Dear Progressives....Why You Are Losing the People and What You Can Do About It

"[The task is to] covertly lower the standard of living, the whole social structure, of America so that we can be merged with all other nations." -- Rowan Gaither (1909-1961) Attorney, investment banker, President of the Ford Foundation (1953-1956).  The Ford Foundation is a rich and powerful progressive institution.

Headlines can be hilarious as was Alternet's It's a Rout: Democrats Lose Badly as GOP Extremists Consolidate Power In Congress and Across America.  The article then goes on to bitch and moan about America's discriminatory election.  Guess what?  Nobody stopped anybody from voting.  Even the suffering Democrat base couldn't even hold their noses and vote because they knew they had been screwed.  Life for them was no better under Obama and Gang than it was under Bush and Gang.

OKAY, progressives are in deep mourning over the 2014 elections.  I'm not gloating or rubbing it in because as a liberty activist who abhors the damn wars, the thieving banking system, corporate welfare, the militarized police state, the Patriot Act, the NSA and many other nasties that have rendered America nothing more than a totalitarian empire controlled by oligarchs, I do observe and understand the American people.

I have no skin in the game; I didn't vote this year although when I do vote I generally vote 3rd party and AGAINST the Republicans and Democrats.  The DNC and RNC machines are wholly owned subsidiaries of the banksters, defense contractors and corporate welfare queens.  Moreover, my contempt for the Republicans is just as great as my contempt for the Democrats.  In many ways, I despise the Republicans more, especially since the GOP was hijacked by neocons and theocons years ago.  While I was happy that a slew of Congress Critters were fired by the voters, I was anything but happy that they were replaced with Republicans.

Rest assured, the American people didn't actually vote for Republicans.  The people were just so pissed off that they wanted to fire somebody and this election cycle it was Dems who were most vulnerable.   Why are the American people so pissed off?  Why it's the economy of course.  If folks are lucky enough to have a decent paying job, taxes are eating them alive.  Those who don't have jobs are suffering and many who do have jobs have low wage jobs with no future.

America is a place where the middle class is vanishing and the poor are getting poorer.  The rich are definitely getting richer and at the expense of the poor and middle class.  The Dems love the poor which is why they function as plantation owners doling out subsistence level goodies to their devoted slaves.  Vote buying can only go so far until it bankrupts a nation under the weight of the entitlement state where everybody is entitled to substantial freebies as evidenced by the fact that over 92 million Americans don't even bother to work, here, and many live off the dole.

Yes, progressives, the Republicans and Democrats are all responsible for the demise of the American middle class and the future-less lives of the poor. How did it happen?  Well, it started back in 1913 when progressives passed the Federal Reserve Act that transferred all monetary power to Wall Street. That was the beginning of the death of the middle class because it resulted in a massive wealth transfer from the poor and middle class to the rich.  But not to worry says progressive, we will pass welfare bills that throw you the picked bones of the steaks we eat because you don't need to build wealth and financial security, you must be dependent on US because we OWN you.

Things got far uglier in 1971 when Nixon de-tethered the dollar from gold and made the dollar a 100% fiat currency that totally destroyed the purchasing power of the dollar.

Yet, progressives pay scant attention to monetary policy and all they ever care about is throwing a few moldy crumbs at the dutifully compliant sheeple people who are definitely growing restless.

Besides collaborating with Wall Street to pass the Federal Reserve Act to destroy the purchasing power of the dollar, progressives were also instrumental in passing some job killing legislation and bankster protection bills over the years.

Although inflation, taxation, lower wages and massive job losses have been bleeding the middle class dry, the history of the loss of good paying manufacturing jobs is quite interesting. Even more interesting, it was actually planned! And while there are other components to the systematic sell-off of America, like our criminal Congress Critters passing bills that tax domestic corporate earnings at much higher rates if they produced and earned on US soil versus earning their dough offshore, another major component of our national misery is NAFTA and other horrifying trade agreements supported by Republicans and Democrats alike. The expediting of the real bleed of American jobs is fully attributable to Bill Clinton who enthusiastically supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Despite numerous warnings that NAFTA would be catastrophic to the American middle class and domestic manufacturing, the political class was more interested in filing its campaign coffers with special interest dough by selling multi-national corporatists legal protectionism.

NAFTA was a piece of legislation that was unprecedented in its scope and economic consequences as it conferred dictatorial powers of implementation upon the executive branch of government without any congressional oversight whatsoever. Moreover, NAFTA established secret working groups that are publicly funded, totally unaccountable to anyone and they operate off the radar of congressional and public scrutiny.

NAFTA passed in both houses of a Democratic controlled Congress in 1993. In the Senate, it passed with 61 yeas and 38 nays. In the House, it was much closer at 234 yeas to 200 nays. The Republicans in the House really came through for Clinton by providing 132 Yeas to counter 156 Democratic nays. Still, 40% of the Democrats in the House voted for NAFTA.

The vote itself is more than a bit intriguing. Many of NAFTA’s congressional supporters ended up as presidential candidates or secured congressional leadership positions. On the Senate side, the big name Democrats who voted for NAFTA includes Bill Bradley, Tom Daschle, Christopher Dodd, Ted Kennedy (deceased), Joe Lieberman, John Kerry and Joe Biden, now Vice President. A lot of these Democrats had made various bids for the presidency or vice presidency of the United States. Interestingly, big name NAFTA supporting Republicans includes John McCain, Bob Dole (defeated by Clinton), Mitch McConnell (soon to be Senate Minority Leader post 2014 elections) and many others who were none too eager to assist Bill Clinton in the sellout of the American worker.

On the House side, NAFTA supporters included big name GOPers like Dennis Hastert, Newt Gingrich, Dick Armey, John Boehner and Ron Portman, all of whom rose to leadership positions in the House or the Bush Administration. Democrat Nancy Pelsoi, who voted yes on NAFTA, ended up Speaker of the House for her role in decimating U.S. manufacturing and jobs.

Clearly, these traitorous rogues were handsomely rewarded with greater political power for engineering the systematic dismantling of the world’s greatest manufacturing legend in all of human history.

Progressives handsomely rewarded Nancy Pelosi for her NAFTA vote by anointing her Speaker of the House.  Now that's truly ironic considering that progressives are chronically ranting about the injustice of rich Republicans, especially rich white Republicans, yet they rabidly endorse a rich white bitch and the 12th richest member of Congress, here.  LOL, Pelosi sold the poor and middle class down the river and was rewarded! For more information on NAFTA and its devastating economic consequences, see my blog post The Kleptocracy of Cannibal Crony Capitalism. Bill Clinton and his Republican NAFTA Baby Co-Conspirators.

As if playing a key role in the destruction of US manufacturing and middle class jobs with corporatist crony capitalist boondoggles like NAFTA isn't bad enough, progressive icon Bill Clinton paved the road in 1999 for Banksters Gone Wild that resulted in the 2008 financial crisis.

Photo Above: Bill Clinton signs into law the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Financial Services Modernization Act, November 12, 1999

Who are the Architects of Economic Collapse? Global Research

This extraordinary Global Research article documents how the same folks that were behind the Financial Services Modernization Act ended up in top positions in the Obama Administration.

The simple truth is that Wall Street and its interests rule America and they also own both political parties.  It's even more interesting to note that liberal progressive icons were in fact part of the ruling elite cabal that's that been selling out the poor and middle class since 1913.

My issues with progressives are numerous and my most intense hatred of progressivism is their love of wars and interventions, although these days that mantle appears to have somewhat passed to the Republicans.  But let's look at the facts:  Who got us into WW I, WW II, the Korean War, Vietnam and the Balkan Wars?  All liberal progressive Dems  - Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, LBJ and Clinton.  The body counts of those progressive wars exceed 100 million folks.  Yes, progressive hands are dripping in blood.

Where's the anti-war movement that was so awesome in the 1960's?  Well, it's somewhere between invisible and non-existent.

Where were progressives when Bush and the Republicans needed the Patriot Act passed?  They were voting with Bush and the Republicans and they continued with each successive Patriot Act renewal. Who in Congress is standing up to the NSA?  Not many, just a few Libertarian leaning Republicans like Rand Paul and Justin Amash, along with a few Dems.

