Elizabeth Warren's pitch for class warfare

I saw an interesting video recently (h/t jerrypournelle.com), with a short pitch by Elizabeth Warren in support of class warfare and the overall Left / Progressive agenda:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htX2usfqMEs

First, here are her words:

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Now let's take a closer look at what she said.
[[MORE]]

You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for

I paid for those roads as much as you did; probably more, since my income is above average, and roads benefit others much more than me.

you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate

I paid to educate people, too. I paid property taxes (the source of educational funding in California) for 30+ years, and never sent my kids to public school. I am also not the only person to benefit from the education of others.

More fundamentally, though, so what if others paid for my employee's education? If someone's parents paid for their child's education rather than taxes, should an employer be expected to pay the parents back? When I hire someone, I am paying them in accordance with their skills, knowledge and abilities. It's a mutually beneficial arrangement: employees get an income, and I get the benefit of their efforts; the more educated they are, the more they earn (to a point). Win-win.

BTW, the quality of US public education generally sucks. In many cases, I would often prefer to hire people who haven't been damaged by it.

you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Those police and fire forces are using facilities and equipment that people like me designed and built for them -- structures, vehicles, computers, communications, etc, etc.

And again, I paid for those services as much as anyone else. And again, I'm also not the only one to benefit from them.

Police and fire services don't really keep me safe anyway; safety is much more a function of morality. Installing a new police force in Somalia wouldn't change anything.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

OK, now we're getting to the meat of it.

First, there is no social contract. That's simply an invention the Left uses to try to impose guilt or duty on us. A contract requires conscious and voluntary agreement between parties, and it presupposes the ability to reason, discuss and even disagree, so it's not something you can be born into. I certainly never agreed to anything like what Warren implies. What if I had been born in the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany? By Warren's logic, I would be required to live by those "social contracts" as well. No thanks.

My individual rights are not negotiable. No one, including government, has the right to take from me because of some perceived need -- or for any other reason. My life belongs to me.

Finally, perhaps the most important point: when I create a business, I am adding value to the world. I am employing people and producing a product or service that others value more than the money they give me in exchange. How about some thanks, some appreciation for that? No, the Left don't want to thank me, they want to destroy me; they want to steal my earnings while trying to portray me as evil. Why am I evil? Because I am successful, because I am good.

An alternative to Left vs. Right in politics

The perennial Left vs. Right model in politics is terribly misleading. It presents a false dichotomy, and therefore a false choice. I thought it would be interesting to come up with a diagram that more accurately expresses the spectrum of political choices:



The X axis is the traditional Left vs. Right model. The Y axis shows the degree of sacrifice that's required from a particular political party or system. The political parties are shown in green, political systems are black, and the targets of sacrifice are red.

What I'm trying to show here is that the fundamental difference between the Left and the Right today is not, say, the support of individual rights vs. collectivism. Rather, they both advocate sacrifice, just to different targets. The Democrats want us to sacrifice ourselves to our neighbors, so they support egalitarianism, welfare programs of all kinds, and uses of taxation for both purposes. They are also strong supporters of various racist agendas, such as "equal opportunity" (a misnomer if there ever was one) and multiculturalism. The Republicans want us to sacrifice to corporations and the country (endless wars), and they have a strong religious agenda too.

[[MORE]]You can see where the fringe parties and political systems of today fall. The Greens want more sacrifice than the Democrats, by having us sacrifice ourselves to the environment. Anarchists advocate less sacrifice than Democrats, while often still preaching egalitarianism or other forms of sacrifice to your neighbor, or sacrifice all-to-all. The Tea Party wants a little less sacrifice than  Republicans, by being against sacrifice to corporations, but they would be happy to sacrifice to God and country.

Although there are certainly atheists in the Libertarian camp, my experience with them as a group is that they tend to support sacrificing themselves to God to some degree. Since they adopt the non-initiation of force principle as a primary (rather than in an appropriate context), they also tend to be pacifists who support sacrificing themselves to their enemies. However, they generally prefer eliminating sacrifice to both corporations and the country.

As we move down the Y axis, true socialist governments take sacrificing to your neighbor to even greater extremes with actions such as government ownership of major industries. The people of Nazi Germany sacrificed themselves to the Aryan race; that was the true name in which many of their atrocities were committed. Italian-style Fascism demanded sacrifice to the country (Nationalism) and happily created a marriage of corporations with the State. Theistic states such as Iran demand sacrifice to God.

At the level of total sacrifice, we have communism on the left, such as in the Soviet Union, where private property and working for profit ("speculation") were outlawed. On the right, we have totalitarianism, which would be a type of feudalism, where a King rules by fiat.

At the top of the diagram's triangle, not sacrificing to anyone means supporting individual rights as a primary, which leads to laissez-faire capitalism. This is a "hands off" type of capitalism, limited mainly by laws against the use of force or fraud, but free of modern regulation.

The diagram also helps to illustrate the tendency of humans when it comes to politics to move down the Y axis, toward increasing levels of sacrifice -- which also naturally leads to increasing violence and war. Jumps up the Y axis are relatively rare, yet also very powerful when they do happen, such as with The Enlightenment.

