care, prisons, all of that is funded with tax dollars or an increase in our insurance or health care costs. That is a fact.

4. Your arguments are the same one would expect from a 15 year old. Grow up. This is not a free country —- IT IS A DEMOCRACY! Majority rules. If you want to smoke pot freely, go to Europe where in some places it is allowed.

5. None of your childish rantings will change my mind and make me want to run out and get high. Been there, done that and I ain’t going back. You can call me stupid, uninformed, a sheople, whatever. It doesn’t matter. I know in my heart that I am right. I know from experience that I am right. I know from my knowledge of the law (I’m a legal secretary) that I am right. And I know from my love of God that I am right. We all have choices to make and I have made mine and I’ve made peace with my past.

Please do not hold your breath as I am not interested in your ‘truth’. As I said before, I am no longer on that group as I see them as the blind leading the blind and I am not interested in debating you on any issue. Have a nice life and please find someone else to debate as I have a life and would like to live it peacefully.

MaryJane

Baaaa

What is my point in all of that? I want to point out that no matter how many times one offers information discounting and negating long held, brain-washed beliefs, this is the majority of Americans’ answers to this subject (and many more subjects). There is little to no critical thinking that goes on in the majority of Americans. I am convinced of this. This doesn’t make me any smarter than any other human being in the world. But it does mean that I am open to learning more and if and when someone can “bring me down” (as I lke to call it) and correct any erroneous assertions, I will be the very first to look at that information and if valid to your argument, I will be the first to admit I am wrong (and even commend you on setting me straight).

But for God’s sake, don’t use the same old propaganda that we have heard for decades, when I have scientific data that proves you wrong. And worse, if you are unwilling to even look at that info I provide, that means you have absolutely ZERO credibility. MaryJane, you have ZERO credibility. And the rest of you rednecks are about the same. Prove me wrong. Please. I dare you.

A Prayer for America – by Dennis Kucinich

I offer these brief remarks today as a prayer for our country, as a celebration of our country. With love of democracy. With love of our country. With hope for our country. With a belief that the light of freedom cannot be extinguished as long as it is inside of us. With a belief that freedom rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak freely. With the understanding that freedom stirs the human heart and fear stills it. With the belief that a free people cannot walk in fear and faith at the same time. With the understanding that there is a deeper truth in the unity of the United States. That implicit in the union of our country is the union of all people, everywhere. That all people are essentially one. That the world is interconnected not only on the material level of economics, trade, communication, and transportation; but interconnected through human consciousness, through the human heart, through the heart of the world, through the simply expressed impulse to be and to breathe free.

I offer this prayer for America.

Let us pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving and accomplishment of civil rights. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act. We must ask why should America put aside guarantees of constitutional justice?

How can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment and the right of free speech, and the right to peacefully assemble?

How can we justify, in effect, the canceling the Fourth Amendment, probable cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure?

How can we justify, in effect, canceling the Fifth Amendment, nullifying due process, allowing for indefinite incarceration without a trial?

How can we justify, in effect, canceling the Sixth Amendment, the right to prompt and public trial?

How can we justify, in effect, canceling the Eighth Amendment which protects against cruel and unusual punishment?

We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and internet surveillance without judicial supervision, let alone with it.

We cannot justify secret searches without a warrant.

We cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability to designate domestic terror groups.

We cannot justify giving the FBI total access to any type of data which may exist in any system anywhere, including medical and financial records.

We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this country for domestic intelligence and intelligence surveillance.

We cannot justify a government which takes from the people our right to privacy and then assumes for its own operations a right to total secrecy.

The Attorney General recently covered up a statue of Lady Justice showing her bosom as if to underscore there is no danger of justice exposing herself in this administration.

Let us pray, oremus, that our nation’s leaders will not be overcome by fear. Because today there is great fear in the Capitol. And this must be understood before we can ask about the shortcomings of Congress in this current environment.

The great fear began when we had to evacuate the Capitol on September 11. It continued when we had to leave the Capitol again when a bomb scare occurred as members were pressing the CIA during a secret briefing. It continued when we abandoned Washington during the anthrax scare, when anthrax, possibly from a government lab, arrived in the mail. It continued when the Attorney General declared a nationwide terror alert and then brought the destructive Patriot Bill to the floor of the House of Representatives. It continued in the release of the Bin Laden tapes at the very same time the President was announcing our country would withdraw from the ABM treaty.

It remains present in the cordoning off of the Capitol. It is present in the camouflaged armed national guardsmen who greet members of Congress each day we enter the Capitol campus. It is present in the labyrinth of concrete barriers through which we must pass each time we go to vote.

