Unaffordable Lollipops for the Electorate

Occupy Christmas Comes to Chapel Hill

2011-12-07T09:09:00.001-05:00

The General Assembly was in full swing when I arrived at Occupy Chapel Hill, NC a little after 6 PM. Some 30 or 40 people were standing in a circle. The few tents remaining had been corralled off to the side. But the food tent was looking more closed in and fortified against the weather. For the first time on my visits, I observed a police presence. Three officers. All this is happening at the Franklin Street Post Office, quite close to the campus of UNC Chapel Hill. As people passed by, if they paused for a sec, they were greeted by someone with a big smile and Occupy Chapel Hill stamped across her shirt. I got there just in time to see them take a temperature check on some minor issue. Uptwinkles all around.

Occupy Chapel Hill is only steps away from campus of UNC.

What was under discussion? We were referred to to the calendar of events posted at their Occupy Media page. which details various upcoming events.

This is supposed to be a Chapel Hill and Carrboro Occupation, says the leader, as she grins and shifts her body a little to the west. So they are going to be planning lots of activities to include Carrboro from now on. First up, plans for a December 7th march to Carrboro Town Hall to protest a drugstore which CVS wants to build on an underused parcel in downtown Carrboro, to better serve the needs of the area citizens. CVS, as a corporation is not welcome. Corporations are bad.

Someone is going to come and hold a teach-in about how to get hold of your inner rage. #firstworldproblem Maybe that teach-in leader can come right after the march, and help occupiers settle down their tempers after they complete the action against the evil purveyor of medicines to the citizenry. But none of that was not specified.

This weekend, the occupation will march again in that direction, at 10 AM on Saturday December 10. They will Occupy the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Holiday Parade, which used to be called the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Christmas Parade, before thinkers of the community pointed out that having a Christmas Parade in December would be just be wrong.

Also coming soon, invasion en masse of a nearby shopping mall. It seemed they had not quite figured out which one yet. The obvious choice is the University Mall, which does have a Santa schedule posted. The plan is to descend upon the Christmas celebration area while Santa Claus is holding court. The attendees will please refrain from violence, the speaker announced, and they should also refrain from using their voices. Out loud. However, they will be there to whisper to the greedy self-centered children that perhaps they should expand their Santa List to include something worthwhile. Not specified. Grin from the speaker. Knowing looks and nods from the audience. No further information. Maybe they will instruct the kids to demand "free" higher education so they won't have to bother with that nasty student loan business. Or, maybe some of the kids will insist that the assets of their parents be confiscated, and shared to those less fortunate on a much oppressed continent far away. After all, Americans as a whole have raped the planet and have much to be ashamed of and much to atone for. We all have way too much and greed is bad. Again, nothing spelled out here, just instructions that the Santa invasion is to be done VERY quietly. In fact this event does not appear on their calendar. I guess the Occupy crowd does not believe in their ability to occupy and hold the mall, which is private property, and they don't want to get thrown out. Maybe the video of that would not look so good on CNN.

Word on the street is that the Chapel Hill Occupy holds no protest permit and are just being allowed to be there at the pleasure of Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt

Intel at Occupy

2011-11-17T14:46:00.000-05:00

I could not get over how many police vehicles were on site when I arrived at McPherson Square to check out the Occupy DC thing. You are wondering how many times I have been, yes? Because I have written so many posts. But I was only there just the once.

Anyway, it truly was just crawling with police. Which I thought was probably normal, given the threatening behavior the group had been responsible for over the weekend at the Americans for Prosperity Conference. And one street was all filled up with empty buses, too, which I thought was strange. Some of the occupiers were very agitated about both the police cars and the empty buses.

The comrade seen here with the purse slung over his shoulder (if you will kindly take a peek at the blog post from November 10th you will will know why we have to call him comrade) told me he was on an intel run. I met him at the corner of 15th and K and he was heading east, planning to go half a block away from the square, and walk all the alleys on the perimeter. There might be police vehicles hiding back there, ready to make a move.

Unless otherwise stated, all photos All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2011 by the author of this blog. Use with permission only.

Index

2011-11-14T15:42:00.000-05:00

What's it Like at an Occupy Encampment?

There is so much happening at Occupy that you won’t find inthe big papers and won’t see on TV. How does it function on a day to day basis,who attends, what kind of work needs to be done, does anyone want to do that work? There are similarities across the various sites; in fact we now know that manyof the occupiers travel from one site to the other, and they definitely shareinformation via conference call and by internet.

Here at Lollipops we’ve got numerous pages giving the low-down on several occupy cities.In fact there is so much information right here on this one blog, its hard to find what you are looking for. To that end, today’s post is a recap, with all the links you need, to navigate to the city/issue you want to read about first.

And why, you may ask, would this blog cover Occupy at all? As our tagline denotes we are ever
QUESTIONING OUR PRESIDENT'S PROMISE TO GIVE THE MIDDLE CLASS ALL THE GOODIES THEY COULD POSSIBLY DESIRE, YET NEVER ASK THEM TO PAY.

The entire Occupy movement has come into being because of that empty promise. The president swept into office on the oath that he would provide health care, education, higher wages, and a carbon free environment, and a host of other enticing things, at no cost to the middle class voter. We'll get the rich to pay, he promised. And now the occupiers want that promise kept and are mobilizing to demand the heads of the so-called rich.

DC Occupy
There are many tents at Occupy DC, but who is living there and how do they think? And how are they going to know when to stop the occupation? They are constantly talking peace, but they plan and carry out actions that almost dictate that violence will result. They are making plans to insert themselves in the area community for months to come.

Who is hanging out at the DC occupation?

Roadmap for Violence

Logic Difficulties

The Goal of Occupy

Working Groups at Occupy

Boston Occupy

The vast majority of people at Occupy events are not enamored of the founding documents of the United States. In Boston they have been jotting down some ideas for a substitute constitution. On the other hand, occupy events sometimes attract a handful of Ron Paul supporters and Tea Partiers. Some people in Boston know that the 99% definition is pretty fuzzy. Do all the ninety-nine percent wish to help do the work, or to wait patiently for the redistribution of Occupy Wealth?

Not me--Let some eager beaver pick up that trash

Gimme mine

Co-opting the language of Occupy

The new Boston Tea Party?

Boston's new constitution.

Chapel Hill Occupy

Here is how things all started at Chapel Hill in October 2011. From the first day, Chapel Hill Occupy offered a table spread thickly with literature fromcauses and perspectives they clearly hold near and dear.

And who is living in the occupation? Perhaps not the poor, who seem to lack the motivation to join up. And where do they use the bathroom and whatare the arrangements for rain in Chapel Hill?Which nearby organizations offer their support to Occupy Chapel Hill? Here are all the posts we have so far from Chapel Hill. And there's a video of that first day as well.

First Day in Chapel Hill

Chapel Hill Literature Table

Not appealing to the poor

Churches provide bathrooms

Committees for Occupy DC

2011-11-11T14:19:00.000-05:00

Occupy DC is incredibly well organized with a number of committees which I learned all about when I sat in on the General Assembly (GA), the nightly meeting at which all occupiers (and apparently me!) are welcome. As one of the speakers pointed out, the committees do the real work. The General Assembly is just a place for reporting, and sometimes for building consensus.

All the sidewalks in the square have been renamed for various revolutionaries and rock stars. The General Assembly is held each night at 6 PM. Not everyone attends, but those who do are briefed on what the various committees have been up to. The Declaration Committee is drafting a Declaration of Independence. From America, I guess. None of the occupiers I have met in the three occupations I have visited, seem to like America much. The committee had finished the Preamble and reported at the GA, on the night I attended that they would be heading to the Point Chaud crèperie at 14th and K directly afterwards, to work on the causes. Occupy Boston is working on a new Constitution, so it is only fitting that Occupy DC should have a Declaration of Independence.

The Safer Occupation Committee is apparently working to provide a safer space for anyone who has to deal with incidents of oppression from racism and ableism and sexism and, as they put it, stuff like that, that makes the world feel crappy. They go to great pains to remind everyone constantly that this isn't a white man's movement. There are signs posted everywhere to that effect, so it must be true.

First person to talk to me when I arrived at Occupy DC was the gentlemen in the green baseball cap. He was a little annoyed that I would not tell him where the free food was. But I had only just gotten there, and I did not know. He asked another guy in a green hat, and got his answer. Maybe other guy in a green hat is with the White Allies Committee. That committee came into being because the People of Color Working Group requested it. There was no report made by the People of Color Working Group or by the White Allies group either, but the lady announcing the formation of the Women's Group wanted us to know that both the People of Color Working Group and the White Allies Group exist.

Rule number eleven of the occupation guidelines is:

While #OccupyDC is reclaiming public space for the public, we will be respectful of others who live in and use these spaces on a daily basis.

A tourist I had met on the street on my way to the site, had already been to McPherson square to check it out earlier in the day. She said the homeless are thrilled to have the occupation there. They have never felt so safe.

The equestrian statue of General McPherson stands in a fenced off grassy circle at the middle of the square and serves as a meeting place for some of the committees, and as a convenient place to sit. I could not tell if the couple above were occupiers or not. But one of the committees was going to meet in the circle after the GA. Maybe it was the Women's Committee. At first, the coordinator described it as the Women's Committee, but she caught herself before she got in trouble for saying such an insensitive thing. It's against rule number ten, as you may have read in yesterday's post. She said if you identify as a woman, you can come and we will talk about what we want if you have been experiencing sexism.

The Outreach Committee reported that their job is to build up stronger relationships with the DC city government. They are also going to be passing out flyers and knocking on doors in Shaw because they want to be sure that all the residents know they are welcome to join the occupation and maybe set up a nice tent. With a teddy bear hanging in effigy. Jesse Jackson, when he spoke, noted that the poor should be at the occupation. But people from those neighborhoods are not flocking to join, for some reason. Outreach is also contacting area colleges, and have invited DC public school teachers to come down and hang out to find out what the occupation is all about. Outreach will be working hard on finding out what the community (those people who have not shown up to join the occupation), think the occupiers ought to be working on.

Another group has met with seven other occupy groups from across the south, to discuss the 300,000 people who are currently suffering from health problems caused by the Gulf Oil Spill. The leader told us we will not have heard about that due to the media blackout. All those right wing newspapers like the Washington Post (don't tell me you missed yesterday's blog entry--go back and check it out, it's all explained there) are keeping it under wraps because they don't want anyone knowing.

Possibly this was the same committee which was going to be involved in a national conference call with other occupy groups from around the country. That was to happen Monday evening after the GA. People were welcome to stand nearby and kind of be part of it, but they were told they should not call in to participate. Having the phone ring kind of messes up the lines and makes everything pretty inconvenient. So just the "coordinators" of this leaderless movement should be in on that phone call.

Unless otherwise stated, all photos All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2011 by the author of this blog. Use with permission only.

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The Logic of the Left

2011-11-10T11:30:00.000-05:00

Mingling with progressives can set your head spinning. I spent a few hours over at Occupy DC a few days ago. Since then, I just keep scratching my head about the "logic" they seem to live by. Aside from the obvious--they are against greed, but they want your stuff---- they seem to be mixed up about a few basic things such as media, basic human needs, health care, and gender.

A very striking gentleman with hair down to his waist was disappointed with recent media coverage of the tar sands protest. He had marched over to Pennsylvania Avenue with some 12,000 people, and they had "surrounded the White House" just a few days earlier. He was angry because the Washington Post should have had that on the front page, but instead, they buried the story in a backpage paragraph. I suggested that possibly the Washington Post was not all that excited about letting the world know that thousands of people were unhappy with the Obama administration. Could that explain why, if indeed twelve thousand people had surrounded the White House, that the Post buried the story? That surely could not be it, he told me. Because the Washington Post is a right wing paper. Owned by Rupert Murdoch.

When I arrived at McPherson Square,
I stopped at the information tent
to plan my way home. I asked where the
McPherson Square metro station was,
but the young man sitting there surrounded by maps
had absolutely no idea. I found it a few minutes later, about
fifty yards behind the tent. In plain sight.

This I had to question. So I followed in the wake of the flowing mane of hair as its wearer led me over the information tent, where we sought for confirmation. The man sitting at the booth behind all the maps and all the fliers, really didn't think Murdoch owns the Post, but he was not entirely sure. He knew that Murdoch owns Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, but he was not certain about the Post. Ah, said the man with the mane. That might explain it. He has always gotten the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post mixed up. But ever since he started reading the Washington Post, it has been full of right wing crap, that was for sure.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson stops by Occupy DC

Jesse Jackson showed up. Here's a man with hard-to-follow logic. "You are here in the great tradition of fighting for justice", he bellowed to a crowd of a couple of dozen occupiers. "Let nobody break your spirit." That was all well and good, but later, he would say a phrase, and everyone would repeat it back to him, kind of like what you might do if you were a preschooler and were eagerly following the teacher along in repeating nursery rhymes.
Respect Us (Respect Us)
Protect Us (Protect Us)
Respect Us (Respect Us)
Protect Us (Protect Us). It is odd and quite pathetic to hear grown adults chanting Protect Us, Protect Us, to some public figure. He had told them to focus on the need for jobs and justice. He wanted them to get America to focus again on poverty. The Reverend wanted them "to fight to put the Glass Steagle Act revived". (sic). Soon enough, Jackson had everyone chanting
"We need jobs now. (We need jobs now.)
We need Health care now. (We need Health care now.)
We need places to live now. (We need places to live now.)"
One wonders how you can possibly hope to empower people by encouraging them to demand that others take care of their basic needs. I guess it seems logical to those on the left, but they have me lost on that one.

Speaking of needing health care now, the Bob I mentioned in an earlier post is one who definitely wants health care now. Universal health care. "You know", he says "like the health care they have in France and Germany and Switzerland that no one has to pay for, you just walk in and you get whatever you need. For nothing". I pointed out that having universal health care may seem to be "free" but it does not mean you will get care if or when you need it. I started to tell him the story of my cousin in Canada with knee problems who had to wait eight weeks. Just in case Bob was in danger of taking away the misimpression that my cousin got treated after eight weeks, I started to explain that the eight week wait was for the xray. Not to GET the xray, mind you. The eight week wait was to get the appointment. The appointment to call for the xray. My cousin was told they could not schedule the xray that day. No, she needed to call back eight weeks later and at that point, they would talk to her and would schedule the xray. How long did it take to actually get that xray after the eight week wait for the scheduling had passed? I don't know. But Bob would not let me tell him the story of all that. Instead he just told me "they have free health care in Thailand. Yeah, I think it's Thailand, so she could have gone to Thailand and gotten the knee replacement surgery."

Seriously? My Canadian cousin would be welcome to storm into Thailand and the Thais would be glad to give her a knee operation for free? Sounds a little fishy to me, but then I did not study with a lot of progressive professors, so maybe I just don't understand. Plus, my cousin is elderly, so she might not find traveling across the world and making arrangements in Thailand to be particularly convenient. My eighty year old cousin does not even know how to use the internet, for heaven's sake. Not to mention all this would require extensive funds, even if the Thai government was going to make a gift of the surgery. She would have to buy a plane ticket and a hotel and meals. Bob assured me though that, if Thailand didn't work, she could always just come here to America for the knee replacement surgery. One thing Bob was right about, is that you can get knee surgery scheduled pretty fast here in the US. See how that works? Canada may have free "universal" health care, but if the people do not wish to wait the obligatory waiting period, they can just come to the US and get immediate care. Bob explained to me, that my cousin just doesn't know how to play the system.

And then Bob reiterated that the US absolutely must go to universal health care system so that we can be like Canada and Europe. If Bob is aware that universal health care comes with universal wait times.....very long ones.......why is he incapable of extrapolating? It might be that once we get universal health care, we too will have absurdly long wait times! And does he wonder where the Canadians will go then? (Oh yeah, Thailand. I forgot).

"These guidelines were consented upon by the General Assembly at
Occupy DC-K Street based on proposals by the Safe Occupation
committee and the Guidelines Super Committee.

I owe my readers an apology, by the way about the long-haired person I mentioned above. I maybe should not have called him a man. I think I should have called him a comrade. Oh, did I say "HIM"? How can we know if anyone is a "HIM"? There are very clear rules prominently posted at Occupy DC. No one can tell who is a HIM and who is a HER, so it is best to avoid those kinds of terms. Here's one of the rules:

Rule Number 10: Do not assume anyone's gender. When possible go with gender neutral pronouns and nouns, such as friend/comrade instead of brother/sister.

So there you have it. From the "right wing" reporting of the Washington Post, to the infantilized comrades chanting for health care just like Thailand, and the mysterious location of the McPherson Square Metro Station, I am less and less perplexed as to why the Occupiers don't seem to be gaining a whole lot of traction with the America which looks on at this whole spectacle.

Unless otherwise stated, all photos All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2011 by the author of this blog. Use with permission only.

OWS Sets the Conditions for Violence

2011-11-09T02:31:00.000-05:00

You just met "Bob" in yesterday's post. Remember, he was finding it boring to help in the medical tent. He had tried sign making too. That was fun but had its limits. What he really wants to do, is help to propel the movement forward. His favorite activity so far? Blocking the exits at the Defending the American Dream Summit at the DC Convention Center on Friday evening, November 4, 2011. This was tremendous fun for Bob from the Basement.

Bob and a large number of other DCOWS (that is, occupiers from Occupy DC) arrived about 6 PM and they blocked all eight of the building exits. The conference participants were already inside. Many of them had come on busses, from very large distances to attend the Americans for Prosperity event. Some had been travelling through the middle of the night and had not yet any rest of any kind. The unsuspecting conference participants are inside eating dinner and listening to speakers; the protesters are stacking up outside for three hours, with the goal of being there when the conference ends, so that the conference participants will have a very hard time leaving. I asked Bob why they would want to do that. The goal, he says, was to make the attendees very uncomfortable. Any time you "do an action", he explained, the idea is to make your targets very uncomfortable. I asked, so you wanted to intimidate them? No, no, he answered. They did not want to intimidate anyone.

Watch some tapes of the exit.

......at 2:10 of the first clip, you will see a young woman verbally unleashing on the protesters. She was a busrider from many hours away who was there with her two children and her gunnery sergeant husband. When this crowd separated her from her 7-yr-old daughter, Mama Tiger came out. The person pulling her hair was actually her husband who was afraid she was going to get hurt.

I am quoting this paragraph from a person who attended the conference and watched all this unfolding in horror. People got hurt. Ladies fell down the concrete stairs. A woman in a wheelchair was trapped inside the building.

What was the problem with the Americans for Prosperity conference, I wondered. Bob mumbled about the Koch Brothers and Herman Cain and Mitt Romney all being involved. He grimaced just to mention these names. I really could not follow what his objection was. It sounded to me like he was saying that he and the others are so ideologically opposed to the conservative message they just don't want anyone to hear it. But when I put it to him that way, he said no, that was not the problem. What then? Was it about destroying the ability of conservatives to raise money? And he said no, that wasn't it either. He was under the impression the dinner tickets only cost 75.00. So it was not an event for high-dollar donors. A broad range of people could attend.

It is odd that Bob zeroed in on Cain and Romney. They were scheduled to speak at the conference, but not that evening. The night's event was the Ronald Reagan Tribute dinner and the speakers were Judge Andrew Napolitano and Dinesh D'Souza.

I heard more about the Friday night antics when I sat in on Occupy DC's "general assembly" on Monday evening. The people attending seemed so nice and so rational. Over and over again they piped up to remind everyone that they are a nonviolent movement. Readers: Don't believe it! You can't claim to be nonviolent when you are goading people and chanting at people and blocking people with the stated purpose of making them very uncomfortable. People backed into a corner have to react in some way. When the DCOWS plan these actions, they are creating the conditions which are likely to lead to panic and to a 78 year old lady landing at the bottom of a flight of concrete stairs, as happened here.

As long as OWS plans "actions" intended to trap people, even temporarily, or to make average people very uncomfortable, violence will many times be the result.

