The arrogant American aristocracy
(or a simple game of connect the dots)

"The social psychology and physiognomy of the financial elite - with its wealth, special privileges and its control over the organs of public opinion - resembles nothing so much as a modern aristocracy." - Tom Eley

"America's elites are an urban and international group, perhaps on their way to forming a distinct transnational class. They are cosmopolite-citizens who often have more in common with members of that same class around the world than with other members of their own society."
- Cullen Murphy

"A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one,
and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government."
– Spiro T. Agnew
Spiro T. Agnew was forced to resign
shortly after making the speech
that included this line.

"A political-economic oligarchy has taken over the nation. This oligarchy has institutionalized a body of law that protects businesses at the expense of not only the common people but the nation itself. Businessmen have no loyalties. The Bank of International Settlements insures it, since it is not accountable to any national government.

Thomas Jefferson knew it when he wrote,
"Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on
does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gain."

Mayer Amschel Rothschild knew it when he said,
"Give me control of a nation's money and I care not who makes the laws."

William Henry Vanderbilt knew it when he said, "The public be damned."

Businesses know it when they use every possible ruse to avoid paying taxes, they know it when they offshore jobs and production, they know it when the engage in war profiteering, and they know it when they take both sides in wars, caring not an iota who emerges victorious. IBM, GM, Ford, Alcoa, Du Pont, Standard Oil, Chase Bank, J.P. Morgan, National City Bank, Guaranty, Bankers Trust, and American Express all knew it when they did business as usual with Germany during World War II. Prescott Bush knew it when he aided and abetted the financial backers of Adolf Hitler."
- John Kozy

"All the more gravely to be condemned is the folly of those who neglect to remove or change the conditions
that inflame the minds of peoples, and pave the way for the overthrow and destruction of society."
- POPE PIUS XI ON RECONSTRUCTION OF THE SOCIAL ORDER, May 15,1931

"The British historian Arnold Toynbee argued that civilizations thrive when the lower classes aspire to be like the upper classes, and they decay when the upper classes try to be like the lower classes. Looked at through this prism, it's hard not to see America in a prolonged period of decay." - Jonah Goldberg, December 15, 2009

celebrity politicians

control of oil

earmarks

tort reform

waste and abuse

retaining power through theft

American aristocracy and soldiers

trickle down lapped up by illegal aliens

the privatization of American government

eminent domain - the new profit machine

common sense and neo-con reality

insurance and reality

role of government

subsidize the rich

game theory

You have trusted the sheep to the care of the wolf,
the geese to the keeping of the fox.

"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects." – R. J. Rummel

"Like no administration before it, the Bush administration has mastered what the media critic Walter Lippmann called "the manufacture of consent" - the use of "psychological research, coupled with the modern means of communication," to muster mass support for elite agendas. Staging photo-ops whose choreographed drama and camera-ready visuals ("Mission Accomplished") are intended to play to the emotions and overrule objections; reducing complicated geopolitical issues to black-or-white dualisms (Team America: World Police versus the Axis of Evil!); stonewalling the media, cherry-picking intelligence and parroting Karl Rove-approved talking points - the Bush administration represents the apotheosis of government by spin control." - Mark Dery 6/7/08

American aristocracy has formed a new policy which would call upon the military of the United States of America to suppress 'threats' to the imperial plutocratic hegemony of American aristocracy and their masters anywhere on Earth.

This is a fundamental departure from American traditions first stated in the Monroe Doctrine. No longer must a 'threat' be clear cut and imminent before the psychopathology of the Talmudic/imperial Christian mindset takes action. Using military force against emerging 'threats' before they become imminent has become the Talmudist/imperial Christian central military doctrine. These 'threats' mainly consist in the loss of previously contracted obligations of other nation states to the plutocracy of the American aristocracy and their masters.

American aristocracy, the controllers of the American military-industrial-mass media-corporate complex, are reaping substantial profits from ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, just as they did in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War and the Gulf War.

"The only way to achieve a practical, livable peace in a world of competing nations is to take the profit out of war. " - Richard Nixon

George W. Bush and John F. Kerry were fallaciously presented as two men on opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, liberal and conservative, left and right. George W. Bush and John F. Kerry are both Yale graduates, both belong to the secret society Skull and Crossbones and both come from privileged backgrounds - prep schools, summer homes, East Coast roots and old money.

George W. Bush's and John F. Kerry's social status as American aristocrats determines their ideology.

"The paths to power are different today from those of 100 year ago, but the new paths are as exclusive as the old. Leaders are chosen from a particular group because that is how it has always been done. Tradition dictates that incumbent leaders choose as their successors people who "look like them." By excluding outsiders, they are also keeping potential talent out." - Morgen Witzel

The political battle that rages now has nothing to do with the common working lower and middle class Americans, the Atlas supporting American aristocracies dreamtime. The battle is between those employed by the military-industrial-mass media-corporate complex and their employers, American aristocracy.

Now government employees live better than most common working middle class Americans and the American Dream has become as it was in Saddam Hussein's Iraq, to work as a government enforcer.

Government work remains a model of relative stability. Top officials may become fabulously wealthy like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have. Starting pay is good enough to provide a secure, upper middle class lifestyle and workhours allow time for family and vacations. Healthcare is relatively good, and pensions - a relic in the private sector except for top management - just appear to keep getting better. American aristocracy needs enforcers. (My wife, who has worked over 30 years in the private sector, gets only a two week vacation, the direct result of mergers and corporate relocations.)

In California a civil servant, after 30 years of 'service', can retire at age 55 with 60% of his salary. Police officers and prison guards get larger pensions. Highway patrolmen can retire at 50 with 90% of their pay. Retired state workers retain health insurance. American aristocracy needs enforcers.

"Retired government employees receive the most generous pensions in the country." - Rob Schmitz

Bruce Malkenhorst, a retired city manager collects a $500,000 a year. Joaquin Fuster gets $296,000. James Stahl, who was with the Los Angeles County Sanitation District, receives $265,000.

In 1999 California spent $160 million on its retirees. In 2009 California will spend $3.4 billion on retiree pensions.

"We have two classes of citizens: Government employees who can retire at younger and younger ages, and those who have to wait longer to retire so they can pay government employees." - Robert Somerville

"I spend a lot of time fighting this incredible goverment giveaway to what has become the new aristocracy - public employees." - Richard Rider

American aristocrats political propaganda perpetuates the idea that the American aristocrats who own controlling interests in the stock of oil, insurance, banking, telecommunications and mass media corporations, as well as weapons manufactures, are just regular guys who shop at Wal-Mart and eat at McDonald's. (George H.W. Bush, Sr. did not know what a bar code scanner was, because he had never seen one!)

"For decades, the wealthy have been held up as people to be admired, victors in the Darwinian economic struggle by virtue of their personal ingenuity and hard work. Americans consistently supported fiscal policies that undermined middle and working-class interests partially because they saw themselves as rich-people-in-waiting: Given time, toil and the magic of compound interest, anyone could retire a millionaire. That mind-set has all but been eradicated by the damage sustained by the average worker's nest egg, combined with the spectacle of bankers and financial engineers maintaining their lifestyles with multimillion-dollar bonuses while the submerged 99% struggle for oxygen. By my count, roughly one-quarter of the names on the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans got there by inheritance (and by no means have all of them enhanced the family fortune with their own toil or brainpower). A few years ago, it was common to think of the rich as a special breed. We may soon come around to George Orwell's view that the only difference between rich and poor is income." - Michael Hiltzik, March 19, 2009

"Control in modern times requires more than force, more than law. It requires that a population dangerously concentrated in cities and factories, whose lives are filled with cause for rebellion, be taught that all is right as it is. And so, the schools, the churches, the popular literature taught that to be rich was a sign of superiority, to be poor a sign of personal failure, and that the only way upward for a poor person was to climb into the ranks of the rich by extraordinary effort and extraordinary luck." - Howard Zinn

"I sympathize with the poor, but the number of poor who are to be sympathized with is very small. To sympathize with a man whom God has punished for his sins is to do wrong. Let us remember there is not a poor person in the United States who was not made poor by his own shortcomings." - Russell Conwell, minister and graduate Yale law school, "Acres of Diamonds" sermon

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

Joe Hill, born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund

"We have habits that are practically impossible to break, prejudices we can't undo, subconscious motives we can't guide, and mental boundaries we can't surmount. Many of these behaviors are culturally influenced. And if free will is less than we thought, its mythology has great political consequences. It gives us the power to blame victims who have no real choice, and to dismiss the helpless who have no real chance." - JD Trout

American aristocrats send their sons to the "best" private schools and the Ivy League universities.

Freshly minted young American aristocrats become corporate executives. Well connected corporate executives rise to the top of the corporate pyramid and become CEOs.

American aristocrats contribute to politicians that pass laws to subsidize American corporations at the expense of common working lower and middle class Americans.

American aristocrats contribute to politicians that pass laws so that 60% of American corporations pay no taxes.

American aristocrats contribute to politicians that pass laws so that a corporation is protected under the Bill of Rights as a living breathing human being instead of a conceptualized 'thing' created by law and allowed to exist and function institutionally only by a construct of law.

American aristocrats determine the massive lay offs and the movement of corporations abroad that gut the economies of cities and drive families from comfort into chaos.

American aristocrats support the notion that critical thinking is dangerous.

American aristocrats want common working lower and middle class Americans to believe that they are just luckier, more photogenic versions of common working Americans.

American aristocrats quote the Bible in political contexts that have nothing to do with the original conceptual image.

Bible stories resonate with common working Americans because they are often about individuals who, while deeply flawed, overcome the trials and tribulations of living - but these men and women were not celebrity heroes.

Today Paul would be commited to a mental institution for attempting to explain imperial Christianity.

King David would be dispossed for having an affair and murdering the woman's husband.

These biblical role models create an understandable mythical moral vision.

Their mythic moral vision is what makes these biblical role models memorable, and for that Americans still tell their stories.

It is precisely because Americans tell stories of their biblical role models that American aristocracy adopts and uses the same biblical language.

celebrity politicians and the relationship between celebrities and politicians

A recent shining example of American aristocracy newest ploy is the celebrity politician.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Terminator, married to Maria Shriver. Maria Shriver, contributing anchor on Dateline NBC from 1989 until 2004, is the daughter of the politician Sargent Shriver and his wife Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Maria Shriver's mother is a sister of the assassinated John F. Kennedy, assassinated Robert F. Kennedy, and Patricia Kennedy.

Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrity gives him unique political opportunities - the ability to draw crowds and cameras and to raise millions from celebrity struck donors.

It was quite gentlemanly of the Wall Street bond brokers, American aristocracies front men, to give $10 million for advertising propaganda to pass the refinance of California state government. Arnold Schwarzenegger support assured the passage of the $15 billion bond measure. (Note: California state government would not have had to be bailed out if Ken 'Kenny Boy' Lay and his energy providing buddies hadn't overcharged California $9 billion through energy 'deregulation'. California now pays $3 billion a year to repay bond indebtedness.)

Could anyone else have raised so much money so quickly or moved so many votes?

Ronald Reagan could have. Ronald Reagan was the penultimate celebrity turned politician.

Celebrity politicians simultaneously practice intimidation and ingratiation. Campaign contributors, ordinary voters and lawmakers identify with 'world class' celebrity and praise celebrity status. (Most religions would identify this as idol worship!)

Other celebrity politicians include:

Fred Dalton Thompson, The Hunt for Red October and In the Line of Fire, made when he was a Senator from Tennesee.

Fred Dalton Thompson acting career intersected a law practice, in which he was of counsel to a major Washington law firm. Fred Dalton Thompson has been an assistant United States attorney; minority counsel, Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities; special counsel to Tennessee Governor Lamar Alexande; special counsel, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations; special counsel, Senate Intelligence Committee; member, Tennessee Appellate Court Nominating Commission.

Helen Gahagan Douglas starred on Broadway and in the opera was elected to the House of Representatives in 1944.

Sonny Bono was elected to the House of Representatives seat representing Palm Springs in 1992, and re-elected in 1996.

Fred Grandy, gopher on the Love Boat television series, was elected to the representatives seat representing Iowa four times.

Jesse Ventura, of World Wrestling Federation fame, was elected govenor of Minnesota.

Andrea Mitchell, NBC foreign affairs correspondent, is married to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan.

CNN international correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, is married to James Rubin, a former assistant secretary for public affairs and a chief spokesman for the State Department.

Film maker Kevin Rafferty is George W. Bush's cousin.

Richard D. Parsons , the chairman and CEO of AOL Time Warner, was counsel for Nelson Rockefeller and a senior White House aide under Gerald Ford.

Bill Moyers served as deputy director of the Peace Corps during the John F. Kennedy administration and was later a special assistant to Lyndon Johnson from 1963-1965 before serving as Lyndon Johnson's press secretary from 1965-1967.

In 1968 Shirley Temple was appointed by Richard Nixon as a American representative at the United Nations. Shirley Temple served as American ambassador to Ghana from 1974 to 1976, when she became American chief of protocol. In 1989 George H. W. Bush appointed Shirley Temple ambassador to Czechoslovakia.

Ben Stein, was a speechwriter and lawyer for Richard Nixon at the White House and then for Gerald Ford.

Diane Sawyer was an assistant to Richard Nixon for eight years.

ABC News correspondent Pierre Salinger was the press secretary for John F. Kennedy.

Peter Lawford , who appeared in the movies Exodus, Ocean's Eleven, and The Longest Day was married to Patricia Kennedy.

Politicians that can sell product will always climb to the top of the heap. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a born salesman thus worthy of idol worship in the cult of materialistic consumerism in an America where product sales are all that counts.

In the autumn of 2004 Arnold Schwarzenegger described how he sold California in Japan, " I'm here to promote and promote and promote. Market, market, market. This is what I know how to do, and I know that it pays off. Everyone is making it sound better than it is. Because that is what marketing is all about."

