Friday, August 28, 2009

Asleep

Cash for Conversion...

The Federal Government should encourage and subsidise the conversion of trucks and automobiles to run on CNG. As proposed by T. Boone Pickens, converting our rolling stock to run on CNG (compressed natural gas) would reach throughout the economy and stimulate industry from the ground up: from the gas fields to the service stations to all the vehicles we drive. Machine shops, fittings, hoses, tanks, contractors and construction equipment would all be employed creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. Think about it..... a lot of the infrastructure is already in place. Every community that offers natural gas to homes and businesses already has the pipelines in the ground. All that would be needed would be compressors, pumps and storage facilities. Mini stations "in a box" could be built and sold or leased for installation wherever a gas pipe lays, even in one's home garage! And, during it all and forever after it would all pay-back in real terms. Jobs, new industries, and savings of every kind. Money would be created and saved as would oil. The cost of oil would dramatically fall too. Profits would soar and the cost of living would fall.

Cheap Energy

Combined with the creation of 1000 nuclear power plants coast to coast, and the effect of the above would be a thousand fold and the pay-off would last hundreds of years. Millions of real jobs created. REAL JOBS! America would be flooded with cheap energy. Cheap energy is the key to the good life. It is the reason America has achieved the highest standards of living on Earth; standards that America alone has endeavored to spread around the world. All this AND a real step towards genuine energy independence!

Fixing the Economy is not the goal!

It won't happen. Many Americans are suffering from a fundamental misunderstanding of what's going on in this economy, in this presidential administration. In my previous posting I used The Peter Principle to define America's current leadership. But I was wrong, these folks are not incompetent. They know exactly what they are doing and they are achieving their long sought goals. Put simply, this administration does not want a solution to the economic condition we now find ourselves in. Any solution that brings us back to the America I grew-up in, any EVOLUTIONARY SOLUTION is unacceptable. That would be antithetical to the whole movement now represented by Washington D.C. They, our elected and appointed leaders, AS OBAMA HIMSELF HAS OPENLY STATED and upon which he based his campaign, want "Fundamental Transformation of America!" "CHANGE!" That means American -- What?; Obama Styled -- Revolution! This revolution has been in the works from the ground-up for forty years, way before Obama came on the scene. This revolution has at its heart the destruction of everything American. Starting with that icon of America, GM. Done!

Forty Years in the works....

It blossomed in the 60's with SDS, Weather Underground, Black Panthers, ACLU, Southern Poverty Law Center, and others. It has insidiously spread its tentacles, preaching "Fundamental Change" throughout the country with systematic attacks on the likes of the Boy Scouts of America, the YMCA, the Church, the Family. ALL values have been turned on their head. It spread its ideology to the PTA, public schools, teachers; all co-opted, as were the Universities, the Courts and Judges, and Legislatures from the town and county council to the State to Washington D.C. One of the prime targets was the School of Journalism, in every major university in the country... from whence the message and the movement was carried into the media: to the Papers, to TV, to the News, to Radio, to Magazines. They... these revolutionaries, now own these voices from the NY Times to NBC and to nearly every organ in between! Solid old line conservative icons of the American press have been "fundamentally changed." From there it has seeped into the consciousness of the citizen. It's been like prostate cancer.... slow moving, painless... until the victim is impotent. It was not a grand plan... it just evolved through slow but steady organized pressure. Its like "The Body Snatchers," fall asleep and you're gone. We've been asleep, we Americans, making a living and trusting to our elected officials and to those guiding our institutions all that we held sacred. We were deep, deep, asleep.

Wake-up!

We are awakening now, but unfortunately we awaken to the realization that a significant number among us have been "snatched." This number has embraced the seduction of the concept of sharing the wealth... of others. Seeing and hearing the vehemence of each side in this now boiling take-over attempt, I fear another civil war..... just as bloody as the first one...... which was the bloodiest war America has ever known. More deadly than all the losses combined, that Americans have suffered in every war since we've been a country. We - YOU and I ARE the new Indians or the new Southerners, we are the new "slave holders" that have to be destroyed. WE are the ones that have to be.... WIPED-OUT, so that the New Dream of a Brighter Tomorrow can emerge.

This is an extreme view... a terrible nightmare. And it can be avoided... through acquiescence..... or it can be averted by taking back, through the polls, our government. Our institutions must be examined. Our children's teachers must have a fundamental understanding of what makes America tick, what makes America unique. When I hear our teachers speak I am appalled. We can no longer sleep. Too much is at stake. Or we can just lay our heads down to sleep and to dream.... A new Dream of Change..... of a new tomorrow, coming soon to a theater near you.....

