The "Myth" and "Reality"of Health Care Reform

Yesterday I, like many of my fellow Americans, lost several hours of my life that I will NEVER get back watching the "Blair House Dog n' Pony" show that was the Health Care Summit. The purported idea behind the "summit" was for Republican and Democratic congressmen to engage in a free and open exchange of ideas for reforming our health care delivery system with the President and members of his administration. On the surface this is what appears to have occurred, but as we're all too well aware, appearances can be deceiving. Since this Administration and Congress took power, that seems to have become the RULE itself, not the exception it was once thought to be. What became readily apparent to me, however, was that what was happening had absolutely NOTHING to do with health care reform at all. What health care "reform" is, and has ALWAYS been, is a naked power grab by the federal government of the United States. It is the latest in a SERIES of grabs, by this government for federal control of private businesses and industries with the SOLE aim of increasing the POWER of the federal government. This is FASCISM by definition.

When the Democrats initiated healthcare "reform" their stated goal was to bring down the cost curve, to allow for portability of insurance, to eliminate the pre-existing condition exclusion, and to ensure that the however many millions of uninsured Americans there REALLY are (since the number varies in each politician's speech) could obtain affordable healthcare coverage. Then the Democratic controlled houses of Congress managed to put together and pass two bills that accomplish few if ANY of their stated goals (according to a panoply of non-political business, economic, and insurance experts), expand the size and authority of the federal government, and cost the taxpayers approximately a TRILLION dollars above and beyond the current budget.

While the public had voiced it's disapproval at the directions the Democrats were taking their legislation at Town Hall meetings and tea party rallies, the Democrats chose to ignore their constituents and press ahead. But when word of the veritable "bribery" of Senators Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson became public knowledge, voter anger exploded and the Democrats lost their veto proof super majority in the senate as Massachusetts elected Scott Brown to the Senate head long held by the late democratic Senator, Edward M. Kennedy. This turnover of a once secure seat to a republican in the very democratic state of Massachusetts, together with rising public disapproval for their legislation, and the fact that all house democrats and several prominent senators have to face re-election in less than a year put the legislation on a very shaky footing. While the separate bills had passed in their respective houses, there were substantial differences between the two bills that would make reconciliation difficult if not impossible. To many, myself included, it appeared as though the push for health care reform was effectively stalled, if not dead.

Then, out of nowhere, it's back and now the Democrats realize they are going to need republican support to get health care legislation passed. Additionally, because of the upcoming election, they WANT the political cover of having republicans on board with this legislation. To this end, they have been courting the more progressive republicans in both the Senate and House and getting nowhere. For this reason, President Obama convened the Health Care Summit at Blair House so that prominent congressional democrats and republicans could get together with him and key members of his administration to try to arrive at a workable compromise legislation that could garner true bi-partisan support. To their credit, Republican legislators showed up and presented a variety of time tested and proven free market solutions which, if implemented, would likely produce the results the democrats claim to want, and without the trillion dollar price tag or need to expand federal bureaucracy. If the Democrats really wanted to fix the system, they would take the Republican's ideas, put them in the bill, and if they worked, take credit for fixing health care in the next election and, if they didn't, blame the Republicans in the next election. All this is merely academic at this point as health care reform is only the magician's assistant. The REAL "trick" in these pieces of legislation is the creation of an American replication of Great Britain's National Health Service.

The National Health Service of Great Britain is the largest single employer on that tiny island. One out of every three working adult Britains is employed by this agency. Of these only one out of three is a medical professional such as a doctor or a nurse. The rest are paper pushing bureaucrats. If you take into account all the workers of other British governmental agencies, nearly forty-five percent of all adult workers in England work for the government and one HUNDRED percent depend on that government for health care. This creates a large and LOYAL voting constituency for the Labor party resulting in that party's veritable stranglehold on political power for the majority of the past thirty years. A great French writer by the name of Alexis De Tocqueville once stated that "Democracy will endure until the day politicians discover that they can bribe the people with public funds." That is EXACTLY what has kept the Labor party in power, and this lesson has NOT gone unheeded by our own democratic politicians.

In addition to the INTENT of the health care "reform" legislation, there is a far more dire and (I HOPE) unintended consequence that can occur if this legislation is signed into law in it's present forms. The net effect of this budgetary nightmare might very well bring to fruition the Cloward-Piven Stragety, especially when combined with the unravelling of the Ponzii schemes that the Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs have become. Thanks in no small part to the Babt Boomer's free love and unfettered abortion policies there are not enough working adults in the private sector of the economy paying into the system to keep pace with the benefits that will have to paid out, esp if no new manufacturing or other capital producing jobs are created in the next ten years. To understand what the net effect of Cloward-Piven will be, you have only to look at what happened to the former Soviet Union, and what's happening in Greece today. Thst is Cloward-Piven in ACTION.

The total economic, political, and social upheaval in this country that would result is the revolution that many progressive Baby Boomers have been dreaming about and creaming their flower appliqued bell-bottomed jeans over since they were teenagers fornicating in the mud at Woodstock. The destruction of America as it has always been, and the remaking of it as a socialist UTOPIA is and has ALWAYS been the goal of the boomer progressives, and with this one piece of legislation, they may well be able to achieve that goal and put the final nail in the coffin that was once the United States of America.What Bill Ayers and the Weather Underground could not accomplish with their bombs, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid may be able to do with their two thousand page bills.

Woith the election of Republican Scott Brown and the loss of the democrats filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, we the PEOPLE thought we had ended this very existential threat. Sadly, healthcare reform seems to have had a "Lazarus" moment and is once again alive and well. Actually, the legislation is more like Michael Myers in the "Halloween" movies and we all know that you can't kill the boogeyman. But like the boogeyman, if you don't kill this legislation now and for all time, it will rise up again and kill you and yours, fiscally speaking.

If the Democrats are allowed to succeed in this, when we go on to our great reward, or punishment, as the case may be, we may very well have to face the Founding Fathers and account for the mess we made of their once noble experiment. Remember, these guys settled their differences with canes, swords, and pistols, and we may very well deserve the thrashing we will receive at their hands for what we have allowed to happen to what THEY bequeathed us. In less than fifty years time, these elitist idiotswill have rolled back every reform of humanism since the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. We think it no good thing that Islamic terrorists want to take us back to the Dark Ages, but in reality it's our own progressive elites that want to return us to the Dark Ages and feudal serfdom. I truly hope there is a special corner in the hottest part of hell for progressive politicians in BOTH parties for the part they have played in systematically destroying the last, best, hope for mankind and freedom in this world.

Where Have All Our JOBS Gone?

In the days of the Hippies, and the Vietnam era protests there was a song frequently sung by the protesters called "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" It was a hit for the group "The Kingston Trio" and the trio, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and was based on a Russian poem called "And Quietly Flows the Don." The gist of both the song and the poem were that all things have both a cause and an effect and are cyclical in nature. 

In the song lyrics,the first question posed was "Where have all the flowers gone?" Answer:"Young girls picked them everyone." The next question was "where have all the young girls gone?" Answer" Gone to young men, everyone" followed by men to soldiers, soldiers to graveyards, and graveyards to flowers illustrating both the futility of war and the cyclical nature of all things using the flower as a metaphor for life. Makes sense, doesn't it? However, when the same question is posed about American jobs, too often the political ideology kicks in and the blame game begins. 

If you're a conservative, you blame the UNIONS. If you're a liberal or Marxist,you blame big business and Wall Street. In either case, you'd be both wrong and RIGHT. To blame either faction as the sole cause of the eradication of the manufacturing sector of our economy would be an oversimplification and misinterpretation of the events that transpired to bring it about. 

From the beginning of the period that followed the end of World War II to about the mid 1970's, roughly two thirds of the finished manufactured goods sold all over the world were made in the United States.During this boom period, we had relatively non-existent unemployment because anyone willing to WORK could find a job. Not only could one FIND a job with relatively little education or experience but onecould support himself and his family in a respectable manner on what he earned from working at such a job. It was also possible to work that same job for twenty years or so and retire from it with a gold watch and a pension that, together with accumulated social security benefits, would allow one to live a relatively secure and comfortable retirement. To understand how we went from being the world's largest producer of finished goods to one of the world's largest consumers, you have to look at organized labor, progressive politicians, the legal profession (creators of the litigation INDUSTRY), and the "wolves of Wall Street."

