Is Obama Fit To Be an International Policeman?

I have always enjoyed the old line about how even a stopped clock is right twice a day. After all, in view of the recent government induced mortgage melt-down and the ongoing trillion-dollar fiscal disaster that is our government's budget, one can seriously question whether our fearless leaders in the nation's Capitol are "right" even once a day!

Which brings up a point from today's international news: Libya's dictator Gadhafi, who has a reputation for deceit surpassing perhaps even that of our own politicians, was dead on right today about one thing. He questioned our own president Obama's right to meddle in the affairs of other nations.

For one thing, Gadhafi said Obama was certainly misinformed about the situation in Libya and should stick to his own problems at home. Knowing what we know about the unreliability of our CIA and State Department, it is a fair bet that Obama is misinformed and has no "exit plan" for what will come after Gadhafi. Bad mouthing Gadhafi and freezing his assets may just allow Islamic extremists more opportunity to take over. And why is Obama now complaining about Gadhafi's human rights violations that have been going on throughout Obama's various terms in office? Is Obama just indulging in a case of piggy pile on? And for what purpose?

For another thing, and, with a real sense of sound geo-politik, as well as international law, Gadhafi reminded the ABC reporters today that "America is not the international police of the world." There we can see the stopped clock at high noon, right-on with a truth that has escaped most American foreign policy experts--we are not so Holy or brilliant that we can tell everyone else what to do. And even if we were, would it pay to antagonize everyone with our self righteous bossiness?

Obama projects the same arrogance as the far left intellectuals who always see fit to tell even us Americans what we can and cannot do. Give Gadhafi credit--he called Obama out about his sophmoric meddling in foreign affairs. If there is a reason we are not loved around the world, the blame maybe should be born by the intellectual theorists that run our foreign policy as if they were Gods on high. Results in Libya may show they have clay feet.

Obama's Money Tree and Washington's Ponzi Schemes

February 21, 2011

The latest news out of Washington indicates that our fearless leaders have not let the recent financial meltdown lessen their affection for Ponzi-type schemes. It may be recalled that the 2009 stimulus act saw the federal government lending the most bankrupt state governments billions of dollars to postpone their imminent financial crises. The loans were interest free for two years and "easily" financed by the feds because they can just print money as needed!

However, on this past December 31 the two years were up, 30 states owed $42 billion, with interest now accruing, and their resident businesses faced with increased mandated federal payroll taxes to help repay the loans. It appeared that the Ponzi scheme might unravel. The states are too broke to make any substantial repayment, and the Administration is leery of hiking taxes on the beleaguered business community. So, a tough and courageous decision was called for. Guess what we got?

The apparent "solution" will apparently come in President Obama's 2012 budget where he will propose waiving the tax increase and postponing the interest charges for two more years. Presumably he could also lend them more money and defer repayment till some future undesignated date. Thus the money tree at the Federal Reserve takes on the State deficits as well as the federal deficits. The problem is thus postponed, true to its Ponzian roots, and the escalating debt will only come home to roost at some future time.

We can only hope that some intrepid, brilliant, and unscrupulous Goldman Sachs employee will accumulate these "sub-prime" notes, securitize them, and sell them to the Chinese. Otherwise they will not go away quietly.

Is The Commerce Department Becoming the EPA?

Recent events have revealed the huge disparity between what our leaders say in speeches and what they actually do behind closed doors. While president Obama has been giving speeches about helping business, removing restrictions, and encouraging entrepreneurs, his appointments within the federal bureaucracy are doing the opposite.

The New Bedford Standard Times featured an editorial today that illustrated how even such a Democratic stronghold is getting the shaft from the Obama administration. Columnist Jack Spillane directed a spotlight on the Department of Commerce and its National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, documenting how “the Commerce Department‘s NOAA has become a wholesale arm of the environmental lobby under Obama.” He writes, “Unbelievably, the president appointed Jane Lubchenco, the former vice-chair of the Environmental Defense Fund, to head all of NOAA.” Spillane observes that the Commerce Department’s mission is to help business, but that it is not staffed by people from the aerospace, ocean, or marine business or scientific communities, but instead by extreme environmentalists.

