As the corrupt political parties of Britain go under in a cesspool of theft from the public weal, we can only pray that we have an identical crisis here in the US. Time to clean out the stables! Also, the US and UK mortgage bail out program help virtually no one at all, in England, exactly one person…yes, and not a member of Parliament!—has been rescued! California is drowning and there hasn’t even been a major earthquake, either. And Germany gets very stern about the money, they have long memories.
It is not shocking to see the MPs fleecing the public. Corruption in governments is very high, across the planet. This is the nature of power. For example, the Shiites ruling Iraq are now cleaning up the government and over 100 officials are being arrested, a number of them are fleeing the country.
What is virtue? The ancient Greeks fretted about this issue. They tried to incorporate it into their civic system. But their culture was based on slavery. The Romans figured virtue was, like the American belief today, all about military power and sacrifice but also was based on slavery and looting. The Founding Fathers of the US also were very, very concerned about the subject of civic virtue while basing their economic business on the severe and cruel exploitation of slave labor, yet again.
They even fretted a great deal about ancient Rome and hoped, via Constitutional tricks, to outwit the ‘karma’ of trying to run a ‘democratic republic’ while being a cruel, vicious slave culture that was engaged in a 200 year war against the natives who refused to be enslaved like the kidnapped Africans brought over in chains.
Virtue and patriotism have to be based on an honest appraisal of the civic system and the division of social power and political proportions and is a very elusive thing, easy to lose, hard to hold onto. For Temptation is a strumpet who waves money and sexual goodies under the noses of unsuspecting humans. That is, if we avoid the strictures and restrictions of virtue, we can party in the Cave of Wealth and Death and have lots and lots of fun and games before destroying ourselves and all our loved ones. Las Vegas embodies this dark force.
MPs’ expenses: Phantom mortgage MPs must face fraud charges, says David Cameron – Telegraph
The Conservative leader’s warning came as Elliot Morley — the former Labour minister exposed for claiming more than £16,000 for a mortgage he had already paid off — announced he was standing down as an MP. Mr Morley said he had made the decision with “regret” and insisted that he had done nothing wrong….
He has to pretend he did nothing wrong and was as innocent as that other very unvirtuous creep, Geithner. Ignorance is bliss if this ignorance fills one’s pockets with loot. This is why professional pickpockets work hard on pretending to look innocent.
At least three other MPs – David Chaytor, Ben Chapman and former Conservative frontbencher Bill Wiggin – have also made phantom claims for interest on mortgages.
When the corruption scandal began, the Tories thought it was funny and they yelled for resignations. Now, they are looking in the mirror and not liking the reflection. Will the Tories and the Labor entrenched parties figure out how they lost their virtue?
Anyone who is a fan of the Blackadder the Third: The MP Application Form knows that the Parliament institution didn’t have any ‘virtue’ in the past.
Lawyers believe that such claims may breach the 2007 Fraud Act and the 1968 Theft Act – and might therefore constitute criminal offences that could result in MPs being imprisoned….
ARREST THEM ALL! Heh. About time, too.
Humfrey Malins said that, when Parliament was sitting, he spent two nights a week at the flat in Westminster that he designates as his second home, at an average cost to the taxpayer of £240 a day. His main home is in Dorking, just 45 minutes on the train from London Victoria or Waterloo – both close to Parliament….
What baffles me is, most of this is the equivalent of stealing spare coins from the cash register at a business. Why does such petty thefts appeal to lawmakers? This is a pressing question because the thefts plaguing the Pentagon are not petty at all but trillions of dollars being scammed from the system and paid for via IOUs to China!
Bill Cash, a Conservative MP, said yesterday that he was prepared to repay more than £15,000 he claimed for rent payments to his daughter.
When the US invaded Iraq, the ‘reconstruction’ had nothing to do with building anything and everything to do with a flock of corrupt tykes of politically connected groups, coming in and putting on a show and then leaving with lots of loot an nothing useful to show the natives. The corruption levels in Afghanistan are even worse, if this was possible. But it is.
Corruption scandals are also taking down both leaders of Japan’s two top political parties. The LDP is nearly, by definition, a machine for corruption. There is no way of preventing people from scamming systems. But there is a way of judging them: if these scams are connected to the destruction of the entire system and endangers the survival of the state, itself, it is a criminal matter of the highest level, it is treason.