I'm not writing this solely for the purpose of bashing labor unions. Unions have done a lot of good things for the American worker. Without Unions, there would be no 40 hour work week, sick days, maternity leave,worker's compensation, child labor laws, and a variety of other laws we take for granted in the modern workplace. At their inception, Unions were comprised of men who WORKED in the industry whose workers they represented. They were true peers of their fellow union brethren, and as such, represented their interests with diligence and empathy against corporate executives and managers. By the late 1950s however, unions had been corrupted by both organized crime, and union management that had no relationship to or understanding of its' members as they had been hired directly out of colleges and LAW schools without having EVER done a hard day's work in their lives.

In the late 1930s, the unions were infiltrated by organized crime families following the loss of their Prohibition revenues, and who used the Union's dues pools and retirement pensions as slush funds to build casinos in Havana and Las Vegas. In the election of 1960, Kennedy family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy used this relationship to help securetheelection of his son, John F. Kennedy, to the presidency, which resulted in the "quid pro quo" exdecutive order legalizing (for the FIRST time in U.S. History) collective bargaining rights for FEDERAL employees. This provided the model that ultimately institutionalized PUBLIC Sector Unions and gave them the stranglehold they now hold on our states and municipalities. Even the uber progressive Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt knew that doing THAT would lead to econonic DISASTER, but Kennedy paid his father's BILL with OUR money.

From that time on, Union leaders saw the power and profit potential inherent in political activism and became more concerned with their personal and political ambitions than the welfare of their members. It was ALSO around this time that labor unions become the targets of infiltration by the Communist Party of the USA, whose agenda had been set forth in its "45 Stated GOALS for the TAKEOVER of America." 

Unions used their new found legislative clout to get laws passed the strengthened their position in one sided collective bargaining (especially in the PUBLIC sector) and to extort higher wages and greater benefits including "cadillac" health care benefits, unrealistic pensions and stock options for their workers. This went on for a time until the cheaper imported manufactured goods began entering the country and finding their way ontostore shelves. Free market forces put the American manufacturers in an untenable position between a rock and a hard place and they realized they could not continue in business if they couldn't be competitive in pricing their products. However, due to their high labor costs and union contracts, they could do nothing to bring down their manufacturing costs so they were hemorrhaging market share to the cheaper imports. This resulted in deminishing sales, declining profits, and lower share values. More than one manufacturer was run out of business altogether, but some found a way to shake the union yoke once and for all and still remain profitable and this is when the "Wolves" of Wall Street started to howl.

In the Reagan era the 1980s, wall streeters coined a new term for America's financial lexicon. This term was "maximizing shareholder value." It was this concept that gave rise to the corporate raider portrayed to perfection by Michael Douglas in the character of Gordon Gekko from Oliver Stone's classic movie "Wall Street." What the corporate raider did was seek out companies that had been declining in profits and share prices, but still had sufficient cash and assets to make the acquisition worthwhile. These raiders however had no intention of running the business once they bought it. Their purpose was to dismantle these corporations and sell off their assets because the companies were more valuable for their parts than for the corporation as a whole and functioning business. They would "maximize the shareholder value by buying the shares at or above market price thereby removing the shareholders from the business model. They would then either work with the existing boardof directors or a new one they inserted to liquidate the assets of the corporation like its real property, inventory, fixtures and equipment or replace them with a slate of officers chosen by the liquidator specifically for this purpose. Employees would be immediately terminated because the board only has a fiduciary duty to shareholders not to employees, and the equipment would be sold off, normally to an overseas concern. 

The dirty little secret to this whole process is that before the takeover, the boards of directors would often organize another company or corporation overseas in a country that was more hospitable to business and when the equipment and fixtures was sold, it would be that company, secretly owned and operated by the same board of directors, that would purchase the equipment and fixtures at a bargain price. The company would then set up a new company to import and sell to retail the products now manufactured overseas, and it's profit would come from the wholesale to retail sales model now inplace. By this slight-of-hand, the corporations effectively reorganized, removed the union and the high labor and operating costs they would have paid in this country, and with a more streamlined business model in place, could realize greater profits than were realized prior to the "liquidation." New corporate name and no manufacturing facilities or employees meansno more UNION obligations. This process was repeated throughout the 1980s and 90s until the manufacturing sector of the American economy was all but EXTINCT, and it's not limited to manufacturing either. Try calling customer service for your credit card to airline today and you'll probably be talking to someone in New Dehli, India. Apparently it's cheaper to pay the long distance charges and the Indian wage than it is to pay Union scale wages and benefits in the customer service industry. 

The loss of these jobs was not the goal of either the unions or the progressives in government. The INTENT of the unions was to use government power that they bought and paid for to effectively wrest (aka STEAL) control of the corporations and their profits from their rightful owners, the shareholders, as we saw in the rape of GM and Chrysler shareholders (aka the rightful OWNERS) by both the UAW and the US Governmentacting in concert. 

The LOSS of the manufacturing jobs and resulting boom-bubble-BUST economic cycles was an "unintended consequence" of the progressive political and social agenda. Seems, however, that most, if not ALL of those progressive political and social agendas are fraught with the damages from the "unintended consequences" on progressives who don't think past the end of their upturned noses when implementing their ideologically driven, but poorly reasoned, agendas. Ironically, we're NOW supposed to believe that CHANGE will come from doing the EXACT same THING only with the GOVERNMENT doing the manipulating instead of the wolves of wall street. 

At the beginning of this piece I referenced the song "Where Have All the Flowers Gone" I chose that song not only to illustrate the cyclicalnature of events, but because it has a most appropriate tag line for our current economic and political situation. That line is "When will we EVER learn?" And the sad ANSWER to the question is, apparently, WE will NEVER learn.

Rage, Politics, and the Barrel of a GUN!

