Friday, December 30, 2011

News & Commentary december 30, 2011

A judge takes the SEC to task for dirty dealings; update in the race for the presidency 2012 and Iowa;  a woman is running Jamaica – again; Somalia faces the loss of U.S. family members sending money home; Kenya and the faulty HIV kits; the housin

Catch up on the news stories you're not likely to hear in the mainstream media.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

GGN :: Peaceful Preppers, Society After the SHTF, Field Treatment for Asthma/ Teeth

Please visit: http://www.ggnonline.com for the latest news commentary by Global Government News. Please donate to GGN: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=BSS4... because it would be greatly appreciated. Thank

GGN: Top Ten Health Freedom Stories of 2011, Weaponized Cancer?, Staged Alien Invasion of 2012

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Wednesday, December 28, 2011

GGN:: Britain's Big Brother a Pest, British Faced w/ Starving or Freezing, DHS Monitors FB/ Twitter

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GGN :: Iran Flexes Its Maritime Muscles, Rise of Imperial China, Russia's Timely 9.9 Quake

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Ahmadinejad Says Israel is Committing Genocide

  He added that Western powers "seek to portray themselves as friends of the countries in North Africa, but have malicious intentions."   Ahmadinejad went on to say that the American and Israeli impact would be reduced following the ch

FOX NEWS WANTS WAR

There is nothing more sacred to the maintenance of democracy than a free press. Access to comprehensive, accurate and quality information is essential to the manifestation of Socratic citizenship - the society characterized by a civically engaged, we

WW3 Will Start If Iran Is Attacked

Download Free App- http://theliberalpacifist.mobapp.at/ Simple to use just go this URL On your Mobile Browser, and add it to home page@@@  'Iran cornerstone of possible WW3 over Mid East, World War III (aka WWIII or Third World War) denotes a succes

Ron Paul New Ad "Obama Sucks"

Download Free App- http://theliberalpacifist.mobapp.at/ Simple to use just go this URL On your Mobile Browser, and add it to home page@@@ Standing Up to the Washington Machine NATE SILVER, the New York Times' whiz horse-race handicapper, says Ron Pau

Michael Moore Destroys CNN Wolf Blitzer

Michael Moore Shits on CNN Wolf Blizter Down the memory hole goes fake video run by CNN to tug on viewers' heartstrings, following its debunking by clear-headed observers. The "most trusted name in news" lacks the integrity to fess up for channeling

VENUS AWAKENS!! AMAZING FLARE UP FROM THE PLANET SURFACE! 28TH DECEMBER 2011 (HD)

AMAZING FLARE UP FROM THE PLANET VENUS - stereo behind HI1 28TH DECEMBER 2011.. SUBSCRIBE:- http://www.youtube.com/DanielofDoria02 http://www.youtube.com/danielodoria http://www.youtube.com/danielofdoriaa BE LOVE ((((O))))

MESSAGE TO ALL OF HUMANITY

I spent a very long time compiling this video making sure all the images were right and quality. I know many of you may have seen this speech before, and how inspirational it is.. That is why I took my time with this video, to create something that w

Friday, December 23, 2011

Noam Chomsky Addresses Occupy Boston Protesters.

This is a full video coverage of Noam Chomsky's address to Occupy Boston protesters on Oct 22, 2011.

Thursday, December 22, 2011

Is This The Demise of The Republican Party?

This video from msnbc's Ed Shulz show talks about the latest shenanigans of the Republican leadership in congress concerning the latest fight on taxes. Ed goes back to the earlier Republican pledge of making sure Obama fails, as mentioned in an artic

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

GGN: Our Taliban Friends Surrender, Eurasian 'Uprising' Next?, US/ Israel Form Special Forces

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Dan Choi gives an account of his experience at the Bradley Manning trial.

News & Commentary for December 21, 2011

Congress is on vacay and we’re left holding the bag – as usual; plus wall street has done it again folks – nothing beats greed; and wait until you hear about bankruptcy in Ireland; and BP is double talking; then some bizarre crimes; the death o

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Thoughts on the Anthony Weiner Sexting Scandal.