When Ronald Reagan was permitted to run off to Japan and collect a $2.5 million bribe, he wasn’t punished and now, all our politicians do this. The ‘speaking fee’ scandal has now grown to such proportions, our reporters do this, our negotiators do this, all our elected officials do this for multimillions of dollars from entities seeking to control our government. This is a major scandal and one that we must outlaw.
MPs expenses scandal won’t be forgotten by voters
By the time the British public has voted at the next general election, as many as 325 MPs – more than half the entire House of Commons – will have either quit or lost their seats in the biggest parliamentary upheaval since the Civil War.
Since all major parties chose vice, not virtue, we get a ‘revolution.’ The British media is in hysterics, begging people to avoid ‘radical’ parties. Well, if no one is punished, the mainstream parties will view victories as opportunities for corruption. This is the road to ruin.
Mortgage rescue plan accepts just two families – Telegraph
The Department for Communities and Local Government said that in April 139 households applied for help in avoiding repossession but that only one successfully received the support. However, this single acceptance doubles the tally of those accepted by the scheme, which had been aiming to help 6,000 families avoid losing their homes. Some 75,000 are expected to face foreclosure this year, according to independent estimates.
Like the US program, it was doomed to failure. In some cases, we must let nature take its course. I recall, since I have written about Japan’s crash since it happened long ago, in 1991 [my online commentaries were not preserved by the publications, alas] I am aware of the advice the US and UK dished out: Don’t try to save the bankrupt banks, don’t allow zombie loans to stay on the books and to take one’s lumps because this brings and end to it, faster.
Like the IMF medicine we dish out, we don’t follow our own prescriptions. All housing bubbles have to be treated the same way: as if an earthquake or hurricane has wiped out housing and people are homeless and lost everything, so it is here. The credit tsunami retreats and leaves nothing but ruins. Pretending there is no tsunami is stupid. California was dead-center in the global housing debacle and on top of it, is the Ground Zero of the insane Ronnie Reagan fake Hollywood tax cut machinery.
California passed laws making it nearly impossible to raise taxes while similar ballot laws allowed requests for designated funding of various whimsical programs. Now that the immense California housing bubble has busted, the tax base is vanishing thanks to the Ronnie Reagan tax law changes. That is, the bubble houses were the newest purchases so they paid the highest taxes, higher than identical houses next door, and so, when in default…partially due to the extra-high taxes, the revenues to the state are collapsing faster than they would in say, NY, which has normal property tax laws.
The voters just turned down paying more in taxes so the Terminator is going to kill off as much government spending as humanly possible. The people of California must figure out the obvious: they can’t have goodies and not pay for it. The entire US better watch this process because we will have it here, ourselves, in due time.
Governor proposes another $3 billion in cuts
After the election, the governor backed off an earlier proposal to borrow nearly $6 billion from Wall Street to help fill the state’s budget gap. Instead, on Tuesday, he proposed additional cuts that would close 80 percent of state parks and eliminate health and welfare programs, and cash grants to college students. The $3 billion in new cuts is the governor’s response to the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Office’s latest revenue forecast. Last week, the analyst projected that the state’s deficit had grown from $21.3 billion to $24.3 billion….
But much of the attention on Friday was on the governor’s proposed additional cuts. They included the following: — $117 million – Eliminate the Adult Day Health Care program offered under the Department of Aging. — $550 million – Reduce funds to counties for certain health and social services. — $230.8 million – Restrict the In Home Support Services program to the most severely disabled such as those who can’t breathe on their own and are partially paralyzed. — $680 million – Additional cuts for K-12 schools. — $315 million – Redirect transit funds earmarked for school buses to pay transit bond debts. — $100.3 million – Suspend various state mandates requiring counties to make mail ballots available to all voters, hold animal shelter strays for six days, and collect DNA from unidentified bodies for the state Department of Justice. — $470 million – Reduce state worker pay by 5 percent.
If this depression gets worse, the cuts will be higher. The tax base shrinks as US industries shut down. All the people who were gleeful about GM going bankrupt better figure out, if we have no one earning good pay for factory work, we end up like Victorian England whereby much of the population had to flee in order to survive. They came here, for example. Canada, Australia, to Africa and Asia they fanned out. Are Americans willing to emigrate?
