Peter Navarro on the Afghan War!

Originally posted on Peter Navarro's website in Sept' 09-
Excellent piece on ending the Afghan War!

Orange Grove: Get out of Afghanistan now
By PETER NAVARRO

2009-09-24 17:16:02

During my senior year in high school, in 1966-67, our local congressman came to speak to us soon-to-be-draftees about the necessity of the Vietnam War. His basic pitch was a frothy combination of Red menace, yellow peril, and domino theory. While not particularly versed in geopolitics at the time – although, as a paper boy delivering and regularly reading the Washington Post, I wasn't a complete ignoramus – the speech rang as hollow as a beer keg after a frat party.


Today, I get the same kind of hollowness in my gut every time I hear President Barack Obama and a gaggle of Democratic and Republican hawks offer eerily similar arguments for the Afghanistan war. Terrorism is the new Red menace. Yellow peril has morphed into radical Islam. Dominoes, perhaps surprisingly, are still dominoes. In fact, sober analysis of the two major arguments in support of the war leads me to the same conclusion as my gut – let's get the hell out.


Consider the first argument: Afghanistan must not be allowed to be a staging area for al-Qaida terrorists. Of course, it was from Afghan soil that Osama bin Laden oversaw the 9/11 attacks so this argument seems at first glance compelling. However, Afghanistan is now just one of many possible staging areas for al-Qaida. In fact, hot zone that Afghanistan is, it is now much easier for al-Qaida's decentralized networks to conduct operations in numerous other places, with Algeria, Somalia, and Yemen emerging as the newest strongholds. Why aren't we invading them?


The second pro-war argument is domino theory redux. If the Taliban and Islamic extremists once again control Afghanistan, they will spread their poison to neighboring Pakistan. If the domino Pakistan falls to Islamic extremists, they will inherit Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability and use it to attack Israel and the U.S.


This argument fails to acknowledge that America's presence in Afghanistan is inflaming tensions on Pakistan's border and doing more to destabilize the country than protect it. The broader important issue is whether the United States can, or should, baby-sit a country like Pakistan. After all, with its own standing army and a growing middle class, Pakistan should be able to protect its own territory and political and economic institutions.


Even if you buy the pro-war arguments, consider this: The war can never be won in any quick or decisive fashion – if at all. As the British learned in two wars with Afghanistan in the 1800s and the Soviets learned in their bloodbath of the 1980s, Afghanistan is no country at all. Rather, it's a diverse collection of primitive tribes occupying a harsh landscape pockmarked with tens of thousands of hiding places ideal for guerrilla warfare. On the quagmire scale, it rates a full 10 and makes Vietnam look like a cakewalk. Why we want to send American sons and daughters into that trap is the question for this age.


In fact, our very presence in Afghanistan (and Iraq) is doing more to help al-Qaida recruit new members and develop new military and terror tactics than any other event Osama Bin Laden could have dreamed up. While American troop numbers are constrained by both the size (and battle fatigue) of our military and what American political opinion will bear, al-Qaida has an ever-deepening well of recruits. Why we want to help al-Qaida build its network on the back of anti-American sentiment is a mystery.


The saddest fact is that our new president has taken ownership of this war less for strategic and military purposes and more to show his backbone. As a strong and early opponent of the Iraq war, Barack Obama had to protect his dovish flanks during the 2008 campaign by talking tough on Afghanistan. Now, as he gets deeper into the quagmire, the supreme irony is that he doesn't have the backbone to realize this is an unwinnable war without any compelling strategic rationale.
Navarro on TheStreet.com

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Published in August '09-South Park, the Nevada Senate Race, and the Political Cycle of Death!!

Trey Parker and Matt Stone brilliantly summed up the horrible choices (or rather lack of choices) the American public faces when going to the voting booth in their episode Douche vs. Turd. As a Nevada voter forced to choose between Harry Reid and Sharon Angle, I think the political parody is still timely and we must rescue ourselves from this vicious two party cycle if we are to stand even a chance against coming crises.
In the 2004 South Park episode, Douche vs. Turd, the school puts up two candidates for the next school mascot-a giant douche and a turd sandwich. One of the boys voices his disgust with these two options and is hounded out of town for voicing the obvious. After his adventures he sees that "every election is about a choice between a douche and a turd."

In 2010 Senate Campaign in Nevada, the two candidates who stand a chance at winning are Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Tea Party Favorite Sharon Angle. On one hand we have someone who voted for the Bankruptcy Bill in 2005 and has many pieces of legislation passed for a Democratic agenda by the House sit by the wayside because of the lack of a "supermajority" (despite George W. Bush getting everything his greedy corrupt heart wanted to when his party had nowhere near these numbers).

And on the other hand we have Sharon Angle, who seeks to implement "Biblical Law" (Strike 1 if you've ever actually read what's in that book and the trivial offenses for which it mandates death), supports eliminating Social Security and Medicare (Strike 2 if you have paid into these most of your adult life and shiver when Conservatives talk of scaling them down or eliminating them), and says that bringing industry to this state is "not her job" (Strike 3 because that is a direct quote)!

So I have to give the "I can't do anything because I don't have a supermajority" guy 6 more years or put in a woman whom I not only feel is an imbecile but wrong in pretty much every stance she takes. I have to say that I feel like a character in South Park!

And not only that, but both choices lead down a road that repeats history to the detriment of our lives, liberties and property. If history repeats itself and we are looking at a repeat of the 90's (a Democratic president being a rubber stamp for a Republican agenda), then the result will be a sequel to the Bush years when the Republicans regain control of the White House and all the death, tyranny and debt that entails.

I always felt there was an inherent dishonesty when Bill Clinton (and all who came after him) made a case for deficit reduction. Granted we had to cut back domestic programs (a Gingrich favorite) to get where there was a projected budget surplus in 2005. And those programs were cut back. But what happened to fiscal responsibility when Bush came to office? The deficit was run up to even beyond what it was in the Reagan years! Most of the money went to the DOD and it's lackeys. Defense contractors have never had better friends than George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden!

I'm old enough to remember the 1980 election. I remember Carter being killed in the campaign ads for the $73 billion dollar deficit in 1980. When Reagan got in, reducing the Deficit was so important that he ballooned it to an average of $167 billion per year of Reagan's administration (most of it spent on weapons). Deficits seem to be important only when the Democrats control the White House.

When we are being manipulated by fear into compromising our Constitution, when Defense Contractors are making out like bandits, and when Wall Street is getting handout after handout-deficits are not important. When we need our infrastructure updated and repaired, when businesses need to see activity so that they start hiring, when the whole economy needs to get people back to work with shovel ready projects so that then they would take their paychecks and spend them-deficits are important and must be reduced!

The double standard is not only disgusting but it produces unneeded deaths on a massive scale. Because of this double standard, as of this writing 4,732 US troops have died in an Iraq War fueled more by G.W.Bush's vanity, hunger for oil dominance, revenge for 9-11 and greedy Defense Contractors than any threat to the United States from Iraq. Because of this double standard, as of this writing 1991 US troops who should be alive today aren't because they died in a mismanaged conflict in Afghanistan that should have been over in Tora Bora in Dec 2001! And lest we forget, there are also 97,172-106,047 Iraqi civilians who should be alive but are not because their country became a battle zone for the past 8 years.

My point is that this dishonest double standard regarding the deficit is part of a cycle of death. One side, the ones who manipulate their followers with fear of Big Business and then gives Big Business (with maybe breaking up a monopoly or oligopoly as the exception) whatever they want, has strict limitations on what they can spend money on when in the White House. The other side, the ones who manipulate their followers with fear of Big Government and then grow the deficit and take away liberties, has no limitations on what they can spend as long as it kills.

And don't think we are immune as U.S. Citizens. As Dr. Phil said, "If they'll do it with you, they'll do it to you." Boehner wants to "reexamine the 14th Amendment" to determine if people he doesn't like can be stripped of their citizenship. He may turn into the next Speaker of the House. Cheney tied to override Posse Comitatus (the legal precedent that prevents US troops from being used domestically) so he could send troops to a US city. We are not immune from these people just because we live here!

George Orwell put it best in 1984-

" ...it does matter if the war is not real, or when it is that victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor. A hierarchal society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation."