The clamor has been loud just as it has been consistently coming very fast and furiously. The clamor for New York congressman, Anthony Weiner, to resign his congressional seat in the House of Representatives for tweeting x-rated pictures of himself to multiple women.

If the media is to be believed, Mr. Weiner is now a gold fish and has absolutely no hiding place. This is because his position is compounded by the fact that even members of his own party, the Democratic Party, seem to be the ones leading the charge to get him to resign.

The Democrats' excuse for this abject lack of loyalty to one of their own being that he, Mr. Weiner, has become a distraction from the democratic message and, therefore, a liability they cannot afford especially heading into the 2012 elections.

Now, the Democrats never seem to run out of reasons to capitulate, do they? This spirit is a perfect example of why the Republican Party could control the government even with minorities in both houses of congress, and a Democratic President.  This is the very ugly problem of the Democratic Party rearing its head once again. The spinelessness, the abject fear of anything that looks or feels like it might make them fight, the very debilitating spirit of capitulation.

Sadly, though, the man they want to push out happens to be one of a very few in that party who has shown the will and the guts to fight. He is one of very few Democratic congress people who have shown any willingness to stand up for their constituents, no matter what and no matter whose ox is gored. In other words, Mr Weiner is one of the few real democrats in the Democratic Party and now his colleagues want to deny the people of this stalwart.

This fact might make you understand the urgency of the efforts of the Republican Party to get Rep. Weiner to  resign at all costs. Of course, that party has not been quiet about this as everyone, from their elected representatives in congress, to candidates for the 2012 presidential election primaries, to officials of the RNC have all weighed in with one advice for Mr. Weiner: Resign.

This is despite the fact that the Republican Party has two people in congress today whose own sexual improprieties actually broke the laws of the land who did not resign neither were they called upon to resign by any Republican. And here's poor Anthony Weiner who only sexted and the consensus seems to be for him to resign his seat. That's all well and good except that this consensus has been reached by people who actually have no say in the matter. This consensus has been reached by other politicians which effectively makes it null and void.

I stand fully Rep. Weiner in his resolve not to resign and I strongly implore him to stand firmly on that, never mind what his lily livered fellow Democrats have to say. My stand is predicated on the need for people of Mr. Weiner's convictions and will to defend such convictions in congress and, clearly, his constituents overwhelmingly agree with me on this as a poll taken in his constituency shows that three quarters of the people want him to stay.

Anthony Weiner has proved himself to be a very capable representative who fights hard for the people he represents. I believe, as do his constituents, that his private life and his personal failings in his private life should not determine whether he should stay in office, or not. As he has proved consistently over his time in congress, those failings have not affected his ability to perform the duties for which he was elected.

I believe that only Mr. Weiner's constituents can decide when and whether he leaves his seat, or not, because they are the ones who put him there. Everybody else should, basically, just shut up. http://newsparticipation.com/thoughts-on-the-anthony-weiner-scandal/


Thursday, April 28, 2011

A Black President Is Forced To Show His Papers!

Every now and again you hear the proud proclamation of how America has become post racial from the press. Anyone who has the audacity to say otherwise is deemed a non entity and looked at with a lot of disdain. If you were a sceptic like me, you would wonder why the rush, hurry and emphasis to make this declaration and force it to stick.

Assuming you are one of the people who have been railroaded into believing this crap by the media and people selling it, I'm sure the events of yesterday, the 27th of April, 2011 has disabused your mind of the fallacy. I'm certain the event of a president of the United States of America who happens to be black being forced to show his papers (birth certificate) in order to prove to his (forever) white masters that he is, indeed, an American citizen has completely woken you up from the dream you've been in.

It was a sad day for this country yesterday, not because of this singular event, but because of the damage to the reputation of this country in the eyes of so many people both here and around the world. Here at home, you can imagine how every black person in America is feeling after seeing concrete and first hand evidence that nothing, absolutely nothing can free a black man in this country - not even achieving the topmost office in the land.

And from around the world, you can imagine the views peoples of America will have of this country especially given our penchant for junketing around the world preaching freedom. The concensus that was just proved right by this event is that if America can treat someone who is their president in this manner just because of his racial background, it means that the slaves are not yet free making it a mockery of freedom for a country like America to be moving around advocating freedom to other people.