December 1, 2005 superior court judge Lloyd G. Connelly ruled that state law bars state officials from using taxpayer money for propaganda and that the Arnold Schwarzenegger administration violated state law by producing fake news videos.

In 2004 Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that passed the California legislature which would have regulated the 'food supplement' industry. The 'food supplements' that would have been regulated are body building drugs disguised as food supplements. In 2005 it was revealed that Arnold Schwarzenegger had a contract worth $8 million to help advertise and sell these body building drugs.

"Arnold Schwarzenegger is not a populist. Arnold Schwarzenegger professional background is playacting, and his personal life consists of associating with the rich and powerful. Before running for office Arnold Schwarzenegger showed little evidence of self-denial or social responsibility. Yet Californians were taken in by Arnold Schwarzenegger laughable no-fundraising, I'll-balance-the-budget promises." - Bonnie Sloan

In October 2005 Arnold Schwarzenegger was pushing several initiatives in the $78 million special election he called in California. Speaking of George W. Bush's fund raising for the Republican party on the eve of the election Arnold Schwarzenegger stated, "We would have appreciated if George W. Bush would have done his fund raising after the November 8 election, because you know we need now all the money in the world. We want to make sure that we win, that we can have our TV spots out there on television, which is very important."

Arnold Schwarzenegger ran on a political platform that stated he would not follow in Grey Davis' footsteps. Arnold Schwarzenegger claimed Grey Davis was too concerned with campaign contributions.

Abraham Lincoln would never be elected today. Abraham Lincoln was ugly. Americans now like photogenic Terminator type leaders. Americans now want leaders who 'appear' to be flawless in past and present, which limits the intelligence, curiosity and experience of winning American candidates. Americans now prefer someone shallow, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, to someone with a width and depth of life experience.

"I could opine here about the exigent for the American voter to look beyond the superficial and telegenic candidate, but I may as well wish that people would stop talking on their cellphones while driving." - Arch Miller

Americans have disqualified candidates for president and vice president because they wept. An inability to feel emotion deeply is required for high office. Americans now prefer 'real' (macho) men (Terminator and weapons of mass destruction under the hall table? ha ha ha).

Americans now respond to political candidates as Americans respond to celebrities: Do we like them, find them attractive, and can we identify with the character they project in mass media? Will they look good, sound sincere, and be forceful when making speeches?

Americans appear to believe that looking good in a military pose is more important than having a grasp of what war actually involves to the invading country and the invaded.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

A conceptually accurate understanding of the history of Iraq would have helped immensely before America invaded Iraq, but Americans have been trained by mass media, American aristocracies mouthpiece, to mistrust men of ideas and education.

tort reform

The Medical Malpractice Myth

"Notice corporate outrage: How dare an elected official represent any interests of any other citizens? The thought of permitting this kind of "precedent" of citizens having a say in their own government, and therefore quality of life, is far too frightening to the corporate thugs and the other politicians who ride on their backs. Corporations enjoy the rights of individuals with none of the social responsibilities. Government is run by those with the money for lawsuits." - Rhonda Herbel

Corporations have been campaigning for tort reform ever since corporations were first chartered.

"The language of the corporate campaign against the individual's legal rights itself conceives of the corporation's humanlike frailties and sensitivity to damage. The corporation must be protected from a "litigation explosion". The individual becomes a dangerous thing responsibile for explosions." - Jamie Court

The RAND Institute for Civil Justice conducted a comprehensive study of injured Americans in the 1980s and found that only 2 percent of those injured sought recovery through lawsuits.

"Despite all the rhetoric about litigiousness, empirical research shows that Americans are not all that litigious" - Deborah R. Hensler, director of the RAND Institute for Civil Justice

The National Center for State Courts reported that in state trial courts in 1992, less than 2 percent of all cases were tort cases.

Between 1985 and 1991(including suits relating to asbestos exposure), the number of product-liability cases in federal courts fell by 40 percent, from 8,268 cases to 4,992.

During the same period of time, nearly half of all federal lawsuits filed involved business to business disputes.

"'Tort reformers' set up tax exempt groups in at least 18 states to broadcast their mantra of 'lawsuit abuses' with 27 active groups. They claimed to speak for individuals, operating under names such as Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse, Stop Lawsuit Abuse, Lawsuit Abuse Watch and People for a FAIR Legal System. The money trail from many of these groups leads directly to large corporate donors, including tobacco, insurance, oil and gas, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, medical associations and auto manufacturers." - November 2000 joint report of Public Citizen and The Center for Justice and Democracy

"Companies that were once content to fight in grocery-store aisles and on television commercials are now choosing a different route - filing lawsuits and other formal grievances challenging their competitors' claims. Longtime foes like Pantene and Dove, Science Diet and Iams, AT&T and Verizon Wireless, and Campbell Soup and Progresso have all wrestled over ads recently. The goal is usually not money but market share. Companies file complaints to get competitors' ads withdrawn or amended." - Stephanie Clifford

Corporations file false-advertising lawsuits under the Lanham Act, passed in 1946 to strengthen trademark law. While there are no reliable tracking numbers on cases filed under that law, lawyers say they are seeing an increase. In 2009 United Parcel Service stopped running ads saying it was the "most reliable" shipping company after FedEx sued. AT&T sued Verizon Wireless over, literally, white space.

"How brands will deal with their competitors' advertisements is an increasingly important component of the overall marketing strategy. When we're sitting with clients, we will explore lots of permutations, whether it's offensively or defensively." - Linda A. Goldstein

Contracts for credit cards, car purchases, health care, bank loans and most contracts between the individual and the corporation now contain mandatory arbitration agreements which effectively undermines the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

waste and abuse

American government waste and abuse is a direct reaction to mass media marketing of the lifestyle of the American aristocrat.

American men and women holding government positions have been conditioned to believe that with a little luck, hard work and aristocratic flare they too can join the ranks of American aristocracy.

The General Accounting Office stated in a report that hundreds of millions of dollars could be saved each year if there were stricter controls on the use of government issued credit cards. From 1994 to 2003 the use of government purchase cards increased from $1 billion to $16 billion. General Accounting Office audits of the charge cards found ineffective management, oversight and weak internal controls at the departments of Agriculture, Army, Navy, Air Force, Interior, Justice, Transportation and Veterans Affairs.

A Navy employee had used a government credit card to make 59 fraudulent purchases worth more than $132,000 which included two cars, cosmetic surgery and a motorbike.

A Defense Department employee used a purchase card to charge $1.7 million in fraudulent purchases from a fictitious company set up by her brother.

Government subsidies corporate waste and Americans subsidize American government.

Government and corporate America abuses and wastes more of the public's wealth than most Americans can even conceive of. Most of this waste and abuse ends up as wealth in the hands of well capitalized clever men who manipulate resources for personal gain. This wealth is obtained through unfair business practices, sweatshops, government decree and no bid contracts! Think Halliburton!

Los Angeles prosecutor Richard Ceballos wrote a memo suggesting a Los Angeles county sheriff's deputy had lied in a search warrant affidavit. The United States Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that Richard Ceballos' statements about a potential lie in a search-warrant affidavit were "inherently a matter of public concern" protected by the Constitution.

In May 2006 the Supreme Court decided that the ‘memo was inflammatory' and that a government employee while performing his official duties may be fired or demoted for bringing to light misconduct or corruption within the employing public institution.

"The 5-4 decision essentially says that government employees can be fired or demoted if they reveal information about wrongdoing to their co-workers, to management or possibly to government investigators.

This decision sends a terrible message and could be deeply damaging to efforts to fight fraud, abuse and corruption.

Almost half of all fraud, detection in government agencies is estimated to come from tips, very often received through whistleblowers.

My office, which is charged, among other things, with rooting out fraud, and waste in the Los Angeles city government, routinely receives credible whistleblower information from city employees.

In the last five years we have conducted more than 100 audits and investigations, and I can tell you that if we had not offered protection and anonymity to whistleblowers, the results would have been less than fruitful.

Let there be no doubt.

If employees are no longer protected by the First Amendment when they speak out then precious sources of information will wither away. " - Laura Chick, Los Angeles city controller.

Laura Chick helped the United States attorney to successfully prosecute the public relations giant Fleishman-Hillard, with the help of employees of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, for fraudlent over billing for several million dollars. (American aristocracy may win again! Doug Dowie and John Stodder freed on bail while awaiting an appeal on their prison sentences, due to the following Supreme Court decision.)

"The United States Supreme Court decision to deny whistleblower protection to public employees continues what many of us already know. As the salaries of top government bureaucrats rise faster than the price of gasoline, job protection and career advancement become everyone's top priority. Nonelected bureaucrats surround themselves with "yes men" loyal only to the boss, often at the expense of the very people their office was created to serve. Intelligent employees know that submitting ideas, comments or criticisms up the chain of command is futile at best and career suicide at worst. The result? Government gets bigger, slower, less productive and more costly. The State Legislature should restore the whistleblower protection that the Supreme Court took away by a 5-4 vote. While shooting the messenger may protect the bureaucrat, it does not protect the public." - Daniel J. Schmidt

control of oil

"George W. Bush's national debt-boosting budget proposal signifies that America is broke. Further, it is another omen that America's bid for a dominating world empire led by Pentagon military supremacy is on the way to being broken. Americans will finally grasp that the Iraq debacle was a product of the effort to achieve a crucial link in the burgeoning American empire - namely, control over Mideast oil reserves - and had little to do with the deceptive claims of weapons of mass destruction, connections to 911 and al-Qa`ida or the promotion of democracy. They will come to see another connection: Unending increases in military expenditures sink empires. As a World War II veteran who served overseas, I am concerned about national security in this troubled world. However, this must rest not on imperial dominance but on intelligent cooperation with fellow nations and a reasonable level of military assets." - Benjamin Solomon 02/08

Oil price anxieties are acute among American aristocracy which wants America to continue to burn a quarter of the Earth's oil production or more.

"Soaring oil prices are the inevitable result of a policy that creates a monopoly on energy for oil companies and ties consumers to a product with serious health and environmental consequences." - Nathan Springer

Hummers for sale! Remember Arnold Schwarzenegger drives a Hummer!

Nearly every severe global recession of the last 50 years has been preceded by a jump in the price of oil.

American aristocracy sees control of Iraq as the key to lowering American oil prices, bolstering the American economy and ending OPEC's 30-year stranglehold on the global oil market.

Iraq is important as political turmoil has now throttled oil booms in Columbia, Russia and Africa. What has happened and is happening is unfortunate and possibly unexpected by federal government administrators blind to the history of Iraq. Educated individuals would have had the foresight to realize that firing all Iraqi government employees, Baath party members, would undermine the American military machine by turning those that knew how to run state institutions into insurgents blowing up oil pipelines!

For the past few decades investment banker Matthew R. Simmons, chairman and CEO of the leading oil industry investment bank Simmons & Co. International, has been financing the exploration and development of new oil reserves. In a newly released book, Twilight in the Desert, Matthew R. Simmons states;

(1) Most of Saudi Arabia's oil output is generated by a few giant fields, of which Ghawar - the Earth's largest - is the most prolific.

(2) These giant oil fields were first developed 40 to 50 years ago, and have since given up much of their easily extracted oil.

(3) To maintain high levels of production in these major oil fields, the Saudis have come to rely increasingly on the use of water injection and other secondary recovery methods to compensate for the drop in natural field pressure.

(4) As time passes, the ratio of water to oil in these underground fields rises to the point where further oil extraction becomes difficult, if not impossible and there is very little reason to assume that future Saudi exploration will result in the discovery of new oil fields to replace those now in decline.

The Earth's most technologically advanced nation, America, has made only feeble efforts to develop alternatives to oil or to improve fuel efficiency, especially in cars. Not only is fuel efficiency seen as detrimental, oversized vehicles are subsidized by the government through tax breaks!

Hummers for sale! Remember Arnold Schwarzenegger drives a Hummer!

American aristocracy needs to concede that the oil supply is not limitless, that cheap oil days are over and America needs an entirely fresh approach to energy.

retaining power through theft

"Everywhere I turned I saw people who seemed quite happy to make money doing things that drained and liquidated our permanent infrastructure and productivity as a people and a nation." - Catherine Austin Fitts

"If we continue to bestow wealth, trust and honor on the cheaters, then the devastating message that is conveyed to society in general and to youth in particular will diminish all our lives."
- Mark M. Williams

"Perhaps the claims of ideological purity and consistency on the part of the status quo's elite are mere marketing. Perhaps the members of this elite are committed to no ideology at all. Perhaps all they care about is their own self-interest. Perhaps they will espouse any position at all if they believe it will be profitable. Perhaps they are the proverbial progeny of Cain and the mark they bear is a capital S with a vertical line drawn through its center. Perhaps they are merely scoundrels." - John Kozy

"Americans are well aware of the nation's worsening income inequality. The wages of ordinary working people have in recent years become detached from rising productivity and allowed to sink, in real terms, even as America's piscinarii, the small group at the very top, see their share of the nation's total wealth grow and grow, and their taxes shrink and shrink." - Cullen Murphy

A good example of the way in which American aristocracy steals from common working lower and middle class Americans is the California energy market debacle. Lawyers for big energy wrote the energy deregulation law. Lobbyists presented it to the California legislature on the last day (urgent!) it could get on the initiative ballot and without examination allowed its passage.

Big energy then spent a huge sum of money on mass media advertising. Actors hired by big energy explained how this was going to be the best deal for all Californians. Californians were told they would be saving money for the next fifty years. (Instead California will be in debt for at least fifty years!)

The law went into effect. To make a energy market feasible the energy industry had to purchase software from a Ross Perot company that would allow it to trade on the newly opened, Enron operated, private energy market.