England had little civic virtue as the countryside was emptied of almost all the farmers and their families. Sherlock Holmes in 1894 even remarks about how vacant the countryside had become and how this fostered crime. The majority of jobs ceased being butcher, baker, shoemaker and smith and became house staff for the large sheep-grazed estates. Meanwhile, the former population fought African tribes, killed off aborigines and staked out claims in contravention of the efforts of various former Asian empires.
The Golden Days of California will now go and be replaced by much higher crime. The fact that the governor must empty out the prisons is also interesting. I suppose, this is to induce fear in the hearts of the voters so they vote for higher taxes. Meanwhile, Germany tightens up, too:
FT.com / Europe – Berlin vote heralds big spending cuts
The next German government is almost certain to crack down on spending and drastically raise taxes after the lower house of parliament yesterday adopted measures that come close to banning budget deficits beyond 2016….
The most sweeping reform of public finances in 40 years was an “economic policy decision of historic proportions”, Peer Steinbrück, finance minister, told parliament shortly before MPs endorsed the amendment with the required two-thirds majority.
California’s legislature also has the same 2/3rds majority rules. But the Californians can’t handle cuts or tax hikes so they lay the onus at the feet of the Terminator. The vote underlines Berlin’s determination quickly to plug the holes that the economic crisis, two fiscal stimulus packages and a €500bn ($706bn, £437bn) rescue operation for German banks are expected to blow in the public coffers this year and next. In 2009 alone, legislators from the ruling coalition expect the federal budget to show a deficit of more than €80bn, twice the current all-time record of €40bn reached in 1996 as Germany was absorbing the formidable costs of its reunification. This figure does not include the deficit of the social security system, which is expected to rocket too, as unemployment rises to an expected 5m next year. The constitutional amendment, popularly known as the “debt brake”, allows a degree of flexibility in tough economic times, just as it encourages governments to build cash reserves in good times. Yet economists have warned the new rules could force the next government to implement a ruthless fiscal crackdown as soon as it takes office after the general election of September 27 if it is serous about hitting the 2016 deficit target.
What happens if all the governments on earth all run deep in debt at the same time? We will see a test of this sort of system. If it runs along side a ZIRP lending matrix as well as a collapse in asset values, we will get, I am certain, a global depression. There is no easy out in this mess. When one is in a mess like this, the virtuous imperative is to keep the state alive and not let it slide into chaos.
And the first step is to clean out corruption from the funny money years. If we do not do this, we are building on a rotten foundation. Doomed to crumble. The foundation of future wealth lies in the attainment of the Virtues. The Virtues are not the daughters the Goddesses of Infinity or Zero, they are the daughters of Libra. Greed is NOT good. Sacrifice is required. Denial is strength and the key to future happiness. Hard words but the only sane road open to us is to walk on the Path of Thorns, not speed along in a racing car down the wide, paved road to Hell.
Email:
emeinel@fairpoint.net
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EMS NEWS
P.O. BOX 483
BERLIN, NY 12022
Make checks out to ‘Elaine Supkis’
Culture of Life News 
Dear Elaine,
The last paragraph speaks volumes. Sadly, however, our leaders are trying to rebuild on this faulty foundation. This post-crisis era of pretend saddens me. Do the ones in power believe this can work, or are they just situating their own life rafts? We can only grapple.
Remember my gift? It is the Temple Wealth Guardian.
And of course, the entire belief system of the Chinese elites in the dim past was the several Virtues of a Good Emperor’s Servants.
“Virtue and patriotism have to be based on an honest appraisal of the civic system and the division of social power and political proportions and is a very elusive thing, easy to lose, hard to hold onto.”
Virtue (from Latin virtus connoting valor, manliness, excellence, courage, character, worth) is relatively simple: never take the easy way.
“Now that the immense California housing bubble has busted, the tax base is vanishing thanks to the Ronnie Reagan tax law changes.”
Howard Jarvis, actually. Reagan wasn’t to blame for everything.
Proposition 13
He rode in on the horse Jarvis was. Neigggh—fake Movie Reagan!
california is where the rubber meets the road on crime, taxes, government ‘jobs’, economics, and diversity… guess we will see how people resort
.
.
low taxes, personal responsibility, the rule of law, free markets
charity
No need to emigrate as the immigration will simply stop.
The underground population will just move back to their home countries and more Americans will have to join the bottom quintile in appeasing our masters
American capitalism gone with a whimper
http://tinyurl.com/czonr7
Isn´t it a brave new topsy turvy world, when Pravda, the old soviet paper can tell the truth?
