14 posts tagged “politics”

I created a new group, inspired by a group called "Rage and Violence Against Conservatives."  (As a general rule, real liberals do not engage in violence. Some do, but only defensively when all other options seem unavailable.)  This new group, "Rage and Violence Against Liberals," ( http://rageandviolenceagainstliberals.groups.vox.com/ )  is for the incense burning, tree-hugging, peace-nic antiwar liberals with flowers in their hair and home-made tie-die clothes that reflect the rainbow of their love for the Earth and its inhabitants.  You really don't need to burn incense, hug trees, or wear flowers in your hair and tie-die clothes to join this group, or to be a liberal.

To prevent it from being hijacked by right-wing extremists and others that hate liberals, or at least, hate most of their views, I set it as public, but by invitation only.  The group is intended to provide members with a place where they can explain how they are attacked. That's not the only reason to post to this group. There are other topics which might be of interest to members (So far, I am the only member. Boo-hoo.). Among them, anything about the various groups that are misunderstood, attacked, defamed, oppressed, etc. and various issues affecting them. (Issues that are adopted, fought for by liberal groups.)

If you are a liberal and have been subjected to maltreatment, including harassment, stalking by trolls that hate you, attempts to defame your character as a liberal, false accusations, or violence attacks, this group is a good place to document your experiences. It is also a place where you can document reports of other liberals experiences.

Please contact me if you wish to join this group. Let me know if you have any trouble accessing the page. I don't know if I must invite everybody or if you can find a link on the group page to request membership.  I thought of emailing an announcement to most people on my friends list that I thought might be interested, but I don't want to spam anybody.

Maybe, you've already viewed and heard this video, the Battle Hymn of the Billionaires For Wealth Care.  If not, I think it's a worthy download.  I have neither seen, nor heard corporate media reports covering the visit that Billionaires For Wealth Care paid to a tea baggers if you can't afford to buy health care, you deserve to suffer and die...rally.

Ben Bernanky has reason to fear the fate of the Fed...

This page provides interesting information which briefly explains portions of the historic background of the Federal Reserve and reasons why the petition to abolish the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was created. This petition is just one effort drive to get rid of the private entity that was created under the guise of protecting our economy and became the official controlling force of our economy and currency approximately 17 years before the Great Depression that was sweeping the world cast its dark clouds on our country.

One of the best bi-partisan US House bills I've seen in my life is the one by Ron Paul (Republican, Texas) and Alan Grayson (Democratic, Florida) to audit the Federal Reserve.  The House Finance Committee recently approved this bill with an impressive bi-partisan vote of 43 - to - 26.

House Finance Committee Chairman Barney Frank (Democratic Blue Dog, Massachusetts)  opposed the bill. He urged other committee members to do the same, but 15 Democratic members of the House Finance Committee backed the Ron Paul/Alan Grayson bill in an effort to rescue our country and its economy.

"The measure, cosponsored by Reps. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Alan Grayson (D-Fla.), authorizes the Government Accountability Office to conduct a wide-ranging audit of the Fed's opaque deals with foreign central banks and major U.S. financial institutions. The Fed has never had a real audit in its history and little is known of what it does with the trillions of dollars at its disposal."

A Rasmussen poll taken last summer revealed that the Federal Reserve is less popular than the IRS and 75% of poll participants favor auditing the Federal Reserve. 

Bernanky and other Federal Reserve insiders probably know that this effort to audit the Fed, to expose its family jewels (secrets), and abolish its power over US currency, inflation rates, and the banking, lending and insurance industries will most likely get overwhelming public support.  He's hearing our shouts, "We're mad as hell! We're not going to take this crap anymore!"  Ben Bernanky is on the PR circuit, trying his utmost to save his powerful job.

He claims that an audit of the Fed will hurt the economy.  Quite the contrary! The Federal Reserve has participated in the destruction of our economy while sitting on a mountain of multi-trillion dollars in US currency.

That's right, Folks!  Universal Health Care already exists, established in 1912.  It's called Medicare.

Congressmen Dennis Kucinich and John Conyers authored HR 676, which declares that we have a constitutional right to health care.  It appears in Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution "which defines the purpose of government 'to promote the General Welfare' now thereof.

The Conyers/Kucinich bill HR 676 demands Medicare for all as a universal single - payer, not-for-profit which means the end of premium, co-pay, and deductibles.

For more details and to sign the petition establishing health care as a civil right Click Here.  Please pass this petition on to anybody you know that will most likely sign it.  Please share it with communities that will welcome and allow the posting of outside links.  Feel free to post it on your blog, website, tweet account, and social bookmarking networks.

I found two links to a couple of quizzes shared by Wannabe Tesla here. 