Enron, as a trader in it's self-regulated private energy futures exchange, made bad energy futures bets.

{To cover the losses Enron created over 400 off-balance-sheet "special purpose" entities. Enron's plunge occurred after it was revealed that much of its profits and revenue were the result of deals with off-balance-sheet "special purpose" entities (limited partnerships which it controlled). The result was that many of Enron's debts and losses suffered were not reported in its financial statements.}

At the same time, to make this an even better deal for energy companies, a Ross Perot marketing company went to work selling a manual that taught energy traders how to drive up energy prices through trading schemes with other profiteering trader's.

To offset loses Enron traders and other profiteering trader's manipulated California's energy market throughout the 2000-2001 energy crisis through schemes with nicknames including Fat Boy, Get Shorty, Death Star. These tactics were used to manipulate wholesale power markets while delivering profits to the energy traders even as Californians suffered through rolling blackouts and soaring energy bills.

These trading practices are documented on the Colorado River Commission phone conversation tape recordings and mirror those found in earlier investigations. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission opposed the release of the tapes and has opposed the refund of $9 billion stolen from "Grandma Millie", a fictitious California grandmother, that Enron traders joked of stealing from.

A trader identified as Mallory on the transcript stated "If the line is not congested I just look to congest it. If you can congest it, that's a money maker no matter what 'cause you're not losing money to move it down the line." Traders also stated on these tapes that their scam was protected because George W. Bush would not allow the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to impose price caps as one of George W. Bush's good buddies, Enron CEO Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay.

"According to opensecrets.org, Kenneth "Kenny Boy" Lay and his Enron pals gave more than $6.5 million to political campaigns over a 15 year period."- Dennis Doyle

"This helps make California's case because it clearly shows the intention to abuse the market by several new energy players, and it clearly shows that this ricochet game was being played by parties in cooperation with each other." - Erik Saltmarsh, chief counsel and acting director of California's Electricity Oversight Board.

"This is more than a smoking gun. It is an audiotape of the gun being fired, the bullet hitting the victim and the murderer standing over the victim and laughing."- Russ Campbell, a Nevada Power lawyer.

Unbelievably these tape recordings came to light because Enron sued the small Snohomish County Public Utility District for $122 million claiming it had been underpaid. So Snohomish County spent $100,000 having the Colorado River Commission phone conversation tapes transcribed.

American aristocracy cashed in big time on this one. Will they be required to refund Grandma Millie's money? Not likely! (see bond bailout)

"The 2001 California energy crisis precipitated by Enron shenanigans resulted in several deaths. Why were no manslaugter charges brought?" - Tom Lutz

"The politics that has dominated Washington since the election of George W. Bush is a corrupt brand of right-wing corporatism. People who reside in the highest 1% of the income spectrum or have K Street lobbyists at their command have done very well." - Jonathan Chait

In the summer of 2006 two Houston energy traders were found quilty of wire fraud for fraudulently quoting energy prices. In March 2007 former trade manager John Forney was sentenced to 2 years probation and fined $4000 for driving up the price of power in 2000 and 2001 by faking transmission congestion. James Brooks, Wesley Walton and James Patrick were convicted in 2008 of reporting false trade data to manipulate natural gas prices from 2000 to 2002.

These six are scapegoats as they are the only ones ever prosecuted in the multi-billion dollar rip-off! California had to sell bonds to pay off the $9 billion rip-off American aristocracy protects it's own! The designers of the rip-off remain free and wealthy!

The greed never ends:

British Petroleum agreed to pay a fine of $303.5 million in October 2007 for conspiring to fix propane prices in 2003 and 2004. In 2006 British Petroleum reported an adjusted net profit of $22 billion or $60 million per day.

The Carnegie Mellon Electricty Industry Center in Pittsburg concluded in 2008 that American electricity consumers are paying more for electricity than they would have if the American electrical industry had remained regulated.

"Those of us in the renewable-energy trenches are finding the battle to install solar becoming more difficult as building officials implement new restrictions that are not only seriously increasing the costs but in many cases making it unfeasible to install panels on a great percentage of rooftops. Instead of becoming less costly, streamlined or more manageable, the permit process in most Southern California cities has become a Sisyphean task. Almost daily, municipalities are adding fees and requirements that make getting a permit the most difficult part of going solar. If these trends continue, it will soon be impossible to get a permit for a solar system unless you are working for a municipality or a utility." - Patrick A. Redgate 08/08

"Anyone thinking that Big Energy (including Big Solar and Big Wind) will solve America's energy problems must suffer from Stockholm syndrome. As long as we are implementing a new paradigm and point-of-use renewable generation is feasible on hundreds of millions of properties already, why re-enslave ourselves to wasteful, wilderness killing centralized power plants and massive power lines owned by monopolists, rather than working harder for independence from all Big Energy monopolies, whatever their fuel? The debate is not Big Fossils versus Big Renewables, it is Big Energy versus ratepayers and the planet. We all know which lobby is stronger." - Shelia Bowers 08/08

David B. Rivkin, Jr. served in the Office of then Vice President George Bush, as Legal Advisor to the Counsel to the President, and as Deputy Director of the Office of Policy Development (OPD), U.S. Department of Justice. David B. Rivkin, Jr. was Associate General Counsel, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) responsible for international, constitutional, environmental and energy matters from 1990-91. David B. Rivkin, Jr. was Associate Executive Director and Counsel of the President's Council on Competitiveness at the White House until 1993. David B. Rivkin, Jr. handled the development and implementation of President Bush's de-regulatory initiatives, carried out during 1991-92 which included a leading role in the development of Order 636, which introduced major changes to the regulation of the interstate natural gas pipelines, and simultaneously served as the Special Assistant for Domestic Policy to then Vice President Dan Quayle. David B. Rivkin, Jr. legal opinions played a significant role in developing the Reagan and Bush Administrations' regulatory and legislative proposals affecting natural gas and electric utility industries which lead to the California energy market debacle. David B. Rivkin, Jr. is a lawyer and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.David B. Rivkin, Jr. legally supported the pardon of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

"Goldman Sachs was one of the founding partners of online commodities and futures marketplace Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). And ICE has been a primary focus of recent congressional investigations; it was named both in the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' June 27, 2006, Staff Report and in the House Committee on Energy & Commerce's hearing. Those investigations looked into the unregulated trading in energy futures, and both concluded that energy prices' climb to stratospheric heights has been driven by the billions of dollars' worth of oil and natural gas futures contracts being placed on the ICE, which is not regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission." - Ed Wallace

"Oil prices are largely not determined by supply and demand but the trading desks of large Wall Street firms." - Michael Masters, hedge fund manager

insurance and reality

In the second quarter of 2007 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reported record earnings, mostly from it's insurance division, of $3.1 billion ($3,100,000,000). Berkshire Hathaway Inc. made over a billion dollars a month basically by selling insurance.

"Those who do not live in high-risk areas should not be made to subsidize those who do, as such subsidies actually encourage more building in such areas." - Gary C. Simons

"All across the country, insurance companies of every sort have attempted to reduce their risk by increasing rates, dropping customers who submit claims and, as a final insult, denying legitimate claims. If there ever was a definition of a "criminal enterprise," the modern American insurance industry fits the bill!" - Carl Schellenberg 10/28/07

Another American aristocracy ploy is the selling of insurance. Insurance companies are owned and operated for the benefit of American aristocracy, not to 'protect' the individual from financial calamity. Take for example a recent case in which two retired women, Linda Williams and B. Walker were sued by a neighbor, Juanita Wasson, who suffered a broken hip after being knocked down by their automatic garage door.

Farmers insurance defended the homeowners association, to which Williams and Walker belonged, but filed a cross compliant against them believing that they did not have the resources to fight in court. The two women maxed out there credit cards to hire lawyers.

The conclusion, $ 8.3 million was levied against Farmers insurance as punitive damages for breach of good faith!!!

"I became aware that many adjusters employed by Allstate were engaging in conduct which was improper, unlawful, fraudulent, and in bad faith. I became aware of cases in which the adjuster retained an engineer and requested that the engineer provide a report determining and detailing the cause and extent of the damage caused by the earthquake. Allstate's adjusters were requiring engineers to provide a draft or preliminary report for the adjuster's review. Where an engineer's draft report attributed any amount of damage, in the adjuster's opinion, that could possibly have been exacerbated by the earthquake and/or damage which may not be covered under the policy according to the adjusters, the adjuster would instruct the engineer to alter the report to reflect the adjuster's changes. Engineers were repeatedly instructed to alter draft reports in order to minimize the damage attributable to covered losses in order to reduce any potential payments to the insured and in order to benefit Allstate's financial interests."- Allstate claims analyst Jo Anne Lowe commenting on the Northridge earthquake of 1/17/94 in California.

In April 2007 a jury verdict was rendered in a case against Allstate. Allstate was ordered to pay over $2 million to a Louisiana homeowner who sued the insurer for manipulating an engineering report to reduce its payment in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Do you believe that long term care insurance is a good idea? Think again! Become disabled and make a claim and your insurance policy will be ‘discontinued'. Just ask Veray Smith, Vera Smith's daughter and now, thanks to a ‘discontinued' insurance policy, Vera Smith's full time care giver.

Think the workman's compensation insurance policy your employer carries will protect you? Not if you are assaulted and seriously injured on the job! Just ask Mary Stone who had to wait a year for surgery and who then lost the use of her right arm because she was denied postoperative physical therapy by her employer's workman's compensation insurance policy carrier.

"The statement that "for the majority of people hurt on the job, the overhauled worker's compensation system works" is at odds with reality. This reform was designed to line the pockets of wealthy insurance industry CEOs and stockholders at the expense of working people. The reality is that if you are someone who lives from paycheck to paycheck, worker's compensation reform leaves you one serious injury away from utter financial ruin." - Ernest A. Canning

"An unregulated oligopolistic insurance-brokerage sector inevitably leads to predator pricing. "Cartelized competition" is what we have in American insurance markets." - Jerome Gordon

THE REALITY IS THIS: IF YOU DO NOT HAVE ADEQUATE FINANCIAL RESOURCES TO HIRE LEGAL REPRESENTATION THE 'INSURANCE' YOU BELIEVE WILL PROTECT YOU AND YOUR ASSETS IS NOT WORTH THE VALUE OF THE PAPER IT IS WRITTEN ON.

"The insurance contracts state clearly if anything in the application is false or incomplete, insurance coverage may be rescinded." - Tom Epstein, BlueSheild spokesman

The nature of reality is that not all things are known, there are unknowns, therefore all information is incomplete.

In California it is nearly impossible to purchase individual health insurance (not employer provided) unless you have never had surgery, allergies, asthma, ear infections, ulcers or been depressed.

"According to regulators' postings, rejection letters and interviews with insurance brokers, conditions that can lead to outright rejection or a higher premium include: AIDS, allergies, arthritis, asthma, attention deficit disorder, autism, bed-wetting, breast implants, cancer, cerebral palsy, chronic bronchitis, chronic fatigue syndrome, chronic sinusitis, cirrhosis, cystitis, diabetes, ear infections, epilepsy, gender reassignment, heart disease, hemochromatosis, hepatitis, herpes, high blood pressure, impotence, infertility, irritable bowel syndrome, joint sprain, kidney infections, lupus, , muscular dystrophy, migraines, miscarriage, pregnancy, "expectant fatherhood," planned adoption, psoriasis, recurrent tonsillitis, renal failure, ringworm, severe mental disorders, sleep apnea, stroke, ulcers and varicose veins." - Lisa Girion

"Insurance companies are offloading sick people onto the county system. They want a guarantee that they are going to make money. That's why they won't take sick people. They are missing the point about assuming some risk." - Scott Svonkin

Insurance companies refuse to underwrite individual health insurance policies for people that are employed in - controlling air traffic; moving buildings; chemical and rubber manufacturing; circus or carnival work; concrete or asphalt work; crop dusting; firefighting; furniture and fixtures manufacturing; as a lumber jack; oil well and refinery operations; police work; roofing; sandblasting; sports; stables; stockyard; stunt work; telecom installation; transportation; tree trimming; tunnel excavation; war reporting and washing windows higher than three stories up.

In 2005 the insurance industry amassed record profits of $44.8 billion ($44,800,000,000) in a year of catastrophic loss.

"Unless insurers can get relief you are going to see a pullback by private industry."- Robert P. Hartwig, chief economist of the industry funded Insurance Information Industry

$44.8 billion profit is penny ante stuff to these rough riders of catastrophic calamity. $44.8 billion is just not the return that the insurance industry expected on their difficult to understand legalize laden, layers of lawyers approved insurance policies.

Barbara Fowler, Health Net's senior analyst in charge of rescissions reviews, was expected to cancel 15 policies a month in 2001. Barbara Fowler exceeded her quota by canceling 275 policies. 2003 was a banner year for Barbara Fowler as she saved Health Net $6 million by canceling 301 policies. In 2005 Health Net set a goal for Barbara Fowler to save Health Net $6.5 million which she exceeded. Barbara Fowler's bonuses ranged from $1654 to $6300 for canceling health insurance policies of individuals experiencing expensive medical costs.

"No surprise that Health Net gave out bonuses to drop sick insurance policyholders. The for-profit health insurance industry will always be the winner, as it has to be." - Sheila Hoff

In November 2007 Health Net agreed to pay a $1 million fine and promised to no longer link compensation to coverage cancellation. (At least they now understand it is not good to make it blatantly obvious!)