Spillane reports that Obama has “packed the Commerce Department to the gills with former lobbyists for the environmental community.“ And, he gives the evidence--it isn‘t just the top job: Lubchenco’s director of policy and senior advisor is Sally Yozell, the former director of Marine Conservation for the Nature Conservancy’s eastern region. And her second in command, Monica Medina, is a former advisor for the Pew Environmental Group, a former lawyer for the EDF, and former head of the Justice Department‘s Environmental Division.

And, it gets worse: Monica Medina is married to Joe Biden’s Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, who was before that chief of Staff to environmental-whacko Al Gore. Columnist Spillane calls it a revolving door that has allowed the environmental lobby to become entrenched in every nook of our government, and blames “Obama himself who stacked NOAA with the powerful environmentalists who, by their own words, want to put small business fisherman out of business.” He also points out that Senator John Kerry “has certainly not tried very hard to stop it,“ because his primary allegiance is to his rich wife Teresa who uses her tax exempt Foundation‘s millions to bankroll most of the big national environmental groups.

It is a fair bet that all those appointees are not just activist members of the environmental movement, but have a few other things in common. They all probably were top students with high IQ’s and good college records. And their combined actual business experience is probably next to nothing. They are the well-educated, abstract-thinking, new Ruling Class that has taken over the levers of power in Washington. They love complex theories that don’t work and deficits that bankrupt us. They promote themselves to the best colleges and jobs by shilling their big brains. I call it “A conspiracy of the Egg-Heads” and it is destroying America.

Obama Blames Big Business and Lobbyists---what else is new?

In his State of The Union Speech, President Obama surprisingly called for a reduction of corporate tax rates. Such a reduction would be a much needed reform, and including it in the big speech is a clear indication that the president has turned to the center in anticipation of a difficult re-election race in 2012. However, whatever his purposes may be, the change in tax policy would help America, and we can only say, It is about time.



Conservatives have been pointing to the high corporate rate for decades as harmful to America's economy. But, all we have heard from the Left is their attack on "big business" for having cruelly exported jobs to third world countries and thereby creating massive unemployment in the American industrial heartland--Thus, the Left criticizes big business for moving operations overseas, without seeing that it is America's high tax laws that drive the companies out. As usual, the problem is the government, and the flight of industry is largely caused by bad tax policy, and yet they blame the companies for reacting in a totally logical and sensible way to those policies.



The same "blame big business" approach was re-affirmed yesterday by the President in his related remarks about having to close loopholes in order to pay for the corporate tax cuts. He explained the need to close those loopholes by stating: "Over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries."



Now, we all know that lobbyists do not pass laws or change IRS regulations--such actions can only be taken by Congress. All the loopholes, which are just one of the many horrors of our Tax Code, are the work solely of Congress. Lobbyists may seek benefits, and we know they have to maintain continual lobbying efforts just to minimize destructive new taxes and regulations that would impair their ability to do business, but they can only ask--the politicians do the rest. Both the flight of industry overseas and the loopholes are caused by the actions of our elected government officials. It thus becomes clear, but not surprising, that the president is blaming others for his own harmful policy.

Workingclass Conservative: The Common-Sense GENIUS of the American Constitution....

Workingclass Conservative: The Common-Sense GENIUS of the American Constitution....

Chomsky Turns To The Right !!!

Chomsky Joins Fox News and Sarah Palin to Fight Obama and the Evil Bankers

Last week, Noam Chomsky may have taken the first step in a long-overdue search for personal redemption. Speaking to what can only be imagined as a very liberal audience in Madison, Wisconsin, he signaled a clear philosophical move to the political right. The audience must have been stunned since they were mostly from the very Leftist University community.

I have always used Chomsky as a poster boy for the radical intellectual elite. When I assert that the Leftist intelligentsias take their cues from such radicals, I can always point to Chomsky’s latest antics as evidence that they are hell-bent on destroying American traditions, values, and civil culture. But that easy target may be history. Perhaps Chomsky is aping Podhoretz? I recall that when Norman Podhoretz was asked in an interview on C-SPAN why it took him over thirty years to lose faith in Soviet Communism, he replied that, being an intellectual, it took him 30 years to see what an average person would realize immediately. Based on Chomsky’s lifetime of rant it is understandable that his conversion would take even longer.