I have a son who pays 11% income tax and 9.5% sales tax in CA. This is a high tax state. He tells me most of this tax revenue is used to fund the vast crime creating police state with its public employee unions advocating for early retirement with high pensions for themselves and their friends and families. These public employee parasites lobby for the criminalization of vice to fuel their predation.
This fact is little mentioned, as immigrants and the poor are blamed. The Terminator intends to cut education grants and welfare, this is a joke. The tens of billions aren’t to be found in these cuts, but in a systemic bankrupcy of the public employee union pension funds. The prison unions advocating for harsh sentencing is an example of the corruption and lack of virtue in our public sector.
Correct, Bob. But then WHO VOTES FOR ALL THIS? I used to live in California and my great grandparents came there long, long ago, in the Wild Wild West days. California has always had a problem with being real about facts.
@ Brother Nathanael Kapner
“Obama’s handlers, the Military/Zionist Complex, maintain a solid choke hold on our nation, and have installed a mind-numbing roster of thugs, criminals, and the most corrupt career politicians and bureaucrats in America to ensure the CONTINUED acceleration of the demise of our way of life. As has been the case under Bush Jr, and the Clintons before him, the plan remains the same: the abject weakening to the point of implosion of the moral, social, financial, and educational systems upon which America once stood rock solid and proud on the world stage.”
Americans surrender rights and freedoms without a whimper:
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/
Sacrifice is required.
Like the boy standing on the burning deck? “The Twit” (according to Spike Milligan).
I’m not sure that there is any “virtuous imperative is to keep the state alive”.
Every rat for himself?
About the police force? the best place to work as policeman is obvious the States, you get to wear a gun at all times and get to shoot most of the times
This I heard from a friend who worked under UK police, Canadian police and Australian police.
The point is
Police state anyone?
Fear of the domestic social order breaking down is what REALLY makes the politicians in DC so nervous; they don’t worry about al-Qaida anywhere near as much. This is why Wash. DC takes on the look of a high security zone. The elites figure–correctly, I hope–that sooner or later even the brain dead ‘sheeple’ will figure out they are being pauperized by their rulers. PLovering’s link is a good one. Too many people in the USA are more concerned with “American Idol” than what affects their lives in Washington DC. Maybe the new masters will let the “useful idiots” listen to Rush Limbaugh during their work breaks in the labor camps.
If the meaning of virtue is reduced to self-preservation, which dictates cruel compromises and the curtailing of freedoms, and is accepted by both the populous and the government in the face of chaos of the present unfolding scio-economic system collapse, then as Elaine points out, virtue will become might is right, and do as the Romans do or suffer the consequences.
Gee, ladies and gentlemen and fellow GM shareholders, there must be an alternative universe we could manifest if we put our minds and hearts to the task. Let’s all try really hard and focus on what could be…..instead of stock piling ammo and researching how to make booby traps around our survival compounds.
Or being post-modern multi-taskers, should we do both?
Some reflections:
“In reaction to the Fed’s QE scheme, Brazil and China are working towards bypassing the US-dollar in bi-lateral trade transactions, challenging the status of the greenback as the world’s leading international currency. “We don’t need dollars,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. “It’s crazy that the dollar is the reference, and that you give a single country the power to print that currency.”
However, what would happen if the QE addiction leads to a collapse in G-7 bond prices? “The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists.” Ernest Hemingway, “Notes on the Next War: A Serious Topical Letter”, 1935.”
http://jsmineset.com/
Shall we look to Wikipedia for a moment?
________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_electricity_crisi
[. . .]
Arnold Schwarzenegger
On May 17, 2001, future Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan met with Enron CEO Ken Lay, at the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, at a meeting convened for Enron to present its “Comprehensive Solution for California,” which called for an end to Federal and state investigations into Enron’s role in the California energy crisis.[19][20][21]
In October 7, 2003, Schwarzenegger was elected Governor of California to replace Davis.
Over a year later, he attended the commissioning ceremony[22] of a new Western Area Power Administration (WAPA) 500 kV line remedying the aforementioned power bottleneck on Path 15.
