01/29/2008
BECOMING LIKE “THE AMERICA”
(If you like this article, you may also want to read the article “American Enigma“, Jan, 2008)
Many in the world today, the people, the nations, the countries, the public, want to be like America. America, the United States of America as the country is commonly called out the Untied States is an icon of freedom and prosperity the world over. But sadly the America, that beacon of hope for the multitudes no longer exists as we knew.
It was not long ago that the American workers were the envy of the world, not just because of their productivity; but also for the standard of living that was achieved by the American worker. A vast majority of the workers were employed in the production of goods not hamburgers. The jobs of the day were in steel mills not retail stores, and burger joints and coffee shops, an average worker could aspire to buying a house and paying it off leaving it to his or her heirs. Of OWNING a car not leasing it. This was the ability to accumulate wealth, over time, a family of workers could prosper and improve their place in society over a couple of generations, joining the middle class.
People, myself included, saw the American movies, read the American magazines, and wanted to be a part of the American life, wanted a part of the good life. Today that dream has not changed, people overseas see the American movies, read the American books and magazines, and want to be like the Americans.
Look at the movies and programs coming from Korea, Japan, Bollywood or Pakistan and the countries of the Middle East. Every one is trying to be more naked, more stupid more tasteless and ignorant, just like the programs and the movies of the United States. Stupidity rules, vulgarity is the medium and the mode of the transfer of the ideas and transformation of the nations. People the world over want to be like Americans.
And why not, people, including the Americans must believe that what made this country great is that everything stops when Princess Diana is killed, or when Anna Nichole dies, true? Well see, America is a great country and everything stops when a picture of Brittany Spears shows her baring her privates is released, so if we go around baring our privates or worship druggies we could also be a great people. Makes sense! So people the world over a rushing to break down moral barriers, family nuclei, religious and societal boundaries to become great nations, like America.
Let’s see then, does it make you a better person if you bare your behind or even the front on you tube? Or having sex, or beating up on someone. Does it make for a great country to be broke? Or to mainstream every perversion? If so then today once again the United States is a great country, worthy of emulation.
Or that it was before the Federal Reserve started to blow free money up our skirts. United States was a great country when people saved and people paid taxes (even up to ninety percent) to build cities and the infra structure necessary to make it a great country. When people stood in lines for basic needs foregoing present comforts to invest in freedom and the country, to help it grow and to help it succeed. When the workers were paid a decent wage and the workers took pride in their work, in America even a shirt was sold with a guarantee of satisfaction. Wagon Train, Bonanza and Jungle Jim provided our role models, even if the reality was somewhat different in places.
There is a story common to the Bible and the old Testament and Koran, and you don’t have to be religious to get the moral of this story. It relates that when Moses came back to his nation, his people were worshiping a calf made of gold, the calf was made hollow and it made sounds when the wind blew, Moses told his people that it was a false God. Now look at the situation in the United States. We appear to be a great country, full of riches that makes noises that make people the world over shudder. But the US today is a similar hollow calf made of gold. Even as the people the world over are in envy of our riches(we appear to be rich) but this calf of gold is also made hollow due to our deficits. We have become a fiscally bankrupt country of a morally bankrupt society. And people the world over want to emulate us.
Then there is the story of the pied piper who stole the town’s kids when he was not paid. We have failed to pay the pied piper, failed to pay for what we have and what we use. Since Mr. Reagan and his promise of the balanced budget; and the deficits don’t matter; and tax cuts increase the revenue to the government, I have been screaming that we are going down the wrong road. But the country has been sold out by the ones we elected to represent us. While the others still want to think of us as successful and want to be like us, we have become like them, a tired old third world country where the rich abuse the poor and benefit from the ignorance of the masses. The vicious cycle of rich getting richer, the richer becoming more powerful by buying off the government officials, the government officials willing to abuse the poor to keep them down, the secret agencies and the police doing the dirty work of the rich by controlling the dissenters in the name of national security, the invention of powerful and dangerous enemies, what are we missing here?
In two thousand three I wrote about how “free trade” was destroying the Chinese culture and the Chinese family, it can be shown and I will show elsewhere how this free trade and the global market has destroyed our own American family and culture, it has also invaded our religion and ruined the churches. As we mindlessly follow the road to this global market we must realize that we are not going to come out glorious, it will ultimately lead to the human demise.
Do we, and our leaders not realize we are condemning our selves, the humanity to ruin? In almost all cultures there is a fable about the one who makes a bargain with the devil, or an evil spirit, or a witch to bargain his child for the worldly riches. We are that “the one”, look in the mirror.
I have told you before that all governments, everywhere, even in the oil rich countries are running in deficit, and as I have also said this before, that as the money rises to the top and the governments become indebted to individuals and corporations we become owned by the corporations and individuals. So as you read this some where in the United States or somewhere in Europe or Australia or whatever you may not realize that your government has sold you and your services, your children and their future all to may be George Soros, or Rupert Murdoch or even Prince Waleed of the Royal Saudi family.
Somehow somewhere we have been convinced that we can have all the material goods we want without consequences. I on the other hand believe in the Newton’s law of unintended consequences which states, “ to every action there is a reaction, action and reaction are equal in force and opposite in direction”, this also the law of Joseph, seven fat cows and then seven skinny cows, right? This how the today’s science meets the wisdom of the ancients.
We know that in the nature when food is scarce the animals stop breeding, in reality, we take the fish out of the oceans for our current needs, as much fish as we like, we also know that the fish in the ocean have to eat other fish to grow to feed and to breed, what we take out of the oceans is not available to other fish for food, so one day the fish in the ocean will stop breeding for there WILL be a lack of food for the fish that are left behind and these fish will stop to breed, tell me now what will be the next step of this fish?
Hopefully very soon I will talk to you about how this global prosperity is actually increasing poverty, pollution and misery, I have talked about it bfore but in deifferent places, just remember that “to every action -----”.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Friday, January 25, 2008
BRAKING THE BANKS
8 AUG 2007
BRAKING THE BANKS
As the Gods on Mount Olympus looked down upon the mere mortals and took care of their own brood, the national bankers of the various industrialized nations are throwing dollars in the market to save their kin from the financial Armageddon. It has only delayed the day of reckoning. (This para added on the 13th of August 2007)
SHOULD THE FED BE TRIED FOR TREASON, FOR UN AMERICAN PRACTICES, FOR SELLING OUT THE NATION, FOR LEAVING AMERICA BROKE??? FOR DESTROYING THE ECONOMY AND THE FUTURE OF OUR NATION, AND CAUSING THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD TO BE ENSLAVED!!
It was over eighteen months ago when I asked Senator Shelby as to when the federal government spends the borrowed money (budget deficits), where does all that money end up at? Well there are many ways you can word this question, many ways to define the deficits, and there are many stories the government tells us about the deficit spending, but the end results are always the same and it seems that the money also ends up in the same pockets, sooner or later.
Our government is more broke than any other government on the face of the earth, in as much as the number of dollars owed and promised to be paid back at some time in the future. There is no money in the social security fund to pay back the working poor and persons from so called lower middle class, who slaved for years for meager wages for a promise that they will be taken care of in their old age. That money has already been spent many times over, our federal government is on the hook for the under funded retirement funds, the FHA loans, the VA loans, the Medicare and the monies owed to the foreign governments and the banks, for the merchandise bought and sold in retail stores, what we call the trade deficit or current accounts deficit.
As our MBA president brags about our booming economy, if he were to be honest he would be crying real tears for how broke we are, and that the house of cards that the Republicans (with help of sell out Democrats) have built could come down any time at the whim of a foreign or domestic banker or currency trader or the Chinese or Japanese Government.
Since Mr. Senile, the President Reagan, declared that the deficits do not matter, that the tax cuts increase the government income, that the global economy is good for every body, that the workers are fools to ask for a decent living wage ( bust the unions) and can be replaced by slaves in other countries, we have been on a non-stop down hill slide, and like the children of the story of the Pied Piper, we have been a nation glee fully running along to our own national demise.
Our leaders are not giants nor geniuses, they are not gods nor angels, and as such Reagan was an old man, albeit with a sense of humor (to make up for his total lack of real knowledge), till he passed into the onset of Alzheimer’s while still in office. If we were to admit the truth ( if could have even understood) that he was not an economic genius who parroted what he was told to believe with a smile on his face. If you believe that cutting taxes actually increases the revenue to the governments coffers then to you Saudi Arabia is nothing but a thousand mile wide beach. What we forget is that under Reagan the government accumulated a trillion dollar deficit. That under Reagan the bank reserve requirements were trimmed, that under Reagan we started to “borrow” money from the social security deposits, without telling the public that it was also a part of deficit spending, that the new banking regulations under Reagan allowed banks to create money on demand, and as such money existed if you wanted it, no need for anyone to save any longer. That under Reagan the stock market truly became a gambling joint, where average person was to put away his life‘s saving.
SO WHO SHOULD PAY FOR THE SUB STANDARD MORTGAGE LOAN LOSSES? There have already been calls for the federal governments to step in bail out the mortgage and banking industry. Does anyone remember we have been here before? Does any one remember the Silverado Savings and Neal Bush, or John McCain and the Keating Five? Michael Milkin anyone? Didn’t the federal government just bail out the fools already? And who gets stuck with the bill? Not the rich mind you because they can not pay taxes, they need tax cuts right? As I explained back in 2002, the rich were given a tax cut to make up for the Fed lowering the interest rates.
Who’s money is it that the Fed is using to bail out the hedge funds and the bankers, who’ money is it that they are talking about using to keep the homeowners from bankruptcy? - Hey Mr. President, where are those seventy percent of the Americans that own their own homes.- Does the Fed grow money? Do the American people have money saved so that it can be loaned? The Fed, and the Federal bankers of the industrialized nations, as usual, can snatch money out of the thin air. (not in the third world countries though, where it is considered inflationary)
As I have discussed before, all money today is imaginary, and yet the major business of the people in business and banking is how to steal the most of it through financial gimmicks, and ripping off of the workers, (who are, by the way stupid enough, to let it happen). In a “free” economy people are free to chose what they want to pay for a product. We have an economy already based on that rule, “ to buy things that we do not need, with the money that we do not have, loaned to us by the people who are hoping we will not pay them back”, because when you do not pay back your loan you are nothing, because you are no longer going to work to make money for THEM.
When we talk about the monetary policy today, we are not talking about the real world, we are talking about consumption, consumption and consumption, which when extended to the real world only means that a percentage of the people, will be allowed to corner the resources and let the rest suffer. People who become a part of the machine called the corporation. We are no longer living in a free world, or a free society, we are consumers who work to earn so we can spend all we make, and more, selling our children into slavery, or worse, setting up the world for a decimation of population groups.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, I state the facts about what I see, so I am not saying that there IS a conspiracy per se, what I AM saying is if the things don’t change, and if we don’t change the way we are doing certain things, this is what the consequences will be.
So here is how the scam is working. But first let me tell you that the consumption causes pollution, it is destroying the environment and depleting the natural resources, it hurts a lot of people for the benefit of a few. The cost of one single apartment in a luxury condominium can provide clean and safe drinking water for thousands in India, or Bangladesh or in some African village.
We live in a world where the average American high school kid can not make change for a dollar, or balance a check book then how is he supposed to know who the global economy is working.
Let me give you an example, the Fed discount rate cut may have helped the banks and hedge funds and other “lending institutions” but how is it going to effect your personal life, right? This is actually what is happening, when the interest rates are kept low by federal reserve no one can (or is willing to) save any money. How is that? you say. See the first thing is that the government is telling us lies about inflation, since Mr. Reagan had the inflation rate calculations changed. Even though the cost of housing, transportation (price of a car or truck and gasoline, oil, tires etc) medical care and college education have been going up by seven to twelve percent a year for the last twenty years, the government keeps stating an inflation rate of two to three percent. Now it used to be that if you put money in the bank the bank paid you four to six percent interest on your money. Then the bank would lend that money to a home buyer, a car buyer or a business man for their needs, and make one or two percent on that money you had in your account.
With the real inflation going up and the interest rate being paid by the bank being so low (because the Fed keeps creating cheap( I.e. free money), how would one save money for a down payment on a car or a house? Well now you need not save any money because they gave us zero down home and zero down car loans, ( another advantage for the bank is that you are borrowing more money and will pay more interest) why not borrow money from the fed at two percent and charge you eleven percent for your car and pocket he difference , and in the mean time you the stupid idiot (the “consumer”) are working for the bank now.
An idiot(“consumer”) you are when you go and buy things on a credit card, since most people do not pay off the balance at the end of the month, and carry a balance for years on their cards, they end up paying three or four times the cost of the item, be it a three dollar T-shirt or a three thousand dollar plasma TV.
And how does it benefit the nation of ours when the manufacturing is being off shored, and the major industries left in this country are Wal-marts and Burger Kings. The answer Senator Shelby to my question“ when the government spends borrowed money, where does that money end up?” is , it ends up in the hands of the Chinese, it ends up in the hands of the bankers.
Similarly, when the federal reserve steps in to bail out the mortgage companies and the hedge funds, it causes inflation in the housing sector. In a country where the median income is about forty five thousand, and the median house price is about one hundred forty thousand, we could all use a lower house price.
Whatever it is called, the unrestricted increase in money supply has had some strange and unintended consequences. First and foremost has been the myth propagated by our leaders, that the tax cuts increase the tax revenues. As the government spends more and more money outside the legal budget passed by the congress, this money is not included in the deficit, but it is taxed at certain levels and therefore there is a corresponding increase in the tax income. Secondly as the amount of money in circulation is increased every year there is more money to be taxed meaning that more taxes are colleted, all of this has nothing at all to do with the benefit of a tax cut, if the taxes are cut while the money in circulation is kept constant, the taxes revenues will decrease. But the lie and the lying continues.
When there is “free money” available just for the asking, the people with access to this money bid up prices for things, want to build a billion dollar high rise, no problem, and who will pay for it, someone else with a similar “access to capital will be willing to pay whatever rent you want, cost of building material and of land and labor subsequently goes up, so if you are in the market to build or buy a two thousand square foot house, you will be paying a lot more for it now. In other words, if you are poor or just working class you are screwed.
What are we getting for all this cheap money, granted we have CNAs
and McDonalds hamburger flippers now carrying gold Master Card (no kidding), and I am not being an elitist mind you, while we are buying our gasoline and hamburger meals at McDonalds with that gold card, the people in “private equity funds” and the “hedge funds” are buying up whole companies, laying off workers and moving operations overseas. What a bargain.