The trappings of a state of siege trap us in a state of fear, ill-equipped to deal with the Patriot Games, the Mind Games, the War Games of an unelected President and his undisclosed Vice President.

Let us pray. Let us pray that our country will stop this war. “To provide for the common defense” is one of the formational principles of America. Our Congress gave the President the ability to respond to the tragedy of September 11. We licensed a response to those who helped create the terror of September 11th. But we the people and our elected representatives must reserve the right to measure the response, to proportion the response, to challenge the response, and to correct the response.

Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq.

We did not authorize the invasion of Iran.

We did not authorize the invasion of North Korea.

We did not authorize the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan.

We did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay.

We did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention.

We did not authorize military tribunals suspending due process and habeas corpus.

We did not authorize assassination squads.

We did not authorize the resurrection of COINTELPRO.

We did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of Rights.

We did not authorize the revocation of the Constitution.

We did not authorize national identity cards.

We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from cameras throughout our cities.

We did not authorize an eye for an eye.

Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.

We did not authorize this administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases.

We did not authorize war without end.

We did not authorize a permanent war economy.

Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy. The President has requested a $45.6 billion increase in military spending. All defense-related programs will cost close to $400 billion.

Consider that the Department of Defense has never passed an independent audit.

Consider that the Inspector General notified Congress, recently, that the Pentagon cannot properly account for $1.2 trillion – that’s trillion – in expenditures. Correct, that it cannot account for $1.2 trillion in transactions. Consider that in recent years the Department of Defense could not match $22 billion worth of expenditures to the items it purchased. Consider that it has written off as lost billions of dollars worth of in-transit inventory and stored nearly $30 billion worth of spare parts it did not need.

Yet the Pentagon’s budget grows with more money for weapons systems to fight a cold war which ended, weapon systems in search of new enemies to create new wars. This has nothing to do with fighting terror. This has everything to do with fueling a military industrial machine with the treasure of our nation, risking the future of our nation, risking democracy itself with the militarization of thought which follows the militarization of the budget.

Let us pray for our children. Our children deserve a world without end. Not a war without end. Our children deserve a world free of the terror of hunger, free of the terror of poor health care, free of the terror of homelessness, free of the terror of ignorance, free of the terror of hopelessness, free of the terror of policies which are committed to a world view which is not appropriate for the survival of democratic values, not appropriate for the survival of a free people, not appropriate for the survival of a nation, not appropriate for the survival of the world.

Let us pray that we have the courage and the will as a people, and as a nation, to shore ourselves up, to reclaim from the ruins of September 11th our democratic traditions.

Let us declare. Let us declare our love of democracy. And declare our intent for peace.

Let us work to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our own society.

Let us recommit ourselves to the slow and painstaking work of statecraft, which sees peace, not war, as being inevitable.

Let us work for a world where someday war becomes archaic.

Let us work for a world where nuclear disarmament is an imperative. This is the vision which the proposal to create a Department of Peace envisions. Forty-three members of Congress are now cosponsoring the legislation.

Let us work for a world where America can lead the way in banning all nuclear weapons not only from our land and sea and sky but from outer space itself. This is the vision of HR 3616: A universe free of fear. Where we can look up at God’s creation in the stars and imagine infinite wisdom, infinite peace, infinite possibilities. Not infinite war, because we are taught that the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.

Let us pray. Pray that we have the courage to replace the images of death which haunt us, the layers of images of September 11th, faded into images of patriotism, spliced into images of military mobilization, jump-cut into images of our secular celebrations of the World Series, New Year’s Eve, the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the strobic flashes which touch our deepest fears, let us replace those images with the images of people working to rebuild their democratic institutions. With images of the work of human relations. Of the work of reaching out to people, helping our citizens here at home. Of lifting the plight of people everywhere.

That is the America which has the ability to rally the support of the world.

That is the America which stands not in pursuit of an axis of evil, but which is itself the axis of hope and faith and peace and freedom.

America, America. God shed grace on thee. And crown thy good with brotherhood and sisterhood.

America, America. Long may Thy land be bright with Freedom’s holy light

America, America. Let us pray for our country. Let us love our country. Let us defend our country not only from the threats without but from the threats within.

America, America. Crown thy good. Not with weapons of mass destruction. Not with invocations of an axis of evil. Not through breaking international treaties. Not through establishing America as king of a uni-polar world. But through looking at America as a nation among nations and viewing the world as an interconnected whole.

Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good with sisterhood and brotherhood. And crown thy good with compassion and restraint and forbearance and a commitment to peace and democracy here at home and in the world. And a commitment to economic democracy here at home and throughout the world.

Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good America. Crown thy good.

Thank you.

Kucinich’s Prophetic “Prayer for America” Speech
8 Years Ago Today

Many have called Dennis Kucinich’s “Prayer for America” speech one of the most eloquent and significant summaries of post 9/11 America. He delivered it eight years ago today.

The Kucinich campaign staff urges you to read and to distribute this prophetic message which even after eight years maintains a fresh sense of urgency.

Thank you
The Re-Elect Congressman Kucinich Committee

www.kucinich.us

The US Constitution: Taught, Believe and Obey

Our illustrious President told us this:

Remember that? Remember how he quickly answered that woman’s question? Remember how Mr Obama readily tells anyone ANYTHING, then when the nut-cuttin’ comes, he shows himself to be the most reprehensible liar on the face of the planet (and I am not exaggerating). I believe Barack Hussein Obama to be one of the preeminent liars living on the face of the earth. He lies more than Osama Bin Laden and any devil you can name. It is clearly evident. We have a lying, maniacal monster running our country.

From PrisonPlanet:

Over the course of his two terms in office, Bush had a total of 289 Executive Orders. After a little over a year in office, Obama has already passed 39 Executive Orders, meaning he is on course to be in the 300’s presuming he is re-elected in 2012.

The New Junk Economics- Michael Hudson

Two of my favorite blogs have featured this Guns and Butter Interview with Michael Hudson. I heard it first at Dandelion Salad yesterday and then saw that American Everyman featured it today. Please visit both of these blogs (the Salad is a great place for coverage of non-MSM related news mostly… ie, the real stuff), where Willyloman has some of the most insightful (and stabbing, at times) commentary around.

The fact that both have featured this tells my my hunch was right to feature it myself (but I convinced myself to go ahead and do so today, instead of wait until tomorrow).

This is a MUST LISTEN interview.

Click

or go to the Guns and Butter site to listen (or you can find it at the links above, as well). Whatever. Just listen to it.

The New Junk Economics:From Democracy to Neoliberal Oligarchy

“The New Junk Economics:  From Democracy to Neoliberal Oligarchy” with financial economist and historian, Dr. Michael Hudson.  We discuss the Federal Reserve; money as debt; Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s misconception of the causes of the great depression of the 1930′s; classical political economy versus anti-classical, so-called “neoclassical”, economics; the labor theory of value; the dollar carry trade; government deficit spending; Greece.

WHAT´S A TEA-BAGGER? WOULD B´MAN HIT THE ROAD AGAIN?

The American Empire is in its final stage.  It has rotted from without and from within: it´s massive military machine is no longer effective and the Federal Reserve and Department Of Treasury have combined to rended its currency worthless.  It is still able to mandate its desires here and there because it can still make credible threats of damage to foreign and domestic interests and people alike.

When proportionally stronger foreign interests and proportionally more able domestic PEOPLE unify to fight off the American imperial threat, it is renedered impotent and toothless.  When (intelligent) American dissidents speak derisively and with trepidation about a NEW WORLD ORDER, they refer to a joint NAFTA-UK-EU dominance of the world with the USA the absolute senior member with veto power. Or perhaps, a world wholly dominated by the USA.  People who worry about this are neither stupid nor paranoid nor racist.  THEY ARE REALISTS.

YES. THEY ARE REALISTS no matter what their level of education or public speaking ability.  The so-called “9/11 TRUTHERS” are also realists, with the same caveat that their level of formal education and public speaking abilities have nothing to do with the question.  Using these stylistic critiques to avoid and damn a legitmate argument is an elitist ruling class public relations trick which has been taught to their supporters in the ordinary middle class — many, sad to say, who are neighbors and “friends” of those ordinary citizens who seek and speak the truth.

The Tea and Town People are a different category entirely, but no less possessed of their freedom of speech, assembly and association.  It is illegal to brandish a firearm, physically threaten another person, and obviously to kill or injure another person except in cases of self defense. It is not illegal to freely choose what you do with your body or to think and believe what you choose. The man who assassinated Dr. George Tiller is a criminal assassin.  Those who oppose a right to choose abortion are not criminals unless they act criminally.

I am not a criminal because I support a woman´s right to choose abortion and for myself I choose to be an atheist. I know that while these attitudes are totally accepted and mainstream in my home country of Panamá, they are in a close minority and huge minority, respectively, in the USA. Having both of these views of mine is constitution.  Calling anti-goverment protesters “racists,” “Tea-Baggers” or both is perfectly constitutional, too. The pun of “Tea-Bagger” which refers to a sex act which is an add on to fellatio has valence because the American culture from which most Tea Partiers hail is majority fundamentalist Christian and it´s a cultural offense to discuss such things in public. It´s still constiutional to say.