On hearing the news yesterday, I was going to say shame on the Republicans and their leadership for resorting to this lowest of lows in race baiting. I seriously thought about saying shame on them until I realized, on further thought, that that would have been an exercise in futility because these people haven't the ability to feel shame. They have clearly lost that ability which makes us human beings which explains why they can act the way they do; like animals.

http://newsparticipation.com/reactions-to-obamas-birth-certificate-release/

Monday, April 11, 2011

NewsParticipation dot com: A Site To Put The Initiative Back In Citizens' Hands.

A friend of mine recommended this site to me with this glowing tribute " This is a site that has the potentials to change the way journalism is practised and viewed around the world" I was skeptical at first and not until I went and viewed this site did I begin to see the possibilities that it offers.

The media these days is controlled by special interests and the news it brings to the people are about 90% doctored and prepared to represent or protect the interests of these special interests. These special interests could be businesses, politicians, religions etc and when the news we get are doctored to represent these interests, the citizens are left confused and uneducated about what goes on.

Before now, the citizens have no means of telling their own stories even when they know that the stories they get in the media are false. They are forced to discuss in frustration among the small groups they can form which cannot make any difference. This situation makes misinformation of the populace possible because when the only information the people get is wrong information, at some point they'll start to believe it.

The site in question is called Newsparticipation.com and, like it rightly claims, and it's name suggests, it is about fostering citizen journalism. Basically, it is a website where anybody and everybody can go and tell their stories. This makes it unique in the sense that the news will be coming from the proverbial horses' mouths and not from some second hand source where it could be tainted by ideologies and politics like the mainstream media.

Newsparticipation gives the citizens the opportunity to reclaim the discourse from the politically and ideologically motivated media that control it at the moment. Every citizen with a camera, video or still, can easily tell their story to either contradict, complement or corroborate the mainstream media stories. This could be as simple as aiming a video camera at yourself while you speak about how a particular policy by your national, state or local government affects you, or as involved as making a full length documentary about the same issue.

Another quality of this website is that it will take journalistic coverage to places where it would not be possible for mainstream media to cover due to lack of resources and, or special interest expediency. This will ensure that no story is left untold as citizens now have the wherewithal to bring these stories to the world.
It could be as simple as taking pictures of an event that is happening in your vicinity and uploading and sharing with the world in a situation where the mainstream media does not have the resources or the reach to cover.

Some people that I have discussed this site with ask me if this is not just duplicating the work of youtube and I answer that it is not. It is not, in the sense that youtube is just a jumble of videos which basically promote entertainment and other frivolities. I don't doubt that some news worthy videos are posted on youtube but such videos are mostly hidden away because they're not in the right place. Few  people, if any, associate youtube with news and information, and rightly so.

Newsparticipation provides that right place for such news videos and photos. It is a place where people can confidently tell their stories knowing that it will not be swallowed up and hidden by the frivolity that takes up much of a site like youtube.

Check it out here http://newsparticipation.com/

Friday, January 21, 2011

The Idiocy Of Conservatism In America

Of late, I have begun to be seriously annoyed by the seemingly endless brainlessness of the average American conservative. I have become completely convinced that conservatism has become totally synonymous with stupidity and, before you start to think that I'm being "elitist" - that word - just read on and hear me out. Maybe you will realize, when the facts are tabled before you like I would do with this article, that I'm right, even if you are a conservative.

To begin with, it has always been the aim of every selfish and corrupt ruling class to keep the ruled in the dark so as to be able to go ahead and do whatever they want without being challenged. Throughout history, this has been the case and, as all students of history can attest to, examples abound of societies, both defunct and existing, where this tactic was employed. The ignorance of the people has always been a very welcome state of affairs to bad leaderships around the world also, like all students of history can attest to, such leaderships have always ended in failure.

In today's America, this ignorance doctrine, if I can call it that, has been taken to another level by both the leaders and the led in the conservative end of the divide. This fact is evident to even the most casual observer of our political system and, more particularly, our political rhetoric.  Some of the things these conservative leaders say in order to deceive their followers are downright ridiculous and do not even bear repeating. As a matter of fact, the very idea that anybody can consider making such asinine statements to other human beings is, in itself, enough vindication for this article.