Propaganda techniques used by Fox News

Reposted from: http://www.truth-out.org/print/3753

Fourteen Propaganda Techniques Fox "News" Uses to Brainwash Americans

There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, well-informed and socially invested populace. Thus, to the degree that access to quality information is willfully or unintentionally obstructed, democracy itself is degraded.

[[MORE]]It is ironic that in the era of 24-hour cable news networks and "reality" programming, the news-to-fluff ratio and overall veracity of information has declined precipitously. Take the fact Americans now spend on average about 50 hours a week using various forms of media, while at the same time cultural literacy levels hover just above the gutter. Not only does mainstream media now tolerate gross misrepresentations of fact and history by public figures (highlighted most recently by Sarah Palin's ludicrous depiction of Paul Revere's ride), but many media actually legitimize these displays. Pause for a moment and ask yourself what it means that the world's largest, most profitable and most popular news channel passes off as fact every whim, impulse and outrageously incompetent analysis of its so-called reporters. How did we get here? Take the enormous amount of misinformation that is taken for truth by Fox audiences: the belief that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and that he was in on 9/11, the belief that climate change isn't real and/or man-made, the belief that Barack Obama is Muslim and wasn't born in the United States, the insistence that all Arabs are Muslim and all Muslims are terrorists, the inexplicable perceptions that immigrants are both too lazy to work and are about to steal your job. All of these claims are demonstrably false, yet Fox News viewers will maintain their veracity with incredible zeal. Why? Is it simply that we have lost our respect for knowledge?

My curiosity about this question compelled me to sit down and document the most oft-used methods by which willful ignorance has been turned into dogma by Fox News and other propagandists disguised as media. The techniques I identify here also help to explain the simultaneously powerful identification the Fox media audience has with the network, as well as their ardent, reflexive defenses of it.

The good news is that the more conscious you are of these techniques, the less likely they are to work on you. The bad news is that those reading this article are probably the least in need in of it.

1. Panic Mongering. This goes one step beyond simple fear mongering. With panic mongering, there is never a break from the fear. The idea is to terrify and terrorize the audience during every waking moment. From Muslims to swine flu to recession to homosexuals to immigrants to the rapture itself, the belief over at Fox seems to be that if your fight-or-flight reflexes aren't activated, you aren't alive. This of course raises the question: why terrorize your own audience? Because it is the fastest way to bypasses the rational brain. In other words, when people are afraid, they don't think rationally. And when they can't think rationally, they'll believe anything.

2. Character Assassination/Ad Hominem. Fox does not like to waste time debating the idea. Instead, they prefer a quicker route to dispensing with their opponents: go after the person's credibility, motives, intelligence, character, or, if necessary, sanity. No category of character assassination is off the table and no offense is beneath them. Fox and like-minded media figures also use ad hominem attacks not just against individuals, but entire categories of people in an effort to discredit the ideas of every person who is seen to fall into that category, e.g. "liberals," "hippies," "progressives" etc. This form of argument - if it can be called that - leaves no room for genuine debate over ideas, so by definition, it is undemocratic. Not to mention just plain crass.

3. Projection/Flipping. This one is frustrating for the viewer who is trying to actually follow the argument. It involves taking whatever underhanded tactic you're using and then accusing your opponent of doing it to you first. We see this frequently in the immigration discussion, where anti-racists are accused of racism, or in the climate change debate, where those who argue for human causes of the phenomenon are accused of not having science or facts on their side. It's often called upon when the media host finds themselves on the ropes in the debate.

4. Rewriting History. This is another way of saying that propagandists make the facts fit their worldview. The Downing Street Memos on the Iraq war were a classic example of this on a massive scale, but it happens daily and over smaller issues as well. A recent case in point is Palin's mangling of the Paul Revere ride, which Fox reporters have bent over backward to validate. Why lie about the historical facts, even when they can be demonstrated to be false? Well, because dogmatic minds actually find it easier to reject reality than to update their viewpoints. They will literally rewrite history if it serves their interests. And they'll often speak with such authority that the casual viewer will be tempted to question what they knew as fact.

(continues)

Tea Party mission statement

I would like to suggest adoption of a Mission Statement for the Tea Party. The idea is that actions taken on behalf of Tea Party candidates, such as developing a platform, composing advertising or position statements, etc, should be measured against the Mission Statement prior to public distribution. It could also be an easy way to introduce new people to the campaign and the larger movement.

The following draft was given to me by someone from the Florida Tea Party. They have adopted it as their own. I really like it, and would like to hear what others think.

[[MORE]]-----

Tea Party Mission Statement

We uphold and affirm the natural rights of every individual, regardless of race, creed or national origin, to life, liberty, property and the pursuit of happiness; rights to which the founders of our nation pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor.

We hold that the proper role of government is to protect the rights of all citizens at the expense of none; to protect its citizenry from force, fraud, and breach of contract, thereby allowing all citizens to dispose of the products of their thoughts and labor as they see fit.

We recognize that free trade and free markets—the voluntary exchange of goods and services—are responsible for the unprecedented wealth and prosperity of our nation; and that such are both practical and morally necessary for human dignity, prosperity and enjoyment of life on earth.