National Energy Development Task Force
Vice President Dick Cheney was appointed in January, 2001 to head the National Energy Development Task Force. In the Spring of that year, officials of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power met with the Task Force, asking for price controls to protect consumers. The Task Force refused, and insisted that deregulation must remain in place.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) was intimately involved with the handling of the crisis from the summer of 2000. There were in fact at least four separate FERC investigations.[23]
* The Gaming Case, investigating general allegations of manipulation of the Western energy markets.
* The Enron Investigation, specifically investigating the involvement of Enron.
* The Refund Case, involving wide-ranging recovery of illegal profits made by some companies during the crisis.
* The Economic Withholding and Anomalous Bidding Case.[24]
As of January 2006, the refund case is ongoing.
___________________________________
So. Here’s an alternate look at why California is in a jam.
It went for Gore in 2000. Cheney and his buddy Ken Lay wanted to screw California and coincidentally gouge as much money out of it as possible. Heavily promoted and advertised natural gas deregulation was the vehicle. At the same time, this artificial catastrophe was used to bludgeon Gray Davis and install the Governator.
Estimates of how much was gouged from California during that “crisis” run as high as $20 billion.
The first thing Arnold did as governor was repeal a hike in the motor vehicle tax. Just the other day I heard that this had cost the state an average of $4 billion dollars each year since.
Meanwhile, single payer health care, which would save California billions each year, has **twice** passed the state legislature—after a whole lot of sweat and work by the grass roots activists—only to be vetoed by Arnold.
Arnold’s brillant idea to solve the budget crisis? —simply borrow billions (from where, China?) That (and some other slight of hand tricks) is what the people rejected in the last coupe of elections.
Billions here. Billions there. Pretty soon you’re talking about real money.
Usually I would attack you since you are highly arrogant. However today I’m really sick to my stomach reading the list of California cuts..
‘Suspend various state mandates requiring counties to make mail ballots available to all voters, hold animal shelter strays for six days, and collect DNA from unidentified bodies for the state Department of Justice.’
So now stray dogs do not even get a reprieve of six days. This is pure cruelty. Our loyal companions who forgive all and stay loyal through everything, get killed after six days in the shelter. That does not even give them a chance to be seen by people looking to adopt. Sickening and cruel. Why don’t you tax the puppy mills Arnold, and force them out of business so that these forgotten dogs might have a chance for a home. How about you spring all the people doing time for drug possession. The only victim of that crime is the person using the drugs. Talk about double punishment. Maybe then you can disband the goons in the constabulary and set them to stop the real criminals who rob, rape and kill. And with the money you save, give people money for seeds and teach them to plant and animal husbandry, and guarantee them to buy the crop. Then you can distribute real work to those who are really disadvantaged.
No I am not going to let you go this easy today. Don’t talk to me about Vegas. I read The Stand. If you are going to use King, then cite the source, eh? And don’t talk about the war against the American Natives while renting stolen native land for token county taxes and a token mortgage.
ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ
ELAINE: I never, ever read any King books or seen a single movie based on these stupid books. I do have a brother who is a preacher in Vegas who is crazy. The Apocalypse is very strong in my crazy family which is why I dedicated my life to preventing it from happening.
I don’t know why you are crazy, too. Perhaps we can arrange a visit where I can psychoanalyze your problems. Psychoanalysis is fun for the person doing this to someone, it is like going through a closet that has never been cleaned. You know, I did this once to a 130 year old house….one closet had a pile of newspapers from the 19th century. I sat down and read a good number of them. One, from 1892, had a story of a guy who beat his wife to death for overcooking the spaghetti. Is that guy related to you?
If anyone cares about the one hundred point jump in the market in the last ten minutes on Friday.
http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/052909Lendman.shtml
The breakdown of markets is the same lawlessness as the breakdown of cities.
Such blatant manipulation
I am shocked, shocked and disappointed!
Since torture has become acceptable and tolerant on the part of government, I suggest that this may be a good recourse to cure corruption. In the West it should be carried out on Live TV to help recover the corruption money. They can even call it Reality Virtue Enhancement for Public Servants (if you are squeamish you may not want to watch this). It works wonders in Singapore, Malaysia, & Brunei:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=5ab_1172940415
There are many ways of reading history. Let’s be frank: superimposing ideas on processes is easy to do and can be very misleading. For example, if we think that the elites ‘profit’ from all collapses, and then, ergo, say: they want collapses, is a false understanding of events.
The strong and powerful might be able to ride collapses downwards better than the weak, this goes without saying. But then, to say that the strong WANT things to collapse is utterly ridiculous.