So too would be a response of “Obama loving fake intellectual pussy-whipped douchebags.”  Both sides may have at it constitutionally as much as they like. I think it´s a fucking waste of time because both sides are in the same boat.  They are ruled by the same ROBBER CLASS which would see global domination and have employed a divide and conquer domestic strategy with this “Tea-Bagger” business.

The so-called “progressive” bloggers use every literary and graphic device imaginable to take the anti-”Tea Bagger” side and throw a lot of gasoline onto this conflagration of misunderstanding and words.  The ROBBER CLASS has seen to it that the “progressive” bloggers really have only slightly more financial security than the “Tea-Baggers” so.  The Tea Partiers have a much greater work ethic, self-sufficiency, and survival skills than the “progressive” bloggers do.

Both are in the same economic pickle, though. The debate over health-insurance reform is one example of this,a complete fraud stage-managed by the political army of the Ruling Class, the 1-party American “political” system. The members of that particular ROBBER CLASS army framed the debate in terms of a status-quo which is oppressing and robbing from both groups versus a corporatist plan which was designed to provide slightly more care in exchange for $15,000 pre-tax from every family under the threat of financial and custodial penalty.  While the status-quo is a scandal in and of itself,the REFORM gives the Departments of Treasury and “Justice” far greater power than the medical professionals and American ciitizens.  It is oppressive, coercive, and REVERSE ROBIN HOOD THEFT.

To “progressives”: IT IS NOT “BOLD ACTION ON THE PART OF PRESIDENT OBAMA”

To “Tea Partiers” and other opponents: IT IS NOT SOCIALISM OR EVEN COMMUNISM.  IT IS CORPORATISM OR PRE-FASCISM.

The alternative plan is BEST: the single-payer, Conyers/Kucinich HR 676 “MEDICARE FOR ALL,” is the right choice here if and only if CHOICE OF DOCTOR, PRIVACY OF RELATIONSHIP AND ACTIONS BETWEEN PATIENT AND MEDICALS PROFESSIONALS IS GUARANTEED BY LAW, THE GOVERNMENT´S ROLE IS ONLY TO PAY MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS AND PROVIDE A MEANS OF SETTLING DISPUTES.

The HR 676 plan is less costly. It is certainly less expropriative. It has a small to nil role for a big government involvement or a ROBBER CLASS machine perquisite.  It relieves businesses and employees of a huge burden.  It is even good for the insurance companies because it forces them back to their reason for existence: TO COMPETE IN THE CONTIGENT CLAIMS BUSINESS MARKETS, ACTING AS OPTIONS DEALERS TO PEOPLE AND BUSINESSES WHO NEED TO PAY A LITTLE EXTRA TO PROTECT CERTAIN ASSETS OF VALUE.

The HMOs are relieved of a bureaucratic paperwork nightmare and can go back to their intended business: HEALTH CARE.

These wretched SADISTIC “PAIN-MANAGEMENT” companies are a capitalist cancer and can go away, far, far away.  Maybe to join their drug-dealing and people-torturing soulmates in Bogota, Colombia.

Though the right-wing American dissdents chose rationally in the Hobson´s Choice of status-quo versus O-BaucusCare, I hope they will take a minute to set aside preconceived notions about “socialism” and give Conyers/Kucinich HR 676 “Medicare For All” a fresh look.

What is it after all but a pre-Bush VA benefit?

On the political/cultural side, if a “Tea Bagger” really HATES Obama, supporting something written and advocated by Dennis Kucinich is a far more effective way of material protest. Dennis Kucinich represents true change, albeit within the system, and the Obama White House knows that.  These various angry small state Republican back-benchers AGREE with Obama on EVERY issue but this one.

Dr Margaret Flowers and Citizen Terri DiMatteo have reinvigorated the push for HR 676 using only their rights of free speech.  The PUBLIC RELATIONS game which is the life blood of the ROBBER CLASS in this political set-up has not yet figured out a way of demonizing Dr Flowers.

THE TIME IS NOW.  But if no one´s intersted, it won´t affect me in the slightest.  I don´t live in America and my physician makes house calls and I can afford with the change in my pocket what he charges!

Buelahman, your efforts at this same argument inspired me and I think you may have another shot at it.

KELSO´S NUTS LES AMO

And The Lotus Drops

I have been warning about this impending economic fallback (also discussed at ZeroHedge) on this blog here and here. This thought process is the very reason why I keep warning people to prepare with food and protection, for when it comes, I believe it will come with the fury of an avalanche. You can bet China isn’t alone in this strategy and that we will soon hear more announcements from Russia, Brazil and other countries.