While we respect the generosity of individuals who willingly give to charities and causes, we reject the premise that one person's “need” constitutes an enforceable claim on another's life, and that such a claim can or should be fulfilled through government force or coercion. We advocate the principles of fiscal responsibility in government policies.

We acknowledge and support all who through their courage and loyalty have served in any of the armed services of the United States of America and through their efforts have secured our country's existence and safety for this and future generations.

To further this vision of the United States of America, we pledge to provide a common ground for civil discourse for our members and like-minded individuals and encourage them to support candidates for—and holders of—public office whose positions are consistent with these principles.

Socratic questions: social, economic, political or ethical

I thought it might be interesting to put together a list of Socratic questions that highlight a contradiction in popular social, economic, political or ethical thinking, in such a way that it helps people think about complex issues.

Here are a few that I came up with. If you can think of any to add to the list, I would love to see them.

1. Why do labor unions insist that their employers "share the wealth," while they refuse to share in any of the losses?


2. If education should be free, why do teachers and their unions demand (and receive) such high salaries?


3. Why are the politicians who preach economic egalitarianism so strongly against a system with true political equality?


4. Why are parents chastised for not spending enough time with their children, while also being forced to send their kids away to public schools all day?


5. Since initiating force against another person is immoral, how can you justify legislating morality, since it requires force?


6. If people making over $200,000/yr are considered rich and evil capitalists, why are the public and union employees who make that much considered "deserving"?


7. Why does government expect us to obey the laws they pass, when they exempt themselves from many of them, and when they refuse to follow the Constitution?


8. How can government protect my freedom by violating my rights?


9. If more legislation is the answer, how much will be enough?


10. If money (or the love of money) is evil, why do you use it?


11. How many poor people have you ever worked for?


12. Why do so many Black Americans embrace Christianity, a religion which was imposed by force on their slave ancestors?


13. Why does getting elected to public office entitle elected officials to spend public tax money for their own personal holidays?


14. If equal pay for equal work is a good thing, why isn't it OK for someone not to be paid for doing nothing?

Out of control state occupational licensing

According to a Feb 7 article in the Wall Street Journal, more than 1,100 occupations in the US now require state licensing; everything from florists to barbers to people giving massages. In 2008, an astounding 23% of US workers required state licensing and approval to perform their jobs, up from 5% in 1950.

The article points out that “licensing mostly serves as a form of protectionism, allowing veterans of the trade to box out competitors who might undercut them on price or offer new services.” It also quotes a labor professor from the Univ. of Minnesota, “Occupations prefer to be licensed because they can restrict competition and obtain higher wages,” and “If you go to any statehouse, you'll see a line of occupations out the door wanting to be licensed.”

In other words, using the force of government to limit competition and keep prices artificially high – another flavor of the same problem that has corrupted labor unions and many industries.

I’d like to suggest two straightforward and principled ways to address the high unemployment rate: abolish all occupational licensing requirements, and eliminate the minimum wage. Not only would more people be employed, but prices for those of us who use such services would decline, and the overall quality would likely improve as service providers became more competitive.

Social Security EFICA reporting

We won’t reach the goal of sunsetting Social Security without substantial public support. Although the moral arguments are strongest, they can also take a while to be broadly accepted. In the short term, one step in generating additional support could be to increase awareness of the fact that we are actually taxed at twice the rate shown on our paystubs; something that I don’t think is widely understood.

In addition to the FICA deduction, your employer pays the same amount again on your behalf, as EFICA. However, the way the law is now, employers are forbidden from showing EFICA on your paystub. Such an implementation of the tax was clearly chosen as a way of hiding its magnitude from those who pay it.

I’d love to see that law expunged, and to have employers report not just EFICA on your paystub, but all other fees that they pay for you. Even better would be to abolish the EFICA deception all together; but that's a much bigger step than a simple change in reporting. The message would be clear, and the motivation for change selfish: if your employer didn't have to pay EFICA, your take-home pay could be higher.

Morally, forbidding companies from showing EFICA requires them to commit a form of fraud; companies are being forced to deceive their employees about the true nature of their wages and the related deductions.

Even if such a law change wasn’t passed, the debate alone has the potential of generating substantial public awareness by exposing the deception.

Hypothetical speech in Congress

For those who hope for an honest Congress, the result might not be as you expect. Here's a hypothetical speech showing what we might hear today:

Thank you Mr. Speaker. Fellow members, I rise to ask your support for a new bill. After 30 years in Congress, my approach today will be completely new.

Like the rest of you, I’m a habitual liar; I’ve always considered it to be part of the game of politics. The press and the public seem to know I’m lying, but they never say anything or call me on it. Frankly, even though I don’t see anything wrong with lying, I’m tired of it. It takes way too much work, and the public’s memory is so short that I can screw up in the most horrible ways outside of election season, and still get re-elected if I play my cards right. So, I have decided to use a different approach. I am going to stop lying while I’m on the floor of the House, except during the 90 days before an election, when the voters in my district will believe anything that I say, as long as I act sincere enough.