In the past several days, indeed over the past several YEARS, we've seen more than a few people attempt to vent their frustrations and assuage their rage with loaded guns and a body count. I can personally recall the mass shootings at The post office, Columbine High School, The Atlanta brokerage office, Virginia Tech, and the college in northern Illinois. Just this week we've seen two back-to-back yet unrelated incidents at Fort Hood,Texas and an office in Orlando, Florida. While there is no definitive connection between any of these incidences, there ARE similarities in the motivation and causation of each. In every case just named, the shooter was a male who felt he was the victim of an injustice or injury that he felt powerless to resolve or ameliorate. His frustration builds , along with despair and rage in equal proportion until they reach critical mass and he decides his life is no longer worth living. However, instead of merely committing suicide, these shooters resolve to reclaim the power they feel has been taken from them, to go out in the proverbial "blaze of glory," and (in a poetic measure of "justice") take the people they feel are responsible for their miseries (no matter how inaccurate their perceptions) out with them. Though there are subtle variations to this basic architecture in each of these cases, the underlying foundations are uniform. Sadly, with our recessive economy, these incidents of sporadic violence are on the rise. This is nothing new as we've frequently seen upticks of violence in down economic cycles. During the depression we saw the rise of cold-blooded killer gangsters like "Baby Face" Nelson, "Pretty Boy" Floyd and Bonnie and Clyde. These people loved violence for the sake of violence and happily sprayed lethal streams of lead wherever they went. However, since their most frequent victims were banks and bankers, the "schaddenfreude" aspect of human nature kicked in, and we took a perverse pleasure at the violence directed at the banks, which many Americans perceived to be the cause of their miseries, and these thugs were turned into Robin Hood like folk heroes. In the economic miseries of the 1970s it was the radiical and violent groups like the Black Panthers, and The Weather Underground that were turned into the folk heroes of the leftists who wanted government collapse, anarchy, and power to the people. Sadly, some of these people survived, escaped the prosecution and imprisonment they so richly deserved, and mainstreamed back into society where their higher education was used to corrupt students and further their radical agendas by inflicting their radical ideologies on the youth of America. This campaign of indoctrination begins as early as preschool and kindergarten and continues right on through high school and college. It is no accident that the overwhelming majority of new voters register and support not only Democrats, but the most RADICAL and MARXIST of democratic politicians in every election cycle in which they can be counted upon to participate. Typically (and THANKFULLY) this is only a Presidential election, and even then only when a Presidential candidate actually appeals to them. This is why John Kerry did NOT get the same level of support from younger voters that Barak Obama did. Now, as for the political element in all of this, today we are faced with a very real existential threat to our American way of life and that threat does not come from a foreign power as in the days when the Soviet Union was the source of all evil in the world, but from our very own elected government. We have empowered the most radical slate of elected officials in our history, and every item on its legislative agenda is purposely designed to deprive American citizens of their freedom and rights to private property and personal wealth. Now the same was said of Franklin Roosevelt's administration and rightly so, but the difference between the Roosevelt government, and the current administration and congress is like the difference between the softer European socialism of France and Germany, and the hardline socialism of the former Soviet Union, China, and North Korea. We have empowered a cabal of elitist politicians that want to "fundamentally transform the United States of America" as if the present model which has taken us from horseback to space ships in less than 200 years isn't good enough anymore. This slate of politicians got elected by deceiving the majority of voters into believing that they were moderates with only the best interests of the American people at heart, when in reality they are firmly committed Marxist idealogues with only the maintenance and spreading of their own power and ideology at the root of every item on their toxic legislative agenda. We the PEOPLE know that if the Marxist/Democrats succeed in passing their slate of legislation, it will result in the greatest confiscation of property and restraint of personal liberty this country has ever seen and more than a simple majority of the people of this country want NOTHING to do with it. When we typically have a disagreement with our elected officials, there are several forms of political activity available to us to try to change their behavior. In ordinary circumstances we write letters to our congressmen to inform them of how we feel about their legislation or support and if enough people send enough letters, they get the message and alter their behavior. If letters aren't enough, we call them. If that doesn't work, we show up at their offices and make our feelings known, and if all that fails, we vote them out of office in the next election cycle. Today, much to our frustration and dismay, NONE of those measures seems to have any effect on these politicians. They are so driven and committed to their ideology, that they are not responsive to the wishes of the people they purport to represent. They seem to have forgotten that THEY work for US and not the other way around, although most of us typically have to work more than six months out of every year just to pay our taxes and fees, so that doesn't always seem to be the case anymore. The last and most extreme political measure available to people to protest against the policies of their government is the ballot. Though there was no election on a national scale, people who wanted to change the direction of our current government put their energies and money behind two gubenatorial elections to oust the democratic incumbent and candidate and elect conservative republican candidates. Though many Americans could not legally VOTE in either the Virginia or New Jersey elections (unless of course they belonged to ACORN), conservatives and republicans across the country gave financial and political support to the conservative republican candidates and these efforts succeeded in ousting the democratic incumbents and candidates in states that previously been solidly for democrats in hopes of sending these democrats on capitol hill a clear and unambiguous message to stop what they're doing or the same fate could befall them in 2010. This action was ignored, minimized as "state politics" and indeed, the democrats have even spun these elections as a political victory. So now we have anger at what our elitist politicians are trying to do to us, and a growing sense of frustration because we don't seem to be able to do anything about it. We HAVE written letters and even sent e-mails and tea bags only to be ignored. We've made phone calls only to speak to a third tier flunky who gives us a canned platitude in response to our concerns. We've also shown up and protested, first at town halls, then at tea parties, only to be ignored or worse, ridiculed and insulted. Tea Party protesters have been called everything from racists to nazis and branded as unpatriotic and un-American. Funny how the dissenters to government were heroes and patriots when it was democratic protesters against a republican controlled government. This hypocrisy, as well as the heaping of insult on top of injury only adds to the growing sense of frustration and rage building across this country. This elitist cabal of politicians, together with its' willing accomplices in the media and academia is now poised to ultimately destroy the American way of life as we've known it. They further intend to cede American sovereignty to the United Nations by signing its' Climate Control Treaty which amounts to nothing more than Cap n' Trade on a global scale. However, unlike Cap n' Trade which will merely cost lower and middle class citizens far more than they are likely to be able to afford in utility costs, as well as to cause every manufactured product still made in this country to cost more, the global version will permit an international government to further regulate our behavior and confiscate yet more of our personal property and freedom. This will devastate an economy already in peril, and will likely make the economic miseries of the 1970s seem like the "Happy Days" of the 1950s by comparison. The politicians elected to make things better are only amplifying the damage and committing generational theft by running up a tab that our great grandchildren may still be paying when they are senior citizens. So there is a great deal of fear and despair among free-thinking Americans who don't believe everything they see on TV, read in the New York Times, or have lived through the 1970s. Since no political solution has seemed to get the attention of these committed Marxist Democrats, what is left? When you have a large part of the population gripped in the fear of economic uncertainty and the TERROR of the intent of our elected officials and seemingly no way to effect their intention to radically alter or destroy the things we hold dear, you get that very volatile combination of despair and rage that can lead to violence against those perceived to be the cause of that suffering. Sadly, our congressmen and women seem to be oblivious to the growing danger that faces them as they proceed hell-bent on ramming their legislative agenda down our throats regardless of our wishes to the contrary. In that regard they are like a team of horses with blinders running at break-neck speed along the side of a steep cliff with us riding in the carriage being pulled along behind them. If they go right, they live and so we. If they go LEFT, they plunge off the cliff to their destruction taking US with them. Given those considerations, it wouldn't be unreasonable for someone to conclude that if they are successful, we might prefer death to life in the AmeriKa they would create. One of our most famous Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry, said "Is life so dear as to purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH!" Given that mindset, what is to prevent someone from reaching that critical mass and taking his guns and directing their fire at members of Congress? After all, they do not have the protection that the President has, and they don't stay in Washington all the time, either. If someone takes out congressmen between now and 2010, depending on the laws in their states, such an act can force special elections in which conservatives can band together and get conservatives elected to replace the deceased Marxists thereby sending a CLEAR and unambiguous message that even the most committed Marxist demon-CRATS can only ignore at their own peril. Sadly, I fear there are those out there in what the coastal elites of Hollywood, New York, and Washington DC refer to as "flyover country" namely the rest of the United States in which REAL people live, that may be starting to think along these lines. I only PRAY this does not happen, for the result would be anything but the desired one and would more likely result in the total suppression of freedom of speech and assembly, the imposition of martial law, and the confiscation of all privately held firearms by the government and its' local, state, and federal police agencies. Just as John Wilkes Booth miscalculated the consequences of assassinating Abraham Lincoln, any conservative who undertakes this extreme action will likely do far more harm than good to his cause. The only real HOPE for CHANGE will come in the elections of 2010 and 2012. In the meantime, keep writing and calling your elected officials, and keep showing up at the tea parties and rallies. Despite the lies told by the media, these actions ARE having an effect because if they were not, health care legislation would have been passed by the Democrats a long time ago. No, my fellow Americans, we still have our rights to free speech, free assembly, and free (if not always FAIR) elections, and we can take heart that even ACORN can't steal an election if it's not close. We need to work together to get honest conservative candidates running in the primary process and supporting those candidates to secure their election to the House and Senate in 2010, and 2012! The BALLOT is still more mighty than the BULLET and we need to keep it that way if we are to remain the United States of America!

Throw Mama From the Train . . and Under the BUS!

"Golden Years" is more than a song by David Bowie. It is the term that described the time that elapses from when a person retires from his or her chosen profession to the time that he or she "shuffles loose this mortal coil." Thanks in no small part to the rock-solid alliance between America's senior demographic and the Democratic Party, those "golden" years have heretofore been golden indeed. Senior citizens have routinely seen increases in their Social Security and Medicare entitlements over that past thirty to forty years, and they in turn have given their loyalty and support to democratic politicians. However, in the time since the near market collapse of September, 2008, senior citizens have seen thier "golden" years turn to lead painted with gold paint. Most seniors have seen their life's savings evaporate, whether in the stock market decline or in the real estate collapse, and they have seen their costs of living rising steadily. Now, thanks to the legislative agenda of the Democratic Party, they are looking as substantially higher costs on every single product and service they rely upon.