Progressive don't stand for civil liberties and privacy.  In fact, they seem to be addicted to totalitarian government power.  Progressive policies are rooted in command and control economies where nobody is allowed to earn a living unless they grant permission and that permission comes with economy destroying bureaucratic dictates.

Although progressives have embraced marijuana legalization and decriminalization, they've botched it up in CO and WA with insane bureaucracies and taxes to the extent that underground marijuana markets continue to flourish because the taxed price is too damn high (vs. the free market price) and it's quite difficult to grow and sell pot if one seeks to be a an entrepreneur.  New York, the poster child for anti-business, anti-entrepreneurship progressive economic policies, may be the most absurd example of how progressives botch something as simple as growing and selling medical marijuana.

$20M to Start an MMJ Business in New York?

Medical marijuana in New York might prove to be a pretty wealthy club.

Startup costs to open a dispensary and grow could run over $20 million, according to a recent report by The New York Times. And it might take upwards of $1 million just to navigate through the application process, estimated one cannabis lobbyist quoted in The Times piece. These lofty costs would make it difficult for small businesses to get involved.

What the hell do progressives have against folks seeking to start small businesses?  Apparently, a lot!  Economically, progressives are like the mafia demanding tribute for the privilege of working and earning a living.  When it comes to folks who want to work and produce, progressives are like Shylock from the Merchant of Venice demanding a pound of flesh.

While the Nazified Police State is a draconian assault on natural rights and civil liberties that is at least tolerated if not encouraged by progressives, the Progressive Economic Police State against small businesses is just as destructive because it utterly denies folks the right to earn a living.

Perhaps it's long overdue for progressives to do some serious soul searching, starting with admitting their own roles in growing Police State USA, destroying small businesses by making it impossible for limited capital small business operators to even start a business.  And then there are the damn wars that never end.

America needs less laws, less regulation and more freedom.  On the criminal code, progressives should embrace the Libertarian approach:  No Victim, No Crime.  America has more folks in prison than any nation on the planet and many of these folks are imprisoned for victim-less crimes. Progressives should stop criminalizing every act that they personally disapprove of.

Progressives need a revolution within the Democrat party and they need to get rid of the old, fraudulent leadership that is owned by the same special interests that own the GOP.

Progressives need to fight to end the damn wars and yes they also need to give up their imperial aspirations of non-stop intervention that so devastated the world in WW I, WW II, Korean War, Vietnam and other murderous interventions.

Progressives need to support limited government,  business growth and lower taxes.  If anything, progressives are famous for being anti-business.   Progressives need to be more Libertarian and they must learn to stop controlling everything at the point of a gun.  Speaking of guns, progressives should absolutely support the 2nd amendment because the right to defend yourself from violence, sexual assault or death is an absolute natural right that no free citizen should ever be denied.

Libertarians and 'sane' progressives, well, at least the progressives that aren't Nazis, have a lot in common.

Ralph Nader gets it and his book Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State lays out a solid argument on why liberals and Libertarians should unite to defeat the corporate state.  As a Libertarian, I find Nader to be honest and sane even if he is more statist than my Libertarian ideology but he's definitely on the right track.

Ralph Nader On Why Libertarians And Liberals Should Unite

Defeating the corporate state, the military industrial complex, the prison industrial complex and the security industrial complex is a damn good place to start where we can demolish the absolute worst aspects of government power.

This isn't a Republican or Democrat issue; there is only one issue at stake here - namely the freedom and prosperity of the people.

Hello progressives?  Where art thou? Can you possibly resist the temptation to CONTROL every possible aspect of human existence and champion historical classical liberalism that embodied a high level of personal and economic freedom with minimal government interference?

The principles of voluntarism enshrine classical liberalism because it's based on the absence of state violence and coercion.  I never understood why progressives are so supportive of state violence and coercion and so oppose voluntary cooperation and transactions among people to deliver peace, harmony, goods, services and consent.

Finally, while progressives may toss a few crumbs at folks to achieve political power they utterly fail to understand that humans desperately seek personal sovereignty, independence and economic opportunity.  People don't want to be tethered to the impoverishment of the progressive plantation anymore than more than they would consent to be slaves.

If progressives truly advocated for progress rather than raw and absolute power, they could kick GOP ass.  However, progress will never come from state power.



Image: Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People. "The composition is part of a pyramid whose base are the bodies that have fallen in the struggle against tyranny, corpses lit to emphasize its importance." http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:La_libertad_guiando_al_pueblo.png

Voting Doesn't Matter Because All Elections Are Controlled by R and D Big Money, Big Banksters, Big Corporations and Big Defense Contractors

Republican, Democrat or Independent, Americans are notorious for bitching and moaning about the election system but they are even more livid about the outcomes of elections.  Republicans and Democrats vote for change that never comes. None of the change that Americans vote for ever supports peace, liberty and prosperity.  While voting for big corrupt government is a national sport in America, the 2 parties actually believe they are different despite the fact that both Republicans and Democrats advocate for endless wars, bankster corruption, the wholesale slashing of civil liberties and fascist crony capitalism.  On the Democrat side, their talking points are always reduced to the Koch Brothers who are the favorite punching bags of progressives and on the Republican side it's always about George Soros and how he spreads his gargantuan wealth to liberal groups.

What voters fail to understand is that the entire election process is rigged and was never intended to be a We the People thing.  I'm not even defending democracy which I consider unlimited majority mob rule where 51% of the people get to trump the rights of the other 49%.  However, in America today the general theme on the right and left is always about our failed democracy.  Guess what? Democracy is working as it was intended to work - to concentrate wealth and power.  The establishment Republican and Democrat elites who are actually representatives of banksters, defense contractors, NSA contractors and other assorted special corporate interests are masters at getting folks to vote away their liberty in exchange for some perceived benefit.

When most American votes, they are actually voting for the police powers of state violence to rob and plunder some other citizen at the point of a gun to give them what they want and think they deserve.  Republicans vote for big bad government, the squashing of civil liberties and the endless wars that they worship like a god.  Democrats also vote for the wars and anti-civil liberty laws but they tend focus on preserving socialist entitlements, taxation and redistribution of wealth.

At the end of the day, the rich get richer, the poor get poor and the middle class is wiped out.

While I'll never be convinced that anything beneficial to humanity has ever existed in any democracy, the American democracy is especially repugnant and vile because nowhere in human history have the rich politicos and their corporate sponsors managed to bamboozle over 317 million Americans, here, or  over 207 million eligible voters, here.   Granted, far fewer actually vote and American voter participation continues to decline.

Getting back to 'democracy' and elections, America has 2 major impediments.  1.  Big corporate special interest money controls the RNC and DNC money machines and 2. The elites of the RNC and DNC machines literally ban We the People from control of the primary process by loading it up with super delegates, congress critters and DNC/RNC officials.

Primaries

Every Ron Paul supporter knows how the Ron Paul delegates were treated at the RNC Convention by the Republicans. They were marginalized, shunned and prevented from voting.  So much for fair and honest primaries.  It doesn't exist in any party.

This is deliberate and explains why the primary system is such a freaking farce.  The truth of the matter is that neither the RNC or DNC machines trust We the People.  The primary process was supposed to be a We the People event where We the People selected candidates.  It doesn't work that way and probably never has.  The Nazi strong arm tentacles of the RNC and DNC machines have effectively banished We the People from the primary process.

This week, the RNC voted to further squash We the People consisting of Tea Party folks, liberty activists, Paulites and Libertarians.

RNC tightens 2016 primary calendar, rules The Hill

A series of changes aimed at tightening the GOP presidential primary calendar sailed through a vote at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting, giving the party new tools to control its nomination process.

The new 2016 rules will make it much harder for states to cut in line in the nomination process and will help Republicans avoid a repeat of a drawn out, bloody primary many believe damaged Mitt Romney's chances in 2012 of defeating President Obama.

After a contentious Thursday hearing on some rules changes, few members joined Virginia Committeeman Morton Blackwell in objecting to the final package — the landslide vote was 153 in favor, with 9 opposing.