So who should be blamed for the real estate mess, and who should pay for it? We had a real estate bust under Mr. Reagan, so no one can say it could not be foreseen. This bubble started during the dot com boom, when people were making untold millions just for offering dog food for sale on line, and we know what happened with that boom also. But some people did make a lot of money, a lot of people did ( while many more lost their bottom lines). To these people the price was no object, it was free money, it was easy money, and they could bid up the price of anything they wanted to have, a two bedroom fixer upper in the silicon valley could fetch a million or more, so many idiots jumped in the market, along with their bankers and the brokers. No down payment, no income, no equity, better yet go into a house and draw against the speculated increase in price and live high on the hog with your line of credit. Are you looking to me for the sympathy?
Why is not Mr. Bush bragging about the seventy percent of the Americans who own their own homes now? Because the truth was and still is that a vast majority of the Americans are up to their necks in debt, and have been living beyond their means. If the Fed throws more money into this mess, or lowers the interest rates, it only delays the day of reckoning and it only makes the end worse that it would be today.
A word for Mr. Berneke, hey professor, do not be stupid again. As I have said before, “ life is a game of connect the dots, if you do not connect them all, you fail to see the whole picture. So here is that picture. When the US government borrows money ( deficit spending), or the federal reserve bank prints more money or lowers the interest rate, people have more money in their pockets. When people have more money in their pockets they spend that money, when the spend that money and buy goods, and most goods are made over seas it increases the trade deficit, when the trade deficit increases ( we don’t have anything to sell them cause we don’t make anything anymore that they want to buy) we have to pay the foreigners in American dollars, with these dollars the foreigners buy US government securities, which means that the US government is now in debt to that foreign nation (China, Japan, and the Arab oil states are examples). So Mr. Berneke and Senator Shelby, when the US government spends money in deficit, that money ends up in China, or Japan, or in the hands of the people that support terrorism.
How do we say then that the deficits do not matter? Look at the value of the dollar, or the lack there of. Only an idiot will believe that the economy is doing good because the stock market is up. Compared to the value of the dollar, the Euro, the gold, the value of stocks has fallen drastically. As the real estate has gone up ( as well as the health care costs, the cost of college education, transportation etc.) Gold is now costing three times as much as it did when Mr. Bush came in the office, the dollar is down against all the major currencies, While the Dow thirty have barely made a gain, (actually we are almost back to where we were before 9-11 in the Dow). Compared to the gold, the foreign currencies or even the over priced real estate, Dow has lost his behind.
May be that what this country really needs is a recession, may be even a depression so we can come back to the ground, and come to our senses. That we need to save some money for bad times, we need to be frugal, our daughters don’t become six hundred million dollar Paris Hiltons, no matter how many boy friends they have, and they don’t become Brittany Spears no matter how many guys they show their private parts to. That spending money is not all it is about, and that keeping up with the Joneses is not a family value we need.
So you say how do/ dare I accuse the FED ( Federal Reserve Bank) of treason and selling the United States into slavery. Once again let me refer you to the e-mail, and the question I posed to the senator Shelby, “what happens to the money that the federal government spends in deficit. First thing we need to look at the trade deficits. For the past twenty or more years we have a run an ever growing trade deficit with China and Japan and the Arabs. As the federal government keeps borrowing money (instead of collecting taxes from the people) for current expenses, that money is spent in the economy. As more and more goods are imported (since we have off shored our manufacturing) this money ends up in the coffers of the foreign governments and foreign industrialists,(the rich folks), more money the government spends the more money goes over seas. Is it not stupid then for the government to be reducing taxes and not reducing the spending , knowing that we are enriching the enemy.
By the same token when the FED keeps pumping money in to the economy, to keep the economy afloat, that money also goes to the rich and to the foreign entities, be it the communist or the terrorist. Is it too hard then to understand that the FED activity has actually hurt the United States in the worst possible ways.
If the Fed was working in favor of the United States and its people, the interest rates would be allowed to rise. So the people will save money and get something in return, people will be able to save money for their children’s education and their retirement, and for down payment on a house. People will be able to put money in a bank where it will be safe and guaranteed to supplement their retirement, not gambling with it in stocks, where the markets have lost time and again. Higher interest rate will take the speculation out of housing market, increase the value of dollar so the imports will stay cheap relatively and will reward savings not consumption. But that will favor the United States not the internationalists.
While our manufacturing is being off shored, we do have new jobs being created, in what we call a “service economy”. Mind you a service economy is a euphemism for slavery which I had defined previously as thus.
SLAVERY 9-14-2004
It is a basic economic fact that in a market where labor is plentiful, the wages will drop. So it follows that when we live in a global market and this market has a glut of workers, pretend as we may, the wages and thus the standard of living of the working class must fall. And what is service economy anyway. Service by definition does not produce anything and does not add value to anything, be it making of a burger or advice from a banker. You could always make a burger your self , go to a fast food restaurant and pay three dollars or go to a fancy bistro and pay eight dollars, it is still a burger, and the same advice you get from a banker could be gleaned from a magazine or researched on the net. As we are finding out that the certain office duties or banking functions can be performed anywhere in the world, thus no chance for one to improve their lot in life by extra hard work or education. As we watch, we are being sold into slavery without being aware of it , YET.
(M.N.R.)
Basically the new jobs being created have been in the fast food (hamburger engineering? Pizza decorating?), in car cleaning (now being called detailing), yard mowing (now called lawn maintenance), house cleaning and janitorial services ( now so lovingly referred to as facilities management), baby sitting, real estate sales, in coffee mixing ( baristas) and of course in retail and how can I forget in toe nail clipping, etc, other wise nothing that adds value to anything. So what is next profession choice for the Americans, behind cleaners?
Are these not the jobs that slaves would be doing at some time in the history?
What have we lost for what we have gained, first we have lost our morals, as money has become more and more important in our lives, we are willing to do just about anything for just a little more of it, we have become greedy. A morally bankrupt people, living in a fiscally bankrupt country. Get a clue, we are not free.
The gap between the poor and the rich keeps increasing, but that s not all, we have lost our sense of security, if you think that someone making eighty thousand a year is rich, then ask some one with the net worth of a million if he can now retire comfortably. In many places a million won’t even buy you a house in a decent neighborhood, and forget about being able to pay for your children’s college.
P.S. we could still talk about this cheap money and how it is effecting the morals of our country and destroying the society, I hope it is still a wake up call to all those who still love the United States of America, and think of it as, and want it to be a free country.
BRAKING THE BANKS
As the Gods on Mount Olympus looked down upon the mere mortals and took care of their own brood, the national bankers of the various industrialized nations are throwing dollars in the market to save their kin from the financial Armageddon. It has only delayed the day of reckoning. (This para added on the 13th of August 2007)
SHOULD THE FED BE TRIED FOR TREASON, FOR UN AMERICAN PRACTICES, FOR SELLING OUT THE NATION, FOR LEAVING AMERICA BROKE??? FOR DESTROYING THE ECONOMY AND THE FUTURE OF OUR NATION, AND CAUSING THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD TO BE ENSLAVED!!
It was over eighteen months ago when I asked Senator Shelby as to when the federal government spends the borrowed money (budget deficits), where does all that money end up at? Well there are many ways you can word this question, many ways to define the deficits, and there are many stories the government tells us about the deficit spending, but the end results are always the same and it seems that the money also ends up in the same pockets, sooner or later.
Our government is more broke than any other government on the face of the earth, in as much as the number of dollars owed and promised to be paid back at some time in the future. There is no money in the social security fund to pay back the working poor and persons from so called lower middle class, who slaved for years for meager wages for a promise that they will be taken care of in their old age. That money has already been spent many times over, our federal government is on the hook for the under funded retirement funds, the FHA loans, the VA loans, the Medicare and the monies owed to the foreign governments and the banks, for the merchandise bought and sold in retail stores, what we call the trade deficit or current accounts deficit.
As our MBA president brags about our booming economy, if he were to be honest he would be crying real tears for how broke we are, and that the house of cards that the Republicans (with help of sell out Democrats) have built could come down any time at the whim of a foreign or domestic banker or currency trader or the Chinese or Japanese Government.
Since Mr. Senile, the President Reagan, declared that the deficits do not matter, that the tax cuts increase the government income, that the global economy is good for every body, that the workers are fools to ask for a decent living wage ( bust the unions) and can be replaced by slaves in other countries, we have been on a non-stop down hill slide, and like the children of the story of the Pied Piper, we have been a nation glee fully running along to our own national demise.
Our leaders are not giants nor geniuses, they are not gods nor angels, and as such Reagan was an old man, albeit with a sense of humor (to make up for his total lack of real knowledge), till he passed into the onset of Alzheimer’s while still in office. If we were to admit the truth ( if could have even understood) that he was not an economic genius who parroted what he was told to believe with a smile on his face. If you believe that cutting taxes actually increases the revenue to the governments coffers then to you Saudi Arabia is nothing but a thousand mile wide beach. What we forget is that under Reagan the government accumulated a trillion dollar deficit. That under Reagan the bank reserve requirements were trimmed, that under Reagan we started to “borrow” money from the social security deposits, without telling the public that it was also a part of deficit spending, that the new banking regulations under Reagan allowed banks to create money on demand, and as such money existed if you wanted it, no need for anyone to save any longer. That under Reagan the stock market truly became a gambling joint, where average person was to put away his life‘s saving.
SO WHO SHOULD PAY FOR THE SUB STANDARD MORTGAGE LOAN LOSSES? There have already been calls for the federal governments to step in bail out the mortgage and banking industry. Does anyone remember we have been here before? Does any one remember the Silverado Savings and Neal Bush, or John McCain and the Keating Five? Michael Milkin anyone? Didn’t the federal government just bail out the fools already? And who gets stuck with the bill? Not the rich mind you because they can not pay taxes, they need tax cuts right? As I explained back in 2002, the rich were given a tax cut to make up for the Fed lowering the interest rates.
Who’s money is it that the Fed is using to bail out the hedge funds and the bankers, who’ money is it that they are talking about using to keep the homeowners from bankruptcy? - Hey Mr. President, where are those seventy percent of the Americans that own their own homes.- Does the Fed grow money? Do the American people have money saved so that it can be loaned? The Fed, and the Federal bankers of the industrialized nations, as usual, can snatch money out of the thin air. (not in the third world countries though, where it is considered inflationary)
As I have discussed before, all money today is imaginary, and yet the major business of the people in business and banking is how to steal the most of it through financial gimmicks, and ripping off of the workers, (who are, by the way stupid enough, to let it happen). In a “free” economy people are free to chose what they want to pay for a product. We have an economy already based on that rule, “ to buy things that we do not need, with the money that we do not have, loaned to us by the people who are hoping we will not pay them back”, because when you do not pay back your loan you are nothing, because you are no longer going to work to make money for THEM.
When we talk about the monetary policy today, we are not talking about the real world, we are talking about consumption, consumption and consumption, which when extended to the real world only means that a percentage of the people, will be allowed to corner the resources and let the rest suffer. People who become a part of the machine called the corporation. We are no longer living in a free world, or a free society, we are consumers who work to earn so we can spend all we make, and more, selling our children into slavery, or worse, setting up the world for a decimation of population groups.
I am not a conspiracy theorist, I state the facts about what I see, so I am not saying that there IS a conspiracy per se, what I AM saying is if the things don’t change, and if we don’t change the way we are doing certain things, this is what the consequences will be.
So here is how the scam is working. But first let me tell you that the consumption causes pollution, it is destroying the environment and depleting the natural resources, it hurts a lot of people for the benefit of a few. The cost of one single apartment in a luxury condominium can provide clean and safe drinking water for thousands in India, or Bangladesh or in some African village.
We live in a world where the average American high school kid can not make change for a dollar, or balance a check book then how is he supposed to know who the global economy is working.
Let me give you an example, the Fed discount rate cut may have helped the banks and hedge funds and other “lending institutions” but how is it going to effect your personal life, right? This is actually what is happening, when the interest rates are kept low by federal reserve no one can (or is willing to) save any money. How is that? you say. See the first thing is that the government is telling us lies about inflation, since Mr. Reagan had the inflation rate calculations changed. Even though the cost of housing, transportation (price of a car or truck and gasoline, oil, tires etc) medical care and college education have been going up by seven to twelve percent a year for the last twenty years, the government keeps stating an inflation rate of two to three percent. Now it used to be that if you put money in the bank the bank paid you four to six percent interest on your money. Then the bank would lend that money to a home buyer, a car buyer or a business man for their needs, and make one or two percent on that money you had in your account.
With the real inflation going up and the interest rate being paid by the bank being so low (because the Fed keeps creating cheap( I.e. free money), how would one save money for a down payment on a car or a house? Well now you need not save any money because they gave us zero down home and zero down car loans, ( another advantage for the bank is that you are borrowing more money and will pay more interest) why not borrow money from the fed at two percent and charge you eleven percent for your car and pocket he difference , and in the mean time you the stupid idiot (the “consumer”) are working for the bank now.
An idiot(“consumer”) you are when you go and buy things on a credit card, since most people do not pay off the balance at the end of the month, and carry a balance for years on their cards, they end up paying three or four times the cost of the item, be it a three dollar T-shirt or a three thousand dollar plasma TV.
And how does it benefit the nation of ours when the manufacturing is being off shored, and the major industries left in this country are Wal-marts and Burger Kings. The answer Senator Shelby to my question“ when the government spends borrowed money, where does that money end up?” is , it ends up in the hands of the Chinese, it ends up in the hands of the bankers.
Similarly, when the federal reserve steps in to bail out the mortgage companies and the hedge funds, it causes inflation in the housing sector. In a country where the median income is about forty five thousand, and the median house price is about one hundred forty thousand, we could all use a lower house price.
Whatever it is called, the unrestricted increase in money supply has had some strange and unintended consequences. First and foremost has been the myth propagated by our leaders, that the tax cuts increase the tax revenues. As the government spends more and more money outside the legal budget passed by the congress, this money is not included in the deficit, but it is taxed at certain levels and therefore there is a corresponding increase in the tax income. Secondly as the amount of money in circulation is increased every year there is more money to be taxed meaning that more taxes are colleted, all of this has nothing at all to do with the benefit of a tax cut, if the taxes are cut while the money in circulation is kept constant, the taxes revenues will decrease. But the lie and the lying continues.
When there is “free money” available just for the asking, the people with access to this money bid up prices for things, want to build a billion dollar high rise, no problem, and who will pay for it, someone else with a similar “access to capital will be willing to pay whatever rent you want, cost of building material and of land and labor subsequently goes up, so if you are in the market to build or buy a two thousand square foot house, you will be paying a lot more for it now. In other words, if you are poor or just working class you are screwed.
What are we getting for all this cheap money, granted we have CNAs
and McDonalds hamburger flippers now carrying gold Master Card (no kidding), and I am not being an elitist mind you, while we are buying our gasoline and hamburger meals at McDonalds with that gold card, the people in “private equity funds” and the “hedge funds” are buying up whole companies, laying off workers and moving operations overseas. What a bargain.
