Compassion: A Value, Not a Marketing Commodity

When H. W. Bush phrased his party as the party of “compassionate conservatism” in an attempt to change the perception of the Republican party as the party of Scrooge,  the oxymoronic effort derived immediate derision from the more sensible corners of the country.

But that hasn’t stopped the Republicans effort to continuously lie to the public and hide the intentions of their cuts and denial of funding for programs and legislation that would help the citizenry.

Maggie has big shoulders.

The picture above shows Maggie Hassan, the democratic candidate for governor hugging a woman.  We received this picture via a message from Facebook, which tells the story of a cold day in March on 2011 during the most dramatic anti-labor rally held that year.  At the state house union members had camped out and staged a huge protest.

When the protest was over and the crowd was leaving, a woman came running out of the state house and down the stairs crying and holding a sign.  The sender said that the woman had apparently had words with a Republican (possibly O’Brien?) unsympathetic to the plight of parents of children with Autism, the sign reads, “Support Connor’s Law” and has a picture of what everyone learned later was her son.

While most everyone present stood in stunned silence, Maggie had the courage and presence of mind to act and quickly approached the woman and held her while she cried.  Our friend also sent along a picture of the woman showing her sign, you can see tears in her eyes.

Democrats have backed and been the source of some of the most major legislation in this country that protect the rights of workers, created the New Deal, advocated for the Civil Rights Act, pushed to get out of the past wars we’ve waged, advocated for full freedom of rights for women.  We were the party that supported gay rights, that turned to listen when the streets exploded with riots in LA and some Democrats were even ready to talk about legalization of medical marijuana long before it became the cause du jour for the young libertarian.

The Republicans can make up every excuse they’d like to justify their inhumane practices in supporting corporations and the 1%, but they can never claim to have compassion.  That is the realm of the Democratic party and despite its faults, it remains their core value.  Not conservative compassion, not pre-qualified, approved, pre-packaged and market tested compassion, but the kind of compassion that comes from understanding and knowing what it is to suffer injustice.

While Democrats, Progressives and others on the left can argue compassion in degrees, we know its where we stand in solidarity at the core.  We know its the kind of compassion that rises out of the heart, that realizes that government represents real people, not statistics.  Its the kind of compassion that comes from a warm, breathing, flesh and blood person who has cried, who has loved.  It is the compassion that burns like a fire inside the heart of every Democrat who is determined to get up, get in the game and do something.  Just like Maggie did that day.

Tagged , , , , , ,

New Embassy to be Built in Grafton NH

Free Grafton Embassy guard.

We have before us yet another tortuously boring production from the FSP.  First off we hear from a guy with a beard and a pony tail (awfully hippie for an anarcho-capitalist) talk about Burning Porc, apparently an effort that started a few years ago, but died off, which of course means its time to revive it, because there’s nothing like a sucky idea the second time around right?  The speaker asks, “Why Burning Porc?”  which is really a good question, why would anarcho-capitalists want to imitate a ceremony developed as an anti-capitalist expression even going so far as mentioning ‘communal’ in its principles (true evidence of commie infiltration)?  The speaker tells us we have to wait for our answer, but like most Free Nut videos, one will no doubt come away with a mix of astonishment at how little sense it takes to manage to exist everyday and a feeling that your crazy anti-tax, anti-government uncle you have to bear every Thanksgiving might have secretly mutated and taken over your local government.

But that hippie Burning Man thing sure was cool amirite? Anyway, as the video shows some people trying and failing miserably to figure out how to make and use a Slip N’Slide, the speaker then goes into talking about the lovely Free Stater utopia called Grafton.  Once a small town in New Hampshire populated by cranky old dairy farmers, now home to what appears to be people who like to chop weeds, wear floppy leather hippie hats (there’s that hippie thing again) and something significant we’re not told about goats in hatchbacks.

For reasons not really explained, the gentleman in the beard and long pony tail explains his latest brain-child; a Grafton Embassy.  But not a big one like the one the Evil Government is building in Iraq, but a little tiny one in the town of Grafton that has suffered an influx of Free Nuts as of the past few years.  Bearded man explains that this will be an outpost for Free State folks to hang out and talk Free Nut talk to an angry looking young man shown in a still picture in the video. Welcome to the Free Nut lair where you will in fact be taught to love your liberty.

Now its easy to assume that everyone understands the purpose of embassies.  Everyone who didn’t skip out on ninth grade American History and Civics classes to hit the bong behind the cafeteria that is. Putting aside discussion about foreign policy and other complications, the Free Wiki Dictionary tells us:

em·bas·sy  

n. pl. em·bas·sies

1. A building containing the offices of an ambassador and staff.
2. The position, function, or assignment of an ambassador.
3. A mission to a foreign government headed by an ambassador.
4. A staff of diplomatic representatives headed by an ambassador.

So what would the purpose of the Grafton embassy be pray tell?  Has the Free State Project now declared itself a country? Is Grafton, or for that matter, New Hampshire aware of this development?  Will Grafton cede a part of its land to the new FSPutopia so that it can build its embassy on neutral ground?  The speaker tells his audience the outpost will provide a place for Free Nuts to hang out and express their Free Nuts ideas without we guess, fear of persecution from their fellow Freedom Lovers? They need a neutral territory to hide from themselves?

For those of us who’ve had the misfortune of attempting to explain foreign policy, economics or the social contract to a Free Nut, the idea of needing a refuge from themselves doesn’t actually seem all that ridiculous.  Many would not doubt that the tendency to obsess about guns and a narcissistic predisposition with “liberty” might act as buddy repellent.  Hence the need to make a place where there is on duty, a friendly dude (well maybe) willing to be their bud and hang out with them.

Its worth noting and someone should tell the Free Nuts that outside the Free Nut Zone of Grafton there exist places that seem eerily similar to this Free Grafton Embassy idea.  Extra-Free Nutters call them ‘home’. They have living rooms, porches and kitchens for hanging out.  These people invite friends over, or their friends invite them to their home.  Then again with all the unregulated gun orgasms target shooting and survivalist practice going on outside, residents in the Free State of Grafton might have trouble finding a place to hang out where they won’t get hit by a stray bullet might.

What possibly serves as the best analogy of the Free Nutter mind though was the speaker’s claim that the embassy won’t be as big as Iraq.  The video shows some wing-nut porn runs a clip of American soldiers with big guns, guarding what we’re told by a narrator is the Iraqi embassy.   No, its not as big as that says the speaker, belying the hurt many men feel when they discover its only average, or in the case of the speaker’s embassy dream, really, really tiny.  Its also worth nothing that embassies represent governments, get funded by governments and work to serve the interest primarily of governments.  Seems a bit contrary to Free Stater ideology.

Finally let’s contrast and compare: Iraqi Embassy and the Free Nut Embassy idea; one has become a representation of grotesque American imperialism; an expression of dominance by a conquering warrior-state over its captor and the way in which the Free State Project adherents view their grandiose Imperial mission to turn New Hampshire into their Free State-topia, whether the rest of us want it or not.

Possibly the speaker has in mind another popular institution among non Free Staters; the clubhouse.  You know, like the old clubs in Manchester such as the Ukranian, the Pericles or the Davignon, relics of a time when immigrants came to work in the mills and needed a refuge from Anglo-American culture, where they could share a similar culture, language and community.  This might make sense if again, this existed in the extra-Free State area, but it makes little sense to have such if Grafton has indeed become their Free Nut Happy Goat Liberty Utopia Zone like the speaker claims.