Mort Blackwell is one of the good guys who has supported the Tea Party, Paulites and Libertarians.  Blackwell and liberty were dealt a decisive blow by the RNC.   Moreover, the 153-9 vote is proof that the establishment GOP elites are still very much in control and not threatened in the least.  However, while the Republican elites may smirk that they struck a mortal blow to the liberty activists within the party, the GOP will ultimately pay the price for its insufferable arrogance in general elections because the liberty activists are bailing like crazy.  They are so fed up that they couldn't ever hold their noses and vote Republican.

Campaign Finance Money

This week, conservative activist journalist Denesh D'Souza was indicted by a federal grand jury for violating campaign finance laws.  Specifically, D'Souza was charged with illegally raising $20,000 for a conservative candidate.  Politico reports:

The facts of the case remain hazy: The indictment states that D’Souza reimbursed associates who donated $20,000 to a campaign and also caused the campaign to misreport the source of its contributions.  

I'm no fan of D'Souza and consider him a typical Republican theocon-neocon statist.  That said, the charges against him are outrageous and politically motivated by the Obama Department of Justice because $20,000 is an incredibly puny amount of money swimming in the vast oceanic cesspools of political money.

Politico had a far more interesting piece in May 2012, before the 2012 election. Yes, Politico is a statist leftist rag and never goes after the Dems on their fund raising schemes but the article disclosed accurate money facts regarding Republican fund raising.

GOP groups plan record $1 billion blitz

Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress....

POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections...

Restore Our Future, the super PAC supporting Mitt Romney, proved its potency by spending nearly $50 million in the primaries. Now able to entice big donors with a neck-and-neck general election, the group is likely to meet its new goal of spending $100 million more.

And American Crossroads and the affiliated Crossroads GPS, the groups that Rove and Ed Gillespie helped conceive and raise cash for, are expected to ante up $300 million, giving the two-year-old organization one of the election’s loudest voices.

The cost of the 2012 presidential election was a staggering $2 billion according to the Huffington Post and this doesn't include congressional races.

2012 Presidential Election Cost Hits $2 Billion Mark

The Obama and Romney campaigns each mobilized competing squads of ultra-wealthy fundraisers, sought aid from free-spending allied super PACs and deployed multimillion-dollar media broadsides and armies of organizers.

The final thrust of fundraising included a massive late surge of $33 million in donations to pro-Romney political committees from a single billionaire, Las Vegas casino owner Sheldon Adelson. In all, Adelson and his wife, Miriam, gave Romney and other Republican candidates $95 million during the election season, closing in on the gambling magnate's vow to give $100 million to GOP causes.

The new campaign finance filings covered the final few weeks of the race, when campaign organizations for Romney and Obama, along with a slew of super PACs, raised and spent millions toward the long-expected $2 billion milestone.

By law, an individual can only contribute $2,500 to a candidate.  Even if ordinary folks could afford a $2,500 campaign contribution to a candidate, which they can't, the lion's share of political money comes from PAC's, special interests, banksters, defense contractors etc. and these are the folks who own and control the RNC and DNC machines.

While the Huffington Post reported that the 2012 presidential election cost $2 billion,Politico reported that the cost of the 2012 presidential and congressional elections was $6 billion, here. Open Secrets, an organization that specifically tracks political money, also reported that the 2012 presidential and congressional elections cost $6 billion, here.

It's clearly evident that the rich and powerful hijacked and now own our election system.  The RNC and DNC machines are nothing but money laundering machines for special interests.

If an individual voter can only contribute a maximum of $2,500 to a candidate and if Denesh D'Souza is being prosecuted for his role in a puny $20,000 campaign finance fiasco, how is it that the Koch Brothers can legally pony up a staggering $400 million and casino magnet Adelson can pony up $100 million to influence election outcomes?

Every campaign finance reform bill passed by congress over the decades has served to increase special interest money in the election system.   Though a complicated maze of legal PAC's, dark money, dirty money, corporate money and other schemes and scams, just about every politician in America is bought and paid for.

This money is controlled by the RNC and DNC machines who pick and fund the candidates. Those candidates who refuse to be bought and bribed lose in primaries because nobody can compete with the big bucks of special interest dough, the RNC, DNC, their PAC's, their bundlers and their formidable fund raising machines.

If elections are going to ever mean anything as We the People initiatives to raise, fund and elect We the People candidates, then the special interest dough that owns our elections must be outlawed. The PAC's must be outlawed.  Bundling must be outlawed.

No one should be allowed to contribute money to any campaign except voters.  Furthermore, the most destructive aspect of our corrupt political system is the fund raising authority of the RNC and DNC.  Americans should support outlawing their ability to fund raise because it embodies the systemic corruption the permeates our election process.

Here's what a politician really looks like:

Photo source: http://www.isights.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/sponsors.jpg

Whatever the flaws of democracy and despite the fact that few folks even vote with their brains, I doubt that they intentionally voted for folks who are compromised, bribed, bought and paid for.

Until We the People directly fund candidates, control the primary process and get corporate money out of elections, there really is no sane reason to vote R or D.  Voting 3rd party makes far more sense.  At least it's a repudiation of Republican and Democrat treason and tyranny and allows somebody to scream "I'm here, I'm aware, I'm politically actives and I reject you warmongering, bankster loving traitors who sellout the poor and middle class".

A more perfect election process would ban all fund raising by anybody except the candidates and they should only be allowed to raise money from individual voters.  Moreover, it would be even more fun to allow unlimited individual campaign contributions so long as they are legally required to post all campaign contributions on their websites for voters to checkout.  Really, who cares of Soros gives a billion or more to Obama or if the Koch Brothers gives a billion or more to Mittens? At least voters would know who fund candidates and to what extent.

I guarantee you that campaign financial disclosure in real time would totally freakout dishonest candidates who sell themselves to the highest bidders.  To call them whores would be an insult to decent and hardworking whores everywhere.  Full disclosure would go a long way in providing voters with highly relevant information.

Meanwhile, so long as the big R and D money machines control elections, voting is truly a waste of time unless a vote is a 3rd party vote.  For the election process to ever be meaningful, primaries must be 100% We the People initiatives and the dark and dirty special interest money must be expunged from the system.

Death Panels, Obamacare’s Ideological Framework, The Complete Lives System

The ideological framework of Obamacare that was laid out by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (brother of Rahm Emanuel, mayor of Chicago and Obama’s former Chief of Staff) is horrifyingly reminiscent of a Nazi Germany styled social order that assigns value to human life based on its utilitarian value. It’s what Dr. Emanuel calls the “complete lives system”.

Principles of Allocation for Scarce Medical Interventions

Source: http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2010/03/obamacare-ezekiel-emanuel-and-complete.html

The Reaper Curve: Ezekiel Emanuel used the above chart in a Lancet article to illustrate the ages on which health spending should be focused.

Dr. Emanuel’s “complete lives system” is a healthcare model based upon the allocation of resources depending on where one falls within the bell curve of maximum societal usefulness. Right off the bat, the worth of the young and the old are marginalized. The complete live system is defined by Dr. Emanuel in the context that the young and the old are expendable and not worthy of resources because "Adolescents have received substantial education and parental care, investments that will be wasted without a complete life. Infants, by contrast, have not yet received these investments”. He advocates for what he calls "to provide socially sustainable, cost-effective care." Defining medical care as an “intervention”, the elitist Dr. Emanuel doesn’t believe that the young are worthy of medical care, or the aging or old.

The quotes below come from an article penned by Betsy McCaughey, a former Lt. Governor of New York who goes on to say:

True reform, he argues, must include redefining doctors' ethical obligations. In the June 18, 2008, issue of JAMA, Dr. Emanuel blames the Hippocratic Oath for the "overuse" of medical care: "Medical school education and post graduate education emphasize thoroughness," he writes. "This culture is further reinforced by a unique understanding of professional obligations, specifically the Hippocratic Oath's admonition to 'use my power to help the sick to the best of my ability and judgment' as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of cost or effect on others."

In numerous writings, Dr. Emanuel chastises physicians for thinking only about their own patient's needs. He describes it as an intractable problem: "Patients were to receive whatever services they needed, regardless of its cost. Reasoning based on cost has been strenuously resisted; it violated the Hippocratic Oath, was associated with rationing, and derided as putting a price on life. . . . Indeed, many physicians were willing to lie to get patients what they needed from insurance companies that were trying to hold down costs." (JAMA, May 16, 2007)….