That declining standard of living that we are all so familiar with will only get worse as this cycle repeats itself. If you are outraged by the Douchebag, a vote for the Turd Sandwich will only bring death and debt to us so fast it will be as if Bush never left office. If you are outraged by the Turd Sandwich, you leave in power a Douchebag who sits in power ignoring the agenda you sent him there to fulfill. If you are like me, you are outraged at having to make such a horrible choice to begin with and watch with despair and disgust as we repeat the dishonest elective hypocritical cycle of Death!

Published in November '10-The Great Economist Quote Quiz

Can you differentiate between a quote from Adam Smith and a quote from Karl Marx? Would you know a Keynes quote from a Friedman quote? Let's find out.
The competing schools of economics can be a confusing contradictory cacophony of misinformation, distortions, huge errors, outright lies sitting side by side with solid facts. I have found some Libertarians whom I know personally arguing for the top-down autocratic ability of the Federal Government to arbitrarily change the contract and raise the age in which I collect Social Security. I have found adherents of Deregulation honestly tell me that the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act was not the cause of the Housing implosion. Banks (private institutions!) were issuing Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs) and buying them back in order to artificially prop up the prices caused by because of this deregulation, and I'm confronted with people who insist that it was "all the government's fault". We have people with such blind loyalty to their school of economics that they insist that we have more deregulation.

This has been an era of deregulation spawning scandal after crash after rewriting history (off the top of my head, Lincoln Savings and Loan, Enron, Tyco International, Adelphia, Peregrine Systems, WorldCom. Fannie-Mae, Freddie-Mac, AIG, Bear Stearns, British Petroleum, Xe-Blackwater, Halliburton are all modern stories of what people who implemented the those regulations were trying to prevent.) Isn't all of this a confirmation of Karl Marx's comments on Overproduction? ( I know, the modern financial press uses the word Bubble not Overproduction or Oversupply)

Regardless of your answer, I think you must agree that it is absolutely essential to know what you believe and why you believe it! It is very important to be able to sift disinformation, distortions and lies from facts. In that spirit, I've prepared a quiz of four great and very influential economists.

Your Choices are-

ADAM SMITH-Regarded as the father of Modern Capitalism for his work "Wealth of Nations". In his argument against the economic system of the day, mercantilism, he stressed a laissez-faire attitude which stated that the Crown or government should cease to limit imports and allow commerce to flourish. However, most modern free market advocates consistently ignore his criticism of permanent corporations, division of labor, imperialism, and business control of state policy in that same volume.

KARL MARX-Critic of 19th Century Capitalism. Held that Industrial Capitalism, unlike Market Capitalism, causes a great deal of harm because the worker is divorced from the profit of his labor. Warned against the Problem of Overproduction (or Bubbles) a century before Lincoln Savings and Loan, Enron, Tyco, Countrywide, AIG financial implosions.

JOHN MAYNARD KEYNES- Author of "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" and father of the Aggregate Demand Equation which, although he is personally vilified in many circles, is still used as the Macroeconomic standard to this day. An investor and British Lord whose Fund grew five-fold in a period of turmoil that included 2 World Wars and the Great Depression. Often regarded as a Communist or Socialist in some modern circles.

MILTON FRIEDMAN-Nobel Prize Winner and father of the Monetarist Economic School and the tax withholding system. Held that the Money Supply has a direct proportional relationship with the price level. Publicly advocated abolishing the Federal Reserve System, legalizing marijuana and prostitution, and a volunteer military.

1."Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

2. "Universities exist to transmit knowledge and understanding to students not to provide entertainment for spectators or employment for athletes."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

3."No society can be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable"

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

4."Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

5."To feel much for others and little for ourselves, to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affection, constitute the perfection of human nature."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

6."For the bureaucrat, the world is a mere object to be manipulated by him"

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

7."The social object of skilled investment should be to defeat the dark forces of time and ignorance which envelope our future."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

8."The black market was a way of getting around government controls. It was a way of enabling the free market to work. It was a way of opening up, enabling people."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

9. "Democracy is the road to socialism."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

10."The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency. By a continuing policy of inflation, governments can confiscate secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of its citizens."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

11. "All money is a matter of belief."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

12."The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

13. "The production of too many useful things results in too many useless people."

____ A Adam Smith

____ B Karl Marx

____ C John Maynard Keynes

____ D Milton Friedman

We all should fearlessly ask ourselves what we believe and why we believe it. That goes double for the economic schools of thought we subscribe to. It was not that long ago that free market advocates were being quoted by predatory lenders and laying the groundwork for the malaise we see now. The large economic concepts do affect our lives, and we should be very skeptical of all claims made on authority. There were people, I mean supposedly responsible adults, like Kevin "Dow 36,000 by 2008" Hassett, who were claiming with complete authority that there was no housing bubble back when CDOs were being sold by banks to banks to prop up prices.

Mr. Hassett, by the way, was an economic advisor to the McCain campaign. He would have influenced policy if Obama had not been elected.That's right, we came that close to having a man who didn't see or care about the Housing Bubble when it was forming in 2003 and saw the Dow going to 36,000 by 2008 at the hieght of the dot bomb bust in 2000 influencing policy during the height of the Great Recession!

These concepts affect our lives and even if you don't agree with Keynes or Von Mises-it is important to know what you believe and why you believe it!

And here are the Answers

Adam Smith wrote #1, #3, #5, and #11

Karl Marx wrote #6, #9 and #13

John Maynard Keynes wrote #4, #7, #10, and # 12

Milton Friedman wrote #2, and #8

I am not a teacher of any sort. Any grade or scale I offered you on this quiz would be meaningless. If you felt the need to cheat and indulged you have admitted to yourself the unfamiliarity with these large economic concepts.

The worst thing we can do is allow the Noise Machine to rob words like "Socialist", "Fascist", "Capitalist" and "Bubble" of their meaning.

To allow this is to be at the mercy of charlatans and crackpots to look at one side of the Mixed Capitalist situation we find our selves in and see "Government bad-Private sector good".

So I'll close with one of my favorite quotes, not from an Economist but from George Clinton's P-Funk All Stars-

"My mind is mine and mine my mind will always stay! No way of life, no man no law's gonna take it away"

Parliament-"Fantasy is Reality"

Published in November '10-Sorry, Mr. Paul. It's not the Death of Keynesism, it's the old Bait and Switch!

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Published in September '10-We should implement Asimov's 3 laws to protect us from our inhuman creations-not robots but corporations.

The Citizen's United Supreme Court decision may unleash the legal equivalent of Brainiac and Ultron upon our country. We can thwart this by implementing the protections Issac Asimov recommended and applying them to these newly legal persons, the 3 laws of Robotics.
When it comes to a precaution against the human race creating something that is not human, it can not control and is potentially lethal to us, Asimov recommended the 3 laws of robotics to guard against accidentally creating a monster. Why would we, as a species, create something that had more power than we did, that had the potential to kill us and which we did not control?

The 3 Laws of Robotics are, for those unfamiliar with Asimov, as follows-

1.A robot may not kill or injure a human being or through inaction cause a human being to come to harm.

2.A robot must obey orders except when in conflict with the 1st law.

3.A robot must protect it's own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the 1st or 2nd law.

Now if you replace the word robot with the word corporation in the above list, you have a very reasonable approach to dealing with the arch betrayal of the US people and the US Constitution that the Supreme Court committed on the 21st of January of this year. That Constitution, by the way, doesn't start out with "We the Robots" any more than it starts out with "We the Corporations"! And considering that both robots and corporations are creations of human beings, most corporations with considerable more legal power than the average human being, that's a good thing. We, the People of the United States, must keep it that way.

A staple of science fiction has long been the evil robot. SkyNet, Ultron, Bender, Lore, Nomad, and Brainiac are in our collective consciousness and what fantastic villains they do make. Why is it that when we see an inhuman oppressive machine fight, torture, and sometimes kill human beings in science fiction we cheer for their defeat but when it comes to the inhuman oppressive machinery of a health insurance company, a defense contractor, or a coal company in real life some of us hit the streets in an effort to insure this machine's "rights" are not even mildly compromised.

And if this machine is to have the same rights as a human being, doesn't it follow that we should inquire, "What kind of a person is a corporation?" In the film, The Corporation, by Mark Achbar, this question was posed and, using the World Health Organization guidelines, they came up with a personality profile that fits a psychopath.

And that leads to another question, "Wouldn't it be foolhardy of us to let Blackwater, Union Carbide, Halliburton subsidiary Kellog, Brown, and Root and the next Enron enjoy the same legal rights as we enjoy?"