So who should be blamed for the real estate mess, and who should pay for it? We had a real estate bust under Mr. Reagan, so no one can say it could not be foreseen. This bubble started during the dot com boom, when people were making untold millions just for offering dog food for sale on line, and we know what happened with that boom also. But some people did make a lot of money, a lot of people did ( while many more lost their bottom lines). To these people the price was no object, it was free money, it was easy money, and they could bid up the price of anything they wanted to have, a two bedroom fixer upper in the silicon valley could fetch a million or more, so many idiots jumped in the market, along with their bankers and the brokers. No down payment, no income, no equity, better yet go into a house and draw against the speculated increase in price and live high on the hog with your line of credit. Are you looking to me for the sympathy?
Why is not Mr. Bush bragging about the seventy percent of the Americans who own their own homes now? Because the truth was and still is that a vast majority of the Americans are up to their necks in debt, and have been living beyond their means. If the Fed throws more money into this mess, or lowers the interest rates, it only delays the day of reckoning and it only makes the end worse that it would be today.
A word for Mr. Berneke, hey professor, do not be stupid again. As I have said before, “ life is a game of connect the dots, if you do not connect them all, you fail to see the whole picture. So here is that picture. When the US government borrows money ( deficit spending), or the federal reserve bank prints more money or lowers the interest rate, people have more money in their pockets. When people have more money in their pockets they spend that money, when the spend that money and buy goods, and most goods are made over seas it increases the trade deficit, when the trade deficit increases ( we don’t have anything to sell them cause we don’t make anything anymore that they want to buy) we have to pay the foreigners in American dollars, with these dollars the foreigners buy US government securities, which means that the US government is now in debt to that foreign nation (China, Japan, and the Arab oil states are examples). So Mr. Berneke and Senator Shelby, when the US government spends money in deficit, that money ends up in China, or Japan, or in the hands of the people that support terrorism.
How do we say then that the deficits do not matter? Look at the value of the dollar, or the lack there of. Only an idiot will believe that the economy is doing good because the stock market is up. Compared to the value of the dollar, the Euro, the gold, the value of stocks has fallen drastically. As the real estate has gone up ( as well as the health care costs, the cost of college education, transportation etc.) Gold is now costing three times as much as it did when Mr. Bush came in the office, the dollar is down against all the major currencies, While the Dow thirty have barely made a gain, (actually we are almost back to where we were before 9-11 in the Dow). Compared to the gold, the foreign currencies or even the over priced real estate, Dow has lost his behind.
May be that what this country really needs is a recession, may be even a depression so we can come back to the ground, and come to our senses. That we need to save some money for bad times, we need to be frugal, our daughters don’t become six hundred million dollar Paris Hiltons, no matter how many boy friends they have, and they don’t become Brittany Spears no matter how many guys they show their private parts to. That spending money is not all it is about, and that keeping up with the Joneses is not a family value we need.
So you say how do/ dare I accuse the FED ( Federal Reserve Bank) of treason and selling the United States into slavery. Once again let me refer you to the e-mail, and the question I posed to the senator Shelby, “what happens to the money that the federal government spends in deficit. First thing we need to look at the trade deficits. For the past twenty or more years we have a run an ever growing trade deficit with China and Japan and the Arabs. As the federal government keeps borrowing money (instead of collecting taxes from the people) for current expenses, that money is spent in the economy. As more and more goods are imported (since we have off shored our manufacturing) this money ends up in the coffers of the foreign governments and foreign industrialists,(the rich folks), more money the government spends the more money goes over seas. Is it not stupid then for the government to be reducing taxes and not reducing the spending , knowing that we are enriching the enemy.
By the same token when the FED keeps pumping money in to the economy, to keep the economy afloat, that money also goes to the rich and to the foreign entities, be it the communist or the terrorist. Is it too hard then to understand that the FED activity has actually hurt the United States in the worst possible ways.
If the Fed was working in favor of the United States and its people, the interest rates would be allowed to rise. So the people will save money and get something in return, people will be able to save money for their children’s education and their retirement, and for down payment on a house. People will be able to put money in a bank where it will be safe and guaranteed to supplement their retirement, not gambling with it in stocks, where the markets have lost time and again. Higher interest rate will take the speculation out of housing market, increase the value of dollar so the imports will stay cheap relatively and will reward savings not consumption. But that will favor the United States not the internationalists.
While our manufacturing is being off shored, we do have new jobs being created, in what we call a “service economy”. Mind you a service economy is a euphemism for slavery which I had defined previously as thus.
SLAVERY 9-14-2004
It is a basic economic fact that in a market where labor is plentiful, the wages will drop. So it follows that when we live in a global market and this market has a glut of workers, pretend as we may, the wages and thus the standard of living of the working class must fall. And what is service economy anyway. Service by definition does not produce anything and does not add value to anything, be it making of a burger or advice from a banker. You could always make a burger your self , go to a fast food restaurant and pay three dollars or go to a fancy bistro and pay eight dollars, it is still a burger, and the same advice you get from a banker could be gleaned from a magazine or researched on the net. As we are finding out that the certain office duties or banking functions can be performed anywhere in the world, thus no chance for one to improve their lot in life by extra hard work or education. As we watch, we are being sold into slavery without being aware of it , YET.
(M.N.R.)
Basically the new jobs being created have been in the fast food (hamburger engineering? Pizza decorating?), in car cleaning (now being called detailing), yard mowing (now called lawn maintenance), house cleaning and janitorial services ( now so lovingly referred to as facilities management), baby sitting, real estate sales, in coffee mixing ( baristas) and of course in retail and how can I forget in toe nail clipping, etc, other wise nothing that adds value to anything. So what is next profession choice for the Americans, behind cleaners?
Are these not the jobs that slaves would be doing at some time in the history?
What have we lost for what we have gained, first we have lost our morals, as money has become more and more important in our lives, we are willing to do just about anything for just a little more of it, we have become greedy. A morally bankrupt people, living in a fiscally bankrupt country. Get a clue, we are not free.
The gap between the poor and the rich keeps increasing, but that s not all, we have lost our sense of security, if you think that someone making eighty thousand a year is rich, then ask some one with the net worth of a million if he can now retire comfortably. In many places a million won’t even buy you a house in a decent neighborhood, and forget about being able to pay for your children’s college.
P.S. we could still talk about this cheap money and how it is effecting the morals of our country and destroying the society, I hope it is still a wake up call to all those who still love the United States of America, and think of it as, and want it to be a free country.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
a reply to Islam, Muslims and America
as it is with all other third world countries, African countries are dying real death because of ignorance, and greed. and it works to the advantage of the rich countries, no matter how they work it, how they want to be, sub saharan countries, their populations, their economies, their governements are doomed, they will fight each other for resources,for food, water, diamonds , oil, and rare metals. and then they will die of dieseas, and good riddens too is the attitude of the developed countries, who need those.
you can read more on my blog in the article titled, "the new world order, 2003" you might learn somethings, you may also be intertested in the article " beyond a stupid God, and the immortal man"
just to prove that you are open minded
you can read more on my blog in the article titled, "the new world order, 2003" you might learn somethings, you may also be intertested in the article " beyond a stupid God, and the immortal man"
just to prove that you are open minded
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
ISLAM VS EXCUSES
THIS IS IN RESPONSE TO THE BLOG POSTING AT
omersubhani.blogspot.com/
EXPOSING ROBERT SPENCER III
the answer is not in statements it is in the deeds, when a kurdish girl is beaten to death an eglish girl is murderd by her uncle, when an iraqi father kills his two daughters in a cab, you need more than just to explain away these acts, deeds speak louder than words,
the fact remains that all over the islamic countries the abuse of women is pervasive, the abuse of women what ever the islam says or allows is not the question at first, the question is how it is implemented and here the muslim can not escape by talking the facts away, muslims pride in mistreating their women, even the educated and the so called enlightened ones, bause of muslim women today in all regions of the world is a fact,period. one does not need study quran, but just observe ,
second if everything wrong done by muslims is not in ISlam then where do all these morons come from and what is being done to teach the correct practice of Islam to the illiterate mases, the muslim leaders and the middle classes and their nations have failed, all they do is make excuses and go on . either what you practice is Islam or something else and if it is something else then declare these people non muslims and get them to shut up and understand too many muslims are only good for making excuses and that only because they fear to speak the truth and expose what true islam realy is
omersubhani.blogspot.com/
EXPOSING ROBERT SPENCER III
the answer is not in statements it is in the deeds, when a kurdish girl is beaten to death an eglish girl is murderd by her uncle, when an iraqi father kills his two daughters in a cab, you need more than just to explain away these acts, deeds speak louder than words,
the fact remains that all over the islamic countries the abuse of women is pervasive, the abuse of women what ever the islam says or allows is not the question at first, the question is how it is implemented and here the muslim can not escape by talking the facts away, muslims pride in mistreating their women, even the educated and the so called enlightened ones, bause of muslim women today in all regions of the world is a fact,period. one does not need study quran, but just observe ,
second if everything wrong done by muslims is not in ISlam then where do all these morons come from and what is being done to teach the correct practice of Islam to the illiterate mases, the muslim leaders and the middle classes and their nations have failed, all they do is make excuses and go on . either what you practice is Islam or something else and if it is something else then declare these people non muslims and get them to shut up and understand too many muslims are only good for making excuses and that only because they fear to speak the truth and expose what true islam realy is
Saturday, January 19, 2008
AMERICAN ENIGMA
01/19/2008
ENIGMA
One of the problems of the modern age is knowledge. Yes, it is knowledge, as in knowing things, like knowing about the other people.
With new communications, movies, television, the inter net and even books, and not to forget psychology, we not only think that we know and understand human behavior, we are starting to expect the others to behave in ways that we can predict, in ways that we KNOW that they should/would/could. The governments make projections based upon assumptions of how you will behave, the corporations know and want to know more about what you want, how you will behave, and we oblige. Hell there are websites claiming they can know what kind of a “soul mate” you will be happiest with. We are becoming a cookie cutter humanity, we have become a cookie cutter humanity.
I was at the airport when I saw Dr. Phil talking about ”In the mind of Chester Yates”, I am sure a lot of people watching were impressed, while I was silently screaming how can this guy know anything about someone he has never even seen face to face, but there he was, luckily for me the sound on the monitor was off.
Sadly though, the governments and the super markets are right in assuming that they can predict our behavior. In as much as with all the information available to all, our behaviors and character have become homogenized . The more we try to be individualistic; the more we become like the sheep in a flock.
Let me give you a couple of examples, the psychologists say that the young teens are developing their own personality, finding their place, blah blah, then we are told that our teens are under a lot of peer pressure, excuse me! Are they trying to become individuals or are they trying to be like the others and trying to please others, which???
Then we have the Scientologists, they will tell you that they a not a cult, and also that they are anti psychology and that psychology is a fake science, (in the interest of a full disclosure let me tell you that I have a Masters in Psychology my self, and I personally believe that many if not most psychologists, counselors, and social workers are total idiots without any ability of rational thinking or any common sense). Now then, the Scientologists lambaste the psychologists but at the same time they use pseudo psychology ( a form of Freudian analysis, one talking about his own self) to perform “clear” they use bio feed back, and programming.
What is psychology and what is pseudo psychology? The difference here is between the truth and make believe, between the reality and the excuses. Back in the eighties I came across a comic strip of “Calvin and Hobbs”, to paraphrase, it was about a bunch of kids sitting on a fallen tree trunk pretending to be on a space ship etc. except Calvin who said that we are a bunch of kids sitting on a fallen tree truck and going no where, reality bites! We are told today that making cars and televisions and bicycles and shirts is beneath us, so we call foot massaging and coffee brewing professions now, we are a services economy, it is sad.
And then the psychologists convince us, and the politicians and the educators and the anthropologists tell us that in the Untied States it takes a person twenty six years now to grow up, (and twenty more I guess to make a total ass of him or herself). Being a loser is not a sign of being mentally screwed it is a sign of being normal, it is par for the course.
We are told to follow our dreams, follow our hearts and to do what ever pleases us, never warned of the consequences or drastic effects of such crap on our own lives or the lives of the others close and far from us. Nowhere is such asinine advice is preceded by any such warnings, and the end result is the slow destruction of our society and the country. No one to say that stop letting babies make babies, it destroys lives, that you must be able to support a family, mentally physically and financially before we will allow you to date and have sex. The older we get the more moronic is our out outlook.
And why? As we are no longer required to grow and become mature, (thanks to our psychologists and our drug pushers(makers), mind you) we go through life half blind and mainly stupid. And when we finally find our selves lost at some point in life we can always pick up a self help book or watch Oprah, or lose our selves in some other mindless TV show, join a meditation group or a religion that forgives us all our failures, we have even outsourced our thinking, or may be the truth is we are no longer capable of using our brains. Sadly we are also communicating this, our disease, the world over, at the light speed. Forget that, that in the “dark ages” teenagers were able to rule the nations and lead armies, they were also able to raise and support families. WE ARE ALL AN ENIGMA.
Why I blame the psychologists, when it can also be shown that just as likely, the deficit spending by the United States government (as started under Reagan) is responsible for things from the break down of the American family to the global warming,( see “Being Like America“) and to the credit crunch (please see “Braking the Banks“). It is because as Psychologists are supposed to understand and predict human behavior, they should have been warning us about the consequences and results of our follies, but as it has occurred the goof balls have become victims of secularism and humanism and the stupid ideals of being non-judgmental that they have failed to warn us of dangers of our idiotic mannerisms.
If I am smart and knowledgeable, then I should be able to warn you and protect you from harm. Then why the psychologist not be held for this mal practice. And what mal practice am I talking about?
By definition, by DSM-IV, Narcissism and Sociopathic behaviors are diseases that need to be treated. If it is such than why is not the psychologists, the psychiatrists and social workers up in arms against the media and the corporations that promote self-aggrandizement, self satisfaction and self involvement, where does it leave the community, the family, the country. Like I have said it before, if it all about me , then me is an ass. Make-up, dieting, cars, clothes, just do your thing, just do it, leave your family for a romp, we don’t care about anyone, we are sick in the head. Narcissism is “normal behavior at infantile level” as defined by DSM-IV.
All else in our lives failing, we join religions that promise us heavens on the cheap, just believe in such and such and you are redeemed, you are saved, no matter your failings or short comings you can be delivered, just no seventy two virgins but hey what the heck, you may not be saved in the here after, but you can unload all the crap your live has been or all the crap you did to screw up your own life and the lives of others, “father” forgives, we are all saved, send a check.
The psychologists, social workers, anthropologists of today are busy finding excuses for our immoralities in our genes, or at least in findings as to how the people behaved in the stone age or such. The need state also the as man evolved from primitive societies in communities, cities nations and such, he set rules and guidelines for appropriate behavior so the society could function in peace. These were called crimes and misdemeanors, then as man invented God, these same infractions became sins . Even the ancients knew that a societies can not function without boundaries of behavior, they also knew that a society can only exist where all are committed to the common good, of the family and the society overall. What we have here, what we are doing is counter to the normal model for the development and continuation of a cohesive community. If what we are reverting to is ancient or genetic themes of the stone age then we will soon revert back to the stone age, real soon.