…. Dr. Emanuel writes at length about who should set the rules, who should get care, and who should be at the back of the line….

Dr. Emanuel argues that to make such decisions, the focus cannot be only on the worth of the individual. He proposes adding the communitarian perspective to ensure that medical resources will be allocated in a way that keeps society going…

….But Dr. Emanuel believes doctors should serve two masters, the patient and society, and that medical students should be trained "to provide socially sustainable, cost-effective care."

Dr. Emanuel has fought for a government takeover of health care for over a decade. In 1993, he urged that President Bill Clinton impose a wage and price freeze on health care to force parties to the table. "The desire to be rid of the freeze will do much to concentrate the mind," he wrote with another author in a Feb. 8, 1993, Washington Post op-ed. Now he recommends arm-twisting Chicago style. "Every favor to a constituency should be linked to support for the health-care reform agenda," he wrote last Nov. 16 in the Health Care Watch Blog. "If the automakers want a bailout, then they and their suppliers have to agree to support and lobby for the administration's health-reform effort."

Interestingly, nowhere does Dr. Emanuel even suggest or discuss the possibility that citizens should be free to pursue and fund their own healthcare option. The implication is that the entire healthcare apparatus in America will absolutely be seized by the federal government and services disbursed according to the state’s desires. Those deemed no longer useful because of their advancing age, infant status or illness will be expendable and deemed not worthy of medical resources. The last nation that seriously attempted this type of the “culling of the masses” was Nazi Germany.

Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) is the father of the ideological movement to “cull the population”. He advanced the theory that the planet can only sustain 1-2 billion folks at best and it’s this theory that has been front and center of a movement to massively reduce the planetary human hoards. Not that long ago it was disease and famine that guaranteed population control but with the advent of modern medicine and the rise of a middle class that is living longer, the so called population bomb is the obsession of government planners, the UN and global governance aficionados everywhere. These modern day Malthusians understand that reducing the once thriving middle class to subsistence level and seizing control of healthcare will advance their goal of more expeditious human exits.

The folks who are deluded into supporting the takeover of healthcare by government fail to recognize that such powers should never be granted to any government. Of course, many like Dr. Emanuel understand precisely what is being done and why.

The late Sen. Edward Kennedy was used as as a poster child for Obamacare. Considering that the 77 year old Sen. Kennedy had a long history of obesity, alcohol abuse and a recently diagnosed late stage terminal brain cancer, he would be considered expendable under a government healthcare system as outlined by Dr. Emanuel. But Obamacare will exempt Congress from the healthcare system from hell.

More alarming is the brutal reality that government planners and statisticians only think in terms of the collective, never the individual, and they are perennially focused on their desired goal which is strict cost controls and Malthusian population reductions. Dr. Emanuel “chastises physicians for thinking only about their own patient's needs.” Well, what the heck is the patient-doctor relationship all about if it’s not about the patient’s own needs? Are we supposed to visit government doctors and bureaucrats to get an official determination relative to whether or not a government intervention is warranted as it relates to whether we are deemed fit to live according to the “complete lives system”?

I fear so.

If the American people decide turn their lives, liberty and health over to government, they are effectively consenting to being put into the great vat of the collective wherein the value of their life is purely utilitarian, arbitrary, subject to bureaucratic whim and on target with the totalitarian master plan. If we consent to such a horror, we forsake the essence of our humanity.

Conor Friedersdorf on How the Establishment Press Got Rand Paul Wrong

The Atlantic definitely leans establishment statist progressive but this excellent analysis of Rand Paul by Conor Friedersdorf is definitely worth digesting because it suggests profound ramifications for the powers that be on all sides of the political spectrum.

I commend Friedersdorf on his outstanding and insightful analysis that deeply and provocatively challenges progressives for falling down on the issue civil liberties because if anything, civil liberties have historically been the calling card of liberals, progressives and Democrats.

How the Establishment Press Got Rand Paul Wrong

CONOR FRIEDERSDORF is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he focuses on politics and national affairs. He lives in Venice, California, and is the founding editor of The Best of Journalism, a newsletter devoted to exceptional nonfiction.

Most journalists failed to anticipate his role in the Senate, focusing instead on a distracting controversy about the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

When Rand Paul emerged on the national scene in 2010, staffers at places like The Cato Institute and Reason backed him more enthusiastically than any other U.S. Senate candidate. Like all Tea Party-affiliated pols, Paul favored smaller government, tax cuts, and free-market reforms. Unlike Marco Rubio or Christine O'Donnell, the Kentucky Republican was expected by right-leaning libertarians to oppose the bipartisan excesses of the post-9/11 era. As Radley Balko argued that spring, Paul would be better on civil liberties than President Obama and most Senate Democrats. Few non-libertarians believed him, as evidenced by the skeptical replies of progressive writers Adam Serwer* and Jamelle Bouie, savvy civil libertarians in their own right.

Three years later, it is beyond dispute: Paul is a leading opponent of civil-liberties abrogations, executive-power excesses, and militarism. Safe to say, after last week's filibuster, that his stands on those issues are the most visible and consequential that he has taken in the Senate. Even prior to that 13-hour spectacle, Paul mounted high-profile, sometimes lonely efforts to reform the Patriot Act; formally end the president's authorization to wage war in Iraq; reform drug laws; prevent indefinite detention; extend Fourth Amendment protections to electronic communications; require warrants for drone surveillance; reform overzealous TSA screening procedures; and stop an anti-piracy bill that would have onerously infringed on free expression online.

He's also opposed calls to wage war in Libya, Syria, and Iran.

Friedersdorf then plunges into a discussion on how the progressive media focused its entire coverage of Rand Paul's 2010 campaign on the civil rights issue and nothing else.

In light of this record, the establishment press ought to reflect upon the fact that its 2010 coverage utterly failed to anticipate the most important consequences of electing Paul to the Senate. Go back, as I just did, and read every story The New York Times published about him. Its coverage was representative: The paper paid little attention to his anti-war, pro-civil liberties, pro-checks-and-balances proclivities, though those issues were certain to loom large between 2010 and 2016; it paid some attention to the political import of a possible victory by a Tea Party Republican; and it focused intensely on Paul's position on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, legislation that passed when he was two years old and certainly won't be revisited in the foreseeable future.

Basically, Friedersdorf goes into lamenting how the liberals and progressives consistently ignore the profound significance of civil liberties and why restrictions on government power is the only vehicle  to guarantee civil liberties.   He extensively focuses on Rachel Maddow who devoted an entire show in 2010 to smacking Rand Paul on civil rights.  While Maddow may be an iconic figure on the left, she has abandoned all the principles of classical liberalism and opted instead to collect her fat $4 million a year MNSBC salary to grow her $13 million net worth, here.  Maddow is very much a soul mate of the hardcore theocratic Nazi neocons that she falsely claims to despise.  While Maddow may be a shameless money obsessed tool of America's descent into a Nazified militarized police state, Friedersdorf is an honest liberal who really does ponder the morality of an issue.  Maddow is pure entertainment who fires up a largely uninformed and ignorant base, same as Fox News fires up the uninformed and ignorant on the right.  For Fox and Maddow, it's all about entertainment and firing up raw emotions in folks who cling to totalitarian thuggery, anger and hate.

Friedersdorf comes to the conclusion that Rand Paul is not only good for civil liberties but he also raises the critically important issues of the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism.

I'd argue, after three years of Senator Paul, that his record on civil rights is much better than average, and far better than what his Republican opponent in that primary would've managed. The Bill of Rights has no more consistent defender in the Senate than Paul. And he has pointed critiques of the War on Drugs and the War on Terrorism, the two federal policies that do more harm to minorities than any others.

Friedersdorf was especially happy as well as relieved when Rand Paul reassuring said in the words of Friedersdorf that Paul "ultimately agreed, saying that, upon consideration, he would've voted for the Civil Rights Act, becoming the millionth politician to figure out that an ideological position he'd taken couldn't ultimately be defended and complicating his position for political and substantive reasons".

Then Friedersdor did the unthinkable.  He expanded the civil rights issue to the civil liberties issues in War on Terror and finally figured out that they are indeed related and that Rand Paul is in fact a ferocious defender of all civil rights, including the civil rights of Muslims.