But here is an odd twist. We sat in circles after the general assembly. Our directive: to discuss how "we" can stand in solidarity with others protesting across the world. (I put we in quotation marks, because I am only there to observe.) I sat right next to one woman who had been blocking the exits to the Defending the Dream conference. At the exit she was blocking, the evening had turned into actual conversations with TeaPartiers. She joined a few of them for drinks! And she was shocked to find out that OWS has a lot in common with the TeaPartiers. She figured out that TeaPartiers and OWS are worried about the exact same things. HELLO! And she also had figured out that the difference between OWS and the TeaParty, is in how to solve those problems. Her suggestion to the 16 member circle: reach out to the TeaParty in some way. Mind you, she was absolutely squirming in her seat and taking extra effort to make doubly certain that no one in that circle would ever accuse her of being any kind of a tea party sympathizer. A fate worse than death in the intolerant atmosphere of a OWS gathering! But three others spoke up to say they absolutely agree with her. There were no down twinkles.

SO. THERE. MAY. BE. SOME. HOPE. IN. THIS. WORLD. Maybe some of the OWS are going to start thinking of the TeaParty as made of thinking beings who have the same concerns and who have better, less fanciful and utopian answers.

During that same General Assembly on Monday evening, the Media Outreach committee reported. The committee had targeted to turn the bad news reporting about their "action" on Friday evening into good news reporting and they had succeeded. Some of the protesters had blocked the streets. As a result a car had collided with a few of those protesters. They read aloud the AP news report read from Friday night. I can't find the AP report, but Reuters was similar to what was read aloud at the GA. And by Sunday, the story was markedly different, and more favorable to the OWS. The OWS committee believes it was their outreach which changed that news reporting.

We heard from the Street Team Support Training committee. They are planning to go right on doing more actions and blocking more streets and interfering with just about anything they can think of in the DC area. So they are creating a support structure to monitor the situation closely and figure out who gets taken to jail, and where they are taken. That way, they can go and start the legal proceedings to get them out of jail again. (Support for anticipated arrest is planned in advance--another clue that this is not a peaceful movement.)

The committee spokesperson stood up at the General Assembly and said that he recommends that the OWS choose to block only two lanes in future protests. Why? Because blocking the entire street makes the public mad. He has been hearing that motorists are getting angry and frustrated when they are stuck and can't use the streets. He is afraid that by blocking the entire street, they will "start to lose the 99 percent". But did the OWS ever "have" the 99% in the first place? Doubtful. Americans are not big fans of barbarians and mob rule.

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Unrepresentative and Fluid Samples at Occupy Protests

2011-11-08T10:30:00.000-05:00

I met "Bob" at Occupy DC and he gave me a rundown of the racial makeup of both the city and the occupation. He's not a camper. He's got a job at a market in the area and he lives in his mom's basement. That's a pretty happy situation for him so he's not going to be sleeping in any tent in McPherson Square. But he does come by whenever he can. One day he worked eight hours in the medical tent. Pretty boring, he said. Most of the time you do nothing. And then you help someone with a scrape or something. Dullsville. He doesn't want to waste his time in the medical tent again.

We talked for a long time. As always, I was trying to figure out what the people at Occupy want. Bob seemed to think they are simply unhappy with a number of things. Like bank bailouts. He is totally against bailing out the banks. I told Bob he was sounding like a conservative on that issue! But he pointed out that while it has recently (really?) become fashionable for conservatives to say they are against bailouts, that the progressives have always (really?) been against bailing out banks. For all time.

In addition to who wants crony capitalism for financial institutions, Bob and I disagreed on other ~~issues~~ facts too. I had just attended the nightly general assembly. We counted off into three groups. My group had sixteen people in it. So I figured there were some 48 to 50 people attending the general assembly that evening. I specifically counted minority participation. Back when I was reading coverage of the TeaParties, it was clear that one of the major goals of journalism was to count blacks in attendance at any protest. I figured since I want to be a good journalist, I had better get counting! There were four black men and one black woman attending the General Assembly. There were no people appearing to be Hispanic, and none appearing to be Chinese or Japanese or Thai, but there was one Indian gentleman in my group. So that makes 48 to 50 people total. Five blacks, one Asian. Ten percent black. About ten percent "people of color".

When Bob suggested to me that DC itself it just about all black, I told him of my count and said this DC Occupy movement crowd was a pretty unrepresentative sample of the city the protest is occupying. But he told me I was wrong. You'd be surprised, he said. Thirty percent of the people at Occupy DC are black. So in his opinion, Occupy DC is a very good representation. I don't know how he got that figure. I had counted, and he did not care. He preferred to use his "estimate". He did mention that part of the problem, is that you can't always tell what race someone is. That is certainly true, but he had also told me that he had attended racial sensitivity training and that this had changed his life. So on the one hand, he is saying race is such an obvious thing, that it can put people at a disadvantage. And on the other hand, he is saying that race is not always so obvious that people are actually aware of it. Which leads to the question, how can you oppress someone for being of a different race from you, if you don't even know they are of a different race?

Recent figures show that DC is about 50% black. So even if Bob's estimate was correct, the black makeup of the Occupy DC crowd would have to be 66% higher to approximate a reflection of the actual population of the city. With my count, the crowd would have to have five times as many black participating.

But consider this. Occupiers don't stay put! As I roamed the grounds, I kept doing a double take, because one of these guys on the site looked so familiar. Turns out I had met and had spoken to the same guy two weeks ago in Boston! I met multiple people who had been staying at more than one occupation. These people clearly move from one protest to the other very fluidly. The man from Boston has been "occupying" for weeks. Between Boston and DC, he had spent a week at Zuccotti Park. Next he will be moving south and will go to Tennessee for awhile......and at the new year, he plans to be occupying in Tampa/St Pete. This, he wanted me to know, is because they have put out the call. They desperately need people down there at the Tampa occupation. Call me nuts, but I have my suspicions that perhaps he just wants to be in Florida in January*. A facilitator I spoke with, had just arrived from Zuccotti Park. She had quit her job in order "occupy" at the start of the movement, and now was camping and sharing her knowledge in DC. An anarchist I chatted with had been occupying Philadelphia, before arriving in DC. So I met a bunch of campers who were not DC area residents. And I met a bunch of DC residents who were not campers. And Occupy DC is almost all white. (Except for the very large number of homeless people who hang out there because there is free hot food and because with all the activity, they feel safer than ever.)

And except for the people Jesse Jackson brings in when he sweeps through with his entourage. Sometimes the news seems to say that some of these movements are growing. But now I know that you can't tell if a particular occupation is attracting newcomers, or if a vanload of people from another occupation has just arrived. And I question just how representative Occupy DC is.

* Spoiler Alert: Don't be surprised as we go into the cold days of winter and snow, if we see the occupations down south swelling, and the northern ones getting smaller.

Unless otherwise stated, all photos All Rights Reserved, Copyright 2011 by the author of this blog. Use with permission only.

What is Victory?

2011-11-07T23:22:00.001-05:00

Today I occupied Occupy DC for a little while, but I am not a whole lot closer to knowing what the movement really hopes to gain. The effort seems to mean entirely different things to different people. I sat in on the General Assembly which began just after 6 PM on November 7, in McPherson Square. Serving as co-facilitator with a young lady named Heather, a gentleman by the name of Sam let us know that tonight's was the 35th General Assembly meeting of the occupation. Translation: people and their leashed cats have been living in the tents on that square for 35 days now.

Through a show of hands it was discovered that quite a few of the 40-60 people in attendance had never participated before in consensus building discussion. So we got a briefing in the rules and the signals. Followers of this blog will know that up twinkles means agreement, and down twinkles doesn't. You can also cross your arms across your chest, but not tonight. A block is not ever used during general discussion. Apparently.

First up: we were to turn to our neighbor and discuss "what victory looks like". In other words, how will Occupy Wall Street know when the goal has been achieved, so they can stop occupying? I of course would have no answer for that, but a sweet young man named Austin sitting next to me in the dark wanted to talk. So we did.

General Assembly at Occupy DC

This was Austin's first time at the occupation. He described himself as a "young professional" working with progressive causes. He develops online strategies for progressive non-profits, through a consulting firm. I am not sure which organizations he consults for, but when it is time to bring out a huge number of people for a progressive protest, Austin may be in the background, orchestrating some of that. He did not really know what he thought victory would look like though. He only came because his friends thought it would be cool to check it out. Some of the people who did have ideas about victory, however, shared their ideas with the entire group. One man rambled and rambled, and ended up saying that victory would be achieved with debt reduction, and when we "lift people up and help them". Other people I had spoken to throughout the evening had entirely different ideas ranging from reaching a state of universal health care, to living in anarchy, which is a system with no hierarchy.

Behind me, a vocal man had a crystal clear idea of what he is looking for; he shouted it out with gusto. Victory looks like "flipping the system on its ass." And from the crowd? No groans. No complaints. No down twinkles.

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Inspiration on the Charles River

2011-10-30T11:30:00.000-04:00

Boston University Men's Crew Shirts Proclaim #Occupy HOCR The 1%

Here's what one likes to see in life. People who work hard for something, and are not afraid to take pride in the abilities they develop in themselves. This is one of the "eights" which raced recently in the head race known as the Head of the Charles Regatta, held each October in Boston. Eight men provide the power, and a ninth (the coxswain) directs the boat. It's a coxswain's race on a very difficult 3.2 mile course featuring six bridges through which boats with anywhere from one to eight rowers must navigate. The larger boats move at the direction of the coxswain, who you see here wearing green and fitted with a "cox box", which magnifies his voice. It takes a lot of practice and preparation to do well in crew. Those who practice and work hard in worthwhile pursuits, have a chance of getting to the top of any given field.

Boston University came in fifth in this, the second largest rowing race in the world. Which makes them part of the elite in the sport.

Bravo to those who make up their minds to pursue a goal and achieve it!

The Imperious at Occupy

2011-10-29T14:00:00.000-04:00

I lingered outside the Logistics Tent at Occupy Boston to observe a demand for community funds. The gentleman to the extreme right of this picture is dressed in black; he insists he must have more black clothes. He has no cash, however, so he expects the lady manning the Logistics Tent to give him some money. Right now.

Shakedown at Occupy Boston

One way to get money in a group such as OWS, where everyone is supposed to be equal, and issues are decided collaboratively, would be to wait patiently until the next General Assembly meeting. These happen twice a day at the occupy thing at Boston. Various people would persuasively present divers ideas, and presumably, the group would discuss the relative merits of the various demands for money. Then the group would put up their hands and wiggle their fingers and give UP TWINKLES if they like the idea of spending their limited resources in that particular way. Or DOWN TWINKLES if they did not like this way of spending the money.

The Logistics lady tells him she cannot help the man clad in black. She has no money; if she did have any money, it would be locked up. She has no key so it would be impossible for her to get the money and give it to him. But he insists. He has to have the money right now, because he needs to buy black clothes because he is going to do an action. This action absolutely has to happen right now.

The world is full of such people who horn in on the front of the line and who get what they want or need despite the fact that others are patiently waiting, or despite the fact that others are in need but are too embarrassed to ask. I think many OWS people might protest against such behavior, calling it "greed".

There is an imposing statue of Gandhi at Occupy Boston.
People will say "meet at Gandhi for the 3PM meeting". Gandhi was not a big fan of Greed.

Whatever you call it, there are plenty of people in the world who have enough arrogance and enough drive that they are going to lean on people until they get their share (or more than their share) of the world's limited resources.

It's human nature. Some systems recognize this trait and harness self-interest for the public good. Apparently OWS has not found a way to overcome this particular trait of human nature. The man wearing the black clothing never did take no for an answer. The logistics lady pointed to the donations box at the neighboring tent. She said they were collecting donations through the day, and perhaps when they had enough money in the box, they would be able to give him enough money to fund the "action" he felt was so important. But again, the man in black got more agitated, and refused to be pacified with vague promises of later consideration.

So another young lady came up and spoke very nicely to him and agreed to take him to some authority figure in the camp (I don't think they are supposed to have those) and make a special immediate request for the money. I had to go off and watch an important race on the Charles River, so I don't know what happened next. He probably got his funds. The arrogant and self-important always find a way to the money, no matter what kind of society they are living in.
_____________
Also happening at Occupy Boston:
Find out what happened when it came time to pick up the trash.

Up Twinkles for Trash Pickup

2011-10-28T15:00:00.000-04:00

When Noam Chomsky comes to address a crowd in Boston, as part of the Occupy thing in that city, people expect the media to show up. The MIT professor is pretty famous. "According to the Chicago Tribune, Professor Chomsky is “the most cited living author” and ranks just below Plato and Sigmund Freud among the most cited authors of all time". And when the media comes, the organizers will like to put forth a good image. And so it is on Saturday, October 22 in Boston. I am in town anyway for the Head of the Charles Regatta, so I decide to spend the morning roaming around the occupy thing in Bean Town. It's time for a huge clean-up and I am just in time to observe how the idea of a large scale community clean-up effort goes down.

The place is pretty well packed with tents. There may be close to a hundred tents here at Dewey Square Plaza in the Shadow of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Jammed together, as close as can be, some tents are dedicated to special purposes such as the Library Tent, the Logistics Tent, the Sign Making Tent, a tent for food service. There's a tent for generating electricity and there are tents for religion also (one a "spiritual tent" and one a special tent for Shabbat). But most of the tents serve as sleeping quarters. A main street runs down the middle of the occupation, starting at a makeshift stage/screening area where someone is strumming on the guitar, and continuing all the way to the other end, near where you can pick up the T at South Station. The place does not seem overly crowded wtih bodies, but there are plenty of people there, and if you look inside the tents, you see there are many groups of people inside, sitting and talking. Other tents are closed up, perhaps with people sleeping inside.

This shanty town is pretty scruffy. The organizers need for it to look presentable before the media arrives tonight. It's not clear what everyone's doing, but there are plenty of people moving about when the guitar strumming comes to a stop. Someone steps to the microphone to announce that it's time to clean up. They have seen media before, but not as many as they will see tonight, because Chomsky is coming to speak in the evening. It's important to have the place looking good, he says, so we need for everyone to grab a trash bag and pick up all the trash. A man in front of me stops what he's doing, and puts his latex gloves into the air and wiggles his fingers at the speaker. UP TWINKLES! A total of two people in the crowd give the up twinkles hand sign; they're agreeing it's important to clean up; they get right to work with those trash bags. Others do not. Most ignore the call to join in. Can you believe it? Most people are lounging in tents and there does not seem to be any mass exodus to pop out and jump to. Some continue to amble down the path next to the community garden (a feature of the park since well before the protesters arrived), others are stopping for a bagel, plenty of people are standing around chatting. Some are smoking.

So it's really just a few who are helping with the important job of cleaning up the shanty town to put the best face possible on the movement so that the media will take away a good impression of the Occupy Movement. After a little while the man comes back on the microphone and asks again for clean up help. It's a beautiful day. It's not snowing. There is no wind, no rain. It's not even all that cold. And no special skill is required. Helping with the cleanup would not be difficult for most of the people on site. Yet, I see no rush to pick up bags. I continue to roam and to take pictures. The entire time I'm there, I see only about five people engaged in the clean up. Yet there are hundreds of OWS people on site. Yes, some are busy with serving food, or with making signs, or with manning the logistics tent, but a large number of able bodies are simply not choosing to join in to help further the effort of putting the site into a litter-free state.

And now comes the irony. The man gets back on the microphone and admonishes those who ARE working to clean up. Clearly, the job may never get done, since not everyone is helping. You could say that the 99 percent have decided they are not really "into" joining the clean up effort. So instead, he speaks quite loudly to the one percent who are already helping: YOU'RE NOT HELPING IF YOU DON'T BRING ME A FULL BAG!

"The one percent needs to do more to clean this place up!"

If there is anything overarching about the movement, it's this: many of the people attracted to OWS, imagine a world full of evolved beings who naturally act selflessly and do whatever it takes to further the community. They will thus follow a moral and loving course in life which will end up providing for all needs of all living beings. (That's what social justice is all about). But if the OWS people themselves are not willing to answer the call for something as simple and easy as a clean-up effort on a sunny day, you have to wonder if maybe the idea of the idyllic, cooperative world is an unrealistic dream.

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TeaPartying at Occupy Boston

2011-10-27T09:00:00.000-04:00

The "Main Street" corridor at Occupy Boston

I popped over to Occupy Boston recently and got a tour from the first person I met there, who happened to be someone who fits right at the intersection of the OWS/TeaParty. Both groups are against giving bailouts to banks. The TeaParty understands that the free market will not work when we allow the government to sustain businesses which mismanage themselves to the point where they deserve to go out of business, or undergo a painful reorganization. And the OWS people just don't like banks being handed billions of dollars of taxpayer money.... after all, any taxpayer money given to banks is money which could otherwise have been used for social justice. Theoretically. But Rod sees more commonalities than just that one.

Pictured below, Rod told me that he had come to Boston ten days ago, to visit some relatives. He had been planning on heading down to check out the Occupy scene in NYC. But when he realized there was an occupy thing in Boston as well, he brought a tent, moved in, and stayed. He holds a sign here saying "Restore Manufacturing" and "National Tariff Import Tax". The other side reads "True Progressives+Tea Party Roots+Young America Agenda".

Tea Partiers tend to be pretty well informed and Rod is a good illustration of this. He recommends reading Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader among others to get a comprehension of the trouble the nation is in, and to understand the direction we need to go. He feels that different people have different definitions of the word Capitalism and this explains part of the reason that TeaParty people and occupiers have trouble coming to terms. Feeling perfectly welcome among the OWS crowd, Rod pointed out a few other TeaPartiers in the crowd, one carrying a gigantic Gadsden Flag. His reading has shown him that a nation needs a strong agricultural base as well as a strong manufacturing base in order to survive. These are the jobs which support others in the society. A service economy or a consumer economy will not carry a nation, he says, at least not for long.

Gadsden Flag at Occupy Boston.

When I arrived at the event, Rod was standing talking to a few young people who were walking around trying to register new voters. After they had moved on, he took me on a grand tour of the entire site. More to come in the next few days.

I was really not sure what to make of seeing two TeaPartiers join the protest. You can see the difference in perspective quite starkly if you check out what the Boston people want in the new constitution they seem convinced we must have.

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Occupy Boston starts a New Constitution

2011-10-26T16:57:00.003-04:00

Occupy Boston wants a New Constitution

I got to spend the morning at the occupy thing in Boston this weekend. I got myself a tour and took plenty of pics. Maybe I will write up a few posts from my notes in the coming days. For today, their thoughts about a new charter.

The Occupy Boston people don't seem to have much enthusiasm for the United States Constitution. They have plastered some paper on the sidewalk and invite you to add your thoughts about what the "new" constitution ought to say. Their invitation reads "We can do better. Here goes.....".

And what are the occupiers adding? The things they want in a new constitution seem to fall into a few general categories. Each bullet point entry is a quote from the poster.

STUFF WE ALREADY HAVE

Equal rights

NEW RIGHTS

RIGHT TO FOOD AND SHELTER. AND LOVE.
Free Food!!
Right to nourishing food
Right to a home to live in
Right to food,shelter, healthcare and more understanding/love!
RIGHT TO WAGES, EARNED OR NOT
Right to a basic survival wage regardless of ability to work or access to waged work.

RIGHTS FOR THOSE WHO MAY NOT EVEN BE CITIZENS
Access to ESOL lessons for new immigrants.

RIGHT TO HEALTH CARE

Healthcare for EVERYONE.
Affodable healthcare
A RIGHT to Healthcare.

PUNISHMENTS OF VARIOUS KINDS FOR THOSE IN AUTHORITY

Police would face harsher penalties than the general public. No more crony cops.
IRS should be outlawed!
FED Abolished too!
Term Limits!
(S)he who does not contribute to the common good deserves no common good.

DREAMS OF THE IDEAL

End America's cycle of poverty.
Get $ out of politics.
We can end LGBTQ partner abuse....we can do this as a community.
Stop violence.