Cheers, Mel

6 comments:

  1. You mention that you are the new “slave holders that have to be destroyed” as if that were a bad thing. Do you honestly think that the slaveholders were the GOOD guys? Owning people in order to better make profits is immoral. Then and now, still wrong, even as big business essentially does the same thing.

    Then you go on to the link Southern Poverty Law, Black Panthers and the ACLU as if they are all one and the same… in a thinly veiled attempt to imply that anyone who defends the poor, the blacks or the constitution is……what? Crazy?

    The current economic crisis is directly related to the greed of big business. Of fat cats who wanted to operate with impunity, without government oversight or regulations of any sort. Failure to monitor the banks, the insurance industry and other pillars of capitalism has led to the biggest ‘recession’ since the great depression……….and you wonder that anyone wants change?

    Fear mongering of the ilk you espouse put us in not one, but two wars, costing us billions yet profiting private firms who outnumber our troops and operate…..wait for it…….without government oversight.

    And then you go on to insult the teachers. You say “ our children’s teachers must have a fundamental understanding of what makes America tick”…. How ironic…..
    We KNOW what makes America tick, because we live in the ‘real’ America. We see the results of the 60+% bankruptcy rates linked to medical bills, the folks with good credit given usurious interest rates who ended up losing their homes…. The working parents who can’t make ends meet, the children whose parents are in jail because we imprison more people than any other nation on earth.

    We see what you can’t ….. high up on that hill….. in your glass house….

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  2. Response to "old teacher" comments:

    Perhaps Mel's choice of words "new slaveholders" could have been better, but his point is well-taken. Then again, I don't understand your choice of words in your comment: "Then and now, still wrong, even as big business essentially does the same thing."

    There is in fact an ever-growing divide in this country that could be construed as a Civil War. It has in fact been brewing for many years and now that we have elected a black man (albeit 1/2 black) and the Democrats control both houses of Congress, it seems to be coming to a head and has given new life to some of the radical, socialistic, even Marxist/Communistic leaning groups mentioned by Mel. I think Obama leans a lot further to the left than the voters realized and he in fact, is, trying to fundamentally change the way America operates. btw....most of the voters in this country are white.

    The seemingly "shadow" government Obama has created with his 37 or so czars, unvetted and unaccountable to anyone, is scaring the crap out of people. Me included. His radical, admitted communist, racist Green Jobs czar, Van Jones, was finally forced to resign. There are others that he hired that may not be so obviously radical, but they are there, in the White House, advising Obama and getting paid with our tax dollars. Some are challenging the constitutionality of these unvetted czars. I hope they succeed in making laws preventing czars, or at the very minimum, subject every one of them to congressional approval, just like a Cabinet Sec'y.

    What else has Obama done to lead me and others to think he's a socialist and consolidating power in the executive office and the government in general in his attempt to fundamentally change the way America operates?

    He's moved the Census to the WH from the Dept of Commerce. Why? Even his Sec'y of Commerce was pissed off. The 2010 census questionnaire has removed the question "are you an American Citizen?" What the hell is that all about? Unreal. Sure, count everybody, but let's know who's a citizen and who's not. This power-play by Obama is strictly political and specifically designed to realign congressional representatives based on population, whether or not the population actually consists of US citizens. This undoutedly benefits the left.

    Taking power away from the CIA and moving it to the WH. Just another example of a power-play.

    Nationalizing banks. Nationalizing the auto industry, firing the CEO of GM, screwing over the bondholders (unconstitutionally) and giving their wealth to the United Auto Workers union. If this isn't socialism/Marxism, I don't know what is. This is what they do in Cuba and Venezuela, not here.

    Frank (continued)

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  3. (continued from previous post)

    As far as your comments: "The current economic crisis is directly related to the greed of big business. Of fat cats who wanted to operate with impunity, without government oversight or regulations of any sort. Failure to monitor the banks, the insurance industry and other pillars of capitalism has led to the biggest ‘recession’ since the great depression……….and you wonder that anyone wants change?"

    This is just a bunch of crap. The REAL source of the cuurent economic crisis began with the Community Reinvestment Act and the government forcing banks to make loans to unqualified consumers. Being an ex-mortgage broker I can tell you for a fact that there wasn't one loan that a lender would approve if it didn't meet FannieMae guidelines. Why? Because if they didn't meet the guidelines the loan wouldn't get purchased by FannieMae/FreddieMac. FannieMae/FreddieMac, government sponsored enterprises (GSEs), controlled and fully regulated by the government. The only fat cats operating with impunity at the source of the problem were the thieves cooking the books at Fannie and Fredie to greedily line their own pockets at the expense of everyone else, rich or poor. When George Bush and other Republicans made an attempt to further regulate and control Fannie and Freddie, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Charles Shumer went berserk. Needless to say, the needed regulation was stopped in its tracks.