Now, I don’t believe Chomsky is ready to lead the neo-conservatives, but he did take a swipe at Obama and his close ties with the evil bankers and speculators who just recently toppled our economy. In his speech, Chomsky endorsed a recent poll showing that half the unaffiliated voters identify with the tea party movement. “Ridiculing the tea party shenanigans is a serious error,” Chomsky said, because their attitudes “are understandable.”

He even gave Fox News and Sarah Palin a pat on the back: After pointing out how voters’ indignation and rage was fueled by “the colossal toll of the institutional crimes of state capitalism,” he justified the Tea Party’s demand for answers. And, he added: “They are hearing answers from only one place: Fox, talk radio, and Sarah Palin.” Could even Rush be in there for an indirect compliment?

Chomsky took Obama to task for toadying to the Wall Street speculators and hedge fund traders. He accused Obama, after his initial tough talk about evil bankers might have scared off political contributions, of having reversed course: Obama changed his tune and said that bankers are “fine guys. . . I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.“ Obama’s sudden love of the “free-market” must have been enough to frost Chomsky’s butt and cool his support of the Obama administration!
These were extraordinary comments coming from Chomsky. He actually linked Obama, a radical leftist, to “state capitalism” and the evil bankers and suggests they caused the financial crisis that has wiped out the savings of millions of Americans and is now bankrupting the country. All Chomsky had to do was add in the fact that it was the Feds as a group that colluded with a few bankers and speculators and created the bubble and the crash.

After all, it was Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Federal Reserve, and the House Banking Committee that all worked in tandem to have the government guarantee sub prime loans. That gave speculators and mortgage brokers a free pass to make obscene profits. Obama then came in and threw away a few trillion that will make things worse.

The main point of Chomsky’s talk was that this justified voter anger would lead to a fascist take-over of America. He likened our current situation to Germany’s when Hitler rose to power riding the crest of voter dissatisfaction. I disagree with that and believe that in America, current voter anger can be expressed at the ballot box and not by a fascist take-over as he predicts.

Unfortunately, the advocates of massive government spending are so vehement, and their dependent constituency has gotten so large, it will be difficult to remove them from power. If that turns out to be the case, Chomsky’s allusion to a fascist rise to power could become reality. Of course, there are fascists and there are fascists. A benevolent and enlightened fascist might restore sanity and order to the country. It happened under the recurring Medici Princes in the Rennaissance, and though not attractive, could save the country from something worse–the total collapse we are headed for if deficits are not eliminated.

To avoid such a dire alternative, it would be wise for America’s voters to rise up and demand a balanced budget. Major across-the- board cuts in spending would obviously cause some hardships and dislocations in the economy, but the pain would be less than what will happen if we continue escalating our national debt. Americans must accept the fact that there is no easy or painless solution. I would recommend that we all opt for some near term pain to avoid later total misery.

For Original article : Refer to http://socioecohistory.wordpress.com/2010/04/16/chomsky-warns-of-risk-of-fascism-in-america/

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Could Compromise and Non-partisanship Make a Better Congress?

Retiring Sen. Evan Bayh recently warned that Congress needs harmony and must drop its rampant partisanship. In a nationally broadcast interview, the Indiana Democrat said, "The extremes of both parties have to be willing to accept compromises" in order to accomplish things for the national good. He added that voters are in a mood to turn out many incumbents "until we change this town, until we reform Congress." Doesn't that sound grand? But haven't we heard such nonsense before, many, many times?

The American political scene has never been harmonious nor has political ambition ever taken a back-seat to civility. Such mere "words" have proven meaningless in the actual conduct of affairs of state. What is needed instead of harmony and fancy words is a rational and non-ideological approach to solving the problems facing the nation. And the biggest problem now and for the forseeable future is the economy. The recent record of government oversight and management of the economy has proven disastrous so a change is both obvious and essential. And the change needed is so drastic that "compromise" cannot be the answer.