What almost no one in the establishment press seems to realize, even today, is that the qualities that led Paul to defend his wrongheaded discomfort with the Civil Rights Act is the same stubbornness, political courage, and deeply felt commitment to libertarian principles that makes him willing to express the opinion that just because someone propagandizes for Islamists doesn't give us the right to kill them; or that even accused terrorists deserve due process; or that if you have a cousin in the Middle East who you talk to on the phone that shouldn't put you at risk of warrantless surveillance or a drone strike.....

What's particularly galling about the people who continue to portray Paul as a quasi-racist with unenlightened views on civil rights is the fact that he is doing far more than most senators to protect the minority group presently subject to more institutional racism than any other: Muslims. He has been criticized by some for focusing in his filibuster on American citizens being targeted by drones, spied upon, other otherwise violated by the federal government. What about foreigners? This ignores the fact that he has expressed skepticism of drone strikes abroad on many occasions, once going so far as to say that "I don't believe Jesus would've killed anyone, or condoned killing, perhaps not even in self-defense;" and that when Paul defends Americans against warrantless spying, indefinite detention, harassment at the airport, and drone strikes on U.S. soil, he is opposing policies that disproportionately hurt powerless minorities and stigmatized others....

I suspect that the above words were indeed a defining connect for Friedersdorf who was able to finally grasp the concept of natural rights as they relate to civil rights and civil liberties everywhere.  It's like a Libertarian light bulb lit up in his brain.  But more importantly, Friedersdor was able to sort through the fraudulent media talking points on both sides and get to the real issue, namely, that the issue of drone strikes on foreign or US soil are wrong because they murder folks and they murder without due process.  If that's not a profoundly significant civil liberties issue, I don't know what is.

Then Friedersdorf quoted an e-mail from an American Muslim, Falguni Sheth .

Is Paul any more racist in his economic and drug policy endorsements than the White House in its policies of kill lists, targeted killings, drone strikes, TSA no-fly and watch lists, Department of Homeland Security's Secure Communities program or "See Something, Say Something" policy?" "Is Rand Paul more of a threat to black and brown populations (American or foreign) than the current administration, which deported more than 1.5 million migrants during its first term and separated tens of thousands of migrant parents from their children? Is Rand Paul more of a threat to our safety than the current administration?

Despite the White House's defiant disregard of procedure, transparency or accountability, the Democrats disassociated themselves from an important strategic ally -- a libertarian who is the only one asking the questions that progressives, Occupy protesters, political dissenters, Muslims, Arab Americans, African-Americans, Latinos, South Asians and undocumented migrants want an answer to: Will the president claim and exercise the power to kill one of us at his and his advisers' discretion?

Not only are the words of Sheth and Friedersdorf an outright indictment of Obama and his administration on foreign policy and civil liberties, they also constitute a justifiable critique of the left, progressives and Democrats for their utter failure to defend human rights anywhere as he talks about Bloomberg's stop and frisk policies and spying on Muslim college students.

Compare the reaction to Paul's comments on the Civil Rights Act to Michael Bloomberg's ongoing stop-and-frisk policy and the NYPD task force he sent to New Jersey to spy on innocent Muslim college students. I understand why the Civil Rights Act is regarded as sacrosanct, but treating non-racist, abstract discomfort with one of its provisions as a more important than actual, ongoing state harassment of innocent blacks and Muslims is bonkers.

I don't know of anybody in the progressive camp that has managed to raise so many important issues and strike at so many raw nerves. While Libertarians and liberty activists have indeed struggled mightily to get these exact same points across to the American people without playing the left vs. right game, I do believe that this critically important issue is finally advancing and to the shame of both Republicans and Democrats who have hidden for decades behind the facade and legitimacy of government power, a power that is finally being exposed for the civil liberty crushing nightmare than it is.

Friedersdord winds down his epic piece with:

But the establishment press should recognize that much of its early coverage of Paul did more to obscure than illuminate the sort of senator that he'd be; that this is partly due to a bias against non-establishment politicians, including libertarians; and that if Paul were to leave the Senate tomorrow, the U.S. would lose one of a very few national politicians challenging executive-power excesses, unnecessary foreign wars, and racist, xenophobic policies that have resulted in thousands of innocent people being killed, imprisoned without charges, surveilled without warrants, or otherwise harassed by authorities in the name of fighting terrorism....

While it has been the dream of Libertarians, liberty activists and civil libertarians everywhere to pierce the armor of the diehard Republican right and Democratic left to dislodge them from blind party loyalty and obedience, I believe that Rand Paul has definitely succeeded in piercing that armor.

Liberty should never be a right vs. left issue and Rand Paul is changing that paradigm, especially since neither the Republicans nor the Democrats hold the high moral ground on civil liberties and both have been a big fail.

Who is Responsible for the $16.6 Trillion Mountain of Federal Debt? Most fiscally conservative president since 1980 was Clinton!

The right wing Republican blogosphere and its websites are exploding this week with juicy headlines like:

NATIONAL DEBT EXPLODES $6 TRILLION UNDER OBAMA  Breitbart

WOW!  Obama and the Dems are evil doer big spenders.  Forget that all spending bills must originate in the Republican controlled House of Representatives.  Right now, the National Debt Clock discloses federal debt in the amount of $16.6 trillion.

Let's get to the truth of the matter and learn the source of all that debt.  When Reagan was elected in 1980, the national debt had not yet crossed the trillion dollar threshold.  But under Reagan, it didn't take long for the debt to start piling up in a big way. Bush 41 massively ratcheted up Reagan era spending.  Additions to the national debt since 1980.

Republican created federal debt:

Reagan 2 terms     $1.7 trillion
Bush 41                 1.6 trillion
Bush 43                 4.9 trillion
Bush 43                 1.3 trillion carryover deficit debt inherited by Obama and funded with debt.

Total                     9.5 trillion or 57% of the $16.6 debt mountain is attributable to Republicans

Who was America's most fiscally conservative president since 1980?  Bill Clinton!  Bill Clinton spent less in two terms than Bush 41 spent in one term.

Democrat created federal debt:

Clinton 2 term     $1.5 trillion
Obama to date      5.6 excluding Bush 43 carryover deficit inherited by Obama

Total                    7.1 Trillion or 43% of the $16.6 trillion debt mountain attributable to Democrats.

Even more astounding is that two presidents named Bush are in fact responsible for a whopping $7.8 trillion of debt or 47%.  Bush 41 and Bush 43 are indeed directly responsible for nearly half of the mountain of federal debt.

With Jeb Bush unofficially declaring himself a candidate for 2016, one thing is clear.  America cannot afford another Bush as president.

Bad as Bush 41 and Bush 43 were as big spending lovers of debt, Jeb definitely holds the potential to make them look like fiscal conservatives.  Very recently Jeb Bush publicly stated that his model of governance is LBJ and his Great Society, and he further stated that he supports raising taxes.

JEB BUSH: I WOULD GOVERN LIKE LYNDON JOHNSON AS PRESIDENT Breitbart

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush said he would strive to be like Lyndon Johnson, the Democrat famous for expanding the U.S. welfare state through the "Great Society," if he were elected president.

Jeb Bush says revenue increase could be part of budget deal Washington Post

Fiscal conservatives have abandoned the Republican Party in droves,  In fact, it's fair to state that the Republican Party is literally disintegrating. No political party can perpetually betray its core ideology without suffering the consequences at the ballot box.

But the Republican Party isn't just a total disaster at the presidential level.  At the congressional level it's just as bad and possibly worse.

The Tea Party Republicans Spent More Than the Dems They Replaced.

Can you hear the screeching roars of the Tea Party Republicans accusing the Dems of being socialists, commies, fascists, Marxists, big spenders and a whole lot worse?

Well, as it turns out, the Republicans and the Tea Party crop of Republican Congress Critters that sailed into the District of Crime in January, 2011 to clean up the Democrat fiscal mess turned out to be bigger deficit spending hawks than the Democrats they replaced.

Supporters of small governance, low taxes and fiscal conservatism do not have a place in the Republican Party.  The Republican Party is 100% committed to growing government power, growing the deficit, growing the debt, growing more taxes and growing the welfare-warfare state.

While it's absolutely true that the Dems are really no different than the Republicans, the Dems are more honest because they tell you upfront that they fully intend to financially rape and plunder you.  What the Dems do outright, the Republicans do by stealth.