We would not do that for known violators of the 3 Robotic laws- Ultron, Lore, and Brainiac. Unless we all work together and reverse the Citizen's United decision, we embrace a future where inhuman forces with a proven record for causing harm to humans are subjugating us worse that Ultron, Lore, and Brainiac would be if they granted citizenship.

Kellog, Brown, and Root has enjoyed no bid contracts and moved itself offshore to Dubai, a Muslim city, when it's thefts and incompetence at the expense of Iraqi civilians and our troops in post Invasion Iraq proved excessive. Blackwater has literally gotten away with murder. Union Carbide showed a callous disregard for the citizen's of Bophal when that Indian city lost more lives in that accident than we lost on 9/11. And the financial forces that brought about the Enron debacle were never corrected so we wound up with a worse mess in 2008. And now, they are actively lobbying against financial reform. Honestly, we'd be safer with Ultron and Brainiac!

How do we start to defend ourselves against this monstrous creation of ours? If we apply Asimov's three laws to corporations it becomes easy! As a thought experiment, let's explore the consequences

1. A corporation may not kill or injure a human being or through inaction allow a human being to come to harm. That means the current Health Care proposal of doing away with the pre existing conditions would be only the beginning (which is a good thing and long overdue). It also means that DynCorp can't be a shadow military for US State Dept backed genocide and chemical warfare in Columbia anymore. It also means that any corporation that moves jobs oversees so that it doesn't have to comply with OSHA standards can keep those jobs here at home where they belong. And those are just the beginning. That's just 3 examples I can come up with off the top of my head.
2. A corporation must obey orders except when conflicting with the 1st law. Here's where I expect to win over some conservatives. I keep hearing the refrain "Don't pass new laws, just enforce what's already on the books!" when it comes to variety of topics. This may vary state by state so I'll just stick with my own, Nevada Revised Statute 78.060 subsection (f) already provides for Asmovian law #2. It reads- "Any corporation organized under the provisions of this chapter: To make bylaws not inconsistent with the constitution or laws of the United States, or of this state, for the management, regulation and government of its affairs and property, the transfer of its stock, the transaction of its business, and the calling and holding of meetings of its stockholders." It's already there. If a corporation knowingly breaks the law, it sacrifices it's legal standing (at least in Nevada). Now all that has to happen is for some teeth to be put behind this law. That way the next time an executive wants to knowingly implement a policy that will cost human life because settling the lawsuits would be cheaper, he could wind up costing the shareholders everything. They would lose their corporate personhood because of a law that's already on the books.
3. A corporation must protect its own existence as long as such protection doesn't interfere with the 1st or 2nd law. If a corporation knowingly endangers or harms any human life, it may not use its resources to defend itself. It loses the human right of self-defense when it has become a threat. That would mean no think tanks financed by said company could try to spin a positive face on this monster, no elite corporate law firms could obstruct an investigation, no appeals trying to whittle down the sum of a judgment when a jury of humans decided that a punitive damage is in order.

The Citizen's United decision isn't two months old. The effects are not being felt yet. And granted in an atmosphere of Willie Horton ad style politics it is often difficult to imagine how political discourse in this country can sink any lower. But only a few people could imagine the dishonest intellectual sewer that would be opened up by passage of the 1996 Telecommunications bill. And without that bill, we would have no Fox News today.

I don't think that I could find one person who calls himself a libertarian that would advocate that the rights of a robot were equal to or superceded the rights of a human being. Not even the most tortured logic or bastardized quote would be offered to imply that Ultron or any other robot should not even be mildly inconvenienced if he wished to buy airtime during an election to further his nefarious schemes. But change the word robot to corporation and tortured ideological arguments return to assure that something inhuman is not mildly inconvenienced!

Would we let Ultron, Brainiac or Lore devote their considerable resources to interfering in an election? They are not human so of course we wouldn't. But the Citizen's United decision says inhuman corporations have the same rights as human beings and can pour their considerable resources into the election process.

This is a modest proposal to be sure. But in science fiction, the difference between a good robot like Adam Link or a Data and a bad robot like Ultron or Lore is the restraint of the 3 Laws or something like them. The results of elections can be the difference between life and death for many humans. A corporation would be bound not to interfere in any election if we had the wisdom to implement the equivalent of Asimov's 3 laws on our inhuman and dangerous creation.

It gets down to where your loyalty is. Is it with the human race or with Ultron? Which side are you on, boy, which side are you on?

Published in June '10-IS THERE ANY WAY OF SPREADING BONEITUS TO OTHERS ON WALL STREET?

As the third and final installment in my Futurama series, I call attention to That Guy from the episode Future Stock, a resurrected 80's style financial whiz and his untimely death from the unfortunately fictional disease Boneitus. I'm looking at the behavior of Wall Street lately and sincerely wishing someone would spread boneitus to people like That Guy.
"Fry, I'm an 80's guy. Friendship to me means that for 2 bucks I'd beat you with a pool stick until you got detached retinas."-That Guy (a.k.a. Steve Castle)

Okay, I know in advance that I publish this in a Libertarian forum and the potential consequences of criticizing the Free Market on these pages are bad. And I already realize that anything offered by any cartoon is going to be more caricature than character. Hence it is unfair for me to take Steve Castle (in the episode in question he was known only as That Guy), and say he is typical of Wall Street. In the course of the episode, he died a very funny death from boneitus, the disease he had himself cryogenically frozen to avoid after he engineered a hostile takeover of the company that was working on a cure (and pocketing a cool 100 million).

Yes, it would be unfair of me to lump in all of Wall Street with this caricature. Maybe I shouldn't give examples like the people who lost everything in the Enron or World Com or Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers or 80's S&L debacles and point out that it's people like That Guy (Steve Castle) who are directly responsible! So I won't.

I'll just point out that despite the damage done to our economy by this entire culture of shortsighted greedy traders; Libertarians still can make a persuasive case for fiscal conservatism. I don't think anyone could miss the foreclosures, unemployment and poverty that are rampant today. There is just a much higher percentage of them dragging down the economy.

But this proves the point of the danger and potential abuses of fiat currency and central banking. Alan Greenspan made money available at a negative interest rate when adjusted for inflation. Free money was a betrayal of his supposed Libertarian principles. Who knows what he was thinking when he was making those decisions. Who cares, the results of this were tragically inflicted on people who believed hype from people like Greenspan and That Guy (Steve Castle).

And it was people like That Guy (Steve Castle) who were playing hard and fast with the rules driving housing prices up beyond what was reasonably affordable.

I've heard one of the most eloquent local Libertarian speakers say that in spite of all of this we want avoid Government Price Controls. He's actually preaching to the choir to me on this one. The argument was that it only causes shortages where there shouldn't be shortages and surpluses where there shouldn't be surpluses. However, it is seldom one word is ever said about Price Controlling or Price Fixing when the Free Market does it.

Do you feel that the Free Market never indulges in Price Controls?

Please allow me to introduce you to a form of Free Market Competition known as Oligopoly. Oligopolies exist when you have a handful of firms producing from 75%-100% of the Marketshare. In this kind of Marketplace, they are the one who establish the price-a phenomenon known as being a Price Maker. Examples are Batteries, an industry where Four companies: Duracell, Eveready, Ray-O-Vac, and Kodak control 94% of the Marketplace and Toothpaste where another Four companies: Proctor & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive, Lever Bros, and Beecham control 91% of the marketplace. And you will notice that the prices for these products don't really vary that nuch when you shop for them. When's the last tine you saw a hot new toothpaste or battery try to capture marketshare by dramatically reducing its price. You don't see new brands for $0.50 when you shop for toothpaste do you?

Well, there's a good reason. Such forms of Oligopolistic competition encourage collusion, both legal and illegal, between firms so that no outsiders are allowed to infringe on their marketshare and a few companies are able to control production and pricing.

In the Futurama episode in question, Mom, the head of Momcorp, is so afraid of competition that she is willing to buy the Planet Express delivery company That Guy (Steve Castle) is running rather than give up her control over price and production. This had the effect of making everybody who held onto his or her stock momentarily rich until Phillip Fry opened his big mouth.