China To Sell US Securities

Something big is happening in China which could have a huge effect on the American economy.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported:

Senior Chinese military officers have proposed that their country … possibly sell some U.S. bonds to punish Washington for its latest round of arms sales to Taiwan.

The Dumping Begins: Chinese Reserve Managers Notified That Any Non-USG Guaranteed Securities Must Be Divested

It appears that this time China’s posturing is for real. Following up on our earlier post that Chinese military officials want to “punish” America by selling Treasuries, Asia Times Online is reporting that an explicit directive by the Chinese government has notified reserve managers to sell all risky US assets, including asset backed and corporates, and just hold on to explicitly guaranteed Treasuries and Agency debt. And from following TIC data we know that China’s enthusiasm for MBS/Agencies over the past year has been matched solely by that of one Bill Gross.

From Asia Times:

Dollar-denominated risk assets, including asset-backed securities and corporates, are no longer wanted at the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), nor at China’s large commercial banks.

I don’t know what REAL economists and experts in the field think about this, but, to me, this is one hell-uv-a scary situation. If they want to put the death squeeze on us, in conjunction with just a few critically important allies, we are screwed. With the maniacs we have in charge, there is but one solution: our Descent Into Barbarism.

Widespread poverty and human misery is now seen on a massive scale in the so-called developed world. Some 40 million Americans, for example, are subsisting on food stamps. The distinction between “developed” and “developing” economies (always a myth anyway) is blurred. The ranks of the world’s long-suffering poor are swelled with dispossessed blue and white-collar workers and their families from across the US and Europe. Together more than ever, they stand shut out from those gated havens of obscene wealth for a global minority.

Similar historic junctures have been witnessed before when capitalism floundered from its inexorable tendency to make the rich richer and the poor poorer. Disturbingly, the release valve for the system and its bankruptcy has always been war. Death and destruction is the lender of last resort to an economic system that – despite itself – inevitably polarises wealth to an unworkable degree. The First and Second World Wars – claiming more than 70 million over a period of less than 10 years lives – were effectively the ultimate, grotesque bailouts.

In our time, war, it seems, has already begun. The US oligarchy and its NATO allies are waging a veritable war on the world: killing, disappearing and incarcerating millions of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan – a war that is expanding into Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Horn of Africa, with the militarisation of sea lanes and oceans (see Chossudovsky, Globalresearch.ca) and the setting up of “forward projecting” military and missile bases in every continent (see Rozoff, ditto). On top of ordinary poverty and misery, the world is truly seeing another historic descent into barbarism. Given this war-mongering dynamic, the growing US antagonism with Iran, Russia and China is far from an idle threat. It is the logical next step for a deeply illogical economic system.

If you read the next and final paragraph in that article at Global Research, you will see that the author holds hope for a diversion from the policy of war. But, in my opinion, I believe that the stage is being set for some final showdown.

How To Make The Right Wing Freaks Stop Bloviating

Force them to listen to their own ravings. At least it works for Bark Beetles…

Bark beetles plague the forests of Canada so furiously you’d think rivers of blood and the death of the firstborn would follow hot on their heels. So far, no one has stopped the beetle rampage that has destroyed 33 million acres of trees in British Columbia. However, scientists at Northern Arizona University (NAU) may have devised a way to turn back the beetle tide using sound recordings.

Like Nevada residents tried last year, the NAU scientists started by blasting rock music and backwards recordings of Rush Limbaugh (presumably because playing the Rush Limbaugh recordings forward is a punishment too terrible even for the beetles). Unfortunately, the beetles quickly became immune to the sounds of heavy metal and heavy bloviating.

The researchers then struck back with an even more annoying sound: recordings of the beetles themselves. The scientists recorded the bark beetle’s own aggression sound, and played it back at them. Faced with a wall of screaming beetle noises, the beetle host quickly fled. Not only did the recordings scatter the swarm, but the playback only cost $100 per tree, far less than any other method.

Break out the collection plate, because at $100 per right wing Sheople, this would be a bargain. I think, tho, that the ObamaManiacs will cost far more because they have proved themselves to be just as much, if not more Sheople-like. I wonder if Barack Obama has ever heard himself speak?

h/t Stuart Fox at Popular Science

How The American Empire Died

Pretty much the same way the rest of the other Empires fell.

Study history and you will see that the fall of virtually every Empire the world has seen died away because they could no longer afford it. They, like America, spent their wealth on overseas domination, instead of protecting the homeland (which was the only purpose the Founding Fathers had in a militia).