You only need to listen to people like Rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck  and Sarah Palin, just to name a few, to get an idea of what I'm talking about. I'll just state a very few of their gibberish in order not to bore you or bring you to tears just thinking about how dopey your fellow country men have become.

The most outstanding line of attack of these people is this one about education being a very bad thing, in fact, almost a taboo. Everyday you listen on the airwaves, you must hear one or two of these conservative leaders telling their followers about how bad a thing education is. They call educated people elitists who are not like their followers and who are not to be trusted. They fling the phrases ivy league and Harvard graduate like they are some sort of plague that their followers should run very far away from. They have gone as far as calling for the department of education to be scrapped.

They tell their followers that the president is a foreigner who will take away their freedoms, then they encourage them to stock up on guns and other weapons so that they can fight back. They call that the 2nd amendment remedy and they believe, or represent to their followers, that this amendment gives them the right to own weapons so they can have the power to overthrow a tyrannical government. Not that they can defeat the most powerful military in the world with all its fighter jets and nuclear bombs with pistols and semi-automatic rifles, but don't tell them that because, as conservatives, it will be too much for them to think about.

These same conservatives have been convinced by their leaders that access to affordable healthcare should not be the right of every citizen but a privilege of the rich ones. As a result, they had fought tooth and nail to make sure the affordable health care bill of the Obama administration was not passed into law even though many of them were already enjoying the same thing under medicare and medicaid. It was a funny sight to see people at rallies in protest of socialized medicine carrying placards that read "get your socialist hands off my medicare"

Now, right when you thought it couldn't get more ridiculous, they have found a way to take it to a different level of imbecility. It has become almost Orwellian, if you will excuse me the cliche, but, then, I can't see where that cliche will be more adequate than here. I mean, what can be more animal farm-like than this circus of the ludicrous?

This part is actually what put me up to writing this article and that is this latest news that the right has found the reason for the increased pedestrian deaths on American roads. That reason being Michelle Obama's fight against obesity which, according to their reasoning,  has caused an increase in the number of Americans taking up walking which they believe has brought about this increased pedestrian deaths. If you think that can't be topped, just twelve days after she was shot in the head by a mad man, a right wing blogger is calling for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords to be replaced in congress.

I believe that, at some point, these conservatives, even if they're goats, should have to shake themselves awake, or, at the very least, shake themselves so vigorously as to cause the grey matter inside their skulls to move around, hopefully, that can jolt it into starting to work. This is because the half-witted nature of the kinds of talk they're being deceived with is getting to the point where it can be considered insulting, even to goats.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Why We Love "Big Government Handouts" But Detest The Idea Of It.

I've been thinking a lot, recently, about the human being and the penchant to want to eat our cake and still have it. This thought has become more and more pronounced in my head since this latest Republican Party onslaught on our sensitivities and sensibilities concerning how big government and government handouts are the cause of all the problems faced by this country. I've tried, and you don't know how hard, to banish this thought but without success, especially since, it seems, Americans have become more selfish and, as a result, more stupid, and want to enjoy everything that government provides while also not wanting government.

Americans want good roads for their cars to run on and cannot tolerate the shallowest of pot holes on them. We need the traffic moving, our traffic lights working like clock work and the highway police on hand to take care of any problems that might arise.  We want good rail tracks for the trains to run on and won't entertain even the minutest of delays. I use the subway and I know what the reaction usually is from myself and my fellow commuters anytime the train is running late. Americans want good security and anytime there's a crime, or the threat of it, we want for the police to appear within seconds and take care of whatever it is.

We love our emergency responders and every time there is an accident, or a fire incident we love for our EMTs and fire fighters to show up within seconds and take care of the situation even before we dial 911. We don't want fallen snow to last two minutes on our roads otherwise the city mayor will hear from us, and we complain to high heavens every time we think the works department has been slow in clearing that annoyance from our government maintained roads.

Whenever we want anything from the city hall, be it our children's birth certificates or our business certificate of incorporation, we always want to get it within seconds of arriving there and we wouldn't tolerate the slightest delay. We want to get to the RMV and have our driver's license waiting for us before we ask for it, or our license plate affixed to our vehicle for us. We want our courts up and running, and taking care of all cases promptly and as quickly as humanly possible.