My point is that if you really are fiscally conservative, private sector price controls particularly the illegal kind, should be just as much an abomination to you as government price controls. And the system really isn't set up in a way to discourage this in big companies that are Price Makers. Just the opposite, if you are a CEO of a monopoly or an oligopolic company, there is pressure on you to increase earnings no matter what. Even if it's a secret illegal meeting in Las Vegas during a trade show with bigwigs from your competition where you decide on what price and production should be, you feel pressure to do it. And if you won't for ethical reasons, one of your executive vice presidents will. And the guy putting pressure on you to do behave this way probably thinks and behaves a lot like That Guy (Steve Castle).

The best argument for Libertarian thought I've ever read was from Michael Shermer in his book Mind of the Market. He is very clear on the role of government as the creator of a level playing field where the Free Market can flourish. To his credit, he has denounced the safety and environmental shortcuts indulged in Massey Energy and BP that have lead to disaster and death.

He makes the case that bottom up capitalism is easier to change (because of marketplace pressures) when a mistake is made. Top down government is very difficult to change once legislation is enacted, but still plays a vital role in the marketplace. The purpose of government is to ensure a level playing field so that markets can thrive. It's my understanding that this mirrors the thesis of Ludwig Von Mises, the father of Austrian Economics.

If that's the case, then we're comparing apples and oranges when we discuss the merits of Austrian Economics and letting sociopaths in executive offices, like those whom That Guy (Steve Castle) was a parody of, fix prices and bribe legislators for ideological reasons only. Those are two different proposals!

By the way, in the process of enacting Financial Reform, Wall Street lobbyists have recently proved Democrats can be bribed just as easy as Republicans can. It was a Democrat, not a Republican, who has been sabotaging reform legislation and enabling the next big financial crisis. An amendment submitted by Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) would eliminate an Obama administration-supported proposal to protect average investors from unscrupulous brokers on Wall Street just like the kind parodied in Futurama as That Guy (Steve Castle). The move puts the entire Financial Reform bill into joke status. Tim Johnson's actions undercut a move to require brokers to act in the best interest of their clients. While financial advisors are already legally bound to do this, huge investment firms like Goldman Sachs are not! The average guy who got his Series 7 license and is acting on behalf of his investors is not the one who deserves boneitus. That Guy (Steve Castle) does deserve the horrible cartoonish death of boneitus!

And Democratic Senator Tim Johnson just enabled That Guy (Steve Castle) to continue to risk huge companies at taxpayer expense, while the Senate is debating Financial Reform. He told the world that despite the horrendous recent record of Wall Street, Big Financial Firms should get to play by different rules than the ones average investors have to play by.

I don't rejoice in anyone's death. A cartoon's death is always reversible. But there are those in real life whose passing leaves the world a better place (Adolph Hitler, Ayatollah Khomeni, Ted Bundy, just to name a few off the top of my head). I feel the same way about That Guy (Steve Castle) and his real life counterparts. I think Morrisey, of the band the Smiths said it best in the song Unhappy Birthday-"...You're evil and you lie. And if you should die, I may feel slightly sad, but I won't cry".

I wouldn't cry if someone found a way to spread boneitus to those who cut corners regarding worker safety and environmental protections in the two recent lethal disasters. Nor would I cry if suddenly executive officers had to pay for price-fixing in the marketplace with a bad case of boneitus. And unfortunately, if a fictional disease can't make these people behave, it looks like the only entity with enough power to do so is the government a.k.a. We, the People.

Published in June '10-JACK JOHNSON OR JOHN JACKSON-THE CHOICE IS OURS!

The 2nd in a three part series celebrating the return of Futurama by using its imagery to point out some of the flaws in our political economic idiocracy, we look at the candidates for election in the Futurama episode A Head in the Polls and the lack of choice we have when we go to the ballot box.
They appeared in only one episode as the two mainstream candidates representing the Fingerlicans and Tastycrat parties. But it was a very accurate parody of the lack of choice we Americans face come election time. The show portrays two clones running for President in the General Election. Leela warns not to let the identical DNA fool you, they differ on some key issues. They are able to issue such bold statements during election time as "I'm against those things that everybody hates!" and " I agree with everything my opponent just said".

And we have very similar bland and lackluster choices every election cycle.

For example, during the last election, the turning point came when McCain gave a speech pronouncing the economy as fundamentally strong on the same day the Dow had a record drop in value. The response was a proposal to suspend the campaigns and deal with the crisis. What was the way of dealing with the crisis? Hank Paulson created the TARP, Troubled Asset Relief Program, or 700 billion of dollars of our tax money given to institutions like AIG that made the bets/option trades to pay of Goldman Sachs if the economy went in the tank. I'm glad they avoided massive bank failures that we were looking at and thus another Depression, but that's not my point.

The point is that both candidates voted for this bailout during the election. McCain was even taking money from Fannie Mae during the campaign while it was failing. As deeply unpopular as this use of the taxpayer money was, there was no choice offered between the two major candidates. You can have this candidate who voted for the bailout while denouncing the need for it or the other candidate who voted for the bailout while denouncing the need for it. If you thought as the marginalized far left did, that the money could be better spent helping out troubled homeowners directly for less money you had the choice of being ignored or of being brushed aside. If you thought as the marginalized far right did that the marketplace has spoken and these institutions should fail, damn the consequences, well, you had the choice to be condescended to or to be talked down to. Do you want to be ignored or brushed aside? Do you wish to be condescended to or be talked down to? It's completely up to you, the voter/citizen/taxpayer.

And as hard as Sarah Palin is railing against the bailout now, when she was on the ballot she went along with it as part of the McCain ticket, saying at the time "inaction was not an option."

Both John Jackson and Jack Johnson seem to have been for the bailout. And that's not an isolated incident. We find the same thing on issue after issue election after election.

Ron Paul was very vocal (and very correct) when it came to criticism of President Bush during the Republican debates. As a matter of fact the Democrats took a lesson from the embarrassing smackdown Paul had given his fellow Republicans and pulled strings to censor one of it's own candidates with a knack for embarrassing Status Quo deadwood during the debates, Dennis Kucinich.

They did not want there to be an actual choice presented to voters.The three pre-approved choices were Hillary Clinton, Barry Obama, and John Edwards. Dennis Kucinich was invited to the Nevada primary debates in Las Vegas and NBC had told him that he had met requirements to be included. Rather than include a candidate that brings up Hillary's vote for the Iraq War, Barry's corporate sponsors, and John Edwards' lack of any bold stand on any issue, forces in the Nevada Democratic party had NBC change the requirements and uninvite/censor Dennis Kuccinich.

Paul and Kuccinich (neither of whom voted for the bailout) if they had won the nomination of either party would have been a welcome change from the Jack Johnson/John Jackson dichotomy we usually get. And either one of them would have put in a superior administration compared to what we wound up with.

Democratic or Republican, the two major parties are notorious for installing machinery after an election that rolls over and gives lobbyists everything they want. That's why, prior to the BP Oil Spill, Barack Obama was comfortable giving the middle finger to every environmentalist that canvassed for him in 2008 and state that he was going to be expanding oil drilling. Apparently the potential votes of people who hate him and didn't vote for him are more important than the votes of people who actually did.

The only difference is the manipulative demagoguery that is indulged in come election time. One side manipulates its base with fear of Big Business, the other side manipulates its base with fear of Big Government. All of which is well and good during the primaries provided you don't say anything of relevance. If you do, you can be censored by having the rules of who gets to debate change at the last minute. But after the primary, it devolves into a PR campaign that focuses on the personality and avoids issues.

How do they stand up when actually elected?

Well, the Democrats fight Big Business so much that they "fix" Health Care by requiring people to purchase from the industry that is causing the problems. Clinton favored big agribusiness over the family farmer. He lobbied NAFTA into law against labor, consumer, environmental and human rights groups. Gifts of land in Mexico to Agribusiness are a huge source of the lack of work in Mexico and immigration into the United States.

Which brings us to Republicans and their fight against Big Government. NAFTA, WTO, CAFTA also have huge amounts of support on the Right. Throw in a lot of taxpayer subsidies for Corporations throwing people off their land in Mexico and you can expect to find the predictable Free Market rhetoric not far away. And when those people immigrate to Arizona you have conservative hypocrites saying that the Constitution doesn't mean what it actually says when it comes to a US Citizen who is poor and Latino. Poor Latino US Citizens have already been detained while they are forced by the state to prove their citizenship in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Then there are the Bush-era illegal warantless wiretaps, Military Commissions Act of 2006 that took away your right to habeus corpus (Obama has not repealed this thus far),The REAL ID act (nothing says getting Big Government out of my life better than longer lines at the DMV), and Cheney saying he wanted to ignore the Posse-Comitatus decision and send troops to a US City.