Here are the results of the first quiz (Political Spectrum Quiz):

With the compass ranging in extremes from far left, to far right, and from libertarian, to authoritarian, my results were:

You are a left social libertarian.
Left: 6.55, Libertarian: 7.06

On the foreign policy scale:

On the left side are pacifists and anti-war activists. On the right side are those who want a strong military that intervenes around the world. You scored: -6.71

I am primarily opposed to intervention (especially military) in the affairs of our global neighbors. (I sometimes make exceptions, as in the case of obvious indications of a nation, or other militant group forcefully and actively seeking global domination, and/or genocide.)  It is all too easy for a country that seeks to solve the world's problem, such as, through military intervention, to create a bigger mess.  Such as, by arming and training one side that later uses the weapons and training against the country that previously aided that side.  Also by sending troops and others representing one's country to "help" people, but without proper training and oversight which results in creating more problems for those people, thus giving them reason to believe that they were better off before the foreigners butted into their affairs.  The amount of American meddling and coercion of our global neighbors has a lot, or everything to do with why my government and military and much of our society keeps attracting more enemies, including those that want to kick our asses off the face off the Earth.

I also believe that people often choose violence as a quick and convenient response for lack of desire, knowledge and wisdom to seek a non-violent and more effective way.  To me, that's indicative of intellectual and ethical weakness.  It is little wonder why most people in my country did not recognize the industrial, economic and trade warfare tactics being used against us for over a decade and on a grander scale since March 2003.

Culture:

Where are you in the culture war? On the liberal side, or the conservative side? This scale may apply more to the US than other countries. You scored: -6.2

I have my personal views regarding issues, like abortion, but I do not believe that the government should dictate whether, or not abortion should be legal.  I am also opposed to forced abortion by a government, or any other entity.

Although, the argument over gay rights and gay marriage has no personal and direct impact on my personal liberties and on the quality of my life, I believe that we were all created equal and are entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I oppose discrimination and oppression.

In the Political Quiz at politicalquiz.net I strongly took issue with one description of my views, based on the quiz results.  However, most were rather accurate.

The scores are based on a gradual range of 0 to 12. For instance, a Conservative/Progressive score of 3 and 0 will both yield a result of social conservative, yet 0 would be an extreme conservative and 3 a moderate conservative.

Here are my results:

Conservative/Progressive score: 9
You are a social progressive. You generally consider yourself a humanist first. You probably think that religion and patriotism go too far in society. You probably consider yourself to be a citizen of Earth first rather than a citizen of your country.

(I do consider myself to be both a citizen of the world, or Earth, and also a US citizen. So far, the rest of this description was accurate. I've been calling myself a progressive for years.)

Capitalist Purist/Social Capitalist score: 12
You're a Social Capitalist, you think that, left to its own, Capitalism leaves a lot of people behind. You think that Health Care should be free to all, that the minimum wage should be raised, and that the government should provide jobs to all that are capable of having them. You likely hated the Bush tax cuts, and believe that the middle class has gotten poorer, and the rich have gotten richer over the past several years. The far extreme of social capitalism is socialism.

(This one was inaccurate. I do not want the government to provide jobs for every person capable of working.  When a government does that then the lawmakers and their appointed officials will surely dictate which type of work, or career each person will have.  I believe in a fair amount of free enterprise.  I believe in a living wage as a means of preventing hard-working people from struggling against impossible odds to get above the poverty level.  I prefer cost of living adjustments in addition to a living wage. I also believe that the work force should set the minimum pay and hourly standards just as manufacturing executives, retailers and service providers determine prices.  As with the latter, negotiation might be possible.)

Libertarian/Authoritarian score: 0
You are libertarian. You think that the government is making way too many unnecessary laws that are taking away our innate rights. You believe that the government's job is primarily to protect people from harming other people, but after that they should mind their own business, and if we give the government too much power in controlling our lives, it can lead to fascism.
 
(This one was completely accurate.)

Pacifist/Militarist score: 0
You're a Pacifist. You are angered that the United States thinks it should dominate the world through its military force. You think that the only time war is necessary is when we are in direct danger of being attacked. You also believe the US spends way too much of its money on defense, as we can practically cut it in half and still easily defend ourselves, and use that money to fix all our economic problems.

(This was accurate.  As for military spending, I believe that the government spends way too much on militant aggression.)

As a final note, I was described as most likely a hard-core Democrat.

That's so wrong.  I am non-partisan.  The Democratic politicians piss me off as much as the Republicans.  One side goes about it differently than the other, except where nearly all of them sell us out to the plutocrats that bribe them.