Knowledge in the hands of the unprepared to receive it is dangerous. We do not allow eight year olds to play with matches and knives, we do not allow fifteen year olds to drive alone, we do not allow eighteen year olds to smoke, or twenty year olds to drink, but we allow twelve year olds to have internet with web cam in their rooms, are we freaking stupid?? We allow fourteen year olds to go on dates without supervision and expect what? And why in the hell is child pornography illegal while we allow our teens and preteens to screw, are we that ignorant? If I were to come to your house, I would hope that you will not allow your fourteen year old daughter to come in front of me in her under wear, I hope you have enough sense, but you allow the same daughter to go out in even less to the beach, are you gone mad people? Why does one need porn when he can just look in your front yard and look at your daughter, or your wife or your mother or sister???
ENIGMA
One of the problems of the modern age is knowledge. Yes, it is knowledge, as in knowing things, like knowing about the other people.
With new communications, movies, television, the inter net and even books, and not to forget psychology, we not only think that we know and understand human behavior, we are starting to expect the others to behave in ways that we can predict, in ways that we KNOW that they should/would/could. The governments make projections based upon assumptions of how you will behave, the corporations know and want to know more about what you want, how you will behave, and we oblige. Hell there are websites claiming they can know what kind of a “soul mate” you will be happiest with. We are becoming a cookie cutter humanity, we have become a cookie cutter humanity.
I was at the airport when I saw Dr. Phil talking about ”In the mind of Chester Yates”, I am sure a lot of people watching were impressed, while I was silently screaming how can this guy know anything about someone he has never even seen face to face, but there he was, luckily for me the sound on the monitor was off.
Sadly though, the governments and the super markets are right in assuming that they can predict our behavior. In as much as with all the information available to all, our behaviors and character have become homogenized . The more we try to be individualistic; the more we become like the sheep in a flock.
Let me give you a couple of examples, the psychologists say that the young teens are developing their own personality, finding their place, blah blah, then we are told that our teens are under a lot of peer pressure, excuse me! Are they trying to become individuals or are they trying to be like the others and trying to please others, which???
Then we have the Scientologists, they will tell you that they a not a cult, and also that they are anti psychology and that psychology is a fake science, (in the interest of a full disclosure let me tell you that I have a Masters in Psychology my self, and I personally believe that many if not most psychologists, counselors, and social workers are total idiots without any ability of rational thinking or any common sense). Now then, the Scientologists lambaste the psychologists but at the same time they use pseudo psychology ( a form of Freudian analysis, one talking about his own self) to perform “clear” they use bio feed back, and programming.
What is psychology and what is pseudo psychology? The difference here is between the truth and make believe, between the reality and the excuses. Back in the eighties I came across a comic strip of “Calvin and Hobbs”, to paraphrase, it was about a bunch of kids sitting on a fallen tree trunk pretending to be on a space ship etc. except Calvin who said that we are a bunch of kids sitting on a fallen tree truck and going no where, reality bites! We are told today that making cars and televisions and bicycles and shirts is beneath us, so we call foot massaging and coffee brewing professions now, we are a services economy, it is sad.
And then the psychologists convince us, and the politicians and the educators and the anthropologists tell us that in the Untied States it takes a person twenty six years now to grow up, (and twenty more I guess to make a total ass of him or herself). Being a loser is not a sign of being mentally screwed it is a sign of being normal, it is par for the course.
We are told to follow our dreams, follow our hearts and to do what ever pleases us, never warned of the consequences or drastic effects of such crap on our own lives or the lives of the others close and far from us. Nowhere is such asinine advice is preceded by any such warnings, and the end result is the slow destruction of our society and the country. No one to say that stop letting babies make babies, it destroys lives, that you must be able to support a family, mentally physically and financially before we will allow you to date and have sex. The older we get the more moronic is our out outlook.
And why? As we are no longer required to grow and become mature, (thanks to our psychologists and our drug pushers(makers), mind you) we go through life half blind and mainly stupid. And when we finally find our selves lost at some point in life we can always pick up a self help book or watch Oprah, or lose our selves in some other mindless TV show, join a meditation group or a religion that forgives us all our failures, we have even outsourced our thinking, or may be the truth is we are no longer capable of using our brains. Sadly we are also communicating this, our disease, the world over, at the light speed. Forget that, that in the “dark ages” teenagers were able to rule the nations and lead armies, they were also able to raise and support families. WE ARE ALL AN ENIGMA.
Why I blame the psychologists, when it can also be shown that just as likely, the deficit spending by the United States government (as started under Reagan) is responsible for things from the break down of the American family to the global warming,( see “Being Like America“) and to the credit crunch (please see “Braking the Banks“). It is because as Psychologists are supposed to understand and predict human behavior, they should have been warning us about the consequences and results of our follies, but as it has occurred the goof balls have become victims of secularism and humanism and the stupid ideals of being non-judgmental that they have failed to warn us of dangers of our idiotic mannerisms.
If I am smart and knowledgeable, then I should be able to warn you and protect you from harm. Then why the psychologist not be held for this mal practice. And what mal practice am I talking about?
By definition, by DSM-IV, Narcissism and Sociopathic behaviors are diseases that need to be treated. If it is such than why is not the psychologists, the psychiatrists and social workers up in arms against the media and the corporations that promote self-aggrandizement, self satisfaction and self involvement, where does it leave the community, the family, the country. Like I have said it before, if it all about me , then me is an ass. Make-up, dieting, cars, clothes, just do your thing, just do it, leave your family for a romp, we don’t care about anyone, we are sick in the head. Narcissism is “normal behavior at infantile level” as defined by DSM-IV.
All else in our lives failing, we join religions that promise us heavens on the cheap, just believe in such and such and you are redeemed, you are saved, no matter your failings or short comings you can be delivered, just no seventy two virgins but hey what the heck, you may not be saved in the here after, but you can unload all the crap your live has been or all the crap you did to screw up your own life and the lives of others, “father” forgives, we are all saved, send a check.
The psychologists, social workers, anthropologists of today are busy finding excuses for our immoralities in our genes, or at least in findings as to how the people behaved in the stone age or such. The need state also the as man evolved from primitive societies in communities, cities nations and such, he set rules and guidelines for appropriate behavior so the society could function in peace. These were called crimes and misdemeanors, then as man invented God, these same infractions became sins . Even the ancients knew that a societies can not function without boundaries of behavior, they also knew that a society can only exist where all are committed to the common good, of the family and the society overall. What we have here, what we are doing is counter to the normal model for the development and continuation of a cohesive community. If what we are reverting to is ancient or genetic themes of the stone age then we will soon revert back to the stone age, real soon.
Knowledge in the hands of the unprepared to receive it is dangerous. We do not allow eight year olds to play with matches and knives, we do not allow fifteen year olds to drive alone, we do not allow eighteen year olds to smoke, or twenty year olds to drink, but we allow twelve year olds to have internet with web cam in their rooms, are we freaking stupid?? We allow fourteen year olds to go on dates without supervision and expect what? And why in the hell is child pornography illegal while we allow our teens and preteens to screw, are we that ignorant? If I were to come to your house, I would hope that you will not allow your fourteen year old daughter to come in front of me in her under wear, I hope you have enough sense, but you allow the same daughter to go out in even less to the beach, are you gone mad people? Why does one need porn when he can just look in your front yard and look at your daughter, or your wife or your mother or sister???
Friday, January 18, 2008
STIMULATING ?????? WHAT????
Deficit spending is by definition a fiscal stimulus, then we are already stimulating the economy beyond any rational limit. And as the consumers get their checks to spend, the money will go to China for goods and to the Arabs for oil, we are already doing that. So why not think of new paradigm, like creating manufacturing jobs in this country., or just send the checks to the Chinese directly and save the postage
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
THE GREATEST FARCE
THE GREATEST FARCE EVER
Are you impressed by the Bush desire to achieve peace in the Middle East? The Annapolis summit? The showing up of he men in silken robes and business suits and then the Bush trip to the Middle East to bring the sides closer together. If you are, then you are a moron , go to the back of the class.
First now, Mr. Bush is NOT in the middle east today to promote peace, to lobby for the cooperation of the oil regimes, he is there pushing arms sales and to secure oil contracts, and not in the least to assure he still gets a cut of the oil money pie after he leaves the office, any doubts? Look who is Bob Dole working for, who is Bill Clinton lobbying for, who is investing in the CITI. And isn’t Giuliani working security for the same Arabs that he did not want the money from for his city? By the way the guy who invested in the CITI Bank is none other than the guy who’s check Giuliani refused, the prince Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz.
Second, while the terrorism pays, we need to pay lip service to fighting the terrorists. Like I said after 9/11, the attacks on the World Trade Center, that the attacks saved the economy from going in to a recession. Now we have millions of jobs, literally, depending on the “Homeland Security”. So the Bush trip , in a round about way helps increase the fear of terrorism, by making the terrorists act up and talk stupid. And talking junk about the fear of Tehran at least keeps the ignorant Americans believing that the pres is on the ball.
We need the terrorist to save our economy form going into a free fall. It gives us the excuse for the runaway spending, running up the deficits, while we export the real jobs and the American dollars overseas and sell the Americans into the same slavery as the working classes in the third world countries. When the United States government becomes as poor as the government of any other third world country the people will be easier to control, or kill.
But going back to the peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian problem. How can there be peace in an thing when God is involved. God is anti peace and anti accommodation, NO?
Israel itself was created by God’s orders, because everyone, including the Muslims, if they decide truly to read what is said in Koran, must agree that God gave the land in Palestine to the Jews, now they may not like it but that is what Koran says. Then why is it that the Arabs and the Muslims find it so hard to make peace? The reason is that many Arab regimes have told their people that they are working towards “liberation” of Palestine. Five times a day, the prayers in the mosques all over the middle east are followed by the prayer “oh God, grant the Islam and the Muslims the victory”. Are these the people we claim to be our partners in peace? And is Bush himself sincere? As a self proclaimed fundamentalist Christian, he must believe that the land of the Judea and Samaria belongs to the Jews, and he must not do anything against the God’s will. So how can we pretend to be working towards a peace, what a farce.
Because it is no bigger a farce than the pursuit of democracy in the Arab lands, we are forever supporting the oppressive regimes over there , regimes that will not grant the basic human rights to their people, forget the Saudi Arabia, where in the middle east is any glimmer of a democratic society? Bush did mention the word in his news briefing in Dubai, but why not “Mr. only super power in the world” say anything to the Saudi’s or even Hosni Mubbarak about it? Ok why not anything about the human rights?
It is because the whole talk about democracy, the talk of peace in the middle east is all a farce, and George Bush knows it.
Are you impressed by the Bush desire to achieve peace in the Middle East? The Annapolis summit? The showing up of he men in silken robes and business suits and then the Bush trip to the Middle East to bring the sides closer together. If you are, then you are a moron , go to the back of the class.
First now, Mr. Bush is NOT in the middle east today to promote peace, to lobby for the cooperation of the oil regimes, he is there pushing arms sales and to secure oil contracts, and not in the least to assure he still gets a cut of the oil money pie after he leaves the office, any doubts? Look who is Bob Dole working for, who is Bill Clinton lobbying for, who is investing in the CITI. And isn’t Giuliani working security for the same Arabs that he did not want the money from for his city? By the way the guy who invested in the CITI Bank is none other than the guy who’s check Giuliani refused, the prince Walid bin Talal bin Abdul Aziz.
Second, while the terrorism pays, we need to pay lip service to fighting the terrorists. Like I said after 9/11, the attacks on the World Trade Center, that the attacks saved the economy from going in to a recession. Now we have millions of jobs, literally, depending on the “Homeland Security”. So the Bush trip , in a round about way helps increase the fear of terrorism, by making the terrorists act up and talk stupid. And talking junk about the fear of Tehran at least keeps the ignorant Americans believing that the pres is on the ball.
We need the terrorist to save our economy form going into a free fall. It gives us the excuse for the runaway spending, running up the deficits, while we export the real jobs and the American dollars overseas and sell the Americans into the same slavery as the working classes in the third world countries. When the United States government becomes as poor as the government of any other third world country the people will be easier to control, or kill.
But going back to the peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian problem. How can there be peace in an thing when God is involved. God is anti peace and anti accommodation, NO?
Israel itself was created by God’s orders, because everyone, including the Muslims, if they decide truly to read what is said in Koran, must agree that God gave the land in Palestine to the Jews, now they may not like it but that is what Koran says. Then why is it that the Arabs and the Muslims find it so hard to make peace? The reason is that many Arab regimes have told their people that they are working towards “liberation” of Palestine. Five times a day, the prayers in the mosques all over the middle east are followed by the prayer “oh God, grant the Islam and the Muslims the victory”. Are these the people we claim to be our partners in peace? And is Bush himself sincere? As a self proclaimed fundamentalist Christian, he must believe that the land of the Judea and Samaria belongs to the Jews, and he must not do anything against the God’s will. So how can we pretend to be working towards a peace, what a farce.
Because it is no bigger a farce than the pursuit of democracy in the Arab lands, we are forever supporting the oppressive regimes over there , regimes that will not grant the basic human rights to their people, forget the Saudi Arabia, where in the middle east is any glimmer of a democratic society? Bush did mention the word in his news briefing in Dubai, but why not “Mr. only super power in the world” say anything to the Saudi’s or even Hosni Mubbarak about it? Ok why not anything about the human rights?
It is because the whole talk about democracy, the talk of peace in the middle east is all a farce, and George Bush knows it.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
WE ARE ALL SHREKS NOW
We are all SHREKS now
(Before I go any further, my compliments to the band Smash Mouth for their song “All Star” other than that, I don’t know the band and don’t own any of their music). I do have three children and had he opportunity to watch the movie “Shrek” more than once.
I have not much said about the current race for the White House, I think the process is rigged and in the end Hillary will be the next president of the United States. I said that back the day after the re-election of Mr. Bush, I have said that ever since.
What is getting under my skin, however, is the word “Change”, the most over used word in the 2008 campaign. What Is change? And what will happen when it comes? Obama is for change, Hillary has been changing for thirty five years, John Edwards will change Washington heck even Mitt Romney( changed his mind on abortion) and John McCain(changed his wife then changed his mind on Jerry Falwell and Bush) and Giuliani(kept changing wives) are all for change now. I guess they are all for change since the heard Shrek advise that “Only shooting star breaks the mold”.