And this is typical of our choices at pretty much every election for every Federal office. Do you want John Jackson, the Fingerlican who tells you pleasant but manipulative falsehoods about protecting you from Big Government? Or would you prefer Jack Johnson, the Tastycrat who tells you pleasant but manipulative falsehhoods about protecting you from Big Business? The choice is yours.

Published in June '10-MILDLY INCONVENIENCING ZAPP BRANNIGAN

As the First in a 3 Part series bemoaning the state of affairs in our country and celebrating the return of Futurama, I've found the perfect embodiment of our corporate military industrial complex- Captain Zapp Brannigan.
In less than a week, one of the funniest and most well written shows of recent years returns with new episodes. Futurama is back and the timing couldn't be more perfect. We stand helpless before a preventable oil spill that has made a mockery of our best attempts contain it. An overwhelming mandate for change failed to even dislodge a Defense secretary. And we are fixing to ignore lessons of 1937 and plunge a struggling recovering economy into a double dip recession. The personification of this arrogance and foolhardiness of our leadership is embodied in one of Futurama's main characters.

Of course I speak of 25 star General, Captain, Rear Brigadier, General Major Webelo Zapp Brannigan. What's more, not only are people who are his real life modern day equivalent leading us (in both major parties), but also most of policy inside Washington is geared towards guaranteeing that people like this are never held accountable for their actions or even mildly inconvenienced when it comes to the next bad idea.

Not to pick on one mere horrendous human being and CEO, but to pick out a recent example of said arrogance, do you remember when AIG had to be bailed out by the US taxpayer and they still managed to give bonuses to the staff that helped cause the financial meltdown and have that same staff take luxurious work vacations? I hope you haven't forgotten that, I mean we all paid for it. AIG CEO Robert Benmosche thanked the US taxpayer for bailing out his company by saying "my balls are bigger than the government". [link edited for length]

That's our country that he just said that about after we footed the bill to keep his company afloat. And that's just one quote that surfaced out of the entire culture that feels entitled to the taxpayer paying their bonuses. By the way, this is a man who couldn't even be bothered to leave his winery during his first two weeks as CEO.

Zapp Branigan himself couldn't have been any classier.

Some more relevant Zapp Brannigan quotes include:

1) "Wow, one day a man has everything, then the following day he blows up a $40 billion space station, and the next day he has nothing. It really makes you think." Brannigan Begin Again

That's similar to how one day you have everything, including an oil platform where you've been cutting corners on safety and environmental protections, the next day it blows up, and sixty days afterwards you should be in receivership because of the environmental disaster you've caused but you're not. Yes, it really makes you think.

So BP tried a literally Brannigan-like stategy the "Top Kill/Junk Shot" stage of the fiasco-

2) "On my command all ships will line up and file directly into the alien death cannons, clogging them with wreckage."-When Aliens Attack

3) "You know, boys, a good captain needs abilities like boldness, daring and a good velour uniform, and I'm not convinced Leela has ANY of those things" -Zapp while inciting a mutiny in Brannigan Begin Again

4) "Mutiny is it? I never thought I'd see the day"-Zapp when facing a mutiny in Brannigan Begin Again

Also "the Zapper" gleefully embraces a double standard. When we first meet him, he is forbidding Leela and the Planet Express crew to interfere with Vergon 6 by rescuing the animals from the doomed planet. It's a play on Star Trek's Prime Directive called "Brannigan's Law". But we learn in a latter movie, that the planet had been interfered with for years by Momcorp when they mined all the Dark Matter out of it.

5)"Stop exploding you cowards!"-When Aliens Attack

Washington's foreign policy thrives on similar double standards which we, the people, let slide year after year. For example, during the run up to the Iraq war, the only reason to justify an invasion left (since the WOMD and Al Qaeda connection was exposed as false) was Saddam Hussein's alleged violation of UN Resolution 687. But how do we respond when allies blatantly defy UN Resolution?

We had no problem when UN Resolution 425 was passed in 1978 and Israel ignored it and two subsequent UN Resolutions. The result was Lebanon invaded, Beruit bombed, 20K killed (80% of which were civilians).

This is one reason why the US State department would do well to use the arrogant airhead and hypocrite Zapp Brannigan as its mascot.

The problem is not one person nor is it one side of our Mixed Capitalist system over the other. There is an entire culture of arrogance and ignorance leading both the public and private sector. And we allow ourselves to be manipulated by them thanks to intense marketing campaigns that only Washington style bad ideas require.That's why Zapp belongs alongside other blowhards who have led us into fiasco after fiasco.

A small list of quotes from Branniganesque figures-

"Facts are stupid things."-Ronald Reagan

"The apparent froth in housing markets may have spilled over into mortgage markets."-Alan Greenspan

"Iraqis are not going to be bombed by the United States. The United States will use pinpoint accuracy, like we always do."-Sean Hannity

"There will be those who strongly disagree with this decision, (expanding oil drilling in March 2010) including those who say we should not open any new areas to drilling. But what I want to emphasize is that this announcement is part of a broader strategy that will move us from an economy that runs on fossil fuels and foreign oil."-President Barack Obama(one month and a half prior to the Deepwater Horizon Oil spill disaster)

"If we hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes should fall like a house of cards. Checkmate!"-Zapp Brannigan

It's also why we need to filter everything we hear from this subculture of Zapp Brannigans who lead us. The record of failure is impressive and continuing. And with factory-like efficiency the propaganda goes from think tanks in Washington, through pundits and their lawyerly research staff, and directly in the brains of the population who think in the focus group tested buzzwords and thus allow for the bad ideas to continue their course.

In Futurama, Zapp was actually punished in one episode. He blew up the new headquarters and actually was mildly inconvenienced for a short time. Granted, he was reinstated to his arrogant position at the end of the episode after temporarily losing his commission. But we can't even prosecute people for torture. We can't even bring arrogant executives to take less of our tax money after they screw up and cause our economy to implode. We can't even allow a negligent company to decrease its dividends or to go into receivership when it richly deserves it. At least for 15 minutes in Futurama, Zapp Brannigan can be mildly inconvenienced.

Sadly, We, the People are unable to do even that.

Published April '10-All Revolutions are Doomed Especially the one currently in fashion!

The Tea Partiers and the Russian Bolsheviks have more in common than they would be comfortable with, namely working to hurl their country towards disaster.
Revolution can be healthy for a society, but all too often those around the leadership usurp it and catastrophe is the result. Once victory is won, the tone changes and the people doing work organizing and sometimes fighting are forgotten.

History provides ample examples of this. In recent memory, George W. Bush's promise of "Compassionate Conservatism" lasted only until his selection of Vice President. The result of this "Revolution" (yes there were people using that word to describe his 2000 Primary campaign) was dead Iraqi civilians dead heroic soldiers, an avoidable terrorist incident on 9/11 which was then exploited by the most corrupt parts of our system, and the Treasury looted by white collar crooks. A similar monster,Vladimir Ulyanov stoked the fires of Revolution against the Tsarist regime of Nicolas II only to do an about face after the Bolshevik's won and insist that what he called "Left Wing Communism" was an infantile disorder in 1920 when he was secure in his power. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/lwc/index.htm

Indeed, few of the peasants victimized by King Louis XVI could have seen how the people they supported would go on to victimize them once they had secured power.Monsters like Marat and Robespierre don't tell people in advance that they are going to be worse rulers than the current King. And they also don't tell people that their incompetence sets the stage for a brutal military dictator to take over.

I've already devoted an entire column to what became of the Hope, Unity, Change mantra of 2008 and precisely where it went wrong.

The Who had it exactly right-"And the men who stirred us on, sit in judgement of our wrongs. They decide that the shotgun sings the song." That song, Won't Get Fooled Again" made #1 in a 2006 National Review article regarding the most conservative Rock songs. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/217737/rockin-right/john-j-miller.

I think the other songs are a stretch to call conservative, but agree with the conservative sentiment in this song. But what's going on with Tea Partys today is not conservatism. Most conservatives are genuinely good honest people. The proper label for the Tea Party is Reactionary.