So if not that, then what purpose is this embassy? Remember the shack you and your friends built in the woods behind your mom’s house where all your cool friends could hang out, drink the scotch you stole from dad’s liquor cabinet, read porn mags and talk about sex with the opposite sex.

Fun times indeed.  Just remember to bring your own stash because Libertarians don’t like to feel compelled to share (its theft remember?).

Tagged , , ,

Why Haven’t Free Staters Thanked New Hampshire Tax Payers Yet?

Here’s a truly cringe-worthy video of the Free State Project president Carla Gericke promoting the Free State Project to hopefuls in a near empty auditorium in Tampa.  Obviously the real event had long left, leaving the stage flanked with garbantuan ceiling to floor banner and another hanging from the stage canopy  “Thank you Dr. Paul” that oddly dwarfed the FSP missionary.

Like the dumb girl everyone has had to suffer against their will at least once in their life, Gerike rambled painfully ad-hoc for twenty minutes.  One would think standing on a stage representing something as important as the divine religious that is the Free State Project, they’d have a prepared speech.  Not a rambling conversation with themselves, complete with giggles and a level of intellectual discourse usually the domain of those who count the BFF’s and probably have a pink bed skirt and matching canopy over their bed.

But alas, unlike a teenager, we can’t tell her to just go home.  She calls our home home.  She also won’t stop with the idea of inviting all her weird friends to come to our home, hang out and party and let the adults suffer the bill.

What would a Liberty Fest be without mentioning New Hampshire with that license plate that has John Stark’s famous proclamation, “Live free or die!”  Yes, New Hampshire, the last hold-out, she doesn’t have to tell us, for white skinned, red blooded patriot.  We already know when she complains of the molestation she almost suffered at the hands of the “turnee” totalitarianism that is the TSA and having her boarding pass stamped “SS” for her refusal to submit to an X-ray scan. The body scan that as we know has caused countless loss of life and suffering across this great nation.   “Take that Travon Martin and Rodney King”, screamed the white privilege on the stage.

But Gerike acknowledges that her suffering pales in comparison to the CopBlock martyrs, led by an Austrian Economics “School of Humanism” led by the gentle, soft-hearted  entrepreneur know as David Koch.   This group suffers in the gulag commonly known as the Valley Street jail, built in the dark ages of 1990’s and staffed by ruthless thugs that eak out daily abuse in the form crappy cafeteria style food, hard beds and limited internet access.

The group that as Gerike states suffered their fate for “cameraing”.  Which to the uninitiated means obnoxiously pointing your cell phone camera at a cop while yelling that you’ve got rights and refusing to quiet down so the cop can figure out what the hell you’re so excited about so he/she can calm you down and get back to inputting the one accident report of the week.  Which behavior usually ends up in arrest for resisting said arrest when the Fine Patriot fails to respect a simple request to STFU for a minute.  Or spending countless hours engaging in petty deviations of behavior, ignoring court summonses which climaxes to the final outrage of being pursued by a hapless small town cop trying to serve you a summons as you skillfully avoid the cop with your bike.  Meet the poser martyr.

Now for the Free State philosophy and why they chose New Hampshire besides just the no-tax illusion.  New Hampshire is the Live free or Die state.  Yes, she did go there; to a license plate.   Lately I’ve been thinking a lot of about John Stark and I’m beginning to wish he had kept his mouth shut and just marched on instead.  Because all of us who’ve lived in New Hampshire awhile get a little tired of the reduction of this gallant shout of a man leading himself and his followers into probable death, to the singular jingo for people who want escape paying their fair for a decent society.  John Stark and his soldiers risked their lives for this country.  Free Staters don’t want to risk even a dollar.

As if the Free State movement, was founded by a computer geek in the 90’s who grabbed onto Libertarianism  through chat room education,  rose up through the computers of the nation and declared their right to live in mom’s basement, watch anime videos, jack off at will and not take out the trash like 4evah!

Now take a minute and put yourself in the shoes of the Freedom Lover. This generation grew up and in strong defiance of the oppressive forces of having mom nag you about the rent, nag about shared responsibility (socialism) to the household, even though you told them repeatedly that you game with the lights off, buy your own food at the 7-11, shower only once a week and hell you didn’t tell them to take that trip to Vegas. They remember that time mom told you that you had to go to your sister’s wedding and they expected you to bring a gift and as a result ten of your porn accounts were shut down for non-payment and you had to pass on your buddy’s killer weed.

Suddenly a light came on and you went on a chatroom.  You talked with your kindred spirits, shared links to famous quotes of Ayn Rand and dreamed of a utopia where no one would take from you, no one would tell you where you had to put your hard-earned money.   A place where your vast talents would find appreciation.  You made a web-page and fashioned the manifesto of the Free State.  You furtively looked for states where no one will mandate you to pay up or get grounded.  Then looking, there you found it! the “Live Free or Die” state.

As time goes on you find that you get pretty popular, it is clear to the world that your websites and truth speaking inspire not only your generation but an entire cross-section of old white men.  The most oppressed species on this planet, the white male suffers daily scorn from demanding people (usually mom) trying to take from you what is rightfully just yours.  Remember the time water heater broke, flooded the floor and ruined you comic book collection? Yeah and she had the nerve to ask you for rent that month; and when you demanded an accounting of how your past rent payments were invested in infrastructure, they laughed at you.

Now that you get the picture, let’s revisit Gerike and pick up a couple interesting nuggets of her wisdom. Seems a shame to let such go wasted on a bunch of metal chairs and then get lost in the cavernous depths of the Youtube catalog.  Remember mom and the basement and her poor fiscal responsibility, lack of accounting and general disregard for your precious property?

Suffer no more the infractions to your liberty that the nanny state imposes upon you.  Come to New Hampshire. It will be better than the month of living under the bridge down the street from mom’s house, mom said you’ll learn someday to be responsible and you realized its not your lack of responsibility its everyone else’s.

Gerike bragged of the fact that New Hampshire has a few towns up north that have no property taxes and like she said, in a state where the only tax on individuals is a property tax (not counting the rooms and meals tax, the business tax, the dividends and interest tax, the gasoline tax, federal taxes and high fees for government services that manage to exist).  Utopia, just like when you lived under the bridge, ah the free life!  No responsibilities, no taxes and definitely no nanny state yelling at you behind the door to pay up.

As if viewing her onstage wasn’t bad enough, we get a clue of how the possible experience of meeting her face to fade.  Properly not assuming that her audience has an intelligence beyond first grade, Gerike reminded that the state at nearly the northern most point of the country has a this annoying thing called cold.  Just imagine, you are stuck sitting next to Gerike on your flight to Tampa.  You wanted to see the convention, visit a casino and the beach and then go home.  You want some quiet time on the plane. Sitting next to you is a chatty woman who wants immediately to talk about her home state.  Then you notice she’s on a mission and is trying to pull you in.  Like an Amway salesman, you want to get that target off your back and shut her up.  So you say, oh, I’d never go there, its so cold! .

But she’s ready for you and now you must hear your new unwanted friend explain, ““Why is it so cold? Well…its because, well let’s say two things. One is,if global warming were true and Al Gore were right which I highly doubt he is, but lets say he is, its going to be pretty awesome to live up here in ten year’s time. Otherwise, you know we do have technology and we do have heaters and all those things.”

Now you have to think of another excuse, this one isn’t going to let go easy.  She goes on and then you remind her, grabbing your ear plugs and rolling them in your fingers wishing you could stick them somewhere, anywhere to shut her up, “Oh, yeah I have a job here and I actually like it here.”