Americans love our education. We want our schools to be the best in the world and cry to high heavens, demanding for something to be done urgently any time we feel we're not getting the best. We want our kids bussed to and from school, and want them to have the best education that can be provided with the best teaching equipment in the world. We want the best higher education institutions to be available for everybody that wants to attend and, therefore, we demand for the best equipped schools with the best qualified teachers.

We want the best and most equipped libraries and demand it everyday. We want a library branch in each and every one of our neighborhoods which is fully equipped and staffed and we demand the utmost comfort every time we're using it. During winter, we want it adequately heated and in summer we need it well cooled. We want to visit the library any time and be able to find the latest materials waiting for us to use.

We love our safety nets and when we lose our jobs, we want the government to be there for us and pay us jobless benefit until we can get back on our feet. If we eventually are not able to find a job and become homeless, we want the government to help provide us with shelter and allow us stipends to enable us get the necessities needed for everyday living

We also want to have safety nets like medicare and medicaid to fall back on when we reach retirement age and are weak and frail. When we can no longer cater for ourselves, we want the government to take care of us and make sure we can get medical service every time we need it To cut a long story short, we love to have all of our needs taken care of even to the point of our trash taken out for us.

This is a good thing except that we want all of these things without having to pay for it, and possibly without having a government. In other words, we want these services to fall from heaven which might explain our infatuation with small, or no government. This might also explain why nobody wants to pay taxes while expecting to drive on well paved roads and enjoy the other benefits mentioned above.

The truth is that we as a people, like everybody else around the world, actually love "big government" and everything it provides but have been made to hate the idea of it by some self serving people who just want to deceive. Their reasons for this deceit are well documented here http://ohaneze.blogspot.com/2010/12/privatization-and-small-government-what.html  and, until we decide to face reality and accept that the phantom idea of small or no government which we're enamored with is not practicable, we will keep running around in confusion, not knowing where we are or where we should be heading.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Arizona Shooting: Why I Pray For More Politicians To Be Shot.

The air waves have been agog, over the past few days, about the "unfortunate incident" of the shooting of the congress woman in Arizona by an obviously deranged fellow. The cable talking heads, the radio talk show hosts, the newspaper and magazine columnists have all come out in condemnation of this act while showing commensurate shock that this outrage could happen in America. Everybody seems to have come to the agreement that the cause of this shooting has everything to do with the tone of the discourse in our politics which has recently become very belligerent.

The general verdict seems to be that our politicians and political rhetoric are the major reason why this incident happened. Many examples of politicians who fan the flames of violence have been given and many examples of how such flames are fanned have also been shown. Also, many television and radio talking heads have been accused - many with very clear evidences - of maintaining the lit flames of violence while laughing all the way to the bank with millions of dollars. Yet, a  particular prominent female politician has been harangued about her practical flame stoking for putting rifle cross hairs on a map detailing her political opponents and telling her followers to take such opponents down.

Such is the circus that has surrounded this shooting incident that no one has bothered, or remembered to look at the very obvious reason for it. That reason being the proliferation of guns, all sorts of guns, in our country. I have tried to find a reason why nobody, except for a few drowned out voices, has come out with this clear truth and the only one I can come up with is that the interests behind gun sales in this country are too powerful.  That is why people will be putting the blame for this shooting on secondary and tertiary reasons while completely ignoring the primary reason, or pretending not to know of its existence.

Now, let's do a little fact checking about guns in America compared to elsewhere around the world, and the effects of guns in society. Below is a table of the top five countries with the most guns per 100 residents.

No. Country              Guns per100 residents   Year
1     United States      90.0                               2007

2     Yemen               61.0                               2007

3     Switzerland        46.0                               2007

4      Iraq                  39.0                               2007

5      Serbia              37.5                               2007

6      France             32.0                               2007

12    Germany          30.0                              2007

18     Mexico           15.0                              2007

25     Russia             9.0                                2007

29     U K                5.6                                2007

30     Iran                 5.3                               2007

33    China               3.5                               2007

34    Nigeria             1.0                               2007

This above survey was taken in 2007 and as you can see, the United States tops with almost one gun per resident. I added some of these other countries in order to show where some of the other civilized countries of the world rank in this list. As you can see, countries like Russia, the United Kingdom and China rank quite low compared to the United States. As you can see, the country that ranks second to the US is Yemen and I don't think I need to explain what kind of country Yemen is to anybody.