A good measurement of broad general concepts is defining the opposites. Words and their definitions are important. As proof, look at how the term "Fascist" has become an insult as opposed to a description of the marriage between state and industry in a Totalitarian society. Most people recently use the term "Socialist" to describe what they don't like about the current administration while ignoring his substantial Corporate backers. Orwell was right in his criticism of the denigration of language.

The opposite of liberal is not conservative, contrary to popular opinion. Liberal has its root word as liberty. As a matter of fact, the Liberal party of Australia is the name for the conservative party. The American demonization of the word has always been ludicrous! The opposite of Liberal is Totalitarian. Likewise the opposite of Conservative is not Liberal. Conservatives generally believe that what's in place should be used (If it ain't broke don't fix it) and revolutions are not desirable. The opposite of Conservative is Radical.

The opposite of a Reactionary is a Progressive. Glen Beck has described Progressives as a "cancer" and that pretty much proves the point. Not that it's true. As a matter of fact, the resort to an Ad Hominem or Straw Man argument is an admition of the weakness of one's position.

And what happened the last time Reactionaries seized power in this country? I mentioned just a few incidents at the start of this column " dead Iraqi civilians dead heroic soldiers, an avoidable terrorist incident on 9/11 which was then exploited by the most corrupt parts of our system, and the Treasury looted by white collar crooks." We can expect more of the same if Reactionaries get their way. The last time I remember Reactionaries being this active, workers in a Federal Building in Oklahoma City paid with their lives. And a few months ago, didn't we just see some loser fly his plane into as IRS building?

I see this playing out one of four ways. Either the next Tim McVeigh is somewhere out there listening to Rush Limbaugh and going to Tea Party rallies or the next Marat/Robespirre/Lenin is somewhere out there listening to Rush Limbaugh and going to Tea Party rallies. This could lead to another Oklahoma City massacre or the beginnings of a full scale armed revolt. Or both. Or it could just run its course and end with a whimper not a bang.

I don't see Palin or Bachman as leaders capable of any of that. I don't think either one of them is the Tea Party Robespierre. Nor is Limbaugh, Beck, Coulter, or Malkin. They might apologize for a betrayal of principles once victory is achieved, but they aren't actually smart enough to do the organizing. But their involvement is not the genuinely scary part.

The scary part is the way social conservatives often embrace End Times mythology. Add nukes into the mix of a potential revolution in this country and potentially put them into the hands of people who believe nonsense and are easily manipulated and you have a prescription for disaster. Add a second prescription with Global Warming/Evolution deniers and if this Reactionary Revolution is set to lead all of us to catastrophe if it actually can get any real traction.

Published in March '10-If Obama is a Socialist then the Pope is a Muslim!

There are similarities between what is going on now in the White House and what went on in past administrations that resemble what went on in Tolkien and Herbert's novels. The dynamic of those elites close to a leader betraying the followers and creating a disaster is relevant to all of us right now, regardless of where we find ourselves on the Nolan Chart!
I can remember comparing the dismal fate of George W. Bush's administration in 2008 to destroying Sauron's Ring at the end of Lord of the Rings. When I was called upon to say what came next for the U.S. using a Middle Earth metaphor, I decided that the relevant novel was not J.R.R. Tolkien's trilogy but Frank Herbert's Dune! Obama was building a following around himself akin to Muad'Dib in Dune. I said at the time that these cults of personality don't sometimes disappoint, they always disappoint!

And predictably, as Muad'Dib proved himself an inept ruler and slave to sycophants, Obama's campaign of Hope, Change and Unity fell to the Machiavellian machinations that enslave both major parties. It was over as soon as Rahm Emanuel joined as Chief of Staff.

I've decided that Dune is not the proper metaphor anymore. I must go back to Lord of the Rings. Sauron has fallen but his daughter, Liz Cheney, remains on the talk show circuit trying to rescue his legacy by rewriting history, while Gollum survived the fall and remains on the faculty at UC Berkley teaching the next generation of domestic enemies of the Constitution. And ruling us, is a potentially great leader, Barack Obama, asleep and in as decrepit a state as Theoden of Rohan was. And by his side, spreading poison is his Wormtongue, Rahm Emanuel.

Arguing in the White House against the agenda the public sent Obama to Washington to implement, Mr. Emanuel has fought against closing Guantanamo Bay, trying terrorists in public courts (where they belong by the way-don't make martyrs out of terrorists, publicly try them! Everyone then sees what happens when you use violence to get your way, you get locked up for life!). Mr. Emanuel continues to prey on the fear of a Republican smear campaign that keeps the Health Care reform agenda timid and worthless despite there being a nation full of insurance company victims.

But if Obama could awaken himself out of his spell like Theoden of Rohan, there would be so much good that could be accomplished. We could have better protection from the white collar criminals who caused this economic mess. We could have Health Care that doesn't use getting sick as an excuse to bankrupt people. Domestic enemies of the Constitution like Bybee, Feith, Yoo and Dinh could be prosecuted as he promised in the campaign. Instead of freezing NASA's budget at this crucial time we could devote our resources to returning to the moon, mining the Helium3 that is abundant there, and converting our economy to one based on nuclear fusion aka clean energy! It would be as simple as changing the Pentagon's mission from protecting the fossil fuels of yesterday to claiming the fuel of tomorrow. An Obama/Theoden could give us a new New Deal, get paychecks in people's hands and get them spending again. (Granted he'd have to lead an anti-obstructionist charge against the 41 Uruk'Hai in the Senate. But such a campaign can be won. I say LET them filibuster and shut the government down during an election year. When that happened in the 90's the public turned against the Republican Congress.)

All if this and more are not even considered due to the words of Emanuel/Wormtongue in Obama/Theoden's ear.

But is there really all that much of a difference between Obama and Emanuel? Wasn't Obama's only job in the private sector being a lawyer for a Chicago slumlord? That never sounded like much of a socialist to me. When Obama recently compared the bonuses of bank executives to baseball players saying that he didn't "begrudge people wealth or success. That is part of the free market system", he showed the people who believed his speeches and campaigned for him in 2008 that they were out of luck when it came to reclaiming that tax money.

You didn't have to look further than the list of CEOs and CFOs for major corporations who were listed as major contributors to Obama for America. Major officers for Sotheby's (Michael L. Ainslie), Comcast (John R.Alchin), HBO (Chris Albrecht), Boeing (James A. Bell), Bergstrom Corporation (John F.Bergstrom), Motorola (Gregory Q. Brown), Goldman Sachs (Gary D. Cohn), Kindred Healthcare (Paul J. Diaz), Disney (Michael Eisner),Viacom (Thomas E Dooley), Morgan Stanley (Amelia C. Fawcett), and Lehman Brothers (Richard S. Fuld Jr.) were all donors to Obama for America. So were Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. And that's just a small part of the list.

I think you have to admit, that is one insidious socialist conspiracy!

And if all of those people and their candidate are socialists then it's fair to call the Pope a Muslim!

So maybe Obama/Theoden isn't quite the slave to Emanuel/Wormtongue as I'd like to think. That certainly makes more sense. Obama is no fool. He must have known during the primary that if you can't get the big donors like those mentioned above, you can't buy the ads to compete in any election much less win the Presidency. And of course they are going to expect something for their money.

I find this a truly evil part of our system. That the same machine in charge of lying to us regarding car dealership financing, unhealthy processed foods and $14 per month "free" credit reports must be appeased during all of our election cycles. They are the same people that make these campaign ads during election years. But, as much as I may despise this, that's how it is. Obama is certainly aware of this. If you can't raise the cash to compete in this arena, a victory in modern politics is not even a possibility. "Spread the Wealth Socialists" need not apply.

They'd be happy to back a rousing populist leader who stirs people to fight as did Theoden. As long as the agenda can be brought under a spell and managed by the Wormtongues of the D.C elites when all is said and done.

We see the same dynamic play itself out time and time again no matter whom the candidate or party is. George W. Bush's "Compassionate Conservatism" won the Republican party nomination in 2000 only to be short circuited immediately when he asked Dick Cheney to chose a Vice Presidential nominee. Clinton's brief window for change was cut short when he brought on board David Gergen, who saw to it that Clinton was little more than a Democratic stamp on a Republican Congress's agenda. And the same betrayal will inevitably happen to the Tea Party if they ever elect a national leader.

I said in 2008, that these cults of personality don't sometimes disappoint, they always disappoint! And I was proven right unfortunately.