Nonplussed, she proffers that you can live in New Hampshire part-time. Some outside observers may find part-time Free Staterism a bit disingenuous, but moral relativism never had a friend like the pursuers of  liberty.   Even if you have to pay into the evil government, keep your job as a public university professor or stay another fifteen years to get your union pension, no worries, your cabin up on Lot 39 in New Hampshire allows you two weeks (three if you are an oppressed union member) to shoot empty beer cans, tear up the flora in your four wheeler and then as always, leave the mess behind for the evil state government to pick up — if they find it – ha!

The esteemed president failed to mention that the trek to New Hampshire will require one to submit to the oppressive tyranny that is the federally and state funded highway system.  She also failed to suggest that in this summer season when highway repair is always at a peak across the country, new Liberty Lovers eager to prove their worthiness could offer their labor to the construction companies for free to decrease the tax burden on states.  Send those union rats home!  The revolution has to start somewhere.  Now go ahead and call me an Agorist purist, but the opportunity to come together as individuals and prove voluntarism just seems a gimme opportunity.

Imagine the possibilities, the liberty lovers could defy the rule of arbitrary law by camping on the highway.  Although, this may result in loss of life, the over all brilliance will shine through.  No doubt, federal and state laws just inhibit creative growth, safety management is for sissies and so is the currency system.  Which reminds of more possibilities; fashioning currency out of crumbled concrete and asphalt to trade amongst each other for food, water and sanitary facilities.  Call it Asphshire or possibly Crete Bits.  No doubt neighboring communities will want to participate in this creative and new thinking.  Even if they are all only six years old.

Gerike moves on the great legislative achievements of the Free State Project’s non-member members.  Of note was the claim Gerike made about the legislative activities that happened under the state house.  We won’t take them apart singularly, but will mention that one doesn’t save a dime when they cut services, shift money around and waste countless hours and dollars printing the bills that carried the furtive fantasies of immigrants swimming in their own liberty juice.  Bills that died an unnatural death by abortion from the legislative discourse, discarded shamelessly in a committee room trashcan.   Take heed; we in New Hampshire know what happens when the Tea Baggers get together with the Free Staters and share the crack pipe and have a computer nearby.  A baby ensues and someone has to step in and be responsible, lest we all be left to heal the damage done to the twisted wreckage of the democratic process.

Oh and remember mom and her demands about following rules and paying rent or the time when you got with weed and you said it was just Oregano you were bringing to your girlfriend for her cooking, or remember when you got out of grounding by making the case that this time the rules don’t apply?

Don’t worry Gerike points out, you can have your cake and eat it too. Not only can you not pay taxes up north, but you might want to practice your martyrdom and not pay them anywhere you live in New Hampshire.  Now the courts might drag you or one of your buddies in to demand you pay up your fair share. But worry not, thanks to jury nullification in FreeStateTopia, no wants to pay taxes either and the jury of your peers (of course) will tell the judge he’s an idiot and be home in time to strap on your favorite Glock for the Libertarian anti-war rally.

Now imagine, the goal of the FSP consists of the not only a pledge of allegiance that is signed online that according to leading Free State sympathetic politicians doesn’t exist and the stated goal to colonize the state of New Hampshire.  Said colonization will take place by herding themselves together; the collective of individuals who hate collectives, to work their way into government on all levels, with the sole purpose of destroying it.

Thankfully, due in most part to the realism, tenacity and responsible behavior of the majority of New Hampshire residents, this hasn’t occurred on any real level.  It seems by watching how eagerly Free State Project adherents and sympathizers chose a state that already had infrastructure such as roads, police man, fire fighters, public education and the convenience of grocery stores and malls, that none so far have demonstrated any will to embark on creating their stateless dream.  Also thankfully due to this last legislative session, more and more people have become aware of these people and their oddball ideas.

Although they manage to get a few of the ignorant to stick to them like metal shavings to a magnet, most people steer clear of them.  But like any pestilence, one has to fight it on all fronts.  Many of us here in New Hampshire intend to do just that, fighting them back, exposing them to the light and cleaning up the ignorance that attracts them.

Tagged , ,

Boston IWW Commerates Sacco and Vanzetti

On Saturday, August 29th at Boston Common members of the Boston Industrial Workers of the World gathered to remember the tragedy of justice carried out by the State of Massachusetts against two men wrongly accused of committing of robbing a payroll clerk at gunpoint.

Marred by ethnic prejudice, perjured testimony, suspected collusion of the defense counsel with the prosecution, admittance of irrelevant testimony concerning the political activities of both men, conflicts of interest with the judge and other judicial errors, Nicola Sacco and Bartemelo Vanzetti were sentenced to death electrocuted at the Charleston State Prison on August 23, 1927 as innocent men.

The case garnered international attention as the public worldwide noted that the prosecution, for lack of real evidence, made use of the prejudice, racism and red-baiting in American society at the time to convict the two men.  To this day the case still conjures up study and debate.  No one who studies history can deny that the events leading up to the deaths of these two men, had more to do with their anti-war, anti-capitalist and pro-worker activities than with the crime they were accused of committing.

Most importantly, the case draws a hard lesson about the extreme tension between workers and the unfettered growth of industrial capitalism in America and Europe.  Activists who fought for worker justice, who spoke out against World War 1 were actively pursued as what we’d today call “terrorists”, rounded up, beaten, abused and oppressed in an effort to stem the tide of resistance to the newly developing and growing capitalist state.

One would do well to recall that the abuse and corruption of the American judicial system continues to disempower, abuse and control those entities of society that serve the capitalist interest best when exploited.

Click here for further details on the case.

Nicola Sacco’s statement to court after being sentenced to death (9th April, 1927)

I am no orator. It is not very familiar with me the English language, and as I know, as my friend has told me, my comrade Vanzetti will speak more long, so I thought to give him the chance. I never knew, never heard, even read in history anything so cruel as this Court. After seven years prosecuting they still consider us guilty. And these gentle people here are arrayed with us in this court today.

I know the sentence will be between two classes, the oppressed class and the rich class, and there will be always collision between one and the other. We fraternize the people with the books, with the literature. You persecute the people, tyrannize them and kill them. We try the education of people always. You try to put a path between us and some other nationality that hates each other. That is why I am here today on this bench, for having been of the oppressed class. Well, you are the oppressor.

You know it, Judge Thayer – you know all my life, you know why I have been here, and after seven years that you have been persecuting me and my poor wife, and you still today sentence us to death. I would like to tell all my life, but what is the use? You know all about what I say before, that is, my comrade, will be talking, because he is more familiar with the language, and I will give him a chance.

You forget all this population that has been with us for seven years, to sympathize and give us all their energy and all their kindness. You do not care for them. Among that peoples and the comrades and the working class there is a big legion of intellectual people which have been with us for seven years, to not commit the iniquitous sentence, but still the Court goes ahead. And I want to thank you all, you peoples, my comrades who have been with me for seven years, with the Sacco Vanzetti case, and I will give my friend a chance.

Statement of Bartolomeo Vanzetti after sentencing:

“If it had not been for this thing, I might have lived out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have died, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life can we hope to do such work for tolerance, justice, for man’s understanding of man, as now we do by accident. Our words – our lives – our pains – nothing! The taking of our lives – lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler – all! That last moment belong to us – that agony is our triumph.”

Below, 2007 documentary, lots of original film footage, detailed.

Tagged , , , , , , ,

The American Stinker Lays Another Pooper

Hard at work for the corporate agenda.