[[MORE]]The title of my new bill is the Encouraging Class Warfare Act of 2011. So far, it’s about 2,000 pages long. The bill was written by one of the lobbyists for my largest campaign contributor. They assure me that if the bill passes, not only will they will funnel huge amounts of money into my campaign, but they will also feed me all sorts of inside information that I can pass to my friends and family. They also throw really great parties.

I haven’t read a single page in the bill. I don’t really care what’s in it. Some intern on my staff said it would cost billions of dollars. So what? I know you couldn’t care less about what’s in it, either. Like we always do with these things, if you can get some details to my staff about the current hot buttons in your district or for your lobbyists, I will make sure those items get included in the bill too, so we can all feel comfortable about voting for it.

If someone asks you whether you’ve read the bill, you might try my approach. Just say something like “of course not; no one actually reads bills anymore.” Or, “another member (or the President) said he likes this bill, so of course I’m going to vote for it.” Or even, “hey, this bill has lots of pork in it that’s important to my lobbyists!”

Another kid on my staff said something about the bill not being constitutional. I laughed so hard, I nearly blew a gasket. The kid is out on his ear now, of course. I can’t have anyone who cares about such dated and limited notions working for me.

As to how the bill will be paid for, well of course we can’t raise taxes. The people in my district expect me to lie, but they don’t like it when their take-home pay goes down. So, as usual, we will use deficit spending instead. I might even include a small tax cut in the bill, just for fun. No one dares vote against a bill that cuts taxes.

I love inflation! As a hidden tax, it’s the perfect way to raise money, because no one notices slow declines in the purchasing power of the dollars they receive. Even better, we can lay the blame on the evil companies who make the stuff people buy. They are, after all, the ones who are raising prices, not us. Just think about this: since we stopped using silver in our money in the mid-1960’s, the value of a dollar has gone down by about 90%. That means, we, as government, have been able to take 90% of the value of what people have saved, and spend it on our pet projects. How wonderful is that!? We never could have accomplished that level of spending through straight taxes.

Another very cool thing about inflation is that by taking money from the productive people in the country, it helps achieve one of my long-term goals, which is equality for everyone. I hate the idea of anyone having any more than anyone else. I would rather everyone be equally poor than to have anyone be richer than anyone else. After all, if someone is rich while someone else is poor, the rich person should have wanted to help the poor person. Since he didn’t help, it’s our responsibility to right that wrong.

Of course, while I say “rich,” the middle class is really the main target of these attacks. After all, the middle class is where the bulk of the real wealth and earning power is in this country. I say “rich” because they are such an easy target; I love the idea of class warfare, hence the title of my bill. Even though I’m rich, as are my family and friends and all of you, as usual we exclude ourselves from bills like the one I’m putting forward today, while continuing to use and spend the public’s money for personal gain in both property and power. Remember, even after all wealth besides our own has been destroyed, the poor will still need someone to guide and care for them; to make sure that they don’t hurt themselves. We must work to abolish all pain, especially the pain of envy – unless, of course, that pain is for their own good.

Oh, and for those of you who think that deficit spending can’t go on forever: well, you’re right, of course. But it will be a great ride. One of my buddies at Goldman has even helped me use the turmoil to play several of my campaign contributors off against one another. Wonderful times ahead!

Americans, I have some bad news for you

Reposted from Life After the Oil Crash:

Americans, I have some bad news for you:

You have the worst quality of life in the developed world -- by a wide margin.

If you had any idea of how people really lived in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and many parts of Asia, you'd be rioting in the streets calling for a better life. In fact, the average Australian or Singaporean taxi driver has a much better standard of living than the typical American white-collar worker.

I know this because I am an American, and I escaped from the prison you call home.

I have lived all around the world, in wealthy countries and poor ones, and there is only one country I would never consider living in again: The United States of America. The mere thought of it fills me with dread.

[[MORE]]Consider this: you are the only people in the developed world without a single-payer health system. Everyone in Western Europe, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore and New Zealand has a single-payer system. If they get sick, they can devote all their energies to getting well. If you get sick, you have to battle two things at once: your illness and the fear of financial ruin. Millions of Americans go bankrupt every year due to medical bills, and tens of thousands die each year because they have no insurance or insufficient insurance. And don't believe for a second that rot about America having the world's best medical care or the shortest waiting lists: I've been to hospitals in Australia, New Zealand, Europe, Singapore, and Thailand, and every one was better than the "good" hospital I used to go to back home. The waits were shorter, the facilities more comfortable, and the doctors just as good.

This is ironic, because you need a good health system more than anyone else in the world. Why? Because your lifestyle is almost designed to make you sick.

Let's start with your diet: Much of the beef you eat has been exposed to fecal matter in processing. Your chicken is contaminated with salmonella. Your stock animals and poultry are pumped full of growth hormones and antibiotics. In most other countries, the government would act to protect consumers from this sort of thing; in the United States, the government is bought off by industry to prevent any effective regulations or inspections. In a few years, the majority of all the produce for sale in the United States will be from genetically modified crops, thanks to the cozy relationship between Monsanto Corporation and the United States government. Worse still, due to the vast quantities of high-fructose corn syrup Americans consume, fully one-third of children born in the United States today will be diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at some point in their lives.