Washington’s Blog breaks down the Empire downfalls and shows how it is finances that break them. Quoting Niall Ferguson’s Newsweek article:

Call the United States what you like—superpower, hegemon, or empire—but its ability to manage its finances is closely tied to its ability to remain the predominant global military power…

This is how empires decline. It begins with a debt explosion. It ends with an inexorable reduction in the resources available for the Army, Navy, and Air Force…

If the United States doesn’t come up soon with a credible plan to restore the federal budget to balance over the next five to 10 years, the danger is very real that a debt crisis could lead to a major weakening of American power.

The precedents are certainly there. Habsburg Spain defaulted on all or part of its debt 14 times between 1557 and 1696 and also succumbed to inflation due to a surfeit of New World silver. Prerevolutionary France was spending 62 percent of royal revenue on debt service by 1788. The Ottoman Empire went the same way: interest payments and amortization rose from 15 percent of the budget in 1860 to 50 percent in 1875. And don’t forget the last great English-speaking empire. By the interwar years, interest payments were consuming 44 percent of the British budget, making it intensely difficult to rearm in the face of a new German threat.

Call it the fatal arithmetic of imperial decline. Without radical fiscal reform, it could apply to America next.

My, how history repeats itself, but the money and power hounds don’t give a damn. Why? Because win or lose, they end up wealthy and we end up their debt slaves. Yes, even the Great United States of America was hijacked, just like all the great Empires of old. And we are ending up exactly the same way.

Thing is that even some of the people that I normally would respect (or more precisely, folks that I respect have folks they respect and I generally will listen to their opinion if asked to by my associates). This brings me to my point.

I was asked to participate in RawDawg’s Radio Show last Thursday (Kelso pointed this out here). There is a companion blog called “The Education of Folk“. The link to the radio show is found there or you can click here to reference the show to understand my concern.

OK, I will be forthright. I was livid as I listened in the next morning (I was up at 4AM that morning and the show doesn’t start until 11PM EST). I didn’t get to be a part of the show or call in, so my anger was after the fact. But my Bro, Torrance and Sista GP carried forward with out the redneck’s view (or Kelso’s… he had Internet connection issues). As I listened in, I found that another person joined the show (a guy named Markos, I believe). He comes with some recommendations to knowledge of finance, so, I listened and assumed that the folks running the show had vetted him.

But Markos shows that he either has no idea what he is talking about or he is intentionally misleading people.

Why would I say this? (I also wrote and expressed this sentiment to both Dawg and Kelso)

Markos made several very strange comments, but the one that really stuck in my craw was when he asked why people thought that manufacturing was necessary in the US. A call-in (Rippa) asked him about this, but suddenly, Markos changed his tune and started praising the truck drivers of America as the ones he would prefer to see running the show (paraphrasing).

I agreed 100% with Rippa and for the life of me, I struggled to understand how and why someone who supposedly understands these issues could even ask such a ludicrous question. I’ll let the owners of the show figure that out (but I did offer them my opinion).

If I have to explain this to finance people, then there is something very wrong with the picture.

Our country’s GDP is huge. Supposedly the largest in the world. But what most don’t understand about this is that this also includes derivatives trading and all sorts of underhanded, monetarily untraceable numbers. When it comes to making shit, tho, we are one of the worst (close to last place) when it comes to the percentage of GDP that comes from manufacturing (of the industrialized countries). Hence the rub.

If we don’t make shit and we rely on other countries to make the shit we want and we focus ONLY on money, finance, and service industries, we WILL go the way of the old Empires. We are repeating the very same mistakes that those Empires committed over and over and over again.

To follow up with Washington’s post, he posts a few paragraphs that continues the Hapsburg Empire fall:

Spain was the first global Superpower…With Spain as its political base, and gold and silver flowing in from its American colonies, the Hapsburg dynasty became the dominant power in Europe. It controlled rich parts of Italy through Naples and Milan, and Central Europe from the Netherlands through the Holy Roman Empire to Austria. In the 16th century it added the far distant Philippine islands to its empire. The Hapsburgs held off the Ottoman Turks, whose resurgent wave of Islamic conquest in the 16th century swept across the Balkans and nearly captured Vienna.

The Hapsburgs went into decline in the 17th century, and while any such momentous event has many causes, for our purposes the focus will be on the economic collapse of Spain, which not only sapped the empire of strength but served to build up the power of its rivals.