Congress and the Presidents have been compromising over spending, taxes and the budget forever, and recently those three vital areas of government have spun out of control. The annual spending deficits and the national debt have escalated so grotesquely that the restoration of fiscal sanity should be the first order of business. Sadly, the goal of even the most prudent observers is to merely "reduce' the deficit within some 5-10 year future period, and THEN to reduce the debt. That is hogwash. It is merely defering the problem off conveniently into the future. That has been the modus operandi for too long. It does not work.

Partisans can argue over the merits of every conceivable government program and policy until the cows come home but the programs themselves are not our major concern. The major concern is that the programs, whatever they may be, must be paid for out of current receipts. A balanced budget provides a self-limiting control over the nation's finances. It doesn't matter whether we believe that all government spending is essential or totally wasted--just as long as it is covered by revenue and nothing is added to our national debt. It would be nice to think that our elected officials could streamline government, simplify and eliminate overlapping inefficient programs, and eliminate corruption, expensive junkets, pork, and bribery. But it is more important right now to just live within our income. We could actually survive with waste and pork if it was paid for without issuing phony paper money! Fighting over the way it is spent is just a diversion and hides the real problem of how do we pay for it.

A balanced budget that included actuarial computation of deferred mandate expenses would force a large reduction in spending and a big tax increase. The difference between what Congress is committing for and actual income is too huge not to require both. Such a policy would provide an important wake up call about how serious the problem is. And voters would be made vividly aware of both the curtailment of expenditures and the added burden of taxes. They would then be in a position to evaluate the issues at stake. But we would have stemmed the bleeding. Think of a gaping wound and the need above all else is for a tourniquet.

At present, the arcane chicanery of the Federal Reserve and its compulsive printing of money and issuing debt hides the perilous situation we face. What we have been doing is allowing foreign nations to own more and more of our national debt which will eventually give them an inordinate control over us. And hardly noticed, the escalating interest on that debt further burdens the annual budget, and grows larger every year.

Sen. Evan Bayh says partisanship and gridlock made it time for him to quit. It would have been better for him to enter legislation to keep all spending within the amount of revenue taken in. Then Congress would be free to fight over whether those expenditures would go to farmers, single moms, the aged, the injured, the homeless, the military, or the schools. Where it went would be secondary compared to the fact that we would be living within our means and the costs would be visible to everyone. To gain this essential situation every voter should look chiefly for a politician's pledge to balance the budget "now, not in the future sometime." The candidate's stated position on gay rights, foreign aid, welfare, and the war on terror, will not be terribly important if America goes bankrupt and is owned by foreign nations that have learned to save rather than just spend.

Swastika Carvings--Much Ado About Nothing?

My local newspaper has the Obama swastika story as a major front page news item, and the same story has dominated the news on most papers and TV shows for several days now. The lurid headlines refer to "An Act of Hatred," and everyone is falling all over themselves to express outrage at what they identify as "racism." Even the Secret Service and FBI are inspecting the carvings!

Are the politically correct commentators over-reacting to what could well be a schoolboy prank? No one knows why someone carved the word Obama and the ancient symbol into the grass on the 18th hole of the Lakeville golf course, but everyone is horrified. In this new age where words and symbols have taken on more significance than acts or deeds, one might well ask, 1)- is the angst over this presumed desecration justified, and, 2)- whether there is not more important news for the front pages of the papers? Is this very hyped and over-exposed incident another sympton of how the American media is so rapidly and steadily losing influence, readers and advertisers?

There is, after all, little useful discussion over the detail, history or meaning of the swastika. It may be useful to recognize that for thousands of years, the swastika has meant happy life and good luck. Today's schools and media appear ignorant about history and this is a good example, for they seem to only look at the Nazis who briefly (for about 15 years) used it to connote their idea of conquest and hate. But for buddhists and Hindus, as well as American Indians, the swastika has been a benign and religious symbol. There is in fact two completely opposite meanings for the symbol.

Furthermore, no one seems concerned about the direction of the swastika and whether the one carved in the grass was a clockwise swastika or the counter-clockwise sauvastika. Some people have tried to differentiate the two meanings of the swastika by varying its direction - trying to make the clockwise, Nazi version of the swastika mean hate and death while the counter-clockwise version would hold the ancient meaning of the symbol, life and good-luck. It is the counterclockwise presentation that was carved on the grass in Lakeville, so it is conceivable that the carver was attempting to associate good things with President Obama and should not be condemned but praised by the thought police trying to make news out of this event.