Of course, it's not just the food that's killing you, it's the drugs. If you show any sign of life when you're young, they'll put you on Ritalin. Then, when you get old enough to take a good look around, you'll get depressed, so they'll give you Prozac. If you're a man, this will render you chemically impotent, so you'll need Viagra to get it up. Meanwhile, your steady diet of trans-fat-laden food is guaranteed to give you high cholesterol, so you'll get a prescription for Lipitor. Finally, at the end of the day, you'll lay awake at night worrying about losing your health plan, so you'll need Lunesta to go to sleep.

With a diet guaranteed to make you sick and a health system designed to make sure you stay that way, what you really need is a long vacation somewhere. Unfortunately, you probably can't take one. I'll let you in on little secret: if you go to the beaches of Thailand, the mountains of Nepal, or the coral reefs of Australia, you'll probably be the only American in sight. And you'll be surrounded crowds of happy Germans, French, Italians, Israelis, Scandinavians and wealthy Asians. Why? Because they're paid well enough to afford to visit these places AND they can take vacations long enough to do so. Even if you could scrape together enough money to go to one of these incredible places, by the time you recovered from your jetlag, it would time to get on a plane and rush back to your job.

If you think I'm making this up, check the stats on average annual vacation days by country:

Finland: 44
Italy: 42
France: 39
Germany: 35
UK: 25
Japan: 18
USA: 12

The fact is, they work you like dogs in the United States. This should come as no surprise: the United States never got away from the plantation/sweat shop labor model and any real labor movement was brutally suppressed. Unless you happen to be a member of the ownership class, your options are pretty much limited to barely surviving on service-sector wages or playing musical chairs for a spot in a cubicle (a spot that will be outsourced to India next week anyway). The very best you can hope for is to get a professional degree and then milk the system for a slice of the middle-class pie. And even those who claw their way into the middle class are but one illness or job loss away from poverty. Your jobs aren't secure. Your company has no loyalty to you. They'll play you off against your coworkers for as long as it suits them, then they'll get rid of you.

Of course, you don't have any choice in the matter: the system is designed this way. In most countries in the developed world, higher education is either free or heavily subsidized; in the United States, a university degree can set you back over US$100,000. Thus, you enter the working world with a crushing debt. Forget about taking a year off to travel the world and find yourself -- you've got to start working or watch your credit rating plummet.

If you're "lucky," you might even land a job good enough to qualify you for a home loan. And then you'll spend half your working life just paying the interest on the loan -- welcome to the world of American debt slavery. America has the illusion of great wealth because there's a lot of "stuff" around, but who really owns it? In real terms, the average American is poorer than the poorest ghetto dweller in Manila, because at least they have no debts. If they want to pack up and leave, they can; if you want to leave, you can't, because you've got debts to pay.

All this begs the question: Why would anyone put up with this? Ask any American and you'll get the same answer: because America is the freest country on earth. If you believe this, I've got some more bad news for you: America is actually among the least free countries on earth. Your piss is tested, your emails and phone calls are monitored, your medical records are gathered, and you are never more than one stray comment away from writhing on the ground with two Taser prongs in your ass.

And that's just physical freedom. Mentally, you are truly imprisoned. You don't even know the degree to which you are tormented by fears of medical bankruptcy, job loss, homelessness and violent crime because you've never lived in a country where there is no need to worry about such things.

But it goes much deeper than mere surveillance and anxiety. The fact is, you are not free because your country has been taken over and occupied by another government. Fully 70% of your tax dollars go to the Pentagon, and the Pentagon is the real government of the United States. You are required under pain of death to pay taxes to this occupying government. If you're from the less fortunate classes, you are also required to serve and die in their endless wars, or send your sons and daughters to do so. You have no choice in the matter: there is a socioeconomic draft system in the United States that provides a steady stream of cannon fodder for the military.

If you call a life of surveillance, anxiety and ceaseless toil in the service of a government you didn't elect "freedom," then you and I have a very different idea of what that word means.

If there was some chance that the country could be changed, there might be reason for hope. But can you honestly look around and conclude that anything is going to change? Where would the change come from? The people? Take a good look at your compatriots: the working class in the United States has been brutally propagandized by jackals like Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity. Members of the working class have been taught to lick the boots of their masters and then bend over for another kick in the ass. They've got these people so well trained that they'll take up arms against the other half of the working class as soon as their masters give the word.

If the people cannot make a change, how about the media? Not a chance. From Fox News to the New York Times, the mass media in the United States is nothing but the public relations wing of the corporatocracy, primarily the military industrial complex. At least the citizens of the former Soviet Union knew that their news was bull****. In America, you grow up thinking you've got a free media, which makes the propaganda doubly effective. If you don't think American media is mere corporate propaganda, ask yourself the following question: have you ever heard a major American news outlet suggest that the country could fund a single-payer health system by cutting military spending?