Meanwhile, every fiscal conservative should implant in their brain the stone cold reality that the Republicans are responsible for 57% of the federal debt mountain and that 2 Republican presidents named Bush are directly responsible for 47% of the big pile of debt.  No Democrat comes close to those monumental achievements.

Pork and Lipstick on the Republican and Democrat Pigs

Although both Republicans and Democrats are responsible for the fiscal carnage that is destroying America and the middle class, the Republicans are focused on blaming it all on Obama and the Democrats while very conveniently ignoring the fact that Bush and Gang added $5 trillion to the big pile of debt that will absolutely impoverish future generations of America.

Granted, everything that Obama has done has only made the situation a whole lot worse but the same could be said about the Republicans in control during the Bush-Cheney reign of fiscal and foreign policy terror.  The recently passed $50 billion plus Hurricane Sandy relief bill is just another classic pork laden congressional bill that is larded up with so much special interest pork that nobody in Congress evens questions the validity of the spending.

Hurricane Sandy Bill Creates Its Own Disaster

The trouble is that the House had an opportunity to pay for the core $17 billion for disaster assistance — but took a pass.

An amendment offered by Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) would have paid for these core provisions with offsetting spending cuts to 1.6 percent of the discretionary budget. But 71 Republicans voted with Democrats to defeat that measure.

“This is truly a shame,” Americans for Limited Government President Bill Wilson responded. “After all the wrangling on sequestration about reducing the deficit, the moment Congress has a pork-laden bill they refuse to pay for it.”

He said those who refused to pay for the disaster assistance were “hiding behind those most hurt by Hurricane Sandy to facilitate a special interest agenda.”

A claim that is hard to contend with.

Heritage Action noted some of the more egregious pork in the bill: “repairs to the Smithsonian Institution to upgrades to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration airplanes to more funding for the federal government’s epic educational failure known as Head Start, among myriad other extraneous items. The inclusion of $16 billion in wasteful community development funds is also concerning, especially because the Department of Housing and Urban Development estimated it would need a comparatively much smaller $5.2 billion for its ‘unmet needs.’”

Even worse is that more than 94 amendments that might have addressed all this waste were killed by the House Rules Committee, which is run by Republicans.

Why does Congress keep spending money it does't have while running  trillion dollar a year plus deficits that require massive debt?  The short answer is that congress critters are indeed wholly owned subsidiaries of the special interests that fill their campaign coffers.  America is no long a nation "of the people,  by the people and for the people".  America has morphed into hideously fascist statism that exclusively serves special interests and at the top of the pyramid sits defense contractors and banksters.  Unfortunately, America has a long history of doling out special interest pork as eloquently disclosed by Wendy McElroy.

PORK-BARREL SPENDING: THE HISTORY OF LIPSTICKING PIGS

The history of the American pork barrel

The phrase “pork-barrel spending” is said to derive from a practice of antebellum slaveholders; they would give a barrel of salt pork to their slaves, who scrambled and fought with each other for a share. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term acquired its political meaning in the early 1870s. Webster’s traces the American usage back to the turn of the 20th century.

Advocates draw upon two clauses from article 1, section 8 of the United States Constitution for legitimacy.

The first is called the general-welfare clause. It states, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defence and general welfare of the United States.” Pork is said to provide for general welfare, and thus to be permitted by this clause.

The second is the so-called postal clause. It authorizes Congress “to establish post offices and post roads” as a way to expedite interstate communication. This is now construed to give the federal government the power to appropriate money for public works. (The expenses not covered by section 8 were left to the states. The Tenth Amendment later clarified, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution … are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”)

Senator Reid is correct in that pork has been around since the first Congress. Up until the 1980s, however, it was not widespread, and it was often discouraged. Some Founding Fathers were uncomfortable even with the funding of postal roads. In a 1796 letter to James Madison, who is often called the father of the Constitution, Thomas Jefferson argued against the postal clause.

Have you considered all the consequences of your proposition respecting post roads? I view it as a source of boundless patronage to the executive, jobbing to members of Congress & their friends, and a bottomless abyss of public money. You will begin by only appropriating the surplus of the post office revenues; but the other revenues will soon be called into their aid, and it will be a source of eternal scramble among the members, who can get the most money wasted in their State; and they will always get most who are meanest.

The first Congress (1790) authorized pork in the form of $1,500 to complete a lighthouse in Maine, which was then part of Massachusetts. The expenditure had the active support of President George Washington and of Rep. George Thatcher of Massachusetts. On constitutional grounds, however, the same Congress rejected a bill to aid a glass manufacturer. Perhaps the second bill lacked presidential support.

Contrary to Reid’s suggestion, however, pork-barrel spending did not become common practice. The second Congress solidly rejected a cod fishery bill intended to assist New Englanders. The South Carolina representative Hugh Williamson argued that the Constitution had anticipated “the time might come, when, by greater cohesion, by more unanimity, by more address, the representatives of one part of the Union might attempt to impose unequal taxes, or to relieve their constituents at the expense of the people.”

He pointed to constitutional provisions that clearly indicated “Congress might not have the power … to gratify one part of the Union by oppressing another.”

The practice of doling out pork, while clearly out of control, was once questioned and debated on constitutional and moral grounds.  These days, there are no such restraints because the Constitution is no longer even relevant and the morality of elected officials is merely a relic of the past.

There Really is No Such Thing as Communism, Socialism, Progressivism etc. Because....

Republicans are notorious for screaming that the Democrats are socialists and communists.   The Democrats scream that the Republicans are the capitalist Great Satan pigs who must be destroyed for the collective good of humanity.  The truth? Capitalism and free markets no longer exist in America but fascism runs wild as an insidious prosperity destroying disease.  If one truly examines all the 'ism's' that folks endlessly obsess about including communism, socialism, progressivism, fascism, state run capitalism, statism etc., they all boil down to essentially the same thing:  totalitarian control of all people and resources by a handful of ruling elites who grow filthy rich by concentrating all wealth and power.  Why worry over mere semantics when the end result is the same?

Interestingly, China is a case study in communism as well as the massive concentration of wealth and power, as documented by Bloomberg.

Mapping China’s Red Nobility 

Bloomberg News mapped the families of Communist China’s “Eight Immortals” to reveal the origins of princelings, an elite class that has been able to amass wealth and influence, and exploit opportunities unavailable to most Chinese. Bloomberg tracked 103 people – descendants including children, grandchildren and great grandchildren, and their respective spouses. The Immortals, now all dead, are revered in communist lore as revolutionary fighters who led China’s economic opening after Mao Zedong’s death. The identities and business dealings of these families are often cloaked in secrecy because of state censorship and complex corporate webs. To document them, Bloomberg scoured thousands of pages of corporate filings, property records, official websites and archives, and conducted dozens of interviews from China to the United States, where many were educated and have at times made their homes.

Those who cling to the warm and fuzzy notion that statism and collectivism are somehow caring, paternal and compassionate are somewhere between severely uninformed or downright stupid.  Collectivism is the most failed ideology in human history, yet folks continue to aspire to it as the noblest of ideas that will satisfy every human want if only the government had enough power.  Well, communist nations had all the power any tyrant could possible hope to achieve and their only achievement in the name of humanity was the biggest pile of dead bodies in history.   It's well documented that communism killed 100 million folks during the 20th century alone, and mostly through starvation attributable to collectivization and central planning.  Life is always cheap and expendable when worship of the state is the only imperative as well as an exalted god that must be obeyed.

The Worker's Paradise in the communist Soviet Union and elsewhere turned out to be a big bust when the impoverished, suffering and hungry proletariat took a peek at their working class comrades in nations with respectable levels of economic freedom.  What a shock!  The working class dudes in those evil capitalist nations were enjoying prosperity and consumer goodies on a scale unheard of in the commie Workers Paradises.   In capitalist nations, the poor were joining the middle class and for the first time in human history the people rather than the ruling aristocracy were actually building wealth and power.

It was a monumental leap for humankind because wealth and power was finally being widely diffused and disbursed among the people for the first time in human history.  Effectively, free markets and property rights represented a transfer of wealth and power from the 1% to the 99%.  For clearly obvious reasons the ruling class panicked because they were no longer in control as their absolute power and privileges were acutely threatened.