One would think that the old adage "dance with the one that brung 'ya" would serve to protect the senior population from the democrats' reckless and proflagate spending agenda, but the sad reality is that you would be wrong. In nearly EVERY version of the so-called "health care reform" bills, democrats in Congress are proposing paying for the new entitlement at the expense of the already troubled Medicare program. If you're a senior citizen on a fixed income, you can't help but wonder how the government is going to cut half a billion dollars from a program that's nearly bankrupt as things NOW stand, without severely curtailing your benefits, thereby increasing your COSTS. At a time in life when seniors HAVE to live on a fixed income and a tight budget, if their out of pocket costs go up, their quality of life MUST go down.

Today's senior citizens have been sacrificing their entire lives. This is the generation that saw us through the Great Depression, that fought and WON World War II, that fought and WON the Cold War, and that has worked hard all their lives to give themselves and their families the highest standard of living in the world. Now, in their twilight years, the democrats are demanding further sacrifices from our seniors because in passing any or all of its' legislative agenda, senior citizens are going to find themselves with health care expenses they can't afford to pay, utility bills they can't afford, and a social security check that will not get them from one month to anther without substantially reducing their expenses, thereby diminishing the quality of of their lives and severely diminishing the enjoyment of those lives. Just as it was before the Republican party passed the prescription drug benefit, seniors are once again looking at having to choose between healthcare, utilities, and food. They have been through too much to have to shop for their food in the pet food aisle at the local supermarket.

The reason I chose the title I did, was that in addition to incorporating a movie title, I have a seventy year old "mama" that will be very negatively affected by nearly every one of the democrat's proposed pieces of legislations. My mother has been through a LOT in the preceding decade or so of her life. She had a major stroke which left her left side completely paralyzed, a second minor stroke, open heart surgery to replace her heart valves, and last February she fell in or bathroom shattering her kneecap and requiring two surgeries, an extensive convalescence at a convalescent home which she had to pay for out of her own pocket because neither Medicare, nor her Medicare Advantage plan covered that particular expense. It came to more than $25,000.00 our of her pocket In the legislation now pending, a government bureaucrat might have concluded she was not worth all that expense and she might have had to languish in a nursing home for the remainder of her life wtih painful pins holding her leg together.

I also know that my mother's social security and pension benefits are barely enough to pay her bills as they are NOW. Imagine if Congress succeeds in passing Cap n' Trade and her power bills DOUBLE what they are now? If the proflagate government spending continues, inflation will make the dollar worth less and everything will cost more. How is someone on a fixed income who's not even confident in a cost-of-living adjustment to social security supposed to absorb this? Something will have to give, and that something will diminish the quality of enjoyment of life for most if not ALL senior citizens. And, for the record, it's not just ME saying these things. I heard all this and more when I took my mother to the local senior center earlier this week. The prospect of the looming health care reform bills is something that is TERRIFYING local seniors as well as anyone that has a health care issue.

So why would an organization as politically astute as the Democratic Party has proven itself to be in the past six years risk alienating its' largest and most reliable constituency? No single answer to that query makes any sense, but if you look at a variety of consequences, either intentional or unintentional, you begin to see a pattern emerging. Whatever politically esoteric label you want to put on democratic (and sadly, SOME republican as well) politicians, they are about ONE thing, and one thing only, POWER! They have something in their DNA that makes them think they are entitled to it. They forget that they work for US, not the other way around. They forget that they are representatives, NOT rulers.

Democrats in particular are infected with this disease of arrogance. When they lost Congress in 1994 and were related to the "cheap" seats for nearly twelve years, they SEETHED with rage and did everything they could do to undermine the republicans, and attempt to sabotage every program and policy regardless of the consequences to national security or public safety. Their attack dogs in the press virtually committed TREASON exposing our national defense policies on the front pages of ther papers and magazines. Any challenge of this nature, however, was met with the rhetoric about dissent being patriotic, and we should ALWAYS question our government. Funny how that seems to NOT be the case now that THEY control that government and they want to make certain that they never LOSE that control again. That's the only way you can explain the "double standard" democrats insist on hiding behind. So , assuming all this is true, you're probably asking "If democrats are all about keeping power, why would they risk alienating their most reliable constituency?"

The answer is simple and can be given in one word, MONEY. It takes a LOT of money to mount effective political campaigns, and senior citizens live mostly on fixed incomes. As the "baby boomer" generation retires, they go from being producers to being consumers and will be less likely to make the kinds of contributions to the democratic party coffers that they did as working people. The younger voting demographic, however, will be earning, paying taxes, and thanks in part to twelve or more years of liberal political indoctrination in schools, will be more likely to make their contributions to the democratic party. So the democrats are gambling that the money and votes they net from the younger demographic will be enough to offset the votes they MIGHT lose from the senior citizens. When it comes to the "boomer generation" the democrats know that more of those are lifelong liberals and believe that they will be far more likely to remain loyal to the democratic party regardless of its' policies.

Nevertheless, if is a real risk the democrats are taking. Younger people are notoriously unreliable when it comes to actually VOTING, esp in mid-term and more local elections. Another disadvantage of counting on the young is then they tend to get older, and with age some wisdom also sets in. In the words of the immortal Sir Winston Churchill, "If you're not liberal when you're twenty you have no heart, but if you're not conservative when you're forty, you have no brain." It's never too late to reform a liberal. If you doubt this, just look at Dick Morris. Last point is, that with senior citizens living longer, and being far more reliable voters, this ploy of catering to the younger demographic at the EXPENSE of the senior one, may very well backfire on the democrats. Only TIME will tell, and the time most telling will be in November of 2010 and November of 2012! As Rush Limbaugh so aptly put it, "I hope they FAIL!"

Reviolutionary War Redux: Townhall Turmoil!

Like most Americans, I watched the events that occured outside a town hall meeting hosted by Missouri Representative Carnahan in which purple-shirted union thugs physically assaulted and injured Kenneth Gladney, a conservative African-American man as he was passing out buttons and flags bearing that most American of expressions "Don't Tread on Me." I watched this event with a mixture of horror and anger that literally DOUBLED when I learned that these thugs had been dispatched to this meeting and others like it by the WHITE HOUSE. I will not speculate as to the identity of the individual responsible, but I hope that will be the subject of SOMEONE'S investigation at some time in the future.

Both health care reform and town hall turmoil were topics of discussion at my weekly Toasmaster's roundtable. As you might exepct, the dicussion got someone heated and animated, especially given the fact that I'm outnumbered by liberals. These meetings sometimes take on the feel of an episode of "The View" which, for the record, I do NOT watch. I only see the segments that are aired as part of OTHER news programs. Following one of the more aminmated exchanges in which I called a liberal friend's charge that the people protesting and speaking out at these meetings were "hired guns," ridiculous, another friend of mine said "It's a good thing that town hall meetings were not like this before the American Revolution or we'd still be British." Like most things out of the mouths of liberals, this statement was heavy on emotion, and light on fact.

The fact of that matter is that pre-revolutionary war town hall meetings were very contentious events, often erupting in sporadic acts of violence. After all, they culiminated in the American Revolution. So, too, was the act of introducing hired muscle to disrupt such meetings a very colonial american concept. Understanding the significance of these events requires an understanding of the times in which they occurred. Since legitimate US history is no longer accurately taught in public schools, there are at least two generations of Americans that have grown up with out any real understanding of what this country is or how and why it came to be, so if you'll permit me, I'll enlighten you a little.

In the mid 1700s, the North American continent was not a united anything. The british controlled the original 13 colonies which occupied the east coast from Maine, then part of the colony of Massachussetts, down to Georgia. The French controlled most of the middle of the continent in the Louisiana terrirory which ran from Quebec down to New Orleans, along the Mississippi River. France and Britain were longstanding enemies and the French befriended native American indian tribes in their territory and encouraged them to make war against the British colonists' more western settlements. This resulted in a declaration of war by Britain against France and the British exported their army and navy to take on the French and the indians on the north american continent and high seas in what became known as the French and Indian War.

American colonists enlisted and fought with the british army as well as in independent colonial militias, and with the help of such future heroes as George Washinton, and Daniel Morgan, the british and colonial forces successfully prosecuted the war to victory, gaining new territories in the Ohio valley for the british crown. When the conflict was concluded, the vast majority of the british army returned to Britain, leaving only a few volunteer brigades to man the garrisons and the british forts to guard against any repeat of the hostilities by the french or the indians. Some of these troops had to be quartered in colonists' homes, for there were not sufficient military barracks at the forts to house them all. This was mandatory and there was no compensation offered to the inconvenienced colonists for the intrusion on their privacy. Though the soldiers received sufficient compensation to provide for their board, they often helped themselves to their hosts provisions and comandeered the furniture and horses of their hosts for their own personal use without offering any reimbursement. Needless to say, this did not endear them to their hosts and this anger would be demonstrated in later events.