In real life, it is never enough to dethrone Bush or Obama, or throw the One Ring into Mt. Doom, or lead the Fremen to overthrow Shaddam IV. It really doesn't do much. It can be the beginning of a new day only when the people are truly united and willing to show elites that there are more of us than there are of them!

Published in December '09-Wrapped Up Just In Time for Xmas,...The '09 Health Care Train Wreck!

The "Pre-existing Condition" Con Job from Health Insurance companies is coming to an end. It's important to remember that we could have gotten so much more. And it's even more important to remember who thwarted it and to keep fighting after the ink is dry!

Well, it seems like the dust has settled, the pigs have gorged themselves on our tax dollars once again and a proposal bloated on Insurance Company handouts and anemic on real Health Reform will pass the Senate this week. The talking heads on TV and their masters in office will predictably be promoting this as either the fulfillment of a campaign promise if they are centrist or have a D behind their name or (more farcically) decrying it as a "government takeover" of the Health Care industry if they have an R behind their name. The President will probably make a few token remarks while signing the bill about how it's not perfect but he really did keep his promises and let's be glad about this new law.

I predict that lost or nonexistent in the media noise will be any honest look at how this happened.

We've gone from a situation were the public, having been long victimized and exploited by a Monopolies or Oligopolies in Health Care coverage sent representatives to Washington with a clear mandate to CHANGE and we wound up with a bill that doesn't even have the watered down "public option", but does have billions of subsidies allocated to the very same Health Insurance companies that have been a huge part of the problem.

In mid June, before the recess and shameful Astroturf town hall spectacles, Obama had a 45% Approval and 40% Disapproval rating on this issue according to Pollster.com. Right about that time, the "Death Panel" hysteria, a piece of blatantly false politically motivated demagoguery, started going strong. Hysteria on the issue of "Socialized Medicine" has been present in this country since the Cold War. And what was being considered was not even Socialized Medicine, or Single Payer, or Medicare Expansion or whatever you want to call it (I call it-what the rest of the civilized world has without the ER chaos caused by no preventative care, but that's just me.) Barry, Harry, and Nancy were very clear, that was the first thing that was taken off the table.

And let's not forget that Pharmaceutical lobby was bought off early on in this fight. Remember how Harry and Louise, the Health Insurance shills from the '90s anti-reform efforts, were recycled by the Pharmaceutical Lobby to promote the new Health Care Proposal. And it's not a coincidence that there are loads of subsidies in this bill for Pharmaceutical companies. Not only that, those revolting pieces of Protectionism-21 USC Sections 952,301(aa), and 844 were never being considered for removal. You might become very familiar with those laws if you (exercising your right as a consumer and voting with your dollar) ever buy prescription drugs in Canada or Mexico and try to bring them back over the border.

Getting rid of this Protectionist gift to Pharmaceutical companies was never considered by the Democratic leadership.

Not that compromise across the aisle has done any good. Obama's Approval ratings on this issue as of today are 40% Approval and 53% Disapproval. Well done Betsy McCaughey (leading proponent of the aforementioned blatantly false politically motivated demagoguery)! Inside the Beltway, elitist slander works! You may have had to resign as a director of Cantel Medical Corp., but the damage was done and it enabled the Health Reform efforts to become even more watered down.

So, if it wasn't a "Government Takeover" or "Socialization" of Medicine, what was being considered with the Public Option that Lieberman succeeded in killing? It was a shift in market model. It was a shift away from Monopolies and Oligopolies towards Controlled Monopolistic Competition. And that's what the dupes of Dick Armey's FreedomWorks were defending. They weren't defending anyone from Big Government even though they might have thought that's what they were doing. They were defending Monopolies and Oligopolies from a different kind of Free Market Competition similar to what we have with public shipping.

It's Christmastime, so most of us are familiar with choosing between the USPS (a Government owned corporation), UPS, and FedEx. We're already using that model when it comes to shipping. Why not Health Care? As I was reading the "Loyalty Oath" proposed for the RNC by Jim Bopp, the word "market-based" appears twice. Why is it that when the consumer freely chooses USPS for some packages and UPS for others it is market-based, but when using the same model for Health Care, it is Socialism?

So, finally, we've got a Health Care reform bill at long last. On one hand, we don't have the needed market shift towards Controlled Monopolistic Competition and away from Monopolies and Oligopolies. We still have a need for exactly that, so we'll see. This bill can always be amended, at that is reason enough for hope. We have a requirement that insurance companies spend 80-85% on medical care and not administration, advertising, and CEO salaries. That is a step in the right direction.

We didn't arrive in this mess of private doctor and hospital bureaucracies fighting private health insurance bureaucracies and inflating prices overnight. We're not going to get out of it overnight. And still, for all the politics as usual, despite the need to rid ourelves of these bureaucracies, they remain in place, perfectly situated to continue driving up costs, after all is said and done. That's what makes this effort a complete Train Wreck. But still,step in the right direction is better than nothing.

But I do reject the notion that we couldn't have had a needed sprint in the right direction. And the reason we didn't was Obstructionism by the Republicans, an eagerness to sell out by Blue Dog Democrats, the blatantly false politically motivated demagoguery, and the people who turned out in force to defend heavily subsidized Monopolies and Oligopolies. I'll never forget the sorry spectacles of this year. From the retiree carrying a sign that said "Keep Government OUT of my Medicare" to CNBC's Maria Bartiromo asking a 44 year old Congressman "...if Medicare is so great, why aren't you on it?" to Joe Wilson (R-SC) shouting at the President like a drunk Rocky Horror fan, the Right has really knocked itself out to keep infant mortality statistics exactly where they are, to enable exploitation of the sick by Health Insurance companies, and keep those ER rooms full of people who can't afford any other type of medical treatment.

And to the DC elitists responsible for this watering down (It was something like 10 lobbyist to every member of Congress by one estimate). Bravo. Well done. It was truly a masterpiece. The manipulating of the public with Emotionally Potent Oversimplication was straight out of Walter Lippman's handbook. You have succeeded in a Free Society where tyrants have failed. You've reduced a huge portion of the population to pathetic slaves in love with their shackles!

By the way, I believe Jefferson swore eternal hostility towards that power DC elitists assert over the minds of man. Eternal hostility is the correct response to these unelected tyrants in my opinion!

Published in December '09-What the Twilight Zone and the Evolution of Rock reveal about our stagnant society

I love Rock n Roll. However, I feel like that anthem of rebellion and coolness from a generation ago has mutated into something a lot like an episode of the Twilight Zone "No. 12 Looks Just Like You". When everyone is cool, no one will be!
When I saw the Christmas commercial for the Beatles Rock Band video game, it looked charming. The whole family gathered around the TV pretending to be the Fab Four. I couldn't help but recall the attitude of the older generation towards the Beatles when they were relatively new. There's a line in the movie Goldfinger where James Bond comments that it simply isn't done to listen to the Beatles without earmuffs. I can remember adults referring to those "freaks from England with hair down to their assholes!" And of course there was the insane pre-Teabagger spectacle of Beatle Burnings in response to John Lennon's quote about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus.

I wonder if any of that is worked into the video game. I'll probably never know, I have no intention of buying it. I'd have to say I don't think it will be included on something that is being marketed as fun for the entire family.

But all of this points to something bigger and more malevolent. The infant that was on the cover of Nirvana's groundbreaking Nevermind album, Spencer Elden, is now 18 and already has something very profound to say on the phenomenon. He said in an interview with NPR, "playing Rock Band on Xbox, like, that's not a real band! That's the difference between the '90s and kids nowadays; kids in the '90s would actually go out and make a [real] band". Lots of kids, going back way past the 90s, were inspired to go out and make a band.

From the start of Beatlemania in the early 60's to the breakup of Led Zeppelin, there was a wave of changing inspiration in music, art, and our attitudes directly attributable to the art form Rock n Roll. I draw the line of that changing wave of art, music and attitude along that arc. Someone older would probably draw it further back and go all the way back towards R&B, someone younger would probably draw it after the 80's. I will admit to my experience and opinion being colored by age. This era was when I was a kid and I have very vivid memories of this period and it no doubt colors my views on the subject.

Before the Beatles made it big, bands didn't write their own music. By the early 1980's it was expected from Rock artists. To not do so renders you a mere "Cover Band". The Drug culture had yet to ensnare the naive en masse and the consequent exploitation of that problem by the worst parts of our government had yet to begin. Men had short hair; today even Right Wing war hawks Kid Rock and Ted Nugent have long hair.