GENERAL PABULUM

Everyone is important.
Free HUGS!
The earth, air and water cannot be owned. They are free resources that must be preserved for use by all.
A better tomorrow.
Live Love Learn
love
more fishing poles
Ministry of Partying
Re-think the American Dream!

THE OBLIGATORY RAILING AGAINST CORPORATIONS AND LAW

Corporations are not people.
Corporations should not have the same (or more) rights than citizens.
People before corporate profits.
A legal system not based on precedent.
Keep jobs here. Stop outsourcing.
No bailouts for corporations.

ONE PERSON seems to get that we can just amend the document we have. This contributor, however, might have missed the part where our founders inserted checks and balances and a balance of powers, precisely to make it harder for the powerful to find ways to subvert the Constitution. Here is what (s)he wrote:

New Ammendment (sic)

Our political leaders should abide by the constitution instead of continuing to find ways to subvert it.

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Rain on Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-20T00:24:00.000-04:00

It's raining on Occupy Chapel Hill. But the occupiers have a plan. You might be able to enlarge this photo and read it.

They also have a plan for the what to do about the bathroom. The occupiers are welcome over at The Chapel of the Cross and at University United Methodist Church, which are keeping their doors open from 8:00AM to 9:30PM. These churches and their congregations apparently are very happy to support the group which thinks it's a good idea to offer a table full of extreme literature, including quite a large stack of free copies of Ted Kaczynski's Unabomber Manifesto.

Did I mention the group feels it imperative to have a Legal Help Phone Line? They keep a lawyer's phone number posted on the daily agenda.

The post office doesn't seem to mind having the walls of their edifice defaced with all kinds of signs affixed with all manner of sticky substances. If you enlarge this pic, you might see that one of the signs decries that CEO salaries have gone up a great deal in the same time period that middle class salaries have gone up to a lesser degree. This protest is targeting "the one percent". Do the protesters think there are over three million CEOs in the country? Or do they understand that the top one percent subsumes a much broader group than that? Maybe not.

According to..research...A category called “executives, managers and supervisors (non-finance)" make up the greatest concentration (of the one percenters)_ at 6.35 percent. Financial professionals are next at 2.77 percent, while doctors make up 1.85 percent and lawyers 1.22 percent.The rest of the table shows a wide variety of skills, from real estate professionals to celebrities, from government workers to farmers and pilots, each comprising about 0.5 percent of the 1 Percenters.

You can read more about the composition of the one percent at http://www.cnbc.com/id/44960983. The much maligned rich one percenters even include pilots. And farmers! Apparently, the occupiers ought to be occupying Hollywood, and hip hop studios, and sports arenas, and all kinds of places--doctors' and lawyers' offices too--but no, they have chosen to focus their wrath just on the financial sector. But not the government. Think of the irony there. The government played a massive role in bringing about the housing crisis.

...the politicians clearly had as their political goal homeownership as “a good thing” and persisted—and for that matter persist to this moment in pushing it. The Federal Housing Administration last I checked was promoting supporting mortgages that have less than 4 percent down payment. We all make mistakes, but politicians have persisted in their mistakes, and in the pointing of fingers in other directions.----Thomas Sowell

People in Chapel Hill are pretty well educated and perhaps have a sophisticated and accurate grasp of the pernicious interplay between the government and Wall Street and banks and major corporations. Area citizens surely wonder why the occupiers are willing to storm the banks and vilify the people who work there, but have no interest in investigating the government connections behind all this crony capitalism which arose to solve a problem which some say did not even exist.

Maybe that is why there were very few tents and even fewer people on hand yesterday when I went over to check on the growth of the Occupy thing in Chapel Hill. It had not grown since the first day. In fact it was quite a bit smaller.

Don't Be Expecting the Poor

2011-10-18T13:16:00.000-04:00

The poor won't rise up and swell the ranks of the Occupy Wall Street crowd. Why? Part of the reason is because they are not really all that poor. Yes, when you compare the poor in this country to the rich, they have a lot less. But most of the time they are sheltered and eating, which makes our "poor" very different from the desperate people in say, Tunisia, where the Arab riots began in December 2010 when Mohammed Bouazizi who had spent most of his life trying to make money by selling fruits and veggies refused to pay a bribe to police. He failed to produce any "permit". They confiscated his produce cart. He resisted. They beat him up. People have to eat, and when corruption and a general lack of plenty, interferes with someone's ability to do that, they are going to summon up the energy to fight.

The fact that our poor are not even near destitute is due to our vast social programs. Today I stopped by the Occupy Chapel Hill encampment, and as is my habit I spoke with one of the passersby. She was ambling toward a bench, trying to read the sidewalk drawings, muttering under her breath "as long as they don't get violent." So I sat down with her to find out what she thinks about Occupy Chapel Hill and we talked for a long time. She had been a protester in the sixties, and was very proud of that. She even showed me a bracelet she was wearing reminiscent of that time. She said she has since grown up and learned that kind of protesting won't work. She voted for Obama, and is not sure if she'll do that again. She's a huge believer in capitalism and thinks the reason the OWS people are willing to sleep in tents to protest the injustice they see in the world is "because they are 18". She knows "for sure" you can't change anything by screaming and fussing in the streets, you have to change things from within.

Burdened with diabetes, this sweet and intelligent lady has been disabled for six years and lives in an assisted living center; her net worth less than a dollar today. She opened her purse and showed me a bank receipt from this morning. She had just been by the bank to take out 49 cents out of the 50 she had on deposit. (She left a penny to keep the account open.) To buy one stamp she had to make that withdrawal. After mailing an important letter, she now has the one penny in the bank, and another 30 cents in her purse.

But she is not going to join the protest. No way. No how. Not only does she feel strongly that it won't change anything, but she has a place to sleep tonight. She's well enough clothed to deal with the weather, and she is going to keep getting her meals at the facility where she lives. This is all funded, no doubt, through the largesse of the taxpayers of NC and the US. She'll be getting another check soon. She said the jobs plan may not work and parts of the stimulus were a little silly. She was glad to get the $200.00 check Obama sent her; spent the money right away. That was supposed to help get the economy going, but in her opinion, most of the people who got that check wasted the money on stuff they did not really need.

She is not resentful that her next government check won't be a lot bigger. She is glad she lives in the United States of America where people are tolerated when they set up tents in protest. I asked her if she is worried that the people of Occupy Chapel Hill are going to turn violent. She says if they do, it will only continue "if their daddies come and bail them out of jail".

When I told the lady I am a photojournalist for the MIddle Class Power website she sported a huge smile and held out an open hand. She told me I ought to take a picture of the Northface logo on one of the tents. Poor people have nowhere near enough money to buy Northface products, she noted, and therefore, she is pretty sure the person who brought that tent and is camped out at Peace and Justice Plaza on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC, is not living in poverty.

The woman senses most of the participants are doing pretty well in life. And maybe she is right. And where, then, are the poor? In some cases, they're not joining in to OWS, because they, like this lady, are not living in anything close to a state of desperation. I guess the lesson for the OWS crowd is this: its fine to demand the dismantling of the world as we know it in order to help the poor. But as you are moving on your goal, take a look behind you and see if life's most desperate characters are in such bad straits that they have decided to follow you.

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Occupy Chapel Hill-The Occupation Begins

2011-10-17T18:28:00.000-04:00

Couldn't resist. I hauled out the camera and went down to check out the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street protest in Chapel Hill on October 15th.

Not being in the mood to talk to the attendees right away, I sat on the wall of McCorkle Place across the street and just watched for a little while. Others sitting on the wall were trying to figure out what one of the signs said. It said "Top 1% Y U no pay taxes??" That sign was just a little ironic, and I said so. The top one percent pays very close to forty percent of the federal taxes.

One of the young men sitting with me looking at the gathering crowd was shocked by this idea and told me that I had it all wrong. He went on to explain that "the rich" get capital gains, and pay a very low rate on capital gains. And capital gains are not included in those figures, he said. But capital gains taxes are reported on the income tax return, and the IRS analyzes actual tax returns and tells us that the top one percent pay a full 38.02 percent of the federal income tax--including capital gains taxes. The same table shows that 69.94% of the federal income tax is attributable to the top ten percent of returns filed. On the other hand, some 47 percent of people pay no federal income tax at all.

There is no denying that there is a "fair share" issue underlying the payment of federal income tax. But to say the rich are not paying their fair share is disingenuous.

The young man went on to speak of other "unfairness". He works for National Geographic and is doing pretty well, but wants to go back to school and can't afford to do so. This, he explained is because our invasion of Iraq drove up the cost of college. Yes, I see your jaw dragging down. I could not figure that one out either. People are making all kinds of very odd associations lately, as the left throws out ridiculous figures and tries to convince us that we need to be taken care of by their growing and lucrative government structure.

It was Game Day in Chapel Hill so the place was bustling so I got up and followed various groups who were talking about the protest. They all struggled to remember the name of the thing. One lady was telling her daughter that these are the same people who poop on the cop cars on Wall Street. Another man was disgusted with the entire thing.....said the protesters will only drive voters to the Republicans in November.

There were some pretty sophisticated posters plastered all over Franklin Street, on phone polls and on vacant store fronts. Some were in Spanish. When I finally got to the protest area and started to mingle, I saw a huge table of literature. All leftist stuff, would you believe?

There was a general feeling that the people in the top one percent each got there through cheating, stealing, exploitation and general unfairness. I listened to a self-described anarchist being interviewed. He said he doesn't guess that these people are going to willingly give up that money; therefore, the protesters are going to need to forcibly remove the assets from the top one percent. For some reason, the reporter did not ask the salient question: HOW?

It seemed like a nice bunch of people, but some of the signs were just incorrect and misleading, and the literature was pretty scary. Hearing the anarchist speak made me understand why they thought it necessary to post a phone number for legal help on their agenda.

I did not see any tents when I was there during the preliminaries. But the next day when I happened to drive by, I did spot about a dozen tents set up, and a group of people sitting in a circle. So this could go on for awhile. If so, I will try to post some more information about the OWS at the post office on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill, NC.

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OWS Publications

2011-10-17T18:17:00.002-04:00

Here's what's on the Publications Table at Chapel Hill's OWS event as of October 15, 2011

You can tell a lot about people by what they read. And by what they offer up for you to read. I took a picture of the literature table at the local occupy thing and then came home and looked some of this stuff up. If you dig into some of the links below, you might begin to see something of a pattern.

The Unabomber Manifesto
by Ted Kaczynski who who killed three people and injured a couple of dozen others through a mail bombing campaign spanning some nearly 20 years.

20 Years on the MOVE
MOVE "is a family of revolutionaries, of naturalist revolutionaries, founded in Philadelphia in the late sixties/early seventies, who oppose all that this system represents". -- Mumia Abu-Jamal"

Earth Liberation Front

Rob Los Ricos Manufacturing Dissent

Antitecnologia
"We recommend you read these texts in the woods, where the fanzine and we belong."
http://www.antitecnologia.acracia.net/english/

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CBS Calls Obama Insane. In pictures.

2010-11-04T21:46:00.005-04:00

Someone recently asked me to analyze what CBS was trying to tell us with a certain photo.

There is tremendous symbolism in this photo, where CBS put two men to the right of Obama and two men to the left. The network clearly persists in the delusion that Obama is some kind of a centrist! Notice how even though Obama is old enough to be needing glasses, he refuses to wear them. CBS is trying to tell us that Obama is not yet ready, even after the tsunami election, to see things clearly. One of each pair of the other men, however, IS wearing glasses, which means that no matter which house of the legislature Obama tries to work with, he can expect some problems seeing eye to eye.

The depicted group includes no women at all, which conveys to us that over at CBS it is still a man's world. Not only that, but CBS wants us to know that, from Obama's perspective, Cantor and Boehner stand on the left, while Schumer and Reid sitteth on the right hand. This language calls to mind the Apostle's Creed. CBS wants us to be thinking about religion. CBS has been bashful about criticizing Obama for sitting in Jeremiah Wright's church for twenty years and never listening to a single sermon. That shyness is over with the publishing of this daring photograph.

CBS depicts Obama as all mixed up in the head. The man is so far to the left of everyone else, that he can't even see which pair of men, might be more liberal than he is. And of course, none is, and none ever will be. CBS is starting to make a little sense now.

Only seven stars appear in the flag. This reflects an understanding that Obama will favor a very small number of states as he makes his plans about what to do going forward. Clearly one of these states will be California, which Obama will be wanting to bail out sooner rather than later.

I don't see anything else in this photo. I think it is pretty simple and obvious. Oh, except for the line down the middle of the President's face. CBS thinks he Barack Obama has developed a mental illness, perhaps schizophrenia. Things are seeming more and more ominous for the Obama/Media lovefest.

Social Justice in Our Public Schools

2010-10-30T21:56:00.004-04:00

Wondering why your kid's teacher took all the new school supplies you painstakingly bought and labeled, and sent to school with your kid? And dumped them unceremoniously into a common bin? Social so-called "justice" has weaseled its way deep into your child's classroom, that is why.

Teachers are now being told that the “oppressive hegemony” of the capitalist social order replicates itself through the traditional practice of public schooling and that they must take it upon themselves to obliterate this oppressive system. They take it into science and math as well as elementary ed school supply procurement.

“Science pedagogy framed around social justice concerns can become a medium to transform individuals, schools, communities, the environment, and science itself, in ways that promote equity and social justice. Creating a science education that is transformative implies not only how science is a political activity but also the ways in which students might see and use science and science education in ways transformative of the institutional and interpersonal power structures that play a role in their lives.”

Find out much more at Discover the Networks.

This effort goes pretty deep. There is a math book which which depicts the United States as an evil nation rife with injustice and uses math problems drawn from examples of same. After they show the kids math concepts such as percentages, by using an income distribution chart, they ask the kids how they feel about those charts. Yep. They really truly are using your dollars to fund schools in order to teach this way.

Many of the education schools across the US are embracing the concept of social justice teaching and showing that they want new teachers to have the approved leftist “dispositions,” which will qualify them to teach in the public schools. They don't need to be good at teaching, mind you. They just need to show that they are willing to bring down the country.

The National Council on the Accreditation of Teacher Education, the chief accreditor of teacher-education schools, now monitors how well the schools comply with social justice requirements.

More here if you can stand it. It gets pretty ugly and a lot of it stems from terrorist Bill Ayers.

In the meantime, my advice would be not to send any school supplies to school with your child unless you have confirmation that the supplies will not be confiscated for the public good.
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Alinsky Quotes

2010-10-01T15:25:00.002-04:00

A list to add to.

From the great teachers of Judaeo-Christian morality and the philosophers, to the economists, and to the wise observers of the politics of many, there has always been universal agreement on the part that self-interest plays as a prime moving force in man's behavior. The importance of self-interest has never been challenged; it has been accepted as an inevitable fact of life.--Page 53 RULES FOR RADICALS

A society devoid of compromise is totalitarian. If I had to define a free and open society in one word, the word would be "compromise". ---Page 59 RULES FOR RADICALS

An organizer must become sensitive to everything that is happening around him. He is always learning, and every incident teaches him something. He notices that when a bus has only a few empty seats, the crowd trying to get on will push and shove; if there are many empty seats the crowd will be courteous and considerate; and he muses that in a world of opportunities for all there would be a change in human behavior for the good.
----Page 78 RULES FOR RADICALS

(The community organizer) must have an unreserved confidence in one's ability to do what he believes must be done. And organizer must accept, without fear or worry, that the odds are always against him." -----

Page 78 of RULES FOR RADICALS

Jefferson on Justice

2010-09-26T19:26:00.004-04:00

WWTJS?

What would Thomas Jefferson say about social justice, which is the idea of using the government to rearrange things so as to make life more fair for groups which may appear at the moment, to be disadvantaged in some way?

To take from one, because it is thought that his own industry, or that of his father's has acquired too much, in order to spare others, who, or whose fathers have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association---the guarantee to every one of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.

And what is justice, anyway? And would mere mortals be capable of instituting it?

There can be no test by which we can discover what is 'socially unjust' because there is no subject by which such an injustice can be committed, and there are no rules of individual conduct the observance of which in the market order would secure to the individuals and groups the position which as such (as distinguished from the procedure by which it is determined) would appear just to us. (Social justice) does not belong to the category of error but to that of nonsense, like the term `a moral stone.---Friedrick Hayek

Nonsense, definitely......and when one tries to enforce a social justice system, one simply ends up with more unaffordable lollipops offered, but not delivered, to the electorate. A high standard of living is promised to all, but when property rights are denied to those who have been working hard so as to amass for themselves a little property, who is going to keep working to create all that wealth? Jefferson knew it was a bad road to go down. We ought to listen up.

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GOP Legislative Agenda Unveiled September 23, 2010

2010-09-23T20:58:00.004-04:00

The Full Text of the Pledge to America
Republican Party Presents A Pledge to America