With the hostilities concluded, the british parliament saw that its' treasury had been greatly depleted by the war, because wars as we know are expensive affairs. When parliament examined its' assets and liabilities, it concluded that it was only fitting that the American colonies should be required to recompense the crown's treasury for its assistance in defending the colonists. Ironically, had the colonists been included in these discussions, there might likely never have been an American Revolution, because it's only fair that they should help pay for their own defense. However, since American colonists were britsh subjects but not full british citizens, there was no right of participation in the governance of the empire. Consequently, the parliament passed the Stamp Act, assessing a surcharge on all paper products used in the colonies. The colonists had no idea what had occurred, except that one day a messager disembarked from a ship from London, went to the home of the Royal colonial governor, and from that time on, every paper product purchased in the colonies was suddenly far more expensive. That included playing cards which, in a time without TV's, computers, or IPODs, were the most common form of entertainment in the majority of colonial households.

The anger at having their homes invaded and their pockets picked by a faceless, non-inclusive bureacracy caused colonial Americans to pour into their town halls with the goal of venting and finding the means by which to redress their greivances. Initially all discussions were aimed at petitioning the King or the parliament for the repeal of the Stamp Act and the right to elect colonial representatives to the british parliament to represent the interests of the American colonies in legislation. However, another far more dangerous solution to the problem was also voiced at these meetings, that being the concept of American independence from Great Britain.

When word of this idea having been voiced reached the ears of the social elites, the landed gentry and wealthy merchant class of colonial society also known as Tories, they reacted in alarm. After all, they owed their fortunes to the largesse of the King as it was he or one of his predecessors that gave their family its' land or license, and the same King could just as easily strip them of it if he chose to do so. Even if they did not fall out of favor with the King as individuals, they also knew that if the colonies were perceived to be rebellious, the King or parliament could declare martial law and severely curtail freedom and thereby prosperity in the colonies. A merchant may not lose his import or shipping license, but if the ports were to be blockaded by the british navy, his business would definitely suffer.

With their selfish interests at heart, these societal elites attended the town hall meetings to promote the idea of petitioning the british governor, parliament or the King for the repeal of the Stamp Act, and the inclusion of the colonies into the parliament. These notables were intially very well received by the assembly. They were, after all, the celebrities of their time and it would be as if Donald Trump walked into a town hall today. However, when the citizens realized that these Tory elites were only there to preserve the status quo and protect their own selfish interests, the crowd turned on them. In those days, an angry crowd could do some serious damage to the target of their anger, such as severely beating them, or tarring and feathering them, in the most extreme cases. Consequently, these Tories stopped off at the local docks to pick up a burly stevedor or two to accompany them to these meetings as a bodyguard.

As the rhetoric and passions grew more heated, the Tory elites stopped attending the meetings altogether, as they did not feel safe in their persons when they did so. They still had a a compelling interest to keep the talk of sedition, treason, and revolution from the ears of the government so they came up with a different plan. Instead of taking some dockhands to protect THEM, they decided instead to recuit dockhands in larger numbers to break up the meetings and thereby keep the King's peace. Intially, this worked, but it had some serious and certainly unintended consequences.

The first of these was to compel the American Patriots, as they were now calling themselves, to fight fire with fire. Initially, the toughs that attended the town hall gatherings as bodyguards to the Tory elites were against the patriot cause. However, as they stood and listened to the arguments made, more than a few of them decided they would rather SUPPORT the patriot cause and many of these men joined with Samuel Adams to form the Sons of Liberty, a patriot organization that was formed specifically to do unto the tories as they were doing to the patriots. The Sons of Liberty were the precursors to the Continental Army, and engaged in tactics that can best be described as guerilla warfare against the Tory establishment. Sadly, they are being described by modern educators as terrorists, and equated with the likes of Al Quaeda.

A second, and probably greatest unintended consequence of the selfish goals of the Tory elites was to disenfranchise several of their own, and turn them into ardent patriots. Among these is wealthy Boston merchant, John Hancock, who would later serve as the President of the First and Second Continental Congresses. He and others like him committed their "lives, fortunes, and their sacred honors" when affixing their signatures to the Declaration of Independence which would not have been possible without them. More than one town hall meeting erupted in sporadic violence, either internally as participants assaulted each other, or externally as in the one the triggered the Boston Tea Party or tragically led to the Boston Massacre.

So, take heart Patriots. Continue to attend those meetings and speak your minds. It is our right and obligation as American citizens. Contrary to our own "tories" popular opinons, what's going on in today's town hall meetings is as American as mom, flag, and apple pie. For those entrusted with offices in our goverment to say otherwise just goes to show how ignorant and out of touch they truly are with what America is and has always been.

Today's elitist democrats that want to dismiss the tea parties and town hall meetings as noise, rabble, astroturf, etc. will continue to make their mistakes, but take heart because just as the Tory elitists of pre-revolutionary war America saw their tactics backfire and turn a crazy idea into the United States of America, so too will the dismissive and strongarm tactics of the modern Tories, our own (anything-but-Jeffersonian) Democrats, blow up in their faces. Considering what happened last time, I like the possibilities that could come from this very real movement to let the vox populi or "the voice of the people" be heard, if not undertood,and heeded. Should they fail to do so, the elitist democrats will likely pay a very heavy political price and we will once more live in the USA and NOT the USSA. In the words of the Gipper himself, Ronald Reagan, "government is NOT the solution to the problem, it IS the problem." So to the town halls we go, for where American began, there it shall continue.

July 4, 2009, The Dis-Spirit of '76!

I LOVE the Fourth of July holiday! It is a time when American pride is at its' height. Summertime is in full swing, families are usually beginning or ending their summer vacations, school's out and will not be restarting for at least another month and a half, and it's generally a very happy and festive time. It is a time for watching fireworks, cooking hot dogs, burgers, steaks, brats, etc. It's a time for getting together in the great outdoors with family and friends, most of whom will be decked out in red, white, and blue apparell, waving flags, and singing songs about America and American pride. This has been the sum total of my forty-six years of experiences with this national holiday.

Of all the celebrations I remember, the one that stands out most in my mind is the one from our national bi-centennial in 1976. At a time when our nation was recovering from the Vietnam conflict, Watergate, years of economic malaise, we managed to put all of that aside and come together as we hadn't been able to do since World War II to celebrate our nation's 200th birthday. I remember well, that every square inch of the city was draped in either a flag or red, white & blue bunting. You couldn't walk a foot without bumping into someone wearing either a tricorn hat, an Uncle Sam styled stovepipe hat, or a revolutionary war era costume. Even more than the costumes themselves, were the SMILES on everyone's faces as they embraced and attempted to propound the Spirit of '76. This past weekend, a mere 33 years later, there was little if ANY of that sort of thing in evidence.

In the four years following the bi-centennial, the Carter years, national morale went into a steep nosedive. To be fair, we were still reeling form the ravages of Vietnam and Watergate when we elected President Carter, but it was his domestic and foreign policies, which culminated in the capture and holding of our embassy personnel as hostages for more than a year while we did NOTHING to effect their rescue, that had our national morale at an all time low when we elected former actor and Governor of California, Ronald W. Reagan to oust the innefectual Carter from the White House.

Reagan's greatest political asset was his abilty to communicate with the people of this country and appeal to our patriotism and national pride. He made us proud to be Americans, once more, and inspired the patriotic anthems "Pround to Be An American", by Lee Greenwood, "In America," by the Charlie Daniels Band, and a slew of other musical tributes, including one by noted liberal, Bruce Springsteen, called "Born in the USA." Even though the latter was not written to celebrate America or Reagan, it was still played as though it were. President ?Reagan restored our national pride in many ways, including but not limited to the freeing of our hostages, the support he gave the Polish labor movement, Solidarity, and his challenge to Soviet Premiere Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall." He never flinched on the world stage, and he NEVER showed even the slightest sign of weakness in this country. He also NEVER apologized for or about anything the United States had done, said, or stood for, especially on foreign soil.