The third country on the list is Switzerland, a country without a military in which the government provides most of the weapons to organized militia. When you take aside Switzerland, you will discover that the rest of the countries that make up the top five with the US have one thing in common. They are all countries that have been in wars of recent, or are still in war which will explain why they have a proliferation of guns. These are also countries with no established democratic governments where chaos rule most of the time. That's the kind of company America keeps when it comes to guns.

That's where the comparison ends, though, because it gets worse in the United States. That's because in many of these other countries, the guns are out there because of the war situations they find or found themselves in. This means that even though they're there, most of the guns are illegal and running out of ammunition which can't be found and bought as easily as in the United States. Here, our 2nd amendment rights doesn't only guarantee us guns, it guarantees countless numbers of them and even automatic weapons and ammunition to boot which we can buy as easily as we can buy candy.

Our 2nd amendment rights guarantee that we can even own more guns and ammunition than our local police department if we can afford it. More importantly, it guarantees that we can own more sophisticated and deadlier guns than our policemen carry, with larger magazines than our policemen have on their guns. It guarantees that we can out gun our police whenever and any time we need to. What a great thing for a civilized society, which is why we have the most gun related deaths among all developed nations. That is why over 30,000 Americans die every year from gun related violence and another 200,000 are estimated injured. Going by this statistic, it means that more Americans have died from guns domestically, in the same time frame, than have died in our two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan since those wars began. How about that for a peaceful country?

But, why not? Our constitution tells us that we need the guns to protect ourselves from our government who, we believe, will one day want to take away our "freedoms" - whatever that is - not forgetting protecting us from the angels of death when the war of Armageddon comes around. In the mean time, while waiting for any of the above scenarios to roll around, we will put them guns to use shooting and killing one another while also handing over billions of dollars to the makers and the sellers of the weapons who go under the umbrella of the National Rifle Association (NRA). There, I said it, I finally mentioned the large elephant that is taking up all the space in one half of the room but which everybody is still pretending not to see.

Special interests are really the bane of our society because they are the ones who buy our government and make them only act to protect their interests and not that of the larger society. The NRA has bought our congress and, therefore, no matter the number of deaths that result from the guns they sell to everybody, even mad people, nothing will be done. This is why I am praying for more congress people to be shot reasoning that when they find themselves facing the same dangers from these guns that the rest of us face, then they might realize the risks involved and act.

As things stand, the numbers of people dying from guns in the country is simply statistics to be glanced at and tossed aside by these congress people. I am hoping that being shot at will bring the everyday reality of ordinary Americans closer home to them and will force them to consider whether the money they get from the special interests is worth their lives and those of their loved ones. That is the only thing that will do it because, to these people, the lives of others don't matter. More shots please.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Of Pets And Willed Riches.

Reading my local newspaper in the subway, on my commute to work this morning, a story caught my eye and attention. The story said that our state governor, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, has signed a bill into law that allows pet owners to leave everything they die owning to their pet(s) - if they choose, addition mine.
This new law makes it impossible for the executors of tI was he will of the deceased owner to be able to spend the money on anything else but the receiving heir-dog or cat. This law, according to the newspaper, establishes a trust for pets that will now be enforced by the courts. Previously, persons had been designated  as caretakers which made it possible for such persons to use their discretion in spending the money. This usually meant that some of the money was spent on other things beside the rich pet.

My initial reaction after reading the story was one of amusement and I chortled quite a bit before I really thought about what the law means. Once the full ramifications of the meaning hit me, I realized that it wasn't a laughing matter and that, if anything, it was more tragic than amusing. Thinking about it made me realize how our laws are now becoming more and more driven by our individual selfishness instead of our collective good.