I don't draw the end of this era with the breakup of the Beatles, sorry. I feel the Beatles were one of five influential bands of this era. The other four are the Rolling Stones, the Doors, the Who, and Led Zeppelin. The Beatles were the most influential, by far. But others picked up where they left off after the breakup.

Each of those other four bands lost an important member to drug overdoses. That is not insignificant when talking about this wave of music, art and attitude. As a matter of fact the losses of Brian Jones, Jim Morrison, Keith Moon and John Bonham drive home the point about very real dangers of unchecked appetites. (The Fed and the DOD have no room to judge these men!)

None of it was a deterrent to kids that, to this day, are still inspired by that wonderful wave of art, music and attitude and want to start a rock and roll band. But the easier option of just playing Guitar Hero is now available to all of those who want the experience and don't want to put in the time of learning an instrument and practicing.

Which brings me to one of my favorite Twilight Zone episodes. "No. 12 Looks Just Like You". To recap this story, in a society that offers everyone beauty and eternal youth (as long you undergo a transformation where you resemble everyone else afterwards) the young heroine resists a homogenized culture and struggles to retain her individuality in system that ultimately forces her to become like everyone else. She cries things like "how will you know me?" and "they're not trying to make everyone beautiful, they just want everyone to be the same!" to an uncaring system that makes her an identical duplicate of her best friend.

The episode predicted the future (it was set in 2000) with comical inaccuracy. But the overall trend towards homogenization was right on the money when applied to music. So much so that that anthem of rebellion, attitude and art has gone from being the voice of a generation to being the bland stagnant deadwood in playlists handed down from corporate communications giant Clear Channel! When everyone is cool, no one will be.

As much as I love the Beatles, it pains me for their video game to become the tool by which talent may be dulled and the cause of people sitting on their ass in front of the TV and not going out to live their lives to the fullest.

Or it may just inspire one or two youngsters to become the next Hendrix while sitting on the couch playing Guitar Hero with Grandma. I could always be wrong. When it comes to this thing I'm seeing an intersection of two aspects, two points of view of capitalism. One I love and one I revile.

I love the marketplace of ideas and talent that was the background for each of these great bands. I love that the top-down forces tried to silence the people and failed. These bands brushed aside some very evil forces in our society (Book or Album Burnings in America=Evil, sorry). And the main reason they did was capitalism. These artists were selling music and there was nothing the State could do about it. Seriously, what's not to love?

But unfortunately, these songs became the new Status Quo. Eventually it settled down into a list of about 200 or so songs from that era that can be heard every day on whatever Classic Rock station Clear Channel owns in your town. All of it the same (not even the best stuff from that era in my opinion), after all who doesn't want to be just like everybody else? This is the top-down bureaucratic (usually heavily subsidized) monopoly or oligopoly that I revile!

There are plenty of struggling talented musicians that could use a big break like the ones the Beatles, the Stones, the Who, the Doors, and Led Zeppelin got. But they're not going to get their break from Clear Channel until the radio market shrinks to a point where Clear Channel and other Big Telecom companies must respond.

Until then, we have a situation on our airwaves too much like the world of that Twilight Zone episode. Why should Marilyn (the heroine of this episode) invest time in coming up with a new vibrant sound when this dark top-down private taxpayer subsidized bureaucracy can give you a procedure where Number 12 sounds just like you?

Published in November '09-Elections do nothing to fumigate D.C. and rid us of our unelected pests.

The problem with our system is not who was voted in, but those whom are never subject to the forces of democracy! Those whom we do not vote for but affect our lives negatively anyway are the real domestic enemies of the Constitution.

Ralph Nader is famous for saying that there is not dime's worth of difference between the Democratic and Republican parties. Although I agree with the general sentiment, I do concede that there is a difference between the two parties, about $0.11 worth. That issue is not the most pressing problem. That problem is the unelected portions of our system that actively work against the citizen/taxpayer and any agenda arriving in Washington to cut out the entrenched deadwood. It's actually a small spectrum of choices that are presented to us but in a system as large as ours, shifts along that spectrum can amount to billions of dollars and affect thousands of lives for better or worse.

As much as it disgusts me to say, I think that we're in a predictable electoral cycle. After entrenched unelected power and its elected lackeys have an embarrassing string of failures, we elect some new "leadership" promising us a challenge to this entrenched deadwood. All too easily, the deadwood gains control of the new "leadership", disappointment follows, and we're left with a choice between buffoon like lackeys that failed prior to this administration or the sold-out remnants of what promised to be new "leadership". Voter apathy ensues and the buffoons wind up back in power, leaving those whom we do not vote for in power alongside them and usually reaping in lots of our tax dollars!

We do not vote for organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Health Insurance Association of America, or the American Bankers Association.

Yet these entities and entities like them are able to wield huge resources to influence our government. Opensecrets.org estimates $2,558,205,882 was spent by lobbyists for the Finance, Insurance, and Real Estate Lobbying Clients between 1998 and 2006. You might be outraged at the Bush/Paulson Bailout last year, but when you look at those numbers can you really be all that shocked? Do you really think all that money would be spent greasing Republican and Democrats palms if it did nothing? When it was revealed that Paulson and Goldman execs met in Moscow, Russia to discuss the impending Bailout and how they were going to get the taxpayer to foot the bill, can you look at that amount of money spent and act surprised that they were confident they would get way with it?

What passes for Health Care in this country has been a problem for most of my adult life. In the above mentioned time period, the Health lobby spent $2,298,865,053 to influence policies that keep profits and infant mortality statistics right where they wanted them.

We don't vote for these people. They don't even have to answer to "the Democracy of the Market" (you know where we vote with our dollars), because a lot of these situations are not Perfect Competition as defined by Adam Smith. These are Oligopolies, Monopolies and Controlled Monopolistic Competitions that are spending lots of money (in some cases while subsidized) to keep the playing field exactly where it is. As a matter of fact, it doesn't get more Protectionist than what Bush, Paulson and company pulled last year.

We didn't vote for the "Fellowship" of Douglas Coe either. Though until recently, we taxpayers were subsidizing the C Street Center Boarding House. Now elected Representatives and Family members Bart Stupak-D and Joe Pitts-R (who has been allowed to write parts of the current Health Care proposal he has no intention of voting for) have been through elections. But the "Family" itself has not and remains a very secretive organization. This is a secretive organization inside Washington D.C. who can count among those whom it influences many powerful social conservatives in Congress. By the way, that same Douglas Coe who started this organization is on record as saying that he seeks "a personal commitment to Jesus Christ, comparable to the blind devotion that Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Pol Pot demanded from their followers".

My senator, John Ensign, was among their followers. One of the reasons I no longer bother contacting his office is that I don't think I can say anything to influence someone who either believes that or even wants to be around people who believe that.

We didn't vote for any newspaper editor. These are private publications and of course they can hire anyone they want to and institute any editorial policy they wish. Even if they are owned by a megalomaniacal and (by Christian standards) blasphemous old man, they have rights nonetheless. Sun Myung Moon started the Washington Times in 1982 "in order to make propaganda". This is also a man who has openly declared himself to be the second coming of Christ and held a coronation ceremony in the offices of our legislature with elected representatives of both parties kowtowing to him as he crowned himself!

Now that's not an indictment of a conservative bias in the media at large. For that I'd have to rehash Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. Dr. Chomsky went to a lot more detail than I can in this column, but I've found the basic themes of the book (Propaganda model, the 5 filters of our news, what we find when we compare linespace/airtime, etc.) to be proven true, especially over the past 8 years. Part of the more enjoyable part of him being proven right is the hard times newspapers are having right now competing with online news. Mainstream newspapers and media outlets have been putting out an inferior product for a long time now. They deserve to close. When I can read the mainstream brownnosing of President Obama's trip to China in the mainstream media and then go online to the financial press and read how the whole issue of currency manipulation was avoided, the editors of the mainstream news media prove Chomsky right!

Not that it matters, ABC News, CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times (let alone the more farcical propaganda outlets Washington Times, Fox News, NewsMax, etc.) have no danger of losing their grip on the public receiving their version of current events.

My whole point is that a mere election is going to do nothing to "vote the bums out"! Not these bums. And that's because we never voted for them to begin with!