All RISES in markets are due to actions of the powerful who think, ‘NOW we found a magic way to make ourselves richer and everyone happy so we can sail along, high and mighty!’ Then, the system collapses due to inherent problems, 99.9% of the time, it is due to too much easy credit causing a credit bubble.
Then, the rich and powerful scramble to survive as the bubble collapses. Some do, many do not. THEY FEAR THESE CREDIT COLLAPSES. They do not like them at all. Their manipulations are all set up to prevent an obvious collapse. This is why they conspire in secret. They fumble about for some way of keeping THE DAMN STATUS QUO.
They do enjoy looting everyone, especially when bubbles pop. But look at Goldman Sachs or Buffett: after boasting, they discovered the sinkhole economy is swallowing them up, too! See?
I know this angers people whenever I say it, but the need to understand what is going on is very, very important, this includes the psychology of what is going on and how systems interact with each other and how market fixes can lead to market collapses and how we need history to instruct us as to what works and what fails.
In other words don’t discount the elites just because they are morally corrupt
They are still a crafty bunch
“we can only pray that we have an identical crisis here in the US”
Were do you want to start from…
http://tinyurl.com/2j6dk5
Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.
Lao-tzu, The Way of Lao-tzu
Chinese philosopher (604 BC – 531 BC)
Manifest desires,
Embrace selfishness,
Reduce simplicity,
Have few plainness.
The Way of New Labour
Parcel of rogues (1997- )
Manifest joy.
Share the joy.
Desire not that which you don’t understand.
Relish no wisdom that does not cry.
Laugh as much as possible.
Motto of the mulchers!
(2009)
Turning the thumb screws on the capitalists?
Sounds awfully Leninist , but what the hell, Fascism doesn’t punish the big timers, so I guess it’s the only way then?
Hi BK!
Mulchers Yes! Go for it!
What other recourse is there? These capitalists have the emotional maturity of a 5 year old, without the conscience, so many people die because of their flippant j’ai ne sais quoi. Besides think about this, Leninism is a label, a label painted black by the very same guys who ordered the sodomizing of men and women in Abu Ghraib. Public humiliation would infact a very small price to pay for everything they have done. But walking around after, being recognized and spat on for the rest of their lives would be a great deterrent for thos e who follow. Killing them would be too easy.
Now, weren’t the greatest virtues Faith, Hope and Love? (Sigh).
Three simple solutions to stop the looting of the USA by the political greed and corruption within our country; 1. Public financed elections 2. Tax code changed to 70% income tax on $1 million or more of earned income 3. Breakup monopolies that are too big to fail (including banks). Capitalism and R& D stagnates when industry captures a market.
————————————
In 1812, Jefferson condemned both the French and British governments for trying to “draw to themselves the power, the wealth and the resources of other nations.” Three years later, he called Napoleon “the wretch…who has been the author of more misery and suffering to the world, than any being who ever lived before him. After destroying the liberties of his country, he has exhausted all its resources, physical and moral, to indulge his own maniac ambition, his own tyrannical and overbearing spirit.” He did not, however, have a favorable view of the British government and other opponents of Napoleon. Jefferson condemned the imperialism of all the leading countries of Europe: “The will of the allies? There is no more moderation, forbearance, or even honesty in theirs, than in that of Bonaparte. They have proved that their object, like his, is plunder.”
——————————————-
Americans are waking up to the fact we too are under seige by the “political will” of corporatism corruption. Iraq and Afghanistan were a sideshow as the real looting has taken place in the bowels of the USA Government.
@rockpaperscizzors: you will like this article it resontes with what you are saying: Starve The Beast:
:
The beast is Government. I know many of us feel helpless to stop the politicians from ruining the country. I keep coming back to Henry David Thoreau’s civil disobedience idea. The government can only sustain itself through taxes and borrowing. Long term interest rates have risen dramatically in the last 2 weeks. The trillions in debt that are in the pipeline has scared the bond market. Rates will continue to rise and ruin Bernanke and Geithner’s master plan.
:
The government needs us to borrow from their chosen banks and spend on houses, cars, and electronics to make their plan work. If enough Americans refuse to do as instructed, we can end this grand experiment. If we stop buying stuff we don’t need, state sales tax revenue will plunge. If we don’t gamble at state run casinos and state lotteries, their revenue will plunge. This will force states to make the tough choices we all have to make. Cut spending and negotiate new contracts with unions.