A PLEDGE TO AMERICA
America is more than a country.
America is an idea – an idea that free people can govern themselves, that government’s powers are derived from the consent of the governed, that each of us is endowed by their Creator with the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. America is the belief that any man or woman can – given economic, political, and religious liberty – advance themselves, their families, and the common good.
America is an inspiration to those who yearn to be free and have the ability and the dignity to determine their own destiny.
Whenever the agenda of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to institute a new governing agenda and set a different course.
These first principles were proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence, enshrined in the Constitution, and have endured through hard sacrifice and commitment by generations of Americans. In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent.
An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature, and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people and overturn their votes and their values, striking down long-standing laws and institutions and scorning the deepest beliefs of the American people.
An arrogant and out-of-touch government of self-appointed elites makes decisions, issues mandates, and enacts laws without accepting or requesting the input of the many.
Rising joblessness, crushing debt, and a polarizing political environment are fraying the bonds among our people and blurring our sense of national purpose. Like free peoples of the past, our citizens refuse to accommodate a government that believes it can replace the will of the people with its own. The American people are speaking out, demanding that we realign our country’s compass with its founding principles and apply those principles to solve our common problems for the common good. The need for urgent action to repair our economy and reclaim our government for the people cannot be overstated. With this document, we pledge to dedicate ourselves to the task of reconnecting our highest aspirations to the permanent truths of our founding by keeping faith with the values our nation was founded on, the principles we stand for, and the priorities of our people. This is our Pledge to America.
We pledge to honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers and honor the original intent of those precepts that have been consistently ignored – particularly the Tenth Amendment, which grants that all powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense, and national economic prosperity. We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life, and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.
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We pledge to make government more transparent in its actions, careful in its stewardship, and honest in its dealings.
We pledge to uphold the purpose and promise of a better America, knowing that to whom much is given, much is expected and that the blessings of our liberty buoy the hopes of mankind.
We make this pledge bearing true faith and allegiance to the people we represent, and we invite fellow citizens and patriots to join us in forming a new governing agenda for America.
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CONTENTS
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FOREWORD
Americans need no reminder that the challenges we face are enormous. Our economy has declined and our debt has mushroomed with the loss of millions of jobs. The social fabric that binds us as citizens, families, and communities is unraveling. Voices in and out of government whisper that our standing as the world’s leader of democracy and economic growth is ending.
The American people do not accept these counsels of timidity, failure, and despair. In town halls and on public squares, in every corner of this country, people have gathered and spoken out – in small groups and larger crowds, through phone calls and in letters, through websites and new technologies. Though these petitions come from different walks, their message is uniform: Washington has not been listening. Politicians in Washington have imposed an agenda that doesn’t reflect the priorities of the people. What’s worse, the most important decisions are made behind closed doors, where a flurry of backroom deals has supplanted the will of the people. It’s time to do away with the old politics: that much is clear. It’s not enough, however, to swap out one set of leaders for another. Structure dictates behavior, so we have drafted this blueprint on a process of listening to the American people and fielding their concerns and ideas for turning things around.
• Our plan offers a clear and clearly different approach, one in which the people have the most say and the best ideas trump the most entrenched interests.
• Our plan stands on the principles of smaller, more accountable government; economic freedom; lower taxes; fiscal responsibility; protecting life, American values, and the Constitution; and providing for a robust national defense.
• Our plan puts forth a new governing agenda that reflects the priorities of the American people – priorities that have been ignored, even mocked by the powers-that-be in Washington.
• These are focused concrete examples of the policies through which we will promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, and national economic recovery – and they can be implemented today.
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A plan to create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make America more competitive must be the first and most urgent domestic priority of our government. So first, we offer a plan to get people working again. We will end the attack on free enterprise by repealing job-killing policies and taking steps to assure current businesses and future entrepreneurs that the government will not stifle their ability to compete in the global marketplace. By permanently stopping job-killing tax hikes, families will be able to keep more of their hard-earned money and small businesses will have the stability they need to invest in our economy and help grow our workforce. We will further encourage small businesses to create jobs by allowing them to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their income. We will rein in the red tape factory in Washington, DC by requiring congressional approval of any new federal regulation that may add to our deficit and make it harder to create jobs. In addition, we will repeal the costly small business mandates contained in the new health care law.
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If we’ve learned anything over the last two years, it’s that we cannot spend our way to prosperity. We offer a plan to stop out-of-control spending and reduce the size of government.
With common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops, we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone and putting us on a path to balance the budget and pay down the debt. We will also establish strict budget caps to limit federal spending from this point forward.
We will launch a sustained effort to stem the relentless growth in government that has occurred over the past decade. By cutting Congress’ budget, imposing a net hiring freeze on non-security federal employees, and reviewing every current government program to eliminate wasteful and duplicative programs, we can curb Washington’s irresponsible spending habits and reduce the size of government, while still fulfilling our necessary obligations. We will also prevent Washington from forcing responsible taxpayers to subsidize irresponsible behavior by ending bailouts permanently, canceling the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), and reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Instead of pushing off our long-term fiscal challenges, we will reform the budget process to ensure that Congress begins making the decisions that are necessary to protect our entitlement programs for today’s seniors and future generations. Of course, Americans remember that President Obama argued his government takeover of health care was the single most important thing we could do to address our growing debt crisis. This notion has since been thoroughly discredited: we now know the new health care law will mean more financial pain for seniors, families, employers and the federal government. We offer a plan to repeal and replace the government takeover of health care with common-sense solutions focused on lowering costs and protecting American jobs. We will enact real medical liability reform; allow Americans to purchase health coverage across state lines; empower small businesses with greater purchasing power; and create new incentives to save for future health needs. We will protect the doctor-patient relationship, and ensure that those with pre-existing conditions gain access to the coverage they need. We will permanently end taxpayer funding of abortion and codify the Hyde Amendment.
We recognize that these solutions are ambitious, and that we are proposing them at a time of intense public distrust in politicians and the political system. That’s why we are offering a plan to reform Congress and restore trust so that we can put power back where it belongs: in the hands of the people. We will govern differently than past Congresses of both parties. We will require that every bill contain a citation of Constitutional authority. We will give all Representatives and citizens at least three days to read the bill before a vote. We will make sure that the floor schedule and operations reflect the priority of revitalizing the economy, and ensure there is an open process that makes it easier – not harder – to eliminate unnecessary spending on any legislation that spends the people’s money. Above all else, the primary obligation of the federal government remains providing for the common defense against all threats foreign and domestic. We offer a plan to keep our nation secure at home and abroad that will provide the resources, authority, and support our deployed military requires, fully fund missile defense, and enforce sanctions against Iran. We will keep terrorist combatants in Guantanamo Bay not in our local jails and courtrooms. Our borders are a vital part of our security, so we will act decisively to ensure that the federal government fulfills its constitutional duty to protect our citizens and our Nation, working closely with our state and local governments.
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A Plan to Create Jobs, End Economic Uncertainty, and Make America More Competitive
Joblessness is the single most important challenge facing America today. Jobs are the lifeblood of our economy, and for our workforce, there is no substitute for the pride and dignity that comes with an honest day’s work and a steady paycheck. Washington’s heavy-handed approach is not working. Private sector unemployment remains at or near 10 percent, jobless claims continue to soar, and the only parts of the economy expanding are government and our national debt. It is time to end this liberal Keynesian experiment and stop the attacks on our employers that prevent them from investing in our economy. We need private sector jobs, not more government. We have a plan that will help create jobs, end economic uncertainty, and make America more competitive. WHAT WE’RE UP AGAINST The trillion-dollar “stimulus” spending bill has made “where are the jobs?” a national rallying cry after failing to live up to the specific promises made by its architects. Instead of remaining below eight percent, unemployment has been above nine percent for 16 consecutive months. This is a far cry from the recovery the American people were promised.
“Top-down one-size-fits-all decision making should not replace the personal choices of free people in a free market, nor undermine the proper role of state and local governments in our system of federalism.” – Gov. Bob McDonnell (VA)
Undeterred by dismal results, Washington Democrats continue to double-down on their job-killing policies. President Obama is proposing spending billions more on government “stimulus” projects. He also wants to raise taxes on roughly half of small business income in America. Raising taxes on anyone in a struggling economy – especially small businesses – is precisely the wrong thing to do. Economists agree, as do the American people.
“An economy constrained by high tax rates will never produce enough revenue to balance the budget, just as it will never create enough jobs.” – John F. Kennedy
In addition to punishing businesses, these looming tax hikes will hurt every family in America. During the 1990s, a Republican Congress enacted pro-family policies such as marriage penalty relief and the child tax credit. Unless action is taken, a $3.8 trillion tax hike will go into effect on January 1, 2011 that will unravel the pro-family policies. A family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year will have to pay $2,900 more in taxes in 2011, according to a new analysis by Deloitte Tax LLP, a tax consulting firm. The same family making $100,000 a year will see its taxes rise by $4,500. In addition, the marriage penalty will return, the child tax credit will be cut in half, and the Alternative Minimum Tax will ensnare more than 25 million taxpayers.
Washington-focused economic policies have failed to put people back to work and have pushed our nation to the brink of a fiscal crisis. The American people know that to boost the economy, spending must be slashed, tax increases must be prevented, and small businesses must have certainty that the rules won’t change every few months so they can get back on their feet. The constant threat of new taxes and new regulations prevents investors and entrepreneurs from putting capital at risk. These private sector employers must be given the certainty that if they take a risk to expand their company or hire a new employee, Washington won’t yank the rug from under their feet.
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Permanent bailouts, government takeovers, threats of tax increases and “stimulus” spending sprees have combined to create uncertainty for private investment in our economy and keep employers on the sidelines. The longer our government refuses to wake up and abandon its job-killing agenda, the longer it will take to turn things around and get people working again.
SIDE BAR TEXT:
o Since January 2009, President Obama and Congressional Democrats have enacted $680 billion in gross tax increases, $316 billion of which are tax hikes that hurt the middle class families President Obama said would not see a tax increase.
o So far, Washington Democrats have passed, and the president has signed into law, at least 14 violations of his pledge that “no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase.”
o The White House’s own internal departments have identified 191 planned rules that will have an economic cost of at least $100 million, including mandates related to the government takeover of health care and the financial regulation bill.
“Where Are the Jobs?” Since the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ was signed into law in February 2009, the unemployment rate has climbed and is stuck at near 10 percent. Despite the ‘stimulus’ and Democrats’ promises the unemployment rate would remain below eight percent, the unemployment rate climbed from 7.7 percent in January 2009 to 9.5 percent in August 2010.
Source: January 2009 Romer/Bernstein Report and U.S. Department of Labor data.
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“A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.” – Thomas Jefferson
Our Plan to End The Uncertainty and Create Incentives for Job Growth If we’ve learned anything during the recession, it’s that we cannot tax and spend our way to prosperity. The best way to get people working again is to rein in the growth of government and end the uncertainty facing small businesses. By addressing both issues, our plan revives free enterprise and moves America away from a debt-driven economy.
• Permanently Stop All Job-Killing Tax Hikes: We will help the economy by permanently stopping all tax increases, currently scheduled to take effect January 1, 2011. That means protecting middle-class families, seniors worried about their retirement, and the entrepreneurs and family-owned small businesses on which we depend to create jobs in America.
• Give Small Businesses a Tax Deduction: We will allow small business owners to take a tax deduction equal to 20 percent of their business income. This will provide entrepreneurs with a much-needed infusion of capital for investment and new hiring.
• Rein In the Red Tape Factory in Washington, DC: Excessive federal regulation is a de facto tax on employers and consumers that stifles job creation, hampers innovation and postpones investment in the economy. When the game is always changing, small businesses cannot properly plan for the future. To provide stability, we will require congressional approval of any new federal regulation that has an annual cost to our economy of $100 million or more. This is the threshold at which the government deems a regulation “economically significant.” If a regulation is so “significant” and costly that it may harm job creation, Congress should vote on it first.
• Repeal Job-Killing Small Business Mandates: One of the most controversial mandates of the Democrats’ government takeover of health care requires small businesses to report to the Internal Revenue Service any purchases that run more than $600. This 1099 reporting mandate is so overbearing that the IRS ombudsman has determined that the agency is ill-equipped to handle all the resulting paperwork.. We will repeal this job-killing small business mandate.
MORE SIDE BAR TEXT:
• At the current pace of job growth, it will take longer to recover now than it did to recover from the Great Depression. At this rate, the pre-recession level of jobs will not be achieved until September 2017, more than 80 months from now. That would be nearly 10 years after the recession started, or almost two years longer than it took the U.S. to recover from job losses during the Great Depression.
• According to congressional analysts, these are the consequences of the tax hikes that are set to take effect on January 1, 2011:
• A single mom earning $36,000 per year could pay more than $1,100 more in taxes.
• Married senior citizens earning $40,000 per year could pay more than $1,400 in higher taxes.
• 31 million families will pay an average of $1,033 in higher taxes next year due to a reduction in the child tax credit from $1,000 to $500.
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• 35 million married couples will pay an average of $595 in higher taxes next year due to a reinstatement of the marriage penalty.
• 88 million taxpayers will pay an average of $503 in higher taxes next year due to the elimination of the 10 percent tax bracket.
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A Plan to Stop Out-of-Control Spending and Reduce the Size of Government
Washington’s out-of-control spending spree needs no introduction. Our debt is now on track to exceed the size of our economy in the next two years. The lack of a credible plan to pay this debt back causes anxiety among consumers and uncertainty for investors and employers. It isn’t just that we need to stop spending so much – we need to stop spending so irrationally. The spending process in Washington is designed to make it easy to increase spending and raise taxes and difficult to cut spending and lower taxes. The deck is stacked against limited government and fiscal responsibility. This must stop.
We have a plan to impose fiscal discipline and cut government down to size.
WHAT WE’RE UP AGAINST
Instead of putting the brakes on Washington’s spending habits as they promised, President Obama and Democratic Leaders have stepped on the accelerator and demonstrated unparalleled recklessness with taxpayer dollars.
Over the past three years, non-security discretionary spending (the spending that is approved each year by Congress outside of the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and Department of Veterans Affairs) has increased a staggering 88 percent. As a result, we now borrow 41 cents of every dollar we spend, much of it from foreign countries, including China, and leave the bill to our kids and grandkids.
Within three years, our government will spend more than $1 billion a day just to pay the interest on our debt. That money won’t build roads, fight terrorism, secure our border, or support Medicare for seniors. It is simply the cost of Congress’ failure to control spending.
“Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: if it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” -- Ronald Reagan
Economists have warned that all this borrowing runs the risk of causing a damaging spike in interest rates, which would cripple job creation. If our economy remains debt-driven, it will not be in a position to support a lasting economic recovery.
Unfortunately, Washington Democrats refuse to listen to the American people and eliminate, restrain, or even budget for their out-of-control spending spree. Indeed, Democrats simply walked away from writing next year’s budget altogether – a first in the modern era. Without a budget, Washington will try to get away with continuing to spend at current “stimulus” levels. We cannot allow that to happen.
Our Plan to Put Government on a Path to a Balanced Budget
We will have a responsible, fact-based conversation with the American people about the scale of the fiscal challenges we face, and the urgent action that is required to deal with them. We will curb Washington’s spending habits and promote job creation, bring down the deficit, and build long-term fiscal stability.
• Act Immediately to Reduce Spending: There is no reason to wait to reduce wasteful and unnecessary spending. Congress should move immediately to cancel unspent “stimulus” funds, and block any attempts to extend the timeline for spending “stimulus” funds. Throwing more money at a stimulus plan that is not working only wastes taxpayer money and puts us further in debt.
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• Cut Government Spending to Pre-Stimulus, Pre-Bailout Levels: With common-sense exceptions for seniors, veterans, and our troops, we will roll back government spending to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, saving us at least $100 billion in the first year alone and putting us on a path to begin paying down the debt, balancing the budget, and ending the spending spree in Washington that threatens our children’s future.
• Establish a Hard Cap on New Discretionary Spending: We must put common-sense limits on the growth of government and stop the endless increases. Only in Washington is there an expectation that whatever your budget was last year, it will be more this year and even more the next. We will set strict budget caps to limit federal spending on an annual basis. Budget caps were used in the 1990s, when a Republican Congress was able to bring the budget into balance and eventual surplus. By cutting discretionary spending from current levels and imposing a hard cap on future growth, we will save taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars.
• Cut Congress’ Budget: This year, Congress increased its own budget by 5.8 percent at a time when families and small businesses across the country are cutting back. We will make Congress do more with less by significantly reducing its budget.
• Hold Weekly Votes on Spending Cuts: Earlier this year, House Republicans launched the YouCut initiative to combat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. Over the course of nine weeks, YouCut produced proposals to save taxpayers more than $120 billion. We will continue to hold weekly votes on spending cuts.
• End TARP Once And For All: Americans are rightly outraged at the bailouts of businesses and entities that force responsible taxpayers to subsidize irresponsible behavior. We will cancel the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a move that would save taxpayers roughly $16 billion.
• End Government Control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac: Since taking over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage companies that triggered the financial meltdown by giving too many high risk loans to people who couldn’t afford them, taxpayers were billed more than $145 billion to save the two companies. We will reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac by ending their government takeover, shrinking their portfolios, and establishing minimum capital standards. This will save taxpayers as much as $30 billion.
• Impose a Net Federal Hiring Freeze of Non-Security Employees: Small businesses and entrepreneurs are the engine of our economy and should not be crowded out by unchecked government growth. We will impose a net hiring freeze on non-security federal employees and ensure that the public sector no longer grows at the expense of the private sector.
• Root Out Government Waste and Duplication: Once created, federal programs almost never go away, even if the problem they were created to address is no longer relevant. More than 20 states have addressed this problem by requiring that programs end – or “sunset” – by a date certain. We will adopt this requirement at the federal level to force Congress to determine if a program is worthy of continued taxpayer support.
• Reform the Budget Process to Focus on Long-Term Challenges: We will make the decisions that are necessary to protect our entitlement programs for today’s seniors and future generations. That means requiring a full accounting of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, setting benchmarks for these programs and reviewing them regularly, and preventing the expansion of unfunded liabilities.
DID YOU KNOW?
• Today, Washington spends $7 million every minute of every hour of every day. That is twice as much as was spent per minute in 1980.
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• Our cumulative national debt now exceeds $13,000,000,000,000 which is more than $42,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. Under the most recent budget projections, it will continue to grow, doubling by 2020.
• There is literally no aspect of our economy or our society that the federal government doesn’t tax, regulate or subsidize, and often it does all three at the same time. The most recent edition of the Catalogue of Federal Domestic Assistance listed 2,050 different assistance programs available to states, local governments, for-profit and non-profit organizations, groups, and individuals. Taxpayers are literally funding programs from cradle to grave:
SIDE BAR TEXT/GRAPH
Federal spending consumes nearly one-quarter of our entire economy and is crowding out the private economy. Indeed, today more Americans work for one level of government or another than work in all the goods-producing industries, such as manufacturing, combined. According to the Obama Administration’s most recent budget forecast, government spending as a percentage of the economy will be, on average, several percentage points higher over the next ten years than it was during either the Clinton or Bush presidencies.
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236
184
172
125
111
107
95
95
83
64
59
41
35
34
24
16
12
12
132
Federal Assistance Programs
Dept of Health and Human Services
Dept of Agriculture
Dept of the Interior
Dept of Education
Dept of Justice
Dept of Housing and Urban Development
Environmental Protection Agency
Dept of Commerce
Dept of Homeland Security
Dept of Transportation
Dept of Defense
Deptof Labor
Dept of Veterans Affairs
Dept of Energy
Dept of State
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17.00%
18.00%
19.00%
20.00%
21.00%
22.00%
23.00%
24.00%
Average During the Clinton Presidency
Average During the Bush Presidency
Average Under the Democrat Budget Blueprint 2009-2020
Federal Spending as a Share of the Economy
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A Plan to Repeal and Replace the Government Takeover of Health Care
The American people wanted one thing out of health care reform: lower costs, which President Obama and Democrats in Washington promised, but did not deliver. Instead of expanding the size and scope of government with more debt, higher taxes, and burdensome mandates, Americans are calling for reforms that lower costs for families and small businesses, increase access to affordable, high-quality care and strengthen the doctor-patient relationship. We have a plan to do just that. WHAT WE’RE UP AGAINST
The core promises Washington Democrats made to force the health care law through Congress have already been broken:
• Jobs. Employers large and small coast-to-coast have announced that they are considering laying off employees or dropping their health care coverage in response to the new law, despite President Obama’s boast that it is also a jobs plan.
• Costs. Both the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the chief actuary at the Obama Administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have confirmed that the new law fails to lower health care costs as promised.
• Deficits and Debt. The Obama Administration’s Social Security and Medicare Trustees report confirms that the new law does little to address the nation’s growing fiscal crisis despite President Obama’s pledge that passing his plan constituted the “most important thing we can do” for the nation’s financial future.
• Taxes. The new health care law includes at least a dozen violations of President Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on middle-class families. The Obama administration has conceded that the ‘individual mandate’ at the heart of the new law is indeed a tax, a notion the president “absolutely” rejected last fall.
• Seniors. The chief actuary at the Obama Administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has confirmed that the new law’s massive Medicare cuts will fall squarely on the backs of seniors, millions of whom will be forced off their current Medicare coverage.
• If You Like It… You Can’t Keep It. The Obama Administration has been forced to acknowledge that the new law will force some 87 million Americans to drop their current coverage despite President Obama’s promise that Americans would be able to keep the coverage that they have.
• Abortion. Americans are overwhelmingly opposed to using tax dollars to pay for abortion, and the executive order issued by President Obama in conjunction with congressional passage of the health care law is inadequate to ensure taxpayer funds are not used in this manner.
Instead of bringing the full weight of the government to bear in enforcing this job-killing health care law, Washington Democrats should listen to the American people and stand down. Our Plan to Repeal the Job Killing Health Care Law and Put in Place Real Reform
o Repeal the Costly Health Care Takeover of 2010: Because the new health care law kills jobs, raises taxes, and increases the cost of health care, we will immediately take action to repeal this law.
o Enact Medical Liability Reform: Skyrocketing medical liability insurance rates have distorted the practice of medicine, routinely forcing doctors to order costly and often unnecessary tests to protect
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themselves from lawsuits, often referred to as “defensive medicine.” We will enact common-sense medical liability reforms to lower costs, rein in junk lawsuits and curb defensive medicine.
o Purchase Health Insurance Across State Lines: Americans residing in a state with expensive health insurance plans are locked into those plans and do not currently have an opportunity to choose a lower cost option that best meets their needs. We will allow individuals to buy health care coverage outside of the state in which they live.
o Expand Health Savings Accounts: Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) are popular savings accounts that provide cost-effective health insurance to those who might otherwise go uninsured. We will improve HSAs by making it easier for patients withhigh-deductible health plans to use them to obtain access to quality care. We will repeal the new health care law, which prevents the use of these savings accounts to purchase over-the-counter medicine.
o Strengthen the Doctor-Patient Relationship: We will repeal President Obama’s government takeover of health care and replace it with common-sense reforms focused on strengthening the doctor-patient relationship.
o Ensure Access For Patients With Pre-Existing Conditions: Health care should be accessible for all, regardless of pre-existing conditions or past illnesses. We will expand state high-risk pools, reinsurance programs and reduce the cost of coverage. We will make it illegal for an insurance company to deny coverage to someone with prior coverage on the basis of a pre-existing condition, eliminate annual and lifetime spending caps, and prevent insurers from dropping your coverage just because you get sick. We will incentivize states to develop innovative programs that lower premiums and reduce the number of uninsured Americans.
o Permanently Prohibit Taxpayer Funding of Abortion: We will establish a government-wide prohibition on taxpayer funding of abortion and subsidies for insurance coverage that includes abortion, this includes enacting into law what is known as the Hyde Amendment. We will also enact into law conscience protections for health care providers, including doctors, nurses, and hospitals.
DID YOU KNOW?
• Through July 31, 2010, 3,833 pages of federal regulations have been issued regarding the new law.
• Roughly 16,500 IRS auditors, agents, and other employees may be needed to collect the hundreds of billions of dollars in new taxes levied on the American people by the new health care law.
• The new health care law includes $569.2 billion in tax increases – including taxes that will directly increase the cost of health care goods and services – and $528.5 billion in Medicare cuts, which will be used to create new programs not related to seniors.
• The new health care law provides for the creation of more than 160 boards, bureaus, and commissions. Republicans on the Joint Economic Committee have released a chart detailing this maze of busybodies and bureaucracies:
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A Plan to Reform Congress and Restore Trust
Americans have lost trust with their government, which has too often ignored the will of the people in favor of party loyalty and a desire to pass partisan bills at any cost. Backroom deals, phantom amendments, and bills that go unread before being forced through Congress have become business as usual. Never before has the need for a new approach to governing been more apparent than under Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her leadership. Americans are demanding change in the way Congress works, and we are fighting to bring much-needed sunlight to the process and give the American people a greater voice in their Congress. We now propose changing the way Congress works once and for all, so that the will of the people can be heard and the best ideas can trump the most vested interests.
WHAT WE’RE UP AGAINST
The House of Representatives continues to move further away from its roots as a deliberative body, toward a centralized power structure where the majority does whatever it needs to win at all costs. Over the course of her tenure, Speaker Pelosi has consolidated authority, abusing the letter and spirit of the House rules to get the outcome desired, while ignoring the voices of the American people, the minority and even dissenters within her own party.
Democratic Leaders continue moving in the wrong direction by limiting openness and debate, and using various backhanded tactics to ignore the will of the people:
• Despite having the largest Democratic majority since 1993, the current Congress marked the first time in the history that not a single spending bill was considered under an “open” amendment process.
• During final consideration of President Obama’s government takeover of health care, Speaker Pelosi and Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter publicly discussed a plan to allow the House to pass the bill without a vote by the House. Referred to as the “Slaughter Solution,” House Democrats eventually abandoned the scheme under the weight of a sustained public outcry.
• When the House was poised to consider legislation to impose a “cap-and-trade” national energy tax, a 300-page “manager’s amendment” rewriting key provisions of the bill without a separate vote was dropped in the laps of lawmakers at 3:00 am. The House began debate on the bill just a few hours later.
• For the first time in modern history, the House failed to pass or even debate a budget, allowing spending to continue to grow at a breathtaking rate without any blueprint for making fiscal decisions.
It’s no wonder that a national survey released earlier this year showed that just two in 10 Americans believe our government operates with the consent of the governed. We cannot continue to operate like this. Our Plan to Restore Trust
The top-down way of governing is outdated and just plain backwards. We will launch a prolonged campaign to transfer power back to the people and ensure they have a say in what goes on in the Congress. This year House Republicans launched a first-of-its-kind web platform called America Speaking Out to engage directly with the American people and allow them to establish a dialogue with their members of Congress. We will continue this groundbreaking transformative effort to give people a voice in real time with their government. We recognize that if we are truly committed to addressing the American people’s highest priorities, the House of Representatives must operate differently – differently from the way the Democrats do now, and differently from the way Republicans did in the past. Change begins at home.
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• Read The Bill: We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives. No more hiding legislative language from the minority party, opponents, and the public. Legislation should be understood by all interested parties before it is voted on.
• Adhere To The Constitution: For too long, Congress has ignored the proper limits imposed by the Constitution on the federal government. Further, it has too often drafted unclear and muddled laws, leaving to an unelected judiciary the power to interpret what the law means and by what authority the law stands. This lack of respect for the clear Constitutional limits and authorities has allowed Congress to create ineffective and costly programs that add to the massive deficit year after year. We will require each bill moving through Congress to include a clause citing the specific constitutional authority upon which the bill is justified.
• Make It Easier to Cut Spending: By forbidding amendments on spending bills, Democrats have denied lawmakers the opportunity to tighten Washington’s belt and slash wasteful and duplicative programs. Structure dictates behavior, so we will let any lawmaker — Democrat or Republican — offer amendments to reduce spending.
• Advance Legislative Issues One at a Time: We will end the practice of packaging unpopular bills with “must-pass” legislation to circumvent the will of the American people. Instead, we will advance major legislation one issue at a time.
DID YOU KNOW?
• The number of House legislative days devoted to action on noncontroversial and often insignificant “suspension” bills is up significantly in this Congress by comparison with the past several Congresses, wasting time and taxpayer resources. Of the bills considered under the suspension procedure – requiring 2/3 vote for passage – so far during this Congress, more than half were bills naming federal buildings, recognizing individuals or groups (like sports teams) for achievements, or supporting the designation of particular days, months, or weeks.
• This year, for the first time in the modern era, the House did not pass a budget, and of the twelve regular spending bills, only two have passed.
• House Democrats have relied heavily on what are known as “martial law” procedures during the current Congress, particularly provisions that allow them to bring any bill to the floor with little or no notice and deny Republican members of Congress or even factions of their own party their right to debate and offer amendments or substitutes for consideration or vote.
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A Plan to Keep Our Nation Secure at Home & Abroad
We are a nation at war. We must confront the worldwide threat of terrorism and to deal with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be. We will do all that is needed to protect our homeland, support our troops and the veterans who have so honorably served us, and ensure our government has a coherent strategy to confront and defeat the terrorist threat. And we will never apologize for advancing the cause of freedom and democracy around the world, nor will we abandon our historic role in lifting up those who struggle to receive the blessings of liberty.
Over the last year, we have seen clear and immediate evidence that terrorists continue to plot devastating attacks against our homeland, including a plot to bomb the New York City subway system, and continuing with the attacks at Fort Hood, Times Square, and on board Northwest Flight 253. Each of these attacks represented new strands of terrorism, new signs of an enemy ready and willing to adapt.
“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.” – Dwight D. Eisenhower
We have a plan to keep our nation secure at home and abroad and hold the current government accountable for fulfilling its responsibility to provide for a robust defense. Our Plan for National and Border Security
Providing for the common defense is a not just a priority or political imperative – it is a Constitutional duty. National security is more than just war fighting: it is protecting our citizens, bringing certainty to an uncertain world, supporting those who volunteer in the service of their country and defend our way of life, using every tool to protect Americans from threats at our borders.
• Pass Clean Troop Funding Bills: When asked to provide our troops with the resources they need, we will do so without delay. That means no more troop funding bills held up by unrelated policy changes, or extraneous domestic spending and pork-barrel projects.
• Keep Terrorists Out of America: We will prevent the government from importing terrorists onto American soil. We will hold President Obama and his administration responsible for any Guantanamo Bay detainees they release who return to fight against our troops or who have become involved in any terrorist plots or activities.
• Demand an Overarching Detention Policy: Foreign terrorists do not have the same rights as American citizens, nor do they have more rights than U.S. military personnel. We will work to ensure foreign terrorists, such as the 9/11 conspirators, are tried in military, not civilian, court. We will oppose all efforts to force our military, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel operating overseas to extend “Miranda Rights” to foreign terrorists.
• Fully Fund Missile Defense: There is real concern that while the threat from Iranian intercontinental ballistic missiles could materialize as early as 2015, the government’s missile defense policy is not projected to cover the U.S. homeland until 2020. We will work to ensure critical funding is restored to protect the U.S. homeland and our allies from missile threats from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.
• Require Tough Enforcement of Sanctions Against Iran: The Iranian regime is a state-sponsor of terrorism, has actively worked to harm our deployed troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, and violates the rights and will of its own people. It has declared its determination to acquire a nuclear capability, which threatens its neighbors and the security of the United States. We will work to ensure the government aggressively and effectively implements the sanctions tools Congress has provided.
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• Establish Operational Control of the Border: We must take action to secure our borders, and that action starts with enforcing our laws. We will ensure that the Border Patrol has the tools and authorities to establish operational control at the border and prohibit the Secretaries of the Interior and Agriculture from interfering with Border Patrol enforcement activities on federal lands.
• Work with State and Local Officials to Enforce Our Immigration Laws: The problem of illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels engaged in an increasingly violent conflict means we need all hands on deck to address this challenge. We will reaffirm the authority of state and local law enforcement to assist in the enforcement of all federal immigration laws.
• Strengthen Visa Security: To stop terrorists like Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Christmas Day bomber, we will require the Department of Homeland Security to review all visa applications at high-risk consular posts and prevent aliens from attempting to avoid deportation after having their visas revoked.
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Checks and Balances
Our founders built a system of checks and balances to slow the growth of government and prevent the tyranny of the majority. The ultimate power in this system of government is held by the people, who were given the tools by our Founders to hold those they elect as their representatives accountable for their actions. Government exists to be the servant of the people, not their master.
Unfortunately, the metrics used to hold Congress accountable are often flawed. Rather than using the scale of how well elected representatives represent the views of the people, the scale is often currently measured in bills passed, dollars spent, and programs created. This must change.
"But the whole history of America is quite different from Europe. People went there to get away from the intolerance and constraints of life in Europe. They sought liberty and opportunity; and their strong sense of purpose has over two centuries, helped create a new unity and pride in being American.” – Margaret Thatcher
Every American must ask: what has Congress done to ensure opportunity and to safeguard my liberty and the freedoms guaranteed to me in the Constitution? We stand ready to be judged by that standard.
We will stand committed to our principles and fight to renew the drive for a smaller, less costly, and more accountable government. We will promote and advance solutions that get people working again, stop out-of-control spending, repeal and replace the government takeover of health care, make Congress more open and transparent, and keep our nation secure at home and abroad.
At the same time, we will serve as a check and a balance against any schemes that are inconsistent with the priorities and rights of the American people:
• We will fight to ensure transparency and accountability in Congress and throughout government.
• We will continue to fight the growth of government and oppose new stimulus spending that only puts our nation further in debt.
• We will fight efforts to fund the costly new health care law.
• We will fight to increase access to domestic energy sources and oppose attempts to impose a national “cap and trade” energy tax.
• We will fight for the rights of workers and oppose “card check” schemes that put union bosses before individuals’ right to a secret ballot.
• We will fight efforts to use a national crisis for political gain.
Call to Action
Built through a process of listening to the people, this is our Pledge to America. To begin the process of implementing a new governing agenda that honors our Constitution and reflects the will of the people, we call on the leadership of the 111th Congress to bring these reforms and policies to an immediate vote, and ask all citizens of our Nation – men and women of good will and good heart – who share in our beliefs, to join with us today.