Stephen McCann a classic plutocrat and contributor to the site American Stinker and the site linked to the magazine, American Spectator, sits on the Stinker pot and performs the rectal birth of a tract so full of lies even the lowest of parasites might have to bring out the lie detector.  Compensated at a rate of a mere 4.5m a year, Mr. McCann gets passive into that very narrow canal of American mogul-lovin’.  Sitting firmly within the top 1%, possibly the top .01% of wealth holders globally, the Australian McCann we’re sure gets a big BFF ranking from the plutocrat class here in the states.

So onto his scribbles from the war room water closet and why we should really give a damn what he says anyway. First off, its worth pointing out that although McCann sits in his house on the near bottom of the globe where our winter is his summer, he seems awfully disturbed by certain sectors of the American population known commonly as the “left”.

Yeah you all you pro-choice, tree hugging, union thug, anti-racist, anti-war leftists, this fine gentleman is fed up with your anti-austerity politics you hear? He’s had it with your desires for justice and equality and wants you to grow up and practice some good old austerity.  Concerned as he is with the deficit in the United States  … er… his portfolio.   He’s sick and tired of “The Childishness of the American Left” and he’s going to tell you why.

The American left is the most self-indulgent, arrogant, and spoiled group of people on the face of the earth.  They live in a nation facing national bankruptcy and societal upheaval — a country presently subsisting on the residue of past economic achievements.  Yet the only things that matter to them are their lifestyles and imposing their self-determined superiority on rest of the American people.

Social upheaval?  Could it be the social upheaval of a population sick and tired of the 1% wealthiest “imposing their self-determined superiority on the rest of the American people”?  Seems to many of us here in the US that once an economic system existed wherein at least there was some hope that a rising tide would raise all boats.  That with the work of the left through government regulation and correction,  social inequities would soon begin to disappear and anyone, a person of color, a woman, a disabled person, could as the old saying goes, capture the American Dream by working on a finally leveled playing field.

But as we all know now, the job of straightening out 300 years of socialized inequality takes some sacrifice from everyone and we’ve had our share of resistance.  Us lefties always do after a while tend to get all misty-eyed and go on about hard to quantify issues such as racial justice, gender equality and LGBT rights, worker’s rights and a clean and healthy planet.   We on the left have known for quite some time that the existing system favors a certain group of people and we have tirelessly pointed this fact out.  Basically many of us figured out after about 5th grade that the Land of the Free we learned about ain’t exactly free for a large portion of the population.

Unlike the minority who upon their birth are cloistered among nannies, private schools, Ivy League colleges and a nice inheritance, the majority of people in this country live quite modest lives.  We on the left selfishly have worked tirelessly for little money (because where do you think money comes from?), to champion causes not particularly popular with the ownership class.

We have repeatedly marched down streets, sat in halls, picketed and boycotted businesses to protest the sending of our young people to die for the myriad wars that benefit only the 1%, protested and worked toward changing injustices from gay rights to women’s rights, from working against racism, to saving the planet from industrial destruction, all in the name of that selfish idea; justice.

Do we have a superiority complex? Possibly, if one equates having a sense of fervent duty to the social contract of humanity; yes possibly if one takes seriously the precept of the prophet of our Christian based culture; “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Done Unto You” All this while swarmed by a capitalist campaign of mass consumption, exploitation and greed.  We on the left have worked tirelessly to draw attention to how global capitalism exploitation kills humans and the planet.

But let’s take our lesson from Mr. McCann and hear about his concerns about the debt and the GDP; essentially his global balance sheet shall we?  First McCann draws our attention to an NPR interview:

The true indebtedness of the United States now exceeds $222 trillion.  Appearing on National Public Radio in August of 2011 Professor Laurence J. Kotlikoff of Boston University said:

If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, and subtract all the taxes we expect to collect, the difference is $211 Trillion.  This is the fiscal gap.  That is our true indebtedness.

Since that interview, the indebtedness has increased by another $11 trillion.

Well it seems the kind professor was making an effort to point out that with falling revenues from tax cuts, funding wars will drain the treasury.  Tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans became all the fashion when Ronald Reagan proved just how easy it is to fleece the American people as long as you lie to them enough.  So easy that H.W. Bush and Bush the Younger have pushed the envelope further not only cutting taxes for their buddies but also borrowing to finance some major military adventures.  So again the professor points out that when the boss cuts your pay, going to Disneyland may not be such a good idea.

But let’s take the boss analogy a step further.  When your boss learns that you’ll  work just as hard on $7.25/hour as you would on $15/hour, especially if he promises you get a ticket to Disneyland, do you think he’ll go back to $15?.  Nope, you’ve just got suckered.  Boss got just as much work out of you for less and what’s more he didn’t bother to tell you he borrowed from your pension fund to pay for those tickets to Disney, what a deal!

Not rocket science, nor a big secret.

Then further down, McCann rails about the GDP versus expenditures.  The fact is, just looking at the GDP fails to consider so many other factors that have caused the largest economic slump since the Depression.  As is detailed on a page here a bit back, McCann doesn’t bother to tell his dear readers that while the GDP has failed miserably, corporate earnings  have multiplied upward for the last three generations, while earnings growth for those who work for a wage has stagnated since about 1979.  Also McCann fails to mention that those who possess high wealth have enjoyed as much as a 200% or more increase in their portfolio value at the same time.

So in summary, tax cuts sent the money into the hands of the plutocrats, cuts in services such as housing, poverty programs, cuts in agency funding, cuts in education funding also sent more money to the plutocrats which for some reason never came back home.  All the while corporations learned that lay-offs reward richly (and thus rewarded their CEO’s thusly), temp labor is a pip and people will work for dogs on mere promises. Add to that the people’s gullibility for tall tales about scary hordes that must be brought down by fancy artillery and young Americans’ lives and you’ve got one heck of a mess.

Now Mr. McCann, being only human can’t help but look a gift horse in the mouth.  As if fleecing the American and global population hasn’t made him rich enough, he’s now concerned about the possible collision of the health of his portfolio with the health of our nation.

Yet these estimates do not include the full impact of ObamaCare, which could add another $17+ trillion.

Now taking away the fact that McCann seems to think that Americans don’t need affordable healthcare like Australians enjoy, let’s just focus on his concern about our fiscal health shall we?  Wait what’s this? All over the internet sites figures keep quoting the CBO and its research that purport that in fact, the ACA will reduce the deficit by $210 billion, not increase it.  So in other words, McCann is either very poorly informed or just telling lies because he doesn’t think we should have public healthcare like his homeland does.  We’d suggest that McCann follow the old rule; those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.  Oh, Australia doesn’t fund healthcare for rich guys, oh well.

On the other side of the ledger: the annual Gross Domestic Product (the value of all economic activity in the U.S.) is $15.6 trillion.  The indebtedness to GDP ratio is a staggering 14.2 to 1 and guaranteed to further accelerate if Barack Obama is re-elected.

See Disneyland borrowed on your pension fund. We explained that already.  Mr. McCann hopes to impress and bamboozle his readers with statistics and figures that really say the same damn thing no matter how you turn them around; the rich guys spent all our money and borrowed to the hilt for whatever our paychecks couldn’t cover.  Pretty simple; you spend more than you making, you going to end up bankrupt.

The United States is not facing bankruptcy, it is bankrupt.  The primary factor that has kept the nation afloat over the past four years is that the dollar, albeit temporarily, remains the world’s reserve currency, thus allowing the Federal Reserve to print enormous sums of money to cover the Obama budget deficits and flood the global market with near worthless cash.  Today it requires $100.00 to purchase the same goods $10.00 purchased in 1950.