Contrast that to our current President who has circled the globe, pretty much on his knees, apologizing to friends and foes alike for all things American. Contrast the optimism and hope of Reagan with our own First Lady's comments about not having pride in her country at any time in her adult life, including the Reagan years, prior to 2008 when her husband was nominated by the Democratic Party as it's presidential candidate. Would Nancy Reagan ever have made a comment like that? I don't think so. In fact, this President has spent more time on his knees than Debbie did the whole time she was doing DALLAS! I hope he has a good pair of knee pads because I have a feeling he's not through groveling just yet.

The final blow for me came this past weekend, our Fourth of July Independence Day holiday, when this selfsame apologist-in-chief actually had the temerity to apologize to ENGLAND for our own Declaration of Independence and by extension, our very existence. His next stop is Russia where he'll be right at home among fellow Marxists like Putin and Medvyedev. I wonder what he'll apologize for THERE. Winning the Cold War, perhaps, Salt, Detente, Perestroika? The possibilities are endless.

The worst part about all of it is that it's for NOTHING. He's not going to win one point in either popularity or gain one concession as as result of his prostration before the thugs and dictators of the world than he would have gotten making his requests in the same manner used by George W. Bush. The difference is that the world leaders RESPECTED George W. Bush, even if they didn't always say so. They KNEW he wasn't a man they could mess with, and that he would back up his words with decisive action if necessary. They have NO such illusions about Barak Obama. In all fairness to President Obama, he may very well be able to act if necesary and all the supplication may just be a tactic to engineer a specific outcome. At some point in time, however, he's got to realize that it is not only ineffective, but that it makes our country look weak and inconsequential in world affairs. He's being punked like a freshman nerd in the high school playground on the first day of school. This is evidenced by every two bit thug and dictator doing pretty much whatever he pleases these days. Iran is escalating it's nuclear production and has no intention of abating this no matter what takes place in any discussion with this president or his representatives. North Korea is firing off missles and exploding bombs like there is no consequence for doing so, because at this time there ISN'T. Thugs and dictators don't respect social niceties, they respect only what they FEAR and they do not fear Barak Obama. They see him, unfairly or not, as a weak willed dilletante they can push around at will, and they are doing so daily. How can we feel a sense of national pride with such a leader?

In all fairness to President Obama, this is not all his fault. patriotism and Americanism has been under assault in this country in earnest since the Vietnam era. Our television and print news media, entertainment media, music, movies, schools, etc. have been systematically programming their audiences with the none to subtle message that America is BAD and that the bad things happening in the world are somehow OUR fault. There are at least TWO generations of students that have pretty much been indocrinated since preschool to think this way. There are at least THREE generation of college students, including the baby boomers like Bill Clinton, that have been programmed with this and other marxist ideologies since college.

Traditional American ideals and values, such as Christianity, liberty, self-sufficiency, free enterprise, capitalism, etc. have been under constant seige by the Left for DECADES. When Hillary Clinton referred to that "vast right wing conspiracy" that was out to get her husband, she indavertently exposed the very real "vast LEFT wing conspiracy" that had been in existence since the late nineteeth century. This freudian slip was the result of a psychological phenomenon known as "projection," which means that you "project" your own ideas or behaviors onto others as either a coping mechanism to help you deal with them, or as a form of subterfuge to distract your opponent from what you yourself are doing. This is a technique often employed by philandering spouses when their mates become suspicious of their behaviors. The cheating husband whose wife is getting suspicious of his late night "business meetings" will suddenly turn and accuse the wife of having an affair. It puts her off her guard and on the defensive and takes her focus off of him and what HE is doing. This is the same reason magicians often have beautiful leggy girls in skimpy attire as their stage assistant. It is not by accident, but design, as they know that the audience will be more likely to stare at her LEGS and NOT his HANDS, so he can complete his illusion without his methods being detected.

This left wing seige began with the publication of "A Communist Manifesto" by a writer/philsopher named Karl Marx. This philosphy was embraced by academic institutions the world over and has been effective in indoctrinating both democrats and republicans alike. Marxist indocrinees are responsbile for the existence or organizations like the ACLU, labor unions, and community ordganizations like ACORN. Students of these teachings have graduated and become television and print journalists, hollywood actors, directors, and screenwriters, educators, law enforcement officials, etc. These teachings have been at least partly responsible for the moral decay experienced by our society and the war on religion, family values, and our sense of pride in our national identity.

It continues to this day in the relentless assault on the Bush administration by both the Obama administration and it's sycophants and toadies in the congress. For what is the Bush administration, but the long legged magicians assistant designed to keep our focus looking backwards so we don't see what our governement is doing in the present time. In point of fact, nothing President Bush did puts our lives and lifestyles in peril half as much as what's being done today and we need to keep our focus on that. Democratic congressmen and senators aren't all true believers and many of them are betting their re-election on President Obama's popularity ratings. If they continue to fall as they have been, you're going to see these career politicians start backing away from him and his policies like rats off of a sinking ship. It is for precisely this reason that the administration is in such a rush to get Cap n' Trade, National Healthcare Reform (a euphamism for socialized medicine), and maybe even a SECOND stimulus passed and signed before that can happen.

Cindy Hale wrote "Governments don't take away the rights of free people in large blocks but in small chips that are barely noticed, until one day you wake up and realize you are no longer a free people." Whether liberty is lost in a sudden violent hail of bullets or legislated away in thousand page bills passed over a period of years, the net result is the same. It's gone, and as long as keep electing the same kind of politicians to public office, it's NOT coming back. Our founding father Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that there were three rights endowed by our Creator and not by government. These were life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Liberty is second only to LIFE in that trilogy. He further started the then New Democratic Party to safeguard against the legislating away of any of these rights by the creeping bureaucracy of an expansive federal government. Today it is that self same Democratic Party that is doing precisely what Jefferson warned us against for he understood that although these rights come from God, not government, they CAN be legislated away. Eleven score and thirteen years later, my how things have changed!

In spite of outward appearance however, the Spirit of '76 is alive and well. It was evident in the Tea Parties of April 15, and July 4, it's evident every day on the internet and certain television stations, and it is only going to grow as our President and Congress continue to try to legislate us into a socialist model of utopia in a vainglorious effort to preserve their political power and polish their legacies. Still, as long as we remember the words of yet another founding father, Virginian Patrick Henry when he said "Is life so dear as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me LIBERTY or give me DEATH!" While I don't believe anyone in the Obama administration or the Congress of the United States desires our deaths per se, I DO agree with Patrick Henry in that a life without liberty is a mere existence and not worth the effort. So, unfurl your flag, dust off the tricorn hats and keep going to meetings, websites, tea parties, and ultimately the voting booths and keep the Spirit of '76 alive and well so that we may proudly celebrate our Tri-Centennial in 2076.