So, do we have a bunch of shooting stars here running for the presidency? Are they willing to die for their principles? May be they are, then the question arises what ARE their principles? I am lost. I wish there were a requirement to detail, every ten time they use the word change, that they explain what is this change they are talking about? What will be changed as a result of this “Change”. And how we will be better off with it.
Or is it the people running for the office of the president feel obligated to say the word “Change” because it seems to make them shine? As in, “You’ll never shine if you don’t glow”. Once again Shrek invades the hallowed territory of the presidential race.
Or is it the at these candidates, just like everyone else these days are looking for change as was Shrek? As in
‘Somebody once asked, could I spare some change for gas
I feel a need to get myself away from this place"
I said yep what a concept
I could use a little fuel myself
And we could all use a little CHANGE.
And how about us, ourselves, the people, we are all looking for change, but not in ourselves, in our habits, in our lives. We want the things to change, but not closer to home, we don’t want to have to save energy but want only to get cheaper gas, we don’t want to take interest in our children’s lives but we want schools to put education in our children’s heads. We want children but not the responsibility to raise them right. We want to be allowed to lead lives without standards and boundaries but want our children to know wrong from right. We don’t want to have to budget and watch our expenses, we want more money ( and so does our government). We want free sex but not the consequences, (children, divorce, alimony, child support, STDs and four sets of children with varying pedigree). We want stuff cheap from China but not the trade deficits. We want cheap illegal labor but not the open borders. We want government to provide for everything without anyone having to pay taxes. We even want to eat without gaining weight. And of course we want Washington to change while we keep re-electing the same dunces. May be it is time for a change, may be it is time for a change in Washington, may be it is time we changed our own selves. Washington will change not because Obama said so or Huckabee wanted it to, it will change when we the Americans change our own selves, or like the great wise man Shrek once said,
“Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming
Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running
Didn't make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb”
(Before I go any further, my compliments to the band Smash Mouth for their song “All Star” other than that, I don’t know the band and don’t own any of their music). I do have three children and had he opportunity to watch the movie “Shrek” more than once.
I have not much said about the current race for the White House, I think the process is rigged and in the end Hillary will be the next president of the United States. I said that back the day after the re-election of Mr. Bush, I have said that ever since.
What is getting under my skin, however, is the word “Change”, the most over used word in the 2008 campaign. What Is change? And what will happen when it comes? Obama is for change, Hillary has been changing for thirty five years, John Edwards will change Washington heck even Mitt Romney( changed his mind on abortion) and John McCain(changed his wife then changed his mind on Jerry Falwell and Bush) and Giuliani(kept changing wives) are all for change now. I guess they are all for change since the heard Shrek advise that “Only shooting star breaks the mold”.
So, do we have a bunch of shooting stars here running for the presidency? Are they willing to die for their principles? May be they are, then the question arises what ARE their principles? I am lost. I wish there were a requirement to detail, every ten time they use the word change, that they explain what is this change they are talking about? What will be changed as a result of this “Change”. And how we will be better off with it.
Or is it the people running for the office of the president feel obligated to say the word “Change” because it seems to make them shine? As in, “You’ll never shine if you don’t glow”. Once again Shrek invades the hallowed territory of the presidential race.
Or is it the at these candidates, just like everyone else these days are looking for change as was Shrek? As in
‘Somebody once asked, could I spare some change for gas
I feel a need to get myself away from this place"
I said yep what a concept
I could use a little fuel myself
And we could all use a little CHANGE.
And how about us, ourselves, the people, we are all looking for change, but not in ourselves, in our habits, in our lives. We want the things to change, but not closer to home, we don’t want to have to save energy but want only to get cheaper gas, we don’t want to take interest in our children’s lives but we want schools to put education in our children’s heads. We want children but not the responsibility to raise them right. We want to be allowed to lead lives without standards and boundaries but want our children to know wrong from right. We don’t want to have to budget and watch our expenses, we want more money ( and so does our government). We want free sex but not the consequences, (children, divorce, alimony, child support, STDs and four sets of children with varying pedigree). We want stuff cheap from China but not the trade deficits. We want cheap illegal labor but not the open borders. We want government to provide for everything without anyone having to pay taxes. We even want to eat without gaining weight. And of course we want Washington to change while we keep re-electing the same dunces. May be it is time for a change, may be it is time for a change in Washington, may be it is time we changed our own selves. Washington will change not because Obama said so or Huckabee wanted it to, it will change when we the Americans change our own selves, or like the great wise man Shrek once said,
“Well the years start coming and they don't stop coming
Fed to the rules and I hit the ground running
Didn't make sense not to live for fun
Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb”
Saturday, December 29, 2007
BARING THE FALSE WITNESSES
Saturday, December 29, 2007
BARING THE FALSE WITNESSES
Baring the false witnesses
Democracy in Pakistan, part 2
Time and again; I have talked about the importance of being able to see the relationships among different things in life.
Both the Koran and the Bible have admonished us against lying, bearing a false witness. Let me state here for those who do not understand, that the false praise of someone is lying also.
The holy books and their prophets also admonish us against worshiping false idols, Paris Hilton, Oprah, Brittany, Ronald Reagan and the princess Di will fall into this category.
My promise to you has been that I will always tell you the truth, and here again I will stick with this promise.
Please try to follow along and see how these pieces all fit into what I am saying. When JFK died no one talked of his need to be on pain killers and his visits to his girl friends. That would have been truth. Martin Luther King was with his girl friend the night before he was killed. And who does not know that take away the title of the princess Di and she was just another slut who could not keep her panties on any time a male walked by her bedroom door, regardless of the fact that she was the mother of the future king of England. Or while still in office, Ronald Reagan suffered from the onset of Alzheimer and slept thru the cabinet meeting, along with his other problems.
So what does all of this have to do with the democracy in Pakistan and/ or the bearing of false witness, worshiping the false idols? You ask. Everything!
Tonight as Pakistan burns, and morns the death of her “beloved” Benazir”, I wonder who is to blame.
First of all let me say that I “AM” saddened by her passing as I would morn the unjust death of any human being, the death of any human being. I wish she had lived, and had been tried in an honest court on charges of corruption and nepotism, on charges of looting the Pakistani treasury, the way she was convicted once in a Swiss court. She did not deserve to die. But is she or was she martyred? In what cause, the cause of democracy?
The stupid mankind is doomed.
The news media in Pakistan are so corrupt that they are hiding the facts of her corruption, the woman never did stand up for the poor she so claimed to champion. Sindh is the most oppressive of the poor farmers among the various regions of Pakistan. Today the same illiterate idiots beat their faces, burn the factories and banks and cars (of course along with the gangs of thugs) that she so long ignored, or provided only lip service to their cause.
Can anyone, “ANYONE” tell me what she did do in the last two terms she had, to improve the lot of the poor, to fight for the human rights of the working poor and peasants, to provide justice for the wronged, to truly give power to the people?
I thought so.
Was Benazir Bhutto for democracy? Did she think of herself as more than a mere mortal? There is no better witness to it than Bhutto herself. We know that Jesus, or the prophet Mohammed did not appoint any successors, that the prophet Mohammed refused to appoint any of his relatives, his daughter, a wife or his nephew and son in law to be the leader of Muslims after the prophet’s passing. Apparently Ms Bhutto did not deem it necessary to follow either of these examples, leaving her nineteen year old son as the heir to her apparent legacy. So much for the democratic ideals of Pakistan People’s Party, and what Bhutto thought of her followers.
She thought of herself as above the common Pakistani; please also notice her usually referring to herself as “US” and “WE” as in royalty. Her appointment of her son as the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party shows her contempt of her followers, the Pakistani public and the democratic principles that she pretended to champion.
Lest we forget, Bhutto the father was not a champion of democracy either, upon losing his election when the East Pakistan (now Bengla Desh) voted against his party, Z.A. Bhutto preferred to separate East and West Pakistan in to two countries instead of relinquishing his power to the majority in the East.
Benazir, like her father, pretended to be a socialist, a person for the working people. Z.A. Bhutto nationalized, factories and industries owned by the Muhajirs and Punjabis, but that is where his socialism stopped, he did not go for land reforms leaving vast amounts of land in the hands of the few landlords who treat their peasants as slaves ( not virtual but in fact).
She was also far from being a socialist, a person of the people. She and her party looted the country and her foreign reserves. As the monies were transferred from the Pakistani ex-patriots working overseas, these monies instead of being used to build the Pakistan’s foreign reserves were instead transferred to overseas accounts controlled by her and her minions. Not during her administrations or over the period of her exile, no corporations or trust were established to help the poor, to improve the justice system. She did not speak out against the abuse of Muslim women in Islamic countries, or against slavery in her home district of Sindh, or marriages of ten year old females. She was an imposter; she kept the money she stole, for her self. Can anyone show me any charitable organization, or a trust that she established for helping the poor of Pakistan, at least Angelina Jolie has adopted poor kids and is an honorary member of the UNHCR, what are the humanitarian credentials of Benazir, the false idol of the Pakistanis.
Benazir was a useful idiot, used by the government of the United States. When the U.S. thought Musharaf to be ineffective in dealing with the terrorists, when the Pakistani Army started to lay down arms instead of fighting the Mujahidin. U.S. suddenly got over their amnesia and started to push for democracy in Pakistan, thus removal of Musharaf. Benazir was a handy idiot, she could be bought of with the promise of becoming the prime minister again, and Musharaf could be sidelined (put in his place). And she, hungry for power always, suddenly “remembered” the poor in Pakistan again. U.S. should have provided her some protection, may be through Special Forces and this could have been accomplished without notice, this is a fault of the United States that it failed to protect their valuable asset and now is left to wonder what shoe will drop next in Pakistan.
Politics is like a dog race where in the winning dog gets the rabbit. Make of it whatever you like.
And who had Benazir killed? Some have tried to insinuate that Musharaf did. There is a problem with this assumption. In the two attacks on Benazir suicide bombers have been used. So are we saying that somehow Musharaf has control of some suicide bombers? The problem is that the suicide bombing is the hallmark of the “Radical Islamic Terrorists” so is Musharaf and thus the Pakistani government are the same Radical Islamic terrorists that we are supposed to be fighting.
On the other hand the one that stood to gain the most and has subsequently made a bid for power, though under handedly, was none other than her husband Zardari. Zardari needs to be investigated, not Musharaf. It also helps to remember that in both instances the bombers were able to get very near Benazir, thus must have been, or were known to her own and People’s Party’s own security. And Zardari is a known thug.
True that Benazir was twice “elected” the prime minister of Pakistan. But those who know the Pakistani politics also know that the People’s Party, has its base in thugs and gangs and mobs the intimidate the opposition and not beyond committing murders, arson, kidnapping and extortion. The city of Karachi is controlled by mobs and gangs and thus the violence there.
When Mr. Bush is praising Bhutto he is only praising one of his own kind, a crooked politician, a useful idiot, a patsy, Bhutto filled the bill. No she is dead and the lying can stop.
I have talked about Bush and his love for democracy before, for years. Let me remind you then again that while we gave Musharaf ten billion to fight the terrorist we have paid Hosni Mubarak one hundred and eighty billion in the past thirty years, so should Egypt be eighteen times as democratic. Right? Egypt has a bad record of censorship, torture, political murder and of locking up homosexuals, so how much democratic should Pakistan be.
And to use another phrase that Mr. Bush loves, let me talk about a “road map”, Taliban and Al-Qaeda also have a road map, of a truly Sharia based regime, and that road map is based on the model of our “New Best Friends” in the middle East.
Thursday, December 06, 2007
RELATIONSHIPS
RELATIONSHIPS
I like to see relationships, I have said before that,” life is a game of connect the dots, and if you don’t connect all the dots, and in proper order you fail to see the whole picture“.
So it was a week ago that three cheerleaders, on the way back from practice, were killed in a car wreck and four others were injured, (the girl driving the car lived). Then we have this guy go to a mall and kill eight people before taking his own life. Is there a connection? Sure there is, we live in a society where you are supposed to be able to do what you want, right. So the driver of the car was doing what she wanted, driving and fooling around, it was here right to have fun, it was her right not to be responsible for the three lives she took, she was just doing it. And the shooter too, he failed at life, the life let him down, may be he a had miserable upbringing, a sorry mom, a worthless dad, may be.
May be he did not feel obligated to make a real effort because the world owed him everything and then did not deliver.
May be in both cases these young people were always told you can do what you want, this is the American way. And they did, so why the shock? Why this surprise?
From the day we become aware, we are told, “do it your way“, “just do it”, “have it your way”, and last but not least the one I yelled at a probation officer of a young person about, “when you are eighteen, you can do what you want”. Pardon the fuck out of me!
Are we ever told that with maturity comes responsibility? That the society wants you to behave within some guidelines? That there are limits to your freedoms, “severe limits“. That “what is fun at fourteen, may be a felony at eighteen“.
We expect our young to “have fun“, do whatever they want, the world will always go their way, if not they can always mold the world to their own liking, they have the RIGHT to own the world, ( isn’t it like the republicans and the democrats?), and if not then piss on it all. Life is always a “High School Musical“, only problems in life are the boyfriend, girl friend problems. And the “Little Mermaid” can always tell the daddy the “King Triton” to go pound dirt.
Isn’t it almost like what is going on in Iraq with the Jihadists? The suicide bombers? The world must go my way or may not go at all. The world owes me everything and must be subservient to me. And if I don’t like it then piss on it all.
There is little difference today in the mindset of a mall shooter, a suburban slut and a suicide bomber. Relationships!
And why should there be when we live in a time when a president of the Untied States does not feel guilty about having sex with a twenty year old, but wait, he does know that oral sex is sex after all, is it? And a president of the United States says the he does not have to follow the same constitution he is sworn to uphold. That the prisoners at Guantanamo have no rights, under the constitution or the Geneva Conventions or even human rights and the courts and the AG agree. Why not “have it your way”, “just do it”, Mr. President. Then what is wrong, why are we shocked that a boy of nineteen just wanted to go out in style.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
INTRO
ALABAMA, 27 NOVEMBER 2007
AN INTRODUCTION TO THIS INTRO
Back in 2003, I started to write a book “Death of America”, then I said they will only think of me as anti American so I stopped. What we are up against in this country with the political problems and fiscal problems can not be addressed by a society that is self indulgent and ignorant. We are on a auto pilot flying into a cliff and we have our eyes shut. This is not written for amusement or for people with below average mental acuity and maturity.
INTRO
Bobby Bowden, not the real one but his real cousin, said “you know you go to hell for lying“, “then I will go to hell for speaking the truth”, I said.
Back in nineteen sixty nine or seventy, I was reading an Italian crime story novel, of the whole thing I remember one sentence only, “The best advice on living is written on the tombstones”, I have used the pseudonym of “tombstone” ever since. I am not a guru or a shaman or an oracle, I am an observer of life and a seeker of “the truth”. I have made it my business to see through the clutter of life and look for the real reality.