Because laws were originated in order to  protect society and, by extension, the individuals that make up the society, the laws we make should put the needs of the society ahead of the needs of the individual. What we find today is that more and more of our laws are doing the opposite by catering to individual selfishness and needs ahead of society. Ironically, this same individual selfishness was what our common laws were initially established to defeat.

Catering to individual selfishness is exactly what this new law in Massachusetts does by putting the needs of these dead pet owners ahead of the greater needs of the society at large. I can see the defense pleading freedom and free will as justification for this egregious folly. I can already hear the argument that people should have the right to do whatever they want with their money, and to that I say, when they are alive and sane. When they die and leave the money to their goats or, will that they be buried with it, we as a society should be able to stop that from happening.

We have too many human beings who need the money to allow that it be left to dogs and cats who don't really need it. We have too many people who need the money to allow that it be buried with the dead owner which is a viable wish - this, in answer to the argument that the wishes of the dead should be respected. I'm all for the respect of the wishes of the dead but, with all due respect, I think that the dead are just that, dead, and when they wish that their money should be left to their cat, dog or pet squirrel, or, for that matter, buried with them, then we owe ourselves and our society the duty to find better uses for such money.

Can anyone imagine someone like Bill Gates dying and willing that all his money, the whole $50 billion of it, be left to some pet? Or Warren Buffet doing the same but willing it to his pet cricket and having all that money locked down somewhere forever while millions of human beings die for lack of it? If you are thinking that it's ridiculous and cannot happen then I'm sorry to tell you that that's exactly what this law makes possible. These people, if they live in Massachusetts, only have to put it down as their will for it to come to pass.

So, what, really, is the sense behind a law like this one that literally puts the welfare of animals above that of human beings? What's the explanation behind putting the interests of animals above the interests of tax paying citizens? I can't find any and if anybody has some, then I'm all ears but until then, I want to say that this law is another example of a situation where we have allowed intelligence to determine our action instead of wisdom. It is laws like this that are helping send our society to the dogs, in this case, more literally than figuratively.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Tax And Spend Democrats vs Borrow And Spend Republicans: Who Is Better?

You can always hear the Republican Party's officials using this "derogatory" phrase, "Tax and spend" every time they wish to describe the Democratic Party. At every point, Democrats are presented as the party of fiscal irresponsibility who's answer to every problem - usually created by the Republicans - is to tax the people and spend. They fling the words, tax and spend, like they were the most contemptuous in the world.  To hear the Republicans tell it, one would think that only the Democratic Party spends money while the Republican Party simply creates money.

That is hardly the case because both political parties spend money when they are in control of government. Running a government entails spending money and lots of it, for that matter, therefore, it's an outright lie and a big deceit for any party to try and represent itself as not spending.

There is one big difference however, where it concerns the two parties and spending. That difference is that while the Democratic Party taxes the citizens in order to raise the money needed to run the government, (which is the right and sensible thing to do) the Republican Party prefers to borrow the money it spends (mostly on its rich sponsors) so that it can point accusing fingers at the Democrats and call them tax raisers.

What they try to hide, with much success.. I might add, is that when you spend borrowed money, you are running up debt while taxing your citizens ensures that you spend within your means and eliminates the risk of indebtedness. Also, it's very easy to over-spend on borrowed money because nobody is feeling the pain of having to bring out the money from their pockets. This is why the Republicans borrowed trillions to fight two unnecessary wars and give extra tax breaks to their rich patrons.

This also brings me to the issue of fiscal responsibility and irresponsibility, and who is being which. Would it be the Republicans who keep borrowing money and running up trillions of dollars in debt, or would it be the Democrats who always try to raise their finances the right way by taxing the citizens and spending within our means? Which is fiscally responsible, taxing and spending or borrowing and spending?

I do understand the natural tendencies of us humans to hate being taxed, or being asked to sacrifice anything but I also know that we cannot eat our cake and have it. If we want a government and the things a government does: things like providing the amenities we need to live as a civilized society; things like provide security; things like provide and maintain the "freedoms" we cherish so much, then we need to spend money. As a result of this, money needs to be raised one way or another and the only ways are either to tax ourselves or to borrow the money.

Question is, which is the better way for our country to raise the necessary funds it needs to run itself? I believe that taxation is the better way and is what is used by every responsible nation in the world. It's only pariah nations who depend on borrowed money thereby mortgaging the future of its citizenry.