Once upon a time the world was owned and controlled by kings and queens, princes and princesses, lords and ladies, and absolute rulers. There were the ruling elites, the upper class, the propertied class, the moneyed class, the educated class, the bureaucratic class and everybody else was a serf of sorts and expected to be compliant slaves – that’s what slaves do, they serve their masters. Such was the fate of humanity for thousands of years. The 1% and the 99% have existed for as long as humans have existed.

Then the unthinkable happened. In Europe, Western Civilization was born as folks started to clamor for political rights, property rights and natural rights. Monarchies began to topple, theocratic powers were usurped and the revolution for human liberty began. Although Europe was a bloodbath on and off for nearly a millennium, the great political theorists and intellectual challengers who conceived and fought to implement such foreign concepts as non-repressive forms of government and individual sovereignty finally succeeded. Eventually, limited personal freedoms and rights translated into much wider economic freedoms which elevated industry and trade while spawning an economically strong middle class.

Throughout the process, we all learned that the vast human potential so inherent in the minds and souls of free thinking human beings is, ultimately, the only catalyst for progress and civilization, without which there can no civilizations, at least none worth noticing or experiencing. Great societies and human liberation are soul mates.

The grand experiment worked wonders as power and wealth was shifting away from the 1% and to the 99%. Shorn of their shackles, mankind prospered for the first time in human history and at an unprecedented rate. A strong and flourishing middle class was born as free markets were delivering good and services, and prosperity for the masses (99%) was achieved. There was peace instead of war and government had limited powers.

But the 1% started screaming “holy shit, we can’t let that happen. We can’t allow the lowlife people and the unwashed masses to prosper with free markets and sound money so we will work to transfer that power back to us.”

Instead of using armies and violence to subdue the people, the ruling class hatched an extraordinarily clever ballot box scheme - democracy (unlimited majority mob rule) would be used to control and manipulate the people into peacefully transferring their power back to the ruling class by conferring voter approved legitimacy upon them.

Throughout most of human history, the people were barely tossed subsistence level crumbs while their overlords lavishly feasted on the finest of everything because they alone controlled all property, all resources and all of humanity.  Human rights, civil rights, property rights and economic liberty dramatically changed the equation.

But lo and behold, the people in America and Europe began to reject the responsibility of liberty and started voting to deliver themselves back into the bondage and shackles of the elites.  The elites of government offered them 'free everything' in exchange for relinquishing their liberty.  Of course, those promises will not be kept.  Just asked the Greeks.  But once liberty is lost and humankind is once again back in the shackles of government, the fiat central banksters and the elites, there is no saddle to mount to escape the tyranny, despotism and misery.

Yet, there are numerous folks in America and Europe who continue to vote for centralized powers, bigger government, massive taxes, income redistribution and the wholesale slaughter of civil and economic liberties. Such folks cling to a dangerous and deadly delusion.

If we think we are suffering now, we have only just begun to reap the poison harvest of a statist economy because the real misery has yet to hit us. When it does, the pinchers of the totalitarian state will really start snuffing out life ruthlessly and brutally. The totalitarian nations wallowing in Marxism/socialism/oligarchy/fascism/statism will always resort to the same tactics as Stalin and Mao who snuffed out 100,000,000 folks during the 20th century alone.

The only difference between the economies of Mao/Stalin that murdered 100 million folks and the so-called soft socialism of the West is that the former never had the luxury of a wealthy and productive economy to loot and plunder. Soon enough though, we will be fully plundered.

Meanwhile, the American people are drinking copious amounts of “Foolaid” as we cling to the delusion that government is the cornucopia of plenty. The lion’s share of the plunder generated by the governments looting machine only accrues to a few elites and insider power players because that's is precisely how statism has always worked throughout history.   The rest are lucky if they are tossed a few crumbs and those crumbs are rapidly dwindling.

My Two Cents on Benghazi

The right wing media is exploiting the Benghazi disaster as an opportunity to diss President Obama and personally blame him for the entire fiasco.  Fox News is especially all over the story.

EXCLUSIVE: CIA operators were denied request for help during Benghazi attack, sources say

Fox News has learned from sources who were on the ground in Benghazi that an urgent request from the CIA annex for military back-up during the attack on the U.S. consulate and subsequent attack several hours later on the annex itself was denied by the CIA chain of command -- who also told the CIA operators twice to "stand down" rather than help the ambassador's team when shots were heard at approximately 9:40 p.m. in Benghazi on Sept. 11.

Former Navy SEAL Tyrone Woods was part of a small team who was at the CIA annex about a mile from the U.S. consulate where Ambassador Chris Stevens and his team came under attack. When he and others heard the shots fired, they informed their higher-ups at the annex to tell them what they were hearing and requested permission to go to the consulate and help out. They were told to "stand down," according to sources familiar with the exchange. Soon after, they were again told to "stand down."

Woods and at least two others ignored those orders and made their way to the consulate which at that point was on fire. Shots were exchanged. The rescue team from the CIA annex evacuated those who remained at the consulate and Sean Smith, who had been killed in the initial attack. They could not find the ambassador and returned to the CIA annex at about midnight.

At that point, they called again for military support and help because they were taking fire at the CIA safe house, or annex. The request was denied. There were no communications problems at the annex, according those present at the compound. The team was in constant radio contact with their headquarters.

I don't doubt any of the above facts. Most news reports have pretty much included the same information. But here's the problem: the military and the CIA have a long history of hating each other. The CIA is a secretive and covert organization that pretty much operates without any scrutiny whatsoever. Moreover, the CIA literally controls the US State Department and always has. Benghazi was not the US Embassy, which is in Tripoli. The CIA is notorious for creating these consulates as bases of operation for CIA missions, missions that typically include arming and funding radicals and jihadists for the purpose of destabilization of a nation and regime change.  It's been going on at least since the days of Jimmy Carter who funded and armed the Afghan Mujuhadeen, now the Sunni Islamist Taliban, to fight the Soviets.  The CIA was a key 'on the ground' player in Afghanistan during the Cold War and is directly responsible for arming some of the most dangerous folks on the planet.

Unfortunately, the US has a very long history of being in bed with radical Sunni Wahhabist Salafist Islamists and the top of this disturbing pyramid goes straight to the House of Saud, the kingpin of Wahhabist Sunni Islamist terror.  It's no coincidence that 15 of the 19  911 terrorists were from Saudi Arabia.  The foreign policy of the US is to support, fund and arm radical Sunni jihadists and we've been doing it for a long time.  The US government and the CIA backed and supported Pakistan's nuclear arms program, along with Saudi Arabia.  Pakistan used to be a nation teeming with radical Sunni Islamists but now, courtesy of the US and it's Saudi alliance, is a nuclear armed radical Sunni Islamist nation.  It's only a matter of time before some zealot Sunni nutjob seizes control of Pakistan's nukes and starts firing away.  Moreover, Pakistan was once a benign Muslim nation until Saudi and Gulf Sunni money and madrassahs started pouring into the nation to radicalize the population.

The hardcore neocon website, familysecuritymatters.org, is accusing Obama of being an ally of Al Qaeda.

Arms Flow to Syria May Be Behind Benghazi Cover-Up

Stevens was tasked with helping to coordinate U.S. assistance to the rebels, whose top military commander, Abdelhakim Belhadj, was the leader of the Al Qaeda affiliate, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG). That means that Stevens was authorized by the U.S. Department of State and the Obama administration to aid and abet individuals and groups that were, at a minimum, allied ideologically with Al Qaeda, the jihadist terrorist organization that attacked the homeland on the first 9/11, the one that's not supposed to exist anymore after the killing of its leader, Osama bin Laden, on May 2, 2012.

The above assessment is erroneously ludicrous on several levels.  First, Al Qaeda isn't even an organization with the power to do anything.  Al Qaeda is, however, just one of many, many Islamist groups funded by our friends the Saudis and the CIA. Nothing, however, stops the neocons from accusing Obama of being an appeaser of radical Islamists.  In fact, it was only a few short months after 911 when President Bush entertained Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah at his Crawford, TX ranch in April 2002.  Few international dignitaries got invites to the Bush ranch but the Saudis were always welcome.  The Saudi-Bush family connections date back to the days of the George Herbert Walker Bush.