:
Screw the TARP banks. Take your money out of these banks and put it in your local credit union. These banks are taking your tax dollars, paying you .25% on your deposits and lending it to you at 6%. They can only survive with your deposits. Take away the deposits and these banks collapse for good. Don’t use credit cards and the TARP banks lose the transaction fee income, interest income, and late fee income.
:
Don’t buy cars from GM or Chrysler and screw up their government auto plan. They couldn’t operate a lemonade stand profitably.
:
By saving 10% of our disposable income rather than spending it, retailers close and unecessary companies will lose more money and go out of business. Federal tax revenue will dry up. Without tax revenue, our deficits will go higher and interest rates will go higher in response.
:
If interest rates rise far enough Obama, Barney Frank, Dodd, Reid, and Pelosi will be forced to cut the budget. We do have a say in how this goes down. Reduce debt, save until it hurts, drive that car for 10 years, live with the TV you’ve got.
:
Let’s starve the beast.
—
Talking will not do it, marching will not do it, not paying taxes will get you arrested. But this starving of the Beast you can do while watching the tele in the comfort of your home, watch them drop dead, that is. 😉
cc – incredible post! Thanks.
That is also social suicide. I find it much, much better to organize politically.
This is a short cut, this is how you get their unwavering attention without getting arrested or tortured. And it sends a clear message, not mixed political signals. How long has it been since the economic crisis has started and how much have the activists and marchers been able to accomplish? They are invisible like you Elaine. Acy invisible and stop feeding the bastards and see how fast you get their attention. They go to China to beg, but you guys get no respect! Why is that?
Heh. Act invisible…
I’m not trying to be flippant here, but I must say to “act invisible” is impossible. Once the act is on it is visible for viewing. Otherwise, it would not be an act. Don’t you think?
Peace,
Ken
PP
Being noisy and nosy is much more effective.
No I disagree. After awhile if all you do is be noisy and nosy then you get ignored.
I’d just assume be relavant.
Ha. Ha.
Double Ha.
Plus some faith, hope, and love!
And maybe even some joy.
Who knows – not me.
hope you don’t think that was flippant cause it wasn’t. It came from the heart.
http://www.peoplesproclamation.com
simple
BKen said: “After awhile if all you do is be noisy and nosy then you get ignored.”
—
I rest my case. 🙂
Persistence.
The elite have all your money, which means they have a lot of rope. The proles on the other hand are close to the end of their rope. Not everyone lives on a mountaintop free and clear of debt with the practiced experience of austerity.
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How does one kill a parasite? By starving it to death. Going out, marching, organizing demos entails expense. Sitting at home and starving the bankers doesn’t cost a penny. If one keeps playing the game their way, one will get worn down by them. They have the ammo, namely your dollars, in their pocket. Take back control of your money, get it out of their banks and hit them where it hurts, in their wallet. Then all the yada-yada that has led to nada-nada, will go boom, boom, boom! 😉
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Social suicide is staying home to die. That was not what I inferred, but rather do your own thing, adapt, overcome, plan, create, network, build, trade, do all of that and more, BUT OUTSIDE THEIR SYSTEM. Perhaps a tall order, but not impossible. For example, the Pakistani Mohamed Yunnus of Grameen Development, an outsider came to America and made available micro-finance to lots of immigrants who flourished without Citi, BA and all the bullshitters. There is a lesson in that. It’s a positive; it’s proactive.
Ethnic groups, when the emigrate, almost always ‘stick together’ and fund each other, etc. The difference with the black community in America is, they were kidnapped and enslaved and so, have a very difficult time, seeing themselves as a true community. Anyone who did try to organize them into this was assassinated.
The dog-eat-dog world of the slums in America is rooted in this history of slavery. It cannot be undone so easily. Like all historical forces, the after effects resonate for centuries which is why it is so dangerous to destroy the fabric of society. Look at China’s struggles to overcome its own internal collapse from 1600-2000 AD.
Why do I get the feeling that all this has been orchestrated and we are being led by rings in our noses.The tories sacrificing some of their own to make the government even more unpopular to gain power with a very large majority they will need to push through some VERY nasty legislation in the next Parliament.
“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945)
We have a cute way of describing that political maneuver over here, an acronym actually, AC-DC. Attack collect – Defend collect. 😉