An Honorable and a Beautiful Day

2010-08-28T23:34:00.003-04:00

Getting on the subway at about 9AM was VERY difficult, worse than for the 912 march. People were totally packed in the train, and I am not sure we picked up everyone who wanted to get on. I arrived at 10AM on the grounds of the Washington Monument. People were streaming in from all directions and were starting to sit down on the grounds of the Monument, as it was pretty clear the area closer the Lincoln Memorial was already pretty filled up. I started to make my way over towards the Lincoln Memorial, and you could not get close to the reflecting pond. It was just wall to wall people. I was able to walk behind the packed people on the right hand side, however, and make my way (slowly) around to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. There were people sitting everywhere, all the way up to the pond, packed together in some places and scattered in others. Some had a visual of the jumbotron, some could hear. Many could not see and could not hear and yet there they sat, just wanting to be part of this. The speaker system was terrific, but it is hard to get those sound waves to go to all corners.

I kept walking and taking pics. I constantly overheard people trying to connect up with other participants via cellphone and not succeeding in that. It was very hard to figure out how to negotiate the crowds in order to find people. I continued on, back around, finally reaching the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I was able to get behind the stage, but not before running into the three PETA demonstrators. One was dressed as a carrot and another as a radish or something and those two great big stuffed animals were accompanied by a young girl who was being very friendly to the rally participants. They were advertising for Veganism and had two signs, one of which was about teabags and was not very nice, as I recall.

Anyway, the narrow access to that area right behind the stage was completely packed, but once I was on the steps of the Memorial, things opened up a bit. Then I went around to the left side, and found just as many people over there as had been on the right side. I sought shade quite a few times, as this was a sunny day and a bit warm........and I actually crawled under some tree branches in order to try to cool down. I got to listen to the entire Beck speech from this location, though I could see nothing.

When the rally finally ended, I got up close to reflecting pond, as people began to leave. I got pics of our Tim Johnson (Vice Chair of the NC Republican Party) who was on the stage shaking hands with other VIPS. There were three country singers singing after the close of the rally, and many stayed to hear them. Even after all the singing was done, a very large number of groups just continued to sit there in their chairs. Thousands of people....just sitting and talking. After the rally was over. My only guess is that they were catching buses, and the buses were not due to depart for a few hours and they figured it was more comfortable to wait in the shade on the People's National Mall, rather than in a hot bus lot.

I went down the mall, towards the museums. Here, over near or on Independence Avenue, I encountered the militant, taunting people of the Al Sharpton march. I crossed the mall to the other side, finding in the middle, a massive stage set up with a pic of Martin Luther King Jr. But the audience area was empty. I am not sure if this is where the Sharpton March was eventually headed? Anyway, another terrific speaker system was playing King's speeches. And since no official audience was there, it was cool to see quite a few people were sitting in chairs in groups, scattered at wide distances, listening to these speeches. These people were sporting Gadsden flags and American flags and wearing Restoring Honor t-shirts. So my guess is that they had just finished being participants at the Restoring Honor rally. There were hundreds of such people sitting and listening to the voice and the words of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Then I went in to the National Museum of History. And that place was chock full of of families who had just attended the Restoring Honor rally.

It had been a day of sharing, of helping, of cooperating. People were offering each other chairs, umbrellas, water; three people stopped to help me climb over the WWII Memorial wall. Everyone all day long was friendly to each other, they were unshakable to any who were trying to make trouble. People brought big trash bags and took complete responsibility for taking their trash out with them.

It was a great day.
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No More Free Lunch

2010-02-22T06:03:00.006-05:00

Our First Lady makes an excellent case against free lunch. She tells us that things have flipped. A few years ago, five percent of our children were unable to enlist in the military because they were malnourished. Michelle Obama says that is why we started the national school lunch program. Now, twenty-six percent of people who try to enlist are denied on the basis of being obese, she says. That's a problem for national defense, according to her view. So she has taken on childhood obesity as her cause célèbre.

This all came to light as Huckabee interviewed Obama about her Let's Move initiative to cure childhood obesity. The answer is in the lady's hands. Why can't she see it? One of the most shocking stats she gave us is that "Most of our children consume the majority of their calories at school."

We had a few malnourished children......the government intervened to solve the problem, and is now supplying the majority of calories to our children. Problem solved? Well no.........now the kids have become fat, in numbers dwarfing those few who had been suffering from malnutrition. Obviously the answer is to cancel the school lunch program. Let's get on with it, Michelle. That is an easy fix.

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Hungarian Billionaires and Stimulus

2009-11-10T18:54:00.004-05:00

The thing to do, is to go out your front door and walk around in your neighborhood, asking all your neighbors how they like HOPE and CHANGE. If they like it, tell them to have a nice day. If they are worried, ask them to join you!

Only a certain segment of the community is connected via internet. Only some people are paying really close attention to politics. It is a growing number, true. Conservative talk radio and Fox News are picking up amazing numbers of listeners and viewers. But remember that not everyone is plugged in. YOU may know that the lollipops promised are simply not affordable.............but does your neighbor know it too? Perhaps not, so it is up to you to get the word out.

There are hundreds of non-profit groups throughout the country which are funded by Hungarian billionaires, or funded perhaps even with stimulus money....that was YOUR money a few months ago, remember? Anyway, you had better believe that a certain number of those organizations are paying their employees to sit all day and figure out where the likely voters are so that they can elect the next liberal democrat, the next socialist, the next marxist, the next maoist, the next communist.

We can just sit back and let that happen. Or we can get out and start talking to our neighbors. It is time to spread the word.

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Hell Hath No Fury

2009-11-07T23:18:00.015-05:00

Hell hath no fury like Americans SCORNED

Americans spoke up BUT congress did not listen. Congress must be changed in the next election, which happens only a few months from now.

Now is the time to work hard to make sure you are being represented in your district by someone who understands America and will guard our liberties. Here is how to get it done!

Find out who your representative is.
Find out how your congressperson voted on healthcare.
If your rep voted against, then support that candidate in the next election if they are running again.
If your rep voted FOR, then find out who is planning to run against that representative, and support that challenger. The earlier you give your support, the more effective your support of that challenger will be.

How to find out who is running:

Ask those who would know. Speak with neighbors and friends who are politically connected.
If that gets you nowhere, search online for conservative groups or teaparty groups or Republican groups in your area. Google various combinations of (your town) + (conservative or teaparty or Republican) and see what you find.
Call sitting officials in your town or city. A conservative Republican who is serving the mayor's office or the town council has already worked with conservative groups in your area, and knows how to find them!
Call the Board of Elections if the above does not help.
If all else fails, call your public library. The staff there will help!
Call the officials of the groups you find, and ask them what is happening, and who might be running. If there is no one yet known to be running, volunteer to join the group and help them to identify and recruit a suitable candidate.

How to help your candidate

Give money. Give money right now. Early money is important and can help a challenger get the needed foothold in the publicity game.
Call the candidate and offer to help out with whatever they might need.
Hold a meet-the-candidate event at your home for the candidate.
Man a table at a city fair or other event, and give fliers out to those who pass by.
Stuff envelopes. Make phone calls. Design or deliver flyers.
Write a letter-to-the-editor of your local paper about your candidate. Keep it short, sign your name and address, and have someone proofread it before you submit it.
TALK TO ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS. Make sure that all your contacts know about the candidate right away. The earlier they know, the earlier they can help too.
Do find out if your friends are registered. If they are not registered to vote, get them registered. Elections are sometimes lost by just one vote, so every vote counts. Get them registered now. Some states have moratoriums on registering too close to the election.
Make sure your children are registered when they are old enough. And be sure your elderly relatives who might have just moved to your state to be near you, are registered. Be sure to help them get an absentee ballot when the time comes, if they will not be able to get to the polls. Or give them a ride to the polls. Use early voting if your state has it!
Did we mention about giving money? Even a five dollar check helps, but send it right now. And maybe you can send another little check later.

You are going to be fighting a big machine to challenge a sitting liberal. But you have a lot of power, and if you do just half of the above, you might just make the difference which puts another conservative over the top, and that will bring us all one step closer to re-establishing our liberties in this country we all love.