"It is disgusting how Health Net dropped a patient in the midst of chemotherapy. Barbara Fowler, Health Net's "senior analyst in charge of rescission reviews" profited from it through bonuses. How many years in medical school did Barbara Fowler study? Isn't Barbara Fowler practicing medicine without a license? In fact, doesn't the entire medical insurance industry practice medicine without a license in making decisions to refuse care?" - Bill D. Holder

"Thank you for your story on the families who thought they had insurance coverage. They had been paying for medical insurance for years. However, once the insurance was needed, the policy was canceled and claims denied, leaving them tens of thousands of dollars in debt." - Rosanne Klein

"We have allowed insurance gatekeepers to manipulate our lives in ways the public does not even comprehend, until it happens to them." - Betty Jo Atnip

On November 7, 2007 Lousiana attorney general Charles Foti sued Allstate, State Farm, Lafayette Insurance Co., USAA Casulity Insurance Co., Farmers Insurance Exchange, Standard Fire Insurance and other insurance companies for colluding to reduce claim values. A consulting firm, McKinsey & Co. was accused of being the architect of sweeping changes in the insurance industry beginning in the 1980s. McKinsey advised insures to "stop ‘premium leakage' by undervaluing claims using the tactics of deny, delay and defend." The insurance companies coerced policy holders into settling damage claims for less than their actual value by editing engineering reports, delaying payments and forcing policyholders to go to court to challenge insurance estimates of loss after hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"This scheme gave insurers an unjust advantage over policyholders by reaping huge profits from the misfortunes of persons whom they pledged to protect from the risk of loss." - Lousiana attorney general Charles Foti

American aristocracy and soldiers

"When the rich make war it's the poor that die." – Jean-Paul Sartre

"Moral hazard" is a term commonly applied to certain financial contracts, under which one party is obliged to pay another money if a specified event (e.g., illness or a fire or an accident) occurs. The term refers to situations in which the very existence of the contract alters the behavior of one party, so that it increases the probability of the event's occurrence or the size of the monetary payoff based on that event, or both.

If the monetary and the blood cost of war are shifted mainly to citizens other than the elites who are empowered to declare war and decide how it is conducted, then that elite is more likely to embrace war and to spend on it. Very few of the offspring of the policy-making elite in Washington served in the armed forces and faced the bodily risk of war." - Uwe E. Reinhardt

If American aristocracy supported American soldiers there would not have been a shortage of vehicle and body armor in Iraq. And finally when some body armor was provided how did they treat the soldiers that were wounded?

First Lieutenant William Rebrook IV, who graduated from West Point with honors, was discharged from the army after receiving a shrapnel injury in Iraq. Before being allowed to leave he had to scrounge cash from his buddies to pay $632 for his body armor vest that was destroyed as a biohazard.

"I last saw the body armor was when it was pulled off my bleeding body while I was being evacuated in a helicopter. They took it off me and burned it." - William Rebrook IV

"George W. Bush is arguing that our troop's morale is hurt by irresponsible discussion of the war in Iraq. I wonder how he feels about the news stories that report that in three years, the George W. Bush administration hasn't been able to provide them with proper body armor." - Marion Lewish

On March 30, 2006 the army banned privately purchased body armor. {Independent testing confirmed that the American militaries claim that out-of-the-loop competitors body armor was not as good as governmnet issue was false, in fact the out-of-the-loop competitors body armor was better!}

Ryan Kelly, 25, was billed $2,231 by the military and spent nearly half a year fighting the billing. I guess leaving one of your legs behind on the battlefield is not considered payment enough!

"It hits you in the gut. Its like 'Thanks for the service and now you owe us'." - Ryan Kelly

Jordon Fox, 21, was partially blinded in his right eye and suffered a back injury when a roadside bomb exploded in Iraq. After being discharged Jordon Fox was asked to repay $2,800 of his enlistment bonus of $7500 because he had not completed his full three years of service. The Army also withheld Jordon Fox's unused leave pay.

By the end of 2006 over 200,000 veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have been treated at Veterans Administration medical facilities. Over 66,000 have been treated for post-traumatic stress disorder, acute depression and substance abuse. At some Veterans Administration medical facilities it can take several months to be seen by a doctor for mental health issues. The Veterans Benefits Administration has a backlog of 400,000 pending claims causing veterans to wait from 6 months to 2 years to receive benefits they are entitled to by law. It is likely the cost of providing benefits for the returning Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans will cost between $300 billion to $600 billion.

In March 2007 the American public learned of the deplorable conditions facing our returning wounded veterans of failed missions in Iraq and Afghanistan identical to those in existence and portrayed in Oliver Stone's film "Born on the Fourth of July" which showcased in wretched detail the condition of military hospitals that wounded Vietnam War veterans had to endure.

This was not fiction and is not fiction now.

"I suspect the crocodile tears coming from Washington are just that, an attempt to play the innocent while a few scapegoats are hung out to dry." - Albert G. Silverton

"While the administration castigates any who oppose the war as not supporting our troops, the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton cabal denies benefits to our wounded servicemen and women and prepares them for a future of homelessness by acclimating them to life among roaches and rats." - Craig Wright

While genetic discrimination is banned in most cases throughout America it is alive and well in the American military. Although only in a few cases does a specific mutation predicate the onslaught of genetically triggered disease, Huntington's disease is one of the extremely few, individual soldiers are routinely ousted for being genetically predisposed to a disease.

In those that are genetically predisposed typically an external event triggers the onset of the medical condition.

Jay Platt developed Von Hippel-Landau disease while serving as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan. The trigger for Jay Platt was solvents used to clean weapons. Discharged with no medical benefits.

"You could be in the military and be a six-pack-a-day smoker, and if you come down with emphysema, 'That's OK. We've got you covered,' but if you happen to have a disease where there is an identified genetic contribution, you are screwed." - Kathy Hudson, director of the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University

"The Army's Actionable Medical Information review policy is designed to review professional medical research intended for release in a public forum. The policy specifically targets materials that utilize 'any medical information derived from a combat theater'. It appears that the policy has been used to review medical information other than that derived from a combat theater. The motivation for such review is unclear. The result, however, is an infringement on the public's right to know." - Katherine Rabb

"The war on terrorism has provided a convenient excuse to stifle scientific discourse and the release of information on government operations. Those who stand to lose the most from this policy are the service members it was ostensibly designed to protect." - Maj. Remington Nevin

trickle down lapped up by illegal aliens

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin used migration as a method of controlling target populations. By removing Ukrainians and replacing them with Russians Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin gained control of the Ukraine. Poverty stricken illegal immigrants from Latin America, forced out of Latin American economies by NAFTA, are diluting the unity of the American middle-class by replacing mostly Protestant American middle class workers with Catholic Latin American unskilled workers willing to work for reduced wages in poor conditions.

"The operators were bringing in Mexicans to work as scabs in the mines. In this operation they were protected by the military all the way from the Mexican borders. They were brought in to the strike territory without knowing the conditions, promised enormous wages and easy work. They were packed in cattle cars, in charge of company gunmen, and if when arriving, they attempted to leave, they were shot. Hundreds of these poor fellows had been lured into the mines with promises of free land. When they got off the trains, they were driven like cattle into the mines by gunmen." - Mary "Mother" Jones 1925

Americans have been led down the primrose path by the purveyors of corporatism who keep telling us if we just wait a little longer, get a better education or just work real hard then we too will be able to join that exclusive billionaires club as our boat is buoyed by all the wealth trickling down.

The senior Americans that have to work at Wal-Mart and McDonalds to make ends meet understand that the idea that wealth trickles down is simply another propaganda ploy put forth by American aristocracy.

Inadequate wages and benefits forced workers at Wal-Mart stores in California
to seek $86 million in state government assistance for the year 2003.

In 2005 Wal-Mart, an excellent example of American unbridled corporatism run rampant, agreed to pay a fine brought by George W. Bush's Labor Department for breaking child labor laws by having children, under 18, operate dangerous machinery. The Labor Department, at that time, agreed to give Wal-Mart a fifteen day notice before undertaking any labor related investigations. This agreement is unprecedented; was drafted by attorneys for Wal-Mart and is the only agreement in existence between the Labor Department and industry that forewarns, with a 15 day advance notice, of an impeding Labor Department violation investigation.

Wal-Mart agreed to pay a fine of $11 million in 2005 to settle charges that it used hundreds of illegal aliens to clean stores.

Oops! Wal-Mart forgot to cut a deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). November 2005, 125 illegal aliens were arrested on a Wal-Mart construction project. The original contractor had been fired and Wal-Mart had brought in it's own work force of illegal aliens!

"By working for less than living wages, illegal aliens have taken over whole job sectors that were filled by people who used to do the work for a living wage." - Robert Rush

Although American aristocracy claims to believe in the rule of law they fail to enforce the laws that are detrimental to the furtherance of excessive unearned profit for their buddies.

One example of this is the use of illegal alien labor by unscrupulous employers who have no qualms about using illegal alien labor knowing full well that by undercutting their competitors they will drive those legitimate law abiding business' out of business.

"Immigration, legal and illegal, keeps wages lower than they otherwise would be." - James P. Smith

"The assertion that there are jobs that Americans simply will not perform is an asinine idea on its face. Would you mow your neighbors lawn for $50,000 a month? Of course you would. Would you do it for $20 a week? Of course not. So the problem isn't the job, it's circumventing market forces to determine the fair value of the job." - John Boydstun

{In 2009 Right Management surveyed 900 workers and found that 60 percent intend to leave their jobs in 2010. The 2009 Employment Dynamics and Growth Expectations Report said 55 percent of employees plan to change jobs, careers or industries "when the economy recovers." CareerBuilder.com surveyed 4,285 full-time, private-sector employees. Forty percent said they had difficulty staying motivated in their current jobs, and 24 percent said they didn't feel loyal to their current employers. America has some basic, deep problems in how workers are treated, and there is little evidence of willingness politically or otherwise to address this.}

"The fact that an estimated 12 million people are in the America illegally ought to send a loud message to all Americans. Congress bends to the will of corporations and is willing to sell out the middle class for the greedy bottom line. Citizens of America used to support their families by working in construction, meat packing, trucking and textiles. Not anymore. Jobs nobody wants? You're kidding, right?"- Blaine Oakes

"You can't have a huge increase in the labor supply without having an impact on the wage structure. If one cares about the well-being of the less advantaged, having a guest worker program to import hundreds of thousands of workers is a huge mistake." - George J. Borjas, Harvard University professor and the nation's leading labor economist on immigration. George J. Borjas' research concluded that the immigrant influx between 1980 and 2000 lowered the wages of ALL American workers.

"Between 1925 and 1965, United States immigration levels were so low that the foreign-born population declined. During that period, the United States built the largest economy the world had ever seen. And while building this economy, we also successfully prosecuted a world war, initiated the space program, hosted a vibrant labor movement, made huge strides for civil rights and established a vast and stable middle class. The idea that we suddenly can't run a country without an unlimited supply of uneducated and unskilled foreigners is absurd." - Michael Scott

From 1993 to 2003 the number of arrests of illegal aliens at work sites went from 7630 in 1993 to 445 in 2003, and the number of fines dropped from 944 in 1993 to 124 in 2003 while the number of illegal aliens in America continues to climb to an estimated 12 million by early 2006.

"I have championed the idea that most illegal immigrants would leave America on their own, or not come in the first place, if laws designed to discourage illegal immigration were actually enforced. The 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act contained amnesties for farm workers and other illegal immigrants, as well as sanctions for employers who hire them. The amnesties were carried out but the enforcement was not. Illegal immigrants and American employers know that the government does not take enforcement seriously. As proof, consider that in 2004 not one employer was fined for hiring illegal immigrants. The government should enforce current laws before any guest worker program is considered by Congress." - Representative Lamar Smith, Texas Republican

It has become quite clear that the federal government of the United States of America only enforces the laws that benefit the American aristocracy.

On March 26th, 2006 over a half million emboldened illegal aliens waving Mexican flags took to the streets of Los Angeles to protest possible sanctions being considered in Congress. On March 27th the illegal aliens poured out of the high schools and middle schools of Los Angeles, again waving Mexican flags, marching in the streets and disrupting traffic. And what do they want? Equal status with American citizens! (When they get what they are asking for they may be surprised to find out they have lost many government entitlements - like free medical care in California!)

Unfortunately for American aristocracy illegal aliens are no longer following the road map laid out for them!

In the summer of 2005 there was a lack of illegal alien workers to pick the fruit produced in the central valley of California. When Jorge Resindiz, an illegal alien who picked fruit in the central valley for the last 7 years, was asked why he no longer picked fruit he replied, "We're better paid in construction. We don't have to work in the heat. We have shade. We have water."

Gustavo Arellano in an editorial piece in the Los Angeles Times celebrating the half million person illegal alien protest in March 2006 stated this about Mexican illegal aliens. "They will no longer accept exploitation!"

Ronald Douglas Herrera Castellanos, a Guatemalan national living illegally in America decided he was not going to be exploited anymore. Hired to pressure wash the back yard deck Ronald Douglas Herrera Castellanos did some exploting instead by attacking Mary Nagle, brutally beating her, raping her and then slicing her to shreds with a razor blade knife.

Illegal alien, Ronald Douglas Herrera Castellanos, did not quite work out like American aristocracy planned.

American aristocracy needs illegal aliens to do the jobs Americans will not do!

When Hurricane Katrina Americans were told the border should be open
by American aristocracy as illegal aliens were needed to rebuild New Orleans!

"No matter what the politicians and activists want, African Americans and impoverished white Cajuns will not be first in line to rebuild the Katrina ravaged Gulf Coast and New Orleans. Latino immigrants, many of them undocumented, will. And when they are done they are going to stay, making New Orleans look like Los Angeles. It is the federal government that will have made the transformation possible. George W. Bush has promised that Washington will pick up the greater part of the cost for "one of the largest reconstruction efforts the world has ever seen." To that end, George W. Bush suspended provisions of the Davis-Bacon Act that would have required government contractors to pay prevailing wages in devastated parts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida. The Department of Homeland Security temporarily suspended sanctioning employers who hire workers who cannot document their citizenship. The idea is to benefit Americans who may have lost everything in the hurricane, but the main effect will be to let contractors hire illegal immigrants." - Gregory Rodriquez, New America Foundation.