Knowledge is pain, it has made my life miserable, for the most parts, I find it hard to forgive myself for my sins. I have not led a pious life, actually just the opposite, so more than likely if I talk about the life at the “lower” end, it is more than likely I have lived there myself.
Pardon me my pessimism, I don’t hold much hope for the human race. Thus the title of “the prophet”, you see the prophets of yore did not hold out much hope for the human race either.
The Bible or Koran are books of stories, they talk to us of the human condition and give us examples of deeds and consequences, so are the writing of Shakespeare and Tolstoy, Margaret Mitchell, one can read either or all and get nothing from them or read any and learn a truth or two about life, it is totally dependent upon the reader and his or her brain power. God does not slap you in the face with a volume every morning to remind you to pay attention, that is your part. This column is written with the hope that someday someone we learn something. Like “The Truth“.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THIS INTRO
Back in 2003, I started to write a book “Death of America”, then I said they will only think of me as anti American so I stopped. What we are up against in this country with the political problems and fiscal problems can not be addressed by a society that is self indulgent and ignorant. We are on a auto pilot flying into a cliff and we have our eyes shut. This is not written for amusement or for people with below average mental acuity and maturity.
INTRO
Bobby Bowden, not the real one but his real cousin, said “you know you go to hell for lying“, “then I will go to hell for speaking the truth”, I said.
Back in nineteen sixty nine or seventy, I was reading an Italian crime story novel, of the whole thing I remember one sentence only, “The best advice on living is written on the tombstones”, I have used the pseudonym of “tombstone” ever since. I am not a guru or a shaman or an oracle, I am an observer of life and a seeker of “the truth”. I have made it my business to see through the clutter of life and look for the real reality.
Knowledge is pain, it has made my life miserable, for the most parts, I find it hard to forgive myself for my sins. I have not led a pious life, actually just the opposite, so more than likely if I talk about the life at the “lower” end, it is more than likely I have lived there myself.
Pardon me my pessimism, I don’t hold much hope for the human race. Thus the title of “the prophet”, you see the prophets of yore did not hold out much hope for the human race either.
The Bible or Koran are books of stories, they talk to us of the human condition and give us examples of deeds and consequences, so are the writing of Shakespeare and Tolstoy, Margaret Mitchell, one can read either or all and get nothing from them or read any and learn a truth or two about life, it is totally dependent upon the reader and his or her brain power. God does not slap you in the face with a volume every morning to remind you to pay attention, that is your part. This column is written with the hope that someday someone we learn something. Like “The Truth“.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
NEW GIFT FROM THE LAND OF SAUDI
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/17/saudi.rape.victim/index.html
Write to the White House , we need the president to come out Monday morning and officially demand that the Saudi king himself recognize
IN PUBLIC the stupidity and injustice of this sentence. How can the United States keep pushing the Pakistanis for democracy when his Saudi friends are going along with this the most egregious of injustices, we need a statement from the president, no less
(CNN) -- A court in Saudi Arabia increased the punishment for a gang-rape victim after her lawyer won an appeal of the sentence for the rapists, the lawyer told CNN.
The 19-year-old victim was sentenced last year to 90 lashes for meeting with an unrelated male, a former friend from whom she was retrieving photographs. The seven rapists, who abducted the pair and raped both, received sentences ranging from 10 months to five years in prison.
The victim's attorney, Abdulrahman al-Lahim, contested the rapists' sentence, contending there is a fatwa, or edict under Islamic law, that considers such crimes Hiraba (sinful violent crime) and the punishment should be death.
"After a year, the preliminary court changed the punishment and made it two to nine years for the defendants," al-Lahim said of the new decision handed down Wednesday. "However, we were shocked that they also changed the victim's sentence to be six months in prison and 200 lashes."
The judges more than doubled the punishment for the victim because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media," according to a source quoted by Arab News, an English-language Middle Eastern daily newspaper.
Judge Saad al-Muhanna from the Qatif General Court also barred al-Lahim from defending his client and revoked his law license, al-Lahim said. The attorney has been ordered to attend a disciplinary hearing at the Ministry of Justice next month.
Al-Lahim said he is appealing the decision to bar him from representing the victim and has a meeting with Justice Minister Abdullah bin Muhammad bin Ibrahim Al Al-Sheikh on Monday.
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"Currently she doesn't have a lawyer, and I feel they're doing this to isolate her and deprive her from her basic rights," al-Lahim said. "We will not accept this judgment and I'll do my best to continue representing her because justice needs to take place."
Al-Lahim said he wanted the Justice Ministry to take "a very clear standing" on the case, saying the decision is "judicial mutiny against reform that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz started and against Saudi women who are being victimized because of such decisions."
Women are subject to numerous restrictions in Saudi Arabia, including a strict dress code, a prohibition against driving and the need for a man's permission to travel or have surgery. Women are also not allowed to testify in court unless it is about a private matter that was not observed by a man, and they are not allowed to vote.
The Saudi government recently has taken some steps toward bettering the situation of women in the kingdom, including the establishment earlier this year of special courts to handle domestic abuse cases, adoption of a new labor law that addresses working women's rights, and creation of a human rights commission.
CNN was unable to reach government officials for comment. E-mail to a friend 
CNN's Saad Abedine and Mohammed Jamjoom contributed to this report.
PLEASE
Write to the White House , we need the president to come out Monday morning and officially demand that the Saudi king himself recognize
IN PUBLIC the stupidity and injustice of this sentence. How can the United States keep pushing the Pakistanis for democracy when his Saudi friends are going along with this the most egregious of injustices, we need a statement from the president, no less
Monday, November 05, 2007
IF ONLY MY BLIND EYES COULD SEE
DEMOCRACY IN PAKISTAN
So Musharaf has declared martial law in Pakistan and we are supposed to be upset. It would be funny if it was not already so sad, us pretending to promote or support democracy in the world. First of all who died and left Bush and Cheney in charge of democracy? The clowns in the White House have been the biggest anti democracy and personal freedom and anti free speech since Attila the Hun. What with the unwarranted wire taps, restricting and corralling demonstration, torture and supporting torture, subverting human rights we look like pigs with lipstick talking about promoting democracy.
Mr. Bush and his “ I am “the God” (oh, “the decider“, sorry!)” mentality and his kissing up to Putin, sucking up to Hosni and Vicinte Fox and sundry other petty criminals and thieves ( here in after called world leaders) can not and does not have a leg to stand on when he talks about democracy. In our search for oil, and the hunt for the terrorist we have departed the moral high ground, forgetting that torture does not dehumanize the victim, it dehumanizes the torturer, (something like three out of four detainees have been innocent by our own admission by the way), so then the question becomes, are we even humans ourselves when we support or allow torture in our names first, before lecturing the others about the human rights.
Of course we talk about ( we actually do have), the doctrine of “Immanent Danger“. Someone may have the knowledge of a plot. Now say we come across a fifteen year old girl, she is alone at home, but her father is suspected of having kidnapped and raped a ten yea old child and we think he may murder this child, usually in cases like these the child is killed in a few hours, should this girl be tortured to find out the whereabouts of her father that she may be trying to protect? Think! How about a drug dealer who may have information about ,millions of dollars of drugs being brought into our country, is he a candidate for torture? Of course he is an enemy of our country, or is he? We are willing to and expected to surrender our rights to the higher powers, in Washington, and every police station in the country.
Isn’t democracy relative after all. Is the president of the United states also not the Commander in Chief? While Mr. Bush obsesses about the democracy overseas, he has signed many an executive order (decree) taking the same away from the US citizens, he has taken every opportunity to steal away the freedoms of the American people, from warrant less wire taps to declaring US citizens as enemy combatants. It is even harder to see that the US public is interested in democracy itself, people have sat on their hands while the patriot act was passed taking away many freedoms that we take for granted, school kids are being charged now with making “ terrorist threats”, the police are out of control, one hundred and fifty students sat on their hands while the security on a college campus “tased” a handcuffed man. Corruption and sweat deals are made by the politicians, the law enforcement, and the judiciary members at all levels while the citizens remain asleep at the wheels of democracy. Of course we are being entertained, and so were the Romans, but that is another story.
Now then, we knew all along that Musharaf “presidency” was a farce all along, he is a dictator, albeit a much needed and a handy one. Then we brokered a deal with Benazir, an indicted and known thief of public funds from Pakistan, who took bribes and made nepotism and favoritism a forte of her regime, (as has been the case with every other regime in Pakistan since independence). And then there is Nawaz Sharif, hiding behind the skirts of the mother Islam, hiding in Saudi Arabia and giving his thievery a sense of respectability. Idi Amin also found a refuge in Jeddah mind you.
Pakistan, since her inception has been ruled by thugs and gangsters, some times even the ones wearing a uniform of the army there, but who in public life there is not corrupt? How many? From judges and prosecutors, to teachers , professors and business men, there is not a single official or a person of means that can be trusted to be honest, Iftikhar Choudary is among the same.
Oh yes! And do let us talk of human rights. How about the human rights of little girls as young as eight or nine that are worked in houses of the rich and the middle class, beaten and slapped, expected to wait hand and foot (up to twenty hours a day seven days a week) on the lazy fat asses of their masters. How about the human rights of the girls of the poor that are raped then and paraded around in public to shame their families, where are these damned lawyers when the properties of the poor are stolen regularly, and young boys are worked as slaves in sweat shops and streets. Where is the sense of justice among these clowns, purporting to be justices and lawyers, when they see young men and boys, visibly abused and beaten and sodomised, making confessions in their courts to the crimes they did not commit. And young girls, as young as ten, being “married” to men older than their grandfathers because their family needs the money, or owes money they can not pay back. Where is the justice system when young boys and girls are raped and molested by their Koran teachers, or others.
Freedom is wasted on the illiterate and the fool. Back in nineteen sixty five I lived in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, this the area that you may also know as the Waziristan District where Osama may be hiding. At the age of thirteen, I was a college student at the Government College Mardan ,enrolled as a pre-med student. Luckily all of the subjects there were taught in English, which I had started learning at the age of four. This is only to show that even at that time I had a good grasp of the language. What I did not have the grasp of was the local language (Pashto) spoken off campus, did not know much of the local culture, I proceeded to learn both. My local guardian was the school registrar and I lived in the boarding house on the campus thru the week.
As you may have learned over the past years of our excursion into Afghanistan, the Russian invasion and out current hunt for the OBL, this area is the Wild Wild West of the modern world. In my times away from college and studies, I tried to integrate in to the local society, with the advantage of being a “guest” of Mr. Kafoor Khan, my local guardian and mentor. On the weekends and holidays I would travel to his home town which was about fourteen miles from the city of Mardan. We knew the government rule stopped at the edge of the black top, literally it meant that if one had been murdered on the side of the road out side the city limits, and the body was not physically on the black top no one would care, except for the family of the deceased. Away from the black top was the land of the free, the black top stopped six miles out of the city and you were on the dirt road, you were now in the free area. We had to walk the rest of the way to the village.
Life in total freedom is different, The only rules that apply are the ones adhered to by the local customs. If your brother is killed you go look for the murderer and may be kill him your self, or you may take on his clan and have a shoot out, you may have shootouts for years till some elders tell you to stop.
If a girl is raped, (very rare, pre marital sex is punishable by death for both parties) you go to the boys family and they will hand the boy over to you and you do with the boy whatever you please, kill him or make him marry the girl, or just beat him to a pulp whenever you see him again and again. Or the family of the boy may offer one of their girls in marriage to someone in the girls family, it can all be bargained, God Willing. Theft is rare also and was punished by severe beating, or flogging, there was no cutting of the hands till the Taliban invaded these districts. Walking twenty miles to go see a friend and have a meal with and then walk back twenty was not a big deal, so long as you were armed, you were always armed, yes even at thirteen. There were no lights, no street lights, the only radio would be battery operated, usually one per town owned by the towns chief. I learnt to walk long distances, to bathe in the local canal at night fall, even in freezing temperatures, I loved the simplicity, loved the local foods, the hospitality, I learnt to communicate with the locals, they called me half tongued for my lack of fluency in Pashto.
Back in Mardan, I would go to English language movies, most locals went to see the white women and some skin in the movies such as Cleopatra, From Russia with Love, King Solomon’s mines, I learnt to understand spoken English and may be I could learn to speak it also. And I would read English novels, The Tale of two Cities, War and Peace, Gone with the Wind and every Sherlock Holmes I could get my hands on.
In nineteen sixty five, there was short war between India and Pakistan, followed by armistice and the rise to power of the Z. A. Bhutto and his clan and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Bhutto (father of Benazir) incited rioting, telling workers to burn down the factories that did not pay fair wages, there were street clashes between the followers of Jamat Islami and PPP.
Looking to America, there were protests against the war in Vietnam, then the murders of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but America was truly the land of the free and the people were all equal, and they cared about their country, they all had freedom and they loved their freedoms. They knew how to take care of their freedoms. I came to the United states in nineteen seventy three, I am an American.
Last week the government announced that the official deficit had gone over nine trillion dollars, we are broke, no one raised a question to the president or any of the eighteen people who think they can run this country. The government passes laws to suspend habeas corpus, not a whimper, we need to redefine privacy, who needs privacy? Brittany Spears does not wear panties, now there is something we can all spend time wondering about, we have three hundred channels on TV showing nothing but sleaze, who cares, you twelve year old daughter is having sex, get her a HPV shot, she stripping on line, so, it is free country. We have TV to watch young ladies prostitute themselves for a date with a rich guy, we have Disney to watch preteens making out, we have the inter-net to down load free porn and more. Back in the sixties in Pakistan, I saw bare breasts and something akin to a thong on a woman from an African tribe, in the National geographic. To day all I have to do is look down the street, or over the counter in a private/government office.
This is our contribution in the struggle for human rights in the twenty first century.
So why are the lawyers the only ones speaking out for the “human rights”, first you must forget that they are speaking out for the rights of the poor masses they are not. Then you see that the lawyers in general do feel disenfranchised because they are the poorest of the professional classes, as the doctors, engineers, teachers, nurses and other professionals have been able to move out of the country to enrich themselves by working overseas, lawyers only have not been able to go out of country to make extra money, lawyers in Pakistan are not paid to get the laws enforced, they are paid for perverting the justice system, for facilitating the bribery of the judges, for conniving to protect the police from abuse charges, back dating and changing the deeds and similar other services, (WOW).
What would have Benazir done for Pakistan? Her return to power would have divided Pakistan up for all practical purposes, Punjab and the North under the military rule and Sindh and the South under the PPP and their “thievocracy“. The result of this has been he rise in power of the Taliban and Al Qaeda like organizations. It is not that over night the Islamist have taken steroids, ignoring the real poor and the problems of poverty and the poor having no voice and no recourse to the injustices is the root cause of the Islamic extremism. Does Benazir have a solution? I believe not, but neither does Musharaf or anyone else in Pakistan, and definitely not Mr. Bush, who has failed to see how much the democracy in Pakistan just like our own.