In 2003 Rep. Stephen Buyer (Rep., Indiana) founded the Frontier Foundation that reportedly existed to attract donor dollars for education scholarships that were never offered to any student. Congressman Buyer also claimed that he doesn't recall where he got the original capital of $25.000 that he used to establish this group, according to Sharyl Attkisson of CBS news (Can A Donation Buy Legislation?).  The supposed non-profit organization shared office space with Buyer's political campaign office.  Apparently, his campaign manager handled operation of the Frontier Foundation.  The dirt discovered about Buyer, the Frontier Foundation, and top donors got a lot more interesting. The televised report is more detailed about the controversial favors that Buyer was doing as a lawmaker to the lobbyists that donated to the Frontier Foundation.

Apparently, the Frontier Foundation was created to attract lobbyists and donor dollars to Stephen Buyer in exchange for political favors on Capital Hill.

This reminds me of a report that I read years ago in a late 1990's issue of Mother Jones Magazine, titled Co-op Congress.  Members of both political parties were exposed for introducing, endorsing and voting on bills from which they profited in various ways.

Some things never change...

Rome's patron senators used to sit outside with giant pots to encourage the public to drop coins in them. The object was for people to rent a Roman senator's ears where they could tell the patron senator what they needed, or wanted.  If they paid enough money then they had a better chance of their cause being introduced to the senate.

Plutocracy lives on in modern-day governments.  Today, we Americans stand a much better chance of our issues being introduced to the House and Senate and supported by either, or both parties if we pay the politicians and each party enough money to buy their support.

Dennis Kucinich blasted the voting congressional majority that voted for a bill that they did not bother to read.  That bill was intended to officially declare that when war crimes are committed, they didn't really happen.  The purpose of the bill was intended to protect certain war criminals. 

Any one that attempts to protect one group of war criminals may as well protect them all.

"Today we journey from Operation Cast Lead to Operation Cast Doubt. Almost as serious as committing war crimes is covering up war crimes, pretending that war crimes were never committed and did not exist.

Because behind every such deception is the nullification of humanity, the destruction of human dignity, the annihilation of the human spirit, the triumph of Orwellian thinking, the eternal prison of the dark heart of the totalitarian." - Dennis Kucinich:

Video and transcript of Kucinich's response are on the same page here.

Have you seen the ads that encourage the public to sell their gold items through the mail? Like the ones on TV where we're told that we just drop our gold items in one of Such-n-Such company's envelopes and then safely mail it to receive cash in return?

I've seen those commercials in English and Spanish.  One company's ad shows us a brief visual "tour" of how the gold is collected and melted, then sold in bouillons to the US government.

I wonder if people actually mail in their gold items and expect an abundant cash return in the mail?  I do not believe that these cash for gold mail exchange companies operate that way.  I don't even know if they actually send a check in the mail, or if they are stupid enough to send cash.

Do yourself a favor.  If you have gold items, especially made of pure gold, hold onto them.  Keep them in a safe place. Not in a safety deposit at a bank and not in the jewelry box, especially if you have one that is kept on a vanity, or dresser.  Use your imagination and don't underestimate the investigative power of thieves.

While the Bush-whacked percentage of Americans argued for years that the Bush regime was "growing" our economy, I expected a market crash on Wall Street before Bush and Cheney left Washington D.C.  (I suspected that they'd get another four years and I prayed that they would not find any way to continue holding this country hostage after then.)  I told many Bush-whacked Americans to expect this crash. One of my own Bush-whacked relatives told another to shift his investments from the stock market into purchases of actual gold because the market is going to crash.

That other Bush-whacked relative (with the money) refused to do it. He argued with the relative that had offered this advice some time after he had angrily argued with me in June 2003 over our differing views of how the Bush regime's US foreign wars would dearly cost us all. He confided in the other Bushwhacked relative that he had lost a fortune (it was before 2006).  He lost more money when the market crashed last year.

Some people laughed at my warnings.  Others tried to argue me down (like that relative). They told me that I must have gotten my information from some crackpot liberal media source off the Internet.

I did find my sources on the Internet.  It was in 2002 shortly after the author published the essays which were my original sources.  They are still available online at the From The Wilderness site:

Moving On Gold, by Michael C. Ruppert

Analysts: Stock Market Heading Toward Crash, Present Rally Called 'Comic Relief', by Joe Taglieri (FTR staff writer)

Predictions made by Ruppert and a number of his sources and associates usually turn out to be accurate.  The timing and severity have been a bit off, but these sources provided more reliable information about topics at hand than sources in the corporate and partisan media.  See for yourself. (No wonder why some people tried to kill Ruppert, and certain others have been trying to discredit him and a number of his associates.)  I never hoped that his dark predictions would come true. When they do, I take no delight in telling some people, "I told you so."

Ruppert, as well as,  Stan Goff (retired US Special Forces), were among my earliest sources to lead me to the oil and war connection.  I had heard some casual talk about "peak oil" and talk of oil and gas  price hikes and shortages off and on for several years, but I dismissed the sources as flakes that got all their "information" from a sci - fi movie.