The demands of empire required a strong and growing economy, but Spain did not keep up with the economic expansion that was taking place in other parts of Europe. Madrid’s financial base fell out from under its empire. Spain could continue to consume in the short term because of the flow of precious metals from American mines, but it could not produce the goods it needed at home, which in the long-run proved fatal to its standing as a Great Power and as an advanced society.

Spanish imports were double exports and the precious metals became scarce within weeks of the arrival of the American treasure fleets as the money flowed to Spain’s many creditors. What industry there was, along with banking and shipping, was in the hands of foreign owners. As a modern historian, Jaime Vicens Vives, has concluded, “This was one of the fundamental causes of the Spanish economy’s profound decline in the seventeenth century, maritime trade had fallen into the hands of foreigners.” This, plus the “opening of the internal market to foreign goods,” produced a “fatal result.” Spain’s exports were at the same time under heavy pressure by competitors in third country markets. A nation that cannot control its domestic market will seldom be able to sustain itself in foreign markets, which are inherently less accessible and more unstable.

Yet, Spanish leaders were deluded by a sense of false prosperity. This is testified by the statement of a prominent official, Alfonso Nunez de Castro in 1675: “Let London manufacture those fine fabrics of hers to her heart’s content; let Holland her chambrays; Florence her cloth; the Indies their beaver and vicuna; Milan her brocade, Italy and Flanders their linens…so long as our capital can enjoy them; the only thing it proves is that all nations train their journeymen for Madrid, and that Madrid is the queen of Parliaments, for all the world serves her and she serves nobody.” A few years later, the Madrid government was bankrupt. The Spanish nobleman had foolishly elevated consumption, a use for wealth, above production, the creation of wealth.

Historians have traced the flow of Spanish gold and silver across the markets of Europe. Those who “served” Spain by establishing industries to manufacture goods for the Spanish market gained the money. Spain’s rivals, France, Holland (which started a successful revolt in 1568) and England, prospered by their trade surpluses, and reinvested the money to expand their own capabilities. Another modern expert on Hapsburg history, Henry Kamen, has cited contemporary sources who referred to 17th century Spain as “the Indies for the foreigner.” The military empire of the Hapsburgs became the economic colony of other powers, or, to use a current phrase, Spain was the “engine of growth” for the rest of the continent.

Where there were jobs and prosperity, there was also rapid population growth, and rising tax revenue. Rival powers were able to field and finance military forces that could defeat the once superior Spanish forces both on land and at sea. The irony of this is that Spain was ruled by a warrior aristocracy tempered by centuries of constant warfare against Islamic hordes and Christian heretics. These nobles looked down on merchants and manufacturers and disparaged their mundane professions only to find that without a strong domestic business class they could not afford the fleets and armies that guarded the empire they had built.

Today, the American “empire” is also trying to consume more than it produces. The U.S. trade deficit is nearing Spain’s nadir of imports being double exports. Both government spending and private consumption are financed heavily by debt. Washington is printing money, the modern equivalent of digging gold out of the ground, rather than earning the means to pay its bills. And the political and military elites are apparently indifferent to the fate of domestic business and industry. Americans must learn … from the Spanish experience … and take corrective action while they still can.

History is repeating and we stand by and watch as we fall from the status we once held. We are allowing fools and thieves to run our country into the ground and I have friends who are, intentionally or not, allowing people to propagate such an idiotic stance as Markos’. I don’t get it.

It is as clear as day what is causing our problems.

It is NOT our social spending. It is NOT our elderly care. It is NOT Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security. It is the Empire and all the blind-assed fools who are STILL backing the maniacs that brainwashed you into believing their lies. It is the allowance of Corporate control of our elected officials who simply carry forward the Empire’s goals and wishes.

You MUST understand this and wake up.

Stop giving the mouthpieces of Big Money air time if they are wrong… or, at the very least, hold them accountable for their idiocy. Call them on it.

“…Look, their making hell-in-a-handbag…”

News Alert: Iran begins controversial new nuclear process06:57 AM EST Tuesday, February 9, 2010——————– Iran’s state TV says the country started enriching its uranium to a higher level of 20 percent, over the objections of the international community. The Tuesday report said enrichment began after Iranian scientists injected 25 kilograms of 3.5 percent enriched uranium gas into a cascade of centrifuges in a laboratory in Natanz, south of Tehran. It says inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency were present during the process.

My fav line is the last one… so they watched and someone else protested… I don’t get it.