Illegal aliens were hired to do work for corporate contractors.

"Kenyon, a division of the huge funeral conglomerate Service Corporation International (and a major Bush campaign donor), was hired to retrieve the dead from homes and streets. The company charged the state, on average, $12,500 per victim." - Davidson Loehr

Illegal aliens were paid $3 per square yard to install blue plastic tarps over damaged roofs while the corporate contractor employing them charged $150 per square yard. A few of them actually did get paid for the work they did.

On May 12, 2008 389 illegal immigrants were arrested at a kosher meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa. Agriprocessors Inc. was opened in the late 1980s by Orthodox Jews.

"The 1986 Reagan amnesty promised to be absolutely, positively the last ever reward to lawbreaking illegal aliens. The country is overrun with more than 12 million illegal aliens of unknown identity precisely because of the earlier legislation and the government's subsequent refusal to enforce the borders and workplaces. Since the 1986 amnesty, business interests have become even more addicted to an exploitable labor force, so the current immigration enforcement system is expensive window-dressing only." - Dana Garcia 7/4/07

"No new immigration laws are needed to effectively correct the overall illegal alien problem. What is needed is strict enforcement of current law. That neither political party has stepped up to this obvious requirement over the last 20 years is morally bankrupt and intellectually vacuous, indifference indistinguishable from cowardice." - Jackson L. Forney 7/4/07

Herbert Hoover ordered the deportation of all illegal aliens in order to make jobs available to American citizens that desperately needed work.

Harry Truman deported over two million illegal aliens to create jobs for returning World War II veterans.

Dwight Eisenhower deported 13 million Mexican nationals with 'Operation Wetback' so that Korean veterans could find work.

The corporatist ideology that the poor and middle class common, ordinary working men and women of America owe the corporatist aristocracy for allowing resources to trickle down is inconceivable arrogance to all critically thinking Americans.

American aristocracies entire contribution to society consists in the manipulation of resources!

What excellent central planners we have!

"The assertion that, through taxation, the upper class is in danger of being mugged by the middle class - those very people whose labor generates their wealth - is laughable." - Tim Bradley

"Let's stop dancing around the truth. The money to fund healthcare and retirement benefits for American workers is still there. What has changed is corporate America's decision that all company profits should be hoarded by a few top managers instead of being spread among the workers who actually earn it. What we are witnessing is the Third Worldization of America. We will compete with Third World countries by becoming one." - Rick McCarter

Wealth does trickle down, but only to a chosen few!

Wealth trickles down not only to the politicians and top bureaucrats but also to the friends and supporters of politicians and top bureaucrats.

"It happens regularly in the U.S. Members of Congress purchase land for $10,000 which appreciates to several millions in a few years. The same with preferred corporate stock in small companies. Here we call it "doing business as usual". In other countries when elected officials take direct bribes, they often lable it "doing business as usual"." - Charlie Jackson (http://www.texansforpeace.org/ ) committing on a BBC piece in which Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson purchased land for a song knowing about future development plans then used "creative accounting" methods in conjunction with land swaps to hide a taxable capital gain of £460,000.

One of the neat new ploys is to found a charitable organization, hire the individuals that helped you get elected as the charities management or 'donate' the funds to grass roots organizations run by individuals that helped you get elected. Just ask Senate majority leader Bill Frist about his supporters Jill Holtzman Vogel, Deborah Kolarich, Linda Bond, reverend Franklin Graham and reverend Luis Cortes Jr. (The Federal Election Commission found that Frist 2000 Inc., Bill Frist's campaign committee, failed to report a $1.44 million loan. Frist 2000 Inc. was fined $11,000.)

"Everybody's worn out by this incessant fund raising, the ceaseless dialing for dollars. Everybody knows that it skews the system. Who do we work for? The people pay our salary. But then we are dependent on special interests to get elected." - Assemblywoman Loni Hancock

earmarks

'Earmarks', formerly pork-barrel endowments, went up in the 2003, a year of record government deficits, a year in which George W. Bush, the 'compassionate conservative', vowed to reign in government spending. In 2003 special projects, earmarks, totaling over 22.5 billion dollars were given to over 8000 special interest supporters of Congressmen and Senators. Campaign donations do pay off, bigtime!

What were some of these expenditures? $1.8 million will go to California for exotic pet diseases research; $2 million is being handed to the First Tee program, headquartered in St. Augustine, Fla., which uses golf to teach "life skills" to kids; the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland is getting $200,000 to educate children about rock music; $325,000 will pay for a public swimming pool in Salinas, Calif.; $175,000 is the price tag for a mural that will be painted on a flood wall in Cape Girardeau, Mo.; North Pole, Alaska (population: 1,646), will get $200,000 for recreational improvements.

Earmarks have grown from 4,126 earmarks, worth $29.6 billion in 1994, to 15,877 earmarks in the federal budget worth $47.4 billion in 2005.

Ronald Reagan vetoed a highway bill in 1987 because it included 152 earmarks.

For the 2009 budget year the House Appropriations Committee received request for 23,438 earmark projects and approved 11,610 - a cost of $17.2 billion. A few earmarks include The James Clyburn golf center - $3 million; Mother's Day shrine in Grafton, West Virginia - $123,000; International Peace Garden in Dunseith, North Dakota - $295,000; Teapot Museum of North Carolina - $500,000.

role of government

"Our prisons are already full. If perceived threats to public health justify legislation to curb behaviors such as smoking and overeating, then why not also legislate away unhealthy foods, alcohol, gambling, tattoos, video games, boxing, suntans and mountain climbing?" - Jim & Marlene Arden

Americans need to really examine the role of federal, state and local government in the social and economic fabric of America. Americans need to insist that American aristocracy does not hold all the strings which make the politician puppets dance.

What should government do?

What should be left undone?

How does the answer to these questions affect the economy and well-being of Americans in general, not just a few select American aristocrats?

Americans need this big debate yesterday. The answers to these questions will then tell us how much we need to spend and how much revenue we need. We should not continue to allow American aristocracy to answer these questions for us.

"Government run on taxes, without which nothing gets done. What is the difference between a tax raising liberal and a bond pushing conservative? One says, "Let's tax and pay as we go." The other says, "Let's use our credit card and let our children pay. Besides, we will handle the loan and make a ton on the interest." The voters have been fooled again. Taxes must be raised to repay bonds; only now the projects will cost double." - A. Don Ruygrok

Unfortunately Americans have become disengaged. This is understandable as most Americans do not know what to believe and what not to believe due to the monopolization of mass media. Americans are swamped with dubious information. Much of it false or bent to suit the editor's or corporate sponsor's position.

American aristocracy and their arrogant political hacks fear nothing more than a educated, engaged and enraged population.

If we let those who see the American workers life as something to be enslaved reign supreme, then we can be sure that sometime our individual American lives will no longer serve American aristocracy. Americans will be used and thrown away, as has recently become apparent in the reduction of Social Security and medicare benefits. (Americans are now fed 'food' not fit for human consumption that causes diabetes and cancer! Soylent yellow! Less retirees to take care of!)

The call to reason first espoused by America's Founding Fathers which included George Washington and Thomas Jefferson needs to once again resonate throughout America.

American aristocracy has already caused a response from the other nations of the Earth which have begun to ally themselves against Americans, who happen to be represented to the Earth in the form of the American aristocracy. Not only America's enemies but even America's allies are beginning to view the United States of America as a pariah nation - to be feared, to be isolated and to be contained. The value of the dollar depends on widespread trust that sanity will prevail in American fiscal policy.

The plummeting dollar bears silent witness to falling international confidence in America.

"The policies we are following are likely to lead to a weaker dollar over a period of years." - Warren E. Buffet early summer 2005

"American credibility abroad used to be reinforced by the perception that our laws and government programs gave most Americans a fair chance to participate in a middle class meritocracy. But the appeal of the American model overseas is eroding as the gap between rich and poor widens, public education deteriorates, healthcare costs soar and pensions disappear. The American government's seeming indifference to its most vulnerable citizens in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina further undercut belief in the American social contract. Anti-Americanism will begin to ebb if the new watchwords of American policy and conduct are pragmatism, generosity, modesty, discretion, cooperation, empathy, fairness, manners and lawfulness. Reducing social and economic inequalities, and decreasing American dependence on fossil fuels will help improve our moral standards and our security." - Julia E. Sweig

the privatization of the American commons

"Deregulation and privatization are in reality merely
Trojan horses for corporate corruption." -Scott Trimingham

"We are in fact nearing the culmination of a vast historical process: the conversion into financial capital of a variety of other forms of wealth that were never before the subject of purchase, sale, and ownership, that were never before associated with money, but were instead held in common, by a community or a society - the commonwealth." - Charles Eisenstein

"Our efforts at The Hamilton Securities Group to help HUD achieve maximum return on the sale of its defaulted mortgage assets coincided with a widespread process of “privatization” in which assets were, in fact, being transferred out of governments worldwide at significantly below market value in a manner providing extraordinary windfall profits, capital gains and financial equity to private corporations and investors. In addition, government functions were being outsourced at prices way above what should have been market price or government costs - again stripping governmental and community resources in a manner that subsidized private interests. The financial equity gained by private interests was often the result of financial, human, environmental and living equity stripped and stolen from communities - often without communities being able to understand what had happened or to clearly identify their loss. This is why I now refer to privatization as “piratization.”" - Catherine Austin Fitts

"In a speech on September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld announced that the Pentagon could not account for that $2.3 trillion. Donald Rumsfeld also announced his intention to outsource many defense jobs to private industry.

By the next day, nobody remembered much about either of these subjects. The idea at the heart of Rumsfeld's forgotten speech is the central tenet of the Bush regime, following Milton Friedman's economic ideas: that the job of government is not to govern but to subcontract the task to the private sector, which will do it for profit. Let me translate that. What this means is transferring our tax dollars away from governmental agencies — which are answerable to us — to private contractors, which have no accountability to us. Over 90% of Blackwater's money, for example, comes from state and governmental contracts, which means our tax dollars. But in Iraq, Blackwater employees cannot be prosecuted for crimes they commit – including murder – either under Iraqi laws or under U.S. laws, as we learned when they killed seventeen Iraqi civilians last September." - Davidson Loehr

the socialization of the American State

"Historic observation shows that any time you mandate people's inclusion in a private program, the only beneficiary is the corporation left free to feed on that captive population." - Elizabeth Sholes

"In 2000 - 2001, energy deregulation in California opened the door for Enron and similar companies to artificially limit the supply of electricity to the state, driving up prices and creating rolling blackouts. Financial deregulation helped create the housing bubble by allowing companies to sell mortgages to people who couldn't afford the payments. The surging commodities markets and the swooning stock markets are in part caused by rule changes, made in the name of deregulation, that make it easier to speculate on price swings. Recently the three main credit-rating agencies - Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings - failed to rein in conflicts of interest in their ratings practices. Among the problems: Companies issuing securities were paying the ratings agencies for their rating." - Eric Lotke 07/20/08

"I oppose private corporations padding their portfolios with public lands, leases and political promises for private profit. They already occupy thousands of acres of public lands with leases they do not use - all in the attempt to control resources. It is time to divest and stop this robber-baron society." - Kay Brown

"I see the demise of the of the public school system and the privatization of state, county and city law enforcement and firefighting services, road construction and repair and a whole host of other public services - resulting in those services being available only to those that can afford them - as disastrous." - Bob Harris

"For about the last 30 years, our nation has been traveling the deregulation highway, a road with no rules or direction. We have let enterprise be free, business go unfettered, the good times roll!

Let's take a look at how we got here before the deregulation highway takes us over a cliff.

The Reagan "revolution" was the beginning, when we started seeing rollbacks in government safeguards, regulations protecting food, drinking water and the environment. Then came the savings and loan crash in the 1980s, a pit stop that cost taxpayers $150 billion.

Clinton added the "bridge to the 21st century," along with his proclamation that the "era of big government was over." During the Clinton administration, Congress repealed a Depression-era law called Glass-Steagall, which kept banking and investment separate. Henceforth, banks could offer investment advice as well as loans - one-stop shopping on the road to disaster.

Deregulation of the markets really took hold in 1994 with the GOP's "Contract with America," the first to go were the nation's securities laws.

Over a Clinton veto, Congress enacted the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, making it far more difficult to prove securities fraud. Said to be necessary to "free" the markets of red tape and trial lawyers, it gave the green light to corporate chiefs such as Ken 'Kenny Boy' Lay and Dennis Kozlowski and led to the Enron, World Com, Tyco and HealthSouth fraud debacles. As a result, shareholders lost hundreds of billions of dollars.

It is time - it is past time - to get of the deregulation highway." - Al Meyerhoff

Daniel Guttman and Barry Willner wrote The Shadow Government in 1976. The authors warned that the government was embarked on a "multi-billion-dollar giveaway” of decision-making authority. Decision-making authority as well as actual services were being outsourced to high-priced consultants, secretive think tanks, and corporate vested interests - accountable to no one! Using a process' cloaked in contractual and other formal approvals by the various executive departments a drive to merge government and business interests to the advantage of the latter had been initiated starting as early as 1969.

"In 1969, president Richard Nixon appointed Donald Rumsfeld, a 37-year-old congressman from Illinois, to head the Office of Economic Opportunity, which was responsibe for overseeing the War on Poverty.

Richard Nixon wanted the agency restructured, and Donald Rumsfeld, with the assistance of his chief aide, Dick Cheney, quickly began bringing in management contractors to do the work of the agency's top civil servants.

Daniel Guttman and Barry Willner quote Dick Cheney as saying, "Don found himself with a bureaucracy that hated him.... [He] was forced to seek outside help. I remember Don reciting to me the Al Smith statement, 'If I don't look to my friends for help, who do I look to, my enemies?'"