Firstly, the Federal Reserve does not print money! Contrary to popular belief, the Fed is not some super-secret club full of special presses stamping out benjis to add to the “money supply” as they please.  So we can dispense with this quickly and move on, please see the following comic made up by the Fed in an attempt to dispel ignorance.

Comparing the value of the dollar today to its value in 1950 is much like picking up

Oh do we need to go back what was good in 1950 compared to today? Like the fact that nearly 50% of American workers were union members? That save for the social inequities that still existed, many people enjoyed a prosperity most young Americans cannot even imagine today.  Taxation was progressive and effective with the top tiers paying as much as 90% of their income, so revenues were high, wages were healthy and what’dya get? A healthy economy!  Infrastructure expenditures were up, employment rose and the standard of living in the US rose for a large majority of Americans above nearly the entire world.

Increased indebtedness due to wars funded on borrowing, money policy that shifted wealth from the commoners to the elites and the resulting bust in GDP growth among the population that depressed revenues and consumption seems an indication of selfishness, but of the leftie kind.

As a further comparison, the total annual GDP of all the countries on earth is $70 trillion.  The American indebtedness alone exceeds that amount by a factor of 3 — which contributes mightily to a world drowning in debt and facing an inevitable debt crisis and financial collapse, which will trigger a massive global depression.

Thanks again in large part of levering of the American economy by the elites on the backs of the working people who have seen their share of the pie steadily decrease even though their production has rivaled other first world countries for decades.

Currently, just 58.4% of the civilian population is employed, as compared to 64.3% twelve years ago.  Factoring in the growth of the population during that period, this drop represents over 22 million Americans unable to find work.  Since January 2009, 74% of all new jobs created in the U.S. were in the lowest-paying sectors of the economy, thereby stifling any chance of upward mobility and growth in median income which has fallen by 9% since January 2009, and average household wealth that has declined by nearly 40% over this same period.  This failure is a byproduct of a tsunami of government regulations, mandates, and taxes which has nearly destroyed the innovation and business and job-creation that made the American economy so vibrant over the latter part of the 20th century.  That innovation has now moved overseas, along with over 7.5 million high-paying goods-producing jobs since 2000.

Another patent lie, since the 1980’s government sectors on all levels have suffered massive cuts and laws that regulated finance, commerce and trade have been modified to favor corporate growth over national growth.  Couple that also with the outsourcing of the white color and blue collar sectors then mix in outflows of investment dollars to those offshore operations and you have decreased consumption within the US market as workers’ buying power decreases,  increased outflows of revenue from the what production remains (as it flows upward and not into worker’s pockets)  into the coffers of tax-free havens, off-shore trusts, third world sweat-shop factories and overall global manipulation of labor, finance and government regulation. Whew and McCann calls us selfish for bitching about it?

The reaction of the self-described progressives to this dire scenario?  Sweep the facts under the rug or ignore them completely, as it appears that the most important things in their lives are the legalization of gay marriage, free contraceptives and abortifacients, worshiping at the altar of extreme and discredited environmentalism, mocking and undermining all organized religion (except Islam), and telling the American people what they can eat, where they can live, what may be taught in their schools, how they must operate their businesses, and what health care they can access.

Au contraire Mr. McCann, while the left has beat the drum of reigning in the cowboy plutocrats, ending the wars, regulating off-shoring, stopping the trade treaties that favor global corporatism and bringing back a truly progressive taxation strategy, the right wing has gone on an endless campaign of distraction by fighting gay marriage and rolling back women’s rights to bodily sovereignty.  We didn’t choose to put these issues front and center, the Republicans did and we have been forced 24-7 to fight these battles on basic human rights, while the economy suffers global moguls continue to rake in the money.

Yes, Mr. McCann we bleat on and on about the importance of an educated and healthy population.  We voice and express concerns about how exploitative capitalism, on which your portfolio and business model relies, has caused irreparable harm the planet we call home.  But we know, worrying about an endangered planet and humanity causes your portfolio to wilt like you probably do when you’ve run out of Viagra in the middle of the deep blue on your shiny yacht after your escort has finished dictating for you.

To the true believers on the left, re-electing Barack Obama is not a matter of what is or is not good for the country; rather, for the majority on the left, the primary motivation is geared solely toward defeating their sworn enemy: conservatives and Republicans, whom many falsely believe are a right-wing horde determined to create a theocracy and impose old-fashioned morality.  But what they fear most from the right is a determination to reinstitute unfettered individual freedom and concomitant economic growth, which would relegate the American left to the back bench of American society.

Yeah we got it.  Apparently McCann seems to have a misunderstanding of American history? We’re not going to the back of the bus as much as the GOP, Tea Partiers and others wish.  In fact, its pretty clear the country is changing and electing a black president only constituted the beginning.

Thus, to them, what the policies of Barack Obama and his radical minions are doing to the long-term fate of nation is immaterial as long as Obama regurgitates his support for the various causes that are near and dear to the coalition that makes up the left.  There are two common threads to the belief system of American progressives: 1) an omnipotent central government controlled by them, and 2) an assumption that there is a bottomless pit of money to be siphoned from an equally bottomless pit of wealth.  But this is not the same nation that experienced unprecedented prosperity from 1946 to 2007.  It is not the same nation in which these narcissists on the left grew up, never knowing national adversity or trauma.

1. Yes, we do in fact represent every single portion of humanity not represented by the guests on your yacht Mr. McCann, yes we do in fact believe that the government’s role is to put selfish pricks like you where you belong — in the palm of our sweaty, hard working hands.

2. We do indeed see a bottomless pit of money — our money that we worked damn hard for that you stole from us through your wrangling and perverting our government to allow you to extract every penny from our efforts and give as little back to us as possible.

And we also know that the national prosperity has been in decline for us ever since your patron saint, Ronnie Reagan took office here and began to strip every single protection from greedy, self centered, hypocritical plutocrats like yourself.   We’ve suffered enough trauma under the reign of the greedy and we’ve had it.

The manner in which these progressives, and their titular leader Barack Obama, are conducting themselves in the current campaign season is indicative of their arrogant and immature mindset.  To the vast majority on the left, this campaign is merely a game played out on the playground of American politics, wherein they childishly engage in name-calling and temper tantrums reminiscent of spoiled brats determined to get their way, regardless of the consequences.

Well, to the vast majority of Americans this playground is ours and its our damn business how we play it out and we’d like it if global moguls like yourself keep your filthy paws out of our political and electoral business.  We are indeed determined to get our way but it seems last we knew, the bamboozled foot soldiers of the plutocracy were the ones throwing the biggest temper tantrums about having a Kenyan born Islamic black man chosen as the president of their whites-only fiefdom.  But like most spoiled brats, you people just refuse to take your marbles and go home to cry to mama, nope, instead you have to put millions into SuperPACS and keep trying to play petty games with our political system to feed your own selfish desires.

It is time to grow up and understand that the America that could absorb all the excessive spending, promises, and left-wing fun and games is no more.  This nation cannot survive on its present course, and if that course is not dramatically reversed, those on the left will suffer as much as if not more than the bulk of the American people they are trying to rule.  History has shown repeatedly that when an overwhelming political and social catastrophe strikes a nation, the people turn against the ruling class, often with a vengeance.  In the United States, that ruling class is presently dominated by the American left.