California DREAMING

When I woke up this morning the LAST thing I had planned to do was write anything of a political nature. I was working on a nice blog article about the passing of Farrah Fawcett, which has all but disappeared from the public notice in the media tsunami over the equally untimely and tragic passing of Michael Jackson. So there I was writing my little personal tribute to the woman whose face and figure helped get me through the "awkward" phase of adolecense when I heard President Obama's dulcet tones telling us that we should model our national energy policy after that of the State of California, and that we as a country should be more like California. So much for the Farrah piece because I can't let a man with such a large microphone spew out inaccurate, false, and deliberately misleading statements without challenging them. This is supposed to be the job of the press, but since they are too busy obsequiously fawning over their hand-picked and annointed messianic symbol to do their JOBS, I guess it will be up to people like me, so here goes. I lived in California in the Reagan 80's and even then, California had a serious pollution problem. I remember in Los Angeles, we got daily smog reports with the morning weather and traffic, and as long as I can remember, California cars have had significantly stricter requirements for automotive emissions than the rest of the country. Despite all this, you could still see a brown smog cloud hanging over Los Angeles, especially in the summer months and it made being outside, nearly unbearable at times. Clearly some reforms were needed, and they were being undertaken by the last good Republican governor to run the Golden State, Pete Wilson. When Californians elected liberal democrat George Dukmejian, the enviornmentalists where pretty much given the keys to the kingdom and free reign over the Sunshine State. I'm glad I got out of there before that happened, especially in light of what followed. To be fair to the environmentalists, the Golden State of California was a mess in many ways. We're all familiar with the story of Erin Brockovich, thanks to her book, movie, and portrayal by academy award winning actress Julia Roberts. She took on the largest power company in the state over the issue of toxic waste coming from a power plant. When Dukmejian was elected, he targeted the largest power companies in the state, forcing them to close a number of power plants deemed hazardous to the environment. This is all well and good, but if you take power plants off line, what happens to the power they generate? Do we stop using less just because we're making less? In the case of California, the power companies tried to make up the shortfall by rehabilitating some of the closed plantsto bring them back online. This was rejected by the government. The utility companies then wanted to build a nuclear power plant as nuclear power is cheaper and less polluting than coal or oil run plants, but thanks to the specters of 3 Mile Island, Chernobyl, and The China Syndrome, the state refused to allow nuclear power. The companies attempted to increase output from the remaining plants, but consumption was too high. This forced the power companies to make up the shortfall by buying electricity from out of state companies at a premium. As businesses do, they pass their cost increases down to their customers, and California residents saw their power bills increase exponentially. This is something we might ALL be able to relate to soon, if Cap n' Trade passes in the Senate and gets signed into law by The ONE, himself. When people are unhappy the complain to their representatives and the unhappy Californians were no different. The problem is, that when you ask politicians to solve a business problem you get a political rather than an effective solution. The same held true in California, and instead of allowing the power companies to create more power by opening a plant or easing environmental restrictions, the government of California decided to regulate the rates utility companies could charge their customers, regardless of the costs those utility companies incurred to produce that energy. This created an inbalance which the government then offset by paying subsidies for the power purchased from out of state. All was well for a time. The people were happy because their utility bills were leveled off, the government was happy because the people were happy, and the power companies were not quite as happy, but they weren't hemorrhaging money so they weren't unhappy. This would have gone on smoothly, but as i pointed out earlier, the state was being overrun by the enivronmentalists and their lobbyists. This resulted in more and more regulation and restrictions on the power plants, which in turn resulted in decreased power production and increased purchasing of power from outside the state and premium rates. The subsidies in place were no longer adequate and the State of California refused to either increase the subsidies, or relax the regulations to allow the power companies to generate more of its own power. The power companies then made the decision produce as much of its own power as it could given the regulations, purchase only as much additional power as the subsidies would cover, and if that weren't sufficient, then there would be blackouts. To minimize the discomfort to the residents, the blackouts were allowed to roll from one end of the st ate to the other keeping the outages to a minimum, and the inconvenience to the residents to a minimum. These rolling blackouts earned then Governor Grey Davis the less-than-flattering nickname of "Grey-Out Davis." They also got California's legilslators costituents calling their representatives again. Consequently, Governor Davis and the legislature decided to increase the subsidies to the power company to stop the blackouts, but then decided to announce an increase in the state's property taxes to help pay for it. That tax increase announcement was the straw that broke the camel's back and caused the citizens of California to rise up, recall, and replace Gov. Grey-Out with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a.k.a the Governator. Whether that was a good thing or not is a matter of public debate. I won't get into that issue here. In conclusion Mr. President, if we're going to emulate any policy of California, it should NOT be an economic or ENERGY one. We don't need skyrocketing utility bills or rolling blackouts on a national level. We also don't need to be swimming in a sea of red ink that makes the Red Sea look like a kiddie pool by comparison. If there is ANY policy of California we might WANT to emulate on a national level, I vote for the ability to recall and ineffective or downright dangerous chief executive. THAT policy I could support with a clear conscience.

The Devil-lution of the Modern Liberal!

My conservative friends are fond of tossing around the statement that "the only GOOD liberal is a DEAD liberal." When I hear this phrase, I'm often heard retorting that they should "bite their tounge" because without political liberalism, there would be no United States of America today. The truth of the matter is that our founding fathers were ALL political liberals. But as another old saying goes, "the devil is in the details."

The concept of "innocent" political liberalism can best be exemplified in a quote by Robert F. Kennedy which said something to the effect of "Some men see the way things are and ask Why? I see things as they never were and ask Why Not?" The "innocent" liberal honestly wants to do the most good for the most people and is not about his own self-aggrondisement. Likewise, he or she wants to make a better world, but unlike the not-so-innocent idealogues, does not come from a place of hate, especially when it comes to America. The "innocent" liberal is aware that we have less than pleasant chapters in our long and diverse history, but can also appreciate all the good that this country has done in and for the other nations of our world. Then there are the not-so-innocent politicians like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, etc. who are all about their own wealth and power. Then, last but not least, are the committed idealogues like Rosie O'Donnell and Janeane Garafalo who genuinely HATE this country and all it stands for but probably have no rational foundation for this hatred or any conscious knowledge of WHY they have such rage and hatred in them.

Thus the modern liberals can be broken into 3 types. The first of these is the "innocent" liberal. This type of liberal can be summed up in the Three Musketeers motto, "all for one and one for all." Personalities that represent this type would be George Cloobey, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Oprah Winfrey, Leonardo DiCaprio, Darryl Hannah, Matthew Modine, etc. These are people that put their money where their mouths are and actually WALK the walk, not just talk the talk. While I may disagree with them politically, I respect them personally and they do a lot of good in the world.

The second type is the "not-so-innocent" type. This would include the career politicians such as Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, etc. These can be summed up by altering the Three Musketeers motto as follows: "all for one and that ONE is ME." Celebrities can also fall into this type as well. These are the ones that put their names and faces out front of any political or social cause they get involved in, but that involvement is more about self-promotion than doing anything for anyone else. I'm not going to name any specific celebrities here, but you know who they are. These are the types that run around the globe taking smiling photos with some of the world's worst dictators and happily take starring roles in movies that are going to bomb at the box office to bolster their political bona fides. Also included in this category would be hypocrites like Al Gore and John Edwards. Al Gore espouses environmental causes like Global Warming but puts down one of the biggest carbon footprints attributable to any single human being on the planet. Likewise, John Edwards runs for President espousing family values and concerns for the poor when he is unfaithful to his wife, and lives like a Roman Emperor.

The last type is the commited idealogue. This type hates all things American, and spends all his or her time telling anyone that will listen what a horrible country this is and what awful people we Americans are. This is the category I reserve for Al Franken, Rosie O'Donnell, and Janeanne Garafalo. These people cannot love this country and knowingly say and do the things they do on a daily basis. Several leading Democratic politicians fall into this category as well, but I'll not feed their egos anymore by mentioning them here.

The ancient oriental general/philosopher Sun Tzu made two statements in his treatise "The Art of War" that were eerily prophetic to our current political situation. The first statement is paraphrased as: "The closer the enemy is, the harder he is to see." The second statement is paraphrased as: "In order to defeat an enemy you must first be able to identify him." When Howard Dean succeeded Terry McAuliffe as head of the Democratic National Committee, I remember reading and hearing statements from various political pundits that the Democratic Party had been hijacked by its' liberal wing and that it was no longer Grandpa's Democratic Party. Like most things reported in the press, some is true, and some is innacurate.

The Democratic party is no longer Grandpa's Democratic party, that's for sure. To clarify, only ONE of my grandfathers was EVER a Democrat but he would have ripped up his membership card if he could see them today. The media's deception is in the identity of the hijackers themselves and this is largely because the media has been complicit in the hijacking process. The hijackers of the Democratic party of Thomas Jefferson and dear old Grandpa are neither liberals, nor Democrats. They are the resurgents of the American Communist Movement and Party.

Now, before you go relegating me to the status of that crazy old uncle that every family has and doesn't claim, let me clarify a couple of points. I am well aware of the negative visceral reaction most Americans have to the words "communist," "marxist," and "socialist. Like most things we base on emotion, the facts tend to get lost in the feelings and more times than not, we get it wrong. When I refer Communism, I'm not talking about the former Soviet Union, North Korea, China, Cuba, Nicaragua, or Venezuela. The sad truth is that the actual practice of communism as defined by Karl Marx in his book "A Communist Manifesto" occurs in only one country that I'm aware of and that country is Israel. True communism is not the central form of government in Isreal, but it is the form of government in the agrarian kibbutz comminites. There, the maxim "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs is actually put into practice effectively.