But then again , we in the United States have our own “theivocracy“.
It is a shame that the words Islamic and Republic are used in the name of Pakistan.
So Musharaf has declared martial law in Pakistan and we are supposed to be upset. It would be funny if it was not already so sad, us pretending to promote or support democracy in the world. First of all who died and left Bush and Cheney in charge of democracy? The clowns in the White House have been the biggest anti democracy and personal freedom and anti free speech since Attila the Hun. What with the unwarranted wire taps, restricting and corralling demonstration, torture and supporting torture, subverting human rights we look like pigs with lipstick talking about promoting democracy.
Mr. Bush and his “ I am “the God” (oh, “the decider“, sorry!)” mentality and his kissing up to Putin, sucking up to Hosni and Vicinte Fox and sundry other petty criminals and thieves ( here in after called world leaders) can not and does not have a leg to stand on when he talks about democracy. In our search for oil, and the hunt for the terrorist we have departed the moral high ground, forgetting that torture does not dehumanize the victim, it dehumanizes the torturer, (something like three out of four detainees have been innocent by our own admission by the way), so then the question becomes, are we even humans ourselves when we support or allow torture in our names first, before lecturing the others about the human rights.
Of course we talk about ( we actually do have), the doctrine of “Immanent Danger“. Someone may have the knowledge of a plot. Now say we come across a fifteen year old girl, she is alone at home, but her father is suspected of having kidnapped and raped a ten yea old child and we think he may murder this child, usually in cases like these the child is killed in a few hours, should this girl be tortured to find out the whereabouts of her father that she may be trying to protect? Think! How about a drug dealer who may have information about ,millions of dollars of drugs being brought into our country, is he a candidate for torture? Of course he is an enemy of our country, or is he? We are willing to and expected to surrender our rights to the higher powers, in Washington, and every police station in the country.
Isn’t democracy relative after all. Is the president of the United states also not the Commander in Chief? While Mr. Bush obsesses about the democracy overseas, he has signed many an executive order (decree) taking the same away from the US citizens, he has taken every opportunity to steal away the freedoms of the American people, from warrant less wire taps to declaring US citizens as enemy combatants. It is even harder to see that the US public is interested in democracy itself, people have sat on their hands while the patriot act was passed taking away many freedoms that we take for granted, school kids are being charged now with making “ terrorist threats”, the police are out of control, one hundred and fifty students sat on their hands while the security on a college campus “tased” a handcuffed man. Corruption and sweat deals are made by the politicians, the law enforcement, and the judiciary members at all levels while the citizens remain asleep at the wheels of democracy. Of course we are being entertained, and so were the Romans, but that is another story.
Now then, we knew all along that Musharaf “presidency” was a farce all along, he is a dictator, albeit a much needed and a handy one. Then we brokered a deal with Benazir, an indicted and known thief of public funds from Pakistan, who took bribes and made nepotism and favoritism a forte of her regime, (as has been the case with every other regime in Pakistan since independence). And then there is Nawaz Sharif, hiding behind the skirts of the mother Islam, hiding in Saudi Arabia and giving his thievery a sense of respectability. Idi Amin also found a refuge in Jeddah mind you.
Pakistan, since her inception has been ruled by thugs and gangsters, some times even the ones wearing a uniform of the army there, but who in public life there is not corrupt? How many? From judges and prosecutors, to teachers , professors and business men, there is not a single official or a person of means that can be trusted to be honest, Iftikhar Choudary is among the same.
Oh yes! And do let us talk of human rights. How about the human rights of little girls as young as eight or nine that are worked in houses of the rich and the middle class, beaten and slapped, expected to wait hand and foot (up to twenty hours a day seven days a week) on the lazy fat asses of their masters. How about the human rights of the girls of the poor that are raped then and paraded around in public to shame their families, where are these damned lawyers when the properties of the poor are stolen regularly, and young boys are worked as slaves in sweat shops and streets. Where is the sense of justice among these clowns, purporting to be justices and lawyers, when they see young men and boys, visibly abused and beaten and sodomised, making confessions in their courts to the crimes they did not commit. And young girls, as young as ten, being “married” to men older than their grandfathers because their family needs the money, or owes money they can not pay back. Where is the justice system when young boys and girls are raped and molested by their Koran teachers, or others.
Freedom is wasted on the illiterate and the fool. Back in nineteen sixty five I lived in the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, this the area that you may also know as the Waziristan District where Osama may be hiding. At the age of thirteen, I was a college student at the Government College Mardan ,enrolled as a pre-med student. Luckily all of the subjects there were taught in English, which I had started learning at the age of four. This is only to show that even at that time I had a good grasp of the language. What I did not have the grasp of was the local language (Pashto) spoken off campus, did not know much of the local culture, I proceeded to learn both. My local guardian was the school registrar and I lived in the boarding house on the campus thru the week.
As you may have learned over the past years of our excursion into Afghanistan, the Russian invasion and out current hunt for the OBL, this area is the Wild Wild West of the modern world. In my times away from college and studies, I tried to integrate in to the local society, with the advantage of being a “guest” of Mr. Kafoor Khan, my local guardian and mentor. On the weekends and holidays I would travel to his home town which was about fourteen miles from the city of Mardan. We knew the government rule stopped at the edge of the black top, literally it meant that if one had been murdered on the side of the road out side the city limits, and the body was not physically on the black top no one would care, except for the family of the deceased. Away from the black top was the land of the free, the black top stopped six miles out of the city and you were on the dirt road, you were now in the free area. We had to walk the rest of the way to the village.
Life in total freedom is different, The only rules that apply are the ones adhered to by the local customs. If your brother is killed you go look for the murderer and may be kill him your self, or you may take on his clan and have a shoot out, you may have shootouts for years till some elders tell you to stop.
If a girl is raped, (very rare, pre marital sex is punishable by death for both parties) you go to the boys family and they will hand the boy over to you and you do with the boy whatever you please, kill him or make him marry the girl, or just beat him to a pulp whenever you see him again and again. Or the family of the boy may offer one of their girls in marriage to someone in the girls family, it can all be bargained, God Willing. Theft is rare also and was punished by severe beating, or flogging, there was no cutting of the hands till the Taliban invaded these districts. Walking twenty miles to go see a friend and have a meal with and then walk back twenty was not a big deal, so long as you were armed, you were always armed, yes even at thirteen. There were no lights, no street lights, the only radio would be battery operated, usually one per town owned by the towns chief. I learnt to walk long distances, to bathe in the local canal at night fall, even in freezing temperatures, I loved the simplicity, loved the local foods, the hospitality, I learnt to communicate with the locals, they called me half tongued for my lack of fluency in Pashto.
Back in Mardan, I would go to English language movies, most locals went to see the white women and some skin in the movies such as Cleopatra, From Russia with Love, King Solomon’s mines, I learnt to understand spoken English and may be I could learn to speak it also. And I would read English novels, The Tale of two Cities, War and Peace, Gone with the Wind and every Sherlock Holmes I could get my hands on.
In nineteen sixty five, there was short war between India and Pakistan, followed by armistice and the rise to power of the Z. A. Bhutto and his clan and the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). Bhutto (father of Benazir) incited rioting, telling workers to burn down the factories that did not pay fair wages, there were street clashes between the followers of Jamat Islami and PPP.
Looking to America, there were protests against the war in Vietnam, then the murders of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but America was truly the land of the free and the people were all equal, and they cared about their country, they all had freedom and they loved their freedoms. They knew how to take care of their freedoms. I came to the United states in nineteen seventy three, I am an American.
Last week the government announced that the official deficit had gone over nine trillion dollars, we are broke, no one raised a question to the president or any of the eighteen people who think they can run this country. The government passes laws to suspend habeas corpus, not a whimper, we need to redefine privacy, who needs privacy? Brittany Spears does not wear panties, now there is something we can all spend time wondering about, we have three hundred channels on TV showing nothing but sleaze, who cares, you twelve year old daughter is having sex, get her a HPV shot, she stripping on line, so, it is free country. We have TV to watch young ladies prostitute themselves for a date with a rich guy, we have Disney to watch preteens making out, we have the inter-net to down load free porn and more. Back in the sixties in Pakistan, I saw bare breasts and something akin to a thong on a woman from an African tribe, in the National geographic. To day all I have to do is look down the street, or over the counter in a private/government office.
This is our contribution in the struggle for human rights in the twenty first century.
So why are the lawyers the only ones speaking out for the “human rights”, first you must forget that they are speaking out for the rights of the poor masses they are not. Then you see that the lawyers in general do feel disenfranchised because they are the poorest of the professional classes, as the doctors, engineers, teachers, nurses and other professionals have been able to move out of the country to enrich themselves by working overseas, lawyers only have not been able to go out of country to make extra money, lawyers in Pakistan are not paid to get the laws enforced, they are paid for perverting the justice system, for facilitating the bribery of the judges, for conniving to protect the police from abuse charges, back dating and changing the deeds and similar other services, (WOW).
What would have Benazir done for Pakistan? Her return to power would have divided Pakistan up for all practical purposes, Punjab and the North under the military rule and Sindh and the South under the PPP and their “thievocracy“. The result of this has been he rise in power of the Taliban and Al Qaeda like organizations. It is not that over night the Islamist have taken steroids, ignoring the real poor and the problems of poverty and the poor having no voice and no recourse to the injustices is the root cause of the Islamic extremism. Does Benazir have a solution? I believe not, but neither does Musharaf or anyone else in Pakistan, and definitely not Mr. Bush, who has failed to see how much the democracy in Pakistan just like our own.
But then again , we in the United States have our own “theivocracy“.
It is a shame that the words Islamic and Republic are used in the name of Pakistan.
ODE TO BOB
AN ODE TO BOB LESLIE
On the 21st of October 2007, Bob Leslie stopped by to ask about me, wife told him I had gone to Pakistan. As Bob would, he was concerned, what was I doing in Pakistan at a time like this, when will I be back. He asked her to have me call him when I returned. I returned the night of the 26th, I could no longer call Bob.
There is a story that Moses had a speech impediment so his brother, Aaron, had to speak for him. Bob Leslie spoke for many people. As the and a host of “Talk of the Wiregrass” he allowed others to talk, no matter how controversial the topic, how odd the opinion he would let you talk, then he would confront you and make you defend your point of view. He was smart, he was witty, he was aware of the world, and Bob Leslie was all that and more.
Over the past few years I got to know Bob, not just as the host of the talk show I listened to and called in, I had the privilege to get to know him personally, we had a few lunches together, a few laughs and swapped a few stories. He was concerned about the country, about the people of the world, the plight of the poor and the struggle we call life. We did not always agree on everything, but we never had a harsh word either, I personally know that his show was threatened by sponsors because of some controversial subjects discussed but Bob was stead fast in his desire first of speaking out for the poor and secondly to fight the ignorance of the public at all levels.
We had some lively discussions too, he a believer in Christ and me a Bible and Koran quoting non-believer. I knew him to be Christian, and I knew his religion and his faith was not given to him by his political party. He did care about the people as a true Christian would.
I know how it sincerely pained him to see our country going down the road to a disaster, while bad people were doing some very bad things and the good people were standing around dazed and confused and saying everything is ok. Bob took it all personally, he took it too serious, too personal. He took it as a personal failure. A veteran of Vietnam, a traveler of India and South America, he knew what happens when a few take advantage of the ignorance of the masses, and he saw it coming.
Bob Leslie was my Aaron, giving me a voice on his talk show, reading my e-mails and writing back with comments. Discussing my points of view no matter how controversial, no matter how out of the main stream and how radical he would let me talk on his show as he would let me talk to him in person, I could count on him to let me speak my mind as he did with anyone else that called up his show. No doubt tonight thousands across the Wiregrass still miss his voice.
The Final Answer
Just a simple promise
Promise of a new start
When the options are so few
The world is falling apart
Open the windows
To a whole new reality
An altered state of being
A different look at finality
Leave all the sorrows
And the troubles behind
To start a new tomorrow
That tomorrow will not find
When the loneliness and pain
Are the price for existence
You don't ever pay the cost
Just plan the resistance
When the darkness is the darkest
She is the only romancer
She is the sweetest seductress
She is the final answer
08/02/2001
(M.N.R.)
On the 21st of October 2007, Bob Leslie stopped by to ask about me, wife told him I had gone to Pakistan. As Bob would, he was concerned, what was I doing in Pakistan at a time like this, when will I be back. He asked her to have me call him when I returned. I returned the night of the 26th, I could no longer call Bob.
There is a story that Moses had a speech impediment so his brother, Aaron, had to speak for him. Bob Leslie spoke for many people. As the and a host of “Talk of the Wiregrass” he allowed others to talk, no matter how controversial the topic, how odd the opinion he would let you talk, then he would confront you and make you defend your point of view. He was smart, he was witty, he was aware of the world, and Bob Leslie was all that and more.
Over the past few years I got to know Bob, not just as the host of the talk show I listened to and called in, I had the privilege to get to know him personally, we had a few lunches together, a few laughs and swapped a few stories. He was concerned about the country, about the people of the world, the plight of the poor and the struggle we call life. We did not always agree on everything, but we never had a harsh word either, I personally know that his show was threatened by sponsors because of some controversial subjects discussed but Bob was stead fast in his desire first of speaking out for the poor and secondly to fight the ignorance of the public at all levels.
We had some lively discussions too, he a believer in Christ and me a Bible and Koran quoting non-believer. I knew him to be Christian, and I knew his religion and his faith was not given to him by his political party. He did care about the people as a true Christian would.
I know how it sincerely pained him to see our country going down the road to a disaster, while bad people were doing some very bad things and the good people were standing around dazed and confused and saying everything is ok. Bob took it all personally, he took it too serious, too personal. He took it as a personal failure. A veteran of Vietnam, a traveler of India and South America, he knew what happens when a few take advantage of the ignorance of the masses, and he saw it coming.
Bob Leslie was my Aaron, giving me a voice on his talk show, reading my e-mails and writing back with comments. Discussing my points of view no matter how controversial, no matter how out of the main stream and how radical he would let me talk on his show as he would let me talk to him in person, I could count on him to let me speak my mind as he did with anyone else that called up his show. No doubt tonight thousands across the Wiregrass still miss his voice.
The Final Answer
Just a simple promise
Promise of a new start
When the options are so few
The world is falling apart
Open the windows
To a whole new reality
An altered state of being
A different look at finality
Leave all the sorrows
And the troubles behind
To start a new tomorrow
That tomorrow will not find
When the loneliness and pain
Are the price for existence
You don't ever pay the cost
Just plan the resistance
When the darkness is the darkest
She is the only romancer
She is the sweetest seductress
She is the final answer
08/02/2001
(M.N.R.)