(continues)

Anti-nuclear protests in Germany

Reposted from Axis of Logic:

German people in unprecedented rebellion against government: 1000 injured in protests in nuclear protests: police at breaking point

Like the Roman legions vanquished in the Teutoburger Wald in Lower Saxony in 9 AD, the 17,000 police officers that marched into the woods around the nuclear storage facility in Gorleben in northern Germany on Sunday morning looked invincible. Police personnel from France, Croatia and Poland had joined in the biggest security operation ever mounted against protestors against the a train carrying nuclear waste to an depot in an isolated part of Lower Saxony's countryside. Helicopters, water canons and police vehicles, including an armoured surveillance truck, accompanied an endless column of anti-riot police mounted on horses and also marching down the railway tracks into the dense woods. Tens of thousands of anti riot police clattered along the tracks, their helmets and visors gleaming in the morning sun, and wearing body armour, leg guards and carrying batons.

[[MORE]]But by Sunday night, those same police officers were begging the protestors for a respite.

Trapped in black, icy woods without supplies or reinforcements able to reach them because of blockades by a mobile fleet of farmer’s tractors, the exhausted and hungry police officers requested negotiations with the protestors. A water cannon truck was blocked by tractors, and yet the police still had to clear 5000 people lying on the railway track at Harlingen in pitch darkness. The largest ever police operation had descended into chaos and confusion in the autumn woods of Lower Saxony, defeated by the courage and determination of peaceful protestors who marched for miles through woods to find places to lie down on the tracks and to scoop out gravel to delay the progress of the "the train from hell."

The police union head Reiner Wendt gave vent to the general frustration when he issued a press statement via the dpa news agency last night saying the police had reached exhaustion point and needed a break. Behind the scenes, a battle seemed to be raging between the police chiefs tucked up in their warm headquarters and urging more action and the exhausted officers on the ground.

The police on the ground won out. The Castor train -- called a "Chernobyl on wheels" because it has been carrying 133 tonnes of highly radioactive waste to an unsafe depot -- was stopped in the middle of the countryside and Nato barbed wire was placed around it. Lit by floodlights and guarded by a handful of police, the most dangerous train on the planet was forced to a halt after a 63 hour journey across France and Germany.

The defeat of the legions at Teutoburg marked the end of the attempt by the Roman empire to conquer Germania magna. And the failure of the biggest ever police operation two thousand years later in the woods of Lower Saxony to tame women, elderly people and school children protesting the government's nuclear policy, could well also go down as a turning point.

The Berlin government can no longer rely on the discredited mainstream media to control the way people see issues. Too many people recognise it to be a tool of propaganda. The government now needs to resort brute force to bludgon through decisions that enrich corporations and banks and impoverish everyone else. But the police forces at its disposal are simply not sufficient given the scale of the protests now gripping Germany. Only 1,500 police reinforcements could be mustered on Morning from the entire territory to deal with road blockades by thousands of protestors aiming to delay the transport of the nuclear waste on the final leg of its journey.



(continues)

Do you consider yourself to be free?

I am not free, though I work toward that goal every day.

• I can't travel as I wish without government permission.


• I can't own certain objects without government permission.


• I can't take certain actions (which don't harm or threaten others) or ingest certain substances without inviting prosecution or imprisonment.


• I don't fully own much of "my" property: if taxes aren't paid, it can be confiscated; government limits my ability to make changes to my home and land; I can't even freely dispose of it as I might want (large gifts incur taxes)


• I can't earn a living by doing whatever I want, even if those things don't harm others.


• Some of my property is regularly confiscated by government without my consent, through inflation and taxes.

A million other aspects of our lives are controlled, restricted and monitored. Residents of Colorado aren't even allowed to catch rain water without risking prosecution, fines and imprisonment.

Political platforms

Take a look at the following key points for a political platform:

WE DEMAND THAT THE GOVERNMENT UNDERTAKE THE OBLIGATION ABOVE ALL OF PROVIDING CITIZENS WITH ADEQUATE OPPORTUNITIES FOR EMPLOYMENT AND EARNING A LIVING.

THE ACTIVITIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO CLASH WITH THE INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY, BUT MUST TAKE PLACE WITHIN ITS CONFINES AND BE FOR THE GOOD OF ALL ...

WE DEMAND THE NATIONALIZATION OF ALL BUSINESSES WHICH HAVE BEEN AMALGAMATED (INTO TRUSTS).

[[MORE]]WE DEMAND THAT THE STATE SHALL SHARE IN THE PROFITS OF LARGE INDUSTRIES.

WE DEMAND THAT PROVISION FOR THE AGED SHALL BE MADE ON A VERY GREATLY INCREASED SCALE.

WE DEMAND A LAND-REFORM SUITABLE TO OUR NATIONAL REQUIREMENTS, THE PASSING OF A LAW FOR THE CONFISCATION OF LAND FOR COMMUNAL PURPOSES; THE ABOLITION OF INTEREST ON MORTGAGES, AND PROHIBITION OF ALL SPECULATION IN LAND.