OF MOMS AND A BIG LAST SATURDAY ON FACEBOOK

II wrote this comment on a BLACK AGENDA REPORT thread regarding their taking corporate advertising. The main one being McDonald´s.  Ironically, my mother had expressed an unusual opinion that was quite a good populist defense of the ads on BAR-

http://tns1.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/obama-state-union-guns-pentagon-butter-wall-street-spending-freeze-you#comment-15143

BAR´s Glen Ford posted a few days ago a presentation he gave on OBAMA´S WAR, supporting the views of any number of the peace activists we like. It became viral on that little corner of Facebook and energized the new conversation bloggers like Buelahman have been seeking.

The pure citizen activism of a couple of aware American citizens, Terri DiMatteo and Dr Margaret Flowers, have done the same. I wrote a wrap up of all that in a Facebook note.

Congratulations are in order all around. To Glen Ford, of Black Agenda Report, and Black Is Back, for a presentation on U.S. foreign policy that got a ton of serious and funny people into analyzing evidence and facts again. 10,000,000 views needed on this one.

http://blackagendavideo.blip.tv/file/3135437/

Congratulations for citizen activist Terri DiMatteo for first getting pissed off at the “Progressive” Democrats being so weak and starting a SKYPE forum “Dump The Democrats.” She had no idea how prophetic she´d be as even Kucinich wobbled a tiny bit and Jim McGovern tanked it. But in a nice pleasant Sheldon Whitehouse way. Poor Sen Whitehouse. His instincts are better than any Senator and it´s matched by Obama´s desire to shove him around when he suggests full investigation into War Criminality, when all he wants is someone accountable for the war crimes. He, like Leahy, and Feingold, have sure mastered the art of eunuchary.

Congratuliations again to Terri for reinvigorating the Conyers/Kucinich HR 676 “Medicare For All” Bill that Obama, Baucus, Pharma, the Insurance Lobby, McCaskill, Specter, Snowe, and yes even Bernie Sanders and neo-lib Robert Reich who did those fucking mawkish videos for this crap “Public Option,” did away with. Kucinch and Weiner wracked their brains to make ObummerCare a little more pro-people and less for-profit nexus of Government, Law Enforcement, HMO, PHARMA, AND BIG INSURANCE reverse Robin Hood scam. But if Obama can add pain in with corruption he always will. And he says Panama is evil?

Congratulations also to Dr Margaret Flowers for standing up to Obama for a real DESAFÍO (challenge) and getting, of course it´s O-Bummer, ARRESTED for her citizen actrivism.

Too many links to share. Go to Terri´s page. It´s amazing.

Silent clap for Bill Moyers who during the show tried to find ways to credit Obama for Dr Flowers´ activism, when she had been pinched for bothering THE REGENT.

Credit to Dennis Kucinch for getting serious with AG Eric “Chiquitica Banana” Holder on this shit of probably an Obama order of American thick neck BlackwaterXe assholes being allowed to kill other Americans with no criminal record in any country they choose. Steve Martin´s joke about solving the crime problem by a policy of death penatly for parking violations is now law.

Can 13 year old children qualify? I guess only when Cass Sunnstein´s replaced Stevens on the court.

Here´s a good starter link on Dr Flowers.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?topic=15912&uid=63811549237

False Flags

I had a long conversation with my Mom yesterday about politics. She started in on Obama is a Socialist and how Fox News was right on the money and how some wars are just…

Egad.

I explained how there is always the coincedental and miraculous happenstances that JUST make it possible to carry forward in our pillaging of other people’s shit (namely oil). My mother was born and raised in Germany as WWII was ending. She lived a nightmare of no food and horrible conditions, never knowing if they would live another day. At 13 (she was the oldest of several kids), she also had to go to work, which is where she met my dad (a grunt that was stationed in Germany).

This grunt went on to serve two tours in battle at Vietnam and that experience ruined him for life. He turned his back on his own kids at ages 6 and 8 and we didn’t hear from him again, until I reached out to his mother when I was 26.

I was trying to explain to my mother that her husband was made a mental case and drunk for no good reason and it was a false flag event (a lie) that took us into war. I explained to her that this is very common and that Hitler, himself, used the strategy with the Reichstag fire (as is commonly thought today). I explained that I believe that the Gulf of Tonkin “attack” was fake and that the attack by the Israelis on an American ship was an attempt at a FF event. I quickly worked my way into 9/11 and how we got into Afghanistan and Iraq (and now threaten Iran while bombing Pakistani’s, even tho we are not at war with them… not to mention Yemen).

I didn’t have time to share the following with her and she isn’t on line, but you should watch it if you question any of these events.

My dad was made into a nutcase over bullshit reasons. Today’s young men and women returning are being made into nutcases for bullshit reasons. And few seem to care that it is all a set up to begin with.

Watch this:

h/t Kenny’s Sideshow