    On the other hand, I do agree with you that the lack of regulation and moreso greed on Wall St and everywhere else, including the local, state and federal govt's AND the consumer, just fueled the fire and caused the meltdown. But all of this was originally caused by the government controlled and regulated Fannie and Freddie. They were the enablers.

    As far as "fear mongering" getting us into the very expensive wars we're involved in, have you forgotten about 9/11? Do you call our retaliation against our enemies fear mongering? The enemy that attacked our greatest city and our nation's capital and killed over 3,000 people resided in and operated out of Afghanistan. We're obviously still there and doing our best to help that country get its act together so it doesn't happen again. A major challenge at best. On the other hand, woman are now going to schools, that we've built, and are active participants in government. No one is getting shot to death or getting their head chopped off in the village square. Democratic elections are being held. And we have not been attacked ever since. Do companies profit from some of this? Absolutely. It's called Capitalism and its worked pretty well for over 200 years. And some of those profiteering contractors end up being beheaded on TV and the internet.

    Iraq is another story, but it appears everyone, both left and right, and not just the USA, were looking at the same faulty intelligence reports. Hardly fear mongering. Right or wrong, we did in fact liberate 10s of millions of people from a brutal dictatorship and hopefully helped install a fledgling democracy in Iraq. It's now up to the Iraquis to maintain and grow it.

    This is what we do. This is our worldwide mssion. Always has been. Spreading democracy and supporting human rights when and where we can is a good thing. If the catalyst was defending ourselves and going after enemies that attacked us, so be it.

    Frank (continued)

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  4. Regarding education, that's a whole other subject to debate. But I think Mel is trying to say we need to teach our kids the fundamentals of American civics and how our government works, or, more precisely, how it's supposed to work as put forth by our founding fathers. If we waiver, or as Mel put it, fall asleep, we could be in trouble. I think he's right. We seem to be slacking and allowing more and more socialistic views enter our childrens minds via our educational system. I think this is quite evident from the ever-so-slowly evolving socialistic views being put forth in the textbooks our children read. US History books in particular no longer resemble reality. We're made out to be the bad guys rather than the most generous, richest, most successful, longest lasting, democracy spreading, human rights advocates that we are.

    I don't understand your analogies of Mel's and others, including my fears of socialism that you relate to the following: "We see the results of the 60+% bankruptcy rates linked to medical bills, the folks with good credit given usurious interest rates who ended up losing their homes…. The working parents who can’t make ends meet, the children whose parents are in jail because we imprison more people than any other nation on earth."

    First, medical costs are out of control and I agree, do cause some to file for bankruptcy protection under the law. Thnak God we have that ability. In the meantime, after 40-50 years of doing nothing, except for Hillarycare, we're finally addressing healthcare and its associated costs.

    Folks with good credit usually don't pay usurious interest rates. Fols that are high credit risks usually do. The problem I have with your logic is nobody is holding a gun to anyone's head and forcing them to sign documents they probably never even read. The fault, in my opinion, lies squarely with the folks in this situation. At some point in time folks need to take responsibility for their own actions and not blame anyone else but themselves. Unless there was fraud involved, it's easy enough to have a knowledgeable friend or relative or an attorney or whomever, review what they're signing, especially if it pertains to what most would consider the largest asset purchase they'll ever make.

    Working parents that can't make ends meet? Lots of those around lately, but what's that got to do with socialism? Could it be that the parents that can't make ends meet are/were living beyond their means? The extremely highly leveraged consumer is one of the big problems we have today and the reason there is no, or very little, recovery going on.

    Children whose parents are in jail because we imprison more people than any other nation on earth? Again, what's this got to do with it? We're a country that operates by the rule of law. Break the law and you'll probably (more like eventually after several offenses) go to jail. What are we supposed to do with these criminals? The kids suffer and that's a shame, but what's the solution? Should we not put criminals in jail and just let them freely roam society and commit more crimes?

    And lastly, who's the "we" in: "We see what you can’t ….. high up on that hill….. in your glass house…." What the hell is that supposed to mean? This is America. We all have the right to free speech and to our own opinions. Rich, poor, black, white, brown, red, democrat, republican, independent, whatever. Do you know Mel or anything about him? It seems to me you're arbitrarily categorizing Mel as some wealthy elitist-type while you're some kind of down-trodden type that's been beaten down by society. If you are/were in fact a public/private school teacher, I assume you have a degree from some college or university and you have or had a decent job with healthcare, retirement and other benefits. I wouldn't consider you down-trodden, looking up at some glass house on a hill. So who's the "we" you're talking about?