Donald Rumsfeld's successor at the agency was Frank Carlucci, who later became Ronald Reagan's Defense secretary. In 1971, Frank Carlucci told Congress that he was dramatically curtailing the agency's spending on management contractors. "We did not think we were getting our money's worth," Frank Carlucci testified.

In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan created a presidential commission on privatization to study how the boundary between public and private might be erased giving private interests more opportunity to move into traditionally government roles.

The same idea surfaces in the “re-inventing government” movement taken up by the Bill Clinton administration: “We would do well,” one proponent wrote, “to glory in the blurring of public and private and not keep trying to draw a disappearing line in the water.”

Since then privatization has affected every aspect of American public life.

The most visible surge in government outsourcing has come in the realm of the military. Purportedly acute manpower shortages has America hiring private companies to perform duties reserved in the past for the American military. America now has over 40 corporations that provide mercenaries.

As well every facet of “personal security” is increasingly in the hands of private business.

In 2003 the American government handed out 3,512 security contracts for domestic security functions. In the 22 month period ending August 2006 the Department of Homeland Security had issued more than 115,000 security related contracts.

It was not until the mid–19th century that America’s urban governments, by setting up local police forces, managed to make an ordinary person’s safety a matter of real social responsibility. This was a major advance, though perhaps only temporary. No one with money relies on such guarantees any longer. More and more people have withdrawn into protected walled enclaves.

Private security is a major growth industry; in 1960 there were more police officers than hired security guards in America, whereas today private guards outnumber the police by a margin of 50 percent. Individuals may owe nominal allegiance to a town or a state, but their true oath of fealty is to Securitas or Guardsmark.

One of the chief obligations of any government is simply to dispense justice - to resolve disputes, oversee legal business, mete out punishment. These functions were once held in private hands. After a stint as a social responsibility, they are now migrating back.

Lawyers and clients increasingly shun the civil courts - congested, expensive, fickle - and instead buy themselves some private arbitration, provided by a growing cadre of profitable “rent a judge” companies.

As for the criminal justice system, those sentenced to prison may very well do their time in a private facility, run on behalf of state and federal governments and operated by a company with some former public official in its management to grease the wheels. Faced with rising numbers of inmates, and unwilling to raise taxes to build more public prisons, governments at all levels have found that the easy, cost effective way is to turn the prison industry over to the private sector - companies such as the behemoth Nashville based Corrections Corporation of America.

America’s public colleges and universities are fast losing their public character. These institutions were created under the terms of an act signed by Abraham Lincoln in 1862, providing federal land grants to the states as a basis for public financing of higher education. Nationwide, state legislatures are picking up only about two-thirds of the annual cost of public higher education. For the University of Illinois, the figure is 25 percent. For the University of Michigan, it’s 18 percent. What makes up the difference in funding?

To a large degree it’s money from private donors and private corporations, creating an incipient “academic-industrial complex” at public and private institutions alike. At the University of California at Berkeley, one administrator is officially known as the Bank of America Dean of the Haas School of Business. Much money for universities comes with strings attached — for instance, the power to push research in certain directions and perhaps away from others, and the ownership of patents deriving from sponsored research.

Sociologists have a term for what is occurring: they call it the “externalization of state functions.” Water and sewage systems are being privatized, as are airports and highways and public hospitals. Voucher programs and charter schools are a way of shifting education toward the private sector. The protection of nuclear waste is in private hands. Meat inspection is done largely by the meatpacking companies themselves. The privatization of terminal operations at American ports began three decades ago and 80 percent of them were already operated by foreign companies, the largest of which is Chinese.

Serious proposals to privatize portions of Social Security have been on the table, and the new Medicare prescription-drug plan effectively puts an enormous government program into the hands of private insurance and drug companies.

Many services that used to be provided free of charge now must be paid for - government by user fee. Detailed statistical data from the Census Bureau and other agencies were once available to everyone; now they’re being sold, mainly for marketing purposes, and often at prices that only private corporations can afford.

The vaults of the Smithsonian were once open to documentary film makers regardless of provenance and financing. Now an agreement between the Smithsonian and the cable company Showtime has created something called the Smithsonian Networks, which has jurisdiction over, and priority access to, certain kinds of material.

Is there any government function that can’t be transferred to some private party?

A considerable amount of tax collection is now done, in effect, by casinos; rather than raise taxes to pay for services, legislatures legalize gambling and then take a rake-off from the profits earned by private casino companies. It’s “tax farming” for the modern age, recalling the hated Roman practice of selling the right to collect taxes to private individuals (including the apostle Matthew in the Gospels), who were then allowed to keep anything over what they had agreed to collect for the government.

As the recent revelations about torture have made clear, even official interrogations for national security purposes have been outsourced - in this instance to other countries through the process known as “extraordinary rendition.”

The sale of naming rights for public facilities and other amenities attracts notice mostly for the ungainly nomenclature that results - mutants such as the Mitsubishi Wild Wetland Trail, at the New York Botanical Garden, in the Bronx, and Whataburger Field, in Corpus Christi.

To attract more corporate underwriting, the Department of the Interior has proposed that America’s national parks be liberally opened up to the sale of naming rights. No one is suggesting that there will soon be a J. Crew Cape Cod National Seashore. But might there be a Sherwin-Williams Painted Desert Trailhead?

An analyst at Johns Hopkins observes, “Contractors have become so big and entrenched that it’s a fiction that the government maintains any control.”

One obvious recent example is the rebuilding effort in Iraq. There may have been no alternative to giving the reconstruction job in Iraq to private corporations, including giant combines such as Bechtel and Halliburton, but the result has been an effort that defies management or accountability. The evidence of widespread corruption in the Iraq rebuilding effort is beyond dispute.

Corruption aside, private companies are exempt from many regulations that would apply to government agencies. The records of private companies can’t be obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. They can use foreign subsidiaries to avoid laws meant to restrain American companies. Before the war, Halliburton itself used subsidiaries to do business with Iran, Iraq, and Libya, despite official American trade sanctions against all three countries.

More and more secret intelligence work — translation, airborne surveillance, computing, interrogation, analysis, reporting, briefing—is being outsourced to private entities.

"Complete and accurate surveillance as a means of control is probably a practical impossibility. What is much more likely is a loss of privacy and constant inconvenience as the wrong people gain access to information, as one wastes time convincing the inquisitors that one is in fact innocent, or as one struggles to untangle the errors of the errant machine." – Victor Ferkiss

Not only is the intelligence community becoming further fragmented, but, because the new jobs pay so well, a “spy drain” is drawing officers out of the public sector and into the private market.

The drain isn’t restricted to spies: at least 90 former top officials at the Department of Homeland Security and the White House Office of Homeland Security are now working for private companies in the domestic-security business.

Meanwhile, the government seems poised to turn the job of border police over to multi-national contractors, a task that will in turn be subcontracted out to dozens of smaller companies. Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, and Northrop Grumman were among the corporations that indicated they would submit bids to build a high-tech “virtual fence” along the Mexican border, with an array of motion detectors, satellite monitors, and aerial drones. (Boeing eventually won.)

A Homeland Security official conceded the abdication of government leadership, saying to the corporation, “We’re asking you to come back and tell us how to do our business.”

One study from the late 1990s suggests that the “privatization rate” — the rate at which public functions are being outsourced — is roughly doubling every year. On paper the federal workforce nationwide, leaving the military aside, appears to total about two million people.

If you add in all the people in the private sector doing essentially government jobs with federal grants and contracts, then the figure rises by 10.5 million. The commercialization of government probably explains why so many Washington entities are now referred to as shops: “lobby shop,” “counterterrorism shop.”

There’s no question that in certain ways the private sector can outperform the public sector. Users of Federal Express, U.P.S., and DHL would sooner renounce citizenship than go back to relying only on the United States Postal Service. The problem is the cumulative effect of privatization across the board — projected out over decades, over a century, over two — and the leaching of management capacity from government.

The activities of government are, in effect, being franchised out.

You can’t help lingering over the concept of “franchise.” The word originally had to do with notions of political freedom and social responsibility. Derived from the Old French word franc, meaning “free,” it later came to be associated with the most fundamental political freedom of all: to exercise your franchise meant to exercise your right to vote. Only much later, in the mid–20th century, did the idea of being granted “certain rights” acquire its commercial connotation: the right to market a company’s services or products, such as fried chicken or Tupperware. Today, to have a franchise on something is in effect to have control over it." - adapted from Cullen Murphy

Federal procurement spending climbed from $ 203.1 billion in 2000 to $412.1 billion in 2006.

Between 2000 and 2006 no-bid and other contracts awarded without full and open competition increased by over 300%.

Spending on no-bid and limited-competition contracts surged from $67.5 billion in 2000 to $206.9 billion in 2006.

More than half of federal procurement spending was awarded through no-bid and limited-competition contracts in 2006.

From 2000 to 2006 187 contracts worth over $1.1 trillion were documented to have been plagued by waste, fraud, abuse, or mismanagement in reports from the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Contract Audit Agency, individual agency inspector generals and other independent federal oversight officials.

The effects of privatization of the government will basically destroy the last hopes of freedom and liberty for Americans. Not only will "citizens", ordinary working Americans, be required to hand over a large share of their earned wages to government they will also be required to purchase any services they require from government approved providers.

game theory

Robert John Aumann, dual Israel and United States citizenship, was awarded the 2005 Riksbank Prize for his work on conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.

"The Jews are the aristocrats of the world." - Samuel Untermyer, principal contributor to Woodrow Wilson's presidential campaign fund and one of the wealthiest corporate lawyers in New York at the time

Do you understand game theory? Game theory states - keep voting for the lesser of two evils and things will become ever more evil. A two-party system is one party away from totalitarianism. Surely Americans could learn to vote in favor of those who will fight for the average American's welfare, rather than the welfare of those who contribute heavily and profit from government decree.

"In regards to the statement made by California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown, 'Where government moves in, community retreats, civil society disintegrates, and our ability to control our own destiny atrophies. We get a debased, debauched culture which finds moral depravity entertaining and virtue contemptible.'

Social Security causes civil society to disintegrate? Medicare leads to a debased, debauched culture? Environmental protection means we lose community? I think it far more likely that lies and policies of societal neglect lead to the horrors California Supreme Court Justice Janice Rogers Brown cites: a disastrous war based on untruths, exacerbation of global warming, allowing corporations and the military to pollute the American environment with impunity, political favors to war profiteers like Halliburton, enriching the uber-wealthy at the expense of the America's economic health, and much more." - Paula Berinstein

In October 2004 the Pentagon Defense Contract Agency reported that Halliburton charged $27.5 million to deliver $82,100 worth of liquefied petroleum gas. (A profit of more than $27.4 million on an expenditure of less than $100,000.)

In February 2005 William H.T. Bush, 'Uncle Bucky' to George W. Bush, cashed in stock options of Engineered Support Systems Inc. worth a half million dollars. ESSI supplies extra armor for military vehicles deployed in Iraq. In 2006 William H.T. Bush collected $1.9 million in cash and $800,000 for the sale of Engineered Support Systems Inc.. In 2007 Engineered Support Systems Inc. CEO Michael Shanahan was sued by the regulators for backdating options.

It is great to be connected to the war machine in America!

Nothing more noble in American corporatism than good old war profiteering!

In an ambitious effort to crack down on wealthy scofflaw the Internal Revenue Service announced in March 2005 that they had collected $3.2 billion in back taxes from 1,165 wealthy scofflaws that had used the 'Son of Boss' tax shelter to hide income.

Apparently George W. Bush's tax cuts were not enough for these greedy corporatists!

"The problem with the George W. Bush's promise to "keep taxes low" is that they're not low. They're low for American aristocracy. Middle-class people don't keep their money; their taxes are not low; and meaningful relief from a crushing combination of income and payroll taxes would have produced a moral and economically dynamic result. Instead, the wealthy got the "relief," the middle class got small checks and wartime America got massive annual revenue losses. If the goals are the enrichment of wealthy constituencies, national debt enlargement and creating a scarcity of government resources that justifies reduction in government services to working-class Americans then the George W. Bush tax cuts are extremely effective." - Vicki Livingston

eminent domain - the new profit machine?

"Today's eminent domain laws benefit the rich and the powerful." - Marko Mlikotin

Lori Ann Vendetti & Property Rights

The Supreme Court ruling in June of 2005 that effectively deleted the ‘for public use' from the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America. American aristocracies desire is now fulfilled. American aristocracy, through thier corporate proxies, may now take any American's home or business property for any reason.

The Supreme Court decided that homeowners in New London, Connecticut had no right to continue to reside in their homes if the current city council of New London felt they could garner more tax revenue from a different use of the land. The Supreme Court let stand the eminent domain action of the condemnation of ocean front property so a developer could develop the property and sell it to private buyers. {Those private buyers turned out to be Pfizer.The Supreme court ruled in favor of Pfizer which announced in November 2009 that the company will be closing its research and development headquarters in New London, Connecticut. Susette Kelo and her neighbors homes were bulldozed so Pfizer could build research and development headquarters in New London, Connecticut. Empty buildings do not generate tax revenues! The land where Susette Kelo’s home once stood remains barren to all but feral cats, seagulls and weeds!}

The Story of Susette Kelo

The Story of Randy Bailey

"All private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to a private owner. The specter of condemnation now hangs over all property. This decision effectively deletes the clause ‘for public use' from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms." -Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, June 2005

In Los Angeles the city council condemned a piece of land that was used by Vaughan Benz to build furniture. Vaughan Benz fought the condemnation but finally was forced to settle. The city condemned the property to build a new animal shelter. The city of Los Angeles used money raised in a bond issue for more police officers to purchase the property.