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
FATE VS PRAYER
FACTS OF
Hope is the mantle of the lazy and the coward, for hope itself is the sign of hopelessness.
Prayer can not alter fate, neither do alms or wishful thinking.
Wishful thinking is not a real plan of action. (M.N.R.)
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
FAIR TAX, FAIRY TALE
A FAIR TAX FAIRY TALE
May be you think I am insane, or may be that you will say I am always so negative, but hear me out, please.
As a regular tax paying American, may be I just don't love IRS as I should and may be I also have a horror story or two to tell. But should we do away with the IRS today in favor of this new thing called the Fair Tax? Let's examine the fair tax first, before we throw the baby out with the bath water.
First of all, the fair tax by definition is the most regressive tax ever conceived. You don't know what a regressive tax is? It is a tax where you pay less total tax as a percentage of total income (unless your name is Mike Tyson, and you are predisposed to spending a hundred percent of what you make). If you make forty, fifty or sixty thousand dollars a year, you are likely to spend most of what you make, with scant savings. That means you will pay this fair tax on every dollar you earn. And we hope that you do or the economy will stop and the government will go broke. Now if you are one of those like Mr. Neal Boortz and get paid in millions, obviously you save most of what you make per year, for you fair tax will mean a big savings compared to the current tax system which probably takes away ten fifteen percent of his annual income, if he has good accountants. Lesson one; fair tax is great if you are a millionaire.
Secondly, if we have a recession and consumer spending goes down, so go down the government revenues unless an increase in the base fair tax is approved and made into law.
To be honest, we probably pay more on an item in hidden taxes than just the twenty three percent that is supposed to be the base by the proponents of fair tax. If you start with the supplier, to the manufacturer to wholesaler to the retailer, count in their transportation and handling and sales personnel , the fuel taxes, the property taxes income taxes employment taxes and the list could go on the two dollar loaf of bread is actually worth a mere forty cents. So either I don't know what I am talking about or may be someone else is being dishonest when they say that the fair tax is revenue neutral. The tax revenues will fall and may be cause government to eliminate, suspend or reduce many services.
Now then, we know that we all pay a lot in taxes under this current system, but as I have shown most of these taxes are taken out at different levels and a little bit at a time so the pain is not so great to an individual and the purchaser thinks that what he is paying is what the item is really worth.
A big problem here comes in when a small business may have to charge a higher price for an item compared to a large retailer, if the cost difference in the purchase of a given item today is ten dollars then under the fair tax law the price difference becomes twelve dollar thirty cents, thus indirectly hurting the small business.
Another lie of fair tax proponents is that it will tax the underground economy, now if you are to require the service of a prostitute or a preacher, or say purchase drugs on the street, do you assume they will pay tax on their service or the merchandise transferred? Only way they will be taxed is when they later go to spend that money at a legitimate store.
This fair tax idea is similar to the fantasy idea that reducing tax rates (cutting taxes) increases tax revenues, if it were true we could cut the tax rate to zero and the government could have infinite income.
There are a hundred other problems and more with this fair tax idea, from how it may make the IRS more intrusive instead of being doe away with. How it will cause more corruption, and make more people tax cheats, how it will increase bartering and reduce sales at individual levels.
By the way, people like Neal, or Sean or even Julia Roberts don't pay income taxes as their contracts take the tax consequences already into account and compensate them for it.
May be you think I am insane, or may be that you will say I am always so negative, but hear me out, please.
As a regular tax paying American, may be I just don't love IRS as I should and may be I also have a horror story or two to tell. But should we do away with the IRS today in favor of this new thing called the Fair Tax? Let's examine the fair tax first, before we throw the baby out with the bath water.
First of all, the fair tax by definition is the most regressive tax ever conceived. You don't know what a regressive tax is? It is a tax where you pay less total tax as a percentage of total income (unless your name is Mike Tyson, and you are predisposed to spending a hundred percent of what you make). If you make forty, fifty or sixty thousand dollars a year, you are likely to spend most of what you make, with scant savings. That means you will pay this fair tax on every dollar you earn. And we hope that you do or the economy will stop and the government will go broke. Now if you are one of those like Mr. Neal Boortz and get paid in millions, obviously you save most of what you make per year, for you fair tax will mean a big savings compared to the current tax system which probably takes away ten fifteen percent of his annual income, if he has good accountants. Lesson one; fair tax is great if you are a millionaire.
Secondly, if we have a recession and consumer spending goes down, so go down the government revenues unless an increase in the base fair tax is approved and made into law.
To be honest, we probably pay more on an item in hidden taxes than just the twenty three percent that is supposed to be the base by the proponents of fair tax. If you start with the supplier, to the manufacturer to wholesaler to the retailer, count in their transportation and handling and sales personnel , the fuel taxes, the property taxes income taxes employment taxes and the list could go on the two dollar loaf of bread is actually worth a mere forty cents. So either I don't know what I am talking about or may be someone else is being dishonest when they say that the fair tax is revenue neutral. The tax revenues will fall and may be cause government to eliminate, suspend or reduce many services.
Now then, we know that we all pay a lot in taxes under this current system, but as I have shown most of these taxes are taken out at different levels and a little bit at a time so the pain is not so great to an individual and the purchaser thinks that what he is paying is what the item is really worth.
A big problem here comes in when a small business may have to charge a higher price for an item compared to a large retailer, if the cost difference in the purchase of a given item today is ten dollars then under the fair tax law the price difference becomes twelve dollar thirty cents, thus indirectly hurting the small business.
Another lie of fair tax proponents is that it will tax the underground economy, now if you are to require the service of a prostitute or a preacher, or say purchase drugs on the street, do you assume they will pay tax on their service or the merchandise transferred? Only way they will be taxed is when they later go to spend that money at a legitimate store.
This fair tax idea is similar to the fantasy idea that reducing tax rates (cutting taxes) increases tax revenues, if it were true we could cut the tax rate to zero and the government could have infinite income.
There are a hundred other problems and more with this fair tax idea, from how it may make the IRS more intrusive instead of being doe away with. How it will cause more corruption, and make more people tax cheats, how it will increase bartering and reduce sales at individual levels.
By the way, people like Neal, or Sean or even Julia Roberts don't pay income taxes as their contracts take the tax consequences already into account and compensate them for it.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
thoughts
one could go to a hajj and still become an atheist afterwards, i know,
scriptures tell us that god worries about and loves all humanity, Jesus died for all humanity,and thus is considered a god, Buddah also emphasizes serving the people, may be by "SERVING" the humanity we can also become god
marriage, history and sociology tell us that this institute is basis for advancement of human society, we can not be a society without the sanctity of a marital relationship and without all that a marriage entails
scriptures tell us that god worries about and loves all humanity, Jesus died for all humanity,and thus is considered a god, Buddah also emphasizes serving the people, may be by "SERVING" the humanity we can also become god
marriage, history and sociology tell us that this institute is basis for advancement of human society, we can not be a society without the sanctity of a marital relationship and without all that a marriage entails
Friday, September 07, 2007
BREAKING THE BANKS II
BREAKING THE BANKS II
So you say how do/ dare I accuse the FED ( Federal Reserve Bank) of treason and selling the United States into slavery. Once again let me refer you to the e-mail, and the question I posed to the senator Shelby, “what happens to the money that the federal government spends in deficit. First thing we need to look at the trade deficits. For the past twenty or more years we have a run an ever growing trade deficit with China and Japan. As the federal government keeps borrowing money (instead of collecting taxes from the people) for current expenses, that money is spent in the economy. As more and more goods are imported (since we have off shored our manufacturing) this money ends up in the coffers of the foreign governments and foreign industrialists, rich folks), more money the government spends the more money goes over seas. Is it not stupid then for the government to be reducing taxes and not reducing the spending , knowing that we are enriching the enemy.
By the same token when the FED keeps pumping money in to the economy, to keep the economy afloat, that money also goes to the rich and to the foreign entities, be it the communist or the terrorist. Is it too hard then to understand that the FED activity has actually hurt the United States in the worst possible ways.
While our manufacturing is being off shored, we do have new jobs being created, in what we call a “service economy”. Mind you a service economy is a euphemism for slavery which I had defined previously as thus.
SLAVERY 9-14-2004
It is a basic economic fact that in a market where labor is plentiful, the wages will drop. So it follows that when we live in a global market and this market has a glut of workers, pretend as we may the wages and thus the standard of living of the working class must fall. And what is service economy anyway. Service by definition does not produce anything and does not add value to anything, be it making of a burger or advice from a banker. You could always make a burger your self , go to a fast food restaurant and pay three dollars or go to a fancy bistro and pay eight dollars, it is still a burger, and the same advice you get from a banker could be gleaned from a magazine or researched on the net. As we are finding out that the certain office duties or banking functions can be performed anywhere in the world, thus no chance for one to improve their lot in life by extra hard work or education. As we watch we are being sold into slavery without being aware of it , YET.
(M.N.R.)
Basically the new jobs being created have been in the fast food (hamburger engineering? Pizza decorating?), in car cleaning (now being called detailing), yard mowing (now called lawn maintenance), house cleaning and janitorial services ( now so lovingly referred to as facilities management), baby sitting, real estate sales, in coffee mixing ( baristas) and of course in retail and how can I forget in toe nail clipping, etc, other wise nothing that adds value to anything. So what is next profession choice for the Americans, behind cleaners?
Are these not the jobs that slaves would be doing at some time in the history?
What have we lost for what we have gained, first we have lost our morals, as money has become more and more important in our lives, we are willing to do just about anything for just a little more of it, we have become greedy.
The gap between the poor and the rich keeps increasing, but that s not all, we have lost our sense of security, if you think that someone making eighty thousand a year is rich, then ask some one with the net worth of a million if he can now retire comfortably. In many places a million won’t even buy you a house in a decent neighborhood, and forget about being able to pay for your children’s college.
( NOT YET COMPLETE)
So you say how do/ dare I accuse the FED ( Federal Reserve Bank) of treason and selling the United States into slavery. Once again let me refer you to the e-mail, and the question I posed to the senator Shelby, “what happens to the money that the federal government spends in deficit. First thing we need to look at the trade deficits. For the past twenty or more years we have a run an ever growing trade deficit with China and Japan. As the federal government keeps borrowing money (instead of collecting taxes from the people) for current expenses, that money is spent in the economy. As more and more goods are imported (since we have off shored our manufacturing) this money ends up in the coffers of the foreign governments and foreign industrialists, rich folks), more money the government spends the more money goes over seas. Is it not stupid then for the government to be reducing taxes and not reducing the spending , knowing that we are enriching the enemy.
By the same token when the FED keeps pumping money in to the economy, to keep the economy afloat, that money also goes to the rich and to the foreign entities, be it the communist or the terrorist. Is it too hard then to understand that the FED activity has actually hurt the United States in the worst possible ways.
While our manufacturing is being off shored, we do have new jobs being created, in what we call a “service economy”. Mind you a service economy is a euphemism for slavery which I had defined previously as thus.
SLAVERY 9-14-2004
It is a basic economic fact that in a market where labor is plentiful, the wages will drop. So it follows that when we live in a global market and this market has a glut of workers, pretend as we may the wages and thus the standard of living of the working class must fall. And what is service economy anyway. Service by definition does not produce anything and does not add value to anything, be it making of a burger or advice from a banker. You could always make a burger your self , go to a fast food restaurant and pay three dollars or go to a fancy bistro and pay eight dollars, it is still a burger, and the same advice you get from a banker could be gleaned from a magazine or researched on the net. As we are finding out that the certain office duties or banking functions can be performed anywhere in the world, thus no chance for one to improve their lot in life by extra hard work or education. As we watch we are being sold into slavery without being aware of it , YET.
(M.N.R.)
Basically the new jobs being created have been in the fast food (hamburger engineering? Pizza decorating?), in car cleaning (now being called detailing), yard mowing (now called lawn maintenance), house cleaning and janitorial services ( now so lovingly referred to as facilities management), baby sitting, real estate sales, in coffee mixing ( baristas) and of course in retail and how can I forget in toe nail clipping, etc, other wise nothing that adds value to anything. So what is next profession choice for the Americans, behind cleaners?
Are these not the jobs that slaves would be doing at some time in the history?
What have we lost for what we have gained, first we have lost our morals, as money has become more and more important in our lives, we are willing to do just about anything for just a little more of it, we have become greedy.
The gap between the poor and the rich keeps increasing, but that s not all, we have lost our sense of security, if you think that someone making eighty thousand a year is rich, then ask some one with the net worth of a million if he can now retire comfortably. In many places a million won’t even buy you a house in a decent neighborhood, and forget about being able to pay for your children’s college.
( NOT YET COMPLETE)
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
chicken or the egg
CHIKEN OR THE EGG
Once again the argument of creation verses evolution is taking place in the letters to the editor of the Dothan Eagle, letters and opinions both pro and con abound. Since the creationist try to argue citing the Bible (Koran, or Torah), once again I try here to get these to look at the scriptures and see what is being said.
If I am ever to believe that these books are divine, and thus explain God and His design and His will, here is what I think. If I believe that there is such an entity as “GOD”, and that this God has been and will be here for ever and ever, then for this “GOD” time does not and can not exist, as He can not be constrained by “time“. For Him ten million billion years in to the future and the past is as current as “now”. For God, time has no meaning. I hope we all can agree on this.
Then we have the “fact” that this particular “GOD” created heavens and the earth over a period of six days and six nights ( on the seventh he was golfing? Needed rest?). Now Here is a “GOD” who is “All Mighty” and needs a day of rest? Oh, never mind, the real problem with me is this, how was the time counted before the earth was created? Since the time of the day or night could not be told without the earth being there? SO! What came first? The day and night, or the earth? And why did “God Almighty” need the rest? Inquiring minds are getting a real headache.
Once again the argument of creation verses evolution is taking place in the letters to the editor of the Dothan Eagle, letters and opinions both pro and con abound. Since the creationist try to argue citing the Bible (Koran, or Torah), once again I try here to get these to look at the scriptures and see what is being said.
If I am ever to believe that these books are divine, and thus explain God and His design and His will, here is what I think. If I believe that there is such an entity as “GOD”, and that this God has been and will be here for ever and ever, then for this “GOD” time does not and can not exist, as He can not be constrained by “time“. For Him ten million billion years in to the future and the past is as current as “now”. For God, time has no meaning. I hope we all can agree on this.
Then we have the “fact” that this particular “GOD” created heavens and the earth over a period of six days and six nights ( on the seventh he was golfing? Needed rest?). Now Here is a “GOD” who is “All Mighty” and needs a day of rest? Oh, never mind, the real problem with me is this, how was the time counted before the earth was created? Since the time of the day or night could not be told without the earth being there? SO! What came first? The day and night, or the earth? And why did “God Almighty” need the rest? Inquiring minds are getting a real headache.
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