You’re absolutely right Mr. McCann, the country can no longer continue on this course.  Scientists say if we don’t make radical life style and consumption changes we may not have a planet worth living on in another twenty or thirty years.  History has indeed shown repeatedly that when aristocrats and their inbred offspring are allowed to run things, they tend to make a big damn mess of the house and leave the adults to come and clean it up.  The clean up time has begun and we’re ready to evict you and your lying friends.  Thanks for playing Mr. McCann, there’s a spot in the back of the bus for you.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

The New Hampshire Immigrant Problem: The Free State Project

Bienvenue à New Hampshire, où nous avons des impôts et des frais. Si cela ne vous plaît pas, retournez chez vous, préférablement pas sur nos routes publiques.

Copied from Counterpunch, apparently there’s more if you subscribe, but Progressive Action NH alas, has no budget for subscriptions right now.

April 27, 2009

The Far Right’s Plot to Capture New Hampshire

by PAM MARTENS

One of the most audacious and cynical corporate-backed social experiments in living memory, the Free State Project in New Hampshire, has now shifted into damage control mode.  Free State operatives learned this past week of my article that appears in the current subscription edition of CounterPunch, taking the first in-depth look at their plan to entice 20,000 out-of-state ultra libertarians and anarchists to move to New Hampshire and implant an extremist brand of free market capitalism: a brand the corporate backers hope will lead to a gutting of business regulations, environmental laws, and return the state to the right wing of the Republican fold.  (Currently, all three branches in New Hampshire, known for its pivotal first primary status, are controlled by Democrats.)

An effort at damage control is playing out in the Free Staters’ internet pummeling of this author and a reporter at the Keene Sentinel newspaper in southern New Hampshire, Phillip  Bantz, who made reference to the revelations in the CounterPunch piece along with an eyebrow raising quote from a Free Stater on legalizing cannibalism, a demand of some fringe Free Staters.

The attacks have not gone as planned.  Over 128 reader responses are now registered in the Keene Sentinel, founded in 1799, which typically receives less than 20 responses to an article.  Area residents, known for tolerance, are displaying pent-up fatigue and anger with the agenda of the Free Staters.

Some of the Free State participants call themselves anarcho capitalists, promoting an embrace of free markets and individual freedoms unencumbered by authority of the state.  Free State members must formally agree to the premise that “government exists at most to protect people’s rights, and should neither provide for people nor punish them for activities that interfere with no one else.” [1]   This premise is widely interpreted by Free Staters to mean all tax supported social welfare programs must go, along with zoning and planning and building inspectors.  Public education would be replaced with home schooling or private schools.

What has been able to fly completely under the radar for the last seven years, is the role of shadowy think tanks and their corporate money backers in the Free State Project strategy.

On the morning of Friday, February 27, 2004, at the Washington D.C. corporate headquarters of the free market think thank, the American Enterprise Institute, this far-fetched plan was carefully rolled out to the national media.  The key speaker at the event was Jason Sorens, founder of the Free State Project. Dr. Sorens is currently an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the State University of New York at Buffalo.

The following are excerpts of remarks made by Dr. Sorens at that event, according to a transcript available at the American Enterprise Institute:

“The Free State Project started as an effort to identify the best state in the country for people who favor smaller government and stronger individual liberties to move to…

We started signing up people in September 2001, and our growth was slow in our first few months.  However, growth picked up dramatically in late 2002 and 2003, and by August 2003, we had 5,000 signed members…

New Hampshire doesn’t have large metropolitan areas, which tend to be left-leaning…

The Free State Project is related to market-preserving federalism in two different ways.  First, New Hampshire is poised to benefit if the United States returns to a true model of market-preserving federalism.  One example is Social Security.  New Hampshire could do much better if it were taking care of its own Social Security program because its residents pay much more in Social Security taxes than they receive back in benefits…

The Free State Project can also contribute to market-preserving federalism and its beneficial workings in another way.  Once New Hampshire moves dramatically in a free market direction, we are going to continue to attract individuals and businesses from other states.  And other states are going to have to reform their own laws in order to avoid losing their tax base to our state.

So the Free State Project, in more ways than one, I think, is the thin end of the wedge in increasing liberty throughout the United States.” [2]

(Notice what just happened here: unfettered capitalism has been conflated with “stronger individual liberties.”   Are we not currently living the economic nightmare that proves the opposite is true? )
One of the most astute questions at this conference came from a man identified in the transcript as William Kelly of Cox Newspapers:

KELLY: My question is for Jason.  I was wondering, when you sign people up, do you do any kind of background check on them or anything, to make sure that you’re not importing rapists and thieves to New Hampshire?…

SORENS:  No background checks.  I think libertarians wouldn’t like that, too privacy invading and too resource consuming as well.  So to some extent this is built on trust.  Everyone I’ve met has been normal and well adjusted.”

Jenna Wolf of the Union Leader out of Manchester honed in on another obvious area:

“Have you talked to residents?  What are their feelings about this?”

Dr. Sorens assured Ms. Wolf:

“…we have solicited the opinions of people who live in New Hampshire in our forum…And the responses I have gotten have been overwhelmingly positive, conditional.  So long as you are good neighbors and really support the political ideals that you talk about, then they are supportive.”

In just four months, both the lack of background checks as well as resident reaction would blow up in Dr. Sorens’ face.

Just nine days before Dr. Sorens gently rolled out his case to a strategically selected group of free market think tanks and reporters viewed as market friendly at the headquarters of the American Enterprise Institute, Tim Condon, at the time the Director of Member Services at the Free State Project, had mapped out an offshoot strategy.  The plan was to create a Free Town Project as well – “a low-population town in that same state where Porcupines can congregate….”  (Free Staters refer to themselves as Porcupines – upset them at your own risk.)  The tiny town of Grafton, New Hampshire was chosen. [3]

Tim Condon is a Tampa, Florida lawyer and one of the original organizers of the Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC) in 1991, a group that says it works “to advance the principles of individual rights, limited government and free enterprise within the Republican Party” according to its web site. Unbeknownst to most rank and file Free Staters, Mr. Condon was receiving funds from the RLC.  According to the First Quarter 2005 minutes of the RLC of Florida, “On Jan. 4, the National Board of Directors of the Republican Liberty Caucus agreed to pick up some of the expenses of Florida RLCer Tim Condon of Tampa who – in conjunction with his efforts on behalf of the free state project…has been working to develop the New Hampshire RLC, one of the fastest growing RLC chapters in the nation.” [4]

According to Mr. Condon’s own account of how the Grafton plan came about, an “exploratory trip was launched in early February, 2004.  This time Porcupines Tim Condon and Zack Bass flew to New Hampshire from Florida, and had help from resident Free Staters in exploring.  Also present was Robert Hull, who drove up from New Jersey to join us.”
Zack Bass, according to a June 20, 2004 article in The Boston Globe was actually Larry Pendarvis of Brandon, Florida: “A computer analyst who also goes by the alias Zack Bass, Pendarvis was convicted in Polk County, Fla., in 1997 of more than 100 counts of downloading child pornography, a conviction later overturned on appeal. His other enterprises include a website that peddles mail-order brides from the Philippines with the slogan, ‘Date Locally, Marry Globally.’ ” [5]

According to the Free State Project, it was Mr. Pendarvis who was responsible for setting up a web site targeting local residents [6] and one establishing the goals of the Free Town Project as follows:

The Free Town Project intends to liberate either a New Hampshire Town, or a Western County, by moving in enough Libertarians to control the local Government and remove oppressive Regulations (such as Planning & Zoning, and Building Code requirements) and stop enforcement of Laws prohibiting Victimless Acts among Consenting Adults, such as Dueling, Gambling, Incest, Price-Gouging, Cannibalism, and Drug Handling. [7]

Hostilities flared against the Free Staters in Grafton by residents, followed by a large town meeting and unflattering press.  Dr. Sorens has persistently blamed all of this on Pendarvis and dismissed it by noting that Pendarvis was expelled from the Free State Project.  Dr. Sorens fails to note that it was he who declined to do background checks and it was his own Director of Member Services at the time, Tim Condon, who has acknowledged in his own article that he was part of the conception and planning of the project and made the exploratory trip to Grafton with Pendarvis (aka Zack Bass) in February 2004.