"It was three years of torture."- Scott Vaughan

With property values up the city of Los Angeles decided that they no longer needed to build the animal shelter on the Vaughan Benz property and decided instead to build the animal shelter on property the city of Los Angeles already owned a block away.

So the city of Los Angeles now is selling the condemned property to a developer.

The developer and related parties have donated $17,600 to the political campaigns of city of Los Angeles council members and the city attorney. The new plan is to redevelop the property as a furniture design and manufacturing center!

"Invoking eminent domain to raise property values and profit margins at the expense of members of the community is counter to the widely accepted American ideal of freedom. What is inherently right and patently wrong seems to have little bearing on contemporary public decision making. The character of so many of our public service leaders seems bereft of virtue. Eroded by ambivalence at best, complicit in obvious displays of avarice and apparent evidence of vice at worst, our leaders' sense of ethical behavior is rarely evident." - Michael Day

So the truth is that if you own a choice piece of property that some one who has donated money to a politician wants, you can expect it to be condemned so that those political contributors can make a fist full of dollars. Proof that political contributions do pay off!

Although some private redevelopment projects beginning with the eminent domain process are successful many others are not. A few of the failed redevelopment projects where eminent domain was used include the Sun Plaza Project in Las Vegas; the Indio Fashion Mall in Indio, California; the "Poletown" General Motors assembly plant in Detroit; Triangle Square mall in downtown Costa Mesa, California; the Nordstrom department store in downtown Cincinnati; Block 37 in Chicago; Redevelopment Site 17 in Mesa, Arizona; Oak Street Neighborhood in New Haven, Conneticut; Prospect Avenue in North Hempstead, New York; 24th Street and Broadway in Phoenix, Arizona; the Marketplace at Fifth and Forbes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

"Research has shown that without property rights, individuals will no longer face the incentive to make the best economic use of their property, be it a business or home, and economic growth will be limited. Potential residents and businesses may avoid communities that have a record of taking private property for economic development because of a greater uncertainty about losing their property to eminent domain. The taking of private property from one person and giving it to another for economic development is more likely to create economic inefficiencies and to reduce economic growth." - Thomas Garrett and Paul Rothstein

In a five-year period, 1998-2002, the Institute for Justice documented more than 10,000 instances of eminent domain for private gain - 2000 per year average. In the year immediately after the Supreme Court decision more than 5,700 properties nationwide have been threatened by or taken with eminent domain for private development.

IN CALIFORNIA in 2006, redevelopment agencies spent more than $5 billion.

They consumed almost $3 billion in property taxes.

They forced people from their homes and businesses.

And what vital service did they provide?

They built shopping centers.

The heart of redevelopment is a set of state laws - part of the Health and Safety Code - that enables cities and counties to create local redevelopment agencies. These laws were passed in the early 1950s when large cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles needed some legal and financial muscle to seize, demolish and rebuild dilapidated buildings in the worst of their urban slums.

In 2006 the state of California had more than 400 redevelopment agencies - from San Diego to Eureka, some within the wealthiest suburbs. Only about one-fifth of redevelopment money now goes to build and rehabilitate housing. The bulk of the remaining money is handed out as subsidies to private developers who promise to build shopping centers, restaurants, hotels and other tax generating projects. These "redevelopment projects" are not located in urban slums but on prime commercial sites. Each agency is run by directors who are appointed by city councils and county supervisors.

These unelected governments have three extraordinary powers: the right to use eminent domain to seize private property for the benefit of private developers, the right to issue municipal bonds without voter approval and the right to divert property taxes from schools and other government bodies.

California redevelopment agencies have jurisdiction over more than $325 billion worth of property - about 10% of the entire assessed value of all the taxable property in the state.

"Redevelopment" has evolved into a statewide program of reverse land reform - a government policy that seizes property and consolidates it into large holdings that are later sold to developers. The prolonged misuse of this power by municipalities desperate for sales tax revenue has perverted local government priorities all over California.

While I was a school board trustee for the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, a large, overcrowded district in Northern California, I experienced this firsthand. We fought three hard campaigns before we finally won public approval to sell bonds to build four new schools. Meanwhile, our local redevelopment agency was effortlessly issuing bonds to subsidize a Gottschalks department store, a Red Roof Inn and a Burger King.

When I hear redevelopment advocates insist that developers would not build in the Golden State without such subsidies, I respond with a story from my local village of Capitola (population 10,500).

A few years ago, the Macerich Co., one of the nation's largest shopping center developers, announced that it would not bring Macy's to the town unless it received a $2.4-million subsidy from the city's redevelopment agency. After prolonged negotiations, agency directors consented to give Macerich "only" $230,000, but subsequently reneged altogether after residents objected to paying any subsidy.

Guess what? Macy's came anyway - at no cost to the taxpayers. Developers don't demand subsidies because they need them; they demand subsidies because they are there for the taking. Redevelopment is unwise, unjust and unnecessary and should be repealed before billions more dollars are wasted on public subsidies for private developers who - trust me - don't need the money." - Doug Kaplan

One of the latest example of redevelopment funds going to wealthy developers, as opposed to being spent the way the voters expected it to be spent, happened in June 2008 when multi-billioniare Philip Anschutz was able to secure a $30 million California state government giveaway to spruce up the street next to his L.A. Live - a $2.5 billion 4 million square foot entertainment complex. The money came from a $240 million bond issue that California voters passed to build affordable housing. (Housing prices are falling like a rock as the dollar sinks and the oil floats to the top of a huge pile of discarded consumables - so no need for affordable housing! We need entertainment! Bring on the Roman Coliseum/Flavian Amphitheater!)

"Government ostensibly takes private property to further economic development. But in a 1998 study by the Public Policy Institute of California found that communities in the state that have engaged in extensive government-sponsored redevelopment have reaped no real economic benefits compared with municipalities that haven't done so. Government officials often misread the market and promote projects that fail to deliver the promised payback." - Steven Malanga

subsidize the rich

"Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action." – Ayn Rand

"Government subsidizes business in myriad ways, direct and indirect. These subsidies are known as "corporate welfare." Like other government interventions, they are often spawned by crisis. Corporate welfare takes many forms: government pays farmers to grow certain crops and not to grow others. Government makes and guarantees loans. Government funds research. Government helps companies advertise their products in other countries. Government insures their foreign investments against civil unrest. Corporate welfare can be indirect. The Export-Import Bank and foreign aid provide financial help to foreign governments so they can contract with American firms for many goods and services. The common denominator in all these schemes is the forcing of taxpayers to funnel benefits - by one estimate $87 billion a year - to favored businesses. The scope for influence peddling and corruption is vast. " - OnPower.org

August 8, 2005 George W. Bush signed a bill overhauling American energy policy. The bill included $11.5 billion in tax breaks for the energy industry. For the first quarter of 2005 the four largest oil companies reported profits of $23 billion. For the second quarter of 2005 Exxon Mobil corporation posted a record $7.64 billion in profit. For the year 2005 oil companies reported record profits!

In 2006 ExxonMobil gave the retiring CEO $398 million retirement package. If he lives 20 years that will be $ 54 thousand per day! Average median income of all Americans from 2002 to 2004 was $44,500, so for the rest of his life he will be able to spend more every day than what average working Americans spend in a whole year!

In 2005 ExxonMobil made a record $36 billion in profit. In 2006 ExxonMobil set a new record of $39.5 billion in profits. In 2007 ExxonMobil set another new record with $40.6 billion in profit. ExxonMobil earned more than $1,287 of profit for every second of 2007. In 2008 ExxonMobil set another new record with $45.2 billion in profit..

{The United States federal government under George W. Bush spent $3183 every second to secure the oil and gas interests of ExxonMobil and other oil companies in Iraq since the invasion of Iraq. In 2005 18 United States Senators and 46 United States Represenatives owned stock in ExxonMobil.}

Why are Americans forced to subsidize the Iraq war? So ExxonMobil can post record profits! (Cost of war in Iraq.)

"There are many farm handouts; but let's call them what they really are: a form of legalized theft." – Walter Williams

"Between the Democrats' support for billions in subsidies to wealthy farming corporations and the Republicans' support for the $13 billion in tax relief for the obscenely wealthy oil companies, it's fairly clear that our representatives gave up representing the people a while back." - David Higgins 12/2007

"The five largest oil companies on Earth control nearly 50% of domestic refining capacity and almost 62% of the domestic retail market. Merger mania has spurred a consolidation in the industry that logically results in collusion and price fixing - a natural outgrowth of corporatism without regulation." - Sid Dutcher

"Today's oil companies have so much price control over their dealers, and their prices rise and fall in such cohesion, that it is difficult to see the American oil industry as anything more than a price-fixing cartel, an oligopoly that is dangerous to this nation's economy and its national security." - Howard Schlossberg

In July 2007 the private equity group led by J.C. Flowers that had sought to buy out Sallie Mae informed Sallie Mae that if reductions in subsidies pending in a legislative bill were passed by Congress then the sale would be at risk. George W. Bush requested a reduction of subsidies to Sallie Mae of $16 billion. The House approved of a measure that would lower subsidies by $19 billion over five years. No subsidies = no deal - when J.C. Flowers did not get the promised subsidies the deal sank.

The cost of subsidies to growers of wheat, cotton, corn, soybeans and rice is $25 billion per year. All other farm products are excluded. The free market works for all other farm production, and it could work for the producers of wheat, cotton, corn, soybeans and rice. Small family farmers are harmed as they are specifically excluded from most farm subsidies. Small family farmers must endure lower crop prices, higher farmland costs and industry consolidation that results from subsidies to corporate agribusiness. Fortune 500 companies, celebrity "hobby farmers" and even some members of Congress collect millions of dollars under federal subsidized farm programs. The federal subsidized farm programs, a system originally designed to prevent food shortages and farmer poverty does neither and has become so corrupt that nothing less than abolition of the system is called for. Farm subsidies have become just another narrowly targeted corporate welfare program.

"Migration and controversial trade agreements are related, but somehow our politicians fail to grasp this fact. When American subsidized corn exported to Mexico puts Mexican farmers out of business, those displaced farmers have to go somewhere. Passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement was followed by increased Mexican migration to the United States. Now the same model has been imposed on farmers in Central America and Peru. Farmers in Colombia are threatened with it similar trade arrangement. If Congress approves the United States Colombia Trade Agreement, Colombian farmers - who have fed their country for centuries - will have to look for an alternative. For a poor farmer in Colombia, travel northward may be too expensive. But coca for cocaine is easy to grow. And it can usually find a market." - Patrick Bonner

The Senate passed the 2007 Farm Bill.

Some Senators and their close associates who benefited from subsidies even when crops are selling at record prices between 1995 and 2005:

Senator Jon Tester (D-Mont.) owns T-Bone farms in Wolf Creek, Montana, with his wife. They received $232,311 in subsidies for wheat, barley, oats, dry peas and disaster assistance.

Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and her family received $715,000 from 1995 to 2005. Blanche Lincoln had one-ninth ownership of a family operation" but sold her share in 2005.

Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and his family are corn and soybean farmers. Charles E. Grassley received a little more than $225,000. He has a farming partnership with his son, Robin, who received $685,833.

Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) has received $40,043, largely for conservation. Sam Brownback's father got $319,662 and his brother John received $286,082.

Senator Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and his wife own a little more than 12% of Lugar Stock Farms. Richard G. Lugar's family owns the rest. Their company received $126,555.

Senator Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) likes to say that his family has farmed in Colorado for about 400 years. Ken Salazar brother, Rep. John Salazar (D-Colo.) , has received $161,084. (You would think that after 400 years they would know what they were doing and not need governmnet assistance!)

Senator Max Baucus (D-Mont.) sold his share of the family owned Sieben Ranch Company in Wolf Creek, Montana in 1995, family members received $230,237 in subsidies.

Senator Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.) and his wife own a frozen-foods company that leases land to a farmer who received $45,400 in wheat-related subsidies.

"Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize farmers or anyone else. The idea that one person's needs are a moral claim on the assets of others has been used to justify countless redistribution schemes, from farm subsidies to welfare handouts to foreign aid. Individuals have a moral right to what they earn - not to what others earn. The government should protect our property from those who would steal it - not steal it from us and give it to those who did not earn it." - David Holcberg

"When you seek to take away a benefit from one targeted recipient, he will fight like crazy to keep it - think of the ferocious battles the farm lobby wages over even tiny reductions in agricultural subsidies. Those who gain from reducing the size of the handout, however, are members of the lobbyless general public who will receive only an incremental advantage. So the rest of us don't have the incentive or ability to apply countervailing pressure." - Amity Shlaes

American aristocracy depends upon those government subsidies: agricultural subsidies; grazing, lumber, mining industry subsidies; energy industry subsidies; student loan subsidies; development subsidies; retail corporation subsidies; auto industry subsidies; etcetera. (Seems like a piss poor business plan to me!)

"Businesses have incentives to avoid the full costs of their actions. They often favor policies that advantage themselves and impose costs on others. To avoid costs, businesses lobby legislatures to limit competition, obtain subsidies, or ignore certain costs." - John A. Baden and Tim O’Brien

"The idea that businessmen are strong defenders of the free enterprise system is one which is believed only by those who have never studied the history of private enterprise in the Western, industrial nations.

Those individual enterprises that are expected to benefit from some new government program have every short-run financial incentive to promote the intervention.

A majority of those who are to be the recipients of the special favor gladly accept it.

All of these special favors are adopted in the name of the general welfare of the public.

All of these special favors involve the transfer of wealth from consumers and taxpayers to the beneficiaries.

All of these special favors involve a temporary suspension of market forces and a redirection of those competitive pressures.

There can be no grants of government economic benefits without someone or some group bearing the costs." - Gary North

So just who are the American aristocracy?

Wealth brings with it power in the form of control of resources. Those that hold the wealth are the American aristocracy. 400 American billionaires!