It is also conceivable that we as a people should pay more attention to actual deeds and results than the more insignificant world of utterances, promises, and statements of good intentions.

The Follies of Woodrow Wilson--

An Intellectual in Search of An Abstraction

This site celebrates the wisdom of common people, and as we know, the positive forces that make a society prosperous always come from the bottom--its people, for they are the “Ultimate Natural Resource” of any nation. Conversely, we know that the most harmful decisions come from the top--from those people in governing elites who try and direct national energy in some “ideal” direction. That isn’t to say that common people don’t make mistakes--it’s just that any one individual’s mistake does not significantly impact society as a whole, whereas decisions at the top, mandated by governmental law and regulation, have wide and often unintended repercussions.

Barabara Tuchman’s excellent book “The March of Folly” provides an interesting recap of some of the worst cases of governmental folly during the past 3,000 years of societal history. Her survey identifies those times when decisions were made by leaders that did not advance the interests of their nation. She concentrates on cases where there was compelling evidence that the decision would be detrimental but the leaders still proceeded on a predictably doomed course of action.

Her examples provide proof, if any is needed, that sagacity, character, and an ability to admit error and change course are much better assets in a leader than high intellect. That is why common people make better leaders than intellectuals. For example, she cites the “best and brightest” men serving with President Kennedy in the early 1960’s : Although they were mostly demonstrably brilliant “Harvard” men, they displayed extraordinarily little evidence of sound decision-making during the three years they kept escalating the conflict in Vietnam.

Regarding the onset of WWI, Tuchman points to the folly of German leaders when they deliberately provoked America into entering the conflict. By 1916, both sides were nearly exhausted, and had sacrificed millions of lives at Verdun and the Somme. The allies saw no hope of winning unless America added its muscle with troops on the continent. German leaders, also faced with a probable stalemate, would not accept an end to hostilities unless they got the best of the settlement. Without American intervention, an eventual deadlock was fairly predictable.

Some German leaders saw their only hope lay in aggressive naval operations-- first to remove the blockade keeping food from reaching Germany, and secondly to help shut down supplies reaching England. But that meant using their submarines to sink American supply ships with the downside risk of bringing America into the war. In spite of many high level German ministers’ warnings, the decision was made to send out the U-Boats, and, as a result, America sent millions of troops to fight in Europe and Germany suffered an agonizing total defeat.

Tuchman indicates that the folly of the Germans was in not accepting the alternative-- “A better outcome could have been won” by accepting President Wilson’s offer to negotiate a peace, “knowing it would be a dead end, thus preventing or certainly postponing the addition of American strength to the enemy. Without America, the Allies could not have held out for victory and, as victory was probably beyond Germany’s power too, both sides would have slogged to an exhausted but more or less equal peace.”

Thus, the German leaders unwisely chose the gamble, and lost--but although Tuchman, does not mention it, didn’t President Wilson display equal folly by taking up the challenge and sending millions of American men to die in France? If the alternative was to let both sides fight it out to an exhausted equal peace, should not any wise American leader have avoided entry? Many “isolationists” effectively argued that case. That we had little to gain and much to lose.
We could have continued a naval “war” and used the convoy system to continue helping Britain. The loss of shipping, no matter how severe, would have been a lot less than what we suffered by sending ground forces. Instead, we had to pursue Wilson’s abstract goal to “win the war to end all wars.”

Of course, Wilson's “vision” of world governance failed to end wars, and, it sent millions of young Americans to their death--just to swing the tide among nations that had been battling each other for a thousand years. So, could WWI also be called Wilson’s folly? And wasn’t it a bigger folly than the Germans? One can understand the authoritarian Prussian generals’ Machiavellian motivation, but Wilson led a democracy that had always honored the Monroe Doctrine of not interfering outside the Western Hemisphere. And we had little to gain!