Easy Addresses for Concerned Americans

2009-11-07T22:41:00.001-05:00

Melt the email. Dems are available here, just cut and paste into your TO line.

n09ima@mail.house.gov, mike.ross@mail.house.gov, drew.goesl@mail.house.gov, john.zody@mail.house.gov, ashley.jones@mail.house.gov, joe.bonfiglio@mail.house.gov, donna.pignatelli@mail.house.gov, stacey.alexander@mail.house.gov, stuart.chapman@mail.house.gov, tim.mccann@mail.house.gov, meg.joseph@mail.house.gov, kate.haas@mail.house.gov, sharon.wheeler@mail.house.gov, sam.marchio@mail.house.gov, angela.kouters@mail.house.gov, brad.morris@mail.house.gov, pia.carusone@mail.house.gov, susan.mcavoy@mail.house.gov, howard.bauleke@mail.house.gov, matt.walker@mail.house.gov, april.metwali@mail.house.gov, scott.fairchild@mail.house.gov, beecher.frasier@mail.house.gov, elizabeth.hart@mail.house.gov, ron.carleton@mail.house.gov, melanie.morris@mail.house.gov, hayden.rogers@mail.house.gov, bob.siggins@mail.house.gov, candace.abbey@mail.house.gov, trish.reilly@mail.house.gov, cori.smith@mail.house.gov, denis.fleming@mail.house.gov, lisa.quigley@mail.house.gov, joel.elliot@mail.house.gov, peter.chandler@mail.house.gov, charles.jefferson@mail.house.gov, tessa.gould@mail.house.gov, timothy.bergreen@mail.house.gov, john.hess@mail.house.gov, linda.macias@mail.house.gov, phyllis.hallmon@mail.house.gov, terry.stinson@mail.house.gov, adrienne.elrod@mail.house.gov, jason.buckner@mail.house.gov, mark.brownell@mail.house.gov, scott.nishioki@mail.house.gov, stephen.peranich@mail.house.gov, jennifer.walsh@mail.house.gov, vickie.walling@mail.house.gov, chad.causey@mail.house.gov, dean.mitchell@mail.house.gov
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The Senate Works for Us

2009-10-18T11:59:00.004-04:00

This is the week to pick up the phone and tell both of our senators and our representative one more time how you feel about health care legislation. I will be on it first thing Monday morning.

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912 Personal Accounts

2009-09-15T20:30:00.010-04:00

This will be a collection of stories recounting 912.

One Account.
There was some anger yesterday, there was a lot of frustration, but mostly there was a multitude of Americans determined to have their voices heard. I am talking about people of all colors. I am talking about people with long hair, short hair, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, Libertarians, conservatives, cops, teachers,college students, grandmas, grandpas, great grandmas, moms, dads and kids.......

A Second Account
The excitement was tangible, preparing for the most important trip of my life to this point. This was not a vacation, and it wasn’t going to feel like one, either. My dad, my boss, and I were gearing up for an exhaustive amount of traveling. We were going to Washington, DC, to show them we are not going to put up with big (and intrusive) government or a new American brand of Socialism. Period........

Third Account (includes pix)
Arrived at the Vienna Metro station in Fairfax shortly after 9:00 AM to take the train into town. When we arrived, the lines for the ticket dispensers were huge, extending far into the parking lots on both sides of the station.

Fourth and Fifth Accounts
I am still stunned from the march yesterday.....I looked up Pennsylvania Avenue and was blown away. It was filled from the White House to the Capitol, a distance of 1.5 miles.I’ve been to a lot of demonstrations in Washington, starting with the anti war protests in the 1960s, and I have never seen anything like this. From ground level it was impossible to guess the numbers of people.

Sixth Account
I made a point to walk to the highest point of the hill and look out and you could not see the end. The stream line of signs ran from Capital Hill to the White House and on the over side from Capital Hill to Union Station. This was as far as one can see.

I will add more accounts as I find them.........don't forget to read my post on this amazing day, right below this one.

Seventh Account
Since we were there, Congress seems different. Maybe it was us. Maybe the pendulum is swinging. Whatever it is, the Dems seem less hostile and snarky to us Astroturfers, and the GOP seems to have gotten a spine.
What no one seems to understand is that all the photos, and all the counts, and all the kings men couldn’t put Humpty back together again.
We are the tip of the iceburg. We are awake. We aren’t going away. We aren’t going to let up. A whole bunch of us read Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, and we don’t have anything else to do. Grandma and Grampa have money. Great Grandma and Grandpa don’t want to get snuffed. And our grandkids don’t want to pay for this.
And here is the real scary part. We loved it. Next time we’re bringing some friends. If they didn’t hear us then, just wait. They will.
What is that song Tom Petty sang after 9/11? And we won’t back down….

Eighth Account
Being there all by myself was terrific, in some ways.......when you are a party of one, you can slip into small places, and this was necessary the day of the 912 March....in order to get anywhere close to the action. I really had NO IDEA that people were going to show up in large numbers. The morning of, I did not hurry to get downtown, and I remember wondering if I would find a big crowd, or if it was going to be more of a bust.

So I was really amazed at the number of Americans who came out.......I got into the march line and headed down PA Ave, and when I got to the end, it was packed in the area leading up to the Capitol grounds. I was frustrated having to walk behind slow moving people....to snake around wherever it is that the police wanted us to go.......so I just stepped over some kind of a fence and got right onto the grounds. I maybe was not supposed to do that, but there was no one stopping me, and I did not realize until a couple of days ago that I was probably breaching a barrier I was not supposed to cross. I read that they were letting 80,000 into the immediate grounds, and after that, no one else gets in, unless someone leaves. So since I made it inside, I guess they actually had 80,001!

And then when I got in, I chose not to get too comfortable. I mostly just kept moving to get different vantage points. There would have been no way to do this with a big group of people. I feel like I really saw a lot more of the place than many who parked themselves in chairs or on steps and were then afraid to get up and lose their spots.........I just wanted to soak up what was going on everywhere I could manage to get to. The only limits were my eventual exhaustion, and the fact that the stage area was packed for so far back, you seriously could not see the stage or the speakers. I remember getting close enough to THINK I was seeing the stage. One of the speakers seemed to have a huge head, and I thought that was so strange. When the next person also had a big head, I realized I was not looking at the stage, but was looking at a video screen. I really never even found the stage..........I felt like I was close to the Capitol, but that stage, which was between me and the Capitol, had to be very very far away from me.

My exhaustion kept me from going to the mall, and that is the only part I really regret. I wish I had gotten close enough to see that from ground level. I am told there were people all the way back to the Washington Monument.........I could see the grassy area was clear......but people were telling me that people were crowding under the trees, This I would not have been able to view from my spot near the statues at the Capitol Reflecting Pond. Later I learned that the grass was reserved for other events, and that is why that grassy area was empty.

Throughout the day, I was able to stop and talk with whoever, whenever, and I could eat when I needed to, and there was no one to annoy with my photo stops, either. So I really did just love the day. It was only at the end, that I realized that it would have been terrific to talk with a group of attendees over dinner. I had heard that Andrew Wilkow was going to address a group at a dinner over in Virginia. I REALLY would have liked to have been there for that! But I had forgotten to look up the group, had forgotten the name of the hotel, and had not followed through to find out if I could even get to that particular hotel by metro, or even if it was possible for me to attend. If I was not so darn tired, I would have asked around and figured it out. But heading back to take a shower seemed like the most important thing in the world at that point.

Something to tell the grandkids, my attendance at 912. Even when I was there, and could see it was huge, I really did not think of it as a history making thing. But now I really suspect that it was. No matter how the media has tried to minimize the size of it, Congress KNOWS and things are going to be different from now on. ACORN got defunded this week, for example. The changes may be big or the changes may be subtle, but we have been heard.

The March on Washington

2009-09-12T20:23:00.003-04:00

I was there! It was an incredible day. I took the metro from Friendship Heights towards Metro Center. The trains were ABSOLUTELY packed when I got there about 9:30 AM. I met some really nice patriots on the ride. When we disembarked, no one really knew where to go.......because everyone was from out of town. One lady had come from Texas and had flown in last night just for the event. We all got out at the Metro Center stop. Some people wanted to get on another line and go to the next stop. But the trains were packed on this line as well, so I wished them luck and went off on my own, figuring I would really rather just walk the few blocks. I wandered up into Macy's and decided to stop for the restroom. There was a long line there, and everyone in that line was sporting patriotic T-shirts and carrying flags. Pretty cool to be surrounded everywhere by people who GET IT.

I found the exit and ended up on 13th street, I think, and walked only one block before finding myself in a throng of people. I could not stop smiling; I just started soaking it all in. I headed down to Freedom Plaza and I could not believe the size of the crowd. And the Patriots just kept coming and coming and coming, carrying incredibly clever and creative signs, once again, just as we always do at our tea parties! I found the National Theatre at 10:30 and saw no SGP shirts there, and no ladies assembling. I had hoped to meet up with members of Smart Girl Politics who I have been talking to for many months online. It was early for the SGP meeting, which was to occur at 11:00 AM, before the march.

But it was soon obvious that the march had already begun. There was a podium and a lady with a loudspeaker was telling us that we had to start the march early because there were just too many people to be held at Freedom Plaza, which is an area of a pretty fair size. I decided to just mill along with the crowd in the direction of the Capitol Building, because I did not know if the SGP plans would be changing due to the early marching. So down Pennsylvania Avenue I went, with my camera, snapping pics all the way, and chanting "you lie, you lie" at times and singing patriotic songs. Whenever someone saw one of the several Joe Wilson for President signs, they would break out in that "you lie, you lie" chant.

We would erupt in random cheering every so often. This happened when we came upon the Newseum, which has the text of the First Amendment etched all up and down the side of the building in massive letters.

When we got close to the Capitol Building, I stopped at the East Wing of the National Art Gallery for another pit stop. I found lines of patriots streaming in to the building for the same reason I had come. We helped each other avoid long lines by relaying to each other where other sets of restrooms were. It was just one of those terrific teaparty days where everyone is in it together and being nice and helpful to each other to make things go more smoothly.

I came out again and headed into a very crowded area, trying to get close to the Capitol, and was routed here and there by the police. Finally I got close to the reflecting pool, and found it SURROUNDED by concerned Americans. It was so heartwarming! There were some steps there next to the pond, which would have been lovely to park myself on, but I really felt I needed to move around and see more of what was happening. Being just me and my camera, moving through a very thick crowd was do-able, and I went for it, hoping to get closer to get some better shots. Things were almost at a standstill for about a half hour, with streams of people trying to move in while others were trying to move out, and no one going anywhere too fast. but I finally got through that bottleneck, and found myself between the Capitol and the reflecting pool. Here I did indeed sit on another set of steps for awhile, as it was a good place to be able to hear the speakers. I sat with some ladies and when we got to talking I realized that though they had come together, they had not known each other prior to today. We all stood and sang the National Anthem, but we were singing too fast, and kept having to wait for the singer to catch up! I shouted out a very loud O at the appropriate time, but found no other takers. Apparently there were not many Baltimore natives in that particular section of the crowd! Then I pulled out an apple and some nuts I had brought. There was not a lot of food to be had in that heavy crowd, and it was going to be insane to leave the area to look for food, so I was glad I had brought my own.

Eventually someone nearby told me that she had been over near the botanical garden in search of restrooms and had seen that much of the mall was covered with people. She thought I ought to get a picture of that....with my big fancy camera, lol...so I headed that way to see what I could see. I did not wish to cross the reflecting pool again, so I had to depend on my not so young eyes for information. It looked to me as though there was green grass on the mall after a bit of a crowd, so this made me think that the grounds were not covered all the way back to the Washington Monument, as had been reported............but others were saying that under the trees, there were people back as far as you could see. I just don't know for sure. It was largely a cloudy day, but when the sun was out, it would have been nicer to be under the trees, I am sure.

I just kept moving around. It really is handy to go to one of these things all by yourself, because you can just go where you like when you like.....and I really appreciated the ability to see the event from MANY different angles. I finally did wend my way around to right in front of the stage, and that was a prime spot, though I was dozens of rows back and could not actually see where the stage was. To get there, I passed by a large group of people holding a huge flag perpendicular to the ground. That made for some nice pic opportunities, AND it made for a shaded underneath, where there were kids lying down out of the sun. Pretty cool stuff.

There were two large video screens, and I was able to see some of the speakers on a part of one of these. They were not installed very high, so they were hard to see over all those people! There were SO MANY speakers. It was great to hear from Jim De Mint and it was heartbreaking to hear from a man who had his car dealership stolen from him by Obama and his pick-the-winner ideology. Betsy McCaughey spoke about health care, as she has on the Mark Levin show....... boy is she a terrific speaker! I already knew that she knows her stuff, but I had most assuredly not expected such a rousing speech from her!

The Ray Charles version of America the Beautiful brought more than a few tears to my eye, as it always does. Lloyd Marcus was there and performed a good song. He is not African American, he told us, he is American! But he was far from the only minority who spoke. It was great to see so many Asians in the crowd, as well as representatives of other minorities.

When the event ended, I headed back to Metro Center and had a lot of nice conversations with quite a few people on the long walk to get there. One nice lady told me she had come on one of FIVE buses from her section of Delaware. That is a lot of buses for a tiny state! It was on this walk that I saw my first counterprotestor. He was standing in a pile of trash next to the trash can, holding a handwritten sign which said "SUPPORT POTUS". Why he was standing IN hte trash, I can't say. I almost wanted to ask him if this was a sarcastic display, and not a sincere sentiment. But I could not think of a way to do that nicely. Later, there were two young boys, the elder being 17, who were carrying Pro Obama signs and who wanted to engage us in dialog. A number of us did stop to talk, and were trying to make them understand what Obamacare will really be like. One of the men speaking to them said that we are doing this for the benefit of the young people, so that they can enjoy the freedoms we have had. Another pointed out to them that they are well intentioned, but they need to read and to learn before they protest any more. I suggested to the boys that they read Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny. Then I headed for the metro. When I found it, the trains were packed yet again, and stayed packed until after my stop. But just as I was about to get off, a young man who had been standing there the entire time was curious where we had all been. "Protesting something?" he wondered. We said yes.....and he asked if it was health care. Someone said that health care was not the entire issue, and he queried, with the slightest smirk, if we had been protesting that "whole constellation of Glenn Beck issues". WOW.

Glenn Beck is entertaining, but I don't know what his whole constellation of issues is, and I surely did not attend the march because of Glenn Beck, or because of any other person or organization. I explained that we want responsible spending, we are supporters of the Constitution and that we want to start following our roots again. I pointed out that our country is no longer a free market, and that our problems therefore, can't possibly be due to out of control capitalism, but rather, must be due to governmental interference. Therefore we want smaller government. I capped this all off by saying that we want a return to freedom!

And then, mindful of his smirk, I recounted a Gandhi quote for all those standing around me on the subway train:

First they ignore us. Then they laugh at us. Then they fight us. Then we WIN!

Astroturf. Now there is Proof.

2009-08-11T19:52:00.030-04:00

Sorry to burst your bubble. There is now confirmed proof that the grass roots you have been part of is nothing but astroturf.

The display of outrage made recently by a thousands of Americans (or as Pelosi might call them, "un-Americans") is just a setup after all. There is nothing genuine about it. We have all been hearing nasty reports (rumors) from MSNBC for some time now, postulating that the angry mob is just a front. The whole charade has supposedly been financed by insurance companies which provide posterboard and crayons

with which thousands upon thousands of angry people are making signs. These hapless automatons are connecting with neighbors, leaving their grandbabies for the afternoon, and/or taking time off of PTA meetings or whatever, or work, to go to town halls. It is all about doing the bidding of lobbyists who want to protect the income stream of the very rich. When these innocent shills get to the meetings, they sometimes yell, mostly when being lied to. One might think this is because these Great Americans are angry about what is being done to their country. But no. Chris Matthews, that crackerjack anchor over at MSNBC assures us that all of these thousands of concerned patriots are acting as part of a coordinated effort in response to The McGuffie Memo.

The main point of the plan, we are told, is to bring down Obama. We don't even know WHY anyone would want to bring down Obama, because he is a very affable guy and he is leading the country we live in. After all, we need for our country to succeed. Many of us don't entirely like Obama's dreams of the world as it "should be", and even more of us just don't think it is practical for him to try and create a utopia on Earth. With our money. For silly reasons like that, we don't support Obama policies. But most people have no interest in bringing Obama down. They just want him to keep his big fat hands off our liberties.

But Mort Zuckerman and some pretty-man anchor from what many insist ought to be called the MS-LSD network, has given us a clue. It has something to do with the word Socialism being spelled wrong, lo these many years. Turns out Socialism should always have been spelled beginning with the letter N! Confused? Let pretty-man anchor explain:

And now we find that this scheme, this conspiracy to bring down Obama, goes back many years, further than that McGuffie Memo and further than the involvement of the insurance industry. (Did we mention that Matthews seems to think the insurance industry is pouring out millions to buy those crayons for the tea partiers, despite the fact that they are at the very same time, spending big money to buy ads to support Obamacare? (The logic dispenser over at MS-LSD must be on the fritz)."

It was really all just rumor, until now. Just today, a reporter has caught it on tape. And now we can conclusively prove the whole thing is in fact, astroturf, carefully laid by a gang of men who pranced about in fancy clothes. The scheme to incite Americans to stand up against tyranny did not start during the week in which Obama ordered the House to pass HR 3200. No, and it did not begin when tea parties were held across the land on April 15th in response to the 787 Billion dollar stimulus plan and other run away spending. The conspiracy did not even begin when Rick Santelli got mad on CNBC's air and bellowed out the famous rant which is famous for having given Americans the idea to have tea parties.

No.

Here is the proof of where all this dissent comes from . Look at this video. One Katy Abram spoke at the Arlen Spector town hall today and she SPILLED THE BEANS!

Did you hear what Abrams said? She is caught red-handed for all the world to see. There is no denying it now. She must not have been very well trained, because she lets the secret slip, at 1:25 in this video. Apparently a group of several dozen schemers were determined to bring down Obama, before he even got elected. Yes, it was some guys you may have heard of, acting in concert with a gang of lesser knowns. In a very sinister manner, they assembled and decided to make life a living hell for today's proponents of a health care plan of the unaffordable lollipop variety. It was THEY who decided to make people rise up against Obama and his nocialist dream.

Amazing when you stop to think that this happened almost twenty decades before Obama even enrolled in that fancy private school in Hawaii. Also involved in the plot were men by the names of a Mr. Adams and a Thomas-something-or-other, though each was out of the country at the time of the dastardly deed and thus unavailable to sign some kind of a memo to mark the occasion. There was a memo, though. And it, (NOT the McGuffie Memo) is the memo which Katy Abrams read, the one which propelled her on her mission to stand up and speak her mind and defend what is rightfully hers. And THAT is the memo which got so many Americans (real ones, thank you, Ms. Pelosi) all hot and bothered and ready to strike out and attend a bunch of boring old meetings with sourpuss congressmen and senators. So you see, it was all contrived, all planned, and all brought about by that little four-page memo written by a bunch of guys in fancy clothes harboring delusions of grandeur. Somehow they thought that simply by writing some flowy-looking words in cursive on four pieces of paper, they could reach right ahead through the centuries and give people courage and strength to stand up to Obama and others like him. And thus the plot began. Thousands answered the call of the memo. And thus the crowds were manufactured. Astoturf!

Check it out. It is a good memo. It is all the rage right now, and roaring right back into fashion. But be careful and read this document at your own risk. If you succumb to the temptation and actually read it right through, you yourself just might be incited to start shouting at town hall meetings too.
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I Took Some Steps to Protect My Freedom Today. Wanna Help?

2009-07-28T11:10:00.007-04:00

Thanks to all my new followers! I am loving checking in to your blogs as well. It is great to be able to share information this way.

I am working hard with my Lollipops blog to make sure we keep the president to his promise that the middle class will not have to pay for fancy-sounding, unwieldy, ineffective programs which sound good, but which will only lead to further troubles, and indeed to tyranny. Lollipops (free stuff from government) may seem tasty at first, but they are addictive and they are not a healthy food. Freedom, and independence and self-responsibility ARE. Our diet of LIBERTY has allowed the USA to inspire its citizens to be the best they can be. Millions of people working their hardest and taking care of themselves when they are able, has created the greatest country on the face of the Earth. Lollipops are overpriced, and they never guided a country towards greatness, but they have put many a country into great debt. The best way to keep from paying for Lollipops , is not to taste them in the first place!