The Democratic Party tries to do the fiscally responsible thing with taxation while the Republican Party, despite all of its rants about fiscal responsibility, is the one mortgaging the future of this country by pushing us into record debt levels with their borrowing and spending spree. It's actually better to tax and spend than to borrow and spend therefore, "borrow and spend" should be the derogatory phrase and it belongs to Republicans.  

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

The Politics of The Debt Ceiling.

Lately, the Rich People's Anti American Republican Party has been voicing its latest "concern" for Americans which it says is the "grave" consequences our children and grand-children will face financially if our debt ceiling is raised, as will be required pretty soon. Their agents have been making the rounds in talk shows and news shows around the country, positing very strongly that raising the debt ceiling will be debilitating to the future of our dear country and pledging to vote against and kill any bill that will suggest us committing that suicide.

For those who do not know what the debt ceiling is, let's explain it this way; America has a set limit of the amount of money it can borrow which can not be exceeded without an act of congress. This limit is called the debt ceiling and is presently set at $14.3 trillion. Given the financial and economic crises the country has faced over the past couple of years caused by the unpaid for tax cuts for the rich and wars of the Bush presidency, and the required spending spree embarked upon by the Obama administration in order to stem the slide and stimulate the economy back into buoyancy, our country will hit the debt ceiling in a matter of months.

Now, to talk about the true meaning of the debt ceiling and what it means not to raise it. The debt ceiling, in lay terms, is America's credit rating. As the big kahuna of world economy, the only thing to do when we hit the debt ceiling, as we will do shortly, is to raise it because not doing so holds dire consequences, not only for us, but for all of the world's economic well being. Not raising the debt ceiling will bring us from a credit rating of  about 2000 to zero which will take our country from credit worthiness to credit worthlessness. Now, as an individual, you know what happens to you when have a low or no credit rating. You can't do anything, including getting loans, buying things like houses, cars or, even renting a house to live in. Despite all of that, for you it's different because as an individual, you have the recourse of bankruptcy.

This means that if your creditors become too much trouble, you could declare bankruptcy and be done with it. No matter how unsavory that might be, at least, you have that recourse. For a country like ours, declaring bankruptcy is not an option, for many reasons a few of which I'll state here. The most important reason is that when a country goes bankrupt it has become worthless and dead meaning that nobody will want to do business with it anymore. It means that the country can no longer honor it's commitments both financial and otherwise. Most importantly, it means that the country is no longer credit worthy and cannot get loans from anywhere, be they other countries or financial institutions. It means that the country has defaulted or will default on loans already received thereby killing off any hopes of getting any future loans.

Bankruptcy simply means the death of any country and that is what not raising this debt ceiling will push America into. And being the world's number one economic power means that a bankrupt America will have a very negative ripple effect across the world's economies unlike any ever seen. The Republican Party knows these facts as do their sponsors, the rich, who stand to lose a lot if this scenario ever comes to pass. That party's leader in congress Rep. John Boehner said so himself in an interview when he said that congress has no choice than to raise the ceiling as not doing so would have a cataclysmic effect on the nation. He hoped that congressmen will approach the situation as adults when the time comes to do something about it.

What this says is that all the noise about voting to block raising the debt ceiling is nothing more than Republicans bluffing the president in order to score some policy goal for themselves and their sponsors. What that goal is has not yet been made public but we will know sooner than later. They know that the president is not very good at this negotiating business, a realization they confirmed while getting the extra tax cut extension for their sponsors through bluffing about holding tax cuts for all Americans hostage.

This posturing is in anticipation of the soon to be made attempt by congress to pass the law that will be required to raise the ceiling and allow the country to borrow more money beyond the $14.3 trillion, in order to keep the country running. In other words, the Republican Party, once more, threatening to shut down government unless they get something for the rich. That is what they do, that is all they are about, the question being whether the president will have the guts to call their bluff this time?

The president has not had the guts to call their previous bluffs which has given them the recklessness to keep churning out these bluffs and getting away with it. He should call their bluff this time so that we can find out whether they are willing to harm their benefactors just to score a political point on the president. But we all know the answer to that one.