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2002 states that "In the 1990s we witnessed the emergence of a small number of rogue states that, while different in important ways, share a number of attributes. These states: brutalize their own people and squander their national resources for the personal gain of the rulers."

Apparently The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2002 only applies to countries other than America as right now American national resources are being expropriated for the personal gain of American aristocracy.

"Today, candidates who raise the most money get their party's nomination. The moment they win, they are - and let's face reality here, friends - obligated to "dance with the ones who brung 'em." It cannot be otherwise. To forsake big donors after election day is to kiss their office good-bye.Big fund raisers accumulate big war chests, and they help their friends win elections. They also get appointed to key committees, or they help their friends get appointed. Money controls government today."- Tobi Dragert

"Raising money should not be the arbiter of success or failure in politics. But that's just what it has become."- Jamie Court

common sense and neo-con reality

"Neoconservatism usually has a recognizable meaning. It connotes a potent moralism and idealism in world affairs, a belief in America's exceptional role as a promoter of the principles of liberty and democracy, a belief in the preservation of American primacy and in the exercise of power, including military power, as a tool for defending and advancing moralistic and idealistic causes, as well as a suspicion of international institutions and a tendency toward unilateralism. In the hands of more hostile critics, the neocons are not merely idealistic but absurdly and dangerously hubristic about the unlimited capacity of American power to effect positive change; not merely expansive but imperialistic, seeking not only American pre-eminence but ruthless global dominance; not merely willing to use force, but preferring it to peaceful methods; and not merely tending toward unilateralism but actively spurning alliances in favor of solitary action. Even these deliberately polemical caricatures point to something recognizable, a foreign policy that combines an idealist's moralism, and even messianism, with a realist's belief in the importance of power." - Robert Kagan Spring 2008 World Affairs Journal, Neocon Nation: Neoconservatism

{Robert Kagan goes on to claim in Neocon Nation that it has always been America's alturistic purpose to "free"backward social cultures from the reigning tyrant by “teaching them to elect good men” (in the words of Woodrow Wilson). Robert Kagan barely mentions the fact that in each case of military intervention America was mostly interested in protecting corporate assets and enforcing contractual obligations. Throughout the 19th and 20th centuries newspapers, beholden to interlocking corporate boards of directors and supported by corporate advertising, used the banner of freedom as a propaganda foil to get the population behind every American military intervention requested by the corporations. Robert Kagan's analysis concludes that neo-conservatism is really just the same conservatism as that practiced in 1776, but it is not - it is corporatism. Robert Kagan's fails to mention that neo-cons are also pro-Israel, mostly Askenazi, typically Zionists/Talmudic messianists - in Robert Kagan's own words - "combines an idealist's moralism, and even messianism, with a realist's belief in the importance of power." idealist's moralism = a man devised moral/law scheme as opposed to a natural law scheme; realist's (imperialist's) belief in the importance of power = the ruling oligarchic hegemony makes the rules as opposed to a liberal Democratic Republic in which the citizen participants make the rules; Talmudic messianists are still waiting for the Son of Man (son of the Hebrew nation) to conquer the world by wielding a blood drenched sword (which eerily parallels the messianism of the Pentecostal Rapture)}

"One reason George W. Bush is down in the polls is that he's giving the impression that he's trying to change the subject from "our mistaken invasion" to "building democracy in Iraq." George W. Bush would serve himself and the county better if he simply explained that he's been right all along." - Jonah Goldberg, Los Angeles Times, March 23, 2006

"Jonah Goldberg's analysis of the current wars in the Middle East rests on one mistaken assumption: that those who fight against the American invasion of their lands are pure evil, that their resistance to foreign invasion and occupation has no legitimacy, that they are the embodiment of evil and we are the embodiment of good." - Clara Watson

"Most of the original neo-cons started out as left wing New York Jewish intellectuals. The neo-cons, mostly former Trotskyites, had the good fortune of changing their minds about almost everything starting in the mid 1960's, just as the political fortunes of the left began to collapse. " - Jonathan Chait

"Most Americans think tax reform should be about fairness and simplification. But for the neo-con ideologues who dominate tax policy decisions in the George W. Bush administration, the goals are different. They want to shift the tax burden from the wealthy to the middle class and put pressure on states such as California and New York to shrink critical public services." - Charles Rangel & Phil Angelides

"For a long time, the neo-cons have wanted to get our government down to a size that can be drowned in a bathtub (except for the military, of course), eliminating most all government programs that actually benefit our people. I think they have now figured out that the way to bring this about is to bankrupt the country while further enriching themselves and their corporate cronies in the process. They have made a lot of progress in driving the middle class toward poverty, and if allowed to continue their irresponsible wars and fiscal policies, they just may succeed in creating a two-class society ruled over by a despot who has no regard for our laws or Constitution, a la the Bush administration and its notion of a "unitary president."- Jaycie Ingersoll 03/08

"Look in any direction - infrastructure crumbling, schools underfunded, environment degrading, civil liberties eroding, economy in recession - and you see the fingerprints of the neo-cons." - Reverend Pete Sabey 03/08

"The meaningless rhetoric of George W. Bush's State of the Union speech only strengthens my impression that America is in even deeper trouble than I suspected. There was no leveling with the people about Iraq, homeland security, the economic crisis of millions of Americans, the deficit, the broken healthcare delivery system, the abandonment of the underprivileged, the protection and enrichment of huge corporations and the very rich, the defiling of the environment and the myriad other problems born out of weak leadership. When will George W. Bush be honest and talk straight with us? ." - Betty Faas (never!)

"The 9/11 attacks happened on George W. Bush's watch. George W. Bush invaded Afghanistan supposedly to get rid of al-Qa`ida and capture or kill Osama bin Laden. George W. Bush failed because he and his cohorts of the Greedy Oil party decided to take Iraq's oil instead of finishing the job in Afghanistan. The results? Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis dead and hundreds of thousands injured, thousands of our own dead and tens of thousands injured, hundreds of millions of people newly turned against us, and hundreds of billions of dollars of our national wealth gone. Four-plus years after 9/11, al-Qa`ida still attacks us, Osama bin Laden is still free and the American-Mexican border is so wide open that I can drive a truck across it in broad daylight." - Kim Iannone

"... just another slave for the mule..."
from 'the mule', deep purple

American government has become atrophied, weighted down by its own complacent, self-indulgent elaboration, and beholden to the forces of American aristocracy.

It is time for the American public to awaken from the propaganda induced hallucination and question the ethics of a culture of materialism driven by the military-industrial-mass media-corporate complex.

American government should reflect the beliefs of ordinary working Americans who respect all human rights including the right to an non-biased education, the right to clean air and water, the right of equal economic opportunity, the right of access to healthy uncontaminated food, the right of disclosure and transparency in all government and publicly owned institutions and the right to a life of privacy unimpeded by the purveyors of politically and ideologically motivated encroachment upon basic human civil liberties.

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2002 stated that economic policy would embrace the "rule of law and intolerance of corruption so that people are confident that they will be able to enjoy the fruits of their economic endeavors."

The #1 rule in America is:

"If it is good for the wealthy it is good for America."

See heads of state

See propagandists

See Social Control

See The Subversion of American Democracy

See The Corruption of the American Dream

See Thomas Paine

See Will Rodgers

See John Steinbeck

See Bertrand Russel

See Robert Heinlein

SeeGeorge Orwell

See Cornelius Tacitus

See Alexis de Tocqueville

See John Maynard Keynes

See Francois Marie Arouet Voltaire

See Creating an American Aristocracy

See Fight for an American Aristocracy

See The American Aristocracy

See The American Aristocracy

See Physicians’ Perspective

See American Aristocracy

See An American Aristocracy: Everyone Loves the Rich

back to stacks contents

This web site is not a commercial web site and is presented for educational purposes only.

This website defines a new religious ideology to which its author adheres. The author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has created a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has been done purposefully by an international corporate cartel through their agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of reality on the human race. Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses to tolerate religious practices, religious beliefs or persons due to their religious ideology. This web site marks the founding of the religion aptly named The Truth of the Way of Life - a rational religion based on reason which requires no leap of faith, accepts no tithes, has no supreme leader, no church buildings and in which each and every individual is encouraged to develop a personal relation with God through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality in the hope of curing the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The Truth of the Way of Life are spelled out in detail on this web site by the author. Violent acts against individuals due to their religious beliefs in America is considered a “hate crime.”

This web site in no way condones violence. To the contrary the intent here is to reduce the violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already controls the world central banking system, mass media worldwide, the industrial military entertainment complex of America and is responsible for the collapse of morals, the elevation of self-centered behavior and the destruction of global ecosystems. Civilization is based on cooperation. Cooperation does not occur at the point of a gun.

American social mores and values have declined precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international cartel has garnered more and more power. This power rests in the ability to deceive the populace in general through mass media by pressing emotional buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population through prior mass media psychological operations. The results have been the destruction of the family and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to the corrupt international elites vision of a perfect world. Through distraction and coercion the direction of thought of the bulk of the population has been directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite that further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.

All views and opinions presented on this web site are the views and opinions of individual human men and women that, through their writings, showed the capacity for intelligent, reasonable, rational, insightful and unpopular thought. All factual information presented on this web site is believed to be true and accurate and is presented as originally presented in print media which may or may not have originally presented the facts truthfully. Opinion and thoughts have been adapted, edited, corrected, redacted, combined, added to, re-edited and re-corrected as nearly all opinion and thought has been throughout time but has been done so in the spirit of the original writer with the intent of making his or her thoughts and opinions clearer and relevant to the reader in the present time.

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The arrogant American aristocracy(or a simple game of connect the dots)

"The social psychology and physiognomy of the financial elite - with its wealth, special privileges and its control over the organs of public opinion - resembles nothing so much as a modern aristocracy." - Tom Eley

"America's elites are an urban and international group, perhaps on their way to forming a distinct transnational class. They are cosmopolite-citizens who often have more in common with members of that same class around the world than with other members of their own society." - Cullen Murphy

"A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one, and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government." – Spiro T. AgnewSpiro T. Agnew was forced to resign shortly after making the speech that included this line.

You have trusted the sheep to the care of the wolf, the geese to the keeping of the fox.

"The more power a government has the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects." – R. J. Rummel

It is precisely because Americans tell stories of their biblical role models that American aristocracy adopts and uses the same biblical language.

celebrity politicians and the relationship between celebrities and politicians

tort reform

Contracts for credit cards, car purchases, health care, bank loans and most contracts between the individual and the corporation now contain mandatory arbitration agreements which effectively undermines the Seventh Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America.

waste and abuse

control of oil

retaining power through theft

"Everywhere I turned I saw people who seemed quite happy to make money doing things that drained and liquidated our permanent infrastructure and productivity as a people and a nation." - Catherine Austin Fitts

"If we continue to bestow wealth, trust and honor on the cheaters, then the devastating message that is conveyed to society in general and to youth in particular will diminish all our lives." - Mark M. Williams

insurance and reality

In the second quarter of 2007 Berkshire Hathaway Inc. reported record earnings, mostly from it's insurance division, of $3.1 billion ($3,100,000,000). Berkshire Hathaway Inc. made over a billion dollars a month basically by selling insurance.

American aristocracy and soldiers

"When the rich make war it's the poor that die." – Jean-Paul Sartre

trickle down lapped up by illegal aliens

earmarks

role of government

the privatization of the American commons

"Deregulation and privatization are in reality merely Trojan horses for corporate corruption." -Scott Trimingham

game theory

Robert John Aumann, dual Israel and United States citizenship, was awarded the 2005 Riksbank Prize for his work on conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.

"The Jews are the aristocrats of the world." - Samuel Untermyer, principal contributor to Woodrow Wilson's presidential campaign fund and one of the wealthiest corporate lawyers in New York at the time

eminent domain - the new profit machine?

subsidize the rich

"Every coercive monopoly was created by government intervention into the economy: by special privileges, such as franchises or subsidies, which closed the entry of competitors into a given field, by legislative action." – Ayn Rand

"Businesses have incentives to avoid the full costs of their actions. They often favor policies that advantage themselves and impose costs on others. To avoid costs, businesses lobby legislatures to limit competition, obtain subsidies, or ignore certain costs." - John A. Baden and Tim O’Brien

Apparently The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2002 only applies to countries other than America as right now American national resources are being expropriated for the personal gain of American aristocracy.

"Raising money should not be the arbiter of success or failure in politics. But that's just what it has become."- Jamie Court

common sense and neo-con reality

American government has become atrophied, weighted down by its own complacent, self-indulgent elaboration, and beholden to the forces of American aristocracy.

It is time for the American public to awaken from the propaganda induced hallucination and question the ethics of a culture of materialism driven by the military-industrial-mass media-corporate complex.

The National Security Strategy of the United States of America 2002 stated that economic policy would embrace the "rule of law and intolerance of corruption so that people are confident that they will be able to enjoy the fruits of their economic endeavors."

The #1 rule in America is: "If it is good for the wealthy it is good for America."

The arrogant American aristocracy
(or a simple game of connect the dots)

"America's elites are an urban and international group, perhaps on their way to forming a distinct transnational class. They are cosmopolite-citizens who often have more in common with members of that same class around the world than with other members of their own society."
- Cullen Murphy

"A tiny and closed fraternity of privileged men, elected by no one,
and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and licensed by government."
– Spiro T. Agnew
Spiro T. Agnew was forced to resign
shortly after making the speech
that included this line.

You have trusted the sheep to the care of the wolf,
the geese to the keeping of the fox.

"If we continue to bestow wealth, trust and honor on the cheaters, then the devastating message that is conveyed to society in general and to youth in particular will diminish all our lives."
- Mark M. Williams

"Deregulation and privatization are in reality merely
Trojan horses for corporate corruption." -Scott Trimingham

The #1 rule in America is:

"If it is good for the wealthy it is good for America."