Right now the challenge is how to keep the revolution going, and to resist the "free" Lollipops. Accepting government largesse will only weaken us and destroy what we have created. But how to do it? What can each one of us do, today, to get the word out to others, and to put pressure on Congress? What exactly do we say? Who exactly, should we call?

Luckily, there is a very handy to-do list from the Tea Party Patriots which spells out concrete, manageable tasks we can each do in no time at all. You can have this list sent to you each week by signing up on the site.

I would love to hear from anyone who is also following this organization, or others organizations are showing us exactly what we can do today to protect our freedoms and say no to the Lollipops.

Today, I already sent the suggested article to some of my centrist friends. I would love to stay and chat some more, but now it is time for me to call the members of the House Energy and Finance Committee.

NOTE: I called the following from the list, and it only took a moment

(202) 225-2565 Jason Altmire Democrat PA (Blue Dog) Spoke to a nice person, told them to stand strong against this bill which I have read all of and which I do not like.
(252) 237-9816 GK Butterfield, Democrat NC Told them government is never the answer to keeping costs down, bill needs to be changed to give more individual freedom and control, not LESS!
(302) 736-1666 Mike Castle GOP DE (took my name, told me that they are going to respectfully ask me to call my own representative because I don't live in DE).
(202) 225-4076 Marion Berry Blue Dog Democrat from Arkansas. I told them we are standing up strong for him as long as he continues to resist the Lollipops!
202) 225-3731 Christopher Carney Democrat (Blue Dog) PA. I told the nice lady I have read the whole bill and that I do not like it. She congratulated me and asked me how long it took me. I said I was up until 4 AM, and I though I did not understand the whole thing, I kept going. I think that if I can do it, the Congressman should TOO!
(202) 225-6131 Dennis Cardoza Democrat (Blue Dog) CA. I said we have been watching CA very closely and don't want the country to go down the same road towards IOUs, etc, and the best way is for Cardoza to stand up against the President and says "no thanks" to the free stuff!

Another Liberal Solution Will Not Fix the Problems Caused by the Last

2009-07-21T09:32:00.006-04:00

It is just amazing. Where is the END to this? When do the solutions to the massive problems caused by the liberal solutions END? No one will tell us. They just keeping make MORE damaging and demoralizing liberal “solutions”.

First, there is a wage freeze, and that leads employers to sweeten the payment package, offering health care. Which is a stupid connection—a stupid government-proliferated connection. Employers ought not to have anything at all to do with healthcare in the first place. But having all that third party coverage leads costs to go up—who cares if you get "unnecessary" tests and treatment, or how much it costs, when your insurance company is paying. Especially when you don’t even have to worry about premiums (and can’t) because it is not you who chooses the insurer, but the employer.

Not to mention, once people are done being employed, a lot of them are done being insured at all. So the liberal solution is to have a government program for the elderly—Medicare, which is snuck in as the first part of the a marxist dream of national socialized medicine. And Medicare naturally becomes the fastest inflating sector of the health care economy, because the third party GOVT payer is even more damaging than the private third party private payer. And that drives up medical costs for EVERY AMERICAN ALIVE AND TO BE BORN!

We should have had a fee-for-service program all along, with affordable insurance to cover catastrophic events, but no. We have a crazy patchwork of a system full of liberal solutions, or responses to liberal solutions.

And then liberal Obama comes forth and says, it’s really a shame---private solutions have not worked. The free market does not work. Freedom of choice does not work, and we need a comprehensive LIBERAL solution. YAY, another liberal “solution” to save the day. And that solution is to use force to make every individual succumb to the whims of Obama and his elite decision makers and their dreams of rationed health care. And then when rationing becomes a dirty word, the very liberal New York Times sails in to the rescue and tells us why centrally designed rationing has to happen.. and is some kind of a GOOD THING!

Conservatives are for rationing too. They just want the rationing to happen at the level of THE INDIVIDUAL, instead of in some ultra expensive, beautifully designed and decorated, Washington DC bureaucratic office. Millions of people acting in their own best interests, asking questions about procedures, and comparing costs, will ration the care which needs to be rationed. They won't order what is not likely to benefit them. But they will let go forward the care which they truly need. And the people, acting as individuals, will be free to make their own choices and will choose RIGHT almost all of the time. And costs will rise at the same rate as inflation, (instead of almost twice as fast, as they do with Medicare premiums), because people are making the tough choices every step of the way.

But liberals want the people trounced in the name of the "public good". What good is taking care of the public if you do it at the expense of the individual? And the worst part of all this is that a comprehensive government solution to the health care sector, which is one-sixth of our economy, is going to be expensive--and expensive at an immoral level. We have pointed out in other posts here that there simply are not enough rich people to pay for such a big health care plan.

Those of us us who want to hold Obama to his promise that he will not charge the middle class for the bitter lollipop of national, rationed, socialized health care, need to call our Senators and our Congress people today to tell them to stop this plan and replace it with a plan which brings the healthcare decisions back to the individual.

Health Care to Be Capped at One Trillion

2009-07-08T13:12:00.013-04:00

I can make a firm pledge, under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes.

---Barack Obama
September 12, 2008

YAY! Congress is now vowing to come up with a health care reform bill which will only cost us a trillion dollars. That is good, because I really did not want to pay any more than a trillion. Let's not forget, however that Obama got elected by promising the people that only the rich will pay for all the change he hopes to stick us with. Everyone else will see no increase in any tax whatsoever. Especially not the middle class. Obama is all about protecting the middle class and doing for the middle class and strengthening the middle class and never making them pay for any of the lollipops. He said it and he meant it and he said it more than once. And a lot of voters believed it.

The rich will pay and we shall all party! And they won't mind because the "rich" people in this country are loaded! How much does the bill for the health care bill come to, per rich person? If "the rich" comprise two percent of our society which currently stands at about 304 million people, that amounts to 6.08 million people paying the entire bill for the new health care plan.

A trillion dollars spread over 6.08 million rich people is $163,447 per elitist, good-for-nothing rich taxpayer. Piece of cake! That is hardly a drop in the bucket for the rich, right? Well not exactly. Remember, that is more than half the pay of many of the rich. And those people have other taxes to pay (state income tax, for example). Will they have anything left over? Or will they become poor through taxation? (Wow, the irony.)

Rich is anyone making over 250K. Obama said so. And 163K is more than half of that! But wait, I may have overstated that cost. Congress for some reason is giving us a ten year cost and not an annual cost.

Why a ten year estimate? I don't know why they don't want to figure it on an annual basis instead of on a ten-year basis. They are saying they will keep costs to one trillion over a ten year period. What happens then? We all are cured, no more health care needed? Plan canceled, no more payment necessary? No...... No. I am afraid there are going to be continuing costs to this dreamy health care plan, from now until we are all dead and gone. So that is 100 billion needed every year. And that brings us down to having each nasty old rich person pay only $16,447 per year to foot the bill for the entire country. That sounds a lot more affordable. Oprah Winfrey and Sean Penn etc, won't even notice. Quite a few not-very-rich, rich people might have to pull their kids out of private school or not buy a new car or not move to a new house, but who cares? (Well, actually, the people who are making the fancy houses and cars that the rich people buy will care when some of them get laid off. And the kids attending the private schools on needs-based scholarship will care when some of those schools close or severely cut back on programs due to loss of revenue. But I digress.)

And truly, it IS a graduated tax scale. So those at the bottom of "the rich" won't pay the average. But those who are at the top of "the rich" will see their taxes increased by more than the cost of my house each and every year. If they decide to stay in the country, that is. And they all will, because Biden has said it is very patriotic to pay taxes. And what is more pleasant than to write a nice fat check in the amount of several hundred thousand dollars to the IRS when you know you are helping out a whole nation?

Oh darn, there is more to add in to the final bill, however. Now I see that I have actually UNDERstated the cost. Health care is only one small part of what we are all going to get, and what the rich are going to pay for. They are also going to pay for everything else! EVERYTHING ELSE!

If you make less than a quarter-million dollars a year, which includes 98 percent of small-business owners, you won’t see your taxes increase one single dime. Not your payroll taxes, not your income taxes, not your capital gains taxes, nothing.

Barack Obama
October 16, 2008

So who is left? The poor are not going to pay. In fact we are already paying the poor, so they really don't pay taxes at all. So there is only the filthy rich. They will get the whole soaking. Obama promised.

Just go ahead and add in Cap and Trade and the 787 billion dollar stimulus bill we already had, and stimulus bill number TWO, which we are told is coming whether we like it or not. And pretty soon you are talking about some real money you can add to the 16K per year each rich person is going to pay for health care. So it adds up, but we are talking about those disgusting greedy rich people here and everyone knows the rich have money to throw away. The rich will handle it. None of those rich people are going to retire early, or move to a more tax-advantaged Caribbean Island or anything. They and Obama know that we need them, and they have got our backs. So they will be staying here and working harder than ever. And working very long hours and even neglecting their families to keep making lots of money. Just for us. 'Cause we're special. We're the middle class and we deserve it.

So what are you worried about? You can go back about your business. Nothing to see here.

MSNBC Promotes Socialism under a Friendly Sounding Name

2009-07-06T10:08:00.008-04:00

All systems are capitalist. It's just a matter of who owns and controls the capital -- ancient king, dictator, or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right -------and government control of the market system such as we find today in socialist nations." ---Ronald Reagan

I have just finished watching a segment on MSNBC's The Morning Meeting centered around Spitzer’s article of the title Green Shoots, Red Ink, and a Black Hole. The host, Dylan Ratigan, invited three guests……and they all were speaking from a perspective that the government needs to take taxpayer money and “invest” it into new industries. Spitzer seemed to think we should just do a better job of spending what we already took from the tax payers, and the others wanted to take more.

Where is the BALANCE on MSNBC? Not one conservative guest appeared, not one person discussed the conservative perspective, not one stated the correctly the reasons that people are not investing in this economy. Not a single guest mentioned the thought that perhaps people are not hiring because they know that business-dampening regulation is steamrolling towards them and it will be very expensive. More expenditure by any business means less money available for hiring. One guest was saying we need to take more money from the people who earned it and have another stimulus. Which is pretty rich now that the first stimulus has failed so miserably. Every guest was talking about how we all want to protect capitalism, and every guest was giving solutions which involve the government taking money from the people and using it to bolster industry and energy solutions. No wonder people in this country have no idea what is going on and are losing their way. Organizations such as MSNBC are deeply polluted with misguided, liberal thinking and don’t even acknowledge true free market principles. And at the same time, they are claiming to be fighting for the free market. LOL. LOL. LOL! Are we paying attention and reading between the lines here?

All of MSNBC’s guests and the host on that segment were adeptly co-opting words they know resonate with the American people, such as “free market”, “capitalism”, “American ingenuity” and “creativity”. And all panelists blatantly ignored what it is about America that makes ingenuity, creativity, and wealth flourish here. All say we need for the government to step in and guide where the capital goes. GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF CAPITAL IS THE ANTITHESIS OF THE FREE MARKET, INGENUITY, CREATIVITY AND CAPITALISM.

This slanted, disingenuous host ---Dylan Ratigan----even went so far as to say that non-rules based capitalism is stealing and therefore we need something he calls "rules based capitalism". Ratigan failed to mention that the beauty of the free market is that it allows players to accumulate wealth and to stand up for themselves, which reduces the ability of others to "steal".

“Rules based capitalism” is just the new euphemism for government control of as much money as congress and the President can get their hands on, through industry, banking, energy, and health care. Government control of the capital of a country is socialism. The libs poo-poo the use of the word "socialism" and many of them say they don’t want socialism. And yet they vote for it every step of the way!

Conservatism---a Magnificent Philosophy

2009-05-03T15:39:00.006-04:00

Today a quote from Mark Levin. This is one to keep handy, perhaps to memorize.

Conservatism is not a narrow philosophy......it is the philosophy of the Founding Fathers. It is the philosophy of liberty, opportunity, private property, national security.

It is a philosophy that promotes the liberation of the individual, that nurtures competition, and that embraces all people regardless of who they are, or where they have been.

It is a philosophy that rejects the authoritarianism of the few, of the politician, of the bureaucrat; and promotes limited, stable and predictable government authority.

It is a philosophy that rejects the bankrupting of future generations to pay for the benefits of the current generation.

It is a philosophy that expects its citizens to abide by a just and righteous and predictable law and demands the same from aliens who cross our borders illegally.

It is a philosophy which emphasizes the family and faith, over government.

Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny. It's the only one. It's based on thousands of years of human experience. There is nothing narrow about the conservative philosophy. It's a liberating philosophy.

It is a magnificent philosophy.

It is a philosophy for the ages, for all times.

---Mark Levin on the radio
April 28th, 2009

Photo courtesy of Ivy Dawned.

Conservatives need to be able to express what they believe in. I bet Levin's description of the Conservative philosophy rings true with a great many Americans who are worried about the culture of unaffordable lollipops the current administration is hell-bent on creating.

How to listen to more from Mark Levin:
Download full podcasts of the The Mark Levin Show show via iTunes.
Listen on local radio.
Listen on XM on 166.
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Presidential Address about the "Threat" to America"

2009-05-01T15:38:00.009-04:00

Darned if the President didn't speak recently about the Swine Flu, but if you change the word "virus" to "conservatism", and change a few other minor details, it still rings true to character.

It's been just over a week since we learned about this novel strain of the conservatism virus that's now affecting people in at least 11 of our 57 states as well as hundreds of cities and towns.

And throughout this process, my top priority's been the healthy and -- health and the "safety" of the minds American people. And to that end, we've closely monitored the situation. I am extraordinarily proud of the work that's been done by the Department of Homeland Security and Janet Napolitano. They've been really leading the charge. We now brought in the cavalry -- (soft laughter) – with Chris Matthews and Rachel Maddow and John Stewart.

We're obviously focused on what needs to be done immediately: Identifying and mitigating cases of this new wave of support for the Constitution of the United States, pre-positioning treatments for those who are infected with the propensity to rational thought, making sure that they're distributed appropriately around the country, providing clear guidance as well as the best science to our state and local officials as they move forward against citizens peacefully exercising free speech, and speaking clearly to the American people, as I did the evening of the news conference, about the mitigation steps that they personally can take.

But we also need to prepare for the long term, since we know that these kinds of threats can emerge at any moment. Even if it turns out that the rising tide of support for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is relatively mild on the front end, it could come back in a more virulent form during the 2010 election season, and that's why we are investing in our public propaganda infrastructure.

We've had discussions about the production of teaparty vaccines for -- in anticipation of the congressional election season, and we've made sure that all our agencies here are coordinating, that they have appropriate action plans; that we, for example, are working with the Department of Education to provide clear guidelines for school dissemination of disinformation; that we are working with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, to ensure that businesses are to be punished in every way we can think of as we persist with our overreaching efforts; discussions with our secretary of State, as well as our ambassador to the United Nations, about how we're going to foist new transnational laws and rules upon our freedom-loving people as we respond to potential requests from other countries for assistance in dealing with this issue.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the progress that we've made. I think that those who have been on top of this have done an extraordinary job of loading our country up with debt and liberal programs that most Americans think we don't need. I'm optimistic that we're going to be able to manage this effectively, but we still have more work to do, and I'm glad I've got such a great team doing it.

And I want to make clear to everybody -- and the reason I brought this Cabinet meeting together -- is that we are taking this very seriously and we will take every single step that's necessary to make sure that the American people are separated from the money they have earned, and are freed from the Constitution and what makes this country great.

One last point I want to make, because this was actually raised during this meeting. Somebody asked why this renewed passion for liberty and freedom is different from other middle-American ideas throughout American history. We don't know for certain that this will end up being more severe than other centrist American philosophy that has plagued this country for so long. And it's been noted, I think, before that you have over 36,000 people die on average every year from individual choice and the pursuit of happiness. You have 200,000 hospitalizations.

It may turn out that current Constitution fever is -- runs its course like ordinary American tenets, in which case we will have prepared and we won't need all these preparations.

The reason that people are concerned is -- the scientists are concerned is, this is a new strain of centrist thought, led by people waving teabags around (chuckle).

And so what happens is that Americans and people around the world have not built up immunity to liberty and freedom, in the way that I would like them to accept the creeping liberalism we are trying hard to install.

Those seasonal centrist American philosophies may deepen, mutate slightly from year to year. But they're all roughly in the same band. When you have a new strain, then potentially our immune systems can't fight against freedom as effectively. That is why this renewed interest in liberty must be stopped swiftly.

And there are indications that in Mexico at least, what you saw were relatively young, healthy people die from these – from their attempts to flee to the land of the free and brave, where they hoped to live under the American Constitution, rather than people whose thought systems are already compromised, older individuals, very small infants and so forth.

So that's why we're taking it seriously. We have not yet seen those same kinds of fatalities here in the United States, among young, healthy people with non-compromised thought systems. But we want to make sure that we're preparing appropriately.

So I just want everybody to be clear that this is why this is a cause for concern but not alarm. We are essentially ensuring that in the worst-case scenario, we can manage this new threat to liberalism and socialism appropriately. Government will be working on and controlling businesses and individuals in the private sector and will end up containing this deplorable outbreak of a desire for fiscal responsibility and a return to central American values and common sense. We can ultimately get through this.

Three Percent Sounds so Small

2009-04-27T21:09:00.008-04:00

Gag me with a spoon.

If you can stand to read the White House propaganda linked above, you will find that, on top of everything else we have already forked out in his first 100 days, our man Obama thinks we ought to devote another 3 percent (at least) of our GDP to research and development...(creating) new policies that invest in basic and applied research, (creating) new incentives for private innovation, (promoting) breakthroughs in energy and medicine, and (improving) education in math and science.

New policies that invest in basic and applied research?? What does our young green president think we have already been doing? Is he trying to make us believe that this country does not already invest massive amounts in basic and applied research? We have colossal government taxpayer money pouring into research already, through NASA, through the Department of Agriculture, through federal grants to a huge number of universities, through NIH. And we have an amazing level of private investment as well in a large range of scientific and technological areas, or as he would call it, basic and applied research. A free market economy excels at investing in the scientific breakthroughs of tomorrow, allowing its people to invest where they see the problems, to find solutions a government could never imagine.

Our GDP was 14.33 trillion dollars in 2008. And Barack Obama wants to spend at least another three percent of that. Three percent never sounds like a lot, but why the heck isn't he man enough to come right out and say that he is talking about 420 billion dollars?? I'll tell you why. Because that is one heck of an unaffordable lollipop and Obama knows that the working, taxpaying people of this country are sick and tired of spending another several hundred billion dollars every time he gets out of bed in the morning. Especially on things like education, energy, medicine and private innovation, for gosh sakes, which we already spend PLENTY ON! We already outspend any other nation on education, but he wants to take more of your money away from you and fritter it away on a problem which can't be solved with more dollars. If more and more money has not fixed education by now, there is little reason to believe that spending more money will bring us results. Breakthroughs in energy and medicine? Helloooooo! We are the most innovative country on Earth with regard to both! It is time to appreciate what we have been doing, and more importantly, it is crucial for Mr. Obama to learn a little something about the country he lives in, and to try to understand HOW we managed to do it.

We elected a very naive young man. He said in his address to the National Academy of Sciences,

I believe it is not in our character, the American character, to follow. It's our character to lead. And it is time for us to lead once again.

Obama seriously thinks we lead because it is somehow embedded in our character? Surely not! The reason we have been leading is that we have a framework which allows our people to live largely government-free, and to do the things which only people (not government) are capable of, including keeping a lot of their money so that they (the people who know best how to spend their own money) can invest it as they see fit and use it to create amazing things. We call that framework our Constitution, and that is what makes us great, not the fact that we are some kind of natural leaders. We are really just like any other people, no better, no more talented, no smarter. It is our framework which allows the individuals of this nation to be all we can be and to create things which are rarely, if ever, dreamed of in more tyrannical or totalitarian societies which control the people through socialistic economies driven by oppressive taxation.