The countries that purport to be communist countries have about as much to do with Marx's philosophy as the Islamic terrorists have to do with the Quoran. The Soviet, Cuban, and North Korean governments are totalitarian dictatorships and not communist despite their usurpation of the title. I could call myself Hercules, too, but it does not mean I can bench press half a ton. Still, so as to remain on point, the communism I will be talking about here is the philosophy as defined in the Manifesto of Karl Marx.

The book "A Communist Manifesto" was first published in Germany in 1848 as a work of philosophy, not a political writing. As such, it was embraced by the universities and colleges in Europe and The United States. It was so embraced because at the time the words had not been tainted by the bloody deeds of the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution. The book itself speaks of nothing resembling the totalitarian dictorships of Russia, Cuba, and North Korea, but rather of a socialist Utopia in which all are equal and no man is richer or more important than any other. It is this last concept that makes the work appealing to the liberal minds of college students to this very day. The difference is that the students who began class after the 1920s were not aware of what it was they were studying or by whom they were being indocrinated. The reason for this is that by the mid 1920s the deeds of the Bolsheviks were well known and words like "communism," "marxism," and "socialism" had taken on the more sinister connotations we have of them to this day.

As to how all of this ties today's liberal Democrats with the American Communist Party, the string that tied the bow for me came in this quote from Norman Thomas, the last man to run for President in 1948 on the American Socialist Party ticket. He said, "The American People will never knowlingly accept Socialism, but under the label of "liberalism" they will accept every fragment of the Socialist progam until one day America will be a Socialist nation without ever knowning how it happened." This idea a socialism-by-stealth fits perfectly with the program of indoctrination disguised as education adopted by the Communists that became university and college professors following the demise of the American Communist Party in the aftermath of the "red scares" of the 1920s.

The American Communist Party as a political organization came into being in 1919, even though Communism as a philosophy had been generally accepted and embraced by academia since the 1850s. American Communists, emboldened by the Russian Revolution and the establishment of a communist state, decided the time was right to bring similar change to the American way of life. Unfortunately for the founders of this party, the atrocities of the Bolsheviks in Russia came to light causing the public to react violently against all things communist. To see how dangerous it was to be a communist in America in the 1920s, watch the movie "Reds" starring Warren Beatty and Diane Keaton. Given that declaring oneself to be communist could result in anything from arrest to assault and battery, most American Communists felt that discretion was indeed the better part of valor and abandoned the party opting for safety over ideology.

Americans thought they had seen the last of the Communists in this country, but like the cockroach, communists don't go away. They hide out of sight and flourish in the shadows. Like the cockroaches who scatter when you turn on a light as a survival instinct, so the communist hid from the light of public scrutiny, but they were committed more than ever to their goals of making America a utopian state. To accomplish this, they needed to be able to get their message to people open-minded enough to receive it and what better place can this be accomplished than in colleges and universities. Students are by their very nature open to new ideas and what better way to get a message to young, eager, and captive minds than from the bully pulpit of the university classroom.

Now if you walk up to a liberal democrat and call him or her a communist, they will probably respond to you by calling you something very insulting. They may deny the allegation outright, but more often than not, they'll just attack you. The degree and nature of the attack will depend largely upon whom you attach the communist label. If you choose a minority female like Shelia Jackson-Lee or Maxine Waters, you'll be called racist, sexist, and stupid. If you choose a minority male like Jesse Jackson, Jr., you'll be called racist, and stupid. If you choose a caucasion female like Hillary Clinton, you'll be called sexist (although she'll probably use "mysogenist" because she did go to Wellesley and Yale after all). Finally, if you choose a caucasion male like John Kerry, you won't be called anything. He'll just look down his nose, his upper lip will make a snarling gesture demonstrating utter contempt for you as he opines that you don't understand what you're talking about (elitist for "stupid"). This was seen many times in his presidential campaign, especially when the press actually did its' job and asked him tough questions or questions that clearly made him uncomfortable.

The sad reality is that many of today's liberal communists don't realize that they are, in fact, the idealogical successors of the original communist movement because their indocrination was most likely done without revealing to them either that they were being indocrinated or by whom. I doubt seriously that in the wake of the red scares, a communist professor would stand in front of his class on the first day of the semester and announce that he was a communist and he was going to make communists out of them. If he didn't get beaten to death by his students, he would certainly have been out of job when one of them reported him to the dean. So it's most likely that this indocrination would have been by stealth. Likewise, I doubt any college professor in the 1920s would have whipped out a copy of "The Communist Manifesto" and lectured from it openly. More likely, the professors would have started with Plato and the importance of the State over the individual and progressed from there. Still, if today's liberals don't realize they are indocrinated communists, it's only because they don't WANT to know, or better still, they don't want YOU to know. Another juicy little secret is that the indoctrinated ones are not just on the the Democrat side because, contrary to popular belief, Republicans go to college, too.

In spite of what I just said about the Republicans, it is in the Democratic constituency that you see a veritable rogues gallery of American Communist legacy organizations. First among these is the American Civil Liberties Union, often jokingly referred to as the Amercian Communist Lawyers Union. As with most jokes, we laugh because they're funny, but they're funny in part because there's some truth in the humor. The same holds true here because even though the letter C in ACLU doesn't stand for Communist, in many ways it really IS the American Communist Lawyers Union. The initial director, Roger Baldwin, as well as initial members like Crystal Eastman, and William Z, Foster were purported to be card carrying members of the American Communist Party. This is not to say that the ACLU hasn't done some good for our citizens in its history, but in the time since the Vietnam era, the ACLU has been more about attacking our American values and way of life than anything good it may have done before. This makes sense when you consider that in order for the Communist ideas to succeed, you first have to remove morality from the American psyche and the best way to do that is to attack the foundation of that morality, our Christian values. Regrettably, they have succeeded in this endeavor all too well.

Next up in the communist cavalcade are the unions. While they will strenously object to any links between unions and communism, the fact of the matter is that the labor movement did not exist in this country until the communinsts came together. Unions will argue this point by saying that the labor union goes back to the guilds that have been around since Egypt was building pyramids. This is true, in part, but the fact remains that there was no organized labor union in this country until 1875, well AFTER Karl Marx published his Communist Manifesto. Unions also point to the Upton Sinclair novel "The Jungle" which served as an expose on the conditions for the workers in an industrial manufacturing plant and called for workers to organize to protect themselves from corporate abuses. While it's true that "The Jungle" was published in 1906, well before the American Communist party came into being in 1919, its' writer, Upton Sinclair, studied Marxism in college and was an avowed Socialist, which was the same as a Communist, especially after the "red scare" of the 1920s. That the letter "U" stands for Union in the ACLU is NOT a coincidence. Unions owe their existence to the efforts of the American Communist Party, whether they want to admit it, or not.

Last, but certainly not least, is the group, ACORN. This body of community organizations owes its' existence and sustenance to Saul Alinski, author of "Rules for Radicals" and a hero to the likes of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Alinski was himself a community organizer dedicated to the proposition that communities should organize and use their organization to bring down both the goverment and business structures of the United States. His "rules" combined with the lessons of Nicolo Machiavelli provide the blueprint by which the Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, our first Communist President, ushered in the "politics of total destruction," a practice honed, perfected, and used with deadly precision by the modern communists of the Democratic party and their supporters to date; and, "political correctness," an insidious form of censorship and thought control and prevents us from speaking our minds in most situations.

Ironically, all these organizations, the ACLU, labor unions, community organizers, and communism itself all come from the latin word "unum" meaning "one." The word is featured in our own national motto "E Pluirbus Unum," meaning "from the many - ONE. Our founding fathers interpreted this to mean from the many, i.e. the 13 colonies, come the ONE, the United States of America. Our current liberal communist democrats interpret this to mean: "from the many, our private wealth and property, to the ONE, the Federal Government. Like a swarm of termites, these liberal communists have infected and infested both the super structure and infrastructure of the great House that is the United States of America. Like a large Victorian mansion so infected, that house is today buckling under its own weight and in serious danger of a total collapse. Now that we have, in fact, become the Socialist country we have so long feared, somewhere in the vast reaches of the infinite universe, Norman Thomas is smiling.