If there's a concern about US presidents and government officials being all warm and cozy with 911 jihad terrorists, look no further than the Bush family affection for radical Sunni jihadists.

The Bush-Saudi Connection - The Bush Crime Family has a very long history of being very close to the evil House of Saud.

The absolute favorite photo of the neocons is the photo of Obama bowing before the Saudi King according to protocol.  US presidents have bowed before many foreign leaders according to the prevailing custom.  At least Obama wasn't kissing and holding hands with King Abdullah, the King of Islamist Sunni terror.  Bush was being overtly and outwardly affectionate with King Abdullah while Obama was just being polite and respectful.  Big difference!

George Herbert Walker Bush is also a former CIA director with deep ties to the organization and its clandestine operations.  The CIA has been funneling arms and money to dissidents of all religious and political stripes for decades and such folks were probably on the CIA payroll.  This is nothing new.  Again, it's important to note that the US State Department is heavily staffed with CIA, officially, and unofficially through US Aid programs.  Even neocon Glenn Beck chirped in on the issue.

Glenn Beck Explains How Obama Used Ambassador Stevens to Funnel arms to Libya and Syria

It's probably true that Ambassador Stevens was carrying out a CIA mission under the guise of a State Department consulate but this is quite common.  Obviously, something went very wrong and what most probably went wrong is that the Islamists the CIA trusted and were doing business with turned on them when they saw an opportunity to humiliate the US by successfully attacking the Benghazi consulate.  Also, the issue of the mysterious mission of Ambassador Stevens is being raised.

How US Ambassador Chris Stevens May Have Been Linked To Jihadist Rebels In Syria 

....there was a CIA post in Benghazi , located 1.2 miles from the U.S. consulate, used as "a base for, among other things, collecting information on the proliferation of weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, including surface-to-air missiles" ... and that its security features "were more advanced than those at rented villa where Stevens died."

And we know that the CIA has been funneling weapons to the rebels in southern Turkey. The question is whether the CIA has been involved in handing out the heavy weapons from Libya.

In any case, the connection between Benghazi and the rise of jihadists in Syria is stronger than has been officially acknowledged.

The entire Benghazi fiasco is covered with CIA fingerprints.  But the burning question is this:  why didn't the US military come to the rescue of the CIA?

The CIA kind of functions as its own military, much to the consternation of the US military.  The CIA is also decisive and is not gnerally hampered with too much in the way of chain of command restrains.  Conversely, the US military is heavily a top down chain of command operation.  Getting somebody to make a decision can be very difficult depending the potential blowback of the situation.

The entire attack was over within a matter of hours but during the attack urgent messages were coming out of the Benghazi consulate.  The Benghazi timeline is here.  More interesting is that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta wiggled out of the situation by proclaiming that the military didn't have enough information to warrant putting forces at risk which is the equivalent of Panetta giving a birdie to the CIA.

Panetta on Benghazi attack: 'Could not put forces at risk'

The U.S. military did not get involved during the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, last month because officials did not have enough information about what was going on before the attack was over, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said Thursday.

Where was the military and why didn't it respond to CIA calls for help?  Panetta claims the military didn't have enough time.  Another critical factor that is missing in the analysis is the location of the US military presence in Libya.  Nobody seems to know if the military was anywhere on the ground in Libya, obviously something that neither the US government or the military wanted disclosed.

What is known is that the Benghazi consulate was a CIA front engaged in weapon smuggling to Syrian Jihad rebels.  President Obama knows what the CIA does, even if he doesn't know what the CIA is actually doing because that's how the secretive and unaccountable CIA has always operated.  The CIA is one of those things that nobody in government ever wants to talk about because, well, the CIA is very dangerous, it kills folks, it arranges assassinations and exactly who it reports to isn't exactly clear although formally the CIA Director reports to the president.  It's been speculated by many CIA observers that the CIA is really nothing more than the private and personal military of the New World Order, the banksters and resource seeking corporatists.  It's also widely believe that the CIA is self-funding through the drug trade.

The CIA is the Biggest Drug Dealer on the Planet

President Kennedy said he wanted to smash the CIA into a thousand pieces and scatter it to the wind.  According to James Douglass who wrote JFK and the Unspeakable, Why He Died and Why it Matters, the CIA murdered JFK.  Douglass writes "We have no evidence as to who in the military-industrial complex may have given the order to assassinate President Kennedy.  That the order was carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency is obvious.  The CIA’s fingerprints are all over the crime and the events leading up to it."

That the CIA is feared by the political class is an understatement.  But what makes Benghazi so intriguing is that it's increasingly more difficult to cover-up dastardly CIA deeds given the explosion of non-government controlled alternative media.   The Benghazi cover-up, bungled and clumsy as it was, was solely to protect the CIA and its mission, whatever the cost.  Ambassador Stevens and those who worked with him were not victims but were active participants in the CIA's work.  Most probably, Stevens wasn't an ambassador at all, just a CIA operative masquerading as an ambassador.  Moreover, it's probably also true that the military just didn't want to get involved, assuming it could have done something, because of its natural hostility toward the CIA.

I  believe that Obama was probably horrified by what happened in Benghazi but when your lust for power is so great that you decide to bed down with the CIA spooks and spies, anything can happen.  At the end of the day, Benghazi was just another Fast and Furious gone bad.  Republican attempts to capitalize on the Benghazi fiasco are indeed shabby and reckless.  If anything, Republicans worship the CIA and its evil and secretive missions far more than the Obama and the Democrats.

The Party of No Ideas Smacks Down the Party of Bad Ideas

Looks like Clint Eastwood's empty chair skit at the RNC Convention turned into a prophecy, at least in the context of a presidential debate performance. As a liberty activist, I happily avoided the appallingly incomprehensible contest between Statist Clown A and Statist Clown B. However, I followed Twitter because that's where the laughs were, along with the agony of some apoplectic liberals and Democrats.

Mark Hemingway@Heminator That wasn't a debate so much as Mitt Romney just took Obama for a cross country drive strapped to the roof of his car. (Hemingway was quoting the Weekly Standard).

Todd Kincannon @ToddKincannon Somebody call Todd Akin. Analyzing this debate requires a rape expert.

Bill Maher @billmaher Obama made a lot of great points tonight. Unfortunately, most of them were for Romney

Bill Maher @billmaher i must say, of all the Romneys i've seen, this Debate Romney is my favorite 

Glenn Greenwald @ggreenwald MSNBC tonight seems like a group therapy session for the deeply depressed and people with anger issues. It's actually disturbing to watch

Todd Kincannon @ToddKincannon Right now, David Axelrod is asking a crying Barack Obama: "Show me on the doll where the bad man touched you."

Brian Sack@brian_sack MSNBC's flag at half mast.

VANITY FAIR @VanityFair Good LORD Obama wouldn't win a student council election against a chubby nerd with that closing argument.

As if the Twitter zingers weren't bad enough, there was the epic Chris Matthews meltdown.

Chris Matthews’ Epic Meltdown Over Obama Performance: ‘What Was He Doing Tonight?’

Clearly, Romney cleaned Obama's clock and he did it without even offering any solutions to any of our immense problems.  Only in America can somebody win a debate by offering no solutions to big problems, no cuts in government spending and advocating for perpetual war!

Oh well, it's America where substance is never ever on the table because it's all about packaging, party propaganda and one liners.  Still, Obama absolutely earned the thrashing he got from the left and the right.  An Obama super PAC donor may have summed it up best.

Big Super PAC Donor on Obama: 'Looks Like He Took My Million and Spent it All on Weed'

Obama even dipped on Intrade, the online gambling site, here. Still, Obama remains comfortably ahead on Intrade with a 65.2% probability of winning to Romney's 35.1.  However, polls are tightening in the critical swing states.  The general consensus of the pollsters and pundits is that the deal that was sealed for an easy Obama re-election is presently no longer a foregone conclusion.

To what extent the race is truly competitive remains unclear and will largely depend on the result of future debates.

As for America, the American people, the economy and our future, the prognosis remains quite grim because the endless wars and big bad government will prevail regardless of who wins in November.

Meanwhile, the bread and circuses continue because America really is the incarnation of the Roman Empire.