WE DEMAND AN AGRARIAN REFORM SUITABLE TO OUR NATIONAL REQUIREMENTS; THE ENACTMENT OF A LAW TO EXPROPRIATE WITHOUT COMPENSATION THE OWNERS OF ANY LAND THAT MAY BE NEEDED FOR NATIONAL PURPOSES; THE ABOLITION OF GROUND RENTS; AND THE PROHIBITION OF ALL SPECULATION IN LAND.

...THE STATE SHALL ORGANIZE THOROUGHLY THE WHOLE CULTURAL SYSTEM OF THE NATION ... THE CONCEPTION OF THE STATE IDEA (THE SCIENCE OF CITIZENSHIP) SHALL BE TAUGHT IN THE SCHOOLS FROM THE VERY BEGINNING. WE DEMAND THAT SPECIALLY TALENTED CHILDREN OF POOR PARENTS, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR STATION OR OCCUPATION, SHALL BE EDUCATED AT THE COST OF THE STATE.

IT IS THE DUTY OF THE STATE TO HELP RAISE THE STANDARD OF THE NATION'S HEALTH BY PROVIDING MATERNITY WELFARE CENTRES, BY PROHIBITING JUVENILE LABOUR, BY INCREASING PHYSICAL FITNESS THROUGH THE INTRODUCTION OF COMPULSORY GAMES AND GYMNASTICS....

(WE) COMBAT THE MATERIALISTIC SPIRIT WITHIN AND OUTSIDE US, AND ARE CONVINCED THAT A PERMANENT RECOVERY OF OUR PEOPLE CAN ONLY PROCEED WITHIN ON THE FOUNDATION OF "THE COMMON GOOD BEFORE THE INDIVIDUAL GOOD."

Sound familiar?

This was the platform of the National Socialist Party in Germany in 1922. It came from the "25 point program," which was authored by Hitler and other socialists / fascists of the time.

Interview with the pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb

Here's a link to an interview of Paul Tibbets, who was the pilot who dropped the first atomic bomb, on Hiroshima:

http://dalesdesigns.net/interview.htm

[[MORE]]There are some interesting lessons here:

1. To get someone to kill thousands of innocent civilians, all you need to do is convince them that it's for the "greater good" -- the fact that the people being killed are, in fact, innocent, has no bearing. Applying that concept to the world as it is today leads to some pretty ugly thoughts.


2. The US made plans to nuke Europe at the same time as Japan. I don't recall hearing that before. Hitler was vilified for having thousands killed in Berlin in the last days of the war; imagine how many more would have died if a bomb had been dropped there. Also, the US almost certainly would not have been able to withdraw their forces before the bomb was dropped, due to secrecy.


3. The winners write the history, and spin it their way. The pilot and crew of the plane that killed thousands is a hero. If Japan had won, the US would certainly have been cast in a much different light.


4. There was a third bomb. From the tone of the discussion, it sounds like Japan would have had a third one dropped on them if they hadn't surrendered. I don't recall ever hearing that before, either.

In case it's not clear, I actually agree with the reasons why the bombs were dropped on Japan -- but that's a subject for another post.

Property confiscation and recovery in California

Before leaving California a few years ago, my wife and I moved into a rental home for a while so we could more easily sell our house. After the house sold, we of course sent a mail forwarding request to the post office. Some time later, my insurance company sent me a $500+ refund of some kind to our old address. Here's what happened after that:

1. The post office failed to forward the letter, and instead returned it to the sender.


2. Rather than spending the two minutes it would take to find us (we kept the same phone number), the insurance company instead sent the money to the California state office for unclaimed property.


3. The state deposited the money into the general fund. They never sent me a letter or otherwise made any attempt to contact me.


4. Almost two years after the fact, I accidentally discovered that the state is holding "unclaimed" property in my name (I think "stolen" would be a better word...).


5. I sent the state all of the requested information -- ID, proof of address, etc.


6. A few days ago, I received a letter from them saying that their office has received so many claims lately (300,000+ in the last year), that it will take at least six months before they can even look at mine. If the claim involved securities (which mine doesn't), they said it would take 8 or 9 months, since the securities will have been sold when they were first received and computing the resulting pay-out takes some extra effort. If all provided information isn't exactly as required, they will request the additional info only after they've reviewed the initial claim in 6+ months.

[[MORE]]When they do pay, they don't include any interest -- so the state gets a nearly 3 year "loan" from me without my consent and without compensation.

A similar thing happened maybe 10 years ago. My kids both had savings accounts at a local savings and loan. The kids weren't into the accounts that much, so they sat idle most of the time -- in theory collecting interest. Well, after about 2 yrs of no activity, the state considers the accounts abandoned, and requires the bank to send them the funds. We never received any notice. It wasn't until a couple of years after that, when we decided to check the balance in the accounts, that we discovered that they had been "closed".

If you or members of your family currently live in CA, or ever lived there, I highly recommend taking a quick look on the unclaimed property page to see if they have stolen anything of yours too. I found they also had property of my now-deceased grandparents, among others (reclamation of which is basically impossible):

http://scoweb.sco.ca.gov/UCP/

Naomi Wolf: The End of America

Interesting video by Naomi Wolf, on the "End of America."