    Frank

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  5. The czars you mention are not Russian infiltrators waiting to pounce and send this country toward socialism or Marxism. The term czar is a ‘nickname’ of sorts because the real titles are long and difficult to remember. And the czar positions were started with Nixon and continued under Reagan… there is nothing shadowy about them. And every administration has had them. Presidents get to appoint people to such positions (energy czar, drug czar, etc) and they don’t have to hold elections to do that. Were you this upset when the other guys did the same thing?

    Nationalizing the banks. He was handed the banking crisis. It started way before he even thought of running for president and I wonder what you would have preferred? No help? Banks failing in numbers the echo the great depression? That being said, I’m pissed off that they got bailed out too, I mean, if I screwed up on the job like they did I’d be out on my lonesome ass panhandling. BUT – to blame Obama for cleaning up someone else’s mess is unfair and annoying.

    Fear mongering… ok ok NY City was attacked and it was terrible but Bush and his cronies USED fear to go into Iraq. It was not ‘faulty’ intelligence. Go back and read the facts. Lots of CIA guys quit or retired early because they were being told to approve fake intelligence to justify Bush and Cheney’s hard on for the invasion of Iraq. And Afghanistan? Why the hell are we there? We didn’t go after Obama when we had the chance…. we have been there for what, eight years? What have we done? I have family members who have been posted over there…. The place is a nightmare and even the Russians had the sense (eventually) to give up and go home. It’s kind of like trying to colonize the moon……

    We are spending billions on these wars FOR WHAT? And the irony is that ANYONE who questioned our involvement there was decried as non American….. traitors……. And you talk about freedom of speech?

    Education? Don’t get me started. I agree with you that we are totally screwing that up. We have to make everyone ‘feel’ good and kids want credit for ‘trying’…… it makes me nuts. But I didn’t read anything along the lines of teaching civic responsibility in Mel’s blog. All I read is that teachers scare him. Do you KNOW any teachers? We see more sadness in the lives of kids coupled with the outrageously annoying helicopter parents who insist that every child is above average (showing a shocking lack of understanding of the mathematical definition of ‘average’ by the way)… most of my friends have retired early just to save their sanity!

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  6. Usurious interest rates WERE given to folks with good credit who were told they had bad credit, mostly minorities. And no, no one made them sign anything but our failing educational system doesn’t impress upon folks what interest means and when I walked out of the closing on my first house after telling them that I wasn’t sure I understood the thirty page document they wanted me to sign…..( and went and paid a real estate lawyer $50 to have him explain it all…… ) the deal almost fell through.! They were HORRIFIED that I would even question what I was signing. Most folks naively assume that it’s all on the up and up and couldn’t figure out their credit rating if they wanted to. AND the latest data says that folks with good credit got the biggest increase in interest rates on their credit cards….why? Because the credit cards companies can do what they want (or could….. that issue has recently been addressed)

    And lastly our incarceration rate. We ARE a nation of laws but if you think for one minute that they are imposed equally or fairly you live in the land of the rich white man. I lived in a rich white neighborhood for years and I can tell you that the rich kids I taught never served time for drug paraphernalia for DUI’s for petty theft ….. the list goes on. My poor kids would get busted for a pipe, go to jail, get charged MONEY for their time in jail, had to pay their probation officer each and every time they met with him, pay restitution, do community service and if they were late ONE time on any of those payments they went right back to jail where the whole nightmare started over again. One of my kids spent 21 days in juvey because they couldn’t find his parents. The charges that originally put him there were dismissed (mistaken identity… they found the real guy) BUT we couldn’t get him out of jail without a parent (he had been living with his 23 year old brother but he didn’t have custody). He was charged MONEY for all of those days, missed school and had it not been for my interference, would have failed all of his classes……..and probably would still be in jail!

    The glass house reference is due to the fact that too many Americans making pronouncements such as Mel have NO idea what life is like for the working poor. Did I go to college, yes. Do I have a good job? Yes. My state retirement was tied up sadly with some Madoff scams and public school teachers get really lousy insurance…….but at least it’s something……HOWEVER I also have a son whose autoimmune disease makes him UNINSURABLE in this country.

    I’ve taught some really bright kids who only ate two meals a day because the school provided it for them. Kids who went to the public library until 9:00 pm every night because home wasn’t safe and waited until the free breakfast at school to eat for the first time since the free lunch from the day before. So when I say ‘we’ …. I mean them…. But I love them and I have learned to make their fight mine.

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