The majority of people throughout a nation, or a collection of countries controlled by a single empire, might endure mass unemployment, vanishing commerce, crops and cattle; they might lose their homes and go hungry and do without any kind of aid, including medical; while their schools fall to abandoned ruins while members of their own government and their aristocratic relatives and friends sit on piles of gold.  They'll hoard that gold until they have a self-serving purpose to release it to the public.

On Oct. 30  the Moscow Times reported that the Russian "[G]overnment plans to sell 25 tons of gold from the state precious metals and gems repository, Gokhran, possibly on the local market, Interfax quoted a Finance Ministry official as saying Thursday."  If you read the aforementioned (linked) essays and then read this, it ought to give you something to think about for a while.  Believe me when I tell you, there is more. Oh, so much more than this little blogger can include in a single post.

There is a new documentary out that received positive (and bone chilling) reviews after it was featured at the recent Toronto Film Festival.  The title is Collapse, produced by Chris Smith.  Michael Ruppert is interviewed in this documentary. Click the link to see if it is playing in a theater in your area when it opens in theaters on Nov. 6 for a one-week run in a number of cities in the US and Canada.

When election season in the United States rolls around modern candidates, their campaign team, and citizen supporters now use public communities to attract and unite their supporters.  Official campaign sites and communities are usually deactivated soon after the campaign ends.  Those assigned to such tasks often place domain names and URL's in semi-, or full retirement.

That is usually not the case for campaign communities and single-owner blogs that permit and display comments by readers, or members.  Most often, the blogs, or communities are abandoned by their creators.  The members that supported those candidates, at least with their votes, also tend to stray, especially when the creators, hosts, and moderators quit hanging around them.

When the candidate (in whose honor the blogs, or communities were created) wins the election, his or her opponents might find the abandoned blog, or community.  If, or when they do, they will likely spread mischief at the candidate's and his or her supporters' expense.

This happened to the Barack Obama Group here on Vox.  Most of the group's hosts and members appear to have lost interest in that group.  Actually, some, perhaps many members (including yours truly) allowed our own blogs at Vox to gather dust for many months.  In the meantime,  President Obama's critics, particularly partisan ones have obviously taken over this Obama group for their own anti-Obama amusements.

That's one way for them to find posts by like-minded bloggers at Vox. They may as well turn that Obama group into a social network for people that hate our current president, his party and its policies.  Give them enough time and the links and opening lines of their anti-Obama posts will outnumber all the positive posts made about him in the past, sporadically since the election, and (if he chooses to run for President again) during the next major elections campaign season. To casual observers, this might look like an anti-Obama group.The occasional post that supports, at least, some of President Obama's ideas and policies then appears to be the exception.

Perhaps, the people that are still mostly pleased with Obama and the job he's doing need to consider the benefits of adding positive content about him in still-active communities, like the group I singled out.  If only they knew that some of us are inclined to explore link after link, page after page to see what people are saying about issues, events, and high profile individuals and groups.  Paid and volunteer researchers would have a field day at this specific group, especially if their hunting for negative content at Obama's expense which might not have been quickly and easily accessed at a search engine site.

President Obama's citizen supporters can bury the links to those anti-Obama posts and surround them with counter-points.  But will they?

First they need to know what is happening over there.  The rest is up to them once they learn about it.

I am so proud of the people in my adopted home state (Florida), including the civil rights activists and lawyers that have been working tirelessly and against great politial and bureaucratic odds to defend the voting rights of all Florida residents.

I still  have moments when I get choked up and my eyes go moist and blurry.  I feel a fluttery sensation rise up my chest and burst in my head, as if every chakra from from my heart, to the crown are havin their own Happy-Happy, Joy-Joy dance. Barak Obama is the first presidential candidate that got my vote and won!

I did a double-take when I first saw the words, "President-elect Barak Obama."  They flashed on the screen right after  I heard, "But it's still too soon to declare a winner..."

Once I was finally convinced that Obama was declared the winner, I sent up a prayer to request that our next president and his loved ones be kept safe and secure.  We pay the Secret Service to ensure it.  We won't accept any "excuses" if something dreadful happens to any of them, to put it mildly.

It feels great to know that we have made a big step to correcting the course of our nation.  But we sure do have our work cut out for us.

I hope, you take the time to read the following essays that were written by one man I've grown to trust -  Michael C. Ruppert Please not the dates.  I can personally verify that the dates are accurate, because I had read the two older ones shortly after they appeared online:

Interregnum (written Nov. 5th)
What Really Happened Today,  Written Sept. 29th, regarding the market crash, where Mr. Ruppert predicted that Obama would win, and includes speculations of what might be in store for us and our new president.
Now is the Time: There is hope, written Sept. 17, with more details of  predictions Ruppert made over the years which have come to pass.