[[MORE]]She mentions 10 steps on the path to the "end":

1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy


2. Create a gulag


3. Develop a thug caste


4. Set up an internal surveillance system


5. Harass citizens' groups


6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release


7. Target key individuals


8. Control the press


9. Dissent equals treason


10. Suspend the rule of law

What's your is yours, right?

I had an interesting conversation with a friend here in New Zealand today. He told me about a meeting he had with one of the local city Council members about an emergency generator that he had recently installed. They were talking about emergency preparedness, and he asked what the city would do in the event of an extended, wide-scale power outage. The Councilman said they would go around to local firms and individuals with generators, claim them under an emergency declaration, and take them where they were "needed".

[[MORE]]My friend subsequently wrote to our MP to ask if that was true and if they could provide assurances that it wouldn't happen. He responded by confirming it was true, and that they could not provide any assurances. Right after that, he sold the generator in an auction. What good is it if you can't be sure that you can use it?

I have no doubt that something similar would happen in the US.

The moral of the story: in a mixed economy, what you think you own, you really don't. Someone bigger and stronger, including your own government, can walk in at any time and claim it for "emergency" purposes. Not just generators, but food, clothing, weapons and even housing.

The effect of outlawing employment testing

In 1971, the Supreme Court effectively outlawed employment testing. Their justification was that it discriminated against minorities, and was therefore in violation of the Civil Rights Act. With the benefit of hindsight, care to guess what happened as a result?

A recent study has shown that in the aftermath of the ruling, employers changed their approach to requiring college degrees. Many minorities were shut out only because of their financial condition, rather than their ability. The number of people in college increased and the cost of education increased without providing additional skills or knowledge, further compounding the problem. A bad deal for minorities all around. Plus, degrees evolved into being mostly a demonstration that you could make it through the process, rather than certifications that you actually learned anything useful about your subject.

Yet another example of how government interference in the free market rarely has the desired effect.

Link to PDF

Russian Techniques of Subversion

Pretty interesting series of videos from 1983 by KGB defector Bezmenov that describes the Russian techniques of subverting their enemies -- the accuracy with which he described the events of the 25 years since then in the US is definitely impressive.



It occurs to me that WW III may have been fought for the last 50 years, right in our midst. It was not a war with guns and bombs, it was a war of ideology. And the US is now in the final stages of losing, big time. Most of us didn't even know it was happening. To the extent it was intentional -- and the more I hear Bezmenov talk, the more I believe it may have been -- it was really an amazing achievement, in the true spirit of Sun Tzu. Fighting without fighting. Help your enemy destroy themselves.

Executive Order 11110

There is a rumor that's been circulated in several videos and books that JFK was assassinated because he signed Executive Order 11110, which supposedly stripped the Federal Reserve of its power to loan money to the Treasury at interest.
[[MORE]]
The truth is that Executive Order 11110 authorized the printing of $4B in silver certificates, should the occasion arise -- it had nothing to do with stripping anything from the Fed, and it wasn't even an instruction to actually do the printing, only an authorization to do so. A similar order had been written in 1957, just six years before.

JFK did nothing that threatened the Federal Reserve in the slightest. He was a life-long socialist and globalist; he helped devalue the dollar and transfer American wealth to foreign countries.

Executive Order 11110 was later rescinded by Reagan with Executive Order 12608 in 1987, well past the time when silver certificates were withdrawn from circulation and when the US went completely off of the silver and gold standards after Nixon backed out of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1971.

Is the US approaching fascism?

A few thoughts:

-- Habeas corpus has been suspended
-- The President has claimed the right to suspend the Constitution (and elections) in a time of crisis, without even a clear definition of a crisis
-- People are being arrested and/or beaten for stupid reasons: not trimming their lawn to the right height, etc
-- Insane amounts of security involved with anything related to travel
-- Travel forbidden to people who are on certain "lists"
[[MORE]]-- The US has a Department of Homeland Security
-- Secret prisons
-- Torture is sanctioned by the government
-- The US started wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq, the same crime the Nazis were tried for at Nuremberg
-- More than one million people have now been murdered in Iraq as a result of the US occupation
-- Ralph Nader claimed (see youtube) that a Congressman told him that Congress was afraid to start impeachment proceedings against Bush and Cheney because they had threatened to nuke Iran and suspend elections if they did
-- The abomination called the Patriot Act, which now allows self-written search warrants, among other insanity
-- The US now has more people in prison per capita than any country in the world (more than 2M total, with more than 5M more in jail, on parole or on probation). With 5% of the world's population, the US has 25% of the world's incarcerated.
-- The press in the US are corrupt, with control of nearly all media resting in the hands of just 5 large corporations
-- The political parties are corrupt, offering voters a faux choice between candidates who only differ with regard to superficial issues
-- Congress is corrupt, driven by the power of lobbyists and large corporations, and have passed one unconstitutional law after another
-- New passports already have ID chips
-- Gradual but continuous erosion of 2nd amendment rights

Oh, and for those who are contemplating refusing to get a Real ID -- if the UK experience teaches us anything, it's that you better also be prepared to live completely off the grid if you do that. Doing any kind of banking, having a job, traveling, etc, will all likely require you to have ID.