By taxing the people enough to devote an exorbitant three percent of GDP to governmental research, Obama will quickly kill everything which he says he wants to bring about in this country which is already great for reasons obviously unknown to Obama.

Hot diggity damn, if you want Obama's wishlist of inventions to actually happen, you have to let the money and the rule-making stay with the people. Only the people, using their own money and resources, and free of onerous government regulation and control, can create what the current leader of the (current) free world says he wants, things such as

solar cells as cheap as paint; green buildings that produce all the energy they consume; learning software as effective as a personal tutor; prosthetics so advanced that you could play the piano again; an expansion of the frontiers of human knowledge about ourselves and world the around us.

Bureaucrats will never make any of the above happen. No one can legislate genius into existence, no one can collect enough tax to force people to create clever things. No one can make government large enough to bring the world to perfection. Not even Obama.

If we want to keep advancing as a nation we have to keep reminding Obama and all the congress people who seem so very much in love with him, that governments don't create. Only people create. And the government has to be kept very small to allow the people to blossom. The best way to create new incentives for private innovation is to leave the resources in the hands of the individual and never let government get its grubby hands on them!

CNN: Certainly Not Neutral

2009-04-17T01:33:00.014-04:00

Susan Roesgen will soon be a household name. You have never heard of her? No, perhaps not. Not yet. You have not heard of her, and she has not heard of you. SHE is a reporter for CNN, though I use the term loosely from today forward. And YOU are the "thinking man" of America. She truly knows nothing about you and has never met you, nor anyone like you. If you have not seen this snippet of her work, you really must take a look. Almost one hundred thousand people have seen it already. You are a little late!

Are you feeling a tiny touch of outrage about the ignorance of Susan Roesgen? The bias of Susan Roesgen is unparalelled in news reporting. And the fact that she would display her ignorance under the guise of news reporting is shameful.

Whether you have already joined the Tea Party Movement or have yet to figure out why you should do so, this video is likely to make your blood boil. Roesgen is purportedly acting in the capacity of reporter, but she demonstrates no objectivity whatsoever. Does she work for Cable News Network? Or does she work for CERTAINLY NOT NEUTRAL??

She has clearly taken a position on the tea party story, which she is not supposed to do! Not only that, she seeks to educate the father she is interviewing. What is she? A teacher? A teacher who roams the streets with a video crew, hoping to tape her lessons as she lays knowledge upon the masses?

The Tea Party protesters are just average Americans and the man holding the baby is no exception. Roesgen is very hostile and lectures her interviewee to the effect that he is eligible for a four hundred dollar credit, and she apparently thinks he would care. She cannot even conceive of the fact that this man does not want the "crack" the US Government wishes to hand out to its people. She wants him to know that Illinois is going to get a nice present of fifty billion dollars from the federal government. She is angry with him that he wishes to talk of LIBERTY and LINCOLN; she takes a very aggressive tone in barking her information at him. Why is she giving information at all? She is supposed to be LISTENING to this man and collecting information. The father she is berating believes the government should let the people keep their money; presumably this man is against the creation of a nation plagued with dependency. Perhaps he reads my blog, lol. He had to learn this stuff somewhere! He knows all about Unaffordable Lollipops and he doesn't want any. He just wants his freedom and wants to go out and earn (and KEEP) enough money to buy his own lollipops. But Roesgen has no idea that this is the issue!

Susan Roesgen thinks that American voters ought to be happy because handouts are promised. There will be many blogs and articles declaring FIRE SUSAN ROESGEN and Boycott CNN. CNN is unfair, CNN is biased, CNN has an agenda for the world and that agenda does not include informing the viewer. It might have to do with leading us to a progressivist society of collectivism, one which we don't want!

Maybe people would like to send CNN a letter and let them know this kind of reporting and bias will not be tolerated. And if you write, do send a note along to Susan and point her to my blog. She could learn a little bit by reading about lollipops and how much they really cost. She needs to develop an understanding of Unaffordable Lollipops and what those lollipops do to the electorate upon whom they are foisted. When people learn about the costs associated sweet lollipops, (which include the currently impending bankruptcy of otherwise wealthy states and countries), they no longer want anything to do with these goodies. And that is why the Tea Party Movement is growing by leaps and bounds.

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So Many Friedmans (And Krugmans), So Little Time

2009-04-03T04:06:00.009-04:00

If you are like me, you will probably have quite a long reading list, perhaps over at Goodreads.com, and you are not sure what to read first. Here is a little quiz which might help you. Multiple guess!

Which Friedman said it? Tom or Milton?

We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.
If you don`t visit the bad neighborhoods, the bad neighborhoods are going to visit you.

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Who said it? Milton Friedman or Paul Krugman?

“But the vitriol also reflects the fact that many of the people at the Republican National Convention, for all their flag-waving, hate America. They want a controlled, monolithic society; they fear and loathe our nation's freedom, diversity and complexity.
A society that puts equality before freedom will get neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both.

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Who said it? Milton Friedman or Paul Krugman?

“The fundamental fact of American politics - and I've sharpened my view on this since last year and the hardcover edition of the book - is that we've got an alliance between the religious right and the accumulators of great wealth. Those are the people who are running things.”
“What kind of society isn't structured on greed? The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm; capitalism is that kind of a system”

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Which Friedman said it? Tom or Milton?

I basically did all the library research for this book on Google, and it not only saved me enormous amounts of time but actually gave me a much richer offering of research
The most important ways in which I think the Internet will affect the big issue is that it will make it more difficult for government to collect taxes.

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Which Friedman said it? Tom or Milton?

The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist.
Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.

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Which Friedman said it? Tom or Milton?

The historical debate is over. The answer is free-market capitalism. (Okay, so can we start acting on that now, please?)
Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.

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Who said it? Milton Friedman or Paul Krugman?

“Those tax cuts, rather than the spending binge, are the primary cause of the (federal) deficit.” (Wow, did a nobel prize winning economist SERIOUSLY say that?)
“The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.” (Now you're talking!)

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So who should you read? The author who prefers FREEDOM? Or those more interested in creating TYRANNY? The answer of course, is ALL OF THE ABOVE. How else are you going to know what is going on in this crazy world?

Listen Up, Obama

2009-03-13T11:10:00.007-04:00

Who said these wise words? Were these sentiments more likely uttered by Abraham Lincoln, or by his would-be protege, Barack Obama?

"You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage by taking away people's initiative and independence. You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves."

I think we all know the answer. Obama is not thinking in Lincolnian terms. But he most certainly SHOULD. Obama will get it right if he changes direction and takes to heart the words of our sixteenth president. Abraham Lincoln knew better than to destroy the initiative and independence of the people of this great country, by instituting an array of massive big government programs full of unaffordable lollipops designed to do for them what they could and should do for themselves.

What Lincoln Removed, Let Obama not Bring Back

2009-03-12T01:02:00.008-04:00

Obama is trying to model himself after the great Abraham Lincoln, who, by the way said and believed this:

"Property is the fruit of labor...property is desirable...is a positive good in the world. That some should be rich shows that others may become rich, and hence is just encouragement to industry and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the house of another; but let him labor diligently and build one for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be safe from violence when built."

But Obama does not seem to share Lincoln's view. Obama wants to hand out a long list of goodies for the populace, a list of goodies which will be given continuously, now, and forever more. Obama does not particularly want to encourage people to amass wealth on their own and become rich as Lincoln admired. But there is an issue with all of that so-called "giving". The problem with a president who hands out lollipops, is that someone has to pay for all that expensive candy. And who might that payer be, you may ask? OOH, I know! The rich! The rich are just swimming in money, so let's take the money from them, how about that? We are an incredibly wealthy nation, and if we can't manage to share all the trappings of the rich, with all the unfortunate people, then what good are we? How can we look at ourselves in the mirror every morning? No, this will never do. We must take from the rich and give to the poor so that we will have "equity".

This is the thinking of the Obamas. They think the rich are loaded with ill-gotten gains, and that they ought to be made to share all that wealth that somehow just landed on them because they were so lucky. But here is the little secret. The rich, as it turns out, are rich, because the rich work. And they work very hard, most of them. A lot of the wealth in this country is held by very hard-working small business owners, many of whom have taken on a considerable amount of risk to get to where they are today. And here is another truth about the rich. They tend to have a few brain cells.

The rich can see that, under an Obama administration, they are speeding towards higher taxation. They know, too, that they already pay a huge percentage of the entire tax bill for the country. Do you think they want to pay more? Maybe. But maybe not. Particularly when they see the money wasted, going to bail out losing businesses, and to keep Nancy Pelosi happy and smiling, as she flies herself and her family around the world in her special DOD airplanes; and as they subsidize those who don't pay their fair share....our Secretary of the Treasury among them.

No, the rich may decide to go on a bit of a strike. They might decide to cut back on those long hours they work. They might decide to hire less people, giving themselves less to worry about. Why work hard and spin so many plates in the air? Maybe they are close to retirement age? A lot of them might just throw in the towel and retire early. Doctors, for example. The most experienced doctors in your community might soon be closing up shop and heading for no-tax states, such as Florida. All of that will result in less work done by the rich, less spending by the rich. And less tax paid by the rich.

We have already seen the destruction of many of the rich, courtesy of Madoff and the many Madoff copycats. Guess what? The rich ponzi scheme victims won't be paying so much tax any more, now that their holdings are wiped out. Ditto for people who lost half their stock market holdings since it became clear that Obama was going to be elected. And we have seen tens of thousands of jobs lost on Wall Street. Oh darn....some of those people were making big salaries and paying a shedload of tax. That is over now, for many of those people, as they head off to other careers at lower salaries. And the tax they once paid? Well that is over for US now. Gone. Those receipts will never be so high again.

It will be interesting to see what happens as we go forward. Will the rich continue to work extremely hard and take great risk so that they can have the great privilege to buy all the lollipops for the rest of us to enjoy? I hope so! Because if the rich go on strike and stop paying just a portion of the massive share of the tax which they now pay, there is only one group of people left to pay the the remaining, still massive, tax burden.....now let's see.....which group of people would that be?

Oh wow.....looks like you and I are going to have to work ourselves to the bone to pay for the unaffordable lollipops Obama has foisted upon us. We will be paying for years, for decades, for centuries (if this country which Lincoln fought so hard to keep together, lasts that long). We will soon be working to keep the government going, even though the government is supposed to be working for us. Great. So maybe Obama's delusions of grandeur involving himself and one of our greatest presidents are not so crazy after all.

A List of the Lollipops

2009-03-08T01:47:00.004-05:00

Here is a veritable treasure trove of information about how stimulus money might be spent, especially intriguing because you can register your opinion! Citizens around the country with local knowledge about the proposed "shovel-ready" projects in their own cities can find, discuss and rate those unaffordable lollipops, from the new silver led recreation center in Annapolis, Maryland, to the Tannery Arts Center Working Studios in Santa Cruz, CA. If you are already familiar, you can even go so far as to use the wiki feature to add the facts you know right into the description. If you don't know about a project near you, maybe you would like to give your local officials a call and start asking questions. Your local officials will spend the money more wisely if they know you are watching.

Obama has promised to invest stimulus money in a wise way and now it is up to us to make sure that happens, holding public officials to account for the FEDERAL taxpayer money they spend for their local projects. Should federal moneys be used in this way? No. It is not the province of the federal government to tax the citizens all over the land in order to help local areas clean up playgrounds and make nice little bike trails and outdoor museums, etc, etc. After all, the job of the federal government is to pay for federal responsibilities, like defense. But as Obama and Pelosi have pointed out time and time again, they won the election. So they are going to engage in this crazy big spending anyway. Let's just not roll over, however, and let them fritter away this money without hearing an earful from us.

The lollipops on this list of stimulus projects seem to come in two varieties:

ONE: Projects which the local population do not believe are worthy of funding. We all have limited finances, and therefore, we have to set priorities. It is safe to assume that large numbers of items on this list are items the locals did not feel were worthy of their own local tax dollars!

TWO: Projects which the locality had already budgeted money for. (The jurisdiction involved will now simply shift the moneys, and spend their own local taxpayer money on something else). Kind of a shell game, with the federal taxpayer (that would be you and me) being the dupe.

You can find projects by searching or by browsing by locality or program type. Once you find a program, there are three things you can do:

1) vote on whether you believe the project is critical or not; (and see how others are voting)

2) edit the project's description and points in favor or against, and

3) post a comment in the conversation about the project.

Dig in, and let us know what you find. A lot of this stuff sounds just lovely and sweet, as unaffordable lollipops so very often do. But other projects are just unabashed horrendous wastes.

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The Fast Track to Redistribution of Wealth--the Destruction of Your 401K

2009-03-04T08:05:00.009-05:00

The Wall Street Journal knows what is going on in today's economy and it is not pretty. Notable lines:

Most of (Obama's) "stimulus" spending was devoted to social programs, rather than public works, and nearly all of the tax cuts were devoted to income maintenance rather than to improving incentives to work or invest....The market has notably plunged since Mr. Obama introduced his budget last week, and that should be no surprise. The document was a declaration of hostility toward capitalists across the economy.

Health-care stocks have dived on fears of new government mandates and price controls. Private lenders to students have been told they're no longer wanted. Anyone who uses carbon energy has been warned to expect a huge tax increase from cap and trade. And every risk-taker and investor now knows that another tax increase will slam the economy in 2011, unless Mr. Obama lets Speaker Nancy Pelosi impose one even earlier......................The powers in Congress -- unrebuked by Mr. Obama -- are ridiculing and punishing the very capitalists who are essential to a sustainable recovery. The result has been a capital strike, and the return of the fear from last year that we could face a far deeper downturn. This is no way to nurture a wounded economy back to health.........
Listening to Mr. Obama and his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, on the weekend, we couldn't help but wonder if they appreciate any of this.

ARE YOU LISTENING, PRESIDENT OBAMA?

And, perhaps more importantly, to those who were excited to cast a vote for Obama: Are you understanding now what kind of change you have voted in?

I have trouble believing that this is really what America is hoping for, and it certainly ought to be becoming clear now, that when the capitalists take their ball and go home, it becomes increasingly impossible to buy the unaffordable lollipops any society would, in a perfect world, like to have.

One way to equalize the income differences in a population might be to simply remove a massive amount of wealth from a large number of people. Let's hope that this kind of redistribution of wealth is not in any way a part of Obama's plan.

Send a Tea Bag to the White House!

2009-03-02T14:19:00.008-05:00

There are many things we want in life, but some of them are just unaffordable. And so it is with government. That is why it is important to keep government small and run it as cheaply as we can. BUT, It is now crystal clear to Americans that the man who seeks to "make government cool again" has climbed aboard a freight train of spending. He wants big government and he wants it now. This we must stop, because otherwise we are going to have to pay, and we will be paying too much! As always, the middle class will bear the burden, because there are not enough so-called "rich people" to fund these wide-reaching and permanent costs. Already the congress is approving bills which will limit the tax deductions which the middle class are used to having. Removal of deductions is known as a tax increase! So no matter what we were told by the Obama campaign, the middle class will indeed see substantial increases to their taxation. Don't put up with it!

The time to speak up is now. Perhaps you would like to join the New American Tea Party and send a teabag to the White House. Address in the clickable bumper sticker at the top of the page.

Who Bears the Burden of Bipartisanship?

2009-03-01T22:33:00.002-05:00

Let bipartisanship begin with Barack Obama. He’s too far left and he needs to come to the center. It's time he stopped prancing around the country to sign mile-high spending bills and to chastise Republicans who don't agree with his idealistic plans. When he determines to stay in Washington, and to do the hard work of governing, progress might be made. If he can bring himself to craft practical, workable, middle-of-the-road solutions, others will join him and he will find all the bipartisanship support he could dream of.

Lets all go LEFT by WINDYDESIGN
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Telling it like it is

2009-02-27T11:32:00.001-05:00

Quotations from the week:

I can't think of any ongoing enterprise in the history of mankind that is well managed by a government.
------Larry Kudlow, CNBC

We're going to be in this recession a lot longer than we thought, because as soon as we start emerging, high taxes are going to put us right back down.
--------Maria Bartiromo, CNBC

Big government is back and the Democrats are asking you to pay for it.
--------John Boehner, House Republican Leader

Socialism: it works! by WINDYDESIGN
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People are getting angry about the big spending and have started to assemble in cities across the country.
Some talking points from the New American Tea Party.

1. This is a non-partisan event — in fact, it’s critical of both parties — large-scale government interventions into the free market were kicked off under Bush, and Obama’s doing no better.

2. The American taxpayer is better at spending his money than the government. If you ask your average taxpayer if he wanted to spend millions of dollars on golf course renovations, you could be sure he’d say no.

3. Small business owners are the backbone of the economy, not large failing corporations. Amping up regulations only hurts these businesses.

4. It is our *optimism* that guides our frustration. We believe so strongly in the ingenuity and hard work of the American people, that we feel big government measures will only get in the way of their success.

A Surprise?

2009-02-23T06:31:00.001-05:00

In the vein of the unaffordable, we today bring you Britain.....

"£2trillion - the terrifying total of our national debt... that's £33,000 for every man, woman and child in Britain...........City experts said bringing the public finances back into order would mean cutting public spending by at least £60billion - around ten per cent - in 2014, and by £100billion by 2020, as well as big tax rises."

How does a country which provides cradle to grave services for its citizens (such a nice thought) propose to cut that much spending?

And, what, by the way, is a liberal? Some say the word has been corrupted and coopted......interesting:

To be a liberal basically means you believe in individual freedom. And that you accept the responsibilities that this entails. As is clear, this outlook is worlds apart from the collectivist ideologies of those on the left.

Created by LPUK

When one finger points forward, others point back

2009-02-18T08:01:00.002-05:00

Let bipartisanship begin with Barack Obama. He’s too far left and he needs to come to the center. Its time he stopped prancing around the country to sign mile-high spending bills and chastise Republicans. When he determines to stay home and govern by creating middle-of-the-road solutions, he will find all the bipartisanship support he could dream of.

Working and Paying

2009-02-06T10:15:00.000-05:00

If you are ALREADY enriching society by working very hard every day, why would you also want to further enrich society by being one of very few who have to PAY to run that society? Paying taxes is fine, but everyone in the society should have to do it.

As we find out that more and more of our leaders are not actually paying all the tax they owe, and as congress attempts to take more people off the tax rolls entirely, something interesting may come to light. The hard workers may voluntarily take themselves off the tax rolls too, or at least make a conscious decision to spend less time enriching society...thereby impoverishing the society they live in.

Do we REALLY want to penalize the hard workers in this society by raising their taxes?

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Protecting the Middle Class Starts with Saying NO to the Goodies

2008-11-22T09:21:00.000-05:00

We in the US have been promised that we can have our cake and eat it too. The rich, we are told, are going to pay for a complete restructuring of the country into a nanny state which will take care of all manner of ills. Those making under $200,000 will get a tax cut, those who are making between $200K and $250 will have no increase whatsover. Only those making $250,000 and above will have to pay. And they will joyously accept the entire bill!

Good. Let's get started. Sounds like a great plan. Ah, but will it work?

It does not work in other countries, so it seems a bit daft to expect it to work HERE. The middle class are going to have to stand up and protect themselves from increased taxation. After all, that is what we were promised--we are not supposed to have to pay. And let's not forget that. Let's make absolutely sure that we don't get screwed by the rollout of the transformational change we have been promised is coming down the pike.

It is easy to get elected by promising lollipops. Even better if you can convince the people that those lollipops are free. But life is not free. Government is not free. And this blog will examine and monitor the unsustainable notion of Unaffordable Lollipops for the Electorate. I suspect the best way for the middle class to protect itself is going to be to stay aware of what is offered, and to scream quite loudly NO THANK YOU to much of it.