Dr. Sorens has additional explaining to do.  The Mercatus Center lists him as an Affiliated Scholar.  It, and its sister organization, Institute for Humane Studies, have funded Dr. Sorens research since at least 2002 according to public records. [8]

Mercatus is the Latin term for markets.  Thanks to an in-depth report published in September 2006 by the public interest nonprofit, Public Citizen, and OMB Watch, we know a great deal about the agenda of the Mercatus Center.  [9]

Richard Fink, executive vice-president of Koch Industries, Inc., founded Mercatus (then called the Center for Market Processes) at his alma mater, Rutgers University, in the early 1980s.  Later, he moved the organization to George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, where it resides today.  Mercatus blossomed at George Mason in 1997 after receiving a $3 million grant from the Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, which was founded by Charles G. Koch, chairman and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.  Koch Industries, an oil and gas giant, is the second largest privately held company in the United States…

The Charles G. Koch Foundation is one of the largest corporate donors to George Mason University, donating over $15 million since 1998 to the George Mason University Foundation, which accepts and manages tax deductible donations on behalf of GMU and its affiliates.  The Charles G. Koch foundation frequently earmarks these donations for the Mercatus Center, and in the past two years alone has donated over $2 million to Mercatus…

[As part of its anti-regulatory agenda] Mercatus staffers were pushing rollbacks that would directly benefit their corporate patrons.  BP Amoco, Exxon Mobil, and the Kochs, for example, would benefit from 14 of the suggestions…filed in 2001 to weaken the Clean air Act.  These petrochemical companies would also benefit from four of the Mercatus Center’s 2002 submissions calling for the weakening of the Clean Water Act…

By far the biggest corporate contributor to the Mercatus Center, and the group with the clearest personal ties to it, is the Koch group of foundations and, through them, Koch Industries.  A privately-held $25 billion petroleum, chemical, and agricultural company based in Wichita, Kansas, Koch Industries has good reason to angle for a rollback of environmental standards.  In 2001, the company’s petroleum division pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act for releasing benzene, a known carcinogen, into the air at a Texas refinery.  Koch agreed to pay $10 million in criminal fines and further agreed to spend $10 million for environmental projects in the Corpus Christi area.  In addition, Koch must complete a five-year term of probation and adhere to a strict new environmental compliance program.

In a separate incident, Koch agreed to pay a $4.5 million penalty to settle other Clean Air Act violations at its Minnesota refinery.  The EPA also forced the company to spend an estimated $80 million to install new pollution-control equipment at two refineries in Corpus Christi, Texas, and one near St. Paul, Minnesota.

Koch also has had a problem playing by the rules of the Clean Water Act.  The EPA found that during a seven-year period in the 1990s, a Koch pipeline subsidiary allowed 300 leaks to remain unstopped, spilling three million gallons of oil into waterways across six states.  In January 2000, the EPA leveled $30 million in civil fines against Koch, then the largest U.S. civil penalty, and required Koch to spend an additional $5 million on environmental projects. [10]

A former director of the Mercatus Center’s regulatory program was Wendy Lee Gramm.  As former chairperson of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) from 1988 to January 1993, Ms. Gramm’s deregulatory stance toward credit derivatives is widely regarded as a key element in today’s financial market meltdown.  According to Public Citizen, “In 1992, as the first step in its business plan to profit on the speculation of energy, Enron petitioned the CFTC to make regulatory changes that would limit the scope of the commission’s authority over certain kinds of futures contracts.  Immediately before leaving the CFTC, Gramm muscled through approval of an unusual draft regulation that would do just that – it narrowed the definition of futures contracts and excluded Enron’s energy future contracts and swaps from regulatory oversight.  Although her actions were criticized by government officials who feared the change would have severe negative consequences (as, in fact, it did), Gramm was rewarded five weeks after she left the CFTC with a lucrative appointment to Enron’s Board of Directors.  Between 1993 and 2001, when the company declared bankruptcy, Enron paid Gramm between $915,000 and $1.85 million in salary, attendance fees, stock option sales, and dividends.”

How much exactly has Dr. Sorens received from the Mercatus Center, the Institute for Humane Studies, and George Mason University Foundation?  Requests for specific dollar amounts to Dr. Sorens, the State University of New York at Buffalo, and each of the nonprofits was met with silence.  Dr. Sorens did take the time to send a seven-page letter to the Editors of CounterPunch demanding a retraction of this author’s first article.

A notice on the web site of the department of Political Science at the State University of New York at Buffalo, a public funded institution where Dr. Sorens now teaches and conducts research, notes that “Jason Sorens and his co-author William P. Ruger, an Assistant Professor at the Texas State University, San Marcos published a study on Freedom in the 50 States: An Index of Personal and Economic Freedom with the Mercatus Center of George Mason University.  The study presents an evidence based ranking of the 50 states in terms of both their provisions for and protection of personal and economic freedoms. Professor Sorens also continues to oversee a grant from Donors Trust.  The grant supports a series of research workshops on ‘Markets and States.’ ” [11]

Exactly 13 days after the study on Freedom in the 50 States was released, the 1851 Center for Constitutional Law at the Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions in Ohio, another free markets nonprofit, used the document in testimony on a House Bill in Ohio threatening to “initiate legal action” if the bill was signed into law. The testimony noted, from the report, that “Ohio recently ranked 38th in an index of economic freedom amongst the 50 states.” The bill would have eased mortgage loan modifications to prevent foreclosures. [12]

DonorsTrust, now funding Dr. Sorens “Markets and States” workshops, explains itself this way: “DonorsTrust was established as the sole donor-advised plan dedicated to promoting a free society and serving donors who share that purpose.  To date, DonorsTrust has received $230 million from these donors who are both dedicated to liberty and to the cause of perpetuating a free and prosperous society through philanthropic means…Know that any contributions to our DonorsTrust account that have to be reported to the IRS will not become public information.  Unlike with private foundations, gifts from your account will remain as anonymous as you request.” [13]

These promises of more freedoms from uninvited liberators who are secretly backed by special interests sound eerily familiar.  Hopefully, this particular plan has been outed in just the nick of time.

PAM MARTENS worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article.  She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire.  She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com

Notes.

[1] Free State Project web site
www.freestateproject.org

[2] Transcript of Jason Sorens speaking at the American Enterprise Institute

[3] Tim Condon maps out the plan for the Free Town Project in Grafton

[4] First Quarter, 2005 RLC of Florida Minutes (See page two.)