Equally intriguing, is Tuchman’s suggestion that if the Europeans had been allowed to fight it out, the long-term consequences would have changed history for the better--”no victory, no reparations, no war guilt, no Hitler, possibly no second World War.”
After all, it was the total defeat of Germany that bred the seeds of WWII. The French diplomats at Versailles, having been rescued by America, demanded the most severe reparations and punitive actions against Germany, and these harsh measures sowed the seeds of vengeance that helped Hitler‘s rise to power. Thus Wilson’s entry into the war served no purpose except to create a fire within Europe sure to boil over in a greater conflagration than ever.

It is an interesting sidelight that the French diplomats took advantage of President Wilson’s obsession with the League of Nations to gain their ultimate revenge on Germany. Before the French would support Wilson’s League, he had to allow France to impose the severest penalties on Germany. Wilson knew that burying Germany under impossible reparations would breed future conflict, but he allowed the French to do that in order to gain their approval of his utopian dream-- the League of Nations.

As a former Ivy League professor, Woodrow Wilson was a predictable intellectual in the pursuit of an abstraction--the League of Nations was “designed” to ensure world peace and didn‘t. Indeed he “bought” its approval from French diplomats only by sowing the seeds for the next war! Wilson’s Follies compounded into three: 1.) leading America into its first foreign war, 2.) giving up on sensible peace terms to gain the League, and, 3.) allowing the French to dictate terms that were unbearable to Germans and led to WWII.

Then, to pay for it all, he gave us the IRS and the income tax.

Abortion-- Is it about "rights" or genetic controls ?

It appears that in the mind of at least one leading female liberal, abortion is not about women’s rights, but about eliminating the types of people that “we do not want to have too many of.” On July 12, 2009 a Newsmax posting describes an interview between NY Times writer Emily Bazelon, and Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. On the matter of abortion, Ginsburg said she had always assumed the Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion was intended to aid population control among lower-income Americans. Thus, from her point of view, the liberal mindset was focused more on eugenics and genetic engineering by government fiat than on any concern about freedom or the “right” to choose.

Ginsburg pointed out that many states had already legalized abortion prior to Roe v Wade so it was no longer a problem for women, at least those of some financial means, to obtain a legal abortion if they chose to have one. So, she admits, the pro-choice mantra was used for a more insidious purpose: to increase abortions “among those who we don’t want too many of.” And the activists goal was to 1.) have the taxpayers pay for everyone’s abortions, and, 2.) extend the practice to all states whether the state’s voters wanted such “freedom” of choice or not.

In the same interview, Ginsburg expressed her disappointment with the subsequent Supreme Court ruling in Harris v. McRae, the 1980 case that upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions for poor women. "Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of, so that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion." Clearly the goal was not just to allow abortions, but to bless them in every state and pay for them out of the government checkbooks--all to halt reproduction rates among the most undesirable populations.

Ginsburg admitted to the NY Times reporter her own state of confusion over the issue after the Harris v McRae case was decided. That case came out the wrong way for Ginsburg. The Supreme Court appear to be saying there could be choice, but no funding: “Then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong." Of course her perception wasn’t wrong--the activists wanted Government encouragement and payment for all abortions, but the Court just stopped short of giving them everything at once. After all, the majority of Americans were and remain against the wide-spread practice of abortion.

Ginsburg’s admission that she had been “altogether wrong” in her thinking is worth noting. Of course the mental processes of members of the liberal fringe have often appeared confused or contradictory. But, it may be she had reached a point where the logic of retirement was overwhelming, because there is really no confusion over the goals of the pro-life activists she supported.

Those fanatical activists will not settle for the simple right of a woman to have an abortion. Instead, the pro-life activists have continued to demand 1.) late-term abortions, teen age girls’ rights without parental notification, partial birth abortions, government funded abortions, teen counseling about their right to abort, and suppression of alternative solutions such as adoption, abstinence, and the personal responsibility of caring for the life created. If their concern was primarily over the right to choose, they would not demand such a broad advocacy of every abortion scenario. Their agenda is so sweeping that it can only indicate the desire to kill as many people as possible--especially those from the poor and other types that they “do not want to have too many of.” It is this type of racial Nazism, or fascism, that links the Far Left to all authoritarian systems of government.

Whether a system is labeled communism, socialism or fascism doesn’t matter to this new elite--as long as they can rule and dictate policy from the top without any input from the common people. Indeed, Ginsburg admits their goal is to create less “common” people.