[5] “Grafton’s Messy Liberation,” Boston Globe, June 20, 2004

[6] Blood Bath & Beyond, Grafton Locals Targeted

[7] Web site of the Free Town Project

[8] Jason Sorens affiations with The Mercatus Center
http://www.mercatus.org/SearchResult.aspx?SType=Basic

[9] “The Cost is Too High,” Public Citizen, OMB Report: Pgs 43 – 55,
“Meet the Mercatus Center”

[10] Ibid, pg 52

[11] Jason Sorens’ funded work at the State University of New York at Buffalo

[12] 1851 Center for Constitutional Law Cites Sorens Research

[13] DonorsTrust

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

His Mistress Green

 

His Mistress Green*

24

 

“Now think, ye rich men all, I pray
Of Goody Blake and Harry Gill!”
—Wordsworth (mostly), from Goody Blake and Harry Gill

You see that man, that billionaire who
Insists he knows the low-class woes?
That man, a more-than-millionaire who
Claims to know how hardship goes?
Do you believe that gold-fed man
—Who goes and poops a golden log,
Who claims that all are in his plan—
Is so empathic?  Ask his dog.

This Mitt-head (as of now a Mormon),
Who owns, I bet, a sub/car/plane:
I wonder when he greets his doorman
Does he feel that doorman’s pain?
Oh, yes!  I bet he tips him great!:
He puts two tickets in his hand
And says, “My boy, here, bring a date
To see me speak.  It will be grand!”

(Remember, he was asked about how
Best his boys had served their home,
And shameless, spineless did he tout how
“They campaigned!… Hey… where’s my comb?”
But don’t you doubt he’d send your son,
Your daughter off to distant lands,
With too few bullets in their gun,
To die in Middle-Eastern sands.)

I say a Mormon now because he
Might disown it like his plan
For social health-care.  My God! does he
Own one thought? this sketchy man!
And though this flopper didn’t flip
His message at the ACP,**
Don’t think that he had drunk a sip
Of Kool-Aid made with Limbaugh pee.

He has no master but the dollar,
His one true love, his mistress green;
This dominatrix has his collar:
This biggest sub you’ve ever seen!
So vote for him you mammoth red,***
But don’t complain to me if you
Were led astray by what he said;
He might turn out the reddest blue!

~

*This poem was written using the “Goody Blake”
stanza of William Wordsworth.
**This means, of course, the NAACP, but I could
not find a way to fit in all the letters while maintaining
the meter.  Something tells me Wordsworth himself
would have found a way.  I am no William Wordsworth.
Hail Wordsworth!  One of the greatest Democrats ever!
***Mammoth = GOP elephant

Save Public Education – The Core of Democracy!

Save Our Schools! Rally – September 22, 2012

Veteran’s Park, Manchester New Hampshire

4 – 6pm

For more info: See Facebook

The Corporate Education Reform Agenda

by Tom Crean for Socialist Alternative

It is becoming increasingly clear that the future for working class and poor youth in the United States is bleak. Three years into the most severe economic and social crisis of the capitalist system since the Great Depression, the unemployment rate for teenagers 16-19 years old is 26 percent. A recent study by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies points out that the employment-population ratio-the ratio of the number of people employed to the total working-age population- which is a broader measure of labor market health than the unemployment rate, has fallen by about 20 percentage points over the past decade to 25.6 percent for teenagers. This is a record low in the post World War II period.

The picture is even worse when looking at the situation for poor black and Latino youth. The employment-population ratio for African Americans ages 16 to 19 was 14.4 percent in July. Since middle class youth will still go to college and one way or another find their way into jobs, albeit perhaps jobs that pay less than the ones they would have expected to get in the past, the picture is not as grim for them. But a whole generation of poor youth now essentially has no experience of paid employment. This is truly a lost generation.

Why begin a discussion of the state of education with unemployment statistics? This is the right place to start because most people would agree that a key aim of education should be to prepare young people for a better life than their parents had. The corporate elite that dominates our society also looks at education in relation to the future, but from the more narrow perspective of training the next generation of workers.

Continue reading: Save Our Schools!

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

What If

WHAT IF

What if we had a world
Where everybody helped each other
And tried to build each other up
In stead of tearing each other down
And blowing each other into pieces.
Would not suffering be banished?
With helpful hands and gentle hearts
Could we not bring humanity to a pinnacle?
Why must we continue to fail at
The only Commandment that ever mattered,
That being to love each other
So as to be willing to give up ones life
For a friend,
To turn the other cheek
And to love our enemies.
This was a Commandment,
Not an aspirational guideline
And apparently
the most difficult one of all to follow.
As a species, if we eventually
fail to follow it,
We deserve to reap the dire seeds
Of our own destruction and demise.
A meeker species will eventually
Inherit the earth
And i will thankfully be gone.
Already in my lifetime,
I have seen enough.
What if,
Peace.
Mike Murburg 08/29/12
Tagged , , , , , , ,

Ron Paul Rally 8/26

Sent from Mike Murburg via his phone on 8/26: Just picked it up today.

Reporting live from the USF Sundome, Ron Paul Rally.  The dome is filling.  Ron Paul is where libertarianism has been.  Gary Johnson or Rand Paul is likely where it will go. The crowd is young, some gray hairs, someiddle agers.  Asians, whites, atabs, blacks, some….a pretty good crosssection, Mostly white but a surprising number of burka wearing women. There are bikers and babies….well mannered and polite, middle class.  I am comfortable here with these people, the Republicans of a Neolithic age, the vanishing middle class.  “The Ron Paul Revolution, Respect the Constitution” is heard as a scant chant.  The crowd builds.  The VIPs are beginning to arrive.  No glamourazzi here, no bulls or brown shirts.  This is no Nuremberg.  No skinheads… Just the comfortably passionate and reasonable.

The music is setting the stage.
Tom petty, won’t back down
Jackson brown, lives in the balance, For Everyman
John Mayer, waiting on the world to change
I am a patriot, Jackson Browne
Michael franti, time to go home, yell fire,
Sly, war
Millet halstead, interlude
Jackson Browne, doctor my eyes
Bob marley,  no more trouble

Time for the speakers to arrive.
Perhaps what I am seeing and realizing is that at heart I am a pragmatic progressive with the heart of a libertarian or some mixture of that.  Without liberty there is no life.  Without life there is at best, only the liberty of others.  These people are not crazy.  This is the libertarian wing of the republican party, moderates, veterans, the disenfranchised by the party power elite who have homogenized and centralived the party from the rules committee to the delegate process and turned their backs on truth and the common weal.

This wing has its internal differences, surprisingly abortion still unsettles many and states rights vs trespass theory of being a fetus still foments discussion but not derision.

Perhaps science will dissolve this problem and the early fetus saved and warded to the state and adoption.  When our fertility and birth rates drop to a point where humans need each other and life is precious from conception to the grave will it no longer be an issue.  It’s just a thought, for now.  Freedom to assemble and to speak are the obvious values embraced here today.  The abandonment of the Fed, getting rid of the patriot act, irs, dangerous institutions today. Down with big brother…making ones chain longer does not freedom make. Santorum’s name gets booed, fox gets booed, John Stewart gets cheered.  I feel comfortable here.

Ron paul’s wife speaks.  She is an intelligent amd sweet woman.  Impressive family of fjysiciams. Rand Paul speaks.  He knows his being in the senate is a miracle.  Now his dad.  Good speech, more talking points.  It all makes sense.  Here is where the Goldwater Republicans have come to dwell.

So, in the end, what have I learned?  In a word, no system can be one without compassion sewn into its cloak of doctrine.  Perhaps in two words, libertarian progressive no longer seems like a true contradiction in terms

Mike Murburg

UPDATE: To Mike’s report on the Ron Paul delegation:

Ron Paul Delegates Walk Out After Video Tribute, Rand Paul Speech

Supporters of former presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) stage a walk-out of the Republican National Convention.

Full